Star Trek: Voyager (Season Five)

Brannon Braga's first year as showrunner of VOY featured episodes scripted by such luminaries as Nick Sagan, Ronald D. Moore, and Bryan Fuller. It came out alongside the final season of DS9 s7 and Insurrection in the theaters.

With that barest of intros, let's launch into my least-to-most favorites of the season.

25.

An alien collective, the think-tank of the title, offers to help Voyager if Seven of Nine will join them in exchange for their assistance.

Casting Jason Alexander as a Delta Quadrant super-brain consultant in Space-Metal clothes was an idea best resisted.

...

Might've made a fine storybook record, though. I'd be tickled pink if that had actually been the writers' (Rick Berman, Brannon Braga, Michael Taylor) intent.

24.

When Torres is attacked by a reasonably cool homage to Alien, the Doctor creates a hologram of a Cardassian doctor to help treat her, then learns that the doctor was a war criminal who performed medical experiments on Bajorans during the Occupation.

Meh. Not a bad performance from the Cardassian dude (Palmer from The Thing), but the whole thing is a bit contrived. 

I like the idea of creating a "holographic work of art" to aid the Doctor in problems. But why would Crell Moset be programmed into the database without any mention of alleged war crimes? Does this make sense? I could understand if it was a Cardassian-created piece of technology or something, but nope - seems to be missing solely to set up this ethical quandary. Which is what we in the blogging/nerd-factory biz call "unearned." 

And why would it be so subsequently easy for the Doctor to verify once it was brought to his attention? Come on now. This is the "Conscience of the King" problem, adapted for Voyager, minus Shatner. (And even Shatner can't save that one.)

23.

The personalities of individuals which Seven of Nine has assimilated begin to resurface, giving her the Borg equivalent of multiple personality disorder.

Regarding the beginning (someone has been breaking into the galley and wreaking havoc) it makes little sense that there would be any mystery about some mess hall bandit. Or that the opportunity would even exist on a Starfleet ship of limited rations. But maybe this is a subtle point about the 24th century: they've evolved beyond constant surveillance/ camcorders everywhere. This would certainly be consistent with other Trek(s) which - somewhat cruelly, in hindsight - did not prepare us for the lived-reality of the future, i.e. constant surveillance over a variety of platforms from cradle to grave. Then again, at some point between now and the Trek future, we get some kind of global cataclysm before humanity sorts itself out, so we're probably in that downward-arc part of the curve before it leads up to the shimmering future of Starfleet. I keep reading the Asian papers for the rise of Khan. Noonien Singh, that is, not Imran. I'll keep you posted.

Anyway, maybe the mess hall bandit is just the opportunity cost you have for living in a free society. I could live with that. (Sorry, Neelix.)

Dog-Star-Omnibus-to-this-episode: Stop saying vinculum.

Species 6339: Terrible faces, but seriously awesome outfits

Silly mind-meld set piece.

Doesn't quite resolve itself as interestingly as it might have. Some nice work from Ryan - these sorts of episodes must be fun for an actor, and she makes the most of the opportunity -  but meh.

22.

Harry becomes infatuated with Tal, an alien independentist aboard a volatile multi-generational ship and lands Voyager in hot water. Janeway orders Harry to break up with her, and Harry's all "No freaking way." Revolution ensues.

Does the chemistry work between Harry and Tal? Sure - for my part it works, but the script doesn't give them anything to do. It really goes off the rails once Harry starts making his insurrectionist declarations of love.

Certainly not the fault of anyone in the cast, or guest star Musetta Vander.

I enjoyed all the references to alien/human sex irregularities. ("Your epidermis luminesced." "Your beta endorphins are abnormally elevated." Actually that last one might just happen with regular old human sex. Did I actually look up beta endorphins? Nope. Will I do so now? Nope.) 

Mention was made in the comments from last time of the spotty record non-Roddenberry Trek has with sexual relationships. I say non-Roddenberry Trek because for as crazy as much of the TOS/supporting-Roddenberry-archival-material exploration of sexual relationships is, it's bold and very much of-its-era. The Berman-era is characterized more by a PG sensibility. I don't fault it for this. But I kind of wish some cracked old pervert like Gene gave some notes on this one; it'd have made it more compelling. Maybe that says more about me than "The Disease," I don't know. 

I recently discovered Charles Rocket's RI connection. I worked with some of the alums of the bands/scene mentioned in that link for a few years in the 90s. A curious, wonderful group of folks. RIP, Mr. Claverie.

I liked this bit at the end.

21.

The Doctor's program is taken over by an artificially intelligent missile determined to use Voyager to complete its deadly mission - the destruction of an entire civilization.

I'd have preferred "Smart Bomb" for a title, myself. It seems like the script was written with that at least on the whiteboard. I wonder if the network brass nixed it? Is there commentary/ any notes on the DVD? If ex-Voyager people are reading this - hey you never know- inquiring minds want to know.

I like how it's set up as a Nomad echo and then subverts that expectation, but then it kind of just echoes "Darkling." Didn't "Darkling" happen only in s4? Not a bad helping of Trek casserole, but despite some good stuff from Janeway throughout and a script that has a meta-zen quality to it that's somewhat enjoyable, it never really comes together. The script is always a little too on the nose. It'd have benefited from some "NOMAD! YOU'RE IN CONTACT WITH THE UNIT SPOCK!" theatrics.

Garrett Wang has talked about how Harry lacked opportunities to grow because the powers that be were of a "Well, someone has to be the Ensign" mindset. I can appreciate both their caution and an it's-always-someone's-first-episode approach. But it sometimes gets to be a bit much seeing Harry constantly struggle with the same rookie guilt/ uncertainty. He's a likable fellow, and that comes through quite easily, but I share (as a viewer) the actor's frustration with his lack of opportunity to ever grow out of it.

A spirited performance from Trek vet Steven Dennis as Onquanii, while we're here.

20.

"Dark Frontier" 
pts. 1 and 2.

Janeway's plan to steal a transwarp coil from the Borg goes awry when the Borg Queen retrieves Seven of Nine and threatens to assimilate the entire crew. The crew launches a bold plan to rescue Seven from the Borg Queen. Narrow escape, massive explosion.

Janeway just doesn't sound like Janeway a lot of the times here, does she? Particularly with her attitude to the Borg. Isn't what she plots out kind of anti-Janeway? Is it all that different from what she morally disapproves of in "Equinox?" Did Janeway not see "I, Borg"?

For all its verbiage about studying the Borg - and the price/ opportunity cost of acquiring such know-how and for all the cool-Borg visuals (and there are lots of them) this does not feel sufficiently developed enough. And the characters/ show are kind of leapfrogged over to get to beats in the story. 

"Death Star, approaching."

19.

  

Captain Braxton returns from the 29th century, forcing Seven of Nine to track a temporal disrupter which will ultimately destroy Voyager unless she is successful.

There are some fun moments - and I like Bruce McGill, aka God from the Quantum Leap finale, whom they recast as Captain Braxton - but the 29th century time-Starfleet makes only as much sense as the Krenim's temporal weapon from "Year of Hell." They needed to leave this stuff alone instead of trying to nail it down into some kind of Federation-type organizational structure; the timestream simply cannot work that way. All time travel in Trek is wonky, and all of it is inconsistent, so the only rule is: be hazy about the rules. And yet, all of these 29th century Starfleet / Krenim plots rely on not just pretending there are rules, but that they are consistent enough to build a Space Navy around them. (Or that a Space Navy would even be sensible for such a task. It'd be like sending an aircraft carrier that only carried horse-drawn carriers on it around the globe.)

And while "Year of Hell" had some other stuff going for it, this is pure time-line stuff, so there's nothing to help get me over the above hump. 

Sorry, God.

18.

"Extreme Risk"

As the crew readies the new Delta Flyer shuttle for launch, Torres begins taking dangerous risks with her life in reaction to the news that most of her Maquis friends back in the Alpha Quadrant have been slaughtered by the Cardassians.

It struck me watching this that the Delta Flyer is yet one more thing with a BSG parallel, ie the stealth-fighter Blackbird they build on Galactica. I was saying to a friend the other day that it's seeming to me more and more like BSG is a direct response to VOY, and maybe Babylon 5, too. (Babylon 5 + VOY) - aliens = BSG. Somewhat. Math isn't my strong suit. 

Anyway, the Delta Flyer is cool, I suppose. It makes sense that everyone's so nonchalant about losing shuttles all the time if they can just build more ships. 

Good stuff from Janeway here with Controller Vrelk - all episode really, Janeway is pretty righteous. As for B'Elanna's arc, I see what they're going for, but they don't quite get there IMHO. And the redemptive B'Elanna-saves-the-shuttle stuff is just over-labored. 

At one point, B'Elanna makes a big fuss over Neelix's pancakes. Then it's revealed he just replicates them. Why bother having Neelix replicate them, then? Does he have the magic touch for pushing the button? Is there a pancake replicator recipe encrypted only for Neelix? Also: it's freaking pancakes - what's the big mystery?

17.

 

A Malon garbage ship about to explode could contaminate a large area of space unless a temperamental Torres can work with the Malon to defuse it. However she's unaware of the legend surrounding the Malon Bogeyman...

Unable to clear the blast radius in time... really? That seems wrong. Well within conventional-Trek-storytelling-parameters, but I've grown a little picky about distance/ speed discrepancies. If indeed they are even discrepancies. I'd like to know their process for such things.

I guess this one's an exploration of self-control over anger and violence? With a literalization of poisoning/ toxicity with the Malon bit, potentially fatal if not mastered/ properly-recycled. Not bad but not great. No fault of anyone; cast and crew do fine. But "Night" did the concept better, and - production-order-wise - that's not too distant in the rearview to be retreading the same ground. 

16.

"Bliss"

The crew finds a wormhole which appears to lead to the Alpha Quadrant, but Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman realize that appearances can be deceiving.

Another fake-out Seven/ crew-against-her sort of deal. Another Seven disables/ takes over the ship sort of deal. Here are the questions I wrote down as I watched it with my answers in parentheses.

- When did that X Files dream mushroom episode come out? ("Field Trip," aired in May 1999. "Bliss" beat it to the punch by a few months. There's not a lot of overlap between the two, but it just put me in mind of that one. Carry on.)
 
- Who plays Tuvok's wife? She and Tuvok look good together. (Marva Hicks - and they appear to have gotten her for each of T'Pel's appearances, so that's cool.)

- Perfectly fine but not a huge hit with me. (Okay, so that's not a question.)

15.

When the Doctor teaches Seven of Nine about dating, dancing, music and romance as part of a bet with Paris, he soon finds himself falling in love with her.

I like allusions to B'Elanna's noisy sex life. Even if it's with Tom Paris. (Incidentally the director of this episode.)

Guest stars Ian Abercrombie and Scott Thompson, who gives a good performance in a rather unsympathetic role. Some fun moments in his b-story with Neelix.

Does Tom just wander into other people's holodeck programs? Apparently.

There are some great moments between Picardo and Ryan here, especially their duet - altho I laughed when The Doctor says "let's try something more challenging" and then they go into "You Are My Sunshine." 

Slow it down, Doc! She ain't Boccherini.

But it was a tad cutesy for my taste. Maybe not cutesy - too something, though. I can see this one meaning something to someone else, all legit, but it didn't really move me. Another no fault of the cast/ crew, just didn't quite land with me.

14.

  

While Samantha Wildman is missing with an away team on a dangerous shuttle mission, Naomi Wildman is distracted by Neelix with a The Adventures of Flotter holoprogram.

Well now. I feel like I'm writing this a lot, but it's not bad - it might even be masterful in some ways - but I can't pretend I really enjoyed it. But hey - not all Trek episodes have to be specifically pitched to me. I liked the ending. One other thing I liked was how all the characters seemed to mutually recall Flotter et al from their own childhood. That gave the whole thing some verisimilitude.

Comes nowhere near to topping Neelix's episode with Naomi from last season ("Mortal Coil") but like "Someone to Watch Over Me," I can see it meaning something special to someone, and that's cool. I'll be out back, smoking butts.

13.

The Doctor discovers that his program has been tampered with, then learns that the captain ordered portions of his memory erased to protect him from a devastating ethical dilemma.

Some parts are overdone - more on that in a moment - but I like it overall as it functions as a poetic ode to selective memory. Like the movie Memento, it sketches out an ethical dilemma in the micro that turns out to corrupt the macro. This is a sufficiently "Trek-ky" exploration of the invented circumstances, but - unlike Memento - it blows it in the final act. I give most of the episode an "A" and the last 10 minutes a "C."

It's tough to sketch out why I feel it failed to resolve itself. The Doctor become trapped in a suicidal loop (so to speak) so the decision is made to alter his program. I get that it's a meta-discussion on ego and memory (and maybe it could have chosen a more clearly defined lane between the two) but I kept thinking, as a Starfleet physician, he's already got this ethically worked out in his program - he'd absolutely have to. Of course, that's the dramatic conflict; the program is malfunctioning. For the first two thirds, it really works for me, but just too pat an ending. 

Still, number 13 in this here countdown is nothing to sneeze at. I'm sure The Doctor would be tickled freaking pink. 

12.

While the ship is trapped in Chaotic Space, Chakotay hallucinates that he is a boxer being trained by Boothby for a confrontation with an unknown alien opponent.

Wouldn't Boothby's training Chakotay at the Academy have come up in "In the Flesh?" (Did it? I can't recall.) Is it just too much to turn Boothby into Mickey Goldmill, anyway? It might've been more fun to discover that Chakotay had programmed Boothby as his holodeck boxing coach because it amused him. I wish, in fact, that I'd never thought of that because now I'm disappointed.

A slight misfire in some ways but a worthy attempt. Chaotic space is kind of like the Omega Whatever in just suddenly appearing and being this murky all-powerful thing. I'm not sure the show really needs more murky crap like this. But - despite how this may sound - this isn't really a complaint, more of a concern about the engines. Some of the Greatest American Hero style alien communication is pretty trippy. And despite the insanity, some cool Chakotay moments nonetheless.

"Kid Chaos" was, while we're here, my buddy Klum's fantasy football team name, over many seasons. He was not a VOY fan, so it was not chosen as a reference to this. Kind of tripped me out a little bit, especially thinking about this being from "chaotic space" trying to communicate via only what's in the memory banks.

The distress calls are eerie, but I'd have liked a little more TOS-style theatricality. Just my personal tastes. Chakotay almost gets there with some of his rantings, bless him. ("Transmit! TRANSMIT!") The score might've been called upon to provide a bit more than it does.

11.

Seven of Nine's Borg nanoprobes and the Doctor's portable emitter interface in a transporter accident to create a highly advanced Borg drone who summons the attentions of the Collective.

This is a better version of the Troi-has-a-space-baby TNG ep, although not a better version of the Data-and-Val ep from TNG. Still it's pretty good: The Doctor and Seven have a baby (so to speak).

Janeway's civilizational faith is inspiring. We need you, Captain.

"They will try to assimilate you."
"They will fail."

Nice little bit from Jeri Ryan, here, at the end. All episode, really. Come to think of it, s5 has a lot of nice sum-up-the-episode images.

Won't the Borg still be after the mobile emitter and Seven, though? I can't recall that being the crux of future Borg appearances in the show, but you'd figure it'd be the outstanding item on their Voyager agenda. I like how the Borg want The Doctor and Data but somehow - in all the civilizations they've absorbed - can't build one themselves. I guess there's some sort of comment in there about scientific freedom and creativity being greater in non-Borg outfits like the Federation.

10.

Voyager discovers an ocean in space, but when Tom Paris tries to protect it from its own inhabitants, he loses his rank and is confined to the brig for a month.

First sighting of the Delaney Sisters. I like the Captain Proton stuff as always.

This is basically a Hey!-Here's-Tom-Paris-again slice of the Voyager pie, but it's a pretty decent one that I've enjoyed on multiple viewings. It's a little silly to be debating the Prime Directive as much as they sometimes do, and Tom is really kind of impetuous and renegade here. But, that's the Tom Paris charm, I guess. It's an episode I like, broad strokes and all. That said, there are some bits that are consistent eyerolls. Here they are: 

- "Our best research vessels can only go..." Does this seem plausible? Not a dealbreaker but they might've added a line or two to explain why they could do all the things they were capable of doing but not build the equivalent of the Delta Flyer.

- "Your mining operations are destroying the ocean!"

Seen it.

- Tom says that his first dream job was joining the Federation Navy. The Federation Navy? Why would there be a Federation Navy? Is this a group that oversees maritime operations on sovereign worlds of the Federation? Or has Earth said you know what, we killed George and Gracie, we've clearly got problems and just outsourced all aquatic operations to the United Federation of Planets? Which Federation outfit got the job?

- You know that thing people do where they're doing push-ups and a hot chick walks by and they suddenly add 100 to their rep count? That's what Tom does here:

for... Neelix?

9.

 

 "In the Flesh"

The crew encounters an exact duplicate of Earth complete with humans at Starfleet Headquarters...who turn out to be altered members of Species 8472.

Glen Bateman! Another Cylon! Billy from Gremlins!

This is a pretty silly concept, but it's handled fairly well. A couple of nice Vulcan things mentioned offhand: I'd have liked to see "Pon Farr Night" at the Vulcan Night Club, and A Cave Beyond Logic sounds promising.

Species 8472 just never seem like the same species from appearance to appearance. It's too bad they just didn't make this race the Kelvins from "By Any Other Name" instead of 8472 again. And their plan is pretty far along for them to reconsider it all so quickly. (Which actually applies to the Kelvins as well, now that I think about it, when they finally acquiesce to Kirk et al's manipulations) Would've made a cool sequel. And they could've even mopped up The Great Barrier incongruities here, as well. Damn it!

8.

 "Gravity"

Paris and Tuvok crash on a desolate desert planet where a mysterious woman helps them survive; meanwhile, the ship discovers that the missing crewmembers are caught in a gravometric vortex which distorts their perception of the passage of time.

Kinda of an "All Our Yesterdays" deal, eh? Paris - who slips a little too quickly into "this is our home now" mode - is kind of annoying all episode actually. Not that Bones isn't in "All Our Yesterdays," but Robert Duncan McNeill is no DeForest Kelley. They spend the equivalent of 2 months down there, and he doesn't mention B'Elanna once (unless I missed it). It could have happened during one of the commercials, of course.  

I like the flashbacks to young Tuvok and how they inform the story in the present. Perhaps it's not utilized as effectively as it might have been; somewhere in this script is a helluva Lost s1 story wanting to break free.

Regarding the guest stars, young Tuvok is played by LeRoy D. Brazile, Trek Vet Joseph Ruskin plays his teacher, and Laurie Petty plays Noss. She really commits to her performance, and it's all paid off with the wonderful mind meld at episode's end. Don't you wish life really worked like this?

Broad strokes in the soundtrack, maybe. but the music moves me, particularly the little motif during "live long and prosper."

Regarding the title of the story, I read somewhere that proper posture is blending with gravity, proper attitude is blending with life. Kind of vague, sure, but I like the idea of the Vulcan pursuit of both, born of adapting to that harsh, turbulent world.

7.

In a completely dark area of space where no stars are visible, Janeway must cope first with depression, then with an unknown alien menace which threatens to destroy Voyager if they intervene in the annihilation of another species.

"Time to take out the garbage..."

The s5 opener feels like a re-set of the show in many ways. And a fairly successful one. Each character is more or less reintroduced (again) and given something to work through against a setting/ conflict that re-enforces the core premise(s) of the series.

And the first of the Captain Proton experiences to come.

Two quick nitpicks:

(1) 2m km = how many light years? They traverse this in less than a minute. Later, they are 200k km from the boundary but it takes much longer. I try to tune this stuff out, for real, but good lord they task me...they task me.

(2) Don't they just kind of release all the poison into the Void that they spent all episode trying not to release into the Void? Or does exploding it somehow make it disperse lawfully? 

6.

Fifteen years in the future, Chakotay and Kim are the only survivors of a failed attempt to use slipstream technology to get back to Earth. Having found Voyager buried beneath the ice of a frozen planet, they set out to change history.

Garrett Wang says Rick Berman told this would be VOY's "City on Edge of Forever." Doesn't quite hit that mark for me. But, some great stuff happens throughout, despite its Harry-kicks-himself mannerisms. 

It's perhaps more of a Chakotay episode, despite the Harry Kim temporal-wraparound at episode's end. I like how he's completely throwing out every last lesson learned from "Year of Hell." Or perhaps it's that by this point in time, he's become such a master of time travel that he just charges ahead. I like the writing between Chakotay and Tessa, but maybe not the actual performances/ their chemistry. 

Still, it's got some fun banter ("Mister Neelix, you are an unending source of astonishment") and is one of the better VOY Elseworlds episodes.

Again with the time police crap, cool as it is to see Geordi (who directed this episode) again. I guess, too, if the implication from all sides is that Starfleet branches out into time police directions that it's cool to see Geordi involved in its early days.

5.

Federation science vessel Equinox is found in the Delta Quadrant, but what is at first a happy reunion turns into something more ominous when the Voyager crew discover the crew of the Equinox have been performing unethical experiments on the Cylons to get home faster. Guest starring Michelle Forbes as Admiral Cain.

Sorry, got my BSG wires crossed with my VOY ones again. (But look! It's Rick Worthy, the quiet Cylon!) Pretty impressive guest cast all around, with the good-lord-look-at-this-guy's-CV John Savage as the Equinox Captain, Titus Willever as the guy who calls B'Elanna "BLT" way too much, and this guy as the crewman whose plum gone space-crazy:

This is a lot of fun. It even (spoiler alert) resolves itself well in s6e1, making it the only Voyager two-parter to really do that, so chapeaus all around. Nice bit with the Doctors - worth singling out, as it's such a great way of exploiting what's already there in the show to make a single story even more dynamic.

Silly bit at the very end ("Captain!") but that's show biz. A great episode.

4.

In December 2000, one of Kathryn Janeway's favorite ancestors must overcome one man's resistance to the building of the Millennium Gate on Earth.

Kinda sorta an Elseworlds type of episode, definitely an off the beaten track one, and as you can tell from where it lands in our countdown, one very much to my liking. Switching to bullet mode; we're all friends here.

- Is Kevin Tighe worthy of Kathryn Mulgrew? He's getting in the ring with Sam Malone and Remo Williams FFS. But he's a different kind of hero, so I say sure. Most importantly, does he do a good job and do he and Mulgrew have good chemistry? Yes and yes.

"I'm stuck in the future, you're stuck in the past." bah-dum-bum.

- Aired in May 1999 and accurately called out Y2K hucksters. It wasn't hard to do, exactly, but good on ya, VOY.

- I, too, had this shirt that the kid wears throughout. Not in 1999, but I wore it a lot summer of 94.

Sorry, everybody I used to know.

- "We are not living in a heroic age." Theme of the episode - how does one be a hero in such an age? Janeway has to figure it out. How you (the universal you) answer that for yourself is a big part of growing up, I guess. How Earth's past in Trekland answered it for Earth's future led to Janeway; the way we (the universal, well universal-American-public-at-large-in-2018) are answering it in 2018 seems to lead to Jane Fonda. Bully for you, Hanoi Jane, but the rest of us, not so much. Anyway, it's an interesting dissection of how even the heroes of our ideal Trek future romanticize (and alter) the past.


- "My cousin was a prize-winning chess program." I like that little bit of pride from The Doctor.

- Is it realistic that Janeway would not have looked up her hero ancestor a bit? Here we run into what I call the Enemy Mine problem. Which was upgraded for a more timely - though sadly increasingly dated now, as well - reference to the "BSG pics" problem. Same deal, though: in Enemy Mine, once Dennis Quaid and Lou Gossett Jr. start talking to one another, Quaid starts talking about his parents and his grandparents and immediately everyone is a farmer. Isn't this the future? Does that seem right? In BSG, while looking through old pictures, Apollo comes across black and white pics of he and his dead brother as kids. Does this seem right? These people have off-the-charts AI and faster-than-light technology and had it for generations; was photography really that far behind? It's no fault of the episode's, but it does seem a bit implausible that a woman of the twenty-fourth century with the degree of interest she shows in her ancestor would need to have the google results pointed out to her, as happens here.

- Is the midnight kinda-sorta-almost-anti-perhaps-Roadwork set-up realistic? Who cares. The very end with the family sentiments and dissolve into the photo put an unexpected lump in my throat. A+ for the last 10 seconds - B+ for the rest.

3.

When aliens from another dimension infiltrate Voyager and trigger a war in the Captain Proton holonovel, Janeway pretends to be Queen Arachnia to rescue her ship.

I've mentioned my love of TNG's "Ship in a Bottle." "Chaotica" is its conceptual cousin. Is this the high water mark of the franchise's holo-explorations? As far as furthering the concept, I mean. Has "photonic life forms face off with Dr. Chaotica" been topped elsewhere? It may still be, at the time of this writing, the reigning champ. 

So many fun moments it's difficult to single out just one, but the story unfolds very satisfyingly. All the kudos(es) to Bryan Fuller and Michael Taylor.

"Please summarize the message." Tuvok with Satan's Robot (voiced by Trek vet Tarik Ergin) Incidentally, the robot's "Damage!" was retained erroneously in my memory as "Damn it!" I like my memory mistake a little better.

Is anyone else touched that Chaotica holds his own against bona fide photonic life forms? He'd have kept going, too, if the VOY gang hadn't thrown a wrench in the works. Speaking of, Captain Janeway's secret mission changes from the death ray to the lightning shield and back again once or twice. So it goes. Room to improvise.

2.

When Voyager harbors telepathic refugees, a high-ranking alien investigator seeks to defect, and gets close to Janeway as they work to escape his former peers.

I love Mahler. I didn't know I did the first time I saw this episode, but it sure sounded surreal to hear in a starship setting at 3:45 am. This was one of my insomnia-VOY episodes (that handful of episodes I watched during a bout of insomnia 10 years ago or so when it came on in the middle of the night on cable.)

Cool guest performance/ dynamic with Janeway. As good as Mark Harelik is as Kashyk, it's Kate Mulgrew's episode. Not only a great performance but great character stuff for Janeway's series arc. This Harelik guy, by the by, is in Castle Rock, which I've yet to see a single episode of. 

He lays it on a bit thick with all the "Infinite Spirals" stuff. Janeway doesn't seem to mind. Either that or that's when she begins to plot out her own counterpoint.

So, subspace/ wormholes follow the rules of counterpoint? Cool. Bach was really onto something! Not just music, but religious awe/ math.   

A single episode like this sketches out a swatch of the Delta Quadrant that could sustain a whole franchise of its own. Devore Space has a lot of possibilities.

1.

The duplicate crew from last season's "Demon" attempts to go about their merry way, but a horrible fate befalls them just as they find a quick way back to Earth.

Ah, the tragic sequel to "Demon." And such an unexpected sequel, as well; the sequel no one expected turns into the bleakest episode of the entire franchise, maybe. And maybe it's too much, I don't know. For me, the biomimetic crew's principled but ultimately doomed attempt not just to survive but to be remembered - and they don't even get that! Spoilers, I guess, but come on - touched me deeply.

More than anything the ending reminded me of The Twilight Zone. I'd hate for every Trek to end like this, but the blend of sensibilities really worked for me. There's a moment near the end, where the hits just keep piling up - shades of the episode where Harry Kim leaped universes - and the camera pans around the living dead around the ship. It's chilling, and there's Harry - or Faux Harry - just doing the right thing right to the end.

I'd have preferred for my personal taste someone putting it together and honoring their memory at episode's end. One of those in the Captain's ready room codas that you know TNG would've had. "I've been examining the debris..." etc. Without that, maybe it is a touch too bleak. But bleakness aside, the theme (you are the one bearing witness to your life; your principles are what you do when no one is there to see you/ when you're falling apart) is something VOY - and Trek - come back to again and again. I appreciate their not giving us the coda just this once.

A very fascinating mystery, too, while it's coming together, from the opening fake-out to everything falling apart.

One nitpick, though - even the best have that one thread you can pull... -  wouldn't they at least collect the goo Tuvok describes as floating right in front of the ship at episode's end, i.e. the remains of the faux Voyager? It's the exact same chemical composition they went to such great lengths to collect in "Demon;" even if they had loads and loads it, wouldn't it make sense to grab some more to stockpile?

Obviously not a dealbreaker. A hell of an episode and a high point of the franchise. 

~

See you next time.