| Many of Voyager's crew are happily working at a power plant, seemingly unaware of their previous lives. Meanwhile, returning from a Delta Flyer Survey MissionTM, Chakotay, Kim, and Neelix find the Doctor alone aboard Voyager in Emergency Command Hologram mode. He tells them about the evacuation of the ship that occured after it struck a mine, and the subsequent capture of the crew. Once the crew is located, the planet's officials are uncooperative, so Chakotay and Neelix go undercover and abduct Torres. Tuvok begins having a breakdown, and is taken away by security - but not before mind-melding with Seven. Voyager's rescue attempt is cut short, and Chakotay remains stranded on the planet. To Be Continued... |
There's a fun game to play when you're watching this type of episode, the kind where everyone's affected by some alien mind stuff. As the characters show up, one by one, you get to guess what the people you haven't seen yet are up to. Usually Seven's one of the last to show up (The Killing Game notwithstanding) because she's the key to solving the puzzle, so seeing her early on was a pleasant surprise. Tuvok is the first character to show up behaving in a manner that doesn't typically suit him - he's laughing and joking, though he does over-explain his jokes in a Vulcanly manner. Especially since Seven's kept her icy demeanor and Tom kept his misfitness, that meant Tuvok was going to be important, so cheers to that.
I was looking forward to Kim being stuck in a Quarren cubicle, moping at his desk that his excellence never gets noticed, but when the episode cut to the Delta Flyer that meant that the second most likely thing had happened. It was not a surprise that the Doctor was the last to be shown, but it was great to see him in the command uniform again. Unfortunately, the weakest link of this episode so far has to be the quarreling between the Doctor and Kim over command duties, and I'm not particularly looking forward to more of it in the next episode.
Torres and Paris are cute together here, though it helps that they don't remember who they are. Tom is a womanizer again, but he takes a liking to Torres - she's feeling down being a future single working mother and all. He's protective of her, and a friendship between the two develops naturally. I'm surprised that the writers didn't play up the single working mother element more, especially given the bravery and social consciousness of the more recent episodes, but since she's been abducted I suspect we won't be getting any in part two.
Speaking of getting any, Janeway gets some here. Her romance with another guy at the plant moves fast, but since she's not as condescending when she doesn't have her rank to back it up it isn't completely unbelievable. I'm quite pleased with the direction of the "characters out of character" in this episode across the board. I keep waiting for her new boyfriend to turn out to be a secret agent, someone in the underground, that would be a fun twist (though it would undermine her romance with him a bit, which I'm not sure she needs right now).
While Torres' abduction scene is well done - it manages to get you to see it from her perspective, that of someone lonely being surrounded by a couple weirdos in a dark alley, only to be assaulted by the hamster and beamed away - but the best one has to be the scene with Tuvok and Seven. He's gripping his console, barely holding it together, sweating bullets, when she approaches him (she's been made the new Quarren efficiency expert). He turns to her, and I'm chanting at the screen "Meld with her, meld with her!", and then he flips out and does just that. He's hauled away screaming "We don't belong here!" and it is all chilling and exciting. A shaken Seven looks back at him, still reeling from the memories he just dredged up. Part two's got some big shoes to fill.
Watchability: 5/5
Bottom Line: There's a lot of action in this episode without being over the top, a lot of character set up without much tedious exposition, and a carefully metered pace of information about just exactly what is going on. This episode was a lot of fun.
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