# of episodes
episode average
26
3.72
series Top 20
series Flop 20
3 episodes
0 episodes
EPISODE SUMMARY
5.1 Night
5.2 Drone
5.3 Extreme Risk
5.4 In the Flesh
5.5 Once Upon a Time
5.6 Timeless
5.7 Infinite Regress
5.8 Nothing Human
5.9 Thirty Days
5.10 Counterpoint
5.11 Latent Image
5.12 Bride of Chaotica!
5.13 Gravity
5.14 Bliss
5.15-5.16 Dark Frontier, I-II
5.17 The Disease
5.18 Course: Oblivion
5.19 The Fight
5.20 Think Tank
5.21 Juggernaut
5.22 Someone to Watch
Over Me
5.23 11:59
5.24 Relativity
5.25 Warhead
MUST-SEE
5.1 NIGHT
Voyager crosses a vast region devoid of any stars, while Janeway falls into a deep depression for still not having brought her crew home.
A sobering and thoughtful reflection on the crew’s journey in an original scenario. Janeway makes peace with the past when given a choice similar to the Caretaker dilemma that stranded the ship four years prior. As Tuvok and Chakotay observe, guilt has been her “constant companion,” and no doubt has played a major role in her motivation to get the crew home. Even though protecting the Ocampa may be the Starfleet thing to do, the weight of that choice rests squarely on the shoulders of the woman who had to make that call, and whose duty it was to ensure that the Starfleet thing did in fact get done. Many past episodes explored this burden, and others still will in the future, including the excellent S5-S6 cliffhanger “Equinox.”
​
But “Night” is one of a kind when it comes to representing the psychological and moral solitude of Voyager’s predicament, thanks to the quiet beauty of its script and direction. The artifice of the Void clearly symbolizes this journey as a whole, and the Malon vortex the renewal of hope. Although the psychological effects of crossing the Void on the crew may seem exaggerated for dramatic effect (from Kim’s and Tuvok’s boredom to Neelix’s panic attacks), we should see them as a stand-in for four years of toiling, suffering, growing, and wondering whether they will ever make it home. No other episode captures the spirit and the character of this crew, which Janeway once described as “very lonely people” in S1.
​
The plot itself is good, as Voyager are cast as classic defenders of the weak from the bullies. In upcoming seasons, the Malon would become an environmentalist cautionary tale against capitalistic abuses, but for now they’re just baddies who disregard the well-being of other species. Not that this means that this episode is trite or stereotypical: if anything, it means that it manages to be classic science-fiction without resorting to the usual tropes, so it feels fresh and intriguing.
​
As a side note, many scenes in this script seem to resonate particularly well with non-neurotypical people as vivid depictions of what depression feels like, which is hard to do on an action-oriented show. I find that the crew as a whole suffers from the effects of depression, which are much more varied than sadness. Depression often comes out through anxiety (Neelix), existential boredom (Tuvok), creative expression (Kim), angst and conflict (Torres and Paris), hyper-fixation on regular schedules (Seven & Chakotay), and of course self-chastising isolation (Janeway). I’m not saying that the episode is about this, but it’s a great asset that it can be about this and that it seems to make a cogent commentary in this direction.
​
Captain Proton #1: Chaotica unleashes Satan’s Robot on Earth!
MUST-SEE
5.2 DRONE
A transporter accident fuses some of Seven's nanoprobes with the Doctor's mobile emitter, creating a 29th-century Borg drone.
The instinctive reaction to this episode is usually that it has been done before. The plot is always the same: an alien, robot, or other non-human “Other” is introduced, bonds with a crewmember, and then dies or leaves. This trope supposedly depicts a familial side of an otherwise militaristic setting, and it has the added “benefit” of reinforcing ST’s neocolonial narrative of cultural assimilation: as the Other cannot quite be brought into the fold, it is punished by dying, leaving, writing off, etc. This episode checks all these boxes, and it’s neither new nor the best of its kind (TNG’s masterpiece “The Offspring” still holds that title).
​
Nevertheless, there is a lot to like here. For one, it’s a perfect next step in Seven’s journey. Now that she has accepted her humanity, she can test it by developing a strong bond with another person, and a fellow outcast who is also Borg is an ideal candidate. (Incidentally, this plot will be replicated with decent success in S6 with the Borg juveniles arc, for which this episode is basically a dress rehearsal). This is a big step for her. I’m glad that the script steers clear of facile stereotypes, such as Seven becoming too eager, inadvertently harming her ward, etc. Instead, she suffers the first major loss of her new life as a human being. This is the first time that the loss of a life bothers her, after killing thousands as a drone. The parallel between the opening, when she practices her smile in the mirror, and the ending, when she’s unable to smile anymore, hits like a freight train; and the concluding act in general is a gut-punch of excellent dramatic quality.
​
This is due in no small part to the character of One himself. The archetypal Other in these episodes is often an ableist caricature of a developmentally challenged individual, and while there are some scenes where One is endearing thanks to his naivete, those are quickly dispensed when he acknowledges that he is a superior being and one of a kind. This is when Janeway’s order to “teach him our values,” which initially made even me yell “what the hell is this bleeding-heart nonsense?” at the TV, is actually validated. Imagine One gaining full cognizance of his nature as a 29th-century Borg, fascinated by what Seven calls the “lure of perfection,” and lacking the moral compass to reject it in favor of his shipmates on Voyager. And while, as I said in the introduction, this entire narrative is eerily neocolonial, it’s also extremely effective from a dramatic standpoint, and ultimately it works.
​
Fun fact: Bohmer (One) also plays Torres’ Nazi lover in the WWII holo-program. He does not also play Mulcahey, whose DNA One grows out of... as that would imply that the holodeck based a Nazi character on the likeness of a real crewmember!
​
Doctor Isn’t #8: “I’m a Doctor, not a Peeping Tom!”
MUST-SEE
5.3 EXTREME RISK
Torres seems to be self-harming on the holodeck, while Paris builds a new shuttle to beat the Malon to a space race.
The episode’s worst problem is that it argues that one can snap out of depression, a view that is popular, intuitive... and false. However, it’s also a rare entry in ST to not mock or mischaracterize mental illness. Some aspects of unipolar depression are rendered accurately, such as emotional numbness as a coping mechanism for trauma (“I’m not trying to kill myself: I’m trying to see if I’m still alive!”... that’s so real, sister). There are problems, too, like the simplistic cause-and-effect relation between trauma and trauma response and the trope of self-harm as a necessary component of depression. But although some mechanics are oversimplified, the narrative core is that Torres’ feelings are valid, that her experience is justifiable and (to some extent) normal, and that her distress is also the rightful concern of her loved ones. These are all good steps in the right direction.
​
Another common criticism is that the secondary plot with the Malon freighter and the probe is irrelevant to the Torres story and justified merely by the need for the script to be sufficiently science-fiction-y, as if a sci-fi show were unable to tackle serious topics in isolation. I disagree with both objections. First, this is one of the better technobabble-driven secondary plots in VOY. It’s connected to recent lore, as it helps establish the Malon as this season’s primary baddies; it introduces the Delta Flyer, although its construction is far too rushed and may have deserved its own episode; and it blends in with Torres’ plot in interesting (although imperfect) ways. Interesting because it’s the danger of the mission that motivates her to join in the first place, and imperfect because it provides her with the opportunity to “snap out of it,” which as previously mentioned is a crude way of approaching depression. (For that matter, the whole Chakotay scene on the holodeck, while satisfying to watch, is really really REALLY the wrong way to go about this).
​
Also on the plus side, for the second time after “Night,” mental illness is shown as affecting not only an individual, but a community. While more individualistically-minded audiences may take issue with this, and argue that mental illness should be a personal issue by definition, I think it’d be a mistake to ignore its social and collective repercussions. Not because sick people are a bother, but because no-one gets sick (or better) entirely by themselves. To an extent, Torres’ depression results from social and environmental factors on Voyager, so it makes sense that several characters --- Chakotay, Paris, Janeway, Neelix --- would become involved in its resolution. Again, none of this is analyzed in-depth, and some of it definitely oversimplified for dramatic effect, but the bar for adequate depictions of mental illness on TV is so low that even this script clears it room to spare.
MUST-SEE
5.4 IN THE FLESH
The crew investigate an alien facility that may be serving as training grounds to invade the Alpha Quadrant.
The final appearance of Species 8472 feels more like an afterthought than a bona fide continuation of their story arc. Effectively, their role was exhausted when they were repelled into fluidic space, and both of their other appearances, here as well as in S4’s “Prey,” fed off that story. However, both are very good and consistent with “Scorpion’s” characterization of 8472, so narrative conservatives who whine at every retcon will be satisfied. This one is 8472’s best role yet. Alien species in ST are often depicted as monocultural and used as placeholders for a human trait or ideology. For example, the Borg were basic space Nazis for most of TNG, until VOY gave them depth via Seven and especially in S7. Here we see a small-scale retelling of the same story, as 8472 transcend the mean-alien stereotype and are shown as autonomous individuals with goals, disagreements, and a culture.
​
The script does a terrific job at outlining some of these cultural ideals. They’re not a violent species, they believe humans pose a grave threat, and they’re preparing to repel that threat. Exactly the same can be said about humans, who find it hard to look beyond 8472’s threat and who must take a leap of faith to trust them. The focus on Janeway is again well-placed, as she struggles with the fine line between diplomacy and self-defense, and eventually settles on the former. In “Scorpion,” she was the first to pull the trigger, and here she’s the one who refuses to do so. It’s an interesting parallel between the origin of the hostilities and their resolution.
​
I like, too, that Chakotay’s reconnaissance is not so much tactical as a window to the soul of 8472, which later opens the possibility of diplomacy between Janeway and “Boothby.” While the episode is not very metaphysical, there is an interesting discourse of “embodiment” as the only way to truly understand another species. This is a trope that VOY uses repeatedly in the historical testimony episodes, but that is also present here to a simpler extent.
SERIES TOP 20
5.5 ONCE UPON A TIME
Neelix tries to distract Naomi Wildman as her mother is stranded on an alien planet.
This is my favorite episode of all of Star Trek: Voyager, which isn’t to say that it is the best, because objectively it isn’t. However, it’s the one that in my opinion best captures the spirit of the series: the construction of a moral collective centered on wellbeing. The emphasis on Naomi depicts a ship where even the youngest, least influential crewmember isn’t left behind, where the captain takes time in the midst of a crisis to counsel the “morale officer” on how to be a good godfather to a child. This sentiment, I believe, came through well enough during the show’s second and first seasons, but was somewhat lost in plot-heavier S3-S4, so it’s good to see it.
​
Sometimes, VOY has a bad habit of adding a secondary plot arc that’s completely irrelevant to the main one, often to make the show more distinctly science-fiction than it would be otherwise. Thankfully that’s not the case in this script. The crash of the Delta Flyer is exactly what this story needs: a routine crisis given what this crew has endured, but that looks like the worst thing ever to a child who may well lose her mother. And while I concur with some critics that the episode would have worked well without it (e.g., if the plot focused exclusively on Naomi and we saw but a glimpse of the mission, as in the movie Signs, for example), I think it works better with it. I don’t comment on the rumors that early drafts may have been less conventional and were edulcorated by the showrunners. I try to ignore what goes on behind the scenes. With few exceptions, I prefer to enjoy art outside of context, and this is definitely the case with ST, so I try to review only what I see.
​
Other than the aforementioned emphasis on the moral community, I’m especially fond of how this episode portrays Naomi. Child characters in sci-fi usually fall into a handful of tired tropes, from the helpless victim to the creepy alien, and VOY had its share of both. But Naomi is delightful. She behaves believably for a precocious preteen, rational and brave one minute, scared and moody the next. The holodeck adventure with Flotter helps in this regard, as it is designed to showcase Naomi’s sensibility and sensitivity. While I usually despise these cirque-inspired fantasies, such as in S2’s “The Thaw” or in TNG’s “The Quality of Life,” this one is apropos and actually instrumental to the plot. Naomi works well also because she’s taken seriously by the crew and not written off merely as a child. It helps, too, that she’s played by an exceptional Scarlett Pomers, who’d return to the show a whopping 17 times, more than any other guest star in VOY’s run. As I’ve mentioned before, ST has a knack for picking the worst child actors, probably since the good ones are expensive to hire, but Pomers was a lucky exception.
In conclusion, I think that this episode is an absolute slam-dunk on all levels. It’s heartbreaking but without tugging needlessly at the heartstrings like a Hallmark movie could. It’s sophisticated and intelligent, but without losing sight of its main emotional and psychological objective. Moreover, it contains my favorite line in all VOY. When Samantha fears that Naomi will be orphaned, Tuvok says: “You should not concern yourself with that now. My youngest child has been without a father for four years. Yet I am certain of her well-being; that I conveyed my values to her before leaving, and I have confidence in the integrity of those around her. You have been an exemplary mother to Naomi and she is in the hands of people you trust. She will survive, and prosper, no matter what becomes of us.” Absolutely perfect.
MUST-SEE
5.6 TIMELESS
15 years into the future, Kim and Chakotay try to change history to undo a mistake that killed the Voyager crew during a test flight.
An outstanding time-travel adventure with excellent drama but a hole-ridden plot that makes it fall short of greatness. I’ll start with the bad. This is the show’s most outrageous they-could-get-home moment. Voyager travels almost the whole way home, but the slipstream drive collapses and they crash and die “a few parsecs from the Alpha Quadrant,” according to Paris. Instead, the Delta Flyer with Kim and Chakotay makes it back. There are a ton of problems with this.
​
First, Voyager travels 60,000 light-years in 2-3 minutes at slipstream speeds. That is hard to believe, unless they basically reinvented Paris’ warp-10 technology from S2’s “Threshold.” While I’m aware that a show full of space magic doesn’t exactly prioritize realism, it must remain internally consistent, and this technology is not. Second, even if slipstream were possible, its functioning is unclear. In the original timeline, Voyager is knocked out of the stream when it’s almost home (say, 55k LY), but then in the alternate timeline, when Kim’s phase corrections collapse the stream safely, the flight takes “ten years off” their journey, or about 10k LY... and yet that flight lasted a mere few seconds less than the original one where the ship traveled 55k LY... so the geography makes absolutely no sense. Third, how does the Flyer travel at slipstream speeds? In the original timeline, Kim and Chakotay go all the way home because they can’t stop after Voyager has been knocked out of the stream, although surely they must have eventually, as they do reach Earth. In the alternate timeline, when Voyager exits the stream safely, so does the Flyer. So did the stream depend on safe activation from Voyager? Then the Flyer should have exited it safely in the original timeline, too. Did it not? Then the Flyer should have continued its flight home in the alternate timeline, too. Did the Flyer have its own slipstream drive? Then they could have gone back for Voyager immediately instead of 15 years later. However you cut it, it’s bad. Fourth, and this is the worst one, when Voyager exits the stream safely in the revised timeline, they still have Harry’s phase corrections, which they know will collapse a stream safely! So they could simply do five more short flights, exit each of them safely, and be home in a jiffy. Instead, Janeway has the drive taken offline as it “deserves further study.” WHAT?! From a standpoint of continuity, the episode is a clusterfuck replete with crater-wide plot holes that any writer should know how to fix and avoid. Shame.
​
Despite all that, I still give this episode a high rating due to its dramatic qualities. It relies on two very Trek tropes: the struggle against the inevitability of destiny and the responsibility of contributing positively to the collectively. As the greenest soul on board, Kim is a natural candidate for this drama, and I’m so glad that he was given this episode instead of, say, Janeway. Kim is also perfect because his main goals are to be taken seriously and to make a name for himself, so having killed his shipmates weighs down that much more heavily on him than it would on any other crewmember. The transition between innocent-Harry and weathered-Harry whose hair is turning prematurely grey is all the more jarring, which works great. The time paradox is also excellent and highly inventive. In a stunt reminiscent of Picard communicating with 400 years in the future through Data’s head in TNG’s Time’s Arrow, Kim communicates with his past self via Seven’s Borg technology. Here, too, I have a minor gripe, though: if he could send such a complex message as a set of phase corrections, wouldn’t it have been easier to send a much simpler message (“hey this is ya boy H-Kim from the future, don't do this or y’all are dead, bye”) to an even earlier point in the original timeline? Overall, this is a fun episode that works great on a dramatic level but whose internal logic and consistency are severely flawed by even the most permissive suspension-of-disbelief standards. Too bad, because with a better-grounded story this could have been a classic.
​
Fun fact: second guest appearance by a TNG regular: first Riker in S3’s “Death Wish” and now La Forge. Troi will follow in S6-S7.
​
They Could Get Home: I mean, obviously.
WORTH WATCHING
5.7 INFINITE REGRESS
Proximity to a destroyed Borg cube awakens in Seven the echoes of thousands of people she helped assimilate.
A decent Seven-centered episode that makes a half-hearted attempt to deal with her guilt for murdering thousands in her Borg era, although the script should have focused more on the psychology and ethics and less on the technobabble. In turn, this would have helped it stay away from obtuse lines like “the Borg equivalent of multiple-personality disorder.” Hollywood’s MPD fetish is infamous, and rarely is this condition portrayed accurately. That’s not to say that the drama isn’t valid: for example, “The Field Where I Died” is guilty of all the same stereotypes but is one of the best episodes of The X-Files.
This episode is a lot more formulaic, without any of the artistry, and unfortunately that formula is lacking. Much like in TNG’s underrated “Masks,” the personalities that emerge contribute to telling a story, in this case the tragedy of assimilation; but while in “Masks” they embodied cultural aspects of a long-dead species as a vehicle of anthropological safekeeping, here they come and go for dramatic effect with little reason or rhyme. The Ferengi is funny; the Klingon is scary, the little girl who wants to play with Naomi is cute; the woman who lost her son at Wolf 359 is heartbreaking. But all of it is episodic and there’s no true reckoning for Seven, nor any serious examination of the morality of her past actions. Instead, the emphasis is misplaced on two erroneous fronts. The first is Seven’s medical condition. While there’s a lot of attention on her suffering, this is merely a medical problem and an inconvenience to be fixed, and isn’t really an embodiment of the suffering caused by the souls of the dead who are haunting her (which is a common and intriguing interpretation of this script). In a sense, Seven “hears” the voices but doesn’t even bother to “listen” to them.
​
The other, and related, problem is the alien subplot, which once more plays very little role in the main plot and seems to exist solely to give the show a more clearly sci-fi feeling. The upside is that this subplot is actually creative. The conception of a species who intentionally infect the Borg with a technological virus is very cool, and will become relevant for one of the major plot twists of S6. I’m also not crazy about the fact that Tuvok has to save the day once again thanks to a mind meld. Remember how mind melds were a big deal in TOS, TNG, and DS9, where we but saw a very few and only when it really mattered? Well, by my count this is already the sixth on VOY: three with Kes, one with Janeway, one with an Suder, and now this. I don’t exactly blame Doc for calling it “Vulcan mumbo-jumbo”...
​
Overall, the episode isn’t bad. It’s heartfelt and at times beautiful, and showcases Ryan’s excellent acting range like never before. But deep down, it says very little.
WORTH WATCHING
5.8 NOTHING HUMAN
When an alien parasite attaches to Torres, Doc resorts to the medical knowledge of a Cardassian war criminal to treat her.
One would think that after S2’s infamous “Tuvix,” the showrunners had learned a valuable lesson: don’t back yourself into a narrative corner. Yet Taylor’s script has the same problems as Biller’s, in that the moral dilemma is framed so well that the only reasonable way out is to let a series regular die... which can’t happen, surely, and so the eventual resolution is necessarily rushed, contrived, and unjustifiable.
​
The setup of the problem is indeed excellent. Should we use medical knowledge that we know is derived from torture? If we do, we validate torture and possibly incite more (as Tuvok says) and disrespect the memory of the dead (Tabor and Torres); if we don’t, we let the victims’ suffering go to waste (Moset) and let die a person we could easily save (Doc). These sides are depicted lucidly, and there are others, too. First, the beneficiary of this knowledge is a Maquis, who, while not a Bajoran like most of Moset’s victims, was fighting on the Bajorans’ side. This can either support the case for not using the knowledge (for Torres would betray the Bajoran victims, as she argues) or the case for using it (for the knowledge would give something back to the people whom Moset harmed to attain it). Second, and even more importantly, to some extent all human medical knowledge derives from immoral practices, as Moset says. In fact, sans few exceptions in the last century, most human experiments were performed on nonconsenting and disenfranchised victims, ranging from Jews in concentration camps to undesirables and heretics in medieval times. So the line between acceptable and unacceptable must be drawn arbitrarily (which of course doesn’t mean any one line is as good as any other, but simply that arguments for each line are to be compared and contrasted).
​
And it is this, ultimately, that the episode fails at. The crew had two choices. (1) To not use Moset’s knowledge and let Torres die, taking a moral stand; or (2) to use the knowledge and feel guilty, knowing their morals could be compromised when the price to pay for them is too high. The former case would reek of what today is called “living room activism,” a virtue-signaling action that makes us feel better but without having any real consequences on the world. The latter case, instead, would have called for a reflection on what the appropriate threshold should be for holding and justifying one’s beliefs. What the script chooses to do, instead, is to use Moset’s knowledge and then punish his hologram by berating and deleting him. This is a huge cop-out. It says “I used the knowledge you got from torturing Bajorans, and damn you for torturing them and for putting me in the condition of having to use this knowledge, shame on you, begone bad man!” That’s cowardly and doesn’t even begin to address the core ethical issue. Similarly, Janeway once again imposes a choice on a nonconsenting crewmember, as in “Tuvix,” and this is not addressed except through that “demons in the air” quip. Another cop-out.
​
A braver script would have dedicated at least 2-3 minutes to taking a good look at the limits of one’s moral justification. Moset is right: our ethics fly out the window when they become burdensome. But is that bad? Is that not the sign of a species who is sensitive to both principle and circumstance, and adapts accordingly? How should we draw that line and who should we listen to? Let’s talk about it for more than a few seconds! Instead, we get a couple of platitudes, some Klingon attitude, Doc’s holographic indignation, and end credits. Too bad. A wasted opportunity.
SKIPPABLE
5.9 THIRTY DAYS
Paris is demoted to ensign and locked in the brig for a month after trying to break the Prime Directive despite Janeway's orders.
A distinctly average episode that gets nothing majorly wrong, but also that doesn’t excel at anything in particular. I’m so tired of Daddy issues in Western storytelling. On very rare occasions they can be done right, but Paris’ are banal and boring. So your dad is a famous admiral and you could never live up to his expectations. How original! Tell me more! And, by all means, let that be the main motive for virtually all of your interactions on this ship! Puh-leeease. Many episodes could have been good, or at least better, without the authors’ insistence on this issue; this is one of those. Let’s be clear, though: the rest of the script isn’t that amazing, either. It digs deep into familiar Prime Directive territory through a dilemma that’s neither novel nor interesting; and for that matter, neither is the action. What this episode does well is present a highly original setting based on an amazing premise: an ancient civilization who coalesced their planet’s oceans into a water ball in space. That’s so cool!... and so disappointing when it turns into a pseudo-environmentalist save-the-oceans fest. Not that I disagree with the sentiment, and if anything I wish that it had received legitimate attention.
​
Captain Proton #2: the evil twins!
​
Harry Falls for the Wrong Woman #3: Hologram, Borg, and now the wrong twin.
SERIES TOP 20
5.10 COUNTERPOINT
Voyager pass through Devore space, a fascist empire who persecute all telepathic species.
A masterpiece political thriller with outstanding performances and a tight-paced, original plot that promises a lot and delivers in troves. While the setting may seem to be your garden-variety “space Nazis” with a random bone to pick, in this case against telepaths, instead of open confrontation the script opts to create a battle of wills, a clash of titans between the ever-resourceful and cunning Janeway and one of the toughest villains we have seen on ST, Kashyk. Each plot twist is more unexpected than the one before it, and yet the plot progression feels linear and not at all stilted. That’s a big ask in thrillers, which risk adding too much meat to the grill and undercook it all. Indeed, every scene flows naturally, even the cold open, which is a small masterclass in show-don’t-tell.
​
I especially love how evenly matched Janeway and Kashyk are. Normally, villains are so one-dimensional that they can be outsmarted with one simple moment of thinking-outside-the-box, as the lack of cunning and guile is their primary hubris. But Kashyk is so convincing that the audience does (or at least should) believe that he has deceived Janeway... only to learn in the very final moment that she has subtly let him believe that he was winning, and even fronted as a romantic interest, while in fact she was playing him like a Vulcan harp. It’s hard to say at what point Janeway decided that he was untrustworthy and that she needed a plan B, but it was probably the moment that he came on board: as she herself says, she cannot trust him, “not for a minute.”
​
If anything, if there’s one downside to this episode is that Janeway’s big plan rests on assuming that the Devore won’t report Voyager because they don’t want to be embarrassed with their superiors. The plan is wholly self-sacrificial and leaves her crew at the complete mercy of an overpowering enemy. While no doubt that’s the Starfleet thing to do (rescue the weak, no matter the harm to oneself), it may have been even better if she had included some failsafe. E.g., they may have uploaded fabricated evidence implicating that Kashyk may be a telepath sympathizer to the sensor array that would be transmitted to the Devore Imperium unless Voyager is let go; since the mere suspicion would be enough to ruin his career, he would have had no choice but to comply. But in the final analysis, these are small details. If a plot hole can be fixed with literally one line of dialogue, it was never a real threat. Overall, a terrific episode and one of Janeway’s high points as a captain.
​
Fun fact: the pieces chosen to illustrate the titular counterpoint, Mahler’s First and Tchaikovsky’s Fourth, really are excellent examples of contrapuntal melodies!
SERIES TOP 20
5.11 LATENT IMAGE
Doc realizes that he may be missing memories related to the death of a crewmember he doesn't even recall.
A highly creative premise developed into an eerie and fun rabbit-hole story that also analyzes a philosophical issue in good depth. The starting point seems like something we’ve seen before: something happened to the crew that they cannot remember, and they must try to figure it out. TNG’s “Clues” is a perfect example of how captivating these episodes can be, as the audience, to paraphrase Picard, can’t resist a mystery. This mystery is compounded by Doc swimming upstream against the crew, and fortunately Janeway is not depicted as an out-of-character cardboard villain-for-a-day just to give him a foil. Instead, everyone here, including the captain, have legitimate motives and act logically based on them.
​
The first half of the episode is dedicated to the discovery of Ensign Jetal and the circumstances surrounding her death, which already makes for an entertaining whodunit. But then the script takes a hard-left turn with Doc’s madness subplot. I LOVE that this is not yet another “malfunctioning hologram” trope (e.g., a la S2’s “Projections” or S3’s “Darkling”), but that Doc suffers from a problem that could plague any sentient being. Indeed, it’s a problem that does plague all of us from time to time. In my epistemology classes I teach that if we stopped to ponder the philosophical underpinnings of every decision in our lives, we’d be stuck in a self-referential loop and suffer epistemic paralysis. Thankfully, as Scottish philosopher David Hume says, “Nature” endows us with an instinctive way out: get drunk and forget about it! (at which Hume excelled). Doc lacks this instinct, and so becomes stuck, and what happens is a fascinating depiction of that epistemic paralysis.
​
Janeway’s eventual solution is also perfectly in line with this, as her way out is to simply allow Doc to process his predicament and find his way through it. There is no technobabble constraint on this, such as “if we let him do that, his holo-matrix will destabilize” or whatever. Instead, he is simply allowed to get through it, with a little help from his friends, as it were. This is the spirit of Seven’s wake-up call, as she reminds Janeway that she owes this to him if she truly considers him to be a full individual. That conversation highlights a running problem in all of ST, namely that such an advanced civilization would have long solved the AI sentience issue. It’s absurd, in the late 24th-century, for a scientist as erudite as Janeway to still say that a sentient hologram is more like a replicator than like humans! Of course, that part is amped up in the script in order to illustrate her reversal and decision to treat Doc as she would any human. I also like that this serves as a do-over of sorts for the controversial ethical choices that she’s made for others over the years: she killed Tuvix, forced Torres to heal against her wishes, forcibly turned Seven into a human being, etc. Here she changes her mind, which is a good bit of char-dev.
​
I do take issue with one small detail. I find it dubious that the crew would be able and willing to erase Jetal as well as they do. The amount of work to eliminate all traces of a person who has lived on board for three years is incredible, and likely there would still be gaps. Not only that, but it is difficult to imagine nobody even speaking about her for 18 months. One would think that memorials for colleagues and friends who have passed would be fairly common on such a tight-knit ship, so it would take an enormous amount of discipline on everyone’s part to get it done. Again, this is a relatively small detail, but it does bug me.
SKIPPABLE
5.12 BRIDE OF CHAOTICA!
A species of photonic beings mistake the Capt. Proton holodeck program for reality.
Stuck-in-the-holodeck stories are so trite that it’s virtually impossible to come up with anything new in this trope, and this episode is no exception. The union with a first-contact story does little to alleviate the boredom, and if anything compounds it, as both plot arcs are criminally under-analyzed. The idea of photonic life-forms deserves more attention, especially given VOY’s interest in holographic rights, but here it’s a throwaway story whose characters are completely irrelevant to the plot and to the characters. It’s also disappointing that though Doc is photonic, that fact only receives marginal attention and there is no discussion of anything interesting.
On the brighter side, I love the Captain Proton setting, and this further installment of the story is quite funny. The gags aren’t trivial and actually make me smile, and Janeway’s role as Arachnia is an instant classic. It’s definitely among my favorite seasonal holodeck scenarios that we see in the show: Chez Sandrine (S1), Lord Burleigh’s mansion (S2), the Paxau resort (S3), Da Vinci’s workshop (S4), and Fair Haven (S6); and unlike most of the others, this actually helps along with a character’s development. But none of this is enough to lift this episode above a decidedly mediocre level.
​
Captain Proton #3: the queen of the Arachnid People!
WORTH WATCHING
5.13 GRAVITY
Tuvok, Paris, and Doc are stranded with an alien scavenger on a planet inside a gravity well, where time flows faster than on Voyager.
There is much to like in this episode, but also drawbacks that keep it from rising above its potential. The premise is fascinating, a page out of a novelette from the golden age of hard sci-fi: a planet where time flows faster. Yet this valid premise, which would get near-perfect treatment in S6’s “Blink of an Eye,” is quite under-developed here. For one, the events on the planet could happen in three months or three days with no substantial change to the characters or in the dialogue, so the time-flow differential isn’t instrumental to the char-dev plot. Second and related, it would have been exciting to use the differential more scenes than just at the end. Contact is only established in the final act, and a rescue is proposed and executed in minutes. That’s disappointing, because the rescue scene is so good, and the time-flow differential is such a promising plot device as the crew and the team struggle to synchronize their actions, so I hate that we get so little of this.
​
The Tuvok-Noss story is also a mixed bag. It’s great to see an actor of Petty’s skill, but Noss is just another incarnation of the space pixie trope, so Petty has little to do besides pining for an emotionally unavailable man... not exactly progressive screenwriting. And while Tuvok gets a nice boost with the portrayal of a restless younger self, his backstory is basically Spock’s too, so this is not breaking any new ground, either. Similarly, a discussion of the role of emotions in his life starts off well but falls flat. It’s never clear what sort of control he has over his feelings, and how and why he accepts some emotion-based attitudes (trust, appreciation, value, reciprocity) but not others (fear, anger, love, lust). This would have been a good occasion to discuss it, and a much more detailed confrontation with Noss may have mirrored his training with the Vulcan master in interesting ways. Alas, we get a few minutes’ worth of Paris basically trying to get Tuvok laid, and that is a story nobody wants to watch.
​
Doctor Isn’t #9: “I’m a Doctor, not a battery!”
WORTH WATCHING
5.14 BLISS
Voyager is ensnared by a large space-dwelling creature who is capable of deceiving minds and sensors... but Seven and Naomi are impervious.
This daring and original episode is highly enjoyable despite its shortcomings. The premise is fairly basic: something deceives the crew, but one is immune and they save the day. But the nature of the deception is new, as the crew believe they are about to return home, and since Seven and Naomi share no desire to return home, the deception doesn’t work on them. This sets up an interesting conundrum and a valid character-driven plot mechanic, which is important, as episodes that pit the crew against itself tend to be artificial and stilted. Here, instead, though surely we side with Seven and Naomi, the crew aren’t poorly-caricatured villains and remain believable throughout. The creature is interesting, too, as is the Ahab-like hunter who pursues it, as this too is a dynamic we haven’t seen before on the show. The resulting triad of Seven, Naomi, and the grumpy old alien makes for a fun time.
I take a little more issue with the specifics of the deception. Telepathy I buy: the creature’s psychogenic field projects elaborate hallucinations on organic minds. But sensors appear to be fooled as well, and the creature appears to generate a lot of extremely specific electronic content, such as letters from home. That level of deception seems far too high for a creature that, according to Doc’s scans, isn’t even sentient and operates on “highly evolved instinct.” I would have preferred it if there was very little physical evidence of the wormhole (fuzzy sensor readings, no letters from home, etc.) and the crew were oblivious to that fact, and so that was what made Seven suspicious in the first place. As it is, the script defies logic more than it should and more than it would have needed to in order to function. Still, the main focus rightfully remains on the adventure, and as an adventure the episode works very well. It’s fun, the action is valid, and the twists are unpredictable. And this is yet another good Seven/Naomi episode; thankfully, more will come.
​
Doctor Isn’t #10 and #11: “This is a sickbay, not an arsenal” and “I’m a doctor, not a dragon slayer.”
MUST-SEE
5.15-5.16 DARK FRONTIER, i-ii
Janeway plans to steal Borg tech, but Seven has concerns.
An excellent continuation of the Borg arc and the introduction of the Queen make this one of the show’s must-watch episodes, as well as a turning point in Seven’s personal progress. The premise is logical: the Borg are the sole reliable source of transwarp technology in the Quadrant, so it makes sense to try to steal it. For that matter, it’s surprising that it took the crew this long to get to this point. The upshot is that this plot can be combined with the other necessary plot of Seven’s desire to rejoin the Collective. Although it was teased often before, this is the first time she is seriously tempted to return. For that temptation to truly be effective, the stakes had to be raised, so who better than the Queen herself to embody the Collective’s wish to bring Seven’s unique individuality back into the fold? TNG’s second movie, First Contact, was released just two years prior and showcased ST’s most-beloved villain yet, the Borg Queen, so it would make sense for VOY to bring her back. And while Alice Krige does not reprise her role, Susanna Thompson does an excellent job portraying a subtle and eerie adversary.
​
Indeed, the final scene with Seven caught in a battle of wills between Janeway and the Queen is a milestone. In what other TV show do you see three complex female characters battle it out over a philosophical issue aboard heavily armed starships? This has to be a pinnacle for women’s representation in mainstream media, and I like to think that VOY did much to break down some barriers in this regard (as a famous writer once told me, the best way for sexist authors to begin writing convincing female characters is to write them as men... and then change the names at the last minute). But beyond all that, the scene is just good writing and peak Star Trek in general. The core of Seven’s narrative arc was always her struggle to reconcile the desire for perfection with the need for individuality, and nowhere is that best embodied than in this scene right here.
​
The episode also showcases the Hansens’ adventure well. Seven’s assessment of her logs, that they were reckless and irresponsible, is spot-on and we see it played out well in a series of entertaining and intelligently written flashbacks. However, I wish that it had been taken more seriously. Although Magnus Hansen is revealed to be still alive as a Borg drone, that has very marginal effect on Seven’s struggle. She could have screamed in his face, blaming​ him for a life stolen; she could have tried to rescue him; she could have used him as part of an argument to the Queen that she doesn’t want to go back to this; but instead, there is just one meager line (“papa?”) and nothing else. That’s a wasted opportunity.
​
The other major problem is that the episode does a piss-poor job at managing yet another powerful technology and the biggest leap toward home yet. Acquiring the transwarp coil is Part I’s main motivating factor, but it’s totally forgotten in favor of Seven’s rescue subplot in Part II. Only at the end do we learn, through a half-assed Captain’s Log, that: (a) the coil has been reintegrated into Voyager, (b) the coil did work and the crew are now 15 years closer to home, and (c) the coil somehow did not function past this threshold and is now inoperable. Okay, first of all, why does it “give out”? Nowhere in the script is it even hinted that this technology can “give out,” let alone so quickly. Perhaps it was damaged during the final confrontation, since the Delta Flyer did take a beating? Bug, again, there is no mention of this. Second, we missed out on a huge chunk of this crew’s emotional journey. They finally acquire their own high-speed tech, they try it, it works, their hopes are up, their spirits high... and then it “gives out,” so they’re disappointed and crestfallen, or at most they knew it was coming and are a little bummed out but oh-so-happy for having gotten closer, Neelix has a big party, etc. We don’t see any of that, and we’re supposed to just imagine it. Hell naw. That’s cheap as hell and I hate it.
​
They Could Get Home: yet another terrible job at acquiring and then mismanaging super-powerful alien tech for no goddamn reason.
SKIPPABLE
5.17 THE DISEASE
Kim pursues a romance with an engineer from an alien generational ship whose leaders frown on interspecies relations.
When will ST writers learn that they’re really bad at writing romance? Whenever a plot like this is attempted, it reads like a school play written by a fourteen-year-old acne-riddled Puritan boy. This script includes every. single. stereotype in the book: forbidden love, teenage angst, supposedly steamy sex scenes that actually would not raise an eyebrow in a church play... and the inevitable comparison of romantic love to a disease. The usual sci-fi dressing-up does help to an extent. The concept of the generational ship, which other media explored in detail (like Mass Effect or Battlestar Galactica, among others), is rendered fairly well through ingenious set design and visual effects... until one realizes they’re only enjoying the parts of the episode that have nothing to do with Harry and Tal, and as soon as the so-called main story is back, so is the cringe.
I really struggle to understand why it is so difficult to write convincing romance in such a fertile and stimulating setting. The script even hints at a fascinating moral and practical dilemma: interspecies intimate relations must be heavily regulated, as there is no telling what might happen. Books like, say, Sector General, make a point of analyzing this issue in great depth. But even in a TV format it’s possible to do so much more. For example, take ENT’s “Unexpected,” where Trip is typically cavalier about alien biology and he ends up pregnant! Silly as that episode was, it did a great job at discussing a dire need for interspecies socio-biological common ground. Alas, there’s very little of this in “The Disease”: the moment this issue is brought up, it’s quickly buried under a landslide of nonsensical and petty drama, like the ever-annoying mommy-issues rapport between Janeway and Kim. Add a silly ending where Kim decides to suffer unnecessarily to prove his true feelings (whatever the hell that means) and a couple of awkward conversations about love and sex with Seven of Nine, and you’ve got one annoying episode.
​
Harry Falls for the Wrong Woman #4: Hologram, Borg, the wrong twin, and now a girl from a xenophobic species.
SKIPPABLE
5.18 COURSE: OBLIVION
The crew realize that they may be duplicates of the original Voyager, created on a Demon-class planet.
I’m perplexed that this episode gets generally positive reviews. I hear it praised for being “daring” or ditching the traditional ST narrative mold, but: (1) experimental stories have to be good, and (2) there’s a reason why the mold exists at all, and if your experiment doesn’t so much ditch it as destroy it, it will fail.
​
My main gripe with this episode is that it demands a ton of emotional investment from the audience and then tosses it out the airlock once we realize that none of it is real. Take, for example, Paris and Torres’ wedding. It’s a beautiful moment, one that many in the audience were waiting for... and then it turns out to have never happened. So who was I just happy for? Besides, now that it was filmed, it won’t be filmed again for the real Tom and B’Elanna, so we’ve wasted a very important milestone in the relationship of two series regulars on a throwaway plot. Hardly an intelligent choice. But even more gravely, once it’s established that the entire crew is made of duplicates, any interest that we may have had in these people instantly dissipates. Why should I care about what happens to a crew that isn’t the crew of the show? There is literally no reason why I should.
And while the script tries to dress this up as a reflection on the nature of mortality, it fails abysmally. The episode’s second half tries to evolve into a classic “what-if.” Since it’s impossible to tell a story about how the actual crew would wrestle their demons as they approached certain death, perhaps we can see a story about how this crew approach certain death... a close-enough approximation. Except it’s not even close to being close-enough. Whatever these people feel, think, and say is by definition irrelevant because they’re not the crew. In this sense, Paris' take is the only one that makes sense. While some people praise this episode for asking hard philosophical questions, there are much more interesting and better discussed conundrums elsewhere in the show. The conceptual depth of this episode is to philosophy as inspirational quote books are to literature.
SKIPPABLE
5.19 THE FIGHT
Voyager is trapped in "chaotic space" with an alien species that are trying to communicate telepathically with Chakotay.
There is much to hate and a little to love in this weirdly enticing but ultimately odd and confusing episode. In fact, for almost everything it does right, something else goes wrong. Quite often in Star Trek there’s a technobabble-heavy explanation of anomalies-of-the-week, so often in fact that the exploratory spirit that supposedly underwrites the show ends up being lost. Not so here. No one knows what the hell chaotic space is, the aliens are alien, and the crew have no other purpose than to escape with their lives. That is very good. BUT it’s been done before and to much better results, such as in TNG’s masterpiece “Night Terrors,” whose premise and eventual resolution are virtually identical. Likewise, Chakotay has been needing a dramatic piece for quite some time, so this exploration of his insecurities and their connection to his fascination for boxing is the perfect chance. BUT the script that should explore these themes is an awkward mixture of procedural nonsense and artsy-fartsy creative filmmaking. That, too, could be an asset, as the episode has some very effective scenes, and the boxing scenario is compelling... BUT it takes itself way too seriously, like a film major in college, and falls under its own weight. The result is an episode that has its peaks, such as the VFX and the brief convos with the aliens, but that also has its valleys, such as Beltran’s need to overact the rare sophomoric script by Menosky. Overall, there’s more bad than good, but it is not a complete failure.
MUST-SEE
5.20 THINK TANK
An alien consortium that solves problems for a living offers its services to Voyager, but demands an outrageous price.
A delightful tactical conundrum with a surprisingly enthralling guest performance and a genuinely original setting and resolution. I love almost everything about this episode, and each rewatch is a fresh pleasure. For one, who’d have thought that Jason “Costanza” Alexander would make such a valid science-fiction villain? Yet his Kurros is a marvel of subtlety and deviousness, played with excellent nuance and also benefiting from a fine script. While it’s obvious from the teaser that he’s this weeks’ bad guy, Alexander succeeds in investing him with enough ambiguity that there are times the audience will genuinely root for him, and that is no small feat in an ensemble episodic show like this.
​
The actual predicament that Voyager finds itself in is neither new nor particularly thrilling, as the crew have been under constant attack by hostile aliens before. It’s very much a pretext to justify the presence of the think tank. But that’s fine, as the majority of the script’s emphasis is on the think tank itself, which is so interesting and cool beyond Kurros: the protoplasmic creature that floats around in low-grav, the sentient jellyfish, the AI... a real barrage of sympathetic but also spooky and questionable characters. And while the plot device of giving up Seven of Nine or be destroyed is not new (e.g., S4’s “Day of Honor”), here it reaches new heights as Janeway gives her an actual choice. And while we know she’ll turn down the think tank, the exploration of her autonomy makes for good conversation.
​
While the resolution is not terribly original, it’s still exciting. To the more navigated audiences, it’s quite obvious from the beginning that it was the think tank to hire the Hazari and manufacture the whole scenario. Yet the wool pulled over our eyes is good enough that when that obvious fact is dropped, during the final act, it does not ring untrue or pretentious. The result is an episode that works well from start to finish, without any significant pause or low points, and with occasional hiccups that don’t ruin a well-crafted, well-packaged product.
WORTH WATCHING
5.21 JUGGERNAUT
Torres struggles with her temper while trying to to prevent an environmental disaster on a damaged Malon freighter.
An atmospheric and entertaining episode whose captivating plot and spectacular effects almost conceal the fact that the script has little to say. It’s a commendable effort to resolve two narrative threads left hanging from earlier in the season: the Malon’s disgraceful waste disposal policies and Torres’ struggle with her temper. The former is VOY’s lukewarm attempt to comment on environmental justice and ethics, groundbreaking for the time but definitely sophomoric thirty years later. It would have been cool if the Malon had been much more present throughout the show’s run, because the premises were all there to write interesting plots about alien policymaking and the Prime Directive. Instead, we get these little piecemeal stories about waste disposal crews that add little to the species lore.
However, each one is definitely interesting on its own, and this one is the best. The setting of the freighter is extremely well-rendered, belonging to that post-industrial sci-fi tradition (dirty, dark, and dank) that ST typically eschews but that DS9 and VOY have begun to use. The freighter scenes are reminiscent of the best examples of the genre, from Alien to Sunshine, and they make for a thrilling adventure. The idea of the “albatross” or monstrous stowaway is nothing new, but associating it with a critique of Malon society is a good idea that pays off.
​
Torres’ own plot arc is far less interesting. Her supposed temper has always been part of her characterization, but: (1) most of those plots ran their course by S1 or S2 at the latest; and (2) how many more times do we need to show that a brown woman has a temper and needs to learn to control it? Of all the tone-deafness we see in VOY, this remains among the most perplexing. And it’s particularly bad that Torres experiences no growth here. She takes meditating lessons from Tuvok, has a bad experience on the freighter, tries to reason with the core laborer at the end, has to beat the shit out of him anyway, and has a bad flashback about in the final scene. So what exactly was accomplished? Does she feel more in control of her own emotions? Did she lose the battle to her Klingon half and is still plagued by it? Did she try and fail but gained some confidence from the partial success? For all its emphasis on this topic, the script is very ambiguous about what argument it seems to wants to endorse, and not in a good way, either.
​
Don’t get me wrong: the episode has plenty of assets. It’s a good action role for Neelix at long last, Chakotay’s and Torres’ relationship is finally picked up again, the visual effects are terrific, the action sequences kickass, and guest star Ron Canada is amazing at everything he does. But the narrative shortcomings are too severe for the episode to achieve greatness, which is disappointing.
WORTH WATCHING
5.22 someone to watch over me
Doc teaches Seven
how to go on a date.
Few VOY episodes are more of a mixed bag than this one. On the one hand, it’s a humorous foray into high-quality comedy without any of the usual attached sci-fi tropes, something that the show is fully capable of doing but that doesn’t always remember that it can do. On the other hand, it’s a rehashing of the old incel story about a man who’s nice to a woman, falls for her, she shoots him down, and he’s sad about. For as long as I live, I never want to hear this story again, yet it seems to be one of the most popular tropes in Hollywood, and I wish it would die. When the episode is a slapstick com, it excels; when it tries to be a rom-com, it fails oh-so-miserably. Hence the rating.
​
While TOS, TNG, and DS9 did contain humor (sometimes more successfully than others), VOY pioneered the concept that a ST episode could be primarily centered on being funny. And while this particular installment isn’t as valid as S6’s amazing “Virtuoso,” it delivers plenty of laughs. From “this creature has an exoskeleton” to “Seven of Mine, assimilate me!”, the script is full of memorable zany one-liners. It does not hold back when it’s time to be funny, and yet it never strays from what is expected of the characters. The introduction of a hilarious alien-of-the-week, plus the exotic situations on the holodeck, allow the script to experiment successfully.
​
On the other hand, what begins as a reflection on Seven’s social skills soon turns into a bad rom-com that a high-schooler could write. As an outcast, of course Doc develops feelings for the unattainable belle, who of course friendzones him, so he feels sad. Thankfully, the script is devoid of any creepiness in the guise of humor, but the Doc-Paris wager plot, as well as the role of the titular song in the story, are tragically misguided efforts to draw sympathy to Doc while reinforcing the role of Seven as the stereotypical cold-hearted hottie. This is pretty sophomoric stuff. In the end, in addition to the various jokes, the highlight is Seven and Doc duetting to “You Are My Sunshine.” Who says musical pieces don’t belong in serious sci-fi?!
MUST-SEE
5.23 11:59
Janeway investigates the past of Shannon O'Donnel, an ancestor of hers who the captain believes was a pioneer of space exploration.
While this is a sentimental episode that would have figured well on the Hallmark Channel, I like that about it. It wears its heart on its sleeve by telling a story that both stands on its own (i.e., it would also work in a non-sci-fi show) and enriches Janeway’s backstory. There are two interesting narrative strands, both developed fairly well, if incompletely. The first is the classic see-saw of progress and history that’s common in ST. While surely the episode takes the side of progress, it does not portray the socially conservative side as idiotic, also thanks to Tighe’s strong guest performance. It’s unfortunate, however, that it conflates a pathologic fear of change with a proper ethical resistance to business interests (the remarks about the “glorified shopping mall”), but of course we know that VOY’s politics are often reactionary and not as progressive as those of DS9.
​
The second strand is the idealization of family history. Most people, but especially Americans, pride themselves in knowing and touting the accomplishments of the key figures from their lineage. As Picard boasts about his forefathers, Janeway’s infatuation with O’Donnel is realistic and sensible, as is the let-down upon learning that she wasn’t what she expected. When the past does not live up to the future, a cultural grieving process begins. The script depicts it fairly well, consistently with the rushed format of a TV drama. Here, too, there’s a hint of reactionary politics, as the progenitor is “demoted” from a space pioneer to a wife and a mother with merely a passing interest in engineering. Despite that, I do like the argument that historical figures are often normal people with normal lives that seldom match the aggrandizing idealizations of their descendants.
​
Overall, the episode works better than the sum of its parts. It’s a free-flowing and well-constructed narrative, carefully written and directed, with valid performances (especially Mulgrew), lovely locations, and a beautiful musical score. VOY’s one-off episodes that break the mold typically succeed, and this one is no exception.
MUST-SEE
5.24 RELATIVITY
Seven is recruited by Captain Braxton from a 29th-century timeship to stop a temporal attack on Voyager in the past.
The whole Braxton storyline never lived up to its potential. This is ST’s first foray into the very distant future of the Federation, a plot device that would become far more common in ENT and of course in DIS, but these first attempts were a little less successful. And while the Braxton character, who was stuck on 20th-century Earth in S3’s boring two-parter “Future’s End,” is revived thanks to McGill’s valid performance, this episode’s strengths have little to do with Braxton himself. It is a highly entertaining investigative adventure spanning five hundred years, replete with interesting locations, good dialogue, and a captivating plot. Indeed, it is the simplicity of the plot that serves as the script’s top asset: find the bomb, defuse it, and arrest the guy who planted it.
​
On the other hand, the mechanics are confusing. Supposedly, although a person can be “recruited” again and again from different times, the effects of jumps are cumulative and cause permanent neural injury to... what? A person’s “essence”? A time-independent version of oneself that all time-dependent instances refer to? That is never made clear, yet it seems to be essential for the plot to make sense, given that much of the drama is driven by the supposed danger to perform “one more jump.” Sometimes I think that the running gag where Janeway hates time travel and doesn’t even try to make sense of it was written into the show as a way to excuse writers who cannot make sense of their own time-travel plots...
​
Still, from a dramatic standpoint the episode works. It’s thrilling and fun, and the Seven-Janeway relationship is used in an action plot rather than a philosophical one, which is a welcome change. The supporting characters are also intriguing, from Starfleet to the crew of the Relativity, as are the novel locations, again like the old Voyager at Utopia Planitia and the bridge of Relativity itself. So although there are hiccups in the plot continuity and the technobabble, overall the episode is successful and makes for a highly entertaining hour of science-fiction.
SKIPPABLE
5.25 WARHEAD
The crew salvage an alien warhead whose AI-driven energy matrix has gained sentience and intends to complete its destructive mission.
S2’s “Dreadnought” meets S3’s “Darkling,” and the total is weaker than the sum of the parts. As usual for VOY, an intriguing premise is squandered on a derivative plot that tries to do a lot and does none of it well. The intriguing premise at hand is that an AI may come to believe that it is not an artificial lifeform, but an organic or biological one like its creators. The first 10-12 minutes of the show are dedicated to exploring this possibility, and they are largely successful thanks to a good mix of humor, action, and introspection. But when the AI’s true nature as a weapon is discovered, all of that flies right out the airlock and the script becomes extremely generic: it needs to learn morality, overcome its programming, etc. We’ve seen it so many times before, and with much better results.
​
The AI’s commandeering of Doc’s program is also a really bad idea. In this case, we’ve seen it before and never with good results, as it’s woefully out of character and leads to ridiculous overacting by Picardo, who’s stuck with terrible dialogue. I didn’t think I ever needed to see Kim trying to give a computer humanity lessons, and now that I’ve watched this episode, I knew I was right. For thirty minutes, the script is a meandering mess of procedural nonsense and stilted conversations. It also keeps moving the goalposts in a dishonest way by introducing new elements that make no sense and were uncalled for, eventually settling on a stupid problem (the other bad AIs would like to be good, but they got the order to stand down past the threshold they were programmed for... this hardly makes for good drama...)
​
Why not let the AI commandeer a different hologram, take the mobile emitter, and explore the nature of cybernetic vs. organic individuality as an autonomous moral person with skin in the game? Then its growth and reckoning with its destructive mission, plus its eventual sacrifice, would be a fascinating exploration of the idea of fate vs. self-determination. Alas, none of this happens, so as it stands this is yet another wasted opportunity.