| Seven has some new implant, and uses it to download all of the Voyager computer's databases. The information helps her detect some photonic fleas that have been draining trace amounts of power for years, but when Voyager encounters a guy with a space slingshot, Seven begins spinning some crazy conspiracy theories. First she gets Chakotay worked up about Janeway's secret plan to invade the delta quadrant, then she convinces Janeway that their presence in the delta quadrant is all part of a plan to use the slingshot as a Maquis weapon. By the time they get things sorted out, Seven is on her way to destroy the slingshot, but Janeway beams over and condescends her out of it. They then use the slingshot to get a couple years closer to home, and Seven deactivates the new implant. |
When Seven started talking about downloading the Voyager database, it seemed silly that she hadn't already done so. I mean, she's clearly got the whole Encyclopedia Borgica in her head, I'm sure whatever is in the computer would seem like a thimbleful in comparison. But, for story reasons, all that information destabilizes her and somehow makes her paranoid. I guess maybe in the process her Hanlon subroutines got deleted: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
This episode could easily have been played for humor, in a manner akin to Tigh Me Up, Tigh Me Down. Now, I know that's not a highly favored BSG episode, based on reviews, discussions, and its place as the second lowest rated episode of the first season on the GEOS poll. However, I feel that it brought a welcome tension release, and was the kind of episode that the latter seasons could have benefited from. Certainly, Voyager is not the type of show that needs comedy episodes to relieve the strain of constant hardship, but the idea of Janeway and Chakotay buying into the conspiracy theories that Seven comes up with is so ludicrous that I think that the only way that it makes sense to play this idea is as the core for a humorous episode.
One interesting thing that has occurred to me, thanks to this episode and several others in this season and the last: what if the writers had approached the first couple of seasons the way they have approached these seasons? Episodes like Latent Image, Equinox, Part II, and this one (with its flirtation with Janeway-Chakotay conflict) all would have felt more at home in the first two seasons, without four seasons of characters behaving the same way behind them. It may have engaged more viewers by going in these directions with the characters, which might have boosted the writer's morale some. Ronald Moore certainly described the Voyager offices as quite a dreary, downcast place, and I can't imagine the "no matter what we do, the ratings will keep slipping" mentality helped.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: Drawn-out and ludicrous, this episode might have been better if the writers just punted and played it for humor.
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