Star Trek: Voyager Season 2 Review

First posted on MI6Forums and BondandBeyond from Jan 29 2011 to Apr 18 2011

"Initiations"
So this episode obviously has two intentions: One is to develop Chakotay, who was woefully underdeveloped in Season 1 after the pilot. The other is to develop the Kazon, for whom the same can be said. On the Kazon end, the episode succeeds, despite making a few mistakes. On the other, its a complete failure. The biggest problem with Chakotay in Season 1 was that for an angry Maquis terrorist leader and contrarian, he was too passive. The writers decided to put too much emphasis on the whole wise Native New Age mystic crap. And they make that same mistake here. Chakotay spends the whole episode being tolerant and accepting and New Age-y. Meanwhile Aron Eisenberg and the other Kazon actors in this episode really sell the race in a way Season 1 episodes didn't, but the emphasis on honour in battle (and the make-up) makes the Kazon come across way too much as watered down Klingons -- although the whole sects/gang/youth thing are really cool. All in all, this is a good VOY episode for focussing on developing characters and the Delta Quadrant, and for having fairly dark themes, as opposed to a high concept sci-fi technoadventure. Also -- Neelix gets to do something important! Wow, its amazing how unannoying Ethan Phillips is when he's not written stupidly.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 9
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 248 days (8 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,538.8 lightyears

"Non Sequitur"
Having given Chakotay and the Kazon some love, Season 2's second episode pays some attention to Harry Kim, who has done NOTHING essentially since the pilot. This is great! The whole episode is a really cool mystery, a fun look back at Earth and the Alpha Quadrant, and a fun "what if" scenario for Kim and Paris. Also -- holy ****, it's the Admiral who dies later in First Contact! So its a fairly fun and interesting VOY episode that succeeds in developing Kim, although I think its the most development he ever gets, ever. Am I mistaken?
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 8
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 250 days (8 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,536.7 lightyears
2 shuttles destroyed in back-to-back episodes -- not good, USS Voyager, not good.

"Parturition"
In the Alpha Quadrant, the Klingons and the Federation have ended 79 years of peace and the Klingons and Cardassians are at war, while the Dominion looks on, ominiously.
Meanwhile, in the DQ, Paris and Neelix settle their differences by caring for an animatronic puppet dinosaur in the cave set. And that's the A-Plot!
Also, Janeway tries a new hairdo (her third) and we're three for three this season on shuttle crashes. Way to conserve, guys!
But really, I don't mind reconciling Neelix and Paris and closing that whole storyline, but it should've been a B plot in a better episode -- like the Kazons attack and Seska's trying to kill Chakotay and Neelix and Paris are trapped in a cargo bay and have to work together to survive sorta thing -- but instead we get a full episode with the two of them in the cave set with the puppet.
In a show frontloaded with conflict (Voy vs the DQ, Starfleet vs Maquis, Paris vs Everyone) its annoying that the only conflict developed regularly has been this petty jealousy between Paris and Neelix.
Anyways, this episode bored me to tears and was awful.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 271 days (8.7 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,516.2 lightyears
A note about my shuttle count: It's not TECHNICALLY accurate. Voyager is supposed to have 3 type 6 shuttles, 3 type 8 shuttles, 2 shuttlepods and 2 work EVAs, but for my purposes I decided to EXTREMELY generous and say that they had 10 shuttles period, of any type. Strictly speaking, as of this episode, we are already out of type 8 shuttles.
Also -- this week's plot was initiated because we were down to 30% of food stores, so we stopped at the planet of the week because we thought there was food there. There wasn't, actually, but then the "plot" started and by the end of the episode we completely forgot that the crew is starving.

"Persistance of Vision"
Yet another "strange events on the Voyager mess with the crew's heads" high concept trip, but this one gets a pass from me because it is in the interests of CHARACTER. We return to issues of Janeway, Paris, Torres etc as PEOPLE which have not been dealt with in some time. For that it gets a passing grade. I even love the villain, a very ominous and threatening character who SHOULD have appeared again if they hadn't given his species the complete and utter rip off name of BOTHAN. But a fairly good episode.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 282 days (9.1 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,504.4 lightyears

"Tattoo"
Chakotay gets character development. As much as I like and respect what they were trying to do here, I find major elements of this episode insulting and offensive. Insulting to my intelligence because I'm supposed to believe that there was a Native American sect on Earth that had **** Klingon foreheads and NO ONE NOTICED THIS or considered it something worth FREAKING OUT ABOUT even though its as obvious as ****, and that Chakotay's people are descended from them but don't have the same foreheads. That makes no sense. Offensive because its yet another bit of science fiction that insists that the Mayans must have had help from Aliens, which is just ludicrous White Supremist nonsense. So there's no way that Egyptians or Mayans could have built pyramids all by themselves, but Western civilization of course achieved all its glories on its own? What a crock of ****. If aliens had helped the Mayans, why where they so incredibly LESS advanced than us, the group without alien assistance, when we showed up??
The other stupid thing about this episode is it has yet ANOTHER alien race be responsible for the god myths of a primitive culture when "Who Mourns for Adonais?" [TOS], "The Paradise Syndrome" [TOS] and "Sharper than a Serpent's Tooth" [TAS] had already done so -- and two of those three involved Native American/Mayan cultures!! Yeesh, ancient Earth sure was a popular stop for Aliens!
But yes, it was good character development for Chakotay.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 293 days (9.5 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,473.6 lightyears

"Cold Fire"
This is an absolutely great VOYAGER episode until the very final moments. Developing Kes, the Ocampa, and the Nacene races introduced in the pilot, furthering along the core VOYAGER story arc, and featuring some great moments from Jennifer Lien and Tim Russ, the whole episode crackles with a dramatic energy the show has lacked for a while. Its biggest failure comes with how it deals with Suspiria. The episode sets up a mysterious, powerful and ruthless enemy, and when she appears there's that great scene of the little girl with the old voice inflicting pain and suffering on Janeway, Tuvok and Torres. Its all immensely effective until Suspiria is convinced, out of nowhere, that in fact Janeway was truthful about not being responsible for the Caretaker's death, and then just goes away, no problem, no questions asked. Yet! Even though Suspiria KNEW Janeway wanted to be spent home, and HAD the ability to do so, and was no longer Janeway's enemy -- she doesn't. For no reason. Then Janeway decides to keep on a course for Earth, hoping maybe they might bump into Suspiria again someday. Maybe? Bump into? You JUST DID BUMP INTO. She was RIGHT THERE! You KNOW she's still gonna hang out in the same area because there's an Array RIGHT THERE and a bunch of Ocampa she actively interacts with! Just hang around the Array until she comes back! Hell, you don't even need her! All the tech you need to go home is ON THAT ARRAY!!
ARRRRGH! Frakkin' Janeway!! I would've SO mutinied by now.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 305 days (9.8 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,450 lightyears

"Maneuvers"
This was another pretty good VOYAGER episode dealing with the series premise and running series villains the Kazon. To be honest, its kind've ridiculous that after so many months we'd encounter the same sect and Maj as in "State of Flux" last season? Are we not making any progress? Also, what was Seska waiting around for before making her move? Her Cardassianess to come back? Anyways, aside from these questions its a great episode with a lot of good dramatic tension and action.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 321 days (10.4 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,207.2 lightyears

"Resistance"
This episode really tried to be dramatic, dark and emotionally involving. At times it was like VOY trying really hard to be DS9 (first or second season DS9, but still). But it all falls totally flat. Because I don't care. The episode asks us to become emotionally involved in a resistance movement against a totalitarian dictatorship but the only reason it gives is because the bad guys are bad. We don't know the history -- we don't know why this planet is like it is, why there's a dictatorship, who the resistance is or what they're fighting for. Its just heroes and villains but it still wants us to care. And I still don't because I also know that none of this matters because I will never see this planet or these people ever again -- there are no consequences. Whereas when DS9 looks at terrorism and rebellion and war, whether it be the Bajorans or the Maquis or whoever, I know there is an ongoing significance.
But, one thing this episode does have going for it is showing a kind of situation Voyager should be getting into more often: desperate for vital supplies, Janeway is clandestinely trading with the resistance fighters against the knowledge of the government. This is interesting, this is central to the series premise but... WHERE DID THIS COME FROM? It would mean more if we had any sense before this episode that Voyager was running low on fuel. It would also make more sense if we had gotten any build up in Janeway's character to explain this sudden about face in her personal beliefs: given that this action goes against her hard stance in "Prime Factors" back in first season. Its not that the change itself is bad, but that its sudden, unexplained, and unremarked upon. The Captain suddenly has completely different values just to serve the plot of an episode. Its something I could never conceive of seeing in the handling of Kirk, Picard or Sisko's characterization.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 332 days (10.7 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 74,024.8 lightyears
This is why I'm watching VOY and DS9 at the same time. It makes VOY more bearable (even if it actually acentuates how terrible it is at the same time). Its interesting the difference, for example, between how a VOY episode tries to be exciting, while a DS9 episode is genuinely exciting. Let's compare:
In a VOY episode, the ship might get attacked by an alien vessel with far superior armaments, with a chance the crew might all be killed. That seems exciting, but it really isn't, because
a) We know the main characters won't die, cause then there's no series and
b) Even if they did, what does it matter? Anything could happen to Voyager and it has no consequences or repercussions anywhere else.
Whereas on DS9, the Romulan/Cardassian Alliance has sent a fleet into the Gamma Quadrant on a pre-emptive strike against the Dominion and it's genuinely exciting because
a) We have no idea if they will succeed or fail and
b) Either way it will have massive repercussions for the galaxy and for the series.

Anyways,

"Prototype"
Despite a lot of cliches and a plot that will never impact this series again, this was a pretty good episode. I liked the moral conundrum, I liked the twist on the moral conundrum. For once, a "Prime Directive Episode" shows us why the Prime Directive is a GOOD thing. Usually we run up against the Prime Directive, have a discussion, and violate it anyways because its more interesting and then everything turns out better than expected (see: TOS). This episode showed us WHY the Prime Directive is there -- we violate it, and tip the balance in a Robot War. So that was great. I also liked that the robots ended up being coldhearted merciless killing machines -- that's a fun and unexpected twist for Trek, which usually makes everyone nice and understandable at heart. Finally, I loved the robots themselves -- I loved that instead of trying to look like detailed, complex, believeable 90s style robots, they were unabashedly tin men in suits, simple, basic, primal, 50s style robots -- robots with a capital R. So an enjoyable episode overall.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 343 days (11 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,857.6 lightyears

"Death Wish"
An episode after Janeway WON'T let Torres CREATE life because it MIGHT have unexpected consequences for a REGION of space, Janeway is perfectly willing to END life which WILL have unexpected consequences on the INFINITY of SPACE/TIME. Lol, inconsistent characterization indeed.
But I digress, this is a great episode of Voyager. Probably one of the all time, classic, must-see top ten for sures. Its also the only one of the Voyager "Q" episodes that's any good. (A good rule of thumb for Q episodes is "is the title a pun?" If no, episode is good.) This is a great episode that really examines the issues of life vs. death, individual vs. the state, chaos vs. order, etc etc. Of course, it has a courtroom structure -- Trek courtroom episodes RARELY fail. Thumbs up all around on this one.
# of Crew: 152 Total -- 133 Starfleet, 17 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 37
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 355 days (11.5 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,856.3 lightyears

"Alliances"
Now this was a good episode of VOYAGER. Not just a good episode of STAR TREK, like "Death Wish" was, but specifically Voyager. It dealt with the major themes of the series -- lost in an unknown part of the galaxy, no support, no allies, beset by enemies on all sides, torn between the values of Starfleet and the pragmatism of the Maquis. The episode explores these themes not only with intelligence, but with drama and excitement -- although to be honest it gets points just for exploring them at all, since VOY ignores its own premise so often. My only real complaints are that the extremely severe damage Voyager sustains in Act One is easily repaired between commercial breaks -- and that Janeway's solution to the problem is anti-climatic. Here was an episode that seemed like its whole point was to finally shake the crew into realizing they were going to have to change and adapt to their new situation, that this would have lasting repurcussions on the series -- but the writers manipulate the situation into giving Janeway a justification to declare that, in fact, they must be truer to their ideals than every -- in other words, that nothing will change, so that the reset button is pushed and its all the same by the next episode.
# of Crew: 149 Total -- 131 Starfleet, 16 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 34
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 370 days (11.9 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,854.9 lightyears

"Threshold"
And WHAT a next episode! What I can I say about "Threshold" that hasn't already been said? Nothing here is worthwhile. The whole thing can be unequivocably shoved out the airlock. Achieving warp 10 is absurd, achieving warp 10 with the limited resources of this ship is more absurd, achieving warp 10 in a shuttle is even more absurd -- and may I point out that this is the first appearance of the type 9 shuttle, a kind of shuttle Voyager wasn't even stocked with when they left (we had type 6s and type 8s and we've destroyed all the type 8s even though we keep seeing them anyway). They NEVER in the episode explain why going warp 10 causes Paris to mutate, or how warp 10 knows what course human evolution is going to take (since evolution is influenced by environmental factors, even if Paris' individual evolution was hyperstimulated, wouldn't he just evolve into a lifeform supersuited to life on a starship, not a salamander puppet?). And if Paris is evolving, how can evolution take him from being mammalian to reptillian? Then there's the mating with Janeway thing. Why JANEWAY? Why not Kes, someone who the show has already established that Paris has repressed romantic feelings for her? Also, the show has tiptoed around giving Janeway ANY romantic entanglements because it was feared doing so would diminish her position as Captain, and the first time they do it is to her conn officer and they have 3 mutant salamander kids and the only reason its done is for the LULZ??
Finally, the reason warp 10 tech is supposedly abandoned is implied to be this crazy mutation stuff. But the doctor MAGICALLY restored the captain and Paris from salamander puppets to COMPLETELY NORMAL almost INSTANTLY, so can't we just warp 10 to Earth and when we all mutate the Doc will just magically restore us all?
Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
(Meanwhile, Crewman Jonas is engaging in under the table communications with the Kazon, continuing a subplot from "Alliances". Continuing storylines on Voyager?? OMG!!)
# of Crew: 149 Total -- 131 Starfleet, 16 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 34
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 379 days (12.2 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,899.5 lightyears

"Meld"
Now here, on the other hand, was an episode I like. I like Tuvok, I like criminal investigations, and I like psychopaths, so I think the idea of putting a Vulcan against a random psycho killer with no rational motivation was a great idea on the writers part and produced a fantastic episode. Brad Dourif is great as Suder and honestly I like him wherever he shows up (he's a bright spot in Alien: Resurrection). Russ gives a great performance as well. This is a thumbs up episode.
# of Crew: 148 Total -- 130 Starfleet, 16 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 34
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 393 days (12.7 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,686.7 lightyears
I must note that after tiptoeing around killing crewmembers for a whole season (after the pilot we only lost one in all of season one) we finally started killing some people off. DUN DUN DUN.
On a different note -- it annnoys me that the stock shots of Voyager that the producer's use for establishing shots or over Captain's Logs are almost always shots of the ship at IMPULSE, even if we aren't stopping or engaging within a planetary system or anything. For example, we never went anywhere specific in either "Death Wish" or "Meld", we were just moving the whole time, yet the effects shots create the impression we were cruising at impulse. Why?? Are the crew in NO hurry to get to Earth?? At full impulse it would take 294,746 years to get home!!! Show the ship at warp!!

"Dreadnought"
Now here was a good, exciting episode, with some legitimate dramatic tension. I was especially impressed with Roxann Dawson's performance -- she's effectively having to act all by herself, then come in and ADR the other half of the scene playing against her earlier performance, and make the two sides convincingly similar, yet completely different. It turns out great. Its a little incredulous that the Dreadnought was ALSO pulled into the Delta Quadrant and that two years later Voyager runs into it when Voyager is bee-lining to Earth while Dreadnought is following a random course -- but honestly the episode is good enough to overlook it.
Also -- Voyager has the easiest self destruct mechanism to arm ever, no confirmation needed, just Janeway.
But yeah, good, fun episode, with B'Elanna's terrorist past coming back to haunt her -- sort've a good exploration of who she was versus who she is now.
# of Crew: 148 Total -- 130 Starfleet, 16 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 406 days (13 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,480.3 lightyears

"Lifesigns"
This is a nice, quiet, enjoyable episode. I think this is the first really important "Doctor" episode for me -- "Heroes and Demons" took him out of sickbay and "Projections" questioned his nature, but this is the first time where we don't just look at the Doctor as more than a hologram -- we look at him as more than a Doctor. The scenes between Denara and "Dr. Shmullus" (as she dubs him) have genuine chemistry and really work. Then there's the continuing storylines (on Voyager! GASP!) of Jonas the Traitor and Unruly Paris. The weirdest part of all is that Denara lives through the episode and we end without the standard "and then their romance was tragically ruined" ending. In fact, they don't even give a reason as to why the Doc wouldn't just keep using Shmullus as a name...
# of Crew: 148 Total -- 130 Starfleet, 16 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 420 days (13.5 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,412.2 lightyears

"Investigations"
And so this subplot that has run through the series for six episodes comes to a head here -- in a Neelix episode. This episode is trying, but it's just not worth all the build up to this point. Neelix reaches an all time high for annoyance levels so far in this episode, Jonas dies by falling into a hole that opens up from nowhere in Engineering, and the whole thing just isn't as good as it should have been. It's not that the episode is bad, it's pretty entertaining most of the way, it's just not up to potential. Sort've VOYAGER in a microcosm, I guess.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 130 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman has been pregnant: 427 days (13.8 months)
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,409 lightyears

"Deadlock"
I think, taken on its own, it's a fairly strong episode. It even AVOIDs a reset button plot by having the Voyager that survives of the two duplicates be the horrifically damaged one. Two things ruin the episode. One is that we are meant to believe that a force of 347 Vidiians board Voyager, outnumbering the crew and taking over the ship -- which is undermined when we only see about two or three of them walking around mostly empty corridors at any one time. The other is the infamous "damage" issue -- the USS Voyager, a ship without access to starbases, spacedock, or any normal forms of supply or support is left at the end of this episode with a destroyed bridge, destroyed warp coils, a hull breach on decks 14-16, and microfractures throughout the hull. And then at the start of the next episode EVERYTHING IS FINE. I mean, if the Producers didn't want to follow up on the issue of all this damage, then they should've made the duplicate Voyager with no damage be the one that survives. Instead they leave us like this, and then everything is magically repaired between episodes. One would think it would be easier for production to just leave things all scorched and broken for another week, mention that repairs are underway or something, perhaps with the help of the planet of the week aliens, and then be back to normal for the week after that. However, its hard to fault "Deadlock" itself for this, but rather the Producers as a whole and the next episode in particular.
# of Crew: 148 Total -- 130 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Time Ens. Wildman was pregnant: 444 days (14.3 months) -- also, her half-human half-Ktarian baby looks nothing like a Ktarian.
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,401.3 lightyears

"Innocence"
Unless its DS9, Star Trek and children just does not mix. Also, this episode's entire premise is based on the fact that the aliens conveniently neglect to mention a very obvious fact, and the whole thing is really stupid in retrospect. Like THE SIXTH SENSE.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 129 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,401.3 lightyears

"The Thaw"
This was actually a really cool, interesting episode from Joe "Weird as Fuck" Menosky. Reminded me of a TOS episode.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 129 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,356.4 lightyears

"Tuvix"
As much as I like Tuvok, I much prefer the option of Tuvix to the option of Tuvok and Neelix. Tuvix seems like a super legit guy from what we see here.
I would like to declare this as officially the point where I lost all sympathy with this crew, except for Dr. Schmullus (the EMH). Seriously, not ONE person stood up for Tuvix? They just stood by while Janeway killed him? Fuck that. Also, I declare this episode the official beginning of sociopath Janeway. Not even kidding this time. She actually demonstrates mental disorder IN THIS SOLE EPISODE. She goes from sympathy and friendship to cold determined murder within a single shot. Look at the last shot of the episode. She walks out of the room with this look on her face like she's privately ashamed/sorry for what she's done, but then her face morphs into a solid state of hatred and evil and she marchs down the hall. Fuck Janeway. Sociopath with a crew of sheep. Except the Doc, who refused to perform the operation, respecting the patient's right over his own body.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 129 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 2 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 27
# of Gel Packs: 47
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,320 lightyears

"Resolutions"
Aka Jeri Taylor teases all the Janeway/Chakotay shippers.
The entire planetside story is a massive yawn, and worthless because all of the great near-romantic bonding the pair do is clearly forgotten and tossed aside at the end of the episode. The shipside storyline with Tuvok in command was good, and all of the continuity tosses back to previous Vidiian storylines were very appreciated, but for the most part this episode is a real time waster. Seriously. Takes place over 97 days. 97 days where no progress is made getting back home.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 129 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 24
# of Gel Packs: 47
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,304.6 lightyears

"Basics, Part I"
Okay, so I gotta admit that this was a great, dramatic cliffhanger episode from Michael Piller. Certainly no "Best of Both Worlds", but it made a great use of a lot of elements from earlier in the season, from Suder to the Kazons, to help give a feel as if Season 2 was a cohesive whole, building on itself and leading up to this. Which was appreciated. Not exactly DS9 levels of good serial style writing, but at least appreciated. The cliffhanger itself isn't so much "omg will they survive?" but "omg how will they survive?" and I think the episode does a reasonably good job of being dramatic and exciting and leaving the audience excited for the conclusion.
# of Crew: 147 Total -- 129 Starfleet, 15 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: 7
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: 18 (I point out we now have less than half of our original torpedo complement, and haven't even run into the Borg yet)
# of Gel Packs: 47
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 73,267.1 lightyears