Star Trek: VOY Reviews - From Start to Suicide!

Earth is exactly on the border between the alpha and beta quadrants. Sol system, as the seat of the Federation, is the demarkation line between the quadrants.

I'm a geek.

Give him a mullet and take away his opera privileges.


And then hope that you aren't on the wrong end of a plot twist that leaves you on his operating table.

Rise
So, I had never seen all of Rise until now.

Voyager expends a torpedo to play real-life Asteroids in order to save some random planet from destruction. They express surprise when it merely fragments and kicks the shit out of the planet's surface.

So, let me get this straight. You have 21 torpedoes left. You have to spread them out over 60 years (the remaining total as quoted in Unity, I believe), so that means, you should be going through about one a year. Shouldn't you have tried phasers first? Or using the tractor beam to just ever-so-slightly divert it? But no, let's kick that total down to 20, it's not like our kids will need to use these things, right?

Speaking of that fucking asteroid, it was godawful CG. We're talking shat out of a DOS version of 3D Studio sort of bad. Actually, hell, it was about on par with the CG used in the Genesis squence in STII, which was fucking incredible - for the early 80s. There is no excuse in the late 90s.

Anyway, Torres beams aboard a sample of the asteroid, and Voyager dispatches landing parties to help track down a scientist who had contacted the ship, claiming to have important information about the source of the asteroids.

For some unknowable reason, Neelix is assigned to Tuvok's team, which also include's the alien ambassador's assistant. This is the rough equivalent of assigning Timmy from Jurassic Park to be Worf's cover fire. Because Tuvok is a shittier pilot than Chakotay, he crashes the shuttle because - surprise! - the atmosphere wasn't 100% clear skies and sunshine.

On the plus side, they find the scientist immediately. Rather than repair the communications array on the shuttle, whose warp drives and impulse engines have been completely destroyed, Neelix suggests executing the faster repair of a nearby orbital tether and climbing out of the ionosphere so that Voyager can simply beam them up. He's had experience with the construction and repair of orbital tethers back on Rynax, after all.

Tuvok is unconvinced, and tries to pull some Galileo 7, but he doesn't quite have the wherewithal of Spock, so he basically gets outvoted and gets cranky.

Back on Voyager, Torres and Chuckles crack open the asteroid like it's some fucking geode or something and discover circuitry inside. Torres believes it would be used to maneuver the asteroid. Never mind how that works with no[/i] form of propulsion whatsoever, or why you'd need maneuvering abilities on an asteroid when all you have to do is aim and fire like some kind of interstellar NRA tech demo.

Neelix is helping repair the orbital tether, but he's spending more time conversing with the others, reminiscing about his sister to one of the survivors. Tuvok calls him out, and Neelix finally starts actually helping.

They're close to launching the carriage up the tether, but then the scientist runs in and starts the initialization sequence. Everyone else crowds into the carriage and subdues him, but not before he launches it prematurely. As a result, the oxygen pump is damaged and is only at half-capacity.

Voyager, meanwhile, encounters an alien race that shows up to claim the planet. They fight them off (using PHASERS, not wasting their goddamn torpedoes), and realize that these are probably the guys who directed the asteroids towards the planet. GEE, YOU THINK?

Back on the carriage ascending the orbital tether, the scientist gets poisoned and dies. His last words are incoherent ramblings about the roof. The ambassador's assistant, who has been flipping out the entire journey, apparently afraid of everything, says that there's no way there's anything of consequence on the roof. Neelix is convinced, though, and brings the carriage to a halt. As he's the only one who can drive it, he says he won't move until the roof is thoroughly checked.

Tuvok's had it up to here with this BS, especially because Neelix had previously revealed that his only actual knowledge of orbital tethers was building experimental, 1/10th scale models (and I bet the models used the right damn font!). He climbs up to the roof, as he's the only one who can breathe the rarefied air, and finds an alien PADD with intelligence data. He reports the find to Neelix.

But the ambassador's assistant springs into action, and as Neelix goes to warn Tuvok, the assistant throws him off of the ladder, cracking his skull against a step (and, I've got to say, it really looked like it hurt - like a fuck-up on the part of the stunt guy was simply used for filming). The assistant climbs onto the roof. Apparently, Tuvok was absolutely wrong about being the only one who could breathe the air. Tuvok is apparently thrown from the carriage!

The assistant re-enters the carriage and demands that the barely-conscious Neelix restart the carriage. He refuses, of course, but for some dumbass reason, the assistant keeps threatening Neelix rather than one of the survivors, who Neelix would presumably not want to be hurt. However, Neelix sees Tuvok outside of the door of the carriage, and he waits for a break in the assistant's attention before opening the door. Tuvok bursts in and kicks the assistant out the door. Cue more godawful CG - this one looked like one of those Jason and the Argonauts stop-motion skeletons falling out of a sky scene drawn with Photoshop 3.

Neelix finally gets the carriage through the ionosphere, and not a moment too soon. Voyager has been attacked by a much superior alien vessel. Tuvok, Neelix, and the survivors are beamed to Voyager, and Tuvok uses the intelligence information from the PADD to fight them off. WHen the alien ambassador asks Neelix what happened, Neelix quips that he "returned to the surface." Stop trying to be fucking John McClaine, Neelix.

And then there's this pointless exposition scene where anyone stupid enough to not understand the episode is told in excruciating detail the plot of the evil aliens.

This episode managed to be shittier than the CG accompanying it.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: 20/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

I gotta say... I don't know wtf I was doing in whatever year this was...but I've seen like none of the recent episodes you've talked about. And I thought I was one of those who'd seen them all under protest...but apparently I had some taste after all.

Favorite Son

HARRY KIM KISSES THE FUCKING TERMINATRIX

One of the things I liked about Voyager was that it did occasionally show how fucking boring being a Starfleet officer must be sometimes. When you're not boffing the holo Prom Queen or letting entire races become extinct because of your ideologies, you're charting space. And that's just what Harry and Chakotay are doing on the bridge. However, Harry experiences a sense of deja vu. And let me tell you, Garrett Wang portrays this with all the subtlety of Keanu Reeves. When an alien vessel shows up and greets Voyager, Harry flips shit and fires phasers.

Naturally, everyone else flips out at him, but they fight off the now very angry aliens. Janeway basically tells him to get the fuck off the bridge while they actually investigate the data behind his 'gut feeling.' And for some reason, it was important for Torres to get hurt during the attack so that Harry could apologize to her. Fucking worthless scene.

Harry goes to apologize for his behavior, but it turns out that on closer investigation, the aliens were charging weapons, so his blatant violation of orders is A-OK. Soon, three of the alien vessels show up and start kicking the shit out of Voyager. When things start going south, though, another alien ship appears and disables all three ships. They call Voyager, but immediately recognize Harry.

Inviting the crew down to the planet, including Harry, who has grown spots, the senior staff finds a planet populated by 90% women. Thankfully, this episode is better than Angel One, albeit barely. All the women happen to be pretty hot, and KRISTANNA FUCKING LOKEN kisses Harry to say hello.

The aliens reveal that Harry is actually of their race, with a sort of time-release formula of the alien DNA. He was part of a project designed to bring fresh DNA to this planet, and apparently, he was cross-pollinated by another male who had left to, uh, sow his wild roots.

The rest of the crew beams back up to Voyager to go try to make peace with the other aliens, but Harry stays behind to chill with his new family/harem. It should be noted how utterly unrealistic this episode is because not only does Harry get positive attention from women, Tom get shut down. That alone should tell you something's up.

Harry meets another one of the men, and participates in his marriage to the T-X. The ceremony involves the man being tied, in supposed symbolism of his bond to his mate. The lead alien chick asks if that excites Harry.

After the ceremony, Harry tries to contact Voyager, with no response. The aliens hook him up with some digs for the night, and he is 'tucked in' in what is easily the most awkward exchange between two actors in Star Trek. The girl clearly was thinking "Well, at least this isn't the prelude to me becoming a part of Jizz Sluts 7 like usual", and Garrett Wang just had this smug look on his face like, "Yeah, I'm Harry fuckin' Kim, motherfuckers." He dozes off after she rubs some Vaporub on his nose.

You laugh, but that's pretty much the truth.

Back on Voyager, the Doctor discovers that the aliens have been lying - they somehow infected him with a virus that implanted the DNA on some other planet. In fact, he seems exceptionally eager to pinpoint precisely which away mission it was, like that fucking matters. Really, you could tell that Robert Picardo was following direction, even though it didn't make any fucking sense. So, Voyager sets about trying to break through a forcefield that the aliens have erected around the planet so that they can beam Harry back.

Meanwhile, back on the planet, Harry wakes up to the same woman as before, and a new black girl, sharing his bed. Unlike his "I'm Harry fuckin' Kim" moment before, now he just seems annoyed at their presence. He eventually tricks one of them and ties them up, as if it were a prelude to awkward Starfleet bondage, but the other one figures it out, so he just smashes her over the head with a paperweight. If she didn't show up later, I'd have figured he just killed her for wanting to fuck him.

As Harry soon discovers, though, they do a lot more than fucking. He discovers the guy he met earlier, his corpse dessicated and still bound. Kristanna Loken shows up and explains, at random pointy-object-point, that they need a lot of DNA to get knocked up.

Eventually, Harry is cornered by all the women, and they start beating him with the 2x4s they clonked against the ground in the marriage ceremony. He grabs up one and starts beating them back. Just as they are about to tie him up and fuck him to death, Voyager beams him out, and slips past the alien ships as they fight.

You can practically see a "But...I want to get fucked to death" look in Chakotay's eyes.

Yet another awful episode. As I said, better than TNG's Angel One, but that's like saying that getting one root canal is better than getting two root canals.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: 20/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

Yep. Utter garbage.

Oh, If you think getting a root canal sucks, try actually doing the root canal. Total pain in the ass. I'd almost rather pull the tooth. Anyway, enough about work.

Is this episode even worse than the episode where Harry actually has to ask Janeway permission's to fuck one of the alien chicks he meets? Since when has that ever been a Starfleet regulation?

And if Janeway is gonna start dictating who gets to make out with whom, I'd rather just stay in the DQ than travel decades with that lunatic as my captain.

Before and After
A blur slowly focuses to reveal the Doctor with hair. A young science officer, a boy, and Tom Paris are looking down as well. The patient? Kes. She's nine years old, and she's dying. The Doctor has strapped her into the Multipurpose Iron Lung, and is attempting a bio-temporal regression that will prolong her life. The boy apologizes to her for not finishing her birthday present on time, and gives it to her - he is her grandson. Her temperature drops, and in a flash of light...

She's in her quarters, sleeping. She's still easily 9 years old, but when she goes out, she sees the boy assembling the present. The young woman turns out to be her daughter, and when she insists that she's been in sickbay having the procedure done, her daughter takes her to sickbay, as she's clearly delusional - no such procedure has taken place. In another flash of light, Kes ends up...

In the Mess Hall! She blows out the candles on the Voyager-standard blue cake as they sing "For She's A Jolly Good Fellow" because they were too fucking cheap to buy the rights to "Happy Birthday" for an episode. Her grandson apologizes and tells her that her present will be late, but she says it's OK and that she's sure it'll be great. She then takes the Doctor aside and asks him about the procedure. His mind is blown that she knows about it - he had only just developed it that morning, and was going to tell her about it as a birthday surprise.

The Doctor, Tom, Kes, and Captain Chakotay (yes, Janeway is dead, leaving Voyager to continue on its journey home in relative peace and quiet, I'm sure) discuss the matter, and it means that Kes has either developed precognition in her old age, or there is some temporal anomaly.

Tom and Kes go back to their quarters and go over her medical records, which leads Tom to wax poetical about their life together, and how much she means to him. Eventually, they come across an entry discussing chronoton radiation poisoning. Tom explains that pretty much everyone was poisoned by it during the Krenim attacks of the Year of Hell. However, Kes flashes again and...

She's in Harry's quarters, holding a baby. It's her grandson, and she congratulates her daughter. Harry asks Tom how it feels to be a grandfather, and he tells him that it's better than having Harry as a son in law.

I think this point bears further examination. Tom and Harry are best friends. Tom marries Kes, and they fire out a psuedo-Ocampan baby who grows up over the course of a year or so. During this time, Harry was probably around, probably babysat, and was likely a pretty big part of her life as she grew up. So, she reaches maturity and Harry puts the moves on his best friend's daughter? WHAT THE FUCK, HARRY? This pretty good episode disguises what is practically a porn plot where a guy fucks his best friend's daughter, but rather than the hilarious and awkward moment where the friend walks in on his daughter and the guy doing it, Tom just smiled and said, "Well, daughter of mine, way to take one for the team." Captain Chakotay, of course, still isn't getting any play.

Kes goes to talk to the Doctor immediately, and they realize that they'll need the exact temporal variance of the chronoton torpedo that struck Voyager in order to reverse the effects. Kes gets this information just in time, because she flashes again...

And ends up giving birth in a shuttle. Tom isn't entirely happy about the circumstances, but frankly, it'd be better than giving birth on Voyager - they're under attack by the Krenim. Kes gets back just in time to help Voyager disable the Krenim ship with her future knowledge, but Janeway and Torres are killed by a Starfleet Exploding Console.

Neelix soon asks Kes to help inoculate the crew from the chronoton radiation poisoning, and she takes the opportunity to track down the torpedo. I'd like to point out that this is an excellent way to build up to the Krenim plotline later on in the show (whether it was the season finale, midseason two-parter, or the season arc that never happened), and it ended up being pretty kickass when the Krenim finally showed up later on, no matter the circumstances. This was a rare moment in which Voyager did everything right.

Kes flashes again, and immediately tells the Doctor what he needs to do. He straps her in the Iron Lung and starts bombarding her with anti-chronotons tuned to the temporal variance.

However, she flashes again, and ends up in Janeway's ready room as Neelix is pitching for a spot on the crew. She utters "Not again," and the scene rather amusingly plays out as if Kes is just pissed off at Neelix. She flashes again, and briefly tries to convince her father of what's happening. Another flash, and she's being born. Still another flash, and we see her go from a fetus to a mass of cells to a single egg.

And then, it all accelerates, going forward, and Kes wakes up to the Doctor completing his anti-chronoton bombardment. Kes is saved, and the crew celebrates at Neelix's holoresort. Amusingly, nobody seems to be too concerned about the Temporal Prime Directive, apparently assuaged by Tuvok pointing out that her simple knowledge of future events has already changed the future drastically, but they just kind of laugh it all off like, "Oh, gee, who cares about polluting the timeline, ha ha!" An unusually human, but decidedly not-Starfleet, reaction.

Overall, Kenneth Biller delivered a well-crafted, interesting, and engaging episode that will tie in nicely to a couple of Voyager's best episodes.

Rating: ****
Torpedoes remaining: 20/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

I have an amusing anecdote about that specific episode. It was Season Five's The Disease, if I recall correctly. Overall, it was pretty awful, and relatively tame, even by Trek standards. But for some unknowable reason, UPN advertised the episode as "LUST IN SPACE". No, that doesn't capture it. They advertised it as:

LUST IN SPACE

Not only is it a bad pun, but it dramatically oversexualizes the episode. I was still in middle school when that episode aired, and I remember that my mom said specifically that "No, you won't be watching that episode."

Later on, it came up in syndication, and Mom and I ended up watching it while eating dinner. After it was over, I said, "Y'know, that was the episode you wouldn't let me watch a few years ago." and she replied, "Really? I wouldn't let you watch that? Why?" I mentioned "LUST IN SPACE" and she said, "Oh, well, they failed to deliver."

IIRC, one of those women he knocked over was Pat Tallman, who did stunts on Trek while also acting on Babylon 5.

Yeah, she was Crusher's stand-in on TNG, and was also one of the terrorists in Starship Mine and the officer who reports the cloaking device is working to Sisko in Way of the Warrior. Hadn't spotted her in this though, but not sure if I've actually seen the ep or just know enough from other sources to think I have.

Pat was also Nana Visitor's stunt double, and she did Kai Winn's fall into the pit in the DS9 finale. I think of her as the ambassador of good will between B5 and Trek.

Before and After really begins what was Voyager's only good run as I recall. The next dozen or so episodes have more okay than steaming pile. Before and After is one of those that if I'm just flipping through channels and come across I will watch it. There are very few Voyager episodes that fit that bill.

Real Life
A Stepford wife and two perfect children walk down the staircase as if they were part of the Brady Bunch. They crowd around a front door, eager to wish their husband and father a good day at work. The man who eventually says goodbye to them? The Doctor.

The Doctor has decided to run a holosimulation of a family so that he can develop a better sympathy for his patients' emotional processes and cultivate a more caring bedside manner. After Torres (who has this utterly inexplicable single braid and ribbon combo in her hair) performs a checkup on his program, he invites her and Kes to join him and his family for dinner on the holodeck.

And, no surprise, the meal is perfect, with the children behaving like angels as the wife beams constantly and talks up the Doctor's medical prowess. Eventually, Torres has had enough, and freezes the program, declaring that her blood sugar can't take the saccharine nonsense the program spews. She makes an offer to the Doctor to make the program actually represent real life so that he might have an actual hope of relating to his patients on such a level. Kes is, of course, positive and encouraging throughout.

Back in Sickbay, though, Kes encourages the Doctor to take Torres up on her offer, and the Doctor eventually agrees. Torres adds some algorithms that will produce random situations and character threads into the program, and the Doctor transfers himself to the Holodeck.

When he walks in the door, though, there is no greeting for him. The house is a shambles, and loud, awful music is playing from upstairs. His wife dashes out the door, telling him that she's giving a talk at the symposium, so he's up for dinner. His daughter runs up and exclaims that she can't find her mallet for her Parisses Squares match. The Doctor chastises her for putting it away in the wrong place, but she is distraught, running around looking nowhere as children often do.

Then the doorbell rings. The Doctor opens it, and two teenage Klingon boys are there. The Doctor tries to send them away, but his son shows up and welcomes them in and upstairs to his room. Meanwhile, his daughter is crying about the misplaced mallet.

The Doctor ends up in Sickbay, distraught over how the perfect life he had created has spiraled out of control. So, he decides to take a more direct approach. When he returns home the next evening, he sets new household rules and schedules, changing everyone's routine but his own, a fact that they quickly pick up on. When his son reads that he can't have Klingon friends, he storms out of the room, prompting his wife to agree with their son, and storming out as well to try to console him. His daughter sticks around, and says that he screwed things up, but if it's important to him, she's willing to make the sacrifices, because she loves him.

The next day, the Doctor is in Sickbay, but keeps screwing up the samples he's taking - he's clearly concerned about his family. Kes tells him to take the afternoon off and go try to work out a solution, and he does so. When he comes home early, though, he interrupts his son having a clandestine meeting with his Klingon friends. One of them has a knife, and tries to pass it off as a d'k tahg, but the Doctor calls him out on it, stating that it's actually a kut'luch, and that it's used in a ritualistic violent act. The Klingon boys eventually leave in disgust, causing the Doctor's sun to burst out, claiming that he's ruined everything - his son was going to participate in the ceremony, a pretty big honor for a human. He even calls him out that just because it's violent doesn't mean it isn't an important part of their culture, and that they're supposed to be tolerant of other cultures. He eventually yells out that he's going to move out, and storms off to his room.

Then, a videophone call - his wife says that their daughter has been taken to the hospital because of a Parisses Squares injury. He rushes over, but there's nothing he can do - the damage to her spinal column is too severe. As his daughter lay dying, she asks him if she'll be OK. He says that she's very sick, and she asks if that's why she can't feel her legs. When she asks what's going to happen to her, the Doctor yells to the computer to shut off the program.

Back in Sickbay, Kes inquires as to how the family's doing, and the Doctor cheerfully says that he's learnt all he was going to from the simulation, so he's discontinued it. Kes seems a little concerned, but doesn't push the issue. However, Tom soon shows up after almost dying in a shuttlecraft accident (oh, yeah, the utterly inconsequential B-plot of this episode is that Tom gets sucked into some place between space and subspace in a shuttlecraft). His cavalier attitude about it causes the Doctor to burst out at Tom, wondering if he's even considered what it'd do to those who care about him. Tom realizes what's bothering the Doctor, and asks about the family. The Doctor confides in him that his daughter is dying. Tom suggests continuing the program, but the Doctor says that he just isn't able to go on with it. Tom then replies that, in the end, that is the entire point to the program - if he can't deal with this, then he will never be able to relate to the losses experienced by his patients.

So the Doctor starts the simulation back up again. And he tells his daughter that she's going to die. And she does so with the rest of the family at her side, as the Doctor encourages her to go ahead and fall asleep if she feels tired. They hold each other as she passes away.

Two things - I'm a sucker for Doctor episodes, and this sort of shit always gets me. I really enjoyed this episode, even with the shoehorned B-plot (that, I must admit, had some pretty nice CG attached to it - what the hell is with the quality jumping back and forth?). Maybe my judgment is clouded. But I think it's a fair rating:

Rating: ****
Torpedoes remaining: 20/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

That must be one of the few episodes I didn't see. After a few years of V'ger, I developed a rule - if the TV Guide blurb started with either "The Doctor..." or "The holodeck..." I just skipped it out of self-preservation.

Ah yes, the Lifetime Original Movie of Voyager. Basically the only thing that made it tolerable was the fact that it was the Doctor. Anyone else and it would have been a like trying to do a serious Barclay episode.

So let me see if I understand...in an attempt to make his holo family more realistic, they make it less realistic.

I liked The Doctor too in the beginning of the show but he got progressively more annoying over time. By season seven, I couldn't stand him or any of the other prinicipal characters.

Maybe Harry was a Twilight fan growing up?


(I hope we're all familiar with what the last book entails to get this joke)

Atleast she didn't call him Uncle Harry.

Thankfully, no.

Distant Origin

DINO DNA

A couple of scientists finds a scrap of Engineering Gold in a dusty cave. Looks like Chakotay never got around to making a still out of Hogan's uniform. Further, they soon discover what remains of Hogan himself - and their scanners have detected a DNA match.

Back on their ship, the two scientists quarrel over Hogan's remains. The lead scientist claims that it's incontrovertible proof that their species originated from a different area of space, as the remains share "47 genetic markers" with their own. Ah, the ever-convenient "genetic marker" that shows up over and over in Star Trek. Almost as useful as "weapon signatures", these random hunks of DNA are apparently all the proof the lead scientist needs. His assistant, however, isn't so sure, and believes his people will use the opportunity to railroad him out of the scientific community, as the "Distant Origin Theory" is already much-maligned.

The scientists go to their society's leader to request a full fleet of ships to track down "Voyager," a microscopic label found on one of Hogan's rank pips. However, the matriarch basically laughs them out of the room, and tells him that if he doesn't discontinue researching the Distant Origin Theory, he'll be tossed in jail.

He then goes off and stews for a while, bitching and moaning about the ignorance presented by his race. Basically, this scene paints him to be some sort of alien Richard Dawkins, bitching and moaning about every possible belief that anyone could hold that would be contrary to his own. His daughter disowns him, and he and his assistant leave to try to find Voyager themselves.

They end up hitting up the Nekrit Expanse space station, where they pick up a communicator and tricorder inexplicably left by the crew (what the fuck, they'll pitch a fit over the Kazon stealing a replicator, but they'll leave powerful scanning and communications equipment lying around a trading depot?), and they even get some of Voyager's warp plasma to help them track the ship.

Now, the careful viewer will realize something - nobody on that station should have Voyager's warp plasma. The only plasma that appeared was a low-quality plasma given to Neelix and Wix by the stationkeeper to help trap the drug pushers. Did they just leave a canister of this shit lying around too?

Anyway, they finally track down Voyager, engage some personal cloaking devices (to be explained in a bit) and go to wander around Voyager. They observe Tom and Torres flirting with each other, note the awful smell (wasn't there some other alien mention about how poorly humans smell before?) and decide the command structure is a matriarchy after observing both Janeway and Torres in command of their respective staffs, and Janeway in command of the ship overall. Yeah, that wasn't groan-worthy at all. However, Kim detects a disturbance on the bridge, and focuses it to the aliens. They can't beam off of the ship because of Voyager's shields, but they manage to beam to the Mess Hall.

Where they are promptly cornered again. Tuvok and Chakotay phaser them, pulling them out of their cloak, and the assistant fires a dart at Chakotay that knocks him out. The assistant is then phasered into submission, but the lead scientists kidnaps Chakotay and is somehow now able to beam off the ship.

On the alien vessel, the alien explains that he believes that humans and Voth, his species, once shared the same planet. However, working out the math, and with the assistance of Voyager's database that the aliens copied, that simply isn't quite possible.

On Voyager, after examining the assistant, the Doctor and Janeway reach the same conclusion. They load the DNA into the holodeck, and out comes a hadrosaur. The race they're dealing with evolved from a creature born 65 million years before humans roamed the earth.

Chakotay and the Voth scientist come to the same conclusion. Chakotay wants to enlist Voyager's help in convincing the scientists' people of this proof that they originated from Earth, but there's no time - they're being ordered to the Voth city-ship to stand trial. And like a couple of little of bitches, they start back towards it.

Of course, the city-ship has found Voyager by now, and beams the entire ship into a holding area inside of the massive vessel. Voth security staff beam onto the ship and eventually overtake it. Voyager got taken by the fucking Kazon, so members of a race 65 million years old certainly didn't have a problem.

But their cloak was detected almost instantly by Harry Fucking Kim

Yeah, that makes sense.

Anyway, Tom managed to retake Engineering because he used the captured personal cloak from the assistant scientist (a device which we will NEVER see again, despite it being exceptionally useful - we can take future technology from Henry Sterling, but a personal cloak from a race that predates the Federation by countless millenia, nah, best be getting rid of that), but the Voth soon disable the torpedoes he was planning on firing.

Meanwhile, the scientist and Chakotay have got an audience with the Voth leader, who asks him if he's willing to recant his theories, even in the face of the evidence he's collected and Chakotay standing right next to him. He refuses, and she exclaims that the idea he proposes is preposterous, that their proud race were basically interstellar nomads who barely made it out of the proverbial primordial ooze on some backwater planet nobody's heard of.

Chakotay counters, saying that it really meant that they managed to build a civilization that made it off of Earth while surrounded by terrifying dinosaurs, and then built an empire after travelling for what must have been countless years to find a home. Oh, and he delivers this entire speech with the passion of someone reading aloud a Denny's menu.

She doesn't buy it, though, and asks the scientist again if he's willing to recant his claims. When he refuses, she sentences the scientist and the entire Voyager crew to prison. When he exclaims how unfair that is, she claims he gives her no choice.

So he recants, stating he was obviously wrong, and that there was a preponderance of evidence against him. The Voth let Voyager go, and reassign the scientist to metallurgical analysis. He's pretty emo about that, but Chakotay gives him the gift of a glass globe of Earth, stating that they'll come around eventually.

God. This was an awful episode. We've got magic DNA, a race that should be able to kick the ass of everything it encounters, but is defeated by Harry Kim running a scan, Voyager chucking out an interphase cloak (apparently, it operated on basically the same principles as what allowed Geordi and Ro to wander through everything on the Enterprise except its floors), dumbass alien scientists who live in a caricature society, and a monstrous city-ship that can beam entire starships that not a single race that Voyager encountered thought to mention.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: 20/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

That image you attached made me wonder if this episode was made to cash in on Jurassic Park, but I think the film came out a few years earlier.

Basically it was just another stupid episode where the Trek writers (i.e. Braga and Menosky) completely misunderstand the concepts of DNA and evolution. South Park explains evolution better than Trek does.

Jurassic Park came out in 1993, whereas Distant Origin aired in 1997.

However, it did happen to air a scant 23 days before The Lost World: Jurassic Park came out in theatres...

The Voth were an interesting concept with plenty of potential, but then they wasted it with a heavy-handed "creationism is teh stupid" storyline.

I liked that the tables were turned on Starfleet, with some other civilization's scientists quietly walking around unobserved among them and jotting down silly notes.

But then Harry had to go and ruin it . . .

I never buy the whole another race evolved on earth storylines. The Dinos evolved to the point of space travel yet left no evidence of their existance behind? um, no

Chuckles tried to make the argument that the species could have evolved on an isolated continent and a catastrophic event buried the evidence at the bottom of the ocean.

They went to space but never built a boat ?

IIRC, Chuckles was pretty high-and-mighty about it too, as if Starfleet doesn't pull the exact same shit all the time (and even attempts the same damn thing in Insurrection).

And what gets me about that is that the episode presents it as if the ocean is still some fucking undiscovered country - in TNG, they were building a fake continent, for Christ's sake. They know what's at the bottom of the fucking ocean, and it ain't dinosaur spaceships.