Star Trek: VOY Reviews - From Start to Suicide!

Who do you think invented the Bireme?

And, if you go by the miniscule text on the systems display monitor, the Enterprise-D has freakin' whales serving aboard her. Well, maybe dolphins (Cetacean Ops) but that's causing too many SeaQuest flashbacks...

To be fair, anything sitting on the ocean floor for millions of year would end up buried under tons of sediment, even if it wasn't already damaged beyond recognition by whatever cataclysm sent it to the ocean floor in the first place, or simply from the crushing pressure of the ocean itself.

Mapping the ocean floor is one thing, extensive underwater archeology is quite another.

It's also in the blueprints. Two decks high tanks and they even have lifeboats. It's for the "aquatic" crew members. But they don't have a holodeck although I suppose they could beam into one of the holodecks.

Displaced
Christ, I don't even know. This episode was so boring that I ended up building LEGO rather than pay better attention.

Tom and Torres are bickering/flirting after playing Bat'leth in the holodeck. But then a man materializes in front of them, looking confused. After taking him to Sickbay, they realize that Kes hasn't reported in for listening to the Doctor babble, and discover that she disappeared off the ship at the same moment the man appeared.

Soon, this happens to more and more members of the crew. Janeway even gets transported off the ship. When Torres does as well, it's revealed that they have been beamed to some sort of prison. It's an idyllic representation of an Earth-like world, but they are still there against their will.

Soon, Chakotay is the only one left on the ship. He manages to evade the alien invaders, and gets to sickbay, downloading the Doctor into his holoemitter and palming it before he too is beamed off the ship. The aliens have taken Voyager. Gee, that doesn't happen frequently at all, does it?

Anyway, in the prison planet, some random alien walks through a wall and reveals that he's found some secret passages. Janeway ends up trading some of the human-targeted food with him for the technology he used, and Torres integrates it into the Doctor's holoemitter. This enables them to find another secret passage, one that will let them fully explore the prison ship.

They discover that there are a hell of a lot of aliens trapped on the ship, and that the Nyrians, the bad guys here, basically imprison people in these holo-prisons and swipe their ships to engage in a war. How they manage to do this, of course, is pure speculation, as they're barely more capable than the crew of idiots running Voyager. They manage to lure the aliens on the ship into a cold environment, which they hate, and hold them hostage, and eventually use the ship's transporters to retake Voyager. With the prison ship fully under Voyager's control, they contact all the imprisoned alien governments and get them back home. Yay.

Oh, and I guess Paris and Torres bond some more. Awesome.

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

You forgot Tuvok makes a phaser out of used shower parts !

It's Legos, not LEGO.

Have you committed suicide, yet?

Knock it off.

He's referring to the thread title.

Worst Case Scenario
Since Chakotay's going to wax parable in the next episode, I'm going to do it here and beat him to the punch. Suck it, Chuckles.

In Greek Mythology, there was this dick named Tantalus. Basically, Zeus let him come on up to Olympus and wine and dine with the Gods, but then he stole their booze and raided their fridge and took all this shit back down with him to his people and shared it with them. Now, this might be OK on some pansy-ass Federation colony, but Ancient Greece was like Edo - laws didn't make any fucking sense, and punishments were swift and brutal.

Zeus was fucking pissed, so naturally, Tantalus tried to one-up Zeus and chopped up his own son and offered him to the Gods as a sacrifice. Only one gnawed on his shoulder - Demeter - and so the Gods rebuilt him like he's the six million dollar fucking man.

Anyway, Zeus came up with a kickass punishment, as usual. He forced Tantalus to forever stand in a pool of water with a fruit tree above him. When he reached to get some fruit, the branches lifted just barely too high for him to reach. When he knelt to drink, the water receded just out of his reach. And so it was that what Tantalus wanted most, he could never have - only the unceasing desire for it remained.

So let me ask you this, Rick Berman and Brannon Braga. We didn't steal any of your goddamn booze and we didn't try to feed you our offspring, so why the fuck are we standing in a puddle of water with fucking apples hanging over our heads?

We open with Chuckles and Torres walking down a corridor. He seems a little more aloof than usual, but the conversation quickly turns serious. He basically admits to Torres that he's planned a nice little insurrection, and asks her if she's in.

On the bridge, Janeway passes command off to Chakotay for the first time, and she and Tom take off to go, fuck, explore or something. Who knows. Chakotay tries to get Tuvok to go with them, but Tuvok states, and Janeway agrees, that his time would be better spent observing the new First Officer.

As soon as Janeway and Tom are off the ship, Chakotay puts his plan into action. He takes the bridge, and soon, Maquis and, I'm sure, every yellow-shirted Ensign aboard, take Voyager. Harry gets phasered like a little bitch, per usual.

The mutineers start shuffling the nonessential loyal members of the crew to the shuttlebay, aided by Seska. She has an unsurprisingly itchy trigger finger, but nobody is hurt. To the nonessential crew, Chakotay asks a simple question - do they want to stay with him, or be left with the senior staff on the first habitable planet they find? And then Tom walks in and asks Torres what the hell she's doing.

Torres reveals that she's found a holonovel that basically sets the participant as a bit player in a Maquis mutiny. Tom shoos her out and restarts the program. It's really weird to see him in security gold - the red is far more flattering. When Tom makes it to the bridge, though, he tries to warn Tuvok. Alas, Chakotay still succeeds in taking the bridge, though Tuvok gets phasered in addition to Harry this time.

While Tom and Tuvok are in the brig, they try to figure out an escape plan, but soon, Tom is shuffled off with the nonessentials to the cargo bay. He switches alliances again, siding with the Maquis, but soon, the program abruptly ends - the mystery author didn't come up with much of an ending to this scenario.

Word gets around the crew fast about the holonovel, and eventually it even comes to Janeway's attention. However, rather than being a hardass about it, she encourages her staff to figure out who wrote it, and hands Tom the keys to continue the story. Amusingly, this is one of the more sane decisions on Janeway's part - everyone's having a good time, so she won't be a bitch and take it away from them. After Tom expresses an interest in continuing the story, though, Tuvok reveals that he was the original author. He created the program as a tactical scenario to train new Starfleet security staff on a possible Maquis rebellion (what new staff? Ain't like personnel transfers are going to occur every six months, man). He apologizes to Chakotay, but Chakotay just shrugs it off - again, it's nice to see people aboard a Starfleet vessel who don't have a giant stick up their ass.

Tuvok and Paris bicker somewhat about modifications to the program - Tuvok insists on following Vulcan dictates of storytelling in which each character's actions must match their motivation, but Tom would rather make it a little more pulpy. It's a nice exchange - Tom and Tuvok rarely get a lot of screen time together, and the function as much less annoying foils for each other than the Tuvok/Neelix pairings. However, it is all for naught, for when Tuvok opens the holodeck's edit functionalities on the program, they are put right back in the action.

Seska soon confronts them - she found the program carefully hidden, and decided that Tuvok's own tactical simulation should kill him for spying on the Maquis. So, she made a few selected edits here and there, like disabling the safety protocols, and implementing some adaptive algorithms to hunt him down. The program was also altered to take down holodeck arch functionality and the ship's transporters, and any attempts to force the doors will overload the holoemitters and tear a hole in the ship.

Seska does not fuck around, even in holographic form. Tuvok and Tom are chased all over the ship. They believe that if they can make it to the transporter room, they might be able to pull something off. However, Seska finds them, and makes out with HoloChakotay - subtle, Seska. Janeway then materializes on the transporter pad. However, it's pretty clear that this is actually HoloJaneway, and when she tries to kill Seska with her phaser rifle, it backfires and vaporizes her - she screams as she disintegrates. Lovely.

Tom and Tuvok are eventually cornered in the cargo bay - Seska is going to execute them in front of the nonessentials to prove she's serious. However, the real Janeway and Torres manage to tap into the Holodeck and cause an enemy ship to fire on Voyager. As the ship rocks, Tuvok and Tom manage to disarm Seska. She has another trick up her sleeve, of course - she activates the self destruct, and tells them that this too will cause the holoemitters to explode. So Tuvok hands Seska the phaser rifle, much to Tom's chagrin. She smiles and fires. And it backfires, incinerating her.

The program ends, and the crew promptly deletes it. Chuckles quips that if Tom and Tuvok ever write another holonovel, that all he asks is that he isn't the bad guy. Everyone chuckles.

See what I was saying? This was a good episode, but it was all a tease - we could have seen some kickass Maquis stuff, but no - it has to be wrapped up in a safe little holodeck simulation (at least this time, it was malicious, and wasn't the computer fucking up, proving that the holodeck is fucking dangerous). Martha Hackett did an excellent job here, and everyone seemed to be having a good time with the episode. It was just disappointing that we didn't get to see more along these lines.

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

Best. Analogy. Ever.

Scorpion
We open with a shot of a couple Borg cubes. Tendrils of energy lash out from offscreen, and destroy each one of them, silencing their famous introductory speech. Roll title.

It was actually a surprisingly effective teaser - easily one of, if not the, shortest in Trek's history. Here are the Borg, who routinely kick everyone's ass, who assimilate entire planets and fuck around with time travel with wild abandon. When we last saw them on Voyager, Janeway basically told them to get the fuck away from the ship as it was powering up. So to see three cubes be utterly decimated speaks volumes about what we're about to see.

So, rather than continue with the badass, Voyager immediately disrupts the flow and throws us into the Holodeck, where Janeway begs a holographic Leonardo da Vinci to give her some space in the workshop. John Rhys-Davies plays it as straight as he can, and he will go on to be the only reason that Concerning Flight is watchable, but here, it's rather forgettable.

Naturally, Torres interrupts Janeway's reverie and asks her to come down to Engineering. There, she and Chakotay break some bad news. Voyager's received the last bit of telemetry from a probe they sent out. It was of a Borg beginning to disassemble it. So, not only is Voyager rapidly approaching Borg space, but the Borg know they're coming. And while Voyager doesn't know this, they're probably still a little pissed off that Picard dissolved the flesh off of their master scheduler three hundred years previous.

Anyway, the senior staff meet up and start looking at their options. Borg space is simply too vast to navigate around, so that leaves two options - get cozy on an M-Class planet, or try to head on through. Unsurprisingly, Chuckles is a fan of plan A, mostly because it'd be his only shot of ever banging Janeway. Frankly, I think she'd be a selfish lover, but God knows Chakotay's enough of a chump that he wouldn't care.

However, they've come up with a solution - they've found a turbulent region of space that cuts straight through Borg territory. The Borg avoid it, and while it'll be a bumpy ride, Janeway would rather deal with needing to replace the ship's shocks once they get back over having to sleep with Chuckles. Janeway dismisses the crew to make final preparations for being on, essentially, 24-hour Red Alert.

In Sickbay, the Doctor and Kes examine the Borg drone the crew swiped off of the Cube back in Unity. However, Kes has a strong premonition. A premonition of Borg dismembered and stacked on top of each other in a delightful little bloody pyramid.

Kes goes to the Bridge to talk to Janeway about it after the premonitions of death and dismemberment don't stop for hours, and just as she does so, the ship starts rocking. A Borg Cube is rapidly approaching. And then another. And another. Soon, Harry counts fifteen Borg Cubes advancing on Voyager's position - looks like the Northwest Passage was anything but. However, each and every one of them rockets past Voyager. One slows down and scans Voyager briefly before getting the fuck out of there.

Temporarily out of danger, Janeway retreats to her ready room to read up on the Picard Dossier about the Borg, as well as other captains' experiences with them. Janeway's worried if she's done the right thing, but Chakotay tells her that, at the very least, he'll be with her. Fuck, Chakotay, stop trying to get into her pants. What next, tapping out a "DO YOU LIKE ME CIRCLE ONE: YES NO MAYBE" message on that console between the Captain's and XO's chairs? But Tuvok calls them out to the bridge. All of the Cubes have been either critically damaged or destroyed. Every last one of them.

So naturally, Janeway decides to fucking investigate, and sends over Tuvok, Chuckles, and Harry to one Cube that seems to have an atmosphere and a biological entity attached to it. Now, Chuckles and Harry makes sense - she wouldn't be sad if they got assimilated. But Tuvok? Eh, she should have sent Neelix instead. Anyway, they start poking around the cube and quickly discover things like a dismembered Borg pyramid. Or a Borg cube trying to assimilate where the creature had latched onto the hull and failing.

Tuvok and Chakotay decide to go inside of the alien lifeform simply because they think it's a ship (it is, of course), and leave Harry to do the grunt work of trying to download Borg tactical data. Of course, soon, even that Borg that was trying to assimilate the ship shuffles off. And then the ship's pilot bursts through the wall, slaughtering a couple drones in the process. It's an alien called Species 8472 (as we later discover), and it's essentially a tripedal alien race that has a body of almost pure muscle and incredible healing abilities - the Borg cannot assimilate them.

8472 manages to slash Harry the fuck up before Voyager beams them out - Torres uses a skeletal scan to get around the interference (now watch - this technique will never be used again). The 8472 ship detaches from the Cube and starts towards Voyager, weapons charging, but Voyager just barely escapes. The pilot gets a message to Kes, though - "The weak will perish."

Now, in Sickbay, Harry Kim is slowly but surely being eaten from the inside out from the cells the 8472 left behind, his body being used for fuel as sickly greenish-yellow tendrils start to cover his body. However, the Doctor discovers something that the Borg, apparently, could not - he has a way to alter the nanoprobes so that they'll simply destroy the 8472 cells, rather than try to assimilate them. A novel concept for the Borg, really.

Torres and Chakotay analyze the data Harry pulled off of the cube, and discover the 8472 designation. They also discover exactly why the Northwest Passage exists - it's where all the 8472 are maxin' and relaxin'. Well, fuck. Borg to the left of me, 8472 to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you. Meanwhile, Kes reports in that she can still hear the 8472, and basically, their plan is to murder everything, Borg or not.

Janeway and Chakotay discuss the situation. Chuckles again wants to turn around and find a place to settle down and start trying to make bizarre little Native American Kathryn Hepburn lookalikes, but Janeway wants to press on. She's come up with one of those ideas that make us question her sanity. She wants to strike a deal with the Borg.

Chakotay is pissed, but has no spine, so he does nothing about it. All he does is pass out a passive-aggressive parable about how, even if a scorpion convinces a fox to let it ride across the river on his back, the scorpion will still sting the fox and get them both killed, because it's just what the scorpion does. Janeway doesn't give a shit, and orders Tom to find a nice populated Borg system, and he does so. A half-dozen Cubes orbit a Borg planet. Janeway hails the Cube and lets it drop that she has a solution to the Borgs' 8472 problem, but if they try to assimilate Voyager, she'll delete the Doctor, who contains all of the information on the nanoprobe modification.

The Borg, of course, are a little more direct, and beam Janeway directly to the Cube to discuss terms. She'll give them the data as soon as she makes it safely across Borg space. The Borg believe that won't get them what they need soon enough, but just as negotiations start to break down, ten 8472 bioships warp into the system. They circle around a single bioship and fire into it. The ship redirects all their fire and its own with one central beam, which completely destroys the Borg planet. The Cube latches onto Voyager with a tractor beam and leaves the system at high warp, as all the other Cubes are destroyed.

There are some that point to Scorpion as the beginning of the 'pussification' of the Borg, but I'd point to some of the later S5/S6 episodes (especially Unimatrix Zero - that was fucking awful) as the cause of that. Voyager will, of course, go on to bungle Species 8472 and make you wonder just how they were ever a threat to the Borg, but for now, it's a pretty good episode.

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

Season Three
In this season, you pretty much had either good, really good, or absolutely awful. No average or mediocre, just godawful shit, really. It shifted up to pretty good near the end. It's amazing what actually having plots that you want to develop over the course of more than one episode can do to a show! How did S3 fare?

*: Remember, Sacred Ground, The Q and The Grey, Macrocosm, Coda, Blood Fever, Rise, Favorite Son, Distant Origin, Displaced
**: Flashback, The Swarm, Fair Trade
***: Basics Part II, The Chute, False Profits, Warlord, Alter Ego, Unity, Darkling, Worst Case Scenario
****: Future's End Part I, Future's End Part II, Before and After, Real Life, Scorpion Part I

Total : 13
Total : 13
Average rating: **,

Voyager just can't seem to get out of that two-star slump. It is notable that, in this season, there are just as many as episodes, but the episodes are absolutely awful. They're just so bad.

However, it's the prevailing opinion on the net that S4 is the very short amount of time that Voyager hits its stride, so let's see how it goes!

I'll say adding Seven to the cast gave the show a little bit of a shot in the arm. It goes without saying that her character was more over-exposed than T'Pol in the decon chamber as time went on and thus ruined a lot of the character's appeal.

Scorpion, Part II
The Cube rushes away from Species 8472 with Voyager in tow. Chakotay orders the Captain be beamed back while the Borgs' shields are down, but her attempt to do so fails - the Borg are scattering the beam. Janeway then hails the ship and tells them to knock it the fuck off.

The Borg have agreed to the terms, and the Cube towing Voyager will be escorting them through Borg territory. However, at the same time, Janeway will be assisting the Borg in weaponizing the Doctor's cure from the Cube, and has Tuvok beam over as well.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has finally completed his first run of modified nanoprobes. With Chakotay looking on, in temporary command of the ship, he watches as the Doctor injects Harry with them - and about half of Harry's face returns to his normal Starfleet glow. While they are all thrilled with the news, and Kes happy that the 8472 are no longer trying to spam her mental inbox with ads for space Viagra, the Doctor expresses concerns to Chakotay about the weaponization of the treatment. Chakotay just shrugs it off as the Captain's decision, and reminds him to keep storing all the data about it in his holomatrix so that they can quickly delete it - and him - if necessary.

I'm jumping ahead a bit, but a few episodes down the line, the Doctor has a very nice speech about how he feels he is being treated equally amongst the crew. I'm calling bullshit, because he was never given the choice. If the Borg attack, he's dead, period - no matter what. Yeah, that sure is what I call equality, Doc.

Of course, this doesn't last for long. The Cube eventually cuts the tractor beam at Chakotay's request, and Voyager continues along on her own power. Despite the Borg's apparent cooperation, Chakotay still orders Torres to try to find a way to beam out Janeway and Tuvok if necesary. Just as this occurs, though, Kes sees a 8472 out of the corner of her eye, and collapses, screaming. It should be noted that the only thing I never particularly liked about Jennifer Lien's acting was her screams. They were always these gutteral howls, like she was being eviscerated or something. Not pleasant to listen to, and I don't especially want to give the neighbors any of the wrong ideas. Murders are to be committed quietly in the Murder Room.

Back on the Cube, Janeway and Tuvok start working with the Borg to develop a weapon utilizing the Doctor's cure. The Borg naturally decide that the most efficient course of action would be to assimilate them temporarily using the neural gizmo that Chakotay got stuck with back when he was failing to bang the semi-Borg chick in Unity. They refuse, and instead demand that the Borg provide a representative, like they did with Jean Luc Picard / Locutus. The Borg agree, and in walks Seven of Nine, Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One. They start to get to work, and Janeway thinks it would be best to retrofit Starfleet photon torpedoes with the virus. While the Borg, via Seven, initially balks, they come around due to time concerns.

However, they mention something hilarious. Voyager apparently has 32 photon torpedoes. Now, faithful readers of my grand misadventure through this train wreck of a show are very familiar with the tallies I keep at the end of my reviews, and Voyager was pretty clearly sitting at 20 last I checked. Now, I'm fine with Voyager constructing new torpedoes, even if antimatter is a finite commodity, but if that's the case, then their numbers should never have been made an issue. Instead, the torpedo compliment shifts wildly per the whims of the writers. And imagine how much better 20 torpedoes would have worked in this situation - every torpedo Voyager contributes to the Borgs' war is one fewer that they'll need to make it the remaining 60-odd years home. But instead, let's kick it up so that it won't matter. Sure, why not.

Anyway, an 8472 bioship tracks down the Cube, and starts firing at Voyager, knowing that they've developed a cure via Kes' knowledge. The Borg beam the Borg assigned to the task onto Voyager along with Janeway and Tuvok, and then use their cube as a battering ram to destroy the bioship. Janeway got hit by some bioelectric pulse, though, and is on the edge of a coma.

She begs Chakotay to see the alliance through before the Doctor induces a coma so that he can get back to work. He goes to meet with Seven, and she informs him that changes will need to be made to the treaty - changes that demand Voyager backtrack 40 lightyears to another Borg Cube, otherwise, the changes will not be completed on time. Chakotay says he'll think about it, and Seven tells him to "Think quickly."

He eventually decides against it, though, and notifies the Borg that he'll be leaving them on the nearest habitable planet with everything they'll need to complete the weapon. The Borg aren't amused, however, and start trying to take the ship. Chakotay simply vents them into fucking space - and that is pretty hardcore. Easily one of the more badass things he accomplishes. However, Seven manages to hang on, and proceeds to modify the deflector, forcing Voyager through a rift in space.

Voyager ends up in a place referred to as fluidic space, the natural home of Species 8472. Chakotay then realizes that the Borg have been here before - they provoked the war with Species 8472 that now threatens the known galaxy. Seven simply tells him that they were "more resistant than anticipated." With Voyager stuck in fluidic space, and no assistance likely from the Borg beyond Seven of Nine herself, Chakotay's fucked. And to add to that, Janeway wakes up and is pissed. She accuses him of waiting for a moment to undercut her decision and end the alliance, but quickly flip-flops on the issue and decides that they need to work together. They decide to fight alongside the Borg, since Species 8472 are obviously pissed off at everyone who doesn't live in a region of space that's filled with ooze, and start outfitting the ship with the Borg-enhanced torpedo systems.

Soon, Species 8472 attacks. Voyager fires off six goddamn torpedoes (not four like Memory Alpha states, I counted), and they all connect with their targets. But nothing happens. Everyone on the Bridge has a "Oh fuck" look on their face before suddenly the bioships start exploding - a delayed reaction as the nanoprobes do their work. They have a half-dozen modified torpedoes left and one high-yield torpedo to use still, and they figure out a way to exit Fluidic space.

However, they are attacked immediately by more 8472 bioships. They fire the high-yield torpedo and destroy the entire armada of ships at once. Seven declares the Borg victorious, and then sets about turning the ship around so that it can be assimilated by that Borg vessel she wanted to go back to earlier. Janeway then springs her trap into action - the Doctor and Chakotay fire up the neural gadget from Unity and Chakotay uses it to tap into Seven's connection to the hive mind. Torres then feeds an electrical pulse through it, knocking Chakotay out, but rather fantastically blowing out a number of Seven's circuits.

Voyager starts on a frantic course back to the Alpha Quadrant, the Borg presumably hot on its heels. So naturally, Janeway goes off to the da Vinci holodeck program to write her log with a fucking quill pen. Chakotay makes another attempt to get into her pants, and again fails. Seven of Nine is in sickbay, her human DNA beginning to reassert itself. Looks like Voyager has some interesting times ahead.

Not as good as Part I - the pacing was a little off, and the jaunt into fluidic space seemed more like a plot device to use up time in the episode. Still a high-quality episode, though.

Oh, and I'm running with my original torpedo count - it's obvious that Voyager itself can no longer be relied upon to give accurate counts.

Rating: ***
Torpedoes remaining: 13/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 5
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

I thought Chakotay said they had 32 torpedos to start with, not that they had 32 left.

Re: season 3's "Distant Origin".

FAIL

Great idea for a ST, or SF story, but executed horribly

So many stupid, & wrong, things about DO

Dumb dumb dumb

Distant Origin always seems to pop up as a fan favorite, at least from what I remember at TBBS. People aren't much concerned with the science behind it, they just like the idea of an advanced dinosaur species going into space.

[action=Liet]is thankful that he gave up on TBBS[/action]

Distant Origin was a spectacularly ridiculous concept. Voyager was supposed to be ridiculous in execution, characterization, and disregard for continuity; it was not supposed to be Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. Distant Origin was one too many layers of ridiculous to even be laughed at, much less with. I don't ever want to understand the kind of person who could think it a favorite episode.

Despite my frustration with Voyager, I have to admit that Scorpion was a damn good pair of episodes. Possibly the apex of Voyager episodes.

Note an interesting parallel: The Best Of Both Worlds, widely regarded as the best TNG episode, was a lead up to TNG's fourth season, arguably the best of the seven seasons.

Scorpion is hands down the most exciting Voyager episode and it also led into season 4, which is the most enjoyable, focused season of Voyager.

Voyager wandered aimlessly for three years, then season 4 came along and things came into sharper focus. Seven gave the show a much needed shot in the arm. But it was a double-edged sword.

Seven basically completed her character growth after season 4 and the show went back to status quo again. And now the show was permanently fixed as the Seven/Janeway/Doctor show. Neelix, Kim, Tuvok, and Chakotay became ciphers while Paris and Torres shared a very awkward romance that only gained traction in the final season.

Scorpion was great, but that storyline should have gone on longer. I remember catching a promo for Part 2 that was all about Seven, and thinking "If they're using an entire episode just to introduce a new Borg character, that must mean we're in for a long, exciting Borg/8472 arc!"


And then, not.

The Gift
As I mentioned before, Voyager could barely handle writing for nine characters. So, with the addition of Jeri Ryan to the cast, that means someone had to go. And, per usual, Voyager handles it with all the grace of a bull in a China shop.

The crew has been busy removing the Borg technology from Voyager, excepting a few regeneration alcoves for Seven. The ship is even depicted with the special Borg torpedo launchers from the last episode, in a fucking rare instance of changes to the ship's appearance sticking around for another episode.

Seven, of course, is pissed that she can't hear the collective. As her immune system reasserts itself, however, she is forced into sickbay, though she certainly puts up a fuss about it, screaming "WE ARE BORG" over and over. Janeway ignores her demands to be returned to the collective or left on a planet with a transceiver that would allow her to contact the collective. Janeway basically treats her as having been brainwashed, though, and orders the Doctor to go ahead and start removing the Borg systems.

However, Seven starts going into shock - one of the implants is pressing against a nerve in her brain. Kes seems to be able to see the implant though, and is even able to telekinetically destroy it. The Doctor scans her and realizes her brain is in a hyperactive state, much like it was when Species 8472 was trying to convince her to purchase 0NL!NE DRUG$ FR0M TRUTSED PHARMASY!!!!#@. Kes tells him that they're nowhere to be found, though - it's happening on its own this time.

So, with Kes rapidly turning into Gary Mitchell, Janeway and Chuckles decide their time would be better spent trying to figure out how to remove more of the Borg parts and 'struggle' with the decision on keeping Seven around. Of course, there is no real struggle here - Janeway could say that they're going to fire Seven out of a torpedo tube in order to destroy a wormhole that leads directly to Earth and Chakotay would just nod and continue to be stuck in the Friend Zone.

Tuvok and Kes wander off to go meditate about whether she plans to kill James R. Kirk with a rock, and the Doctor shows off the new eye he's made for Seven. Remember Seven? SEVEN OF NINE! THIS EPISODE IS ABOUT SEVEN OF NINE, DO YOU UNDERSTAND?

Seven is not amused with what's happened to her, as the Doctor has drastically reduced the amount of Borg technology in her system. She misses the Collective most of all, though, so Janeway consoles her by saying she's part of a human collective. I'm calling bullshit - it's a circus that bows to your crazy whims, Janeway.

Janeway then whisks Seven off to Engineering to help Torres and Harry with repairs. Harry looks like he needs a notebook to hide his crotch with like he's in fucking middle school, and Torres can barely hide her disgust.

Meanwhile, in Kes' quarters, she and Tuvok meditate. She soon sees 'beyond the subatomic' and is able to drastically alter the properties of not only a candle, but the candlestick and table as well. Tuvok seems astonished, apparently having forgotten that he's witnessed basically all of this before when Kes burnt his fucking face off.

Anyway, Torres sends Kim and Seven off into a Jeffries Tube to try to remove some Borg technology. Seven sees a Starfleet subspace communications circuit, and knocks Harry the fuck out. She then locks out access to the room and starts trying to call the Borg.

Tom pops up in the episode to inform Janeway that something terrible is occurring, but that's it. Kes then destabilizes the circuitry and shocks Seven into unconsciousness. They get in and take her to the brig.

There, Seven questions that if she is to be part of the human collective that values free choice, then shouldn't she be allowed to return to the Collective? Janeway claims that she can't make a rational choice herself yet because of the Borgs' influence over her, and Seven accuses her then of being just like the Borg.

In the Mess Hall, Kes and Neelix meet up to talk about her new powers. They seem like they're getting along pretty well after the breakup, and she even shows off her powers some. But Neelix ends up getting thrown across the room by them, and as she goes to help him, she falls to the ground herself.

Now, repeat the above two paragraphs, but with Kes in Sickbay trying to spend time with the Doctor. There, just saved you the next ten minutes of this episode. The result? Seven is better convinced this time, and Janeway goes to talk to Kes, who has decided to leave the ship.

And not a moment too soon, because she starts to glow, and is advancing onto some other BS frame of reference or something. Janeway rushes her off to a shuttle and she takes off, rushing towards the unknown. However, as a final gift, she accelerates Voyager 10,000 lightyears closer to home, pulling them out of Borg space (but yet, inexplicably, we'll see a lot more of them in the years ahead).

We go from some of Voyager's best to some of its worst. We get this hamfisted attempt to give Kes a proper send-off, but instead, they spend most of the episode focusing on Seven, rather than Kes, and let's be honest here, Jennifer Lien's already proven that she can do a pretty good job. So, they shove her out the door while Janeway plays counselor. Yeah, that's just what I wanted to see from what was set up to be Scorpion, Part III.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: 13/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 6
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7

Considering the producers wanted to kill the character off outright...yeah, the care for this plot shows.

And her appearance in season six (or seven, I don't remember) was even worse than this.

And out of curiosity, when the torpedoes run down to zero (and I'm sure they will), are you gonna start using negative numbers? Somehow, I'm more excited to see how that will be handled than I am about most of Voyager's plots.

Kes should have used her new powers to grow herself a bigger set of tits. Then the U P N !! folks would have kept her on and dumped Harry Kim or Hedgehog.

I note once again that the final moments of The Gift are an unmitigated, outright theft of the climax of the season one Babylon 5 episode "Mind War." No two ways about it.

Q I think.

Further beating a dead hadrosaur to death, as it were, this TOS novel seems to have accomplished what "Distant Origin" epically failed at doing.

I've never read this TOS book but it looks promising

It's what DO should've been.

Anyone here read this TOS book

Day of Honor
Seven of Nine's getting bored and lonely chilling in the cargo bay all day, so she calls up Chakotay and asks him for a duty assignment. He seems oddly bemused by the prospect, so he asks her what she had in mind. She wants to work in Engineering, to possibly integrate transwarp technology into Voyager's systems.

Meanwhile, in Engineering, Torres is having a bad day. She was late for work and her sonic shower didn't work right, and Vorik is busy almost exploding some plasma conduits. So naturally, this gives her license to act like an utter bitch to everyone she encounters. This includes Tom Paris, who shows up to ask her if the date they had planned for that night was still on. She bites his head off and tells him no. He then asks about whether she was planning to complete the Klingon Day of Honor, and she tells him that it's the last thing she wants to do. Tom says "Fuck it" (oh, if only) and leaves.

Chakotay then walks in and hands Seven off to Torres. Torres balks, but Chakotay tells her to shut the fuck up and do her job. If only Chakotay had the balls to not be Janeway's little lap dog, perhaps he might have been an interesting character.

Janeway ends up having one of her Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants moments with Seven, telling her to just follow Torres' orders and tries to get her to go by her human name. Seven blanches, but before the discussion can continue, Tuvok calls her out to the bridge.

A race called the Caatati have hailed Voyager, asking for help with some supplies and medications - their race had been decimated by the Borg, and all that was left of them were a few dozen ships worth of people. He also makes a request for some sort of isotope that their equipment uses for power.

Seven then wanders down to Engineering, where in the space of minutes, word of the Caaaatati has already spread. Torres tosses out a remark questioning if Seven felt any remorse for having destroyed the race, and she coldly responds "No." Well, gee, Torres, do you have any remorse for the children of the Cardassians you murdered as a Maquis? I'm guessing the answer would be the same. At least Seven didn't have the ability to say no. After Seven mentions that the modifications to the deflector will be ready in a few hours, Torres kicks her out of Engineering.

But apparently Torres doesn't have any work to do either, as she wanders up to the mess hall. Neelix tries to give her some blood pie in celebration of the Day of Honor, but she turns him down. He points out that she pretty much walls herself off to everyone, and says that if she needs to, she can be as abusive as she wants to him. She notes the kindness and agrees to both the blood pie and the ritual. So she goes off to the Holodeck and starts getting beat up by holoKlingons (gee, what a surprise, you get beat up in a Klingon ritual), and she eventually just says "Fuck it" and leaves.

So naturally, as she's sulking in her quarters, Tom shows up and acts pretty high-and-mighty that she doesn't want to talk about her shitty day with him. He storms off. Note that this is the most inter-human conflict Voyager will probably ever see on the show, and it's all because Torres doesn't want to immediately hop into bed with the ship's bicycle.

Anyway, the Caaaaaaaatati representative beams aboard, and Janeway offers him what she can. He's pretty ungrateful though, and demands more. See Janeway, this is what happens when you donate to space bums. He tries to guilt-trip her, and fails miserably. He sulks off as well, heading back to his ship with the very generous amount of supplies Voyager could spare. But on his way to the transporter, escorted by Tuvok, he runs into Seven of Nine. He becomes hysterical, and Tuvok basically has to lead him away as he's screaming that she's a murderer. Tom witnesses the entire thing, and offers to be there for her if she needs anything. Fuck Tom, just because Torres doesn't want to jump you, you move on and try to add another woman to your sexual menagerie? This moment is perhaps one of the most evident points that Jeri Taylor wrote the episode - Tom's portrayed as a petulant teenager who doesn't really care who he fucks, so long as he's fucking. He doesn't give a shit about Torres' terrible day because it means he won't be getting any action.

Anyway, Seven goes to engineering and she and Torres fire up the modifications to the warp core. Something goes terribly wrong, though, and the core starts venting. For some reason, Tom is there, and he drags Torres out just before a warp core breach. Torres ejects the core, and comments that this is now the "worst day of her life." Oh please, every day of Geordi's life was worse than this.

Anyway, Tom and Torres go off to track down the core. But as they approach it, the Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatati show up, and proceed to shoot the shuttle out of the sky in defense of their 'salvage rights'. The structural integrity lost, Tom and Torres beam off in some environmental suits just before the shuttle explodes. Two shuttles lost in as many episodes? Sloppy form, Voyager.

This is where the episode actually starts to get decent, though. It was obvious that the director knew what he was doing, because he managed to make floating in space feel claustrophobic. Even in the long shots where we see Tom and Torres floating there, the dim stars barely stand out against the unrelenting void. And in the shots where Tom and Torres interact, he uses almost uncomfortable close-ups. Unusually fine craftsmanship for Voyager.

Back to business, though. Tom's suit starts leaking oxygen, so Torres shares some with him. However, her suit must be leaking too, as they have about 30 minutes of oxygen left between them.

Meanwhile, Voyager's discovered that Tom and Torres are missing, and the Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatati show up to bargain Voyager's warp core back to them in exchange for more supplies and Seven of Nine. Voyager could take one of their ships, but not the amassing fleet. Janeway stalls, says that she'll look into meeting their demands. Seven says that she'll beam over, the act likely placating them, but Janeway refuses. Seven mentions that she could probably create a device to generate the isotopes they need to power their ships, which would let them repair and regain their lost technology. Chuckles asks why she didn't come up with this before (like it's her job to deal with petulant space bums), and she mentions that giving away technology isn't exactly something the Borg often do.

Meanwhile, Tom and Torres talk about a bunch of stuff, and it's obvious that they do like each other. Torres regrets being a typical Klingon about things, but yet not being Klingon enough to actually admit it. In similar wishy-washy characterization, Tom is now being the careful listener. Is he a womanizer or a rom-com male foil? Make up your mind, Jeri.

Back on Voyager, Seven hands over the isotope generator to the Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatati representative, who gives an embarrassed thank-you to the converted Borg. So then Voyager warps off to retrieve Tom and Torres, just as they are running out of air. In their last few seconds of consciousness, Torres tells Tom that she loves him. He makes a typical Tom Paris Staring At The Viewscreen Quip, but they hold each other, just as Voyager appears behind them and beams them to safety.

Pointing out another excellent point - why the fuck didn't Janeway just send Tuvok out in a shuttle (they've got warp engines, you know) to pick them up while they spent some time figuring out a way to get their shit back from the space bums? Of course, this is a typical Trek complaint, not something Voyager-specific.

As much shit as I gave the episode, though, I kind of liked it. It was character-building, and better yet, character that would actually be used and referenced in future episodes, something TNG rarely pulled off with anyone other than Data. And the space scenes were shot masterfully. In a way, it's almost a shame that they couldn't have had one of DS9's writers go through and just rewrite some of the dialog of this episode, because that was really the only major failing. As such, my rating is tentative, and if y'all disagree with me completely, I might change it.

Rating: ***
Torpedoes remaining: 13/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 7
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 7