| Voyager didn't receive last month's message from Starfleet, but this month the entire message contains the code for a hologram of Barclay. He informs the crew of a way home that Starfleet has been working on, one which would be very dangerous if it weren't for the new shielding and radiation inoculation technology that he has brought to them. Meanwhile, at Starfleet command, Barclay can't figure out why Voyager hasn't received the last two signals he's sent, until he interrupts Troi's vacation (at least he brought a chocolate beverage!). She helps him realize that his last girlfriend, who left him suddenly, was just using him to get information on Voyager. Turns out she was hired by a group of Ferengi who want Voyager to try out their "way home" and die trying, allowing them to capture the mobile emitter and Seven's nanoprobes. Barclay, unable to send a signal to Voyager, manages to fool the Ferengi into closing the rift before Voyager can enter. |
I rewatched DS9 after watching Battlestar Galactica 2.0, and I came to an important realization: DS9 needed the Ferengi. I loved BSG, but in the later seasons, once Baltar no longer had the same comical edge, there just wasn't much to distract from the grim reality of the show. It was still good, but maybe a bit too dour for my taste. The Ferengi, and other Vic or wedding or baseball related themes, kept the later DS9 seasons from becoming quite as dreary (though I could have done without the sexism of Profit and Lace).
Voyager does not need the Ferengi. It's already a brighter, less depressing (on the surface anyways) show, and it does not need stupid, goofy villains. They aren't even used the same way. In the two Voyager Ferengi episodes, they've been the failed villains that they were in TNG, the mustache-twirling incompetents that sound like Skeletor. In DS9 they were a counterpoint to the more serious-minded Federation, unburdened by duty or honor or morality or shame. And just when you think you can write them off as comic relief in DS9, Quark will deliver one of his speeches like the ones from The Jem'Hadar or from The Seige of AR-558. Instead they're just doofuses, the only villains who can be outwitted by Barclay.
As for Barclay, I did appreciate that his hologram wasn't him, not exactly. He was an idealized Barclay, but still a bit different from his demeanor on the holodeck in Pathfinder. He's more confident, but has a little bit more of that awkward side that his "real life" persona maintains. If you're making a hologram of yourself, you'd probably leave at your flaws as best you could, but your creation would still be a product of the person that you are. Hologram Barclay is just that, an idealized but sill slightly awkward version of himself. Dwight Schultz deserves credit here for his performance, since he did quite a good job of distinguishing between his different personas.
Still, I just feel sad seeing the same two out-of-work TNG actors time and again on Voyager. They've built a reasonable back-story in for Barclay I suppose, but the excuses for wedging Troi into the show are beyond flimsy at this point. She has no real place in this story, she's just there because no one else has hired her. And the chocolate thing... I guess I already ranted about it for my Life Line review. Just go back and read that again.
Watchability: 1/5
Bottom Line: The whole Voyager crew comes off looking incompetent here, because even by the end they haven't figured out the Ferengi's plan. Honestly, this is their show, it's time to retire Troi and Barclay.
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