Star Trek: The Next Generation, Top 10 Scenes, Part I

Decades after my initial viewing of many TNG episodes, there are still scenes which elicit a chill. Even after watching some of these episodes a large number of times, they have retained their ability to floor me. While I've enjoyed Voyager more on the second time through, there haven't been many scenes that have had the same effect. Maybe there's a nostalgia effect in play, artificially elevating the personal significance of these pieces, but as I'm watching Voyager, these moments are what I'm looking for. Since it'll be a while before I get the next few discs, it's time for me to fill some space here with a review of what I loved about TNG. Bear in mind that these are just my top ten; there are plenty of great scenes that didn't make the list, just as a matter of personal preference. Odds are, if there's something that didn't make it here but is still awesome, I probably love that one too.

10. The Drumhead - "With the first link, the chain is forged..."

The Drumhead planted the seeds for a long-time interest in the McCarthy trials. I feel like this scene really exemplifies Picard's style, and it is one that I try my best to emulate. In informal debates, particularly ones on the internet, people seem to be quite enamored of the verbal thrust. Go for the throat, every time with every exchange. Picard likes the verbal parry; wait for the thrust, parry it, and wait for a vulnerability. It is subtle, and takes patience, but I find it overall to be much more effective. I do like the contrast with the BSG equivalent episode, Litmus, wherein Adama just delivers a breif indictment of the trial, and shuts it down without further comment - also a scene with which parallels to internet communication can be drawn.

9. The Offspring - Data returning to his post

Not only is the Offspring a sequel to The Measure of a Man in terms of story, but also in terms of furthering the discussion of Data's sentience in a different way. While the first episode makes powerful intellectual arguments (and is placed higher on this list as a result), this one presents the emotional arguments as a means of convincing the opposition. But rather than trying to sway the Admiral by voicing those sentiments directly, it presents him with the drama of Data attempting to procreate and lets him decide. While the Admiral is used to display the emotional reaction to Lal's death that Data can't, Data's somber reflection on his experience with her is plenty poignant.

8. Yesterday's Enterprise - "Let's make sure history never forgets the name Enterprise"

Yesterday's enterprise is the perfect kind of reset button episode - one filled with introspection, action, and heroic sacrifice. Picard, the last one standing on the alternate Enterprise bridge, surrounded by flames, delivering that ironic line is fantastic; history will forget his Enterprise, because he's erasing it from the timeline. But, through his actions and that of the Enterprise-C crew, history won't forget that Enterprise, and avert the war that he's embroiled in in his timeline.

7. The Wounded - The Minstrel Boy

The Wounded isn't an episode that you see pop up in a lot of "best of" lists, and I suppose I can understand that; it isn't a very flashy episode, and not a whole lot actually happens. But as an introduction to the Cardassians and as a foundation for O'Brien's character, it is indispensible. While parts of it are fairly heavy-handed about racial prejudice, the resolution completely sells me on it. O'Brien coming in, not to negotiate, not to preach, just to talk - and, in talking, in bringing Maxwell's guard down, they communicate without the posturing that characterizes not just the Cardassians, but political maneuvering in general.

6. All Good Things... "The trial never ended..."

After destroying three Enterprises in his desperate quest to save humanity, Picard finds himself once again at Q's mercy. He has gone from being surrounded by his friends and colleagues from three different points in his life to being alone, head held in his hands, in that familiar courtroom. He sacrificed the people he cared for the most, and he's not even sure yet if he succeeded. He has come a long way from the arrogant Picard of seasons one and two, and now sits in complete humility before Q.

To Be Continued...

Season 4 Evaluation

Scorpion, Part II	2
The Gift	3
Day of Honor	3
Nemesis	2
Revulsion	4
The Raven	4
Scientific Method	4
Year of Hell, Part I	5
Year of Hell, Part II	4
Random Thoughts	4
Concerning Flight	3
Mortal Coil	5
Waking Moments	3
Message in a Bottle	4
Hunters	4
Prey	1
Retrospect	3
The Killing Game, Part I	2
The Killing Game, Part II	4
Vis à Vis	1
The Omega Directive	3
Unforgettable	1
Living Witness	5
Demon	4
One	5
Hope and Fear	3
Average Score:	3.3

3.3 is the highest average score since the first season, whose ratings may have been slightly inflated due to the rock-bottom expectations that I went into this project with. This is certainly a much more polished season, with a much more... stable viewing experience. I'm comfortable saying that this has been my favorite season yet, which is good because season 3 severely tried my patience with its terrible science and forgettable plots.

I noted this in the Mortal Coil review, but the science has improved a great deal in this season, and the technobabble's importance has diminished. Nebula imagery is created with real nebula textures, and often science words are actually used to mean what they do in the real world. And I don't mind technobabble per se; I enjoy a well-constructed and researched babbling, what gets to me is when the meaningless babble is used to actually solve the problem of the episode. As much as Star Trek is often skewered for solving the dilemma of the episode with technobabble, the writers actually don't do it that often. Usually it is just something in the background, while the characters grapple with some other dilemma; or the process by which they come to the tech solution is the character growth they needed. Season 3, though, was rife with babble solutions, and I think season 4 did well to back away from that.

While this season brought back recurring antagonists (after the Kazon and Vidiians left at the end of season 2, season 3 was all alien-a-week), the best episodes were all one-offs. Year of Hell, Part I, Mortal Coil, Living Witness, and One were all completely stand-alone episodes. I think that's what Voyager does best, and I'm happy to let them do it, but there's still plenty of room for more characterization continuity. If there's one thing that I'd like to see the writers fix going forward, it is their tendency to back-track a character's progress just so that they can make them grow more in the episode they're writing. Season 3 was worse for that, but season 4 still got mired in that problem, particularly with Seven.

Then there's the Janeway/Seven problem. If you took out all the preachy scenes between those two, I think you'd see a sizeable increase in the average score for this season. It is clear that they're going for a Data/Picard dynamic for them, but it just isn't working. Picard was a good mentor for Data, because Data actually wanted a mentor. Picard's advice was sought. And Picard did a good job of not speaking in absolutes. He was happy to give Data guidance, but wasn't one to force the answers on him. He'd get a bit frustrated if Data came to a different conclusion than he did, but you could see that, though Data viewed Picard as his superior, Picard had the utmost respect and admiration for Data - which is something that was lost in several of the TNG movies.

Picard is accused of preaching a lot - and, well, he does from time to time. What Picard does more though is he engages in a dialogue. He'll guide you where he he thinks you should go with stirring rhetoric, but he doesn't start out at the answer. That's where he succeeds and Janeway fails. Janeway launches at you with her answer, dismisses you condescendingly if you disagree, and then is always "proved right" by the writers. Seven's not like Data, she doesn't want a mentor, she wants a reference book. That's why she works so much better with Tuvok. He can tell her about humanity without cramming smarm about it being superior down her throat. I think Seven would be much happier with Picard, though Data would be perfectly content with Janeway.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Skip the Janeway/Seven scenes/episodes, and you've got yourself a reasonably solid season of Trek, possibly one you've never even seen before. It's still no TNG season 3, 4, or 5, but if you liked season 7, you'll probably be able to enjoy this one.

Character Status:

I'm going to put this list in ascending order this time, from worst to best. Bear with me.

9. Kathryn Janeway: What to say that I haven't said already? Oh, this: you may recall, back in my Year of Hell, Part I review, when I opined that I liked the angry Janeway better. I still do. While she's still condescending, at least she's decisive. And when she's decisive, she spends less time preaching. Unfortunately, angry Janeway hasn't surfaced much since then, so she's still stuck in this least desirable of spots on this list. If there has been one change, it is that you can't do the "imagine Picard saying her lines" thing (and I haven't really been able to do that for over two seasons now); while that opens her up to the criticism I shared earlier in this evaluation, at least she is becoming more of her own character. I still don't like her.

8. Tom Paris: I don't have much to add to my Vis à Vis review. The short of it is: we're probably not getting any real background on him because the writers want to distance him from his TNG character without actually distancing him from his TNG character. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Also, he's been more petulant and petty in his relationship with Torres this season, which is enough to bump him up to the #8 slot.

7. Chakotay: Well, there's still not much to him. Any time that they need a pacifist, they turn to Chakotay. I try to forget that he was a terrorist captain, because the writers clearly have forgotten, but it's hard. He just doesn't have much else to do than spout native american stereotypes.

6. B'Elanna Torres: My esteem for her been steadily dropping since her peak in season 2; part of it is that her actress was pregnant this season, so they hardly used her. But it also feels like the writers just said "Whelp, her character arc is done, let's move on!" It's like Babylon 5, season 5, when JMS wrapped up the important character arcs and then got another season. So, instead of adapting, he just pushed the characters we cared about into the background to make way for new characters we didn't care about.

5. Seven of Nine: Except I kind of do care about Seven. Sure, she's not Kes. I miss Kes. And Seven's interactions with Janeway have been the bane of this season. And her outfits... it still boggles my mind that a crew that can think that having gay people on the show isn't appropriate, but having her in those catsuits is family-friendly. Seriously. But she's not a bad actress, and her outlook as a former Borg leads to some interesting insights, particularly when contrasted with The Doctor's or Tuvok's outsider perspectives. My favorite moments from her have been the times when she speaks as though the Borg are still her people - for example, taunting the Hirogen in The Killing Game, Part II. Seven's Borg hubris is fun and compelling except when Janeway uses it as a preaching point.

4. Harry Kim: While his awkward scenes with Seven this season have been excruciating, I'm still relatively happy with Kim. He's a punching bag, for sure, but he's a lovable punching bag. The Paris and Kim friendship seemed to be resurfacing in Demon, so maybe if that continues in season 5 he can help pull Paris back down this list.

3. Neelix: Wait, what? How is this... Neelix?? Third best character of the season?! Yeah, you heard me. His maturity level has skyrocketed, and now he's pretty much exactly the character that I had wished he were in the first three seasons. I guess his cooking still sucks, since everyone is always commenting on it, but his resilience makes him that much more endearing. He was even the center of attention for the second-best episode of the season. Neelix, I'm proud of you *sniff*.

2. Tuvok: Tuvok is still a rock upon which this show is anchored. If I'd ordered this list for other seasons, he'd be towards the bottom for them too. Tim Russ still has it, and even directed the best episode of the series so far. Even though Tuvok was not used as much as he could have been this season, he is always a delight to have on screen.

1. The Doctor: This entry is perhaps a bit less surprising. His delivery is still perfect, but the use of his character in Doctor-centric episodes has vastly improved. Gone are the days of the awkward telling-it-like-it-isn't of Lifesigns or Real Life; make way for Revulsion, Message in a Bottle, and, of course, Living Witness. Rock on, dear Doctor.

S4 E26: Hope and Fear

Voyager takes on a passenger (Arturis) who has a gift for linguistics, and makes headway on the encrypted Starfleet message they received half a season ago. Coordinates in the message lead them to an empty Starfleet ship (the Dauntless) capable of quantum slipstream drive, which could fly them home in three months. They are cautiously optimistic, and a review of the message proves it to be a forgery. Arturis has a vendetta against the Voyager crew: because Janeway stopped 8472 from killing the Borg, they went on to assimilate Arturis' home. The Dauntless is actually his ship, a trap designed to warp the Voyager crew back to Borg space for assimilation. He starts the ship's drive, although everyone but Janeway and Seven are beamed off in time. Voyager activates its makeshift slipstream drive, catches up, shoots the dauntless, beams Seven and Janeway back, and Arturis is left by himself to be assimilated by the Borg.

How bold a move would it have been to actually give the show a new ship like this? I mean, you know it isn't going to happen, and that detracts from the drama of the episode, but a new ship? Pretty cool. I suppose if they had actually gone ahead with a ship switch, it would have felt kind of cheap, especially if it had been this easy, but I like the sets for the Dauntless and the ship itself is an interesting design. Of course, the real reason I'm so interested in the possibility of a ship swap? The Dauntless had no holodecks.

Now, don't let the episode recap fool you: half of the screen time was spent on the Janeway/Seven conflict. I'm going to save a fair amount of my griping about it for tomorrow's season 4 evaluation, but one thing in particular really got to me. In the episode right before this one, Seven makes progress with her interpersonal skills, and that development is completely swept aside here. More egregiously, Seven made a huge sacrifice for the ship and crew, and Janeway has the audacity to say that it is time for Seven to give back, that she's given Seven so much this season. What. The. Eff. You abducted her, severed her link to her people against her will, made her follow your stupid rules, and subjected her to your incessant self-righteous lecturing... and you wonder why she's ungrateful. Being Voyager, Janeway of course gets the last word, and Seven has to wallow in contrition, and as a result a full half of this season finale is unwatchable.

Arturis is great though. He's a tragic villain, driven by good, old fashioned revenge... for a tough decision made in the cliffhanger last season. His take on the Borg, of seeing them as simply a force of nature, is fresh and a reasonable way to shift his hate onto the Voyager crew. After all, who else saw much of 8472? All anyone else knows is that the enemy who was the only real threat to the scourge of their quadrant is gone, and Voyager is to blame. It casts Janeway's decision in a new light: I agreed with it at the time, but now I wonder if perhaps she was a bit hasty. Maybe she could have allowed 8472 to beat on the Borg for longer, and approached another delta quadrant power with the nanoprobe solution once the Borg were out of the way. Instead, driven by a lust for getting home, she damned the delta quadrant's non-Borg.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: It it always hard to rate these episodes that are half great and half terrible. I'm gonna stick with a three.

S4 E25: One

Voyager encounters another nebula that would be too big to go around in a timely manner, but this one causes headaches and radiation burns for everyone who isn't the Doctor or Seven. The Doctor determines that the only possible solution is to put everyone in stasis and helm the ship with Seven's help for a month and a half. The crew reluctantly agrees to his plan. Shortly after everyone is alseep, things start going wrong: the gel packs malfunction, the Doctor's emitter malfunctions and confines him to sickbay, and an alien comes aboard and starts playing sinister hide and seek with Seven. The Doctor helps Seven realize that She has begun hallucinating due to loneliness and interference from the nebula - for instance, the intruder does not actually exist. Seven holds it together for the last few days, with hallucinations of the crew and the alien taunting her, but manages to save the ship.

The Doctor's relationship with Seven works well for me. He's preachy at her like Janeway is, but since he isn't Janeway he isn't guaranteed to be right - things he says actually have a chance to come back and bite him. They don't here, but having that possibility makes it a lot more comfortable. Additionally, since he too isn't all that great at interpersonal skills, there's an element of the blind leading the blind, like with Geordi and Data. It is also different enough from her relationship with Tuvok to be another worthwhile perspective.

I'm glad that this episode at least gives lip service to the nebula being partly responsible for Seven's hallucinations. In general, it is far too easy for Trek characters to go crazy since they usually have only the span of a one-hour episode in which to do so, so I don't think I could have bought the idea of her becoming this nuts without a psychobabble element to the cause. At the same time, it would have been interesting if this episode spanned an even longer time - even just a year might have been enough to destabilize her some, but it would have had to have been subtler.

That said, I am very happy with the pacing and mood of this episode. A lot of things came together well to make Seven's experience effectively surreal, and it was a great character building exercise for her. The epilogue shows her fitting in a bit better with the crew, coming to terms with her human social needs. The direction for her as a character hasn't exactly been consistent: in one episode, she'll be emotional about her past and the next everyone is turned off by how cold she is. I think this episode strikes the right balance.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Yeah, this is no Living Witness 5/5, but it does exactly what it sets out to do and does it very effectively. My Voyager watchability scale doesn't have a lot of room at the top to really reward the best of the best, but that's not really what it is for. The watchability of this episode is great: thus, a five out of five.

S4 E24: Demon

Voyager is running out of deuterium, and is forced to look to a class-Y (classy!), completely inhospitable planet. When they are unable to beam the underground deuterium directly to the ship, Kim volunteers himself (and Paris) for a shuttle mission to the surface. They find deuterium quickly, but contact with a silver pool breaches their suits and they are unable to return to the shuttle before their air expires. With options running out, Voyager lands, and Chakotay and Seven go out in search of the two; only to find them walking around without environmental suits on, breathing the air without difficulty. But when they are beamed back aboard the ship, they can no longer breath the ship's atmosphere. The Doctor discovers that they've been altered by the pool, as if the planet were terraforming them, but he can't undo the changes (even though he can reintegrate Klingon DNA into a Human and reverse millenia of "evolutionary" changes). Working on a sample of the silver stuff, Torres discovers that it can duplicate matter; shortly thereafter Chakotay, Seven and Kim prime find the original Kim and Paris bodies, barely alive from the backup systems of their suits. A silver pool begins to consume Voyager; through negotiations with Kim prime, Janeway discovers that the silver liquid is a lifeform, but had never achieved sentience until it copied Kim and Paris. In exchange for being released by the pool, Janeway offers samples of the DNA of any crew who volunteer, in order to give new life to the silver liquid.

The friendship between Kim and Paris has dwindled over the last season, but it is back in force here. The two are a good team, and can serve as a good foundation whenever the writers are looking to have Paris do rebellious stuff (though, in those instances, they always seem to forget that Paris could turn to Kim in those situations). There's a lot of friendly banter between the two, and I'm glad to see it. In fact, there's good banter in this episode in general; I guess it takes giving the writing reigns to the science consultant to bring the good casual dialogue. Okay, that's not completely fair, but I do like for episodes to all have some dialogue that is not directly related to the overall plot, and that doesn't happen a lot on Voyager. It isn't necessary to the plot to resurface the Kim/Paris friendship, but they do it anyways. Good on them.

I touched on this in the summary, but it is hard to take it seriously when the Doctor can't find the solution to a medical problem. Given the kinds of things he has fixed in the past, I just roll my eyes when there's something he flat out says cannot be done.

Early in the episode, there is a subplot where energy is being conserved by shutting off life-support to crew quarters and moving everyone into small areas, which is good thinking. Neelix gets a bit annoying and starts acting entitled, demanding to be allowed to sleep in sickbay since, hey, no one's using the beds. Given the number of homeless people who come into the ER after being kicked out of the shelter because they couldn't follow the rules and were drunk or high, and say that they're "suicidal" just to get a bed for the rest of the night, that irked me a bit, especially after Chaktay sides with Neelix over the Doctor. The Doctor sets about making their lives miserable with his loud singing and clanking about with equipment, and Neelix ups the ante by singing back and the Doctor backs down. But when it is time to bring Kim and Paris prime to sickbay, Neelix is true to his word and leaves as soon as the beds are needed by someone who is actually sick, even before it is revealed how sick they really are, showing the maturity that he has really only had for the last season.

The silver liquid story felt pretty generic until the addition of the sentience angle. I like that the goo can only be as complicated as the most functional thing that it has copied, and I imagine achieving sentience overnight must be an overwhelming experience. Especially when you consider that it can also copy the memories, so it has the processing capability, and the files to dig through, but a subtly different perspective. I'm surprised that Janeway was willing to play God and give the goo more DNA (and not cite it as a prime directive violation), but I'm glad she was.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: While Voyager's science consultant can write some decent episodes, and this one is his best yet, he continues his streak of writing episodes that are completely devoid of any believable science.

S4 E23: Living Witness

Seven hundred years in the future, Quarren, a Kyrian historian, is curating a holographic museum exhibit about Voyager's encounter with his people. In his version of the events, the crew sided with their enemies, the Vaskans, in a war of aggression, using brutal mass killings and biogenic weapon attacks. But a new archaeological dig has provided him with a new artifact: the Doctor's backup emitter. The Doctor is incensed with all of the inaccuracies, and gives Quarren his version of the events: Voyager was inadvertently caught in the middle of an ongoing conflict between the two peoples, when a Kyrian leader was killed aboard Voyager by a Vaskan leader. Quarren is skeptical at first, but maintains an open mind, eventually deciding that the Doctor has no reason to lie, even though his story makes the history of his people significantly more complicated. When he approaches his world's government with his new findings, it ignites new race riots by reopening old wounds - the Vaskans won that war centuries ago and have long been an occupying force on the Kyrian homeworld. The Doctor is horrified by the new bloodshed, and offers to take back everything he said in order to restore order and stop the killing. However, Quarren is convinced that the truth is necessary, and convinces him to help him and his people move forward.

Wow. Just... wow. I was beginning to lose my enthusiasm for this season, and then this episode happens. The first fifteen minutes are a delightful romp through the revised Voyager crew; Janeway practically yawning as she orders the killing of millions; Tuvok cracking a wry smile at her gallows humor; Kim and Chakotay (whose tattoo now covers a whole side of his face) interrogating a Kyrian with the Doctor's detatched assistance; and Seven leading a team of Borg shock troops in decimating boarding parties. Torres doesn't show up, but that's just because Dawson was busy with her newborn - but it fits well as just another inadequacy of the revised history.

Quarren is perfect. His reaction to the Doctor's retelling is understandable, and his manner of coming around is gradual and believable. His characterization as someone who just loves history too much to cling to his old cultural narrative is exceptionally compelling. And his admission to the Doctor that he's always been fascinated with the Voyager story, despite its dark overtones, I can identify with that. I've always found the great depression and its aftermath to be one of the more interesting periods in US history, even though it was an era of great suffering. So, yeah, Quarren, it's cool, buddy.

It would have been very easy for this show to have slipped into being the "revisionist history is bad" episode, with lots of preachy bits about yellow journalism and the like. It's easy to do, even great shows like Battlestar and Babylon 5 have examples: Final Cut (BSG, Season 2) and The Illusion of Truth (B5, Season 4). Both are easy 0/5s for me, with their one-sided (and frankly, condescending) presentation of an important issue. But here we get the fantastic, penultimate scene, with the Doctor offering to take it all back, to take one for the team; the Voyager's reputation doesn't really matter anymore, who is he to cause unrest just because the myths that this society is founded on make him out to be a mass murderer. It is selfless and noble, despite being a lie.

And that isn't even the moral of the story. Quarren convinces him that he should not give up, and the camera pans away to show that that scene is actually a holographic reenactment in another museum, even further in the future; a future where that decision helped start the mending of the rift between the Vaskan and Kyrian people. Remember a couple reviews ago, when I called out The First Duty (TNG, Season 5) for rising to awesomeness by allowing people with opposing viewpoints to both make good points? That's happening right now, and I couldn't be happier. This is Star Trek, this is what I came here to see.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: I think this one episode has guaranteed that I'll see this project through to completion. Voyager has had other 5/5s, but if I were to translate those to a more granular "out of 10" scale, they'd all be 8.5/10s or 9/10s. Let me state in no uncertain terms: this is a ten. It can stand up with the big guns of TNG and DS9 and B5 and BSG and Firefly and be counted. I'll keep watching the rest of the series just to see another one of these.

Side Note: Wow, the Babylon 5 wiki is terrible. Someone go edit some useful information into that thing.

S4 E22: Unforgettable

A member of a xenophobic species (Kellin of the Ramuran) that inhibits the memories of those that they meet (and wipe records of them from computers) arrives and tells Chakotay that they had fallen in love the last time she visited the ship, while he was helping her hunt down another Ramuran who had the audacity of wanting to leave home. He doesn't remember any of that. She eventually convinces him that she's telling the truth, and the re-fall in love, but a Ramuran comes after her and wipes her memory. Now Chakotay is the only one that remembers that they're in love, but he gives up and she leaves.

A species that can't be remembered opens up some fantastic plot opportunities. I mean, just look at Clues (TNG, Season 4): the conflict between Picard and Data, who is only following Picard's orders (which Picard can't recall giving) is fantastic. And that's just with a species that can do so intentionally. Imagine what you could do with a species that doesn't have any direct control on that effect! Then, forget what you just imagined, and write a crappy, angsty love story for Chakotay. You've just written Unforgettable! You took the set up for the ultimate mind-bending puzzle episode, and spewed out a relentless 45 minute eye-rolling exercise video. Why, why have you done this? What did I ever do to you?

There's so little substance here that I don't have much more to write. I guess Neelix's talk with Chakotay at the end about the spark of unpredictability in love is a decent coda for the episode, and almost gives it a reason for existing. And at least Neelix is still not being annoying, there's that. However, it's hard not to imagine him just leaning over to Chakotay and saying: "It's tough, I know. Sometimes, in order to restore the status quo at the end of every episode, you've got to break a few hearts. But buck up and take one for the team, maybe the next one will just die tragically or turn out the be a bad guy in the end!"

Watchability: 1/5

Bottom Line: Pointless. While this one isn't as offensive as something like Parturition, it just feels like a complete waste of time.

S4 E21: The Omega Directive

Voyager drops out of warp automatically when it encounters a shock wave. This wave has awakened a top-secret Starfleet protocol, and all of the screens on the bridge are now covered with the greek letter Omega. Janeway knows what's up, but keeps the crew in the dark while she has them develop specific types of shielding and warheads. However, she briefs Seven on the Omega Directive, as she correctly assumes that the Borg are familiar with it through their past assimilation of Starfleet captains. In the past, Federation scientists had experimented with a molecule that could generate nearly unlimited energy - but was also extremely dangerous, as one mishap could destroy nearby subspace. Seven reveals that the Borg have also experimented with it, and view it as an embodiment of the perfection that they seek. She wants to harness it, but Janeway convinces her to help her destroy it in order to protect the whole quadrant. They find the source of the wave: a half-destroyed facility, which is housing a massive amount of omega particles. Voyager collects the particles to dispose of them safely, and give medical assistance to the survivors, but a fleet of ships begins chasing them, demanding to have their technology back. Seven is sorely tempted to disobey orders (again) and try to stabilize the particles, proceeds with dismantling them, even as they begin stabilizing before her eyes.

The writers' stated goal here was to give Seven a quasi-religious experience. To me, there's really got to be an element of faith, of belief in the absence of evidence to make something religious, and there's none of that here. The omega particle (or particle 010 as it is known to the Borg) is as real as a magical space molecule gets. While her interpretation of its significance is different from the Starfleet reaction, I don't think there's anything necessarily religious about it. That isn't to say that the episode is a failure; certainly the clash of ideology makes for some worthwhile viewing, but it makes the scene with the crucifix at the end a bit weird.

I am a little uncomfortable with this whole omega directive business; I don't really like the idea of the Federation behaving in such a shadowy manner, especially in terms of repressing scientific research. Of course, the omega particle is conceived in such a way as to make it so overwhelmingly dangerous that the directive does seem necessary. At the same time, I also wish they'd gone further with it. Just destroying the particles won't be enough - with the scientists and their equipment still around, they'll just make more, as Voyager has given them no reason not to. A real dilemma could have been made out of that problem, especially if Janeway couldn't convince them to stop building it - even after their accident, the researchers hardly seemed reticent. What would Janeway have to do to fulfill the directive, kill all the scientists working on it? That's a dilemma on the level of In the Pale Moonlight (DS9, Season 6). Instead, Voyager just sails on, since it isn't their problem anymore.

Prime directive power inflation in a big problem in Voyager in general, and while it was nice that some rule overrode it, it really didn't have to. I know Tuvok says that stealing the particles was a violation, but I can't see how. I mean, this is not a pre-warp civilization, and messing with a particle that could destroy the entire quadrant is in no way whatsoever an internal affair. I'm not talking loopholes here, these are fundamentals of the prime directive.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: This is a reasonably exciting episode, but a shift in the focus could have yielded such a superior product that I can't justifiably go above 3.

S4 E20: Vis à Vis

Voyager discovers a ship in distress that has an experimental warp drive that essentially folds space. Tom, who has been feeling angsty of late, hits it off with the loner pilot (Steth) - that is, until the pilot turns on him, steals his appearance, and maroons him in his shuttle. Steth masquerades as Paris with a variable degree of success, while Paris discovers that he is just the latest in a chain of people with stolen appearances/identities. When Janeway calls Steth/Paris in to reprimand him for juvenile behavior, he then swaps with her. Fortunately, rather than use her power as captain to prevent Paris/Steth from revealing him, he opts to steal a shuttle that had been refitted with the new fold-drive and gets caught. The Doctor reverses everything magically, Steth is brought to justice, and Paris learns that he was happy all along.

I think I've already made it clear how I feel about caught-in-a-lie awkwardness: if you don't recall from my Non Sequitur review, I hate it. At first, it isn't so bad. Steth seems to be pretty good at this game of his, so it isn't so awkward. The scene where he plays the Doctor's ego like a musical instrument is perfect, and is the only thing that is going to save this episode from a 1/5. However, the writers, halfway though Steth's visit, seem to have decided that instead he should be absolutely wretched at blending in, so that the crew can tell it isn't Paris.

But no one realizes anyways. He acts like a complete buffoon for a day and everyone assumes that Paris is just being a jerk. If anything, when Paris got back, he had more of a right to feel angsty because everyone figured that he was just being the loser they expected him to be after all. And why wouldn't they? This episode falls right back into the tired Voyager trope of character assassination at the beginning of an episode just so that the writers can "fix" it by the end. I am constantly whining about the lack of development for Paris, and this still isn't it. This is a whole episode about him, and the most depth we get is "Paris shuts people out." I've got a better character arc in the comic about a bee on the back of my Honey Nut Cheerios. Character development doesn't mean slap a cliche on his face and say done! Or maybe they really just felt that the angsty teen bit hasn't gotten its due, that maybe there really is some gold left in that fetid mine - at least give us some specifics. Tell us why he shuts people out.

But they're not going to do that, and I think I know why: Nicholas Locarno. Tom's outline from Caretaker seems to be pretty clearly lifted from his original Trek appearance - but in reading the early memory alpha annotations, it is clear that the writers desperately wanted to distance him from that role because they felt that Locarno was unredeemable. As a result, we get no specific back story instead, and probably never will. And it is a shame, because Locarno was a really interesting character, one I consider very redeemable. When The First Duty was written, the staff was pretty evenly divided about which way Wesley should go with the cover-up. Because of that disagreement, in the final script, both sides of the argument get a solid champion. Even though, in the end, the script sides with Picard and the Truth, Locarno and Loyalty aren't completely vilified. Because, in reality, Truth vs. Loyalty is a tough call. I don't think Locarno would be irredeemable, I just think that using him as a model would make for some hard but interesting writing decisions. And I think that they floundering Tom Paris character makes it pretty clear how the Voyager writers feel about those.

Watchability: 1/5

Bottom Line: Well, I guess I lied earlier. It still was a good scene with the Doctor. But I've got myself worked up enough about how disappointed I am in the direction (or lack thereof) that they're taking with Paris that I can only count to one.

S4 E19: The Killing Game, Part II

Janeway escapes from the holodeck through a jefferies tube, and, with Chakotay's help, sets off an explosive that blows up sickbay (the Doctor had been transferred to a Klingon warrior simulation first), thereby disabling all of the neural interfaces. She is captured, and is brought before Karr, with whom she negotiates a truce in exchange for holodeck technology. However, Karr's second in command is swayed by one of the Nazi holograms, and kills Karr, ending the cease fire. The crew continues to fight the Hirogen/Nazis until Kim can disable the ship's holoemitters and the second in command is killed. A new peace is established after a protracted (off screen) battle, and the Hirogen leave the ship.

While I still had misgivings about the foundation for this episode, I managed to enjoy this part a lot more with the set-up out of the way. Several scenes helped: while Seven and several of the crew are being held hostage by the second in command, he orders her to sing as she had when she was under the influence of the neural interface. She refuses, even under threat of death, and then proceeds to coldly tell him that, even though he has her outnumbered, she takes comfort in the knowledge that the Hirogen, even in their arrogance, will inevitably be assimilated by the Borg. Basically a big old "resistance is futile" moment, only it is coming from someone who isn't actually in the Borg collective - someone who is venomous enough towards her enemy that she can feel pleasure in the knowledge that they will be mercilessly stripped of their strength and individuality and forced to serve another. Really very chilling.

In a completely different vein are the Neelix/Doctor/Klingon scenes. Before the interfaces are disabled, Neelix is in the Klingon scenario, and even there, through the mind control, Neelix has the Klingons getting drunk instead of fighting. Later, under his own control, the Klingons decide it is time to go fight again, and they conscript the Doctor and Neelix, who are unenthusiastic at the prospect. Even then, going off to war with a klingon dagger, the Doctor holds it daintily and delivers a "tally ho" that drips with the same disdain I felt for part I of this pair. Finally, the appearance of the Klingon warriors in the WWII simulation was nicely placed, though it did steal the opportunity for any of the regular crew to deliver the killing blow to the Nazi captain.

Best of all is the scene between the Nazi and the second in command (Teranj), where he is seduced by the Nazi's call for racial superiority and denouncing of the "civilization" that Karr wants as being decadent like that of Rome. Watching Teranj slowly succumb to the racist sentiments was a highlight of the episode.

Janeway did her best to sabotage the episode, though. Her scene with Karr is a complete rehash of the scene between him and Teranj in part I, except this time we had Janeway acting condescending to him - like that's going to make a proud hunter alien want to do business with you. She does it again in the final shot, with the unnamed third in command, who doesn't even share Karr's ideals. Really, she practically taunts him; if it were any other show I'd expect the negotiations to break down again. But no, it is Voyager, so Janeway seals the deal and I'm sure everything will be back to normal next episode (including sickbay).

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: There's a lot more fun to be had in this part, which is in part due to the characters actually being themselves again. Overall I'd say that the whole two-parter is a bland old 3/5.

S4 E18: The Killing Game, Part I

Off-screen, the Hirogen have taken over Voyager and are forcing the crew to participate in war games in the holodeck. Most of the crew have neural interfaces implanted to make them unaware that the holographic surroundings aren't real, with two exceptions: The Doctor is constantly patching up injured crew members (the safeties are, of course, off), and Kim has been conscripted to extend the holodecks into the hallways of the ship. While the main crew is in a world war II scenario (with the Hirogen as the Nazis), the Doctor disables Seven's interface, and gives her instructions on how to disable Janeway's. With the safeties off, an artillery blast blows a hole in the holodeck wall, and the crew (who are mostly still in their program specific roles) move into the halls that Harry has equipped with holo emitters, ready to wage war on the Hirogen. To be continued...

Why? For the first half of the show, I'm just wondering why this is all happening. The early reason given by the Hirogen is that they need to understand their prey. But they've clearly completely overpowered the ship already, and if they're deep enough into the computer to dig up information on WWII, then they'll also know that they won't be seeing any other Federation ships any time soon. I also find it hard to believe that this is really the best way for them to study their prey. So much time is spent on building up this scenario in the beginning, before we've been given a reason to care about its outcome.

Midway through, the Hirogen leader (Karr) gives the explanation that the holodeck technology is the best chance he's seen to advance his people. Violent videogames Holodecks can satisfy the Hirogen need for the hunt without dispersing them throughout the quadrant, giving them the opportunity to work together and build a stronger culture. I like that, it gives the Hirogen something more to hold on to than the "the hunt is life!" mentality from Prey. At the same time, it still doesn't fully explain what they're doing in the holodeck. If they're just going to make the crew act out the part of holodeck characters by using the neural interfaces, why are they even using the crew in the first place? It all seems so incredibly contrived, all for an excuse to do an episode in a WWII setting.

Trek is famous for using sci-fi metaphor to discuss current controversial social issues. But in this episode, it feels like the tables are turned; they're using a current (well, closer to current than the 2400s) setting to discuss Voyager. The same issues are still there, including the annoying Janeway/Seven conflict, but now they're disguising it with a new setting. It all seems so very pointless.

Watchability: 2/5

Bottom Line: I don't know why I should care yet, but maybe that's coming in part II. There haven't been many Trek 2-part episodes where the second lives up to the promise of the first (Chain of Command being a notable exception), but since not much is promised here, maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.

S4 E17: Retrospect

Janeway is meeting with an arms dealer, and strikes a deal for some new weapons for the ship. However, the deal is soured after Seven slams him in the face when he got pushy at a console in engineering. The Doctor finds that Seven has a repressed memory surfacing because some memory repression chemical is fading in her brain. He helps her dig it up, and it is a memory of the arms dealer subduing her, stealing some nanoprobes from her, and using them to assimilate another guy. The Doctor is enraged on her behalf, though the rest of the crew is skeptical - but they insist on an investigation. The arms dealer is appaled, since even being investigated for ruining a diplomatic relationship can destroy a career on his world. When the evidence turns against him, he flees. In pursuit, further testing reveals that there isn't actually any conclusive evidence that the surfaced memory was real - but he no longer trusts the crew, and shoots at Voyager until his ship blows itself to pieces.

Any time there is an investigation or mystery in Voyager, I tend to need to just grimace and wait for the end. With all the technobabble that tends to fly around in these episodes, there's just no way to make a decision about what is really going on without just biding your time until the writers tell you at the end. It is especially frustrating here, when they tell us, through the Doctor, that his medibabble means of unearthing memories is 100% valid (unlike current repressed memory techniques), and the initial neurobabble indicates that the memories were being forcibly repressed with a chemical - only to have more jargon throw those findings into question later on. It's like the first half of Coda, where random stuff is just happening for no apparent reason, and I start watching the time on the DVD player so that I can count down until the time when the episode will get around to having a point.

I do have to give this episode some credit though: topics that are so taboo that even opening a dialogue about them is equivalent to a guilty verdict are a real problem. Penny Arcade, a favorite webcomic of mine, made a strip about the amorality of mmo characters - one which also happened to reference rape. There was a veritable firestorm of controversy surrounding it; a google search for "dickwolves controversy" will supply you with all the vitriol you could ever need. For this episode to even touch the issue of rape allegations is surprising, and for it to do so without obvious moralizing is commendable. While I may take issue with the story format and pacing, this is definitely a topic that still requires the sci-fi metaphor in order to broach it. I do have reservations though; given Braga's stated desire to avoid offending his target demographic, it is a little bit questionable that the story is sympathetic to the victim of the accusation. Even bringing that up makes me feel like I'm guilty of being the person who eyes suspiciously the person who brings up a taboo topic, but I do wonder if that is the only reason that this episode got the green light.

Seven's behavior here, particularly as it pertains to her awkward lines about exploring her emotions, is strange. She's not Data. It's not like she's unemotional, she's just detached. We can work on her reintegration into humanity without rehashing Data's angsty lines from Generations. I'm also not very pleased with the Doctor's desire to essentially commit suicide because he feels that he drove the arms dealer to do the same. If anything, that epilogue gives the impression that the episode is saying that a false accusation is the worst crime, especially since it is never made clear that it was a false accusation in the first place. Not only do I believe that it was out of character for the Doctor to behave that way, but it weakens the episode as a whole.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: This is an important topic, one that I'm glad that there is an episode for, but it is of enough gravity that it deserved better attention to the mechanics of the story and the characters.

S4 E16: Prey

This episode starts with a pair of Hirogen chasing down an 8472 creature and mercilessly filling it with phaser fire. When Voyager finds their ship, it is in disarray - the 8472 (unlike the crew, I don't like saying the whole clunky phrase "species 8472 member" every time I need to refer to it) was more more powerful than the Hirogen realized. One of the Hirogen is still alive and is rescued and revived, but the 8472 thing begins to disrupt Voyager. It is attempting to open a portal to its home dimension, and Janeway is prepared to let it do so, but for some reason they have to hunt it down first. The Hirogen helps, but soon proves to be a liability, as he is only interested in killing the creature whose catch phase has been "The weak will perish" and wants to destroy all life in our galaxy. The thing is cornered and wounded and communicates its sob-story to the crew through Tuvok, but many Hirogen ships come to claim the beast. While Janeway would rather get everyone killed in an attempt to save a single-minded killing machine, Seven is more of a pragmatist and overrides her commands and beams the hunter and the 8472 over to a Hirogen ship. Janeway, enraged that she and her crew are still bound to this mortal coil, strips Seven of her duties so she can have some paid vacation time.

8472 was introduced as a new Big Bad by beating up on an old one: the Borg. When this episode opened with the new bad guys, the Hirogen, beating up an 8472, that induced an eye roll. What will the next bad guy do, show up with a ship that is covered in Hirogen corpses? It felt lazy. It isn't even a full season later. And if we're still close enough to see an 8472 straggler, why haven't we seen any Borg around? The next scene pulls back from the teaser's assertion that "Hirogen > 8472" but when an episode starts off by annoying me, it really has to work to pull itself out of a nose dive.

The conflict that this episode creates between Janeway and Seven does just the opposite. Seven opposes Janeway's plan to board the stranded Hirogen ship, and when nothing immediately goes wrong, Janeway turns to her and says something like "See? My plan worked out just fine!" Janeway seems to be physically incapable of not jumping on every "I told you so" moment that she possibly can. That tendency in itself is obnoxious, but is made worse by the writers making her (often nonsensical) choices "correct" by having a good outcome. I do appreciate that Seven's insubordinate actions are allowed to save the ship, but then I just had to endure more "Janeway preaching at Seven" time as a result. Instead of Seven overriding Janeway's orders, if she had followed them only to have something awful happen, that would have been genuinely brave on the part of the writers.

The question of punishment on Voyager is tricky, and the writers need to come up with a solution. There are some creative non-execution non-brig options out there, but "confined to quarters" is all they ever seem to come up with. As a punishment, that's pretty weak - "Hey, you committed mutiny against me... have some time to relax with a good book without anyone making you do any work." Now, for the starfleet officers, I can buy that as good enough - they have status to lose. But they're not typically the ones to act up. I know that there's no Maquis conflict anymore, but I think that a large part of that conflict's absence is because the writers couldn't decide how to punish them. Now we've got Seven, and she's all over the place from episode to episode. I somehow doubt we'll get a suitable resolution to her integration, just like we didn't get one for the Maquis - one day, she'll just fit in, and the writers won't look back until they have no ideas for a story and have to rework an unused fourth season story.

Worst of all, this episode is a complete waste of Tony Todd, who has played both Kurn and old Jake Sisko. Not much is demanded of the Hirogen that he plays in this episode in terms of acting. He's just a simple by-the-book all-Hirogens-are-for-the-hunt guy. If you're going to call in a big gun veteran Trek actor, use him for some other reason than just because he's tall. With all this awfulness surrounding him in this episode, he just doesn't get a chance to shine. I've mentioned before that I'd like Voyager to make some friends some time, and while it doesn't have to be the Hirogen, it'd be nice if they could have found any common ground at all with this individual. However, he isn't written as an individual, but as a caricature of a one-dimensional culture.

Watchability: 1/5

Bottom Line: I try to be generous with my ratings, but I've noticed a pattern. Even in the 4s and 5s, there are often (typically Janeway-related) elements that annoy me but aren't enough to spoil the whole episode's score. However, those annoyances build up, and when I get to an episode that rubs me the wrong way, it just can't seem to get anything right. Put this episode in the first half of season 2 and it would have been an easy 2/5, or possibly even higher. But the element that it chose to focus on, the Janeway/Seven relationship, has been so wretched that I was just seeing red the whole time.

S4 E15: Hunters

Though their access to the alien communications network had been disabled by the Hirogen, Voyager continues to seek a new connection, and is rewarded with letters from home. Most people are happy to hear from their loved ones, but some news is bittersweet and some news is tragic; Janeway discovers that her fiancee has moved on and married someone else, while Chakotay discovers that the Maquis have been exterminated by the Dominion. Reactions to the news from home is cut short by the Hirogen, who arrive and capture Seven and Tuvok. Voyager narrowly escapes from the Hirogen ships, but the the relay station is blown up in the process.

The "letters from home" parts of this episode were very much needed, as it gives a sense of progress that has previously been absent. At the same time, it is awkward because such a large chunk of the primary cast (Paris, Torres, Neelix, and Seven) doesn't have much to tie them to their old lives there. The episode handles that awkwardness reasonably well though; Neelix is happy that he has something to do as morale officer, and Paris discovers that his father cares enough to send a letter to him (though it ends up being another wasted Paris opportunity when we don't actually get the letter in the end).

After watching the last episode, I had remarked to my wife that contact with home would probably put the last nail in the Janeway/Chakotay romance coffin - but the moving on of her fiancee opened it right back up. It is really weird, watching all these episodes that gradually set up a relationship between the two, all the while knowing that nothing will come of it. I know that the primary champion of that pairing, Jeri Taylor, leaves the show later on, but for the remaining writers to cast all of this groundwork aside is just strange.

The reactions to the destruction of the Maquis on the parts of Chakotay and Torres could have made a whole standalone episode. Certainly it hits them hard here, but this is big news. The Maquis members of the Voyager crew are probably only alive because they were transported to the delta quadrant, but that isn't mentioned at all. I imagine the survivor guilt must be staggering for them, and deserved some screen time. The whole correspondence story should have had its own episode, with the Hirogen stuff pushed into the next one.

As for the Hirogen, so far they are a decent addition to the Trek canon. The ritualistic hunting/predators for sport angle is relatively unexplored in Trek outside of Captive Pursuit (DS9 season 1), so a recurring villain with those motivations could be interesting. There isn't much exploration here though, so I'll have to wait for later Hirogen episodes to give them a full evaluation. One technical aspect of the species that I am quite pleased with though is their size: it isn't exactly a difficult effect to pull off with camera angles, and it is very rare to see Trek species with an average size that is significantly different from that of humans (I think the closest would be the Ferengi, who are generally pretty small).

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: I'm generally happy with what we've got here, but I also feel like there were a lot of missed opportunities with this one.

S4 E14: Message in a Bottle

Seven finds an apparently abandoned alien array of communication satellites that daisy chains all the way to the alpha quadrant. She has detected a Federation ship, but the crew is unable to send a message to it without the message degrading. With time running out before the ship leaves range of the network, they decide to send the Doctor over the network, because his signal won't degrade (wtf??). He arrives on the U.S.S. Prometheus, a prototype warship that the Romulans have commandeered, even though they aren't at war. As the lone Federation personnel left on the ship, the Doctor activates the ship's EMH - which is the cocky EMH Mark II. The two spar and bicker, but manage to overcome the Romulans and retake this ship. The Doctor communicates to the Federation that Voyager is still out there before warping back over the relay to the ship.

The flimsy excuse to get the Doctor into an an action comedy episode is... a flimsy excuse. The EMH Mark II is played by Andy Dick, who I'm not familiar with, but is a reasonably well known comedian. The thing is, his goofy delivery is only barely contained within the conceit of being another EMH with a poor bedside manner. His comedy is more of the campy, sit-com humor of which I am not so enamored. However, that makes him a decent target for the Doctor's wry wit, so the chemistry between the two saves most of their scenes.

The Prometheus has an interesting battle mode, in which it separates into three separate ships for a "multi vector assault mode." It looks cool, but I don't see the tactical advantage that grants over just having three smaller starships in the first place. We meet the Hirogen for the first time here, as they are the owners of the network in the episode. I know we get more of them later, but I've never actually seen any Hirogen episodes - and they don't do much here except give Seven a chance to win Torres over by sending a feedback shock over the network.

According to the Global Episode Opinion Poll, this is the number 4 rated episode of all of Voyager. Last time I brought up the discrepancy between my reaction and the rating of the episode in that poll, I worried that it was a symptom of the greater problem that I'm simply not the target audience for Voyager. That may still be the case, but there's another possibility that has occurred to me. Episode polls and their average ratings give a serious advantage to the inoffensive and the plainly entertaining. This episode is really very decent, so just about everyone (even most Voyager detractors) will give it a "passing" score, while also averaging in all the 10/10s that the hardcore fans assign to anything that has a pulse isn't Threshold. I mean, for TNG, Cause and Effect is rated #8, while Darmok is #20, and The Offspring is #22. That gap isn't quite as large as #4 for this one and #128 for Mortal Coil, but it is something to cling to.

One last thing: the closing scene of the episode has some of the worst Janeway facial expressioning since the first season, doing the bit where she can't seem to keep her cheeks still, where I start wondering why she is trying to talk with that hive of killer bees in her mouth. She has been doing a lot better in the last streak of episodes, so it was extra frustrating to see this step backwards.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: It really is a fun, entertaining episode, but it isn't the #4 episode of the entire series. It isn't even the #4 of the first half of the fourth season.

S4 E13: Waking Moments

Almost every member of the crew wakes up after experiencing a nightmare of some sort that included the same alien. However, some, including Kim, don't awake, and are instead trapped in a dream world. After scans do not reveal any sort of nearby alien presence, Chakotay volunteers to attempt to fall asleep and negotiate, since he has some experience with lucid dreaming - the practice to using cues to alert the dreamer that he is in a dream so that he or she can take control of the action. He at first appears to be successful, but after the aliens seem to have led the crew into a trap and captured the ship, he sees his visual cue reflected in a screen and manages to wake himself up. The Doctor informs him that after he fell asleep, the rest of the crew followed suit and are trapped in a shared dream, and now they are the only two left. They track the aliens, who live in a sleep state (which they consider to be as real as the waking world) to a planet where there are piles of them asleep in a cave. He orders the Doctor to fire a torpedo at the cavern if he does not hear back from Chakotay in the next five minutes, then falls asleep and uses that threat to free the rest of the crew.

Several years ago, I read an interesting sci-fi book for which lucid and shared dreaming were central to the premise (Dreamside, 1991). The act of controlling one's dreams is a real thing that happens - I myself have had a number dreams that qualify, and though I've never really entered such a dream intentionally, it sounds like it is a doable thing. Now, to have a shared lucid dream requires sci-fi conceits such as telepathy, but I think that we're all on board for that if we're watching Star Trek.

The dreams that open the episode feel like a missed opportunity after season 2's Persistence of Vision, an episode that wasn't exactly perfectly executed, and is marred by the presence of the gothic holoprogram, but I keep thinking back to as a good example of sneaky character development (even if some of that development was out of the blue and never used again - see for example the lack of a Chakotay/Torres romance anywhere else in the series). The dreams here could have been a chance to explore unspoken motives and desires but they fall short here. Tuvok has a very bland "walking naked onto the bridge dream"; Paris, who is still begging for more development, has a nightmare about crashing a shuttle, defining himself completely by his role on the ship; Kim dreams about making out with Seven, and it only becomes a nightmare when she turns out to be a male alien, which I guess develops him as being homophobic; and Janeway dreams that she's failed at bringing everyone home before they've died of old age, which is a personal dream, but nothing we haven't heard her worrying about before.

Still, all that is compacted into the episode's teaser. The rest of the episode has all the interesting lucid dreaming stuff and trippy back-and-forth with the dream-world. I'm disappointed that Tuvok doesn't have any resistance to this telepathic dream attack either (he was just as susceptible in Persistence of Vision, and I was disappointed there too), with all of his Vulcan mental discipline. That part was just annoying, but I think I may have had a seizure at the terrible lampshading moment between Janeway and Chakotay. He brings up the very reasonable question of how a species could evolve when it spends all of its time in the dreamword [instead of being awake and sexing] - she replies, with a smug smile, that they may never find out - like we don't know why some aliens have cartilaginous appendages sealing their mouths shut, or why pure telepaths even have vocal cords that they know how to use. It is one thing to make cool and interesting aliens that probably wouldn't work in the real world, and it is another to then call attention to their implausibility for a cheap in-joke.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Missed opportunities scar this otherwise fun sci-fi adventure episode.

S4 E12: Mortal Coil

Neelix, Chakotay, and Paris attempt to collect some protomatter from a nebula, but an unexpected discharge kills Neelix. When their shuttle returns to Voyager, Seven informs the crew that her Borg nanoprobes can be used to resuscitate people who have sustained such injuries, even up to 18 hours after death. The procedure is effective, but Neelix is greatly disturbed that he does not recall going to the Great Forrest, the Talaxian afterlife - a place that he had described earlier to Naomi Wildman (Samantha Wildman's child) when she could not sleep. He tries to brush it off, but finds that he cannot and seeks Chakotay's help with a vision quest. His vision seems to confirm his fears that he will never be reunited with his lost loved ones in the Great Forrest, and he resolves to end his life by beaming himself into the nebula. Chakotay confronts him, arguing that the vision may have only been forcing him to confront his fears, not confirming to him that they were true. However, it is Samantha's arrival, asking him to help Naomi get to sleep again, that most effectively talks him down. That night, Naomi dreams of the Great Forrest.

What a fantastic counterpoint to Sacred Ground. While both episodes are fundamentally about faith, Sacred Ground speaks in faux-aphorisms, hoping to prop faith up by taking cheap shots at science. Mortal Coil looks at the more measurable benefits of faith (the hope and comfort it can provide), while also examining the investment that the individual must also put in if he or she wishes to maintain it. If someone is going to choose to believe something, even in the absence of evidence, they've got to also be prepared to deal with the arrival of evidence of absence. And though faith in things like young-earth creationism must face counter-evidence daily, faith in an afterlife is typically a different story - very few people have come back from the dead.

Many reactions to this episode that I've read, including those on memory alpha, seem to be under the impression that it is making the statement that no afterlife exists. Maybe it is because of the agnostic approach that I take to the episode, but I don't get that at all. All we know for sure is that Neelix's conscious mind does not recall being present in an afterlife. In my opinion, that's a great place for this episode to inhabit - there's a whole lot out there to not know. I aspire to be comfortable with not being able to know some things. It isn't that I don't want to know more, or even that I don't seek to know more, but that I, when I do not know something, try not to carry that uncertainty as a burden. Neelix is clearly not in the same place, but I don't think that means that the episode is saying anything for certain.

Even as a stand-alone, this episode is awesome, but it is made even better by the improvements made to Neelix's character this season. The flipping out he does here carries a lot more weight coming from a more stable character. I'm very happy with the relationships that this episode builds between Neelix and the Wildmans and Chakotay and even Seven. You know what, I'm just going to say it: so far this season, Neelix is my favorite character on the show.

Also, along with the new astrometrics lab (which debuted in Year of Hell, Part I), the visual effects people on the show have been throwing in real-life pictures of astronomical objects into the backgrounds of that set (including the cat's eye nebula and the horse head nebula). I think that's a nice ambient touch. What is even better is that the nebula in this episode seems to be formed from a composite of nebula textures, so this is the first Trek nebula that actually looks like nebulas that we've seen. That's exciting.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: An indispensable episode, and a much more balanced look at faith than its third-season counterpart.

Side Note: It is established in this episode that the Borg have never assimilated the Kazon because they were simply not a worthy addition to the collective. In Seven's words, their addition would have "detracted from perfection." Now, I liked the Kazon more than most, but I still thought that was amusing.

S4 E11: Concerning Flight

While Janeway is in her Leonardo's workshop holodeck program, the ship is attacked by technology thieves. The main computer core, the doctor's mobile emitter and various other pieces of equipment are teleported out of the ship - as well as the da Vinci hologram. Voyager tracks the equipment to a haven for stolen goods, and Janeway and Tuvok work with da Vinci, who is running about using the mobile emitter, to resteal that which had been taken from them.

Most of this episode feels like a pretty contrived excuse to run around with Leonardo da Vinci, which isn't so bad because who doesn't want an excuse to have more John Rhys-Davies? It's interesting; the author of the story, Joe Menosky, was adamant that the manner in which da Vinci gets put in the mobile emitter shouldn't be terribly important, but he was overruled by the writing team. I can see his point: much of the episode feels hijacked by the technology thievery story, which wasn't what he wanted to write about - and it probably feels that way because he didn't want to write about it. The whole mugging storyline doesn't have much weight to it, but I do agree that there needed to be a good reason for da Vinci to be in the emitter (or the story would have been flimsy in a "but why is this happening??" sense) and it does add a decent adventure element to the show.

The other reason I'm somewhat glad that the story gets hijacked is that I didn't get much out of the da Vinci storyline either. He's not a self-aware hologram, so he is forced to interpret his surroundings in terms of his programming, which gets kind of annoying. Additionally, I'm generally not a fan of the "historical figure holograms" - if a computer program can effectively reproduce the ingenuity, imagination, and creativity of the great minds of humanity, then why do we have humans anymore? I'm not saying I don't think computers will ever get to that point (though it will certainly be a long time from the present day), but if the conceit is that they are capable of that kind of modeling in the Trek universe, why bother sending even above average humans to represent us?

There is one da Vinci scene that makes it worth it to me. When Janeway asks him to abandon his "patron" (his interpretation of the guy who stole all the stuff), he delivers an excellent speech asking "when are we really free?" For some reason, memory alpha's contributors didn't think it was an important quote so I don't have the exact wording, but he makes well-reasoned point about choosing the lesser evil. Who can really say that they don't have to answer to someone? If you can find a situation where you have enough freedom to be comfortable, to do 90% of what you want to do, maybe that isn't so bad. The story eventually decides that it is better to be on the run and jump off a cliff on an untested glider while people are firing phasers at you, but I'm thinking that there's a middle ground. That you can strive for more than 90% without necessarily engaging in rebellion.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Decent adventure, and a thoughtful idea that I don't quite agree with.

S4 E10: Random Thoughts

Voyager is taking a break at a planet of telepaths, trading and relaxing, when they have their first violent crime in years. The crime is traced back to a thought of Torres', from when one of the Mari accidentally bumped into her, so they arrest her and prepare for the dangerous procedure of extracting and wiping that specific memory. Tuvok begins an investigation that uncovers (after another crime is committed while Torres was in custody) a black market for violent thoughts. With the marketeers apprehended, Torres is exonerated.

So this is the "violence in TV/movies/videogames" episode, where the aliens of the week condemn the originators of violent ideas as much as they do the people who actually commit the crime. They do a good job about not being too heavy-handed, although part of that is using Tuvok as the character who approves of the Mari's methods. Tuvok's been big on restraint and control being a large part of Vulcan life; he even said to Kes "Without the darkness how would we recognize the light? ... Do not fear your negative thoughts. They are part of you. They are a part of every living being. To pretend it does not exist is to create an opportunity for it to escape." I would think that he would be more cautious about supporting a species who seeks Vulcan enlightenment through thought removal, as opposed to control.

I'm also a little uncomfortable with this episode's characterization of Vulcans as "telepaths." When Vulcan mental powers go awry, as in Sarek (TNG Season 3), they can influence other minds from afar, but I can't think of a time when Vulcans have been able to directly influence another mind without tactile contact. In this episode Tuvok doesn't do much out of the ordinary other than communicate telepathically with other telepaths - which I don't find to be that much of a stretch since I could easily believe that Vulcan mental discipline would allow them to focus sentences for the other telepath to read back. This boils down to more of a nomenclature complaint - nothing terribly serious, just annoyed.

Where I get sold on this episode is the inclusion of the prohibition metaphor. That's an addition to the "violent media" argument that I don't think I've ever seen before. The idea here is that outlawing violent thought in the mainstream has created a more dangerous underground market for it - which gives this episode the nice sci-fi twist that I'm always looking for. Another selling point is the lack of outright moralizing; as much as the attempt to police thought comes out as pretty fruitless and dangerous, no one gets preachy and it Tuvok's endorsement, while mildly out of character, isn't a strawman one.

I could have done with out the audience-conscious scene at the end between Janeway and Seven, where Seven says that they are being very inefficient on their trip home due to all these stops. Now, I certainly have sarcastically commented on Voyager's proclivity for detour-taking on occasion, but only when I've felt that an episode has been particularly worthless. I'm sure the writers received similar comments as bullet points in various irate fan letters, but seriously, this is not the appropriate response. If you make entertaining, compelling episodes, like the last record-setting string has been, then you won't get those comments.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: If it were just the "violence in media" episode, I'd stop at 3/5. However, the inclusion of a new point in what is a very old debate at this point is worth a bump.

S4 E09: Year of Hell, Part II

The decrepit Voyager (and her crew) struggles to rebuild and find allies for an assault on Annorax's ship, while Chakotay tries to reason with him. Annorax reveals that he is driven even now by an early failure; his lack of foresight caused him to wipe out his wife with his very first temporal incursion. Chakotay is moved by Annorax's motivation, but ultimately agrees with Paris that he must be stopped. They send a signal to Voyager, encouraging them to attack, then, with the help of disgruntled members of Annorax's crew, sabotages the ship in the middle of the attack. Janeway takes that opportunity to ram Voyager into the ship, setting off a temporal incursion that removes the ship from the timeline. Her actions restore Voyager to its pre-Year of Hell status.

While part I was an ensemble show, part II focuses more on Annorax and his quest. I'm not sure Chakotay was the best choice of characters for someone to be seduced by the goal of restoring the timeline, but the writers do develop a compelling arc as he begins to lose his faith in Annorax. The ship's second in command, Obrist, also adds depth to the proceedings with his own misgivings about Annorax's intentions. Paris' moral backbone is somewhat surprising here; I'd expect his dialogue to be more natural coming from Chakotay, but I guess they needed to have the higher-ranking officer be the one to want to try to reason with him. With those restrictions, I can't really think of a better pair from the crew, especially considering that the Chakotay role required a mix of compassion and moral relativity.

Janeway remains much more tolerable when she's angry. Not even necessarily angry, but purposeful. Even when she's telling the Doctor that he'd have to take a phaser to her to strip her of her command, her dialogue lacks the condescention I've come to expect of her. It's much more matter-of-fact, "I don' need you to agree with me, just do what I say" than her norm. I'm hoping that the writers retain some of this new-Janeway, which, while it is a change in character direction, develops naturally out of the hardship she and her crew experience in this episode. Experiences which, due to the reset button, never happened.

So, yes, the reset button. While the mechanics of the reset fit the episode perfectly, it is still extremely frustrating. Yeah, it's another good episode, but it is good in large part due to the chances the writers took in character development. I can't even blame Brannon Braga for this one, he was fighting to not reset. Well, let us hope that the lesson the writers took from this episode is that taking chances can reap great rewards, not that you can take chances as long as you reset everything by the end. In the final scene, the reset version of Annorax (he, for some reason, did not get wiped along with his ship) is seen, with his wife, taking a break from working on altering time-streams - he apparently didn't learn anything after his reset.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Because of the reset, this one isn't a 5, and I went back and forth on how much to demote it for the ending. But if I'm not going to promote the bad episodes with good endings too much, I shouldn't overly punish good episodes with bad endings.

S4 E08: Year of Hell, Part I

Voyager enters Zahl space, but encounters a laughably armed Krenim ship (the species Kes encountered in Before and After). They ignore the Krenim ship's threats, and meet up with the Zahl, who apologize for their inconvenient and rude neighbors. Elsewhere, a larger Krenim ship removes the Zahl homeworld from time and space, sending out a temporal shockwave that remodels the ship that was threatening Voyager into something much more powerful, and removes the Zahl ship and ambassador too. Now outgunned, we follow Voyager through the next couple months, as she is constantly being worn down by Krenim attacks. Many crew members are lost, several decks become uninhabitable, Tuvok is blinded, and morale is wearing thin. Seven develops a special temporal shield that works against the Krenim's torpedos, but it also protects Voyager from the next temporal shockwave: they watch as the warship that was attacking them turns back into a helpless pre-warp ship. Annorax, the captain of the ship that is causing the time disruption, detects Voyager as the cause of a miscalculation in the most recent "temporal incursion," captures Paris and Chakotay, and prepares to remove Voyager from the timeline. Being the faster ship, Janeway decides that discretion is the better part of valor, and runs away. To Be Continued...

This is a finely crafted episode. Unlike many episodes, this is truly an ensemble show. The Doctor needs to cope with the loss of the two crew members he had to shut out when deck five was lost; Paris is overworked with his helm duties and his new duties as a nurse; Janeway is at wit's end trying to get the crew through an impossible situation - to the point where she obviously wounds Chakotay after he tries to give her a well thought out birthday present; Tuvok is blind, and Seven feels guilty that she was partly responsible; Neelix finally gets that promotion to security that he's always been after; Kim and Torres get a great stuck-in-a-turbolift scene and bicker well as usual. Great performances all around.

The villain here, Annorax, we get clear hints that this guy is on a single-minded, very personal mission, but nothing is spelled out clearly yet. Very promising. I also like his weapon, and the puzzle he faces in his attempt to shape the timeline in a way that will please him. Tug at this thread, you unravel the part you're after but also another that is interwoven with it. Keep tugging, and pretty soon you won't have a tapestry anymore. It's a shame that his beam can't also restore things to the timeline, because continually removing people and places will leave him with nothing, and quickly.

And the events in this episode (as enumerated above) weigh heavily upon the crew; things like Janeway's birthday in particular could strongly influence the way these characters develop. However, Tuvok's blindness makes the possibility of a reset button in part II very real, possibly wiping all of this hardship from the timeline. But that doesn't happen here, in this part, so I'll stick with a 5/5.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Great adventure/hardship, interesting villain set-up, and cool time-bending that isn't time-travel. This is the first time there have been four episodes with a score of four or more since midway through season two.

S4 E07: Scientific Method

Tempers are running short on Voyager (particularly Janeway's) when people start undergoing strange genetic mutations. When the Doctor uncovers something that looks like a bar code on Chaktay's DNA, he finds that someone unseen is trying to delete him, so he hides out on the holodeck. There, he covertly contacts Seven and adjusts her optical implant to allow her to see phased entities on the ship, and it turns out that there are a whole lot of them, performing experiments on the crew. Seven forces one to become visible in front of the crew; these are scientific researchers, who are using the Voyager crew as guinea pigs, hoping to glean new insight into medical treatments for their own species. Janeway won't allow this to continue, so she pilots Voyager into a dual pulsar system, threatening to tear the ship apart. Her gambit works, and the researchers depart - leaving Voyager to narrowly escape from the gravitational pull of the pulsars.

I'll come out and say it: I like angry Janeway. She's not condescending or passive-aggressive when she's furious, and I consider that a serious improvement. You know exactly where you stand with enraged Janeway, and the writers also don't make her right all the time when she's fueled by hate either. Also, it gave us the scene with Tuvok, where she dresses him down for not expecting more out of the various department heads that report to him (shouldn't they report to Chakotay?), and tells him to berate them into giving better performances. He says sure, then deadpans: "Shall I flog them as well?"

As an episode, I find it highly reminiscent of Schisms (TNG, Season 6), only with better pacing and more creepy. I also like that we actually get to meet the perpetrators this time, and explore their motivations. Voyager is getting good at coming up with "sneaky villains" - ones that go to great lengths to view themselves as not being evil, while still performing very villainous acts (I'm thinking in particular of Displaced from season 3). I'm pleased with this direction, as it is a change from the Vidiians, who could have gone in that direction but the writers seemed to shy away from it.

I could have gone for a different title though. I was very relieved that there was no "science is bad" moral here, but I was definitely worried once the connection was drawn between the title and the events of the show. Also, as interesting as these villains are, I would be amenable to the Voyager ending an episode on good terms with the species they meet in it. When was the last time that happened? The Talaxians? I guess the guys from Rise count.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Good pacing throughout, and while this episode is reminiscent of a TNG episode, they have refined the approach since then. Keep it up.

S4 E06: The Raven

While Voyager is negotiating for passage through B'omar space, Seven begins to have strange flashbacks/hallucinations about her running from the Borg. While Neelix is teaching her how to eat (wtf?), a Borg servo busts out of her hand and she goes all "you must be assimilated" on everyone. She steals a shuttle and runs off into B'omar territory

That's the annoying part of the episode. More of the crew looking incompetent in front of yet another alien civilization, more of Janeway lecturing Seven about how great it is to be human, more lessons on how to use silverware. Wait, no, that's a first. And while it is hard to imagine that Seven is so stupid that she requires step by step instructions on how to lift food to her mouth, that scene wasn't all bad. Neelix is doing his over-eager to please thing, which can even be somewhat endearing; But the best part comes when Seven interrupts him to tell him why she knows something about Talaxians - the Borg had assimilated a Talaxian transport in the past, and added them to the collective. Neelix does miss a beat, but just a beat, and goes on dishing out the hospitality and warmth. That's exactly what I want out of Neelix.

Okay, now part two:

Tuvok and Paris find they can get through the B'omar detection grid unnoticed in a shuttle, so they go after Seven. Tuvok beams aboard her shuttle, but is incapacitated and Seven disables the engines on Paris' shuttle. Seven reveals to Tuvok that she thinks that she is following a Borg homing beacon, but Tuvok, certain that there are no Borg around, is unconvinced. He does manage to weave some uncertainty into Seven's thoughts, and convinces her to take him with her to the surface of the moon that she's taken them to. There, they find the wreckage of The Raven, the small ship that Seven had lived on with her parents before they were assimilated. Memories rush back to her, but they must move quickly, as the B'omar begin to bombard the surface. Voyager arrives at the last minute and rescues everyone.

Tuvok and Seven have a much better dynamic going here than Janeway and Seven. It is much more of a Geordi/Data thing, where Data wants to explore emotion and what it means to be human, where his best friend, who already is human, is pretty socially awkward himself and ends up learning along with him. Seven's being dragged into this humanity thing kicking and screaming (an admittedly refreshing take), and here we've got Tuvok, someone who represses most human elements about himself, to help her cope. I like it a lot better.

Seven's reaction to her childhood home (and memories) is also reasonably well-acted. My initial reaction to Seven (mind you, this was after I stopped watching the show) was that not only was she a crass casting move in terms of her appearance, but her only expressions were "cold" and "sour." I'm happy to say that, if this episode is any indication, my initial reaction was an error (largely due to seeing trailers and clips and the like).

One nitpick: I'm a little uncomfortable with non-Vulcans doing the nerve pinch, especially after Seven indicates that no Vulcans have been assimilated. Since it would be slightly ridiculous to assume that not only do humans have this special spot that no one in history has found, but that it is shared with every other Trek species (The Chase notwithstanding), I think there's not much of a leap to assume that there's something telepathic about the move. Now, yes, Data did it too, but that bothered me as well.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: If I had a large unit of currency for every time I said some variation on "bad start, good end" in this section of these reviews, I'd have a decent collection of large currency units. Still, the start is relatively short this time, and also contains an "improved Neelix" scene, so I'm happy to reward that.