Star Trek: Voyager Season 6 Reviews

"Equinox, Part II"
Better overall than Part I, but still one of my favourite VOYAGER two-parters. You can really see shades of what will be "Pegasus" here too. I like the parallel structure of Captain Ransom regaining his humanity and being removed by his First Officer, while Janeway begins to become filled with rage and having to remove Chakotay from duty for questioning her. Overall the show works well, until the denouement, in which everything wraps up easier than it should. Janeway and Chakotay make up far too easy, for example, same with Seven and the Doc. Meanwhile, I think the Equinox crew get a good ending EXCEPT THEY NEVER SHOW UP AGAIN. It really bums me out because it seems like the only reason to integrate them would be to follow up on it. Ugh -- typical Voyager though, not living up to potential. At all.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 27,126.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Survival Instinct"
I really enjoyed this episode. For once, the Voyager crew act like people. There's a small scene between Janeway, Paris and Kim where she's berating them for getting to a bar brawl, and it's the first time those three have felt like they were having a real interaction in ages. And it has nothing to do with the main story! Or even a B story! It's just a fun little scene between these three. The main story is a Seven story, but even it feels more genuine than Seven has in a while. It's a good sci-fi story with some real meat to it. Probably the only bullshit part is the Bajoran Borg. She was in Starfleet and assimilated at Wolf 359? How the fuck did she get back to the Delta Quadrant then? She should be dead. And then you're telling me that when they come aboard NO ONE freaks out that there's a Bajoran on the ship?? And she doesn't freak out that there's a Starfleet vessel in the DQ?
And then, at the end of the episode, she decides to stay aboard. She only has a month to live, but we still never see or hear of her again. Just like the Equinox crew. But aside from this one complaint, a good hour.
# of Crew: 136 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 27,104.6 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Barge of the Dead"
There's some good stuff here. The final sequence, with B'Elanna swinging the bat'leth at the cast members, demanding they tell her who she should be for them. It was a powerful scene that really brought to fore B'Elanna's issues of identity. There are other strong moments, like B'Elanna embracing Janeway when she awakes. But unfortunately this episode has its share of problems as well. Probably its biggest problem is that it won't fully commit to any of its ideas. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. B'Elanna dies and goes to Gre'thor. Except she's not really dead! And maybe it wasn't really Gre'thor, maybe it was all in her head! She sees her mom there, and embarks on this quest to get her mom out of Gre'thor and into Sto-vo-kor. And she succeeds, but maybe her mom isn't dead either! Maybe she's waiting for her in the Alpha Quadrant! Okay, but if so then none of what we've seen, a good character study or not, matters. It's such a cop-out. And of course it ends up being a door kept open for no reason, because we never see B'Elanna's mom again, since when they get back home we cut to credits immediately.
# of Crew: 136 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 4 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 27,065.4 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

And with that, Ronald D. Moore left the Star Trek franchise. http://lcarscom.net/rdm1000118.htm

"Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy"
Man, I have such fond memories of this episode. I remembering seeing it way back when and thinking it was hilarious and fun. A memorable episode. But I was like, 10, when this episode first aired. So, I guess that says something. This episode is really goofy. And it's all at the expense of the characters rather than with them. The Doc has all these overly egotistical daydreams that get out of control and then they have to act them out for real for these aliens because they've been spying on Voyager and accidentally getting the Doc's dreams. The whole thing feels very... sitcom. It's silly. It also introduces these interesting spy/pirate aliens and gives them no motivation, which is fast becoming a huge pet peeve of mine: villains who are villainous because the script says so, instead of any valid motivation. All they needed was one line like "Oh, our planet was decimated because of blah blah, now we are forced to steal from passing ships", but no, they're just the bad guys because they aren't Voyager. Even the ECH sequences I remember from my youth were just over-the-top and corny. And not in a good way.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 27,026.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Dragon's Teeth"
A pretty decent episode, although I had the entire thing figured out in the first five minutes. Janeway brings back a frozen battalion of a destroyed civilization and they want help rebuilding their society and in exchange they will give us some bullshit that'll take years off our trip. But of course by "rebuild their society" they mean "retake their empire" cuz turns out they're evil. Episode ends with us warping away having let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, with these guys resuming the war against the rebels who overthrew and destroyed them in the first place. Janeway says "I doubt we've seen the last of them."
In typical VOY fashion, we never see them again.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 26,811.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Alice"
This was so frustrating to sit through. Every step of the way it was equally predictable and nonsensical. Paris buys a new ship, a one man vessel, from a scrap heap because he falls in love with it at first sight and wants to destroy it. The crew lets him do this even though we already have the Delta Flyer (Chakotay also claims they have a "full complement of shuttles", which almost made me turn the TV off and quit watching the show altogether). Because we already have the Flyer and aren't going to keep this ship, I immediately know there is something wrong with it. I predicted it would have an evil AI that would go crazy and try to take over Tom. Bingo! You know you've seen too much Star Trek when... Tom begins working on the ship obbsessively, and predictably, it wrecks his relationship with B'Elanna. Tom goes crazy, starts seeing the ship in his mind as a hot chick named Alice. She convinces him to leave Voyager with the ship. Janeway pursues, the ship taking Tom to a "particle fountain" (a made-up, nonsensical space anomaly basically like a white hole or a star) and says this is "Home". Okaaaay. Then they fly into it and Voyager essentially beams Tom out before the ship is destroyed.
So... wait.... the ship... is.... from... a particle fountain? And returning there... destroyed it? Why, how? They never really explain what's going on with the ship, it's just a Maguffin for the rest of the plot. Again, a villain who is villainous because the script says so. There's no explanation, no backstory no nothing. All it would take is a line like "this pilot once really loved me, but he left me in that junkheap alone, and now I need a pilot to love me again, but my lonliness has made me crazy and suicidal, so I'm going to drive us into a star to kill us both so we'll be together forever!" See how easy that was? And that fits the themes of devotion and obsession that the episode was using with Tom. But instead we get nonsensical formulaic crap.
And why? Because no one cares. Because I bet if on that set someone brought that up and asked the writer to do a rewrite, the writer wouldn't bother. They get the same salary whether they do the rewrite or not. The episode is made and aired whether they do it or not. VOY will get renewed and get money whether they do it or not. So why do it? Unless they really cared, really loved their work, like the DS9 guys. But they don't, so no one bothers.
There's a scene in the episode, where Seven walks in demanding a refund from Neelix for one of the items from the scrap heap (despite the trader in charge telling Neelix "all trades are final"). They have a brief conversation where it turns out Neelix is also unsatisfied with an item. At the end of the conversation Seven admonishes him, smiling and saying "all trades are final". WHAT? Then why did this conversation start if she already knew that?
FUCK.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3 (Chakotay claims they have a "full complement")
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 26,757.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

Oh, and in addition to the full complement of shuttles, the episode begins with Kim and Paris trying to guess Tuvok's age, and coming up with different numbers based on different statements he's said in the past. So references to both of Voyager's irritating inconsistencies in dialogue!

 
"Riddles
Anyone else think there must've been a clause in Tim Russ's contract that he get one episode with emotions per year? Well, here's this year's version, a pretty good episode in which Tuvo gets brain damage and becomes a better (if more retarded) person for it and makes friends with Neelix, but then goes back to normal at the end (of course) because the "ship needs its tactical officer". It's a good episode, with some fine acting from Russ, even if the message is a little wonky -- but the worst part about it is probably that it's utterly predictable. I don't care about Tuvok's new personality because I know he'll be back to normal at the end. I don't even care that the episode hints that Tuvok remembers his time being friends with Neelix and will treat him better in the future because I know the writers won't remember and take us right back to square one.
The other stupid thing is that nothing really happens in the A-plot. There are some mysterious aliens who cause the thing with Tuvok to happen. We go after them. We find out... that they are mysterious aliens (we never even see them) and convince them to give us the info needed to fix Tuvok. The end. Who are they? Why are they doing what they're doing? The episode doesn't really care.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 26,713 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"One Small Step"
I, I can see what this episode was going for. It has some good intentions. Celebrating the exploratory spirit and all. But, it's so... stupid and so hollow and rings so false that I just can't deal with it. First up, we have this Mars mission, that of course is propelled by some random spatial anomaly to the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay is suddenly a passionate historian for early Earth space exploration and wants to investigate, Seven doesn't because she sees it as a waste of resources. Over the coruse of the hour she learns the value of history, etc. A large portion of the episode is taken up by log entry flashbacks to this dude on this Mars mission that was accidentally propelled to the DQ by the anomaly, and how he died alone out in the middle of nowhere but it was all worth it because he explored places no one had ever been. It's a nice sentiment. But the overall story is so dumb. It's predicated on the audience believing that Chakotay has interests we've never seen him have (at one point he says a love of paleontology inspired him to go into Starfleet? What?) and that Seven has this huge problem with the concept of exploration for exploration's sake, which is so central to Starfleet's whole deal that you'd think she would have had this crisis of character a little sooner than two years into her time on the ship. Say what you will about the TNG characters, but at least their one-note hobbies, interests and developments were consistant.
Finally, I just about flipped out when it came to some of the technobabble. The anomaly is a gravity ellipse (whatever that means), that is attracted by EM radiation, which is why it's following Voyager around. The crew discovers that something else is attracting the anomaly, tearing it away and causing it to be unstable, but the crew can't find anything on sensors. B'Elanna supposes it might be a dark matter asteroid, it turns out it is, and they blow it up and this solves the problem.
Okay -- so this is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. First up, they're in interstellar space -- you can't have asteroids in interstellar space. Secondly, you can't have a dark matter asteroid, that's not what dark matter is.
And most importantly, this anomaly is attracted to EM radiation, and your theory is it's being attracted to a dark matter object? THE VERY DEFINITION OF DARK MATTER, WHAT MAKES IT DARK, IS THAT IT DOES NOT GIVE OFF, ABSORB, OR EMIT ANY ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION OF ANY KIND.
Who the fuck is writing this show??
Apparently this is the episode Robert Beltran checked out on, as he was pissed off that what seemed like it was going to be a big Chakotay episode turned into yet another Seven of Nine episode.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 26,682.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"The Voyager Conspiracy"
Oh, HEY, ANOTHER Seven episode. Whaddya know? But seriously, this is a pretty fun, almost clever episode about Seven developing paranoia and making up insane conspiracy theories about why Voyager is in the DQ. First it's a Federation/Cardassian plot to establish a military presence in the DQ (an outlandish theory full of holes that makes no sense even when she explains it). Then it's a Maquis plot to launch surprise strikes against Federation and Cardassian worlds (a little more plausible, but still outlandish). Finally her theory is that the whole series has been a plot to deliver Annika Hansen to the Borg and then retrieve her and gain tactical data (the most plausible of the three, but still pretty darn silly). Eventually Janeway talks her down, and in the B-plot we find a graviton catapult that shoots us 30 sectors closer to home. (Which is only 600ly, which is a little weak given that we're told the catapult can shoot a ship about 5000ly and it simply ends up a little worse for wear).
My only problem? Seven's paranoia is set off by discovering that the catapult is powered by the same kind of reactor as the Caretaker Array, and her investigations show that some kind of cloaked vessel tractored the reactor off of the Array as it exploded for unknown reasons. While she works this into her first two theories, once it's found out that Seven has been malfunctioning and is talked down, this detail is completely forgotten about and never explained. Who tractored the Array reactor and why? Was it the same one as in the catapult? The episode doesn't care.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 26,043 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Pathfinder"
This is an... okay episode. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's a big, real, monumental event of progress in the series, establishing contact with Earth, and I'd say that mid-season six is a good place to put it. Putting Barclay on the team on Earth is a good call, and setting the episode from his perspective makes for a neat change. I can't even really argue Troi's presence (ratings grab though it may be), because Barclay has a history of these kinds of problems. All in all it's a good episode, well told. But the issues it does have bug me to the point where I have a hard time overlooking them.
For one, while Barclay's crazy plan does in fact work, no one addresses the fact that none of Barclay's crippling emotional problems have been fixed. He's suffered a serious relapse of holoaddiction, he's paranoid and anxious, and he violates orders, resists arrest and steals government property to enact his crazy scheme -- which we find out after he's already done it that Admiral Paris was going to approve anyway. But all is forgiven simply because it works -- which is really BS from a mental health standpoint.
Another major issue that I have is that the writers basically paint themselves into a giant plot hole for no reason. At one point the Commander in charge of the Pathfinder Project points out that they've estimated Voyager's position based on what the Doc reported as their position back in "Message in a Bottle", and assumed a trajectory toward Earth at Warp 6.2, which would but them 61,673.9 lightyears away. There's a little graphic that shows them having moved maybe 800ly or so, and Barclay says in dialogue that they're 60,000ly away. But that's over 30,000ly off. Voyager is way closer than that. I mean, in the PREVIOUS EPISODE TO THIS they jump 3 sectors using a graviton catapult. So no matter what Starfleet's guess is way off. Anyone who's watched any episode of the show before this one knows that. But fuck those people right? Because Barclay manages to make contact with Voyager anyways based on that projection. Seriously, that's exactly how the scene plays out. Now, once contact is established Janeway sends them their updated navigational data, but there's no way they could've made contact in the first place given how off Starfleet's estimate of their position was.
Now, the writers could've come up with some last-minute technospeak to explain how Barclay is able to get in touch with Voyager anyway, some explanation -- OR they could've just NOT included the dialogue explaining how, why and where Starfleet thinks Voyager is. I mean, less work would've yielded better results on the writer's part here.
But oh well, for the most part this is a pretty good ep I suppose.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,981.3 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Fair Haven"
I have no idea what the point of this episode was supposed to be. Tom invents an Irish town on the holodeck, with an "open door policy" so the program runs 24 hours a day and the crew can just drop by any time. Janeway falls in love with the bartender of the pub, and ends up making modifications to his program to make him the perfect man. She realises that the relationship doesn't mean anything if she can just make alterations (also he's a hologram) and stops pursuing it. But eventually she realises that she doesn't really have a lot of options and might as well take what she can get, and instead continues the relationship but makes it impossible for her to make any more changes to him.
WHAT? So in the PREVIOUS episode we remind the audience that holoaddiction is a serious problem and a social disorder that's quite looked down upon, and then we have the Captain decide to pursue a relationship with a hologram as if he was real? As if it could be satisfying and rich like one with a true person? The entire crew of Voyager takes the Fair Haven program and characters as if they were far more than just a computer simulation. It's downright nutty. I mean, explained in analogous terms, here's what this episode is saying:
"Spending all your time masturbating to pornography isn't good for you because it will give you unrealistic expectations of real world relationships -- BUT if you're on a long sea voyage and there's nothing else to do you might as well masturbate to pornography".
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -3
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,975.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Tsunkatse"
An old stand-by pulp sci-fi plot (hero forced into alien gladitorial arena), mixed with UPN marketing shenanigans (a cross-over with WWF Raw featuring The Rock!), but somehow it manages to turn out all right. Predictable at every turn (including it's use of the Borg Babe as the lead character) but still entertaining and well done. Having Jeffrey Combs and JG Hertzler guest starring doesn't hurt.
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,950.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Blink of an Eye"
Probably one of the all-time best VOYAGER episodes ever done, a truly worthy addition to Star Trek, in my opinion. Voyager ends up stuck in orbit around a world where time passes incredibly fast. A second on the ship is a day on the planet. An entire civilization rises up on the world below in which Voyager is the primary cultural element. Worshippped as a god, studied as a phenomenon, sung to, marketed, investigated, attacked, probed, inspiring invention and aspiration. Eventually Voyager makes contact with one of the aliens, and returns him to his world, which eventually develops technology to help Voyager leave. It's a rare case where deus ex machina totally works, and all the emotions ring true. It's classic science fiction. The only thing would be to ignore the implication that a civilization that is advancing this quickly, if it didn't destroy itself, would soon become almost Q-like before too long!
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,902.3 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Virtuoso"
The Doctor introduces music to an alien culture that has never known it, and he becomes a celebrity on their world. He is invited to stay there and leave Voyager, hems and haws about doing so, but doesn't of course. The End. There are some decent moments, but mainly its a showcase for Picardo, feeling like a contractually obligated episode focussing on him. What's the point of all this? What is an audience supposed to get out of this? Are we supposed to genuinely think The Doctor might leave the show? I doubt it. Most of the issues of "is the Doctor human/have rights?" have been done to death both here and on DS9, and the jokes about the Doc's arrogance are old hat by now as well. It's not like Picardo's singing is particularly entrancing -- it's shot rather boringly, and most of it is dubbed -- all of it is old (and free) public domain stuff. This shit seems like it was all written and produced on autopilot, to fill a spot in the season order. I mean, what the fuck is the point of doing the show if all you're doing is filling time? I suppose the money, but doesn't that get frustrating, as a creative individual, after a time?
# of Crew: 135 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 3 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -34
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,878.9 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Collective"
Aka the one where they pick up the Borg kids. Uuuugh. So first up, MP's reviews reminded me that Chakotay once threw Paris in the brig for running a pool gambling ring based on work duties. In the teaser of this episode, Chakotay agrees to a poker game with Paris and some others betting on work duties. Ugh. Also, Harry Kim, while wandering through a cube says it evokes bad memories, which made me think of him nearly dying on one in "Scorpion", but no, he's referring to a haunted house he was in as a kid. Because the audience is stupid. Because if we ever admitted there was more than one episode in this television SERIES the viewers heads may explode! Because, OMG, that means that I was watching Voyager yesterday at this time as well -- after I got off WORK! The same time as I did TODAY! In an unbroken ROUTINE! OH MY GOD my life is an unending CYCLE of MEANINGLESS ACTIONS! MID-LIFE CRISIS! AAARRRRGGH!!
See what you've done trying to invoke continuity, writers??
Anyways, "Collective". An episode that does nothing but rehash old Trek plots but not as well. My god, it's a dangerous Borg cube, but oh wait, it's damaged! Just like in "Unity". Then we find a bunch of damaged Borg who we want to bring back to Voyager and turn into individuals, just like in "I, Borg" [TNG]. Then we discover we could use a pathogen to destroy all the Borg, but decide not to use it, just like in "I, Borg", again. Then we take the Borg onto our ship and make them members of the crew, just like in "The Gift". And they're all annoying kids, like Wesley and Alexander.
Also we forget about that pathogen and it never comes up again when we next fight the Borg even though the Doc is a computer program and would perfectly remember how to synthesize it again.
FUUUUUUUUUUUCK this show.
# of Crew: 139 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -37
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,835.8 lightyears

"Memorial"
This episode has some good ideas, namely about preserving the past and honouring the dead and their sacrifices and telling the truth about history. The problem is that most of the plot elements are cribbed from earlier, better, Treks. Once it was established that the story wasn't a rip-off of "Nemesis", then it became an obvious crib of "Remember" and "Inner Light" and a few others. Don't get me wrong, "Memorial" isn't really bad, per se, it's just very predictable when you've already watched every other Trek episode up to this point. The themes and plot twists are identifiable about five minutes in.
# of Crew: 139 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -37
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,805 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Spirit Folk"
I liked this episode better when it was called "Ship in a Bottle" (TNG), the characters weren't idiots, and the plot made sense. Damn this thing is dumb -- every step of the way. With the safeties ON, a holographic character shoots a 24th century computer panel with his 19th century shotgun and it blows the panel and THAT turns the safeties OFF. Janeway claims a holodeck character takes up 300 deciwatts, which is half a light bulb's worth of power. Tom and Harry are in danger but Janeway doesn't want to shut the power off because then all the Fair Haven characters will be deleted and she'll lose her masturbatory aid, whom she openly refers to as her "boyfriend" on the bridge to Chakotay. On and on.
# of Crew: 139 Total -- 119 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -37
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,774.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Ashes to Ashes"
A rehash of various previous Treks such as "Latent Image", "Favorite Son" and "Suddenly Human" [TNG]. This episode's biggest problem is to ask us to care about the return of a long-dead crewman WHO WE HAVE NEVER SEEN BEFORE AND NEVER KNEW WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE. "Latent Image" played the same trick, but it worked because our POV was the Doc's POV and his memory of the crewman had been wiped. But here we have an extrovert Starfleet officer who apparently has been Harry Kim's big crush since his academy days. WHAT? Apparently the show's forgotten that Kim was ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED when he signed up to the Voyager, and spent the first two seasons pining over Libby.
Of course the crewman eventually chooses to leave Voyager, but even that wrap-up is ridiculously trite and pointless. Basically this character spends six months struggling and fighting to get back to Voyager and after two days goes "actually, nevermind I don't belong here" and leaves. Just like that.
Oh and there's a subplot about the Borg kids that's awful and boring.
God damn this show.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -37
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,746.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Child's Play"
This is actually a pretty good episode about Icheb, his parents, and where he came from that ties well into continuity from "Collective" -- turns out Icheb was designed as a biological weapon to infect and destroy the Borg. It's a well written episode that explores its ideas fairly, the only thing that's a little forced is how attached Seven is to Icheb when he's only been on the ship for four episodes and they've shared maybe two scenes together before this. Ah well, I'll take what minimal quality I can get on this show.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -36
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,704.2 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Good Shepherd"
This is an episode that should've been done in season three or something, but I guess it takes this long for the writers to realize there are other people on the ship than the main cast. After all, "Lower Decks" (TNG) was in seventh season and that's basically what this episode is ripping off. I do like the notion that there are people on Voyager who thought they'd be onboard for a year and were never suited to the idea of a long trip and were now falling through the cracks. I also like the implication that part of the problem is there's no room to grow, personally. No one's getting transferred or promoted so the same seven people go on all the away missions and if you were a third grade sensor analyst six years ago, you're still one now. But I find it infinitely frustrating that the contrivance that makes the mission go awry, that seems to chase and wreck the Delta Flyer, that the characters debate the nature of and that the episode provides interesting clues about, is NEVER EXPLAINED AT ALL. The crew is rescued and THAT'S IT. Fuck this show.
And I liked this more when it was called "Lower Decks".
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -36
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,521.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Fury"
This is, without a doubt, the worst episode of Star Trek: Voyager I've ever seen. Worse than "Threshold". There's actually a dumb fun to watching "Threshold" and laughing at it's ridiculous stupidity. This episode is just stupid on all levels and makes so little sense I got a headache. I mean, let's break this down. Kes was a revolutionary in Ocampan society who wanted to leave the Caretaker's influence and explore outside. She gets that opportunity when Voyager rescues her from the Kazon. She journeys wth them for three years, expanding her fledgeling telepathic powers, until she becomes an omnipotent being of light, leaves the ship happily so she doesn't endanger her friends, and sends Voyager 10,000ly as a gift. She then comes back three years later, pissed off, because her new powers "scared her" and she "felt alone" and had nowhere to go because Voyager "abandoned her", and she couldn't go back to Ocampa because she's now an omnipotent superbeing and too far beyond them. She then returns to Voyager in a shuttle (a distance of like 40,000ly) despite having the ability to transport herself without it, clearly. She blows a lot of shit up, kills three peole indiscriminately, and goes back in time 6 years to right after Voyager met the Vidiians. She wants to get her younger self back to Ocampa so she's never "abandoned" by Voyager and plans on stealing a shuttle to do so (despite the fact that Past Kes hated Ocampan society and that her powers will develop there anyway probably). Oh, and while it's completely unnecessary, she also sells out Voyager's crew to be killed and harvested by the Vidiians because apparently she's that angry at them for.... doing everything they could for her?? Anyways, Past Janeway kills her, then tells Past Kes all of this so it won't happen in the future, even having Past Kes make a recording to talk to her future self.
Then it happens again in the future, Present Kes having apparently forgotten all about it in all her rage. The hologram reminds her (oh, right, that did happen!), and Janeway offers for her to stay on Voyager. Kes turns her down because she "needs to be with her own people" and goes back to Ocampa. Despite the fact that her whole reason for doing this was she felt she could never go back. Also, now that Kes doesn't go into the past, how does Janeway know to prevent Kes from going into the past to.... ARRRRGGH!
None of this makes sense, either from a plotting standpoint or a character one. You'd think a big episode featuring the return of a previous cast member would get a script that had just a teensy bit more thought put into it than this. Instead, we get a story where, essentially, Kes returns cuz she's angry about... something, basically she's senile and delusional, so Janeway reminds her she's not really angry, so Kes goes away. And in the middle we get a completely nonsense time travel story.
Is it worth mentioning that there are a ton of continuity errors in the S1 sequences? Most notable I think was that Samantha Wildman apparently found out about her pregnancy during a routine physical with the Doctor two weeks into the voyage and kept it a secret to surprise everyone... for seven and a half months, when it's a big surprise to her too in "Elogium".
Also, there's continuing bullshit about Tuvok's age, birthday, and how long he's known Janeway. Also, his premonitions are never explained. Also, this episode insists that time travel produces tachyon particles, when even a Voyager fan knows its chronitons. Also, this episode claims that you can't turn at Warp. Yep, can't maneuver at Warp. This is the only episode in Trek canon where this is so.
This episode is dumb.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,479.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Live Fast and Prosper"
A fun, lightweight episodes about some con men who impersonate the Voyager crew and how we go after them. There's some potential for interesting character analysis and growth but the episode never follows up on any of it. No harm done, I suppose. Also, this episode claims Voyager is 30,342.4ly from Earth, which hasn't been true since around the middle of Season 5.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,420.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Life Line"
This is the one where the EMH goes back to Jupiter Station to help Doc Zimmerman. And the craziest thing about this episode? It is hugely continuity heavy. It's a sequel to "Projections" and "The Swarm" and "Doctor Bashir, I Presume?" and "Pathfinder" and "Message in a Bottle" and so on. Even the alien massage girl is the one from INSURRECTION! It's full of continuity. And it's written by the regular series writers. It's like they wrote it on a bet that they could actually write a script that used continuity.
It's also a pretty good episode, even if its pretty similar to the whole Data/Soong thing from TNG, Picardo's idiosyncratic performances make it worthwhile.
Can we give the Voyager crew the replicator patterns for modern uniforms, though?
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,398.4 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Muse"
Joe Menosky's final Trek is a fantastic meta-episode about being a writer on Star Trek. It was smart, cerebral and very well written episode, with the irony that the actual Torres/Kim plot is hilariously contrived with Kim's sudden appearance and resulting rescue. But otherwise really great and smart. A good send-off for Menosky. Also we crashed the Delta Flyer and then left it there. All that tech.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,376 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"The Haunting of Deck Twelve"
Zzzzzzzzz.... hey, it's one of the crewmen from "Good Shephard"! Zzzzzzzzzzzzz........
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -33
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,300.3 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11

"Unimatrix Zero, Part I"
This episode is so goddamn retarded. It's the absolute low of Borg writing so far. The scenes of the Borg queen play just like any scene of any evil race. The Borg Queen doesn't talk like a Borg at all, she's just a villain now. And same with the Borg themselves, who have no sense of danger whatsoever. The Queen calls up Janeway to try and convince her not to interfere with the Borg's affairs and try to figure out what Janeway's plan is. Anyone remember when the idea of negotiating with the Borg was unthinkable? And why would the Queen do this? If she even suspected Janeway of interfering with her plans, even if she didn't know what Janeway was planning, why not send like 40 cubes with millions of drones to fire thousands of torpedoes in her face? Resources aren't exactly an issue for the Borg. If a mosquito is crawling up our arm, it doesn't matter if it has bit you or is planning on biting you, you SWAT THE BITCH ANYWAY! Seeing the Borg Queen beg Janeway not to do anything heroic is painful to watch.
And Janeway's no better. Her plan is to GO ALONE into the MOST HEAVILY ARMED BORG CUBE WE'VE EVER SEEN to destroy the CENTRAL CORE, the most HEAVILY GUARDED AREA. When reasonably asked by the Doc why they don't just find some other Borg ship, she brushes off the question. When her entire crew asks why the fuck she should go alone, the best she can come up with is that it was her idea. Finally Tuvok and B'Elanna get to go after Chakotay basically begs her. I understand our characters need to be pivotal to the drama, but I hate how VOYAGER always forgets that the other 130 people on the ship can do more than just stand in the background pressing buttons. THIRTEEN people on this ship are EX-TERRORISTS. Why don't we send some of them, and some security officers, like twenty altogether, onto the Borg Cube? Fuck.
So. Fucking. Stupid.
# of Crew: 138 Total -- 118 Starfleet, 13 Maquis, 7 Civilians
# of Shuttles: -4
# of Warp Cores: 2
# of Photon Torpedoes: -38
# of Gel Packs: 30
Distance to Alpha Quadrant: 25,292.8 lightyears
Opportunities to Get Home Missed: 11