S2 E20: Investigations

I remember seeing the trailer for this episode originally, and it went something like: "Next time on Voyager: there's a spy on board! It could be any of the characters you've come to trust, who could it be?" And I thought, "Yeah, we know who the spy is. It's that background guy. He's been up to no good for the last five episodes. This is a surprising twist?"

So Neelix has started to do a kind of "morning show" for the crew, which is cheesy but not terrible. He also discovers through a Talaxian colleague that Paris is planning to leave the ship. Paris does leave with the Talaxians, but is almost immediately captured by the Kazon. Neelix then begins to uncover evidence of the subspace communications made by Jonas, and discovers that Janeway and Tuvok had been masterminding a plan for Paris to appear to be disillusioned with Voyager so that he can infiltrate the Kazon and unmask the traitor. Paris escapes with the intelligence, but not in time to save the day: instead, Neelix figures it all out and kills Jonas in a struggle in engineering.

Here's what works: I really like that the writers had the foresight to plan this storyline out, and give it bit by bit rather than all in this one episode. It makes for a cool reveal when Paris is aboard the Kazon ship and whips out his spy tools to try to get to the bottom of the traitor mystery.

Here's what doesn't work: The part of the plan involving Tom's departure is awfully convoluted. It probably would have worked much better for his discontent to have become common knowledge throughout the ship, to the point that he is accepted into Jonas' confidence. During the departure scene, with Kim in the transporter room to see him off, I realized that I was pretty surprised that we hadn't gotten any scenes in this arc where Kim tried to approach Paris and figure out what was up. Really, I'd rather have Kim, Paris' only close friend, be the one to make the discoveries that Neelix does. Also, it's pretty awkward that Janeway and Tuvok kept Chakotay out of the loop on this one; he registers his annoyance with them, but if I were him I'd be furious. And for all the planning, Tom doesn't even get to save the day. Now, I'm happy that Neelix got to be useful, even competent, but Paris also needs some of those moments at this point.

Here's the biggest problem with the whole storyline though: I didn't trust the writers yet on my first time through this part of the series, especially after the whole love triangle debacle. As a result, I didn't see the scenes of Paris' fall from grace as an opportunity for growth, but as more annoying scenes for Tom Paris. He's had such little development so far that I had no reason to believe that he was capable of being more than a whiny navigation officer. On the second time through, knowing what was going to happen, I liked it more, but we still don't really get any more insight into Paris by the end of it. Sure, he wasn't a complete misfit after all, but what is he?

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Entertaining enough, but this episode has a lot of wasted potential.