S7 E22: Natural Law

A planetary shield surrounding a beautiful, practically untouched planet brings down a shuttle with Chakotay and Seven aboard it. They work with the indigenous inhabitants to find their shuttle wreckage, while Janeway discovers from a nearby civilization (the Ledosians) that the shield had been placed there in the distant past by a third culture, in order to protect the natives from the Ledosians' meddling. As soon as Seven brings down the shield, Ledosian away teams are surveying the surface for exploitable natural resources, and Voyager steps in to reestablish the field.

So, I'll defend the prime directive more than most people I know, but this episode is as strong an argument against it as I've heard. Most of the time, native peoples don't have magical force field protecting them. And for these guys, as soon as the field is down, you've got opportunists around to take advantage of the planet's resources. Sure, it's the nice thing to do to let people be, but in a universe as crowded as Trek's, that's practically a death sentence. As soon as the Federation moves on, hey, it's time for the Ferengi or the Klingons or somebody else. Isn't it the lesser evil for the noble people to interfere?

Even putting the shield there in the first place is interference - what happens when these people get to the technological level that they could engage in space flight, but can't breach the barrier? Enforced isolation is still interference - what happens when a natural disaster would wipe out the people there, and their opportunistic neighbors cannot save them? In that case, I'd bet they'd rather have the Ledosians as their neighbors than the Federation, given the results of Pen Pals - and that's the best of the bad prime directive episodes.

The natives are interesting; they're nonverbal, and my wife recognized some of their sign language as slightly altered parts of American Sign Language. That's cool, I like it when they throw some easter eggs like that in. At the same time, they are your basic "noble savage" guys, which is fine, but largely boring. They might've been more compelling if they weren't all model citizens, but I'm glad we didn't have to have long sequences wherein Chakotay earns their trust. Making them civil allowed for more of a chance for Chakotay to exercise his interest of the week, linguistics.

What really surprised me is that there was no hint even of Seven and Chakotay romancery. When they started the episode in a shuttle together, we groaned. Yeah, it's gonna crash and they're gonna have makeouts. Well, it crashed, but there were no makeouts. Props to the writers for taking it slow, though at this point they don't really have much time left.

There's also a subplot with Paris needing to take a pilot safety course after breaking one of the flight protocols, but it is best forgotten. It's inoffensive, but it only fills time. Not particularly funny, and without other substance.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Well, even though this episode didn't exactly express the point that it meant to, it wasn't hard to watch, and gave an interesting starting point for a prime directive discussion without cramming a message down our throats.

S7 E11: Shattered

Chakoty is injured in an accident in engineering that shatters the ship into 37 distinct timelines. He wakes up in sickbay, where the Doctor is complaining that no one appreciates him. That's nothing new, but what is strange is that the Doctor has never heard of the mobile emitter. Chakotay goes to the bridge, but passes through a field and emerges into a time before the Caretaker incident. After escaping from a Janeway that distrusts him, he discovers that he has been made immune to the fields by a treatment that the Doctor had given him, and innoculates her as well. The two explore the ship in an attempt to reverse the damage. They get help from adult versions of Naomi and Icheb in astrometrics, maquis Torres in the transporter room, and watch Tuvok die with Neelix and Paris in a mess hall in the normal timeline. The episode ends with a rousing finale of everyone coming together to overcome Seska and the Kazons (band name!) in engineering.

At first glance, this episode feels pretty similar to Relativity, another episode that looks back at different parts of Voyager's past. Once again, the central character must gain the trust of a Janeway who is not inclined to help and work together to restore the timeline. This particular story is unburdened by the bizzare time-travel inconsistencies of Relativity; in fact, the show is pretty consistent about the arbitrary time-travel rules it sets forth. Other than being able to see back through a field only if you're innoculated, it plays by its own rules, and that counts for a lot.

But what really makes this one a winner is that it is exactly the kind of fun episode I'd like to see in the last season of a show. Up until now, the seventh season has really felt like business as usual; like it is senior year, and the writers all have senioritis and can't be bothered to come up with anything new. This episode is different - it feels like senior year, but for the crew instead. It is a fond remembrance of the past seven years, both the good (Seska) and the bad (the Macrovirus), but it doesn't pull any punches either. Past Janeway looks at the future she has wrought with horror, and while Chakotay reassures her, that gives this episode less of the smug self-congratulatory dialogue that other reminiscences in this show have had. This is absolutely what I want more of; Voyager, you've got a little more than half a season left, make the most of it. Your characters should be comfortable with each other - allow them to be the way you did here.

Watching this show with the knowledge that Seven will end up with Chakotay has been weird. I know I've been saying that for several seasons now, but here we are in the eleventh episode of the last season, and we're still getting Janeway/Chakotay teasing. With the knowledge that I have of how things turn out, I can see that the writers were actually trying here to make it clear that a romance won't happen; but their interactions here (particularly the one where season one Janeway explicitly asks Chakotay if they ever got together) show more chemistry between them than there has ever been yet between Seven and Chakotay.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: This is definitely the best of the Voyager fun episodes. I usually stick those at 4/5, but this one had it all; a balanced look back, good character interaction, and an exciting ending.

S5 E19: The Fight

Voyager is trapped in "chaotic space," which warps and twist reality and breaks the laws of physics. Aliens who are native to this space are trying to contact Chakotay telepathically by activating a gene that causes alzheimer's/dementia-like symptoms. Chakotay resists, since it awakens his fear of living out his life the way his grandfather did, who also had this gene. When he finally comes to terms with his fear, through visions influenced by his boxing hobby, he becomes a conduit through which the aliens can communicate, and he pilots the ship out of the region.

One of the more pervasive minor themes in Voyager is that of a fear of alzheimer's disease and dementia. There have been a number of episodes that have explored this theme, and for good reason. Given the number of elderly patients I see in the ER, people who their families remember as vibrant and resilient people, who now no longer know who they are, where they are, or who these people are around them, I fear it a whole hell of a lot. If I could name one disease process to get immunity to, out of the whole of spectrum of human ailment, it would be this one. Not because I myself would suffer that much, but because I would cause so much pain to those I love without even knowing it.

Anyways, so this episode has a good catch. But mostly it is used to have a bunch of trippy "things are soooo crazy in Chakotay's head!" scenes, like they wanted to do an extremely surreal episode along the lines of Frame of Mind. But while Frame of Mind had a mystery element to it (i.e. "wtf is going on?"), this episode spills the beans right away. Within the first few minutes we know that aliens are trying to contact Chakotay but he is too scared of the associated dementia. It would have been nice if any of the boxing or dementia themes had been introduced for Chakotay before - his interest in boxing has never come up before, and seems to clash with his otherwise pacifist sensibilities.

Like Bliss, I think this too could have been a good Tuvok vehicle. However, unlike Bliss, I think it would have made it an altogether better episode, as it would have added an element of order versus chaos. A Vulcan's mind represents a constant battle of order (logic) overcoming chaos (emotion). Being in chaotic space, with aliens who introduce chaotic thought in order to communicate, it would have added a little something extra to have the afflicted crew member be a Vulcan, someone who prizes that order so highly. It would have been easy to add the grandfather with dementia to Tuvok's backstory - in fact, there already exists a Vulcan malady in cannon, Bendii Syndrome, which Sarek suffered from.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: This episode comes from a good place, but feels poorly fleshed out and ultimately feels like a somewhat flimsy excuse to have surreal scenes that don't make much sense.

S5 E04: In the Flesh

Voyager comes across a training ground for an 8472 infiltration of Earth; in a space station, they have recreated Starfleet Command, and have taken human form and are acting out daily life there. Chakotay infiltrates them (with his Maquis rank insignia still on), and goes on a date with a female-appearing 8472 in order to figure out what is going on. He is discovered, so Voyager comes in, ready for a fight. However, the 8472 there have taken on some human characteristics with their human physiology, and a truce is negotiated.

I had a very difficult time getting around the premise for this episode. The whole simulation thing feels very contrived; if they have such detailed intelligence, why do they need to go through this song and dance? Well, clearly their intelligence is limited to every spec of Starfleet Command's physical presence, or they'd know that Voyager has no way of communicating with home. And wait, they're telepathic, so why does it take so long to discover Chakotay? Okay, maybe they lose that ability in human form. But again, if they are telepathic, why go to all this trouble?

And isn't 8472 the species of "the weak will perish" and "your galaxy is impure?" What happened to that? I mean, I guess you could see this as giving them more depth, but it came across to me as simply being inconsistent. If they're going to completely change 8472 so they can use them in this episode, why use 8472 at all? You could just have some other species that Voyager has wronged along the way, a la Arturis. I've gone on record as saying that Voyager is at its best with alien of the week guys, and I find this episode to be no exception.

Janeway is up to her usual obnoxiousness again, preaching to Seven. This time it is about the importance of giving your enemies a chance to kill you every time you meet them behave themselves and seek peace with you. Seven understandably wants to destroy them, but the script backs Janeway (as always) by revealing that the Federation invasion training camps are actually just Federation infiltration for perfectly peaceful information gathering purposes training camps. Well, good for them, I guess?

Watchability: 2/5

Bottom Line: Well, it was nice to see Ellen Tigh in another role.

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 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 E04: Nemesis

Chakotay, having crash-landed on a planet after coming under fire, encounters a ritualistic military squad (of the Vori). They are in the middle of a war with an enemy who desecrates their corpses (the Kradin), and offer to help Chakotay get back home, but the team is ambushed and only Chakotay survives to find a Vori settlement. There, he nurses his wounds and befriends the locals, while above the surface the Voyager crew prepares to rescue him with the help of the planet's inhabitants - who turn out to be the Kradin. Chakotay watches as Kradin troops massacre the village, and offers to help hunt down Kradin soldiers in any way he can - until one of them turns out to be Tuvok, who was sent to rescue him. Chakotay allows Tuvok to rescue him, and the Doctor works on deprogramming him - he had been caught in an elaborate Vori ruse, designed to recruit new soldiers using holograms and chemical aids.

The language of the Vori practically gave my wife a seizure. The writers used a fairly common sci-fi trope here, wherein they replaced common words with less common pseudo-synonyms to signify an alien culture (particularly useful when the aliens are not actually wearing any alien make-up). Well, it is common in other sci-fi sources, but pretty absent from Trek, largely because it would be hard to explain why it would get through the universal translator when the meaning of the word is obvious to the viewer. It didn't bother me quite as much as it bothered her, but it still felt awkward.

The reveal that the group that Voyager was communicating with was the Kradin was painfully obvious. Especially so when, before showing the ambassador aboard Voyager, the writers took great pains to explicitly describe the ambassador's enemies the exact same way that the Vori on the planet described the Kradin. After that, the reveal seemed very ham-handed, like the racial allegory in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS season 3). The difference was that TOS needed to do that so as to get around the censors, and Voyager wasn't really sneaking anything by anyone here.

Of course, once that "surprise" was over with, I did not expect there to be a second surprise: the whole propaganda/brainwashing angle. I guess that's largely because I want to believe that Chakotay still has the freedom-fighter in himself somewhere, that he's not really the pacifist he plays at the beginning of the episode (and every other episode). The closing line, after Chakotay can't hide his revulsion at the appearance of the Kradin ambassador, despite learning that his whole experience was a sham, was incredibly groan-worthy though: "I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start."

Watchability: 2/5

Bottom Line: Shrouded in dated sci-fi tropes, this episode teaches us that brainwashing is bad, and hate is bad; laudable goals to be sure, but the pacing is far too slow, so I spent most of my time drumming my fingers, waiting for the "surprise," and trying to convince my beloved to watch the rest of the episode. Of course, hours later, we still break into uproarious laughter when one of us turns to the other and says: "You know, I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start." There's always that.

S4 E01: Scorpion, Part II

On the run from species 8472, Janeway asks Tuvok to join her on the Borg cube so that he can help her develop weapons. When the Borg attempt to induct them (temporarily) into the hive, because verbal communication is limited, Janeway wheels and deals her way out of it by asking for an appointed representative. Thus, Seven of Nine joins the show. 8472 catches up with the two ships and, because the Borg view themselves to be more expendable than Voyager, they sacrifice the cube to destroy the lone 8472 ship - but not before beaming over a boarding party to assimilate a cargo bay. Janeway is injured in this maneuver, and tells Chakotay to make this alliance work, whatever the cost, before slipping into a coma. Seven starts playing hardball with Chakotay, insisting that they turn back; Chakotay fights back by ordering the ship to the nearest habitable planet where they can drop the Borg off. Seven leads the Borg in an attempt to throw the Voyager through a singularity into 8472 space, and while all the Borg but here are vented into space by Chakotay, she succeeds. Now in the "fluidic space" that 8472 inhabits, Janeway wakes up and gets all self-righteous on Chakotay for not getting them all assimilated. Chakotay points out that every Borg ever (in Voyager) has been all deception all the time, and look, they even were the ones to originally open the doors to 8472's realm in the first place. Janeway says that they shouldn't fight, and that even though really he started it they should call a truce long enough to fix this mess they're in. With the willpower of a thousand suns, Chakotay manages not to roll his eyes, and agrees. The crew perfects the weapons and they blow up a bunch of ships, then return to Borg space and blow up another large batch before 8472 retreats. Seven attempts to wrest control of the ship again, but Janeway and Chakotay are ready for her and link Chakotay into the hive mind long enough to distract Seven from their (successful) attempt to sever her from the collective.

Right when we first meet Seven, in her very first line, she uses the first person singular ("I") pronoun, something that the Borg are pretty infamous for not doing. Of course, two of the three (sounds like a Borg name) Borg who have done so in the past were the Queen and Locutus, the latter being exactly the kind of representative that Janeway had been asking for. However, the writers then make the choice to have her refer to herself in the third person for the rest of the episode ("this drone"). It's not necessarily a bad thing for her to use "I", but I think it would have been more powerful to save that for later on, only after she has been severed from the collective, especially if they're going to waffle on it and only use it once.

As you may have been able to tell from my recap's tone, I am still very displeased with the Janeway-Chakotay conflict. Seriously, up until now, Janeway has had a model Federation citizen for a first officer (as much as that conflicts with his back-story) - and I'm not even convinced that he was really in the wrong here. Since the Borg were betraying everyone and everything, weasel-wording their way through the agreement already, Chakotay's actions could easily be seen as attempting to drive a hard bargain, or simply trying to appear to the Borg as if he were as resolute as they were. And the resolution, an attempt from the writers to make Janeway look like the bigger person, makes me support Chakotay in this conflict even more.

I don't want to rehash my whole thing from Real Life about professionalism, but I will say this: while having the whole crew of TNG behave like idealized adults may not have been accurate, and may have given me unreasonable expectations for ordinary human interactions, it (and TOS and DS9) are alone (together) in a vast sea of television shows populated with people who do not possess significant emotional maturity. There is room on air for both points of view, but Trek is one of the few places I can go to watch people not be petty towards each other. I wish that Voyager could be one of those places, but that does not appear to be in the writers' plan.

While I'm also disappointed in general with the level of deceit that the Borg have developed in Voyager, I was very pleased with the cube's sacrifice. It was the perfect move for a species of expendable drones, working for the greater good. Seven of Nine's delivery was dripping with disdain, unlike TNG Borg (who deadpan everything) or the First Contact Queen (who seems to prefer to revel in her superiority), but the content is all pretty classicly Borg.

Watchability: 2/5

Bottom Line: This episode featured the Janeway/Chakotay conflict more centrally, and its score suffered accordingly. Season to taste with a mixed bag of Borg elements and voila!, you have Scorpion, Part II.

S3 E26: Scorpion, Part I

Voyager has reached Borg space, for real this time, and it is vast. By sending out probes, they detect a corridor of space that is Borg free, but that's just because the Borg are being decimated by a new threat - which they have designated Species 8472. After Voyager's first encounter with the new enemy leaves Kim dying from a wound infection that is eating him alive, the Doctor discovers that their only hope for a cure is Borg nanoprobe technology - which he can't replicate fast enough. Janeway chooses to try to negotiate with the Borg for safe passage in exchange for the new 8472-beating nanoprobes. Her negotiations are cut short by 8472 showing up and destroying a whole Borg planet, leaving us with a cliffhanger as a cube, with Voyager in tow, flees at top speed.

This was my last first-run Voyager episode. I had already not watched half of season three, but tuned into the season finale out of a sense of duty more than anything else. What I saw disgusted me so much that I never watched again. When I was a kid, I'd watched TOS reruns with my dad (Shore Leave was my first episode ever) but when TNG first came on he was pretty suspicious of it - and, considering that the first two seasons were so bad, he had good reason. We started watching a little more regularly in the third season (probably the most underrated season in all of Trek), and by the time Best of Both Worlds showed up, we were absolutely riveted to the TV. I vividly remember my mom telling us that dinner was ready during that episode, and when we didn't come immediately said "I thought you didn't like this show that much."

"We do now."

So, long story short medium-length, Best of Both Worlds, and the Borg in general, have a lot to do with getting us into Trek in the first place. In my Unity review, I went into some detail about one thing I loved about the Borg - their lack of outright villainy or ill-intent. In this episode, they also lose their ability to analyze and adapt to threats AND can you can now negotiate with them, both of which drove me crazy. The line along which the Borg adaptation works required ingenuity and unpredictability from the characters facing them, but still allowed for the ability to defeat them (at least temporarily). The scene with the poor, hapless drone, repeatedly trying to assimilate the 8472 ship without success, and without adapting his strategy painted a pretty pathetic picture of what the Borg had become.

This time around, I wasn't bothered by those things as much. Voyager needs to go through Borg space to get home, and having a threat that can distract the Borg from Voyager's presence is a completely credible way to let them through without weakening the Borg. After all, the Borg have a history of ignoring non-threats, and they know enough at this point that even a lone Federation ship could easily be more trouble than it is worth. I would have been happier if 8472 had been more of an even match, or even just barely kept ahead of the Borg's adaptation, but that isn't a big deal.

What is a big deal to me is Janeway's behavior in this episode. She calls this senior staff meeting to discuss her plan of action, and when her trusted first officer stays afterwards to professionally present his misgivings about her plan, without showing any sign of dissent to the crew, she starts acting all melodramatically about standing alone. What? What?! It's entirely her prerogative to disagree with his suggestions and continue to follow her plan, a plan with which I happen to agree - the Borg in this case are definitely shown to the "the evil you know" - and as long as we're assuming that they can be negotiated with, then her plan is definitely sound. But to have her, the Federation captain of a Federation ship, behave like a spoiled child, one who throws a fit when people don't want to do what she wants to do... it is one thing to want her to be her own character, distinct from Picard and Sisko and Kirk, but this is just plain character assassination.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Reasonably exciting to watch, but it has none of the Borg philosophical magic that made Unity so great. This is the single highest rated episode on the Global Episode Opinion Survey for the entire Voyager series, and I can't see why.

S3 E23: Distant Origin

Gegen, a Voth scientist, has discovered that his reptilian species shares a large number of genetic markers with the remains he has found of a Voyager crew member. He and a colleague catch up to Voyager and cloak themselves, content to study the crew before making their presence known. However, Kim detects them when entering a tachyon-rich part of space, and due to a misunderstanding, Voyager captures the other scientist (who self-induces a coma-like state), and Gegen absconds with Chakotay. Voyager notices the genetic link too, and discovers that the closest earth species to the Voth are the long-extinct Hadrosaurs.

Shortly after making this discovery, Voyager is captured by a technologically-advanced Voth city-ship: the ruling government of the Voth feels threatened by Gegen's theory that they weren't actually native to the delta quadrant, but were actually refugees from Earth. Gegen returns with Chakotay to stand trial, and refuses to speak out against his own research until the Voth leader makes it clear that she will destroy Voyager if he does not. Before departing, Chakotay gifts Gegen with a small globe of Earth, and urges him to keep fighting the good fight.

I love the science fiction here. Sure, it's a bit odd that there's no evidence in the fossil record of a species that is capable of interstellar travel, but Chakotay does a decent job of explaining that away as a result of tectonic activity. I'd be surprised if a species with that much tech were so isolated on a planet, but who knows, maybe they were better suited for atmospheric conditions caused by a prominent volcano on their particular continent. The details are good too: the Voth's closest analogue, the Parasaurolophus happens to be a species for which we've only found a handful of fossils, which meshes nicely with the habitat destruction explanation.

Of course, there's no evidence of the kind of quills that the Voth have (but those could have escaped fossilization), and I would have liked for the Voth to use some of the horn-like noises that the Parasauralophus was likely to be capable of. There's a pet sci-fi idea I've had, and I can't think of a show that has explored it, that would have been nice as a component of this episode: the hadrosaurs were herbivores. How would being a non-predatory sentient being inform their culture? Maybe it doesn't: there are plenty of present-day herbivores that are capable of great violence, but usually in defense. Maybe Gegen's cautious approach to Voyager is just that: the herbivore instinct in action. Did I mention that this is a great episode?

The Galileo/Inquisition-parable aspect of the episode is a wee bit ham-fisted, but definitely compelling. At least it was a slight variation to have the Voth's "doctrine" be a product of societal order rather than directly the result of religion. Certainly, any human endeavor that places rhetoric ahead of fact is capable of committing the atrocities that the Inquisition did. This story also has my favorite kind of non-happy ending, one that leaves a glimmer of hope that, off-camera, the protagonists will keep working for the advancement of truth.

I'm also currently watching Earth 2, a short-lived major network sci-fi series where Earth is barely habitable, and a group of colonists have set out to establish a new home on an earth-like planet. Probably the most interesting part for me is that, since most of humanity is stuck in space stations, there's a very sinister amount of government control. If someone's controlling the air you breathe then that power's going to go to their head. Similarly, the very controlling Voth society is also based on a space-borne city. I think that's a nice touch, just in the background of the episode without much attention being called to it.

There's only one sour note for me: when Janeway is in the holodeck, reconstructing the Earth-bound Voth ancestors, she asks the computer to extrapolate the "most likely" result of evolution for the Parasaurolophus (incidentally, the holodeck model is waaaaay too small), like there's some sort of genetic destiny (a la Threshold). That's really not how evolution works, guys. If you don't have environmental conditions, you don't have evolution. Then again, if there's any more convincing argument for teaching evolution in schools than the terrible understanding of it on the part of the Voyager writers, I haven't heard it.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: My favorite episodes are the ones that I mull over for hours afterwards, research on wikipedia, and mull over some more. Great science-fiction, great story. This is a new #1.

S3 E17: Unity

Chakotay, on a shuttle trip with a red-shirt, responds to a Federation distress signal emanating from a nearby planet. He finds two warring factions of former Borg there, and is injured, but a cooperative led by a human (Riley Frazier - female, despite the name) rescues him. The only way to save him from death is temporarily linking him to a small collective, which repairs his neural damage and also gives him a look into the minds of the other people there. He and Frazier bond (sex) after the experience, and she tells him that their best hope to restore peace to the planet is to use their nearby, damaged and inoperative ship to restore the link between the people there.

Voyager arrives, after inspecting the ship for themselves, and Janeway is skeptical of this plan, especially after seeing first hand how easily the drones on the ship could be reactivated. After consulting with Chakotay, who is optimistic but also cautious, she still decides to deny the cooperative aid in this plan. After Chakotay makes his final farewells, the cooperative is attacked, and they, in desperation, reactivate the link with him and use him to power-up the Borg ship. The whole ship comes to life, but the cooperative, having gotten what they wanted, activate the self-destruct, saving Voyager.

One of the most compelling (and ultimately, sinister) things about the Borg is that they aren't outright evil. They aren't a Villain, in the capital "V" sense of the word. They're a snowball effect, of what probably started out as perfectly good intentions, but have ballooned out of control. And, at the same time, they are perfectly in control, they aren't off-the-rails, there's just no one at the helm anymore. The existence of a Borg Queen somewhat diminishes the no-one-at-the-helm part, but First Contact's use of the Borg Queen was sufficiently vague as to allow me to still see her as just a manifestation of the hive. Kind of a universal Locutus, for situations where they aren't hell-bent on assimilating one particular faction. Even the existence of the Borg Queen/Locutus role, a misguided attempt to put a happy-face on a civilization's impending doom, reinforces the Borg as the ultimate good intention gone awry bad guy.

This episode captures that aspect of the Borg square in the face, from a brand new angle. The cooperative (I keep wanting to write collaborative for some reason), they're good people. Chakotay sees it. He's inside their heads. All they want to do is save their own lives and stop ethnic warfare while they're at it. It's just a small price to pay to co-opt Chakotay against his will, briefly. They'll give him back and save his ship too. No harm done, right? Right? Chakotay says: "I wonder how long their ideals will last in the face of that kind of power." Fantastic stuff, almost an origin story for the Borg without actually going back in time. It is consistent with what we know about the Borg without being tied down by history.

Robert Duncan McNeil (Paris) directed this episode, and stated that he was trying to portray Frazier as the devil, seductive in her evil. That is completely not what I got from the episode, which is great: once upon a time, a friend and I watched an almost completely wordless, feature-length movie by the name Koyaanisqatsi. It is just a series of beautiful natural landscape scenes gradually progressing into scenes set in modern city-scapes, teeming with time-lapsed patterns of human life. My friend and I both took from the film the message that you can find natural beauty even in places where it has been supplanted by skyscrapers - but the goal, based on the few lines of text at the end, was to show that humans are living a life out of balance (the meaning of the word Koyaanisqatsi) in their grotesque, unnatural cities. I find that divergence to be the most powerful and compelling part of the movie. I didn't see it as a failure on the part of the creators that they did not convince me that they were right, I saw it as a triumph that they made something so complex that different people could watch it and come to different conclusions. I think that you guys can probably see how all that might relate to the difference of opinion between me and McNeil about the message of the episode.

What else... there's the sex I suppose. After noting that there'd been no cut-away sex, this is the second episode in a row to have it. Also odd that it involves Chakotay, whom the writers haven't seemed to have given up on shipping with Janeway yet; that could be seen as commentary on casual sex, but it would be a whole lot braver if they'd had Janeway be the one to get some. Just a little nit to pick in an otherwise fantastic show.

Watchability: 5/5

Bottom Line: Head and shoulders above the rest of this season, even well above the fours. I recall later Borg installments bothering me, so when this one was so great, it was a very pleasant surprise.

S2 E25: Resolutions

Plot 1: Janeway and Chakotay have contracted an incurable disease, which will only lay dormant if they stay on the planet where they contracted it. Janeway orders Tuvok (who is now in command) to quarantine them there, since the Doctor can't come up with a cure, and continue home without them. She takes enough research equipment to focus on finding a cure day and night, while Chakotay sets about making a life for them there. When a plasma storm destroys all her research, she is forced to come to terms with her new life there, and she and Chakotay discuss what direction their relationship might take. Oh, and she makes friends with a monkey.

It is hard not to look at Janeway and Chakotay in terms of Roslin and Adama (from Battlestar). They're both leaders with difference spheres of influence who followed very different paths to the predicament in which they've found themselves. In both cases, a relationship would be very unprofessional, but they are in situations where standards for professionalism are set by them. I could fill pages (and probably will at some point) about the ways in which Battlestar is "Voyager done right," but now's not the time. Suffice it to say, it takes effort for me to not judge things in Voyager as bad because they did something similar in an awesome way in Battlestar, but as a separate entity.

Janeway and Chakotay, despite being awkward together, show more chemistry than I'd expect they would. Mulgrew gives some of her most natural acting in this episode, aside from the ridiculous pose she keeps taking when approaching the monkey. When she's not being the condescending captain, she's actually kind of likeable. The thing is, if the writers are going to do an episode like this so early on, they've got to have the courage to at least deal with the fallout. While I haven't seen most of the rest of the series directly, I do know that this relationship is simply dropped. It's a shame too, because the start it gets here makes it feel almost normal.

Plot 2: Even though Janeway had ordered Tuvok not to risk the ship and crew by asking the Vidiians for help with their medical problem, many crew members (led by Kim) object to that decision. Kim stops just short of organizing a rebellion against Tuvok, who eventually relents and agrees to meet with the Vidiians. The bad guys act like bad guys, but the Doctor's Vidiian girlfriend sneaks the cure to him, and then escape to go rescue Janeway and Chakotay.

I'm a little disappointed with Kim's behavior here, and also with Tuvok's leadership (he was better with the kids on that planet than he is with the crew), but more so I am disappointed with the Vidiians. This was their last chance. There are no more Vidiian episodes. Here they're just the Romulan stand-ins, springing an obvious trap. I mean, Kim made an excellent point, that Voyager has some very good bargaining chips, and even the gruesome Vidiians from their first appearance would have rather traded for what they want rather than fight for it. Just... disappointing.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: Even though the "resolutions" of this episode aren't built on later, it's still a decent show. Even though they leave the monkey behind.

S2 E11: Maneuvers

Seska is back! She has taken up the mantle of "recurring villain" and sided on a more permanent basis with the Kazon, and lured Voyager into a trap in order to steal transporter technology. Sounds about right; if I were to rank the importance of Trek tech, transporters would be right up there with replicators and warp drive. Kazon, being about as science-minded as Klingons, make a lot of sense as technology thieves, without it totally defining them (and being too much like the equipment-minded eqivalent of the Vidiians). As a bad guy, it works pretty well to have them be less advanced than the Federation, but still threatening in this show because they outnumber the one Starfleet ship around.

Seska tips the odds a bit more than I'd like; I feel that the Kazon could be perfectly threatening (without being given the upper hand by her) by constantly wearing Voyager down over time. It's okay though, because she's used to good effect here, taunting the crew quite effectively, which Chakotay (understandably) takes quite personally. So personally, that when the Kazon successfully steal a transporter core (with a cool hull-piercing boarding ship), he runs off on his own in a shuttle to get it back. His rationale - which is explored a bit more at the end of the show - is that he could save lives by only risking his own. It just seems pretty reckless/foolhardy, especially for a character who has been so calm and rational in other episodes, but the show does a decent job of showing how much Seska's taunting has affected him.

The Kazon balance of power is explored some more in this episode; the tribe that Seska has aligned herself with (likely due to them being in the "right" place at the "right" time) seems to be a middle-strength one, and with the new transporter core they are hoping to tip the scales in their favor. Seska herself is clearly a huge asset to them too, but that is tempered by her obvious power-hunger, which Culluh (the guy in charge) is well-advised to be appropriately threatened by.

Chakotay succeeds in his mission (but is captured in the process), giving the Kazon the perfect bait with which to lure Voyager into another trap. This time, with the help of other sects, they hope to capture the whole ship this time - a plan that might have been better executed if it were part of the first plan. Seska attempts to seduce/torture Chakotay into giving up the command codes, but he hates her so much at this point that neither tactic could possibly be successful. What's great is when Culluh tries to torture Chakotay, but all he gets in response are snarky barbs about Seska's manipulations. Chakotay is usually pretty passive, so the guy we see in this episode seems a little out of character, but I think I like this one better.

Voyager waltzes into trap #2, planning to just beam Chakotay off the Kazon ship (their ships have no shields), but Seska has some field set up to stop them. The solution is pretty fun (beam the Kazon leaders off instead and hold them hostage) but will lead to the writers to need to explain why they can't just do that again in later Kazon episodes. Also mildly problematic is that the Voyager was able to transport through their own shields, which is also prohibited, but I suppose the technology may have advanced some since TNG - though I recall the same restriction being present in DS9 (a post-Voyager-departure example).

The episode ends with the soap opera-y ending wherein Seska reveals that she has stolen Chakotay's DNA and impregnated herself with his baby. Now, I like having a recurring villain and all, but Seska's motivation feels... odd. Why does she seem to have this vendetta against Voyager? You'd think that she'd just take off and take her chances with finding her way home herself - or even just satisfy her power-hunger by taking on easier targets. I hope that when we see her again that she will have at least manipulated her way into another Kazon sect (a more powerful one), so that as long as she's going to be crazy, she'll be good at it. It is nice to see her being very competent at treachery and deceit, because that makes it a little more realistic that she would have been able to fool so many people for so long.

On the matter of Chakotay's punishment: the writers put themselves in a real tough spot here. Chakotay really should be put through the ringer for running off on his own and stealing a shuttle without authorization, but given Voyager's predicament it would be really hard to come up with a suitable reprimand without taking a very useful person out of the action for a while. Even putting him in the brig would just waste resources that they can't spare, but the solution of putting him "on report" is very unsatisfying. I would have liked to at least had the threat of making Tuvok acting first officer be mentioned (if not actually enacted for the next episode or two) as that would have mentioned a real possibility for punishment that could be carried out.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Once again the Kazon come out with a strong showing. I might be a bit happier if the Seska and Kazon threads weren't woven together so tightly (I doubt at this point I'll get another Seska-less Kazon episode), but better than having neither one.

S2 E09: Tattoo

On an away mission, Chakotay finds some markings on a deserted planet that strikingly resemble ancient native american runes from his past. It's a bit silly, but Trek has a long and storied history of finding earth analogues on far away planets, so I can roll with it. Upon finding the markings, we get a flashback of a petulant child Chakotay, being dragged along on a jungle expedition with his father, the event where he originally saw the designs. Through a series of flashbacks, we find out that his father was on a quest to find the ancient air spirits of his tribe. It is also revealed that Chakotay's enrollment in starfleet was an expression of rebellion against his father.

While I appreciate the Lost-style background development, it brings with it the problem I have with Lost - the pace of this episode is just glacial. Bouncing back and forth between the ship following the markings to another planet and exploring it, and memories of the expedition, nothing actually seems to happen in either storyline. While the rest of the crew is running around accomplishing nothing (and we don't miss a moment of it), Chakotay eventually winds up alone on the planet, gets naked, and finds the air spirits.

Turns out that these aliens visited primitive humans, and gave them a "genetic infusion." In an interview I saw with Gene Roddenberry many years ago, I recall him being very disappointed in the theories that aliens helped ancient humans build the great pyramids (and the like). He thought that things like the pyramids were great testaments to the capabilities of humanity, and to say that they were really the work of someone else is selling ourselves short. I agree strongly with that sentiment, and feel like this "genetic infusion" idea kind of cheapens the accomplishments of early man too. Amanda thinks I've reading too much into it, that it is just a fun sci-fi idea, and maybe she's right, but it just doesn't sit well with me. Once Chakotay convinces the aliens that humanity has changed from the barbaric people who slaughtered the native americans in the past (his argument: "No really, we've changed!"), and the day is saved.

The B-plot for this episode is pretty fun and lighthearted though; the Doctor is scolded by Kes for not being compassionate enough for the crew members' various ailments (including the back pain of the pregnant Samantha Wildman*), so he decides to prove he can do his job without complaining by simulating a 29 hour flu. His performance is amusing as always, especially when he finds that Kes has secretly extended the duration of his illness to teach him a lesson: "She's far more devious than I ever suspected."

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: The pacing is far too slow, and I find the reveal at the end to be pretty non-Roddenberrian, but it isn't a bad episode.

*Note: The next episode establishes that ten months have passed since the Caretaker incident, and Wildman contends that the child is that of her husband, who is not aboard Voyager. Either that is a continuity error, or someone is not being completely honest.

S2 E02: Initiations

The Vidiians are a very unique concept that, so far, have been presented in very non-unique ways. The Kazon, on the other hand, feel very similar to the Klingons, even down to the makeup, but I'm generally pleased with their presentation. The Kazon are kind of like what you'd expect the Klingons would be if they weren't bordered by the hippie-peace-loving-but-also-powerful Federation, constantly tempering their aggressive, expansionistic impulses. Actually, it must be really emasculating for the Klingons to have the Federation right next to them, a faction which is both peaceful AND possessing of a comparable military. No wonder they turned inward with political infighting and a civil war during TNG and freaked out and attacked everything that moved in DS9.

Chakotay is meditating alone on a shuttle when he is attacked by a Kazon shuttle - piloted by a kid (Kar). Chakotay does his calm-under-fire thing, easily outmaneuvers Kar, and takes him prisoner. Kar is less than grateful, but I don't really expect him to be. Chakotay preaches at him a lot about "don't kill me," "I don't want to kill you," "you know, you really shouldn't kill me, especially since I don't want to kill you," you get the idea. Chakotay gets captured by the Kazon with Kar on board, and now the tables are turned.

So we've got the following major elements in this episode: (A) Chakotay being a perfect example of starfleet pacifism, and (B) insight into Kazon society through Kar. The first one doesn't work very well for me because Chakotay just isn't starfleet. The writers try to play it off as his native american heritage a bit, and I think that if they played that up more, that part of the episode would have worked better. The Kazon backstory is just hinted at enough to pique my curiosity, without having too much exposition. The Kazon are currently a tribal, presumably largely nomadic spacefaring race whose internal borders move daily based on the relative power of the sects. At some point in the past, the Kazon used to be opressed by another race, until they violently overthrew them. With little detail, they've managed to explain a lot of the idiosyncracies of the Kazon; the distrust, the aggression, it has worked for them, it has saved them in the past. I like it, a lot. Kind of a look at what would have happened if the more agressive native americans had started winning against the colonists - which is why playing up that part of Chakotay would have worked better.

Not that I don't enjoy Federation pacifism - I do. And even though Chakotay is probably the wrong guy for the job of starfleet spokesperson, that part of the show isn't bad, just a bit awkward. Chakotay manages to befriend Kar despite their differences (awwwww) in what is a pretty natural progression throughout the episode. Kar is returned to his people with his honor restored (without killing Chakotay) in a reasonably clever way, so I'm happy.

As an aside, Aron Eisenberg, who portrays Kar, also plays Nog on DS9. If you've watched both, you'll notice it right away. He does a good job with the role (especially considering that he hasn't gotten into the meatier Nog episodes yet), but it is a bit distracting for him to be so recognizable.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Even though I'm pretty sure one of the Kazon had a curly telephone cord knotted into his hair, I still like them.

S1 E10: State of Flux

I'm going to stop trying to avoid spoilers, unless it would be really easy to do so. If you haven't seen these episodes and want a chance to be surprised when viewing them, these reviews probably aren't the best thing to be reading.

Last episode reminded us that there are Maquis crew members, and gave us some more time with Seska. Even if that episode was lousy, I'm grateful that we got that time prior the the Seskasplosion we get here. We actually don't see that many Bajoran Maquis - for the most part, it is an organization made up of the former federation colonists whose land was given away to the Cardassians in a treaty. Typically, the Bajorans who join are just sympathetic to the Maquis plight in light of the Cardassian occupation of Bajor - and/or never stopped fighting the Cardassians as part of the Bajoran resistance. I'm a big fan of both the Bajorans and the Cardassians, and the in-depth look we get on them in DS9. Seska's petulance so far has, as a result, been kind of annoying since she is the Bajoran representative on this show. Not that her delivery/acting has let me down or anything, I'm just annoyed.

Turns out some Kazon (I belive that is the proper pluralization) have gotten their hands on some Federation technology, and gone and blown themselves up as a result of some serious bungling. And Seska is our biggest suspect! Actually, for most of the episode she's our only suspect. Joe Carey shows up again in an effort to give us someone else to cast a weary eye upon, but we never really belive it. Seska's just too guilty. That makes most of the episode a little... stall-y, since we're just waiting to find out Seska did it.

The piece of stolen equipment is a replicator - probably one of trek's top 3 most magical pieces of technology (transporters and holodecks round out that set). I would think that if someone were to smuggle some goodies, they'd start the Kazon a little lower on the tech ladder, not just becase they'd blow themselves up, but also just to string them along a bit. Clearly, the person who snuck it to them (obviously, it was Seska) doesn't have the remotest concern about changing the balance of power in the quadrant.

So guess what? It was Seska all along! Really surprised you, huh? Well, there is a good surprise after all: she's actually a Cardassian sleeper agent, who had infiltrated the Maquis. Chakotay: "So if you [Tuvok] were working for her [Janeway], and she [Seska] was working for the Cardassians, was there anyone on that ship working for me?" That makes a lot of sense, given the depth of her treachery. Giving the Kazon something that powerful straight away, of course she'd be perfectly happy if the Kazon destroyed Voyager. Even better, Seska even sounds more Cardassian, both in content and accent, giving herself a more snakelike posture. The best news? She escapes, so we'll get to see more of the evil, Cardassian Seska.

I do like that the writers explore what Chakotay feels like to have had two traitors on board his ship. Usually that's the kind of thing that Voyager ignores and hopes we won't notice. But Chakotay has a nice talk with Tuvok (who seems to be making friends rapidly, despite his stated disinterest in that activity), and kind of resigns himself to being that guy who was made a fool of twice. At least he never slept with Tuvok. Oh yeah, I didn't mention that. Seska slept with Chakotay back in the day. That's dedication to your cover.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: A bit of continuity/story progression for Voyager.

Amanda's Voyager Hair Report: The wife notes that any time a Voyager woman lets down her hair, she becomes no less than sixty times less ugly.