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Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

The Chute - Harry Kim slides down a chute (wheeee!) into a rough looking alien prison where he's instantly beaten up...including by Tom Paris! An alien tries to claim Harry as his bitch but Tom explains that Harry's the reason they're both in there and holds a knife to the alien's throat. We learn that Tom and Harry were wrongly accused of carrying out a bombing and stuck in prison with no trial. Tom gets aggressive with Harry and blames it on "the clamp" a device all the prisoners have attached to their brains to make them angrier. Food is sent down the chute and everyone fights over it. Tom and Harry end up with nothing because they won't kill for food. On Voyager, Janeway is growing frustrated with the asshole aliens of the week. Their ambassador tells her the bombing involved a trilithium device and since Voyager uses dilithium they're obviously to blame. They won't let Janeway speak to Tom and Harry and attack Voyager. Back in prison Harry is feeling the effects of the clamp. Tom can't find any food and there's no way out but the chute. Voyager plans to search for ships using paralithium for fuel as they could be repsonsible. Tom keeps talking to Harry about food to stop him going mad. Harry tries to short out the forcefield on the chute but gets shocked. Tom gets into a knife fight with they guy who wanted to rape Harry and is stabbed. Harry saves him by waving a pipe around. Harry and stabbed Tom find some aliens have stole their house. They go to another prsioner (Zio) who's been inside for six years and seems a bit more rational than some of the others for help. Harry offers to let him escape with them if he helps Tom. Voyager finds a ship powered by paralithium and takes its brother and sister crew into custody. They're part of a terrorist group responsible for the bombing. The sister calls Janeway a coward when she won't attack the prison and break Tom and Harry out.

Zio explains his philosophy to Harry and how he's managed tomake the clamp work for him. He's writing a manifesto where he argues the whole prison is an experiment and the ultimate purpose of the clamp is to get all the prisoners to kill each other. He tells Harry to become like him to survive but Harry obviously thinks he's a bit crazy. Harry manages to disable the forcefield. He and Zio climb up the chute and find a window...into space. They're on a spaceship so there's no way to break out. Tom is starting to go almost delirious from his injury. He starts to go crazy and threatens Harry with the pipe. Harry sleeps next to Tom to comfort him (aww.) Harry tries to come up with ways to escape which Zio points out won't work. Zio offers to let Harry read his manifesto but angry Harry throws it away. Zio points out that if he was letting the clamp control him like Harry he'd kill him now. Harry goes to the rest of the prisoners for help but they just laugh and throw things at him. Tom wreckes Harry's precious pipe and they get into a fight. Harry nearly bashes his head in but stops himself. Zio tells Harry he should kill Tom since he's too far gone and follow Zio's manifesto and raise an army of prisoners together. Harry refuses so Zio kicks them out. Janeway orders to trade the brother and sister to the ambassador for Tom and Harry but he says the sentences are final. The brother will only help Janway break Harry and Tom out if she breaks out some of his terrorist friends too, but Janeway bluffs giving him up to the cops and he gives up. Harry defends Tom with the pipe as angry aliens want to strip him naked. New prisoners arrive...Janeway and Tuvok with rifles! They arrived on Neelix's ship (yes Neelix's ship has been on Voyager all along.) Neelix does some nifty piloting when the aliens attack and Tom and Harry are saved. Harry feels bad about nearly smashing Tom's skull in but Tom just wants to talk about food again. All he remembers of their time inside is Harry defending him and keeping him alive.

It's a very good episode! It's the best Harry centric episode yet (I say Harry centric because Tom spends a lot of it lying down) and Garrett Wang actually gives a decent performance. I mean he's not Colm Meaney in 'Hard Time' or anything but it works. The guy playing Zio is a good guest star too. The suff with Janeway and the asshole aliens is pretty standard stuff though and I'm getting a bit tired of the unreasonable alien misunderstanding story of the week, but Kate Mulgrew plays pissed off well.

SCORE: 8.5/10


The Swarm - Tom and B'Elanna are in a shuttle together looking for something. Tom asks he if she's seeing anyone (is this the first hint at a romance between them? Maybe!) Some aliesn who speak in gibberish beam onto the shuttle and shoot them. The Doctor is singing opera on the Holodeck and argues with the holo opera singer he's singing with. The Doctor forgets the words. The Doctor treats Tom and B'Elanna. He forgets something again. Voyager picks up a message in the alien language. Neelix believes they are a scary race of aliens who kill anyone who tries to pass through their space. If Voyager has to go around their space it would take 15 months. (JUST FLY UNDER OR OVER THEIR SPACE?) Tuvok points out that it's against Starfleet law to go through their space but Janeway says she won't give in to bullies. I guess Janeway's changed a bit since she got to the DQ, since she was all about not breaking Starfleet rules in season one? The Doctor has to perform surgery on Paris but tells Kes he can't remember what to do. Kes has to talk him through the procedure and step in to save Tom. Torres wants to re-initialise the Doctor's program but it will mean he'll forget everything from the last two years. Kes argues that they can't do that because the Doctor won't be the same person without his memories. She convinces Janeway to let her and Torres look for another solution. Voyager comes up with a way to sneak through the alien space undetected. SPOILER: something will go wrong. Torres activates a diagnostic program featuring the Doctor's creator Robert Zimmerman in Jupiter Station. So we get scenes with two Robert Picardos, which is good. Zimmerman is more of a jerk than the Doctor and has messier hair. He thinks the problem is that the Doctor's program has been running too long as he was never meant for long-term use.

Torres is called away to work on the sneaky plan. Voyager spots a huge swarm of thousands of alien ships. Voyager flies through their space at maximum warp. Zimmerman is shocked that the Doctor has filled his program with romantic encounters with women and opera. He makes the Doc sing to Kes as an example but Kes likes it and argues the Doc has grown as a person and that's made him a better doctor. The EMH forgets who Kes is. Voyager finds a dying alien. The Doctor is senile now and just says "he's a sick man!" while Kes does all the doctoring. The alien tells Janeway everyone on his ship was killed by the swarm. Then dies. Well, that was pointless. A swarm ship spots Voyager. It scans Voyager and flies away. The rest of the swarm starts chasing Voyager. The Doctor wants to leave Sickbay but Kes has to explain that he can't. The Doc remembers the first time he was activated and giving Kes a foot rub. The swarm keeps chasing Voyager it's boring. Kes goes back to Zimmerman for help. Kes comes up with an idea to graft Zimmerman's holomatrixes onto the Doctor to stop them degrading. I really don't think that's how holograms work. Janeway mentions ducks again and I'm fairly sure she did that before so my headcanon is that she loves ducks. Zimmerman's matrixes are overlaid with the EMH's. The swarm catches up with Voyager and starts draing its energy. Harry comes up with some technobabble soluation (of course!) and Voyager just has to shoot one swarm ship to stop them all. Some aliens beam onto the Bridge but are easily defeaed. The Doctor is activated again as Kes's plan worked. He's fully functioning again but can't remember anything from the last two years. Or so it seems for a minute. But then he starts singing the opera again. So maybe he's memories are coming back? Who knows, the episode just ends there.

And it's all kind of pointless, really. There's good scenes between Torres, Kes and the two Picardo characters, yes. Kes arguing for the Doctor's right to exist is always good too. But ultimately he probably gets his memories back (it's only mentioned one time after this) so I don't know why they put the fakeout "I don't now you, Kes!" thing in. The swarm story itself is as average as Trek gets. Asshole aliens, with no characterisation, easily defeated by Voyager by the end of the episode. Yeah loads of tiny ships attacking Voyager is vaguely interesting but it all adds up to nothing. And it's funny how the two stories play out parralel to each other with ticking clocks even though they have no relation to each other. Saving the Doctor doesn't help defeat the swarm. It's just two things happening at once for drama. "Average" sounds about right.

SCORE: 5.5/10
 
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False Profits - Voyager investigates a wormhole. It's not fixed in space and is "wagging around the DQ like the tail on a dog" according to Janeway. I'm instantly disappointed she didn't mention ducks again. Tuvok picks up signs that a pre-industrial planet has a replciator and could have been in contact with the AQ (as Harry instantly points out.) Chakotay and Tom beam down to the planet (that looks like something out of TNG season 2) and meet a bad actor in an eye patch who tells them the "song of the sages." A pervy guy wants their shoes. He tells Chakotay and Harry they have to "wear ears" to visit a nearby temple. The sages come out of the temple, following sexy ladies in bikinis (shoudn't they benaked given what species I'm about to reveal the sages are?) Yep, the sages are Ferengi and they've been teaching the locals about greed and exploiting them for riches and stuff. Chakotay and Tom watch in horror as the Ferengi tell a man to use his family as slave labour. They use the repclicator to make a copy of the Rules of Acquisition appear. Chuckles and Tom report back to Janeway. Tuvok's found out that they're the two Ferengi who ended up in the DQ back in the mediocre TNG episode 'The Price'. Yes the Voyager writers can remember something that happened in TNG seven years ago but not what happened in their own show last week. Janeway plans to stop the Ferengi exploiting the locals. Kim and Torres are doing technobabble stuff to get the wormhole to open. Tuvok points out removing the Ferengi is a Prime Directive violation but Janeway does her use wiggling out of it. There's a scene with the Ferengi and their assistant which is terrible due to some bad Ferengi acting. They're beamed up to Voyager and the assistant instantly starts living it up instead of being surprised. The two Ferengi don't want to go home. They know the Prime Directive and argue that maybe they are the "sages" spoken of in song. The Ferengi actually out argues Janeway by pointing out the local population will be lost without them and Tuvok beams them back down. This was not a good scene for Janeway.

Janeway decides to con the Ferengi into leaving. Neelix goes to visit the Ferengi dressed as one of them with the Grand Nagus' scepter. The two Ferengi say "GRAND NAGUS!?" at the same time in a line delivered so bad that I want to go back in time and cancel Voyger before this episode was made. Neelix pretends to be the Grand Proxy sent by the Nagus after Voyager contacted him and tells the two of them they have to go home with all their profits. This scene is actually interesting because it shows that Ethan Philips is a much better actor than the two guys playing Ferengi and it's a shame he's stuck playing Neelix. The Grand Proxy instructs them to make a goodbye speech. The two Ferengi plot to murder Neelix. They're brilliant plot is to...chop Neelix up with swords. Neelix panics and tells them the truth. They send him back to Voyager and laugh evily. This is shit. The guy with the eye patch (it's on the other eye this time!) shows up and sells the second verse of the song, which tells how the sages go home again. Our heroes come up with a new plan. Neelix makes a speech claiming to be the "Holy Pilgrim" (nobody listens until Chuckles and Tom whip them up which is mildly funny.) He tells the people he's here to lead the other sages home and because that's how the song goes the villagers start chanting "lead them back!" Voyager makes new stars appear in the sky to prove he's real too and the assistant turns on the Ferengi by ringing a bell loudly. The villagers tie Neelix and the Ferengi up to burn them alive as that's how the song goes I guess (Neelix panics even though he must know the plan is to beam them out.) Okay actually the Ferengi were blocking Voyager's transporter from working with a dampening field, so surely Chuckles and Tom should have disabled that before so the "beaming out" part of the plan would work? ANYWAY they get beamed up. The wormhole (remember that!) is here to take Voyager home. I guess this is the last episode! The Ferengi are taken to the Brig by ONE security guy who they easily knock out. Then they EASILY steal their ship from Voyager and get away. Boy, Tuvok's a terrible security chief. There's some terrible "we can't beam them back!" stuff. Stuff happens, the Ferengi end up sucked into the wormhole. The wormhole's entrance moves so Voyager can't get in (of course.) The people on the planet watch Voyager go to warp and say "the holy ones are going home!"

This episode assumes that there's something inherently funny about Ferengi. There isn't. They're only funny when the writers actually make the effort to write a funny episode ('The Magnificent Ferengi' and a couple others.) Further to that the two actors playing the Ferengi here are awful. Maybe they were told this was a broad comedy episode (that would line up with how the eye patch guy and the assistant were acting too) but whatever the reason their over the top, loud delivery of every line is intolerable. Most of the episode is just them being annoying. Voyager NEARLY GEETTING HOME is just a fucking afterthought. The way the Ferengi manage to escape at the end and accidnetally make the wormhole entrance move is inexcusably bad. Other than a couple of funny moments from Tom and Neelix this is really bad.

SCORE: 1.5/10
 
Remember - Voyager's made friends with some aliens (the Enarans.) An alien girl has a crush on Harry. B'Elanna has a vivid sex dream where she's get it on with one of the aliens she's never met. She sleeps in and Chakotay has to wake her up (was he watching her sleep wank? I think so.) Torres tells Chakotay all about it (remember that one episode where she had a secret crush on him? I guees that's not a thing anymore.) Neelix has turned the Mess Hall into an Enaran hangout. An old man uses his telepathic abilities to teach Janeway how to play an Enaran musical instrument. Torres goes to bed early for another sex dream. In this dream her Enaran father is telling her to stay away from her new boyfriend. But the boy's hidden in her closet while they talk. B'Elanna suddenly sees the boyfriend badly burned and wakes up in shock. Torres tells Chuckles all about this. It's funny how she has no girl friends so they have Chakotay in this role. B'Elanna has a vision of her alien father talking about a terraforming project. He gives B'Elanna an award. She meets with her boyfriend secretly after. They start having telephatic sex in public but he has to run off when some bells ring. B'Elanna's brought to Sickbay as the vision has left her unconscious. The Doctor reports that she's had memories implanted in her head by the Enarans. The Doctor has a way to stop her having the dreams but B'Elanna wants to know how the story ends. She has to wear the implant or risk brain damage though. The leader of the Enarans claims they would never implant memories without consent and thinks B'Elanna is just picking up stray memories from every Enaran onboard.

B'Elanna doesn't really buy the explanation and takes her implant off and goes to sleep. Her father is now talking about people who refuse to use technology (her boyfriend is one of them.) These people are being settled because their village is smelly (according to dad.) The primitives are removed by force from their home and a conflicted B'Elanna is part of it. Her father put her boyfriend's name on the list of people to be removed. She realises that she's an old Enaran woman who's on Voyager in the dreams and goes to visit her, finding the old woman on the floor. She wants to give away the truth that her people have been hiding for years before she dies. B'Elanna's alien boyfriend visits her and asks her to run away. He says people who are resettled disappear and he thinks they're being killed. B'Elanna doesn't believe her father would be part of that. The boyfriend hides when the father comes to see it. He tells her the regressives are holding them back with their backwards views but he's definitely not killing them! He tells her that her boyfriend is trying to get sympathy from lots of young women. B'Elanna is conflicted between him and her father and cries. She gives the boyfriend away and he's dragged out by the father. He's tied up with another regressive (I think the one who hit B'Elanna earlier and burned alive. B'Elanna joins the racist mob in chanting. Later she tells a little girl that the regressives moved away and destroyed themselves. B'Elanna barges in while the Enaran leader is toasting Janeway and reveals she knows everything. She wants all their young people to know. She accuses the leader of killing the old woman. Harry's girlfriend says B'Elanna is lying. The leader says B'Elanna has just gone crazy but it's not her fault but B'Elanna insists the truth must be known. Janeway tells B'Elanna she would have done the same thing, but it's not up to them to bring the Enarans to justice. There's no proof the old woman was murdered so they can't use that to reveal the truth. But she hitns that B'Elanna might want to speak to one of the Enarans before they all leave. She goes to Harry's girlfriend, who doesn't want to believe what B'Elanna is saying until B'Elanna tells her she'd show her the truth if she could. Harry's girlfriend uses her telepathic powers to watch the memories and we see them begin again with her in the B'Elanna role.

It's a very strong episode with a great performance by Roxann Dawson. It's all about the importance of remembering the past (SO YOU DON'T REPEAT IT) and I like how Janeway gives B'Elanna a way to pass the truth on at the end without breaking the rules. A refreshing change of pace for Voyager with no "SHIELDS AT 38%!" scenes and shakey Bridge.

SCORE: 9/10


Sacred Ground - Voyager's taking shore leave AGAIN (seriously how do they ever expect to get home) on some boring religious planet. Kes and Neelix go to investigate a shrine. Kes is hit by a mysterious energy field and goes into a mysterious coma. The alien magistrate (played by Harry "Mayor from Buffy" Groner who always appeared in TNG and is never as good as he was in Buffy) tells them that only the monks understand the weird energy field as it's a sacred place (so why were Kes and Neelix allowed to wander around it?) The magistrate tells Janeway that the monks won't talk to Janeway and that's that. Janeway won't accept that there's nothing to be done to help Kes. The monks can enter the energy field and the Doctor wants to know how. Neelix finds a case where the father of someone put in a coma by the forcefield was allowed to speak to the monks and Janeway uses this to get an audience with them. She studies the religious rituals of many aliens species. Chakotay tells her that learning how religious works take the magic out of it. Janeway beams down with an implant sending information on her physical state back to Voyager. She meets her guide who is at first thought to be someone who's just there to fix the electric lights (a like Yoda! But shit!) The guide has a really patronising voice as she talks about Janeway loving her "little devices." Your fucking lights wouldn't work without science, bitch. Janeway is stripped naked (okay this episode isn't all bad) and painted on. She sent to sit with some old people for a while (including a criminally wasted Estelle Harris) but gives up because it's a waste of time. The guide warns her that everything she'll do is meaningless and making a spiritual connection is the only important thing.

So Janeway does more pointless things like paint and climb rocks. She keeps saying she'll do whatever it takes to be spiritual as the guide keeps talking down to her. Janeway's bit by a snake and locked up in a coffin and has a pretty dull vision. The Doctor's getting interesting bio readouts back on Voyager. Chakotay is angry that Janeway's been poisoned by a snake but Tuvok points out Janeway would want to complete the ritual. The guide keeps telling Janeway this is all meaingless (which isn't great when you have to watch it) and Janeway just wants to get through it all to save Kes. Janeway appeals to the spirits but the guide tells her she has everything she needs to save Kes. Janeway returns to Voyaer and the Doctor thinks he has the information needed to save Kes. The Doctor's treatment plan doesn't work. Janeway confronts the guide who tells her she set the challenges in the ritual herself and the guide was just fulfilling her expectations of what a religious ritual would look like. Now the REAL ritual can begin (35 minutes into the episode.) Janeway goes and sits with the old people again and they lecture her. Janeway thinks the old people are the spirits for a minute but they're not. They lecture her further for believing in science instead of religion, as if the two things are the same (they're not.) They tell Janeway to kill Kes. Well they really tell her to take Kes through the field again and if she believes in it Kes will be healed. Janeway declares she wants to believe so she'll try. Chakotay and Neelix think Janeway's being irrational but she has faith now because some old people shouted at her for a couple of minutes. The patronising guide tells Janeway she doesn't know the answers. Janeway walks through the field and Kes is healed. The Doctor gives a technobabble explanation of how Kes was cured back on the ship but Janeway thinks there was more going on.

RIGHT I know people will tell me this is a great episode or whatever and I just hate it because it says having faith is important and that science is a belief just like religion (it's not and people thinking so is how we get flat Earthers) but the actual reason I don't enjoy this episode much is because it's SO BORING. Like the first 35 minutes are meaingless and the episode actually tells you they are. So we watch the annoying guide telling Janeway it's all pointless while she does pointless things. For 35 minutes. Thne some old people shout at Janeway to have faith and that makes her think "okay, I'll try that!" Janeway risks her life to save Kes, yeah, but any Starfleet Captain would have done that. If the old people had told her to take Kes through the field again 35 minutes earlier I'm sure Janeway would have done it then anway. So I don't buy that this is a big character development episode for Janeway. The Doctor gives a technobabble explanation for how Kes is cured at the end anyway, so it's not like the episode takes a concrete "faith is important!" stand. But again my main problem is that it's boring. The last ten minutes are the best part and Mulgrew is good as always, but...IT'S BORING.

SCORE: 5/10
 
I'm watching a VOY marathon today (I still watch them on BBC America at least once a week), so I had to break in to say
OMG SPIRIT FOLK SUCKS SO MUCH DONKEY PLEASE MAKE IT STOP on the other hand I watched TSUNATSKE for the first time in years and it wasn't as bad as I assumed. That is all.
 
Future's End: Part 1 - A hippy sees a spaceship crash and says "far out!" Janeway is planning to get back into tennis but it's the 24th century so the ball looks weird (why would they make tennis balls look futuristic really.) There's a distortion in the space time continuum and a small Federation ship piloted by a human flies out. It fires on Voyager. Its Captain, Braxton, "explains" that Voyger will wipe out all life on Earth in the future and he's travelled back in time to kill them. Voyager manages to defeat him despite his technology being 500 years more advanced but both ships are dragged into the distortion. Voyager finds itself back at Earth(!) but in 1996. Janeway, Chakotay, Tom and Tuvok beam down to Los Angeles (which we soon learn is under the sea in the 24th century) in contemporary clothing. There's the usual "people from the nineties look more wacky than us!" jokes. Sarah Silvermnan(!) who for some reason is pretening to be someone named "Rain Robinson" but you can tell it's really Sarah Silverman, spots Voyager in orbit. She contacts obvious villain Henry Starling (Ed Begley Jr.) a tech guy who uses the word "crap" for the first time in Star Trek. He tells her not to do anything but she sends a message to Voyager because she's Sarah Silverman and she don't take no orders from men. Braxton is now a crazy old man ranting about the end of the world. Janeway sends Tom and Tuvok to investigate the woman who sent the message to Voyager while she and Chakotay talk to Braxton. He recognises them through his madness and explains he arrived thirty years before Voyager. He talks a bit like Doc Brown but not as good. He does the "explaining time travel by writing it down with chalk" thing. He explains that by investigating Earth's destruction, he's actually caused it by bringing his ship and Voyager back in time. Someone will steal his ship and cause the explosion. Probably shouldn't have come back in time then, you knob. He tells them that evil Bill Gates stole his time ship but Voyager shouldn't try to stop him because he found debris from Voyager in the explosion that destroyed Earth. A cop shows up to hassle Braxton and he calls the cop a "quasi Cardassian totalitarian" which is interesting because it tells us something of how Cardassians are viewed in the 29th century (it was probably just put in because it sounds cool.)

Starling is angry that Robinson contacted Voyager and sends his heavy to kill her. Tom and Tuvok arrive at Robison's observatory. She catches them out so Tom calls her lab "groovy" (she makes fun of this.) They flirt a bit as Tom knows about 20th century Earth movies (HE HAS EVER SEEN "MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE.") Robinson runs out after them as she's found that her hard drive is "wiped" (we know this because she says "the hard drive is WIPED!") Starling's heavy shows up and disintegrates their car with a phaser. They escape in Robinson's hippy van. Harry is in charge on Voyager and has ordered Neelix and Kes to watch 90's tv. This is just to give them something to do in the episode. Neelix likes soaps. Janeway and Chuckles go to Starling's office. Janeway can't type! Tom and Tuvok pretend to be secret agents but Robinson threatens to scream. Tom talks her down but she isn't convinced. She's noticed Tuvok's freaky ears. Janeway and Chakotay hack Starling's computer. Chakotay wonders if Braxton is right and Voyager is causing everything that's going to happen. The find that Braxton's time ship is right there in a secret room next to Braxton's office. Starling and his heavy (okay he's called Dunbar) arrive. He thinks Janeway has come back in time to get the ship back. Janeway tells him that if Starling tries to fly the ship he'll destroy Earth in the future. He doesn't believe her. Harry takes Voyager down to a lower orbit to beam Janeway and Chakotay to safety (since Voyager's transporters are always crap.) Voyager tries to beam the time ship up too but Starling blocks them. He (somehow) uses the transporter beam as a "downlink" and gets into Voyager's computers. He knows Voyager is only from the 24th century and he has the advantage. And he's stolen the Doctor! Neelix lets Janeway know that there's a new rerport showing camcorder footage of Voyager flying through the skies. That's the big cliffhanger...

It's very obviously "Voyager does The Voyager Home!" but that's not actually a bad thing as it results in a very fun episode! We get all the usual fun time travel stuff where Starfleet officers are all "get a load of THESE guys!" about skateboarders and the Vulcan asks what "groovy" means. And it's nice to actually get off of Voyager and onto a real location (Earth is easier to film on than an alien planet!) in the daylgiht. Also Sarah Silverman is attractive. The best episode in quite a while.

SCORE: 9/10


Future's End: Part 2 - Rain suspects Tom is an alien. She tells him about her brother's telescope (pervert.) Voyager has one of those briefings that just recaps part one. The only consequence of the camcorder cliffhanger is that Voyager can't risk going too low again. Tuvok manages to phone Voyager with Robinson's help and let Janeway know what's going on. Starling has the Doctor running in his office (he has holo emitters in his office for simulations, which seems a bit risky if someone noticed?) The Doctor does mention that he recently lost some of his "data files" and he's in the process of recovering them and that's the last mention you'll ever get of 'The Swarm'. Starling wants Janeay's psychological profile and has a way of torturing the Doctor by tapping his keyboard. So Starling programmed a way to torture holograms on the off chance that he ever downloaded one from a starship that had travelled back in time? Rain calls Starling asking him to come and get her (it's a set up.) Starling arrives an has the Doctor with him as a hostage, somehow. Chakotay and B'Elanna are fying down to Earth on a shuttle and we get some time-filling chatting between them. Chuckles is supposed to beam up Starling when he gets in Robinson's van, but he's too smart for them. Starling takes Robinson and the Doctor into his car (she could have put up more of a fight, really.) Chakotay beams Starling out anyway and Robinson escapes. The Doctor beats up Dunbar in a funny bit. The Doctor finally explains that Starling equiped him with a mobile emitter. I guess Braxton just happened to have one of them on his tiny time ship for some reason? Starling tries to block the beam out with a tricorder and it makes Chakotay's shuttle crash (sigh.) Chakoty and B'Elanna are taken prisoner by a well armed militia who also happen to be racist against Indians and whaever B'Elanna is.

Janeway and Starling talk in Sickbay. She wants him to disable his forcefield so she can beam up the time ship but he's rigged it so it'll blow up L.A. if she tries to beam it up. He wants to go to the future to get more technology and become even richer (yep it's the same plan as Matt Frewer in TNG!) He's used the 29th century tech to create the internet and "barcode readers" (he mentions this last as if it's more important than the internet) and it's weird because I've never heard of him before. The feds have tracked down the militia so they arm themselves up ready to fight. Robinson continues to try to make sense of where Paris is from and mentions "Mission: Impossible" which starred Leonard Nimoy. And, in the most important moment of the episode, she calls Tuvok a "freakasaurus". Didn't she make fun of Tom for saying "groovy" in part 1? Dunbar beams Starling back to Earth using a satellite. Rain is supposed to be leaving and tries to ask Tom out on a date. But he's busy (living in the future.) Paris detects Starling moving the time ship in a truck and Robinson sticks around to chase it. The Doctor and Tuvok ("A BLACK GUY AND SOME BALD MAN!") arrive to save Chakotay and Torres. I have no idea what the point of this militia subplot was but action Doctor is fun. Tom and Robinson chase the truck in her van as Dunbar (who I'm pretty much obsessed with now) fires a phaser at them. Tom shoots the truck's tires out, but the truck recovers and goes to run them over. Chakotay swoops in on his shuttle and blows up the truck, KILLING DUNBAR. What if Dunbar would have gone on to have a child who'd grow up to be the next Angela Lansbury or something? It was all a big decoy anyway and Starling flies the time ship out of the roof of his building. Tom and Rain finally say goodbye, they kiss, she's hot. Janewy manually reconfigures a torpedo which is very risky in some way (Voyager's weapons are down, I forget how.) Janeway manually launches the torpedo that destroys Starling's time ship and gets a shock but is otherwise fine. The time rift opens again and Braxton (remember him!) comes out. He doesn't remember anything as he's from a different timeline and he's here to take Voyager home because they're not supposed to be here. And of course he won't just drop Voyager home because of the "Temporal Prime Directive." Where was that in part one when he tried to blow them up? (I guess he was desperate in part 1 because of Earth being destroyed and didn't bother reading the history books and finding that Voyager got home without being blown up and man time travel makes no sense.) The Doctor celebrates being able to leave Sickbay by joining the crew for a party in the Mess Hall. Tom calls Tuvok a freakasaurus!!!!!!

It's still good, but not as fun as part one. It feels like it loses some of the energy and the militia subplot is almost a total waste of time (other than the Doctor saving them.) It's also not really clear how Voyager manages to stop Starling without blowing up future Earth this time. What did they do differently? We never find out. I guess the first time around Braxton wasn't there to tell them something important...except Braxton caused the whole thing in the first place so he must have been there. Why do things change then? I don't know. Oh and Janeway never bothers asking what will happen to the old Braxton living on Earth (that will come back to haunt her!) Anyway it's still good just not a bit more...Voyager.

SCORE: 8/10
 
Warlord - We start with the truly horrendous sight of Neelix getting a foot rub from a holographic Talaxian woman. What's even worse actualyl is the stupid noise he makes during it. He explains to Tom and Harry that he's created an exclusive Talaxian resort, but it really looks pretty shit and bland. Tom makes the drinks more exciting and Harry adds sexier women. Neelix does a stupid dance and the camera zooms in on his hairy feet and this is pretty much the lowest moment in Trek history. Harry beams over three survivors from an exploding starship but one of them dies quickly. His wife is very upset and Kes hugs her. Janeway agrees to take the two home. B'Elanna visits Neelix's shitty program wearing a bathing suit and okay this shit program suddenly got a lot less shitty. She makes a sexy man appear too. Take that, Harry! Kes and Neelix have lunch on the Holodeck. Kes has a sore head and would rather spend time with the two aliens than Neelix. She shouts at him(!) for wanting her all to himself. She suggests they take a break (he instantly sleeps with the girl from the copy place.) The alien Prime Minister (or whatever) beams over to thank Janeway but Kes instantly shoots him dead(!) Kes and the two aliens go on the run in a stolen shuttle. In case you haven't figured it out, Kes has been possessed by the dead husband and she's mean now and shouts at people. They meet an ally who isn't happy his leader is in the body of a "little girl" but the warlord uses Kes's psychic powers to hurt him and show his new power. The planet's dead ruler's son (or someone, it's hard to keep up while you're typing and watch) explains that Kes has been possessed by Tieran, the former evil ruler of his planet. Neelix thinks there must still be some of Kes in Tieran as he knew things only she would (like the best way to dump Neelix) but the guy insists Kes is gone. Tieran/Kes kills the planet's ruler (okay the guy she killed before was just an abassador or something? It's hard when they use all these stupid alien words) and takes the brother of the guy on Voyager hostage. Tieran dresses up in a tight sexy evil outfit and yes this episode once again just got interesting! He walks around smashing the place up saying he wants everything to look how it used to back in his day (two hundred years ago.) The wife is sad that her husband is a girl now. Tieran in Kes nearly kisses her to show her he's still the same person but they're interrupted because I guess DS9 used up Start Trek's same sex kiss allowance. Tieran tries to turn the younger brother to her side and even though his father's just been killed he's obviously turned on by Tieran's new sexy body and tempted.

Older brother explains to Janeway that there's about to be a civil war as a lot of people now support Tieran. The Doctor creates a device to suck Tieran out of Kes's body, but it has to be placed on her. Older brother just wants to kill her but Janeway won't help him do that obviously. Tieran is getting headches because Kes is fighting back. He's impressed by her spirit and wants to stay in the body despite being advised to leave it. During a meeting Tieran detects someone hiding in the room by using Kes's powers. It's Tuvok, disguised as one of the masked guards (this is why masked guards are a bad idea.) He nearly attaches the device to Tieran but is stopped and taken prisoner. Tieran knows there's no point torturing Tuvok to get Janeway's plan but plans to use Kes's powers to read his mind instead. Tieran grabs Tuvok and kisses him (hey this is technically a gay kiss) but Tuvok uses the opportunity to mind meld with and bring the real Kes out. But Tieran (I keep nearly typing "Kiernan") regains control. Janeway plots a rescue mission and Neelix insists on coming. Tieran contacts Voyager and warns them not to attack because he's set a trap for them. Chakotay wonders why Tieran would warn them of his own trap and Tieran says he's grateful for Voyager saving his life (but the headaches are getting worse and Kes seems to be fighting back.) Tieran's allies wonder why he won't destroy Voyager. There's a scene between Kes and Tieran on the astral plane where Kes threatens to force him out. Tieran wants Kes to work with him but she's obviously not going to do that. Kes gets all scary and shouts Tieran into a corner. Tieran's doctor tells him he must leave Kes's body but Tieran kills him in anger. Tieran announces to his allies that he's marrying the younger brother (what a cuck that guy is!) Tieran's wife obviously isn't happy about this. Tieran says it'll be fine and they'll just have a lot of threeways. Older brother's fleet and Voyager approach the planet to attack. Tieran wants a library built for his citizens and for every one of them to have a garden (this is what Kes would do if she was a dictator.) Tieran starts to completely breakdown as Kes is fighting back more than ever. Tom beams down to rescue Tuvok (don't they have any other security officers?) Janeway, Chakotay, Neelix and older brother attack Tieran's throne room for a really short action scene. Tieran jumps to another body but Kes detects that he's in younger brother and uses the device to finally kill Tieran. Older brother is the new king or whatever. Tuvok tries to help Kes back on Voyager as she's blaming herself for all the people who died. She's seeing the world differently now and wonders how she can go back to her normal life.

Kes has been a problematic character lately because she's really stagnated. I know you could say the same for all the characters (it's Voyager!) but it's more noticable with Kes because she doesn't get much to do other than be the Doctor's nurse and Neelix's girlfriend (and as previously reported they have cut down on the Kes/Neelix romance stuff a bit.) The best thing about this episode is that it gives her something new to do and lets Jennifer Lien actually act. Her powers even come up again, as they only do when the plot requires them too. The plot is pretty standard "character is possessed by evil alien" stuff, done many times in TNG and DS9, but Lien elevates it with a great performance (compare her to how bad Siddig was in that DS9 season 1 episode with the same plot.) The episode does run out of steam towards the end though with a lot of stuff with Tieran just ranting and getting headaches as he struggles with Kes, but Lien is great throughout and reminds you that it's a damn shame they coudln't figure out what to do with the character and got rid of her.

SCORE: 7.5/10


The Q and the Grey - The crew watch a supernova on the Bridge and Neelix says "WOW!" in a really annoying way. Sometimes I praise Ethan Phillips despite the badness of Neelix but given this and the previous episode's opening I'm wondering if maybe he actually is just shit. Janeway goes back to her quarters and finds Q there in a dressing gown, trying to seduce her. He tells her he wants her to be the mother of his child. Janeway says no but Q is excited at the challenge. Kathryn tells Chakotay what's going on and he's jealous (THEY HAD A MONEKY TOGETHER.) Q wonders what she sees in Chuckles and gives himself a bigger face tattoo. In Neelix's shitty resort, Q tries to get Tom and Harry's help with seducing Janeway. He calls Neelix "bar rodent" in a bit that did make me laugh. Q makes a puppy appear in Janeway's room. Q claims he's lonely and wants to settle down with Janeway. She doesn't buy it. A female Q (TNG standout guest star Suzie Plakson) shows up and asks "what are you doing with that dog? I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE PUPPY!" He delivery is great and so is John de Lancie's comical reaction. Voyager detects several more supernovas and that's weird. Lady Q says Q is causing them. Shockwaves from the supernovae hit Voyager and Q makes himself and Janway disappear. She reappears inside 'Gone With The Wind'. Q tells her she's in the Continuum and he's made it look like the U.S. south, y'all. He calls Chakotay "Chuckles"! That's where it comes from! He explains that the Q are in the middle of a civil war, caused by Quinn's death. Two factions of Qs have been fighting, one for order and one for chaos, and they're causing the supernovae...somehow. Even though they exist on a different plane of existence or whatever. It's stupid. Q wants to have a baby to bring an end to the war. Somehow. It's stupid. Janeway is shocked to see Q bleeding after the other army attack.

Back on Voyager, Lady Q finds that her powers don't work anymore and Chuckles demands answers from her. After she explains about the war, he wants her to take Voyager to the continuum to rescue Janeway. The southern Q army surround Janeway's house and Q shoots at them with a gun (this is stupid.) Lady Q and B'Elanna have a scene together where LQ makes a cute meta comment about Klingon females. Janeway gets Q to the Union Q camp. Janeway suggests that Q should have a baby with Lady Q instead. Q thinks the idea of two Qs mating is ridiculous and sex between Qs has "never been done." WHAT ABOUT AMANDA ROGERS. Also the Q have been around FOREVER, have done "everything" according to 'Death Wish' but they've never had sex before? Guess what? That's stupid! There's more unconvincing stuff with Q telling Janeway he wants her to be a mother to their child. It's stupid. This isn't Q. I don't know who this is but it isn't Q. He offers to send Voyager home if she has his baby. Rape by coercion is still rape! Lady Q orders Voyager to fly into a supernova to enter the continuum. I'm not even going to bother calling this stupid. She gives B'Elanna instructions for super strong shields that she'll never use again after this episode. The southern Q general (this is stupid) tells Janeway he wants to end the war by executing Q. Janeway begs him to listen to Q's baby idea instead. Why would the continuum go along with the baby idea anyway if they're so against any change? He sentences Janeway to death too because the continuum apparently has laws on warcrimes now (what is this stupid episode.) Q makes a noble speech before his exectuion and asks for Janeway to be spared (boring.) Chakotay and Lady Q show up to save them before they're shot by the firing squad. Lady Q lamely explains that the Voyager crew are using Q weapons, however that fucking works, so the general calls for a ceasefire. Q and Lady Q touch fingers. She's pregnant now. WHY DOES THIS END THE WAR? Q appears on Voyager with a baby. He tells Janeway he won't do any of the fun things he used to do that made him interesting now that he has a baby. ARGH. Janeway doesn't bother asking him to send Voyager home despite that fact she just helped end a war.

Okay it's not quite the absolute worst episdoe ever. John de Lancie is good as always and Suzie Plakson is a fun guest star. But what I HATE about this episode is how it fucking ruins the Q forever. Remember how weird and mysterious they were in TNG? How they were above it all, how they didn't interact with the lower species (Q got in trouble for messing around with humans.) But here they are, fighting a war that's causing supernovae. Somehow. And the whole metaphor for the continuum thing in 'Death Wish' was great because it was just for the trial and not real, but here we have the Voyager crew shooting at omnipotent aliens using guns and what the fuck is that. Q just doesn't feel like himself anymore despite de Lancie's best efforts. It's bad I hate it.

SCORE: 2.5/10
 
The heart I left on your post was for you, for watching Neelix get his hairy feet rubbed.
 
Macrocosm - Neelix apologises to some weird autistic aliens ("The Tak Tak") for Janeway's behaviour before they head back to Voyager in a shuttle. They find Voyager adrift and can't pick up lifesigns and yeah this is the exact same set-up as TNG's 'Genesis' also written by Braga. They walk about the seemingly empty ship with their phasers out. They find Wildman's quarters empty with Neelix's shitty tv show on the monitor (clearly she killed herself) before hearing some bees!? They find a gooey hole punched through the transporter pad. Some alien bastard's eaten everyone! The giant bees attack the turbolift Janeway and Neelix are in and Neelix gets slimed. Janeway detects human life as Neelix starts to get sick. Janeway leaves him to do ("goes to get help.") She hears him screaming then Neelix disappears so I guess he's dead now. Janeway heads to Engineering where she strip down to her vest because the ship is so hot (that's not the only thing that's "hot" if you know what I mean.) She also upgrades to a bigger gun because it looks cooler. A wasp thing stalks Janeway on the Bridge and she gets stung. Janeway finds some of the crew sleeping and coughing in the Mess Hall. They all have sting marks. We finally get a look at one of the alien creatures and it looks like it belongs in an N64 game. Janeway blows it up. She gets to Sickbay (which is just down the corridor from the Mess Hall, I guess!)

The Doctor treats Janeway and explains Voyager has been invaded by a "macro virus." We then go into a really long flashback sequence showing how it started which totally slows down the episode and kills the atmosphere that's been built up. Basically the Doctor went on his first away team using the mobile emitter and beamed down to help some sick aliens in a cave. The Doc found a virus that "left the microscopic world" by obsorbing growth hormones from the aliens (great science there!) The Doc wanted to beam the sick aliens up to Voyager but Chakotay wouldn't let him. But the virus still managed to go on Voyager through the transporter anyway (which makes the Doctor look dumb.) Tom looked after the Mess Hall while Neelix was away (yawn.) B'Elanna was the first person infected via a gel pack. We briefly go back to the present day but then Janeway asks for MORE DETAILS and holy shit this is pointless. Everyone was infected eventually, they all had to gather together in the MH and cargo bays. Again this flashback is way too long and dull and poorly placed and one more time TOO LONG. FINALLY the Doc and Janeway head off to different pars of the ship to do stuff that will solve everything (I've nearly fallen asleep after that flashback, don't ask me what they're doing.) The Doctor has to hide in a shuttle after being attacked by wasps. The Tak Tak arrive to "purify" Voyager as there's no cure for the virus. Janeway tells them she has a cure so the aspy fucks give her one hour. Janeway turns Neelix's shitty resort on and the viruses start attacking the holo characters. This is pretty funny. Janway puts together an "antigen bomb." A virus attacks her but she STABS IT TO DEATH. She blows up the holodeck with her bomb and kills the rest of the virsuses (sadly this doesn't mean the end of Club Neelix.) Janeway relaxes in her Ready Room. Since we weren't told otherwise I'm assuming Neelix is dead.

The start ane end of this episode are dumb fun. I mean the idea of a giant virus attacking the ship is ridiculous, but Star Trek sometimes does stuff like this and it's sometimes fun! It's obvious Kate Mulgrew asked the writers to do an action episode for her and she does well in her vest shooting and stabbing monsters. But I can't stress enough how bad the flashbavk in the middle is. It just KILLs the episdoe. All the tension disappears and you just want the episode to go back to Janeway running about the ship sweating. So it's a mix of dumb fun and "GET BACK TO THE WASPS."

SCORE: 6/10


Fair Trade - Neelix wants Tuvok to train him to be a security officer but Tuvok isn't into it for obvious reasons. He also asks B'Elanna if he can do some Engineering work too (Ensign Vorik makes his first appearance here.) Voyager arrives in a dusty region of space known as the Nekrit Expanse. It is of course thousand of light years wide so Voyager can't fly through it (or over or under it as usual.) Voyager arrives at a trading station with a rude operator and Paris does his fucking "pleasant fellow!" thing again. Janeway meets with the station operator and a shifty looking guy tries to sell Chakotay and Tom drugs. Neelix tries to find a map of the Expanse and meets an old Talaxian friend Wix. Neelix bigs himself up while Wix admits he's down on his luck (partly because he took the blame for something criminal he and Neelix did.) Neelix reveals he's worried Janeway will kick him off Voyager soon as he's never travelled beyond the Nekrit Expanse. Wix says he might be able to help him find a map. Wix helps Chakotay find some stuff Voyager needs and tells Neelix he has a map but needs Neelix's help to deliver "medical supplies" to the station and Neelix can't tell anyone. I'm sure this isn't dodgy at all! Neelix and Wix head to the station in a shuttle and Wix insists they be armed (but don't worry, it's not dodgy!) The medical supplies are revealed to be drugs and Wix has to shoot some people when they try to rob the Talaxians. Neelix wants to tell Janeway the truth but Wix guilt trips him about the time he did a prison stint because of Neelix. The station operator has detected a Federation phaser used in the murder and is going to investigate on Voyager.

Tuvok question's Neelix about Wix as he was onboard Voyager and could have stolen the phaser. Tuvok questions Wix who easily lies about everything. Wix warns Neelix that his mean business associates are angry with him for blowing the drug deal. He wants Neelix to steal some warp plasma to pay them off. Neelix won't steal from his friends but Wix tells him he has no choice and he'll be kicked off Voyager if Janeway finds out the truth anyway. Neelix asks Tom about his time in prison. Tom says it happened because he made a mistake and lied about it instead of coming clean. Neelix goes to Engineering to steal the plasma while Vorik is hanging about. Vorik talks to Neelix about what a great place Voyager is and Neelix has a change of heart. He goes to the station and tells Wix they have to tell the truth. The station operator arrests Tom and Chakotay (the drug dealer they talked to was the guy Wix murdered.) Janeway tells the station operator he's obviously wrong. Neelix again tells Wix this has gone on long enough and he's going to tell the truth. Wix says he can't let Neelix do it alone and they go to the station operator together. They admit what they did but tell him there's a lot more drug dealing happening on the station than he knows about and only they can stop it with their secret plan. Wix will arrange a meeting with the dealers to give them the warp plasma and then turn the dealers over to the cop. Neelix and Wix hand over the (contaminated) plasma to the dealers then Neelix declares they're under arrest. Neelix uses the old "the plasma will blow up and kill you if you fire your phaser" trick and dares the dealer to shoot because he's got nothing to live for anyway. One of the dealers fies anyway when the cops show up and there's an explosion. Neelix wakes up in Sickbay, Wix having run off and left him to face the music. Janeway asks Neelix why she shouldn't kick him off the fucking ship. Neelix says he kept taking one step after another and everything went out of control, all because he needed a map. Janeway uses the line "the first dusty of any Starfleet officer is the truth" like Picard in 'The First Duty' so I guess that's a line they teach all the Captains. She won't let Neelix just walk away from the ship because he made a mistake. It doesn't matter that he can't guide them anymore, he's still a part of the crew. But he's going to spend the next two months scrubbing the "exhaust mainfolds" which sadly means no real consequences and it'll never come up again.

Despite the fact that Neelix won't actually be changed by the events of this episode, it's still by far the best Neelix episode. I was doubting Ethan Phillips a few episodes ago when he was doing the stupid dance, but he really is a good actor and does a great job here. Everything Neelix does is understandable but you can also see him making the wrong choices and can tell that he knows he's doing the wrong thing but is so desperate not to be seen as useless that he just keeps going along with it (and really if I was Neelix I'd worry about being seen as useless too.) The only thing I'd say is weird is that there's no scenes between him and Kes at all. They're still dating, as far as we know, so you'd think he'd talk to her during the whole thing.

SCORE: 9/10
 
Alter Ego - Voyager investigates an "iversion nebula" which is really interesting according to Janeway. Tuvok is interrupted playing Vulcan Jenga by Harry who wants help eliminating emotions. Why? Because he's fallen in love with a hologram, the big fool. Tuvok agrees to help him anyway and they go to Neelix's shitty resort (Neelix is having half naked holograms decorate the resort for him, instead of just asking the computer to make the things appear.) They meet Marayna the hologram and Harry is embarrassed to be talking to her in front of real people. Tuvok tuts at Harry's predictable human reactions. He warns Harry to get his emotions under control or face deadly consequences (or something.) Voyager observes the nebula doing unnatural things. Torres and Paris kind of flirt on the way to Neelix's party as Tom says she looks "smashing." Harry is doing Vulcan meditation stuff at first but is pretty easily talked into attending the party by Tom. Tuvok sees Marayna playing his Vulcan game and runs over to give advice. She makes a keen observation about his behaviour and he's impressed by her. You can probably see where this is going. Vorik comes between Tom and B'Elanna. Tuvok and Marayna stay at the party after everyone else and she continues to show an unique understanding of the Vulcan mind. It's kind of obvious that she's no ordinary hologram by now but Tuvok doesn't try to find out more.

Voyager's engines mysteriously cut out. Harry catches Tuvok and Marayna in the resort and gets jealous. Tuvok tells him he's done nothing wrong and Harry throws a strop. Voyager gest thrusters working and heads out of the nebula. Marayna shows up in Tuvok's quarters using the Doctor's mobile emitter. She tells Tuvok she can't go back to life without him but Tuvok finally reaslies she's not a normal hologram and calls the cops. She escapes as she seems to have control over the computer. Chakotay brings up that a sentient hologram once took over the Enterprise-D. Tuovk, Torres and, for some reason, Tom head to the Holodeck to take deactivate her. They get beaten up by Hawaiian holograms. They manage to escape and B'Elanna finds out that Marayna is actually an alien woman in a spaceship using the hologram as a puppet to play Jenga with Tuvok. She threatens to destroy the ship unless Tuvok comes to the holodeck. She tells him she loves him and stuff but Tuvok says nothing can ever happen between them. Torres manages to beam Tuvok over to the real Marayna's ship as Voyager does its weekly "shields at four percent!" thing. She's not a hot woman in real life. She looks like a cat thing! (It's the same hot actress really, just wearing cat thing make-up.) She explains that she's in charge of keeping the nebula running, but that mean she has to live alone on a spaceship monitoring the nebula all day. She sometimes hacks into ship's computers for fun, but never thought she'd find something like the holodeck and fall in love with Tuvok! She wants him to stay with her. Tuvok admits he is fascinated by Marayna but he has duties on Voyager and a wife to get home to. He says if she really loved him she'd let him go and of course she does. Tuvok suggests she call a replacement and live with her own kind for a while. Tuvok apologises to Harry for not respecting his emotions and offers to teach him how to play the Vulcan game.

There's annoying stuff about this episode, mostly Harry being childish and Tuvok taking way too long to realise Marayna isn't a normal hologram. Marayna going crazy and nearly blowing up the ship is a bit much too. But I do like the story between her and Tuvok and the final scene between them really works.

SCORE: 7/10


Coda - Janeway and Chakotay are off in a shuttle doing something (having the Captain and First Officer on a mission together in a shuttle seems really risky but thaaaaaaat's Voyager!) when they're hit by space lightning. The shuttle crashes, obviously. Chakotay has to drag the unconscious Janeway out of the shuttle and give her mouth to mouth(!) He saves her life. They're attacked by Vidiians(!) and Chakotay is shot and Janeway choked...then suddenly the two of them are back in the shuttle. They're instantly aware that they're in a time loop. This time they're destroyed by the Vidiian ship. They wake up in the shuttle again and Janeway says "it's looking more and more likely we're in a time loop!" No shit, Kathryn. This time the Vidiian ships just vanish (okay) and the shuttle gets back to Voyager. Chakotay can't remember the time loop. The Doctor reveals Janeway has somehow contracted the Phage from the Vidiians but Chakotay doesn't have it. Janeway grows more and more sick as the Doctor tries to cure the Phage. The Doctor says the only thing to do is to euthanise Janeway(!) and she yells at him as he gases her to death. Janeway wakes up back in the shuttle with Chakotay. What. There's a weird glowy space thing in front of them and Chakotay suggests flying into it. Then Janeway is a ghost watching Chakotay trying to revive her on the planet. Janeway's ghost watches the Doctor try to save her life on the ship but she dies yet again. So...everyhing that happened so far has just been weird random stuff. Ghost Janeway follows Kes about trying to get her attention and Kes feels her presence.

Janeway sees the weird glowy space thing again in Engineering. Her dad walks out of it. He's a Starfleet Admiral because every Starfleet officer seems to have parents who are also in Starfleet. He tells her she's dead and he wants her to cross over the afterlife with him. She just has to accept she's dead. Tuvok mind melds with Kes to try to help her contact Janeway. Kes can't find her and determines that she was just imagining it before and Janeway must be dead. Janeway's dad tells her she's really dead look this proves it! B'Elanna makes a nice speech about Janeway to everyone (well about twenty people) in the Mess Hall. Harry makes a not as well acted speech. Everyone looks sad. Ghost dad again tells Janeway it's over and she should come into the light. He tells her that people who don't come into the light become horrible ghost things trapped in an (un)living Hell. He probably should have told her that first. Janeway says she wants to stay to see what happens to everyone. It FINALLY flashes to the "real" world where Janeway is still on the planet after the shuttle crash and the Doctor and Chakotay are trying to revive her. Janeway realises that ghost dad is some evil alien shitter who's trying to convince her to give up and die. He reveals that the glowy thing is a "matrix" the dead go to and he took the form of her father to guide her there and make her comfortable. Janeway realises it's not about ever-lasting joy in his matrix and he needs her to enter by choice and that's why he's been trying to convince her. He promises to bring her to his matrix one day and she says "go back to Hell, coward!" Uhh. Janeway finally wakes up on the planet and we can put all this behind us. Though shouldn't the discovery that an evil entity tries to eat the soul of everyone who dies be more of a big deal? Chakotay just kind of brushes it off as a weird Delta Quadrant thing but like there's still a lot of people dying in the DQ every day (including a lot of Voyager's crew.)

So just to make it clear, everything that happens after the first shuttle crush is just the evil guy trying to get Janeway into his "matrix." Why does he make her experience a time loop and think she's got the Phage? Why does he have a subplot where Kes thinks she feels Janeway's presence but then later says she didn't? Because they needed something to happen in first half of the episode. There's no point to it. And it's all pretty boring. In the second half we have one nice bit, B'Elanna's speech, but that's all a dream too and B'Elanna never really made that nice speech (Janewway just imagined a nice speech for her own funeral, I guess!) The stuff with Janeway fighting to stay alive for her crew should have been a lot better than it as since it's the actual meat of the episode, but by the time we get to her conflict with Ghost Dad we've gone through forty minutes of boredom and I was really tired and just didn't care.

SCORE: 2/10
 
Blood Fever - Voyager does its usual thing of collecting a rare material from a planet. B'Elanna plans the mining of the planet with Vorik, who suddenly declares that he wants to be her mate. She politely declines but Vorik gets aggressive and grabs her face. She punches him. Vorik confirms the Doctor's suspicions that he's going through the Pon farr but refuses any help. He says he'll meditate his way back to normal (he's going to wank a lot.) The Doc tries to learn more about the Pon farr from Tuvok then rightly yells at him about how stupid it is that the Vulcans don't discuss the Pon farr with everyone (he could have added it's especially stupid when Vulcans are serving on starships with non-Vulcans and there's a risk of sexual assault.) B'Elanna, Tom and Neelix meet in the transporter room in their tight climbing outfits. This is good if you find Tom or Neelix attractive! They climb down a big hole on the planet but Neelix falls into B'Elanna. She goes mad, bites Tom, and runs off. Tuvok suspects Vorik has casued B'Elanna to enter Pon farr herself and visits the emotional Vorik to learn more. Vorik thinks the only logical solution is that he and Torres becomes mates (I'll bet he does) but Tuvok tells him to keep meditating. Chakotay and Tuvok join Tom in hunting down B'Elanna. They find her pretty quick and she just wants to show Tom the active power system she's discovered. They're soon surrounded by dusty aliens with guns. B'Elanna beats up one of the aliens and steals his gun, but the alien just disappears like some kind of magic dude!

There's a cave-in and Tom and B'Elanna are seperated from the others. The Doctor createsa Vulcan hologram woman (in Neelix's fucking resort of course) and suggests Vorik mate with her to get over his Pon farr problem. The obvious immediate problem with this is that he can't telepathically bond with her but the Doc doesn't bring this up. B'Elanna's stripped down to her vest and gotten more sweaty. Tom has to stop her from doing crazy impuslive things like shooting rocks. She wants to shag him but he says it's not going to happen since she isn't in her right mind and he'd be taking advantage. TOM PARIS IS YOUR UNPROBLEMATIC FAVE. Chakotay and Tuvok are held captive by the dusty aliens. The aliens explain that their people were mostly wiped out by mysterious invaders and have lived secretly underground since. B'Elanna can't take the blood fever anymore and jumps on Tom. He keeps fighting her on. She tells him she knows he wants her. She tells him she's actually wanted him for a while too and they kiss. But he rejects her again. Vorik tells the Doctor that his solution worked. He tells Janeway he's creating a half Klingon hologram too and preparing to write a study on mating rituals of all species. Chakotay and Tuvok find Tom and B'Elanna and dig them out. They can't contact Voyager. Tuvok tells Tom he must "help" B'Elanna now. Tom reluctantly goes off to shag her in the jungle, but Vorik shows up and calls for Tuvok. He declares he wants to fight Tom to the death for the right to bonk B'Elanna. Tom is fine with this(!?) but B'Elanna accepts the challenge herself. Tuvok thinks this is a fine solution. They don't play the TOS fight music because Rick Berman's a coward. B'Elanna wins the fight. This conveniently solves everything! So wait, if Vorik had won the fight what would have happened? Would he have got to have sex with B'Elanna? Tom and B'Elanna have an awkward turbolift trip together back on Voyager. Tom says he wouldn't mind seeing her scary Klingon side again some day. Chakotay finds the body of one of the invaders of the planet and shows it to Janeway: IT'S A FUCKDAMN BORG.

The pon Farr is really stupid. You can get away with that in TOS beecause it's the sixties and everthing was campy and fun. 'Amok Time' is a classic and has Spock SMILING WITH GLEE when he sees Kirk is still alive. It's great. But it's the nineties now and things aren't so fun anymore. I'm not saying you can't ever do a good Pon farr story in the modern day (or twenty years ago) but this one doesn't know how to handle it. Vorik is no Spock and just comes across as creepy here. Tom has some good moments, Roxann Dawson is great as always, but the solution to the story is dumb. It makes no sense that Starfleet doesn't know anything about a medical condition that can turn Vulcans into rapists every seven years. The episode isn't bad in terms of writing and direction (by Andrew "Garak" Robinson!) but man is it dumb.

SCORE: 5.5/10


Unity - Chakotay's in a shuttle with a young Ensign. Gee I wonder if they'll crash and she'll die. They pick up a Federation signal from a planet and land (okay, no crash!) Some cloaked people with guns show up. They shoot and kill the Ensign, because why not, but only stun Chakotay. Some other people in cloaks run them off and take Chakotay to safety. He instantly recognises their leader as human despite the fact that half the aliens in the DQ look identical to humans. Her name is Riley and she explains that some aliens kidnapped her and many members of other AQ species and took them to this planet for some reason. Different factions on the planet fight each other. Back on Voyager Tom talks about how boring the Nekrit Expanse (continuity!) is. Then the find a Borg Cube. It's deactivated, but Janeway wants to board it to learn about them (this seems like a bad idea!) Riley tells Chakotay her people want to stay on the planet. Tuvok and Torres explore the cube and find a dead drone. Torres suggests to Janeway that the Borg may have been defeated by an enemy even more powerful than them. Chakotay breaks out of the room Riley locked him up in and discovers her horrible secret: she's bald! Oh, and a Borg drone. She explains they were all assimilated at Wolf-359 (umm, but the Cube there blew up!) but their cube was deactibated five years ago and they've been trying to build a new life here on the planet. Her best friend is a Romulan! The Doctor accidentally activates the drone on Voyager but quickly turns it off after B'Elanna yells.

Chakotay is getting more sick from being shot and the Romulan tells him that the Borg collective consciousness can help people to heal. He and Riley want to link Chuckles up to a mini collective to help heal him. Chakotay turns it down at first, but it's the only way to help him so he eventually agrees. He hears friendly Borg voices in his head and has visions of stock footage of Borg destroying ships and planets we saw in TNG. Chakotay observes after that he knows things about Riley now and her grandad back in Texas. He and Riley kind of kiss (it cuts away) as he listens to her thoughts. Chakotay admits he enjoyed the link a lot and also knows what Riley really wants. Voyager arrives and Chakotay introduces Janeway to his new Borg friends. Riley's plan is to re-introduce the neural link between all the former Borg on the planet and bring back peace. Janeway thinks this is a terrible idea. Riley says they're not Borg anymore and all she wants is peace through shared consciousness. She wants to use the generator from the disabled Borg cube to reactivate the link. Janeway again thinks this is a bad idea because it could attract more Borg. Chakotay speaks up for Riley but Janeway won't risk creating a new collective. Chakotay tries to tempt Riley to come with them but she won't leave her people. While Chuckles is in a shuttle with B'Elanna, he hears the Borg voices in his head again. He stuns B'Elanna. Riley's people are under attack by bad guys and they use their link to Chakotay to control him and have him reactivate the generator on the Borg Cube despite Tuvok's attempt to stop him. A bunch of drones activate on the Cube but everyone beams out in time. The new collective destroys the cube and contacts Janeway. They apologise for what they did to Chakotay but thank him. Chakotay wonders how long the new collective's ideals will last in the face of their new power.

It's a good episode! It's Voyager's first Borg episode but wisely it avoids featuring the typical Borg stuff and, other than a few drones, the Borg aren't the enemy here. Sure the new collective make Chakotay do something he doesn't want to, but you can understand why Riley would think they had no choice. It's a shame we never find out what became of Riley's collective though.

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
Darkling - Voyager is hanging out with a group of space travellers (yep, space gypsies) who have Bajoran noses. One of them tells Janeway a bullshit story and nearly has a fight with a younger one who has made friends with Kes (in her sexy new jumpsuit!) The Doctor has created Ghandi, Lord Byron, T'Pau and others in Neelix's shitty resort (is nobody allowed to run another program?) to learn from them and integrate parts of their personality into his own. He thinks Kes has gotten too attached to the Travellers (he's racist.) He mentions Kes's "recent break up with Neelix" and when the fuck did that happen? Are we supposed to think the break-up in 'Warlord' where she was really the evil guy stuck? Did she just never tell Neelix she was possessed during it? I feel like the idea is they broke up off screen? It should have been shown. I'd like to see Neelix get his heart broken again. Anyway, the Doctor gets pervy with B'Elanna (what's with that lately?) and she warns him against casually adding personality traits to his program. Kes and the guy go for a moonlight walk in the woods. They kiss while a mysterious hooded figure watches them. Kes beams home at 3am and Tuvok tells her off for staying up too late (this is a bit stupid.) The Doctor further tells her off for being late and kissing boys. Kes says "I'm not a child, I'm three years old now!" Kes tells Janeway she isn't sure if she wants to spend the rest of her life on Voyager (she's spent a third of it there!) and wants to go off with space gypsy to see what it's like. Tuvok questions him about his intentions and he says he loves Kes. That was fast. Cloaked figure pushes space gypsy off a cliff. He goes to the tavern and we "shockingly" find out it's the Doctor. He burns the asshole guy from before's hand in a fire. The Doctor perpars to go help the injured guy after Kes comes to him, but B'Elanna interrupts saying there's a problem with his subroutines. B'Elanna tells him there's "dark threads" running through his program now, like Lord Byron's craziness. She tries to shut him down and in the next scene Janeway and Tuvok find B'Elanna unconscious in Sickbay.

Tuvok has found no forensic evidence from the attack on space gypsy (because a hologram did it.) The Doc's program glitches again and his hair goes messy to indicate that he's evil. This is also stupid. The Doctor paralyses B'Elanna and threatens to remove her tongue (pervert.) Evil Doctor wants B'Elanna to delete Good Doctor. She says that will mean he'll die too but he doesn't believe her. The Doc stalks a sexy Ensign we've never seen before into the Turbolift but Paris joins them before he can rape her or whatever. Tuvok questions the tavern owner. Chakotay (hi, Chakotay!) makes an apperance carrying Kes's boyfriend in and they go to look at the scene of the time. Kes finds the Doctor in the resort torturing the historical figures. He makes Ghandi's head spin round! He kidnaps Kes and shoots the transporter operator. He plans to travel space with Kes doing evil stuff! Tuvok and Chakotay finally figure out the Doc's the attacker. The evil Doc keeps showing off to Kes about how "dark" he is. She argues that goodness is better. This is not the deep and meaingful Star Trek moment it wants to be. She says the cells in our body cooperate so cooperating is good! But Doc stays evil and runs off into the woods with Kes after tavern owner fails to get him a ship. Tuvok and Chakotay find them and the Doc threatens to throw Kes off a cliff with him. Kes argues that the Doctor has been trying to protect her and won't kill her (since he said he kidnapped her for her own good.) Emo Doc is angry at being called "good" and jumps off the cliff with her. They're beamed back to Voyager in mid fall and the Doc is instantly back to normal (B'Elanna deleted all his evil subroutines. The lesson here: don't give yourself evil subroutines.) Kes shows up for work and offers a lame one line explanation of why she's decided to stay on Voyager. The Doctor recites his hippopotamus oath.

The first half of the episode kind of has some decent character stuff for Kes. I mean it's stupid that she's fallen in love with space gypsy after five minues, but the scene with her and Janeway makes sense. She's only going to live until she's nine, does she really want to spend her whole life on Voyager? Then that's all forgotten and the episode becomes about the Doctor being evil and it's all pretty bad. Robert Picardo is a good actor but Evil Doctor (with MESSY HAIR) is a terrible character. You'd expect there to be some resolution to the Kes plot. Some final scene between her and space gypsy, some good reason for her to stay on Voyager. Nope. She just says something generic (I instantly forgot what it was) and the status quo is maintained. A big waste of time.

SCORE: 3.5/10


Rise - Voyager shoots a poorly animated asteroid that's going to hit a planet. They've stopped to help some fucking aliens again! Twelve more asteroids are coming. A doctor from the planet contacts the ambassador and reveals the shocking truth that the asteroids are artificial(!) Rescue teams are sent to the planet to try to find the doctor (by shuttle since Voyager's transporters are shit.) Neelix is on Tuvok's team and acts annoyingly nervous with the Doctor before leaving. Their shuttle crashes, obviously. They meet the doctor and some other guy on the planet. The doctor will only reveal his sensitive information to the ambassador. Neelix and Tuvok clash because one's annoying and the other is grumpy. Neelix spots a tether leading into space. Neelix tells Tuvok his idea to climb the tether until they're above the storm (or whatever) and can be beamed back to Voyager. Tuvok agrees after some hard thinking. A woman with a knife ambushes Neelix at the base of the tether. She shouts a bit but Neelix pretty easily talks her into coming with them. B'Elanna finds a asteroid has a guidance system inside it. Neelix and the girl who nearly murdered him decide to name their lift after Neelix's favourite dead sister. Tuvok tells Neelix off for talking about dead family members with the girl. The doctor tries to leave without everyone else and everything starts shaking. Neelix has to launch their lift. There's some more dramatic shaking but Neelix saves the day.

Neelix admits to Tuvok that he only built models of tethers and carriages before and never actually worked on real ones. The other aliens threaten to throw the doctor out of the carriage (I thought he was in a different one? I don't know.) One guy tries to punch Tuvok but he just catches his fist and crushes it like a badass. They're running out of oxygen too so that's bad. The stupid doctor goes nuts and tries to leave. He says "there's something out there...the roof!" and dies. He sucked anyway. Tuvok thinks he was murdered. Neelix thinks they should check the roof but Tuvok doesn't think it's worth the risk even though Neelix has a "funny feeling." He tells Neelix to shut up. Neelix shuts down the carriage and tells Tuvok he's sick of his sarcasm and contempt. He makes a big speech and says he won't start the carriage up again until someone goes on the roof. Of course Tuvok volunteers because it's the logical choice with his superior Vulcan strength. Tuvok finds a data storage device. One of the alien guys (there's two and they look the same) turns out to be evil and kicks Neelix. He throws Tuvok off the lift but Tuvok hangs on. Some different aliens show up and tell Janeway to leave their space. Shouldn't they have been introduced earlier? Neelix wakes up and sees Tuvok looking in the window. He lets Tuvok in and he beats up the bad guy, who falls out the open door (the part with him falling into the sky looks hilarious.) Tuvok thanks Neelix. He motivates the head-injured Neelix into getting the carriage going again. They get to safety, Neelix hugs the girl, the other random guy hugs Tuvok (maybe he's Trek's first gay character and it just didn't come up during the episode.) The information Tuvok found on the roof conveniently lets them defeat the evil aliens who showed up five minutes ago. Neelix explains to the girl that the evil aliens use fake asteroids to invade planets and the doctor found out about them and collected secret information and the other guy was a traitor and that's why he couldn't tell anyone and it's a huge plot dump. Tuvok tells Neelix his instinct was right this time but logic is still better okay. They have a really weak Spock/Bones argument to end the episode.

This episode could have been good, I guess! I mean it feels like an inferior version of that DS9 wit Quark and Odo climbing the mountain, but they could have done something interesting with the Tuvok/Neelix relationship. I guess they kind of do, but it requires Tuvok to be more rude than normal. And he is right that Neelix's "instinct" could have been wrong but it has to be right for the episode to work. What really hurts the episode though is the weak guest chacaters and weirdly executed conspiracy plot. The bad guys show up right near the end, the one guy who turns out to be a traitor was completely anonymous up until then, the acting isn't great from any of them...it's not very good.

SCORE: 4/10
 
Favourite Son - Kim bizarrely believes that an alien ship is going to fire on Voyager and shoos first (like GREEDO would do!) Voyager barely gets away but Harry insists he did the right thing. He starts to feel guilty when he witnesses B'Elanna nearly die in Sickbay. He has a shitty dream sequence where a bad actress plays his mother. He wakes up with weird alien markings and the Doc doesn't know what they are. Harry apologises to B'ELanna for nearly killing her and she's cool with it. Janeway tells Harry it turns out he was right about the aliens. Those bad aliens show up againand Harry leads Voyager to safety. Another ship shows up and chases off the bad guys. Chakotay says "what's your next trick, Harry, pull a shuttle out of a hat?" Voyager could actually use that. A woman from the apparent good aliens welcomes Harry "home". They visit the good alien homeworld where Harry is welcomed by sexy women aliens kissing him. The head of the aliens explains that Harry was conceived on their world and implanted in an Earthwoman. No one really asks why they implanted him in a woman 70,000 light years away or why they reproduce in such a stupid way. Another of the male aliens tells Tom that the population is 90% sexy women and he does a Tom face. The evil aliens try to stop the men from coming home (for some reason.) The Doc confirms that everything the sexy lady aliens said is true. The women try to give Harry drugs as another man explains he's going to have three wives. Harry says his parents always told him he was special and it feels pretty damn good to know he is!

The "bad" aliens speak to Voyager and tell Janeway that no one who goes to the sexy woman planet ever leaves. Janeway goes back to get Harry but the sexy women have put a technobabble shield around their planet so she can't have him. Harry watches his new friend marry three women. The groom is blindfolded, tied up and led away. Hmm, this doesn't seem supsicious at all! The Doctor reveals that actually he was completely wrong before and the sexy women are big stinky liars. Harry has been infected by "new DNA." Science! Harry is led to his new bedroom by a lady. He asks if she's going to "tuck him in." He needs to work on his come ons. They kiss and she leaves. Harry has an even shittier dream where he's kissing all the woman and Janeay and Chakotay are telling hi to leave Voyager and bang the entire planet. He wakes to find two women in his bed but they freak him out. Harry just wants to leave now (for some reason?) and the women start acting weird telling him to do his duty and shag them. Harry pretends he's going to stay and ties one woman to a chair and beats the other to death (well okay he just hits her once.) He goes to the other guy's bedroom but finds him as a drained husk. Harry confronts another of the women (the leader? I can't remember) who tells him that any father should be willing to die to pass his DNA on. Voyager does something bland to get through the shield. The women beat up Harry with big sticks (yes, really.) He's beamed out just before they can rape him. Voyager gets away. Harry tells Neelix about the Psirens from Greek mythology.

What can I say. It's shit. It's so bad that it's funny, bu that doesn't excuse it from being so bad. The set-up is mildly interesting, where Harry shoots the ship and doesn't know why, but once you find out "HARRY'S REALLY AN ALIEN" you know it's all a load of shit since Harry obviously isn't really an alien. Then there's lots of scenes of women trying to seduce Harry. Then he escapes. The end. It's shit. Even the sexy women aren't wearing very revealing constumes because it's Voyager and it's pressy sexless.

SCORE: 1/10


Before and After - The Doctor has hair and tells someone she's the finest friend he ever had. It's Gradma Kes! And he Asian grandson is there too. The Doctor's name is Van Gogh. Kes doesn't remember anything except the previous scene of people crowded around her. Chakotay's the Captain now (this is the darkest timeline.) So it seems we're about six years in the future as Kes is nine and senile and the Doc's working on a bio chamber to keep her alive. Kes suddenly jumps back in time into her bedroom. She tells her daughter she doesn't know her, but remebers her grandson because they met in the future (it's one of those high concept episodes, lads!) Oh, Tom is her husband. He's married to an old lady. The Doc tells him about the bio chamber he's working on. And Harry is married to Kes and Tom's daughter. Because of course he is. She jumps back to her ninth birthday now (Neelix is in a Starfleet uniform and, improbably, a security officer. There's a nice continuity reference to Kes only having one lung.) Kes tries to worked out what's going on by talking to her gay grandson (I know you shouldn't judge a child's sexuality but he's really gay.) She's tells the Doctor what's happening and they go through the usual "maybe you're just senile" bit before Kes gives him pause with her future knowledge. She has a scene with Tom, her husband who she hardly knows, where he fills in some of their history. Kes got radiation poisoning at the beginning of the "Year of Hell". Janeway, Joey Carey(!) and B'Elanna died at the hnads of aliens known as the Krennim. Just as Tom figures something out about the Kremmin's chroniton torpedos (or something) Kes jumpst back in time to when her gay grandson was born. The Doctor believes her without question now and explains that Kes was infected by Chronitons and his bio chamber in the future somehow resulted in her jumping backwards in time. The Doctor warns that kes could jump back to a time before she even existed!

Kes has a moment where she tells her daughter that she's impressed by her and she'll be a good mother. Just as the Doc (called Mozart in this time) and Kes's daugther are making progress in solving her problem Kes jumps back in time again. This time Kes jumps all the way back to her daughter's birth, in a shuttle with Tom. He daughter comes out of her back. Umm, how does that work? They return to find Voyager under attack by the Krennim so this is during the YEAR OF HELL. So Tom got over B'Elanna's death, married Kes, had a baby all during the Year of Hell? Kes jumps back to Neelix's shitty resort. B'Elanna is still alive and kisses Tom. The Krennim attack as Kes just happens to have jumped to the moment of their first attack and witnesses the deaths of Kathryn and B'Elanna. Kes tells grieving Tom that he'll be okay (since he'll be impregnating her in a few months.) Kes finds the torpedo that infected her with chronitons and manages to scan its frequency or whatever she needed to do. She jumps back to Voyager season 3 time and explains everything (again) to the crew. Doc and B'Elanna have a technobabble way to get her back in temporal synch. Kes warns Janeway to avoid the Krennim at all costs (let's see if they stick to this!) The Doc begins the treatment inside a bio chamber thing but Kes jumps back to 'Caretaker' where Neelix is making his speech to convince Janeway to let them stay on the ship. She tells Janeway what's going on but Neelix tells her to shut up. She jumps back to when she was a kid in the underground shopping mall with her dad. She jumps back to being born between her mother's shoulder blades. Then she's in her mum's uterus (or whatever.) Then cells dividing. This is going a bit far! Then time starts moving forward again. Kes ends up fine in the present day, but she still has long hair for some reason. I guess he grew it before this episode (and her hair grows super fast.) Tuvok again asks for a report on the Krennim. Kes says "there's no time like the present!" and everyone laughs like at the end of He-Man.

It's a high concept episode. Maybe the most complicated episode to explain Trek has ever done. Kes is jumping backwards in time...from the future...but she can't remember anything...it's a lot. I guess the closest comparison is 'All Good Things...' and I imagine this episode was inspired by that one. But I do like complicated stories and time travel! I can follow the plot! Is it actually good though? Is it a good character episode for Kes? Well, certainly not to the extent 'All Good Things...' was for Picard. The problem is that Kes isn't really Kes for much of it. She has amesia, so spends the first half of the episode saying "who a I!?" and asking who everyone else is. It doesn't give Jennifer Lien much of a chance to do much with Kes's character. In fact Lien isn't really as impressive here as in 'Warold' and at times feels a bit sleepy? She gets better as it goes on and they basically forget the amnesia stuff though. I don't know, maybe she'd just found out she was being axed. So yeah while I do like this episode I have to say it isn't really a great Kes episode. She does crawl through radiation to scan a torpedo, yeah, but for the rest of it she's mostly just getting cold then jumping through time and having to explain everything again.

And Harry is a pervert.

SCORE: 7.5/10
 
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