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.