Episode 141: Live Fast And Prosper

Alas no this isn’t part of the Fast And The Furious franchise and that’s the only time I’ll say “alas” at the start of that sentence.

On a mining planet, miners, funnily enough, meet with two people who have just beamed down, one of which has introduced themselves as Captain Janeway. It’s not her and unfortunately they haven’t recast Mulgrew, it’s people pretending to be from Voyager. I know! Why, right? The pretenders agree to a trade, only Fauxager takes the bolomite and warps away before they can give them the dilithium. On the real Voyager systems are going wrong and it leads back to a part that Neelix acquired from some monks. That they give Neelix anything to do still surprises me. It seems the monks and the Fauxager are connected whenever the miners get in touch with real Voyager. Despite looking nothing like each other they’re initially convinced Janeway did this, but then they did fall for the scam in the first place, so brightest pennies they are not. Not knowing when to quit, we find Fauxager, selling their Delta Flyer (Delta Fauxer? This is getting complicated) to an unsuspecting party who on finding out he’s been had is determined to kill them. I’m getting the impression the Delta Quadrant is full of idiots. Voyager arrives just in time to save them but despite Tuvok’s lies about the punishment fake Janeway or Dala faces she doesn’t give in. On meeting Janeway, Dala probably though “I should’ve used a deeper voice” though. She then manages to escape but this is all part of Janeway’s plan which leads them to the rest of the con artists. With the Doctor pretending to be Dala for the final part of the plan they’re all captured.

An actual okay episode in season six! I mean it wasn’t great but I’ll take whatever I can get right now.

Episode 140: The Good Shepherd

Yes, it’s Lower Deck’s Voyager style but it’s not the worst episode in the world. That was last week.

It’s the 24th century so of course at the start of the episode we have people walking from deck to deck to deliver electronic messages to one another. Seven has unsurprisingly decided that the ship isn’t efficient enough but instead of closing the holodeck she’s more concerned with the crew. There are three people who’s talents are being wasted. These are Harren, an irritating genius who is assigned a routine task to keep him out of the way, Telfer a hypochondriac, and Celes who is always making errors. Okay, what’s Celes “talent” precisely? Janeway is annoyed that three of her crew have “slipped through the cracks”. Only three? The serial killer was fine was he? She decides to take them all on an away mission on the Delta Flyer to examine a class-T cluster (spatial anomalies to you and me). Out in the cluster the three crew and Janeway find evidence of dark matter lifeforms, 400 years in the future you’d think they’d have found out what dark matter is but then they’ve forgotten emails so who knows. The lifeforms transport Telfer away before returning him without his hypochondria. Then after Harren kills one of them in defence, the creatures all advance on the Flyer and Janeway orders the rest to the escape pods. They disobey and stay with her apart from Harren, who uses the escape pod as a distraction so the Flyer can escape. He’s then beamed aboard and they all make it back to Voyager having learned a lesson and felt better about themselves. Apparently.

Episode 139: Child’s Play

It’s the ex-Borg children again!

Seven is chaperoning them at a science fair with Janeway being impressed with them. Well, when you captain Voyager, that’s not too hard. Seven is disappointed though to learn that Icheb’s parents have been found. Yay we’re getting rid of one. Icheb himself is not keen especially when he finds out the Brunali are farmers and is unable to continue his science studies. Icheb’s home is the Brunali homeworld which incidentally is next to a Borg conduit so it’s got that going for it. On the homeworld itself, I’m sure I saw a McDonalds. I’m sure the Borg are always assimilating burgers. Icheb meets his parents but still doesn’t want to go.

Mark W Shepherd’s your father and you still want to return to Voyager?! Seven and Janeway meet with the parents to see what they can do. Leave Icheb behind and warp away would be my suggestion but nobody brings it up. With Seven’s usual tact she manages to insult them by insinuating Icheb will be captured by Borg again. Eventually Icheb finds himself being won over and decides to stay much to Seven’s chagrin but she tries to hide it. One of the other children has difficulty regenerating in her alcove because she misses him and Seven said she does too. This would’ve been a good end but of course there’s more. It turns out the parents were less than honest and Icheb was genetically engineered with a pathogen to kill the Borg which is why the first cube that he was on was destroyed. So the parents had sent him into space again to get another one, pretty slow way to destroy the Borg but there you go. So needless to say Icheb comes back. Damnit, I feel like Cliff Huxtable when he would almost get rid of one of his children.

As an aside, if the Ready Room is being renovated is it still the Ready Room? That may be a tongue twister actually.

Episode 138: Ashes To Ashes

A shuttle is being chased by a larger ship until the alien woman inside disables it and hails Voyager. One of the ex-Borg children answers the hail because apparently no-one on the bridge can. Eventually the alien woman reveals herself to be Ensign Ballard who died three years earlier. She escaped and came back to Voyager?! She was reanimated by the Kobali as they salvage dead bodies to bring life, that’s taking recycling slightly too far isn’t it? Harry who was very close to her (nudge nudge wink wink) is emotional at her return and because she wasn’t at her funeral Harry bores her with his speech. She is made to look human by the Doctor complete with wig. In engineering she inexplicably speaks Kobari and at dinner with Janeway she talks to the captain about ordering her to her death before abruptly leaving. Though that may be to do with the jello sandwiches. Ballard dreams of her funeral and goes to Harry to tell of her bad day before they kiss. I like to think Harry’s slightly disappointed she didn’t turn into a cow. Then, a Kobali ship arrives wanting Ballard back with a man claiming to be her father. She doesn’t want to go, though after her face returns to Kobalin and she shouts at the Doctor in that language, she decides that she should leave Voyager as she’s more a Kobali now. Throughout the episode one of the ex-Borg children has been rebelling against Seven before they find common ground. She finds herself in the mess hall and because his girlfriend left, Harry goes with her to the holodeck. Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.

So in conclusion ashes to ashes, funk to funky, we all know Harry Kim’s a flunky, as David Bowie might’ve said.

Episode 137: Spirit Folk

There are a very few Voyager stories that could’ve done with a sequel. Fair Haven isn’t one of them. Indeed this a very probably the worst Voyager... the worst Star Trek episode I’ve ever seen.

Tom Paris is in the Irish village program on the holodeck and crashes his car. He gets the computer to repair the wheel and one of the villagers sees him. Of course it’s the obligatory drunk Irish man who believes Paris is a demon because... well, I don’t know. Janeway is doing more flirting with her fancy man in the village and Harry goes on a date with one of the girls in it. A date?! Just program the fucking holodeck for sex and be done with it. Tom makes the girl turn into a cow just as Harry’s kissing her because he’s a laugh riot apparently. I don’t think Harry would be fussed to be honest. Of course, Paris is seen, that together with the Doctor who is masquerading as the priest disappearing makes more people suspicious. Janeway’s fancy man confronts her about it all so she goes to Paris and Kim who bring Janeway’s fancyman up on an empty holodeck to fix him but it turns out he’s just pretending to be fixed. Um... Anyway, he tells all the other characters he was taken to another world. Paris and Kim sneak into the program to change things but are then captured and the characters shoot the control panel. I don’t want to even go into why that doesn’t make sense. The Doctor is captured too and Janeway’s fancy man takes his holoemitter. He’s beamed to the bridge as they think it’s the Doctor. God this has to be the end now. Another 7 minutes?! I’ll do this in a sentence then, the holodeck people and Voyager crew agree to be friends, the end.

Remember TNG Ship In A Bottle? NEVER WATCH THIS. Don’t remember it? NEVER WATCH THIS. Watch Ship In A Bottle.

Episode 136: Collective

Chakotay, Kim, Paris and Neelix are playing poker on the Delta Flyer. Neelix is trying to unsubtly hustle everyone but Paul Newman he’s not, if only there was a Borg cube to distract everyone. Hey, there’s one now. After a brief battle the Borg capture them apart from Harry who is still unconscious on the Flyer. Voyager finds the cube next and finds it very easy to defeat them, and then the Borg want to negotiate which is unusual behavior for the them. We know this because we’re told every ten seconds. The Borg want Voyager’s deflector technology to contact the other Borg, in return for the crew so Seven beams over and finds only five Borg children left on board. So it’s that kind of episode. After she returns to Voyager she has evidence that the Borg adults on the ship were killed by a virus that didn’t affect the children as they were in maturation chambers. The Doctor is horrified to find that they are considering using that on the children. I know, you could kill them so much more easily. Seven goes back to the cube and tries to convince them to join Voyager but the leader child is against this. Kim wakes up and goes to the shield generator to destroy it, but is captured by the children. Reason #5385 why Harry is rubbish. Seven reveals that because they are imperfect the Borg deem the children to be irrelevant. The shields in the room begin weakening and the Borg leader is destroyed by an explosion. They all go to Voyager where the four remaining children will join the crew. OH. JOY. Just what the show needs.

Wouldn’t Borg teenagers be more emo and writing Borg poetry? “I call this one Useless Resistance”

Episode 135: Tsunkatse

I took a break over Christmas since I was quite far ahead and this is the first episode I came back to. I wish it was a good one.

It’s shore leave on Voyager, I’m not sure who’s going to keep the ship going, but let’s not worry about that. Janeway goes to another system so leaves Chakotay in command. There’s a Tsunkatse tournament (A kind of alien UFC) on the planet below and the crew want to see the fights. Seven and Tuvok don’t want to, of course, so agree to visit a nearby spatial anomaly. Obviously they don’t see enough of them normally but then their shuttle is attacked and they’re kidnapped by Penk (DS9’s Jeffrey Combs) who runs the Tsunkatse. Seven agrees to fight but only if Tuvok’s injuries are treated and he doesn’t tell anyone she was kidnapped by someone called Penk. In her first fight she has to best the champion. Chakotay, Kim and Paris are watching the fight live and try to get her beamed away but to no avail as the fighters are holograms being transmitted from another location. She is eventually beaten but a Hirogen fighter (DS9’s JG Hertzler) agrees to help her train, Burgess Meredith not being available. Meanwhile Voyager locates Penk’s ship from the transmissions and set a course, also giving the location to Janeway. The next fight for Seven is, in a shocking plot twist, against the Hirogen! It’s like the Twilight Zone. Voyager finds the ship in time and attempts to free Seven and Tuvok but before you can say “cavalry”, Janeway arrives in her tiny shuttle and somehow saves the day.

Fun Fact: This episode was the highest rated of the sixth season, I’d like to think this was because of Combs and Hertzler’s guest appearance but we both know it’s because of the Rock (who played the champion).