S1 E06: Eye of the Needle

I don't really want to spoil too much from this episode, because it is good, and you should watch it. I'm hoping that Voyager has hit a stride here, The Cloud being decent and this one being outright good. The "A" plot here is that they've found a wormhole, too tiny to travel through, but just big enough to communicate through - with a Romulan on the other side. This wormhole is their first glimpse at home, and Kim is absolutely bubbly about it. In fact, everyone's reactions are well handled. Kim and Torres have a good scene together while working out the mechanics of communicating through the wormhole, and we get some nice background on the two.

The "B-plot" is about the Doctor! I think this is the first time I've liked both A and B plots in one episode, instead of needing to look away half the time. People are jerks to the Doctor because he's a hologram - including Janeway - and Kes, who has been training as a medic, speaks up for him. She's even growing on me now, though her best scenes are always with the Doctor.

There is one big missed opportunity here: when the crew makes personal messages to send home, we don't get to see them. Lots of solid character development time that we could've had, but I think the writers must have decided that they couldn't do those messages justice with the characters not fully formed yet. I suppose it was better not to include them than to put them in and do them poorly, but it's a shame they couldn't be there.

Both plots even resolve in an acceptable manner. The wormhole part ends with a clever twist, and while we knew they weren't going to get home in the first season, it doesn't cheapen the rest of the episode. There's another twist that is tacked on at the very end that I don't think was entirely necessary, but I'm not terribly bothered by it. And the doctor begins to come to terms with his new future in a satisfying but open-ended way.

So the writing is a lot better, but you know what else is? The pacing. Several of the previous episodes have suffered from poor pacing, with events and character choices seeming to just happen so that the episode will last longer. With Eye of the Needle, everything happens for a reason and the plot flows naturally, with no wasted time. Of course, it helps that there is no Neelix in the entire episode.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Watch this one.