Voyager is assailed by a Federation timeship from the 29th century - according to its captain, Voyager is involved in a time travel incident with kills billions of people in the future - so the only possible course of action is to destroy them. Voyager fends off the attack, disabling the timeship, and thrusting both ships, out of control, into a temporal vortex. Once on the other side, they find themselves orbiting 1996 earth, and begin trying to locate the timeship. Janeway and Chakotay locate the captain, who arrived thirty years earlier and is now a raving lunatic/hobo, and points them to the current owner of the timeship (Henry Starling). In the meantime, Tuvok and Paris locate a young woman who has spotted Voyager from her observatory, and befriend her by helping her not get killed by Sterling's goons. Janeway and Chakotay are captured by Sterling, who reveals that he used the 29th century tech he stole to start the 20th century computer revolution. When they beam out, Starling manages to download Voyager's computer over the transporter beam - including the Doctor. To be continued...
Oh, and also Kes and Neelix are transfixed by soap operas the whole time.
The introduction of what are essentially "time police" into the Trek universe is fairly troubling. Where were they when other crews have recklessly traveled through time? And why won't they talk to Voyager first, before coming in, guns blazing. Even if by the 29th century Federation is sinister and evil, you'd think that they'd be a bit more practical - it would be a lot easier to convince a 24th century Starfleet captain that it would be a bad idea to kill billions than it would be to disintegrate her ship and risk being the paradoxical cause of your own disaster.
Wait, was the whole "catch" of this episode obvious from the first five minutes? It drives me crazy to see the writers pat themselves on the back by saying episodes like these are "high concept" (they love that phrase in particular), when the episodes themselves aren't terribly complicated. It is even worse when they say that the reason why an episode like Parallax failed is that it was too complicated. Here's a clue: when your audience is composed of nerds, write for nerds. If they don't understand it, they'll look it up. Parallax wasn't too complicated, it was too dumbed-down - if they'd actually used the more complicated science of black holes rather than switching to "magical space phenomena" so that they could just do whatever they want, it could have been a 5/5. In a world where a movie like Memento can be a commercial success, writers can be more adventurous with their complicated plots. The Voyager writers seem to prefer to play it safe - where safe means "hemorrhaging viewers."
There are some reasonably entertaining scenes in this episode, even though a lot of it feels kind of been-there-done-that. Oh my, don't we look strange to outsiders, tee hee! Although the "Kes & Neelix watch soaps" part was used as a pat-TV-writers-on-the-back moment, watching them drink in the ridiculous plot unfolding with rapt and awe-filled attention was probably the best part of the show.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: As I said before, reasonably entertaining, but I'm hungry for an episode with some meat on its bones.
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