Episode 167: Natural Law

 

Chakotay and Seven are going to some conference on a planet when he decides to show her some of the scenery. Which is all fine apart from Seven is completely bored of it all, oh and he crashes the shuttle into an energy barrier. Not to worry, plenty more where that came from. So that means she’s then trapped with Mr Outdoors on the forested planet surface. Fun times for all! What we need is an exciting B tale to lift this episode. Paris? In another shuttle story? Guess I’ll have to hope one, just one, of the remaining three is good. Anyway, Paris is being a pilot jerk and is given a dressing down from the planet authorities. He seems to think that because he didn’t know about the laws of the planet, that’s fine. Yep, because that’s how it is when it’s the human is the criminal. He’s ordered to undergo flight training which Janeway agrees with. I assume to get him out of her hair for a while. That’s where he lives you see. In her hair. With all of Seven’s nanoprobes. What? Fine, back to the episode. On the planet below, Seven and Chakotay find some alien Native American types. Yes, his people. Despite Seven’s protests, Chakotay, totally by accident of course, communicates with them. While Seven gets lost and finds her own Indian woman to guide her in the ways of the world. Not like that you perverts. Paris’ flight teacher is of course old and wants to take his time over everything, which Harry and Torres find hilarious. Well, they would, wouldn’t they? Speaking of the wood, back on the planet, Chakotay finds that Seven was right as the natives copy his tattoo design. Poor bastards. The tester asks Paris at one point if he’s familiar with professional pride, well the writers sure aren’t. Chakotay and Seven eventually find each other again and bring down the barrier from within. Turns out the barrier was put up by another race of aliens years before to protect the natives. Sure enough as soon as it’s down, the other planet inhabitants want to build on it. Probably a casino. So Janeway puts the barrier up again, thanks to Paris’ flying ability. Well we’ve got to have the two stories linking up in some way don’t we?

Episode 166: Friendship One

We start with Janeway on the space phone to StarFleet and telling them about the Distant Origins episode. Not surprising really if you think about it. “No really, we had some times we didn’t see spatial anomalies”. She’s given a mission to find a probe powered by antimatter that went missing in the area 300 years ago. The mission will take them slightly out of there way. Does StarFleet actually want them to come back? The human bridge crew all reminisce about how they had to learn about it in school. Even Neelix is getting bored by it. They eventually find the irradiated planet it’s on and have to send an away team in a shuttle. The away team consists of Chakotay, Harry, Neelix, Paris and Ensign Ricky. Sorry, I mean Carey. He might as well be two days away from retirement too. Which if you were, you’d be mightily annoyed you were in the Delta Quadrant. On the planet, they find pieces of the probe before everyone but Chakotay and Harry are captured. They make it back in the Flyer with a stowaway. On Voyager the Doctor uses Seven’s amazing fix all Nanoprobes (Order now and get this free pen!) to heal the stowaway’s radiation sickness. On the planet it transpires that when the probe crashed there people used the antimatter to fashion weapons and destroy each other, which is apparently the humans fault. They want transport off the planet to a more hospitable one, but that would take years. I’m sure StarFleet wouldn’t mind. Neelix tries to empathise with them by saying they’re better once you get to know them because he thought they were arrogant at first. He did? Don’t remember that at all. All the aliens on the planet seem to be warming to them except the leader because that’s how it works. Minority leaders is the in thing in the Delta Quadrant. Oh and Carey died. Eventually the hostages are freed by using the Doctor which I honestly didn’t see coming. Janeway modifies a few of the plentiful photon torpedoes on the atmosphere and shally me gally me zoop everything’s fine again! Thus ends their second StarFleet mission in seven years. The first they get thrown across the galaxy and this one a crewman dies, they don’t have much luck do they?

Episode 165: Author, Author

So Voyager now has two way communication with the Alpha Quadrant with no delay but I can’t get internet on the train. Barclay is the first person they see and so he has now been in more Voyager than TNG episodes. The crew all get allotted time to call home for three minutes and Harry’s going to call his mum. He wants to know who everyone else is going to call. They’re going to call your mum too Harry *wink*. Anyway, all this is so that the Doctor can speak to his literary agent for he has written a holonovel which has the crew in it being evil dicks. Isn’t that just Living Witness? Nah, that was good. Well  I say the crew, there are subtle changes.  Lt Marseilles instead of Lt Paris, get it?!  The novel itself is about being an oppressed hologram but the crew are more annoyed about being portrayed in a bad light. Wait, until they hear about Paramount. Meanwhile, Torres talks to her father via the TransGalactic Super Highway despite the fact they both look the same age albeit one has 5 o’clock shadow to look older. The father has facial hair too. Ah, comedy. The Doctor eventually agrees to make the changes after he is shown a version where he is portrayed in a similar manner, well more so. His agent though, releases the old version anyway. Agents eh? Apparently the Doctor doesn’t have any rights as a person so a Federation Arbitrator is to decide. That’s right, it’s Star Trek Court Room TimeTM! During this Janeway compares the Doctor's struggle to the Civil Rights Movement and the Suffragettes of the 20th century. Good to see she's kept her perspective.  The Arbitrator rules that he’s not a person, though he is an artist. So like Prince?

Overall with this episode a couple of amusing performances and a tacked on sub TNG: Measure Of A Man ending do not a good episode make.  Also apparently the Doctor is a unique hologram.  Does that mean the holograms of Fair Haven and that battled the Hirogen didn't exist?  I can never unwatch them though.

Episode 164: Q2

Icheb bores Janeway by giving her a 35 chapter presentation on Kirk. Q then appears along with his son (played by John DeLancie’s son) and leaves him with Janeway to babysit him. Look, he’s chewing gum, see, he doesn’t play by the rules! Standby for madcap hilarity! *audience laughter* Q2 begins by asking Janeway when is Voyager going to do something interesting and then fuses Neelix’ jaw shut. Okay, I’m liking this guy. Disappear Harry from the space-time continuum and I’ll start a church based on him. Of course, he then brings the Borg to them. That’s so 2365. Q comes back to see how they’re all getting on and finds Janeway in a bubble bath. We’ll not dwell on that suffice to say, so much for water recycling on Voyager. To make Q2 more compliant the Q Continuum remove his powers. And that’s so 2366! What is this, Q’s Greatest Hits? He’ll be risking himself to save someone else’s life next. Chakotay oversees Q2 dealing with a diplomacy holodeck programme, but Q2 reprogrammes the HoloDiplomat’s personalities. Janeway’s not too happy at this, she doesn’t like it when she’s not the one doing it. Evidently thanks to the boring influence of Icheb, Q2 settles down and becomes a model citizen. Until that is, his daddy issues flare up again and he creates a wormhole to visit the Chokuzon and attack them. Icheb is injured by an unknown weapon so the Doctor can’t save him. Icheb goes back to Chokuzon space at risk to himself and find out, so Icheb can be saved. There we go! Shortly afterwards they visit the Q Continuum which is situated cheaply and conveniently enough in the mess hall. The Continuum decide against turning him into an amoeba but give him the next worst face, being on Voyager... or human, I forget which. Q himself gives concessions though, so everyone can get their powers back who should have them, including Clark Kent in Superman II. And that ladies and gentlemen is the final appearance of Q in Star Trek.

Episode 163: Human Error

If you think you’ve seen this story before with Barclay, it’s because you have. Many, many times. Also, if you think you’ve read that kind of thing by me before, it’s because you have. Many, many times.

To start Seven plays the piano and then the credits start. Next week she boils an egg in the teaser. Cut to the episode and it’s action from the start with Seven visiting Paris and Torres’ baby shower. Harry’s gift was a StarFleet diaper, of course it was. Twist ahoy though as it’s revealed to be a holodeck programme. What happened to people reenacting gangster and Sherlock Holmes or going to long dead worlds on the Holodeck? Nope, now we’re doing baby showers and moving into quarters. Which she does. HoloNeelix suggests she get curtains and HoloChakotay turns up to crank up the excitement by giving her a gift of a dreamcatcher because his people. He’s impressed she knows what it is too, it’s only her stupid programme of course she does. Meanwhile, not to be outdone, back in the real world, in new levels of interestingness, Seven and Torres discuss their hair. But anyway in the programme Seven is having a relationship with HoloChakotay. Him? It begins to affect her life on the ship and her implants so she actually breaks up with him. Wouldn’t turning off the programme be more effective and let’s face it easier? Real Chakotay then says she should socialise more with the crew. That’s the end of the episode. Seriously. Oh and while all that was going on, Voyager accidentally found a space firing range and space action ensued. Unfortunately no hilarity, space or otherwise.

Episode 162: Workforce Part II

Ever notice how the closer you get to the end of something tedious the slower time gets? Just a random observation.

Chakotay succeeds at escaping from the last episode’s cliffhanger by virtue of the security men being stupid. Meanwhile Voyager is under attack from the Quarren ships and eventually the Doctor and Harry decide to retreat, well the Doctor decides and Harry agrees. Chakotay bumps into Janeway again as she’s celebrating moving in with Jaffen after a couple of days. Chakotay denied! Yerid, an investigator, is funnily enough investigating the disappearance of Torres and Neelix so asks Paris and Seven about Chakotay. Back at her apartment, Janeway finds Chakotay injured there. He tells her about her actual life and she is unsure whether to believe him, to be fair, I don’t blame her. On Voyager, together with the Doctor’s treatment, Neelix is reminding Torres about her life. He starts, obviously enough, with her toaster. It must be the best toaster in science fiction since Red Dwarf’s Talkie Toaster. Janeway is almost about to believe when Jaffen sticks his oar in and she reports Chakotay to the security. Yerid arrives to take him before the neuropathology division claim Chakotay which Yerid finds suspicious. It’s okay though, Ralph Malph from Happy Days runs it so it can’t be all bad. Back on Voyager, Neelix prepares Torres her favourite food, as he puts it “Food is like time travel”. I knew they’d shove time travel in somehow. Gradually more people start to believe about their previous lives and Janeway gets in touch with Voyager and talks with Lt Torres. She agrees to shut down the shield at the main plant, which she does and all the members of Voyager are beamed off the planet. The Quarren authorities, probably relieved that they’ve got rid of Voyager, also agree to repatriate the other workers.

The conspiracy part of this episode with various people investigating and gradually coming to realise that the wool has been pulled over their eyes wasn’t too bad. Aside from that though, it was the usual stuff.

Episode 161: Workforce Part I

Ever wonder what the Voyager crew would be like if they actually had to work for a living? I’m betting the recession is their fault.

Janeway’s got a new job and a sassy new outfit on a new planet but she’s late. Her supervisor show’s her the computer she’ll be using before an alarm sounds from it.
She actually says “Shut off that damn alarm and I promise I’ll never violate you again” to the computer. Fortunately a man by the name Jaffen helps her and invites her to the bar but Seven, the Efficiency Monitor tells them to get on with their jobs. Later at the bar, Jaffen tells a joke and Tuvok’s can’t stop laughing about it. He also can’t stop explaining it. Janeway later shows up but doesn’t want to be disturbed as she’s busy. So she went to a busy bar, makes sense. Paris also has a job at the same bar and is trying to chat up a young single mother by the name of Torres. What’re the odds?! Meanwhile back out in space Chakotay, Neelix and Harry are returing to Voyager in a shuttle, makes sense that the rest of the crew would want rid of those three for a while. So wait, the rescue of the Voyager crew rests on that team? Excellent then, they’re all dead already. Team Useless gets to Voyager and finds the Doctor has become the Emergency Command Hologram. During their absence everyone got sick from radiation poisoning after hitting a mine and evacuated the ship leaving the ECH in command. Janeway agrees to move in with Jaffen, presumably they’ll have matching stationery. Tuvok keeps having flashbacks to being captured as his mental condition is breaking down. Meanwhile Team Useless and the Doctor find that the crew are now on the planet Quarra but the Quarrans aren’t being very helpful so Chakotay while disguised as another species beams down with Neelix to find them. He leaves Harry in charge with the Doctor annoyed at this. HE’S annoyed?! Neelix and Chakotay try to bring Torres back to the ship but she doesn’t want to go. Who can blame her? Chakotay is chased by security officers to a dead end and damnit it’s a two parter!