LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 2

Every Sunday my Twitch subs and I watch Star Trek in my Discord. Here are my reviews and thoughts on each of the episodes as I see it. If you’re curious about a nerd’s views on Star Trek episodes, please read on, I go quite in depth with some of these episodes! I’ve watched some Star Trek before but not all of it!

…We are not optimistic about Voyager.

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Twisted - VOY 3/10

This cover art, holy shit

In this episode, it’s Kes’s 2nd birthday, and she doesn’t look a day over 1! Ha ha ha, this character concept makes me very uncomfortable. Anyways they throw a party in that stupid fucking bar that Paris has up permanently in the Holodeck. You’d think that’d use up a lot of energy. They have to ration out replicators, but not this??? Anyways, while they’re partying, some weird phenominon happens and Tuvok’s voice stretches through space and time. Phenomenon.

Also Neelix is still being very overly jealous and it’s the fucking worst I legit hate it. Terrible character trait.

Also a lot of the systems on the ship are malfunctioning. Comm systems are down, the engines are offline, and they keep walking in circles as the ship begins to become non euclidean. Even the Doctor is having trouble transferring himself back to sick bay, and the holodeck refuses to turn off, cause all the voice commands are off. This DOES mean the Doctor shouldn’t be able to communicate or understand the others because he is, in fact, a computer program, and computer programs are malfunctioning. But whatever, they just kinda forget that about him sometimes and he becomes special.

NEELIX SHUT THE FUCK UP AND STOP BEING WEIRD.

The crew is all stuck on deck 6 and are trying to find out what’s going on. Torres and Paris take the turbo lift to try and get to Engineering. Kim and Janeway go through the Jeffries Tubes to try and get to the bridge. Neelix and Chakotay go on foot, using breadcrumb style trails to figure out how the ship is changing. All while Neelix is being really fucking annoying about jealousy.

This shit is so poorly paced. It’s literally then walking in circles and going “we’re walking in circles!!!” Apparently this episode ran 8 minutes under, so they added in these scenes to pad time. Damn I can barely tell, wow. Also it’s a bottle episode. Wow no way.

They make a map of the ship, and it looks like this. Apparently the anomaly is warping the Voyager, and causing it to implode. What the fuck dude? The Voyager isn’t made out of silly putty, it’s metal. The hull would have shattered way before this point. Cause like yeah physics are off but they’re not THAT off??? Also, “it’ll take 50 minutes before the anomaly reaches deck 6 and kills us” DOES THIS IMPLY EVERYONE OUTSIDE OF DECK SIX IS DEAD?? Also, Janeway gets outside deck 6 and is twisted and distorted, and it causes her to break down mentally. It also causes actual damage to her neural pathways. Are they thinking through this episode at all? It holds up to NO scrutiny.

Torres is angy and wants to go down fighting, take a drink. Neelix is being weird, take another drink.

snyway, do now thxt im drunk, ikts tume fuir this epidode to gwt more enjoyable, right>

Nope.

They try everything they can think of to stop the anomaly, but eventually just… give up. Maybe it’ll kill them. Maybe not. So the episode becomes them sitting in the bar, freaking out a bit, and they do a “I’m thankful for” round out thing where they talk about how great each other’s been. My man. This series basically just started. You did not earn this. And then Chakotay does his fucking “Oh jeeze the bones of my ancestors boy howdy I am far from them” thing and I want to explode.

Anyways the distortion comes and passes and they’re perfectly fine. There are also new GIGAQUADS of information in the ship’s computer. O…kay. This was apparently planned as the penultimate episode of season 1.

Fucking did not like that.

Parturition - VOY 6.5/10

Parturition is defined as: “The act of bringing forth, or being delivered of, young; the act of giving birth; delivery; childbirth.”

I want to die

Paris and Kes are hanging out, and Neelix is having A Time about it. I feel like there’s gonna be a fucking smash cut and he’s in his room listening to “ALL AROUND ME ARE FAMILIAR FAAAACES” and dying his hair black. Meanwhile, Janeway and Chakotay are being annoyed cause there might be an M class planet out of the way, a day out of the way. Y’know, they might LOSE A DAY OF THEIR 70 YEAR VOYAGE. But they decide to go there, dubbing it “planet hell”.

Things between Neelix and Paris reach a boiling point, because Neelix continues to be a creep. But tbf, Paris is ALSO a creep. He is, in fact, interested in Kes and is hitting on and flirting with her, and then telling Neelix NO NOTHING’S HAPPENING DON’T BE SILLY WHY ARE YOU BEING STUPID?” This ends in the two of them smashing spaghetti into each other and then fight each other.

They then both get called to Janeway’s office. With spaghetti on their shirts. This is very funny. Anyways they both need to go on a trip to Planet Hell together for a mission to find food. Should be good for them. Then Kes finds out about the fight and complains to the Doctor, who’s like “you should be happy, this is normal! A world without jealousy and fightingm, why, that’s a very dry culture” DOCTOR WHY ARE YOU BEING WEIRD ABOUT THIS??? FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF.

Anyways on their way to the planet, the shuttle has issues and they crash. This, alongside Neli researching why this episode exists, which I’ll get into later, implies that this episode is going to be a “two characters who hate each other crash land together and bond over hardship”. The air is poisonous and gives them welts, and there’s no food in sight. Why they came here is anyone’s guess.

Meanwhile, back on the Voyager, they’re trying to find a way to get the teleporters though the planet’s atmosphere, when they’re attacked by an unknown force. The enemy ship puts up a defensive posture between them and the planet. How come? Well maybe the answer comes in the egg they find.

I’M DA BABY, GOTTA LOVE ME!

This episode now become Neelix and Paris bonding over being dads together. Paris originally wants to leave the thing, but Neelix refuses. What if the mother smells his shitty axe body spray and refuses to accept the baby? So they adopt it. It was a long journey, but these two are WAY WAY better as arguing parents then as arguing love triangle occupants. They even go back into the poison just to care for the baby, who feeds on it.

They have a good heart to heart that I do genuinely like. Neelix apologizes, and Paris admits that he does have feelings for Kes, but he wouldn’t do that to Kes and Neelix, he respects them too much. He USED to be like that but is trying to do better. It’s a good scene. And it works well for the original goal, which was “Neelix’s jealousy is annoying, let’s fix it”. GOD I’M GLAD THEY REALIZED IT. THANK YOU. THANK YOOOU.

The mom shows up, does not reject the baby, and they teleport out. All’s well. The first half was just more of the stuff that they knew wasn’t good, and that they wanted to fix. Which is VERY wild. But the second half was legit good, and enjoyable.

Persistence of Vision - VOY 7/10

Our episode starts with Janeway running ragged. She’s called to Engineering to check up on how the holo emitters are being set up (not very well), apparently there’s an alien species they’re meeting soon called the Botha, so Neelix and Tuvok keep coming up to her like “Captain we must discuss the Botha” “the what” “BOTHA DEEZ NUTS.”

And then the Doctor is like “when is the last time you’ve done anything for pleasure”, and it’s been a bit since she masturbated, so he orders her to relax in the Holodeck. Thankfully this means they can turn off Paris’ dreadful bar, and we get more of Janeway’s holo novel, the one where she’s Maria from Sound of Music. Her boss kisses her and announces his love for her, which startles her a bit, but she’s dragged away by the Botha showing up. They’re very defensive of their territory, but they might allow them to go through their territory, if they explain their situation well.

Unfortunately, things start getting Fucky. Things from inside the Holodeck seem to be leaking out? Neelix made some cucumber sandwiches, and he has a tea cup from the holodeck. The girl from in the holodeck is wandering the halls yelling at Janeway. But when they scan for it and try to figure it out, they can’t find anything. Though Kes’ psychic powers seem to be indicating there’s something supernatural going on here.

She’s hallucinating and things are weird, but the doctor tells her to go sleep in her room instead. What. She should NOT leave sick bay. Doctor what? And then she hears her husband yelling at her about abandoning him, and she’s attacked by a lady from the holodeck with a knife.

Anyways turns out she never left sickbay, and has been hallucinating for a while. Kes can still see the halllucinations. Well, points to the doctor for not being a fucking idiot.

The Botha show up, and it’s a trap! They uncloak several ships and attack Voyager. Janeway leaves against doctor’s orders, which I’m sure will go well. She goes on the Bridge to figure out what’s going on, and the Botha on the enemy ship turns out to be… HER HUSBAND! But also Paris’ dad. And Tuvok’s wife. And the bones of Chakotay’s ancestors, who are very far away, etc etc. Turns out the Bothan ships are sending out some psionic waves that are making them go catatonic.

Torres hallucinates that Chakotay is into her, and it goes very, VERY fast. Like, WAY too fast. It’s very uncomfy. Also who the shit ships Torres and Chakotay? Did this ship ever come back? I hope not. In the end, every single person is catatonic, except for Janeway. But soon, even she goes catatonic, making out with her husband in the holodeck of her mind. And then there was only the Doctor and Kes. Kes is immune cause of psychic powers, and the Doctor because he’s the Doctor. So now Kes has to go alone to Engineering to do a resonance burst or whatever. But she’s starting to hallucinate too… what’s real, and what’s not? Oooooh, I love stuff like this.

To try and get her to stop doing the thing to stop them, the Botha make her hallucinate welts on her face that are painful. It’s horrifying body horror, and I will not show it. But she uses her psychic powers to reflect it back at him.

The Bothan, and his ships, manage to escape, but not before he explains he only did it cause he could. I’m not sure a psychotic alien species is the BEST idea, and we literally never see them again. Anyways, episode was pretty good. Good tension.

Tattoo - VOY 2.5/10

On an away mission, everyone finds a symbol drawn on some rock that’s the same symbol he saw once as a kid. That’s right, baby! It’s a Chakotay episode! TIME FOR HIM TO BE NEAR THE BONES OF HIS PEOPLE!

I will never stop making fun of this guy.

Also there’s a B-plot where the Doctor has really bad bedside manner! Good A and B plot combinations there.

Basically, years ago they were searching for stuff about uh, “The Rubber-Tree People”, which might be related to Chakotay’s tribe, I can’t tell. They follow a warp signature from the moon to a planet, but when they try and teleport down, a storm forms at every single place they’re about to teleport at. So they take a shuttle instead. They’ve already lost like, 3, how many fucking shuttles does this ship have???

Okay, these people ARE related to his tribe, apparently. Also, the island these rubber-tree people are from? Ometepe. That’s in Nicuragua. Chakotay has constantly talked about Arizona. My dude. Those two places are NO WHERE CLOSE TO EACH OTHER. Because we all know, ALL OF THE FUCKING NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURES ARE INTERCHANGABLE AND THE SAME THING. My fucking guys, that’s like saying the French and Turks are the same thing. Go fuck yourself so, SO hard. The thing that’s embarrassing here is they tried. They hired someone to help write Chakotay, who claimed to be very knowledgeable on Native American cultures, and they fucking lied about everything, and made THIS.

This whole thing is born from a desire to actually do right by and represent proper maligned cultures, and then it’s TAINTED BY THIS BULLSHIT.

I’m so checked out of this episode it’s not even funny. At least the Doctor gets his comeuppance and realizes that being treated nice is nice.

Anyways Voyager tries to land to save Chakotay or something and is buffetted by magic winds while he has a heart to heart with some aliens who explain that 45k years ago, they visited Earth and bestowed gift and culture to the Chosen People. It’s some Ancient Aliens shit, which the Native Americans get too much of already. This feels like a shitty episode of TOS, honestly. I thought we were past that. There’s even a weird sequence with mountains flying by an an alien communing with an ancient native that is EXTREMELY TOS. Also do you still have the technology that let you get to Earth? Oh, that’s not a thing? Okay.

This episode fucking sucks. I WAS gonna give it like a 4/10 cause it was just kinda boring and annoying but honestly it’s more insulting than anything.

Cold Fire - VOY 6.5/10

A KES EPISODE! Also it’s a sequel to The Caretaker, because it starts with a flashback to the first episode. Kes is honing her psychic abilities with Tuvok, and it’s going well, though Vulcan psychic philosophy doesn’t QUITE suit her or her abilities. While she’s discussing it with the Doctor, the Caretaker’s remains, which they keep in a locker for some reason, starts shaking, and giving off life signs, before suddenly being dead again.

They hypothesize that they’re near the Caretaker’s mate. They use it like a compass and make their way to a space station very similar to the Caretaker’s.

It’s run by Ocampa! They’re kind of aggressive and tell Voyager to fuck off, but when Kes shows up, they arrange a meeting. Apparently people are AFRAID of Voyager. They find that ridiculous, but having watched a season of this show, it makes a lot of sense. The Ocampa leader, Tanis, wants to speak to Kes alone. He’s worried about Kes being here with these aliens and is pretty dismissive. Also he has wild psychic powers and is ANCIENT for an Ocampa, 14 whole years old. Wow. He’s got Big Sussy energy.

He offers to teach Kes how to hone her psychic abilities. She boils some coffee. Also when she goes to show Tuvok, she boils his fucking blood by accident. So obviously she doesn’t have a handle on this. More body horror, not going to show it. Kes is MORTIFIED, but Tuvok is like, “Nah I get it. This is a learning chance, and I still want to be your teacher”. Cool of you, Tuvok.

Tanis showing some of his true colors here, calling the people on the ship primative apes who might as well be pets. Kes isn’t… anxious about him yet, though she fucking should be. Especially after he awakens her to the Phoenix Force and she burns all the plants in her room.

Tanis is essentially a even more insufferable Q, except he’s not even really a god, he just has the ability to boil coffee with his brain. Also when shit starts going bad on Voyager he’s like “It’s time to go. You’re one of us now. Your future has already begun.” MY GUY. TRY TO BE LESS EVIL. KES, WHY ARE YOU TEMPTED BY THIS? Power be seductive, I guess.

Anyways, the Caretaker’s mate, Suspiria, fucking hates them, and wants to kill them, for killing the Caretaker. She’s a tiny girl who uses psychic powers to do horrible murder, and wants to destroy the ship. It’s spooky. Also Tanis is VERY creepy. He attacks Nelix, and so Kes fucking makes him BLEED FROM THE EYES. WHY IS THIS EPISODE SO SCARY?

They TRY to convince Suspiria that they didn’t kill her mate. This fails. They release her from a force field like “Maybe this will prove we didn’t kill him and don’t want to hurt you? :)” and she’s like “lol peace” and just leaves. Fuck you, I guess, keep suffering here for no reason. Even though I can READ MINDS AND DETERMINE THAT YOU ARE, IN FACT, NOT MURDERERS AND WERE DRAGGED HERE FOR NO REASON.

They end with a nice scene with Tuvok and Kes, and Janeway vowing to find Suspiria again, and get her to send them home. Uh, they never did that. She’s there as a book end in case they get cancelled so they can write a quick ending. It’s just kinda annoying tbh lol

We’ve got a big one today.

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Maneuvers - VOY 6/10

The episode starts with our heroes being hailed by a beacon. One with Federation call signals! Gasp! Are the Federation looking for them? :D Well as soon as they show up, some Kazon immediately start attacking, so no probably not. They’re beaten the fuck up, and then the Kazon board and steal a transporter module. They seem to know every way to beat them, but how? It’s the return of Seska!! She knows their codes and things and… yeah okay whatever. I don’t really believe that this random low ranking ex-Maquis spy could pull all this, but okay. They decide that they must do something to strike back. Time to enlist Chakotay to play her the way she played him, since he knows her so well.

We’re fucked. He’s also clearly not handling this well.

As they go to chase after Seska and her Kazon boytoy, they find some dead Kazon floating in space. Turns out that she’s already put the transporter in the Kazon ship, and then used it to execute an enemy sect’s Maje (leader). Damn, we’re escalating. The Kazon would NOT be able to defend against this kind of technology. We also see Seska and this Kazon talking, she’s like “We will do this together!” and he’s like “No you are just a female, and you will call me MAJE” and then they fuck. R-romantic? Oh yeah baby, nothing gets me wetter than someone reminding me that I’m female.

Chakotay steals a shuttle and goes after Seska. How did he steal that??? It’s actually something Janeway wants to know too, and she’s kinda pissed at security for letting that happen. This episode was SUPPOSED to be some character development for Chakotay, to make him not a wet whitebread guy who talks about his ancestors a lot. So now we know he’s a fucking meathead who gets angry when women break up with him. Chakotay ends up destroying the transporter, and sends a message to Voyager like “Yo, if you get this message, I did it, but I’m dead as fuck, so move on”

They go to save him anyway, as the Maje has a meeting with the other weaker Kazon sect leaders. They are there just to take Chakotay and teleport him, but as they’re fighting, the other Kazon leaders are getting kinda pissed as Culluh, the Maje, because it’s clear he lied that he can handle Voyager. They keep making it so that they can’t teleport Chakotay, so Janeway does a wild and comes up with a strategy. She just teleports all the leaders instead, and demands their surrender. Now NONE of them like Culluh, and they get all their shit back. GG. Though uh, we’re still all VERY pissed as Chakotay for doing this.

As the episode ends, they get a message from Seska. When he was unconscious and a prisoner, she stole his DNA and impregnated herself, so now she’s gonna be a father.

….Why did she do that??????

Resistance - VOY 9/10

We find our heroes at some kind of bazaar, and they seem to be getting some black market shit. But as they get it, suddenly they’re all attacked by some dark police lookin’ mother fuckers, and Janeway is hit in the neck, but her attacker is pushed away by some wild guy.

Apparently they needed Tellerium, which is needed to make the warpdrive actually work, otherwise they’re dead in the water. Neelix makes it back with the Tellerium, but the others are missing. Neelix is almost racist against these people, the Mokra, and like “they’re paranoid and hostile and will prolly attack us as soon as they see us” but the guy they contact is actually weirdly pleasant, and says he’s looking into it. Maybe this will go better than we’ll expect!

The others are in a jail cell, unsure if Janeway is even safe. We’ve got some GRR KLINGON ANGY, VULCAN NOT lines.

Janeway is actually okay. She wakes up to find herself being nursed back to health by some fucking weird guy with no sense of personal space. He seems to think that she’s his daughter, and is only hearing half the things she says. It’s a little disconcerting to watch. He appears to be a member of some resistance, and when Janeway says she’ll leave to get her people out of jail, he’s like “I’m coming too, so we can break your mother out too. We’ll be a family again!” and it seems to break Janeway’s heart a bit.

Oh no that Mokra leader guy is actually evil and tortuing Torres and Tuvok. No way!

This old man, Caylem, and Janeway go to try and break the others out. They find the evil leader guy harassing some people, looking for Janeway. They’re about to arrest a guy for walking down the street, but Caylem feigns being a senile old man, distracts everyone so the guy escapes, and is not seen as any kind of threat so he’s just allowed to leave. It’s also inronic and funny because he is, in fact, a senile old man. Anyways, they try to get weaponsm to storm the jail, but it doesn’t work and their ally is captured. So instead, Janeway does a new strategy. She seduces the guards and then knocks them out. Solid. Apparently this was the part of this episode most advertised at the time. Of course it was.

Anyways, they nearly rescue everyone, but are caught by the evil guy, and we learn that Caelyn’s wife died 12 years ago, and that his daughter was killed a while ago. They allowed him to stick around as a warning to others. He goes in to a rage and stabs the evil guy, and then is shot and dies, as Janeway pretends to be his daughter and tells him she’s right there, and that they love him. It’s very touching. The rest make it out, as Janeway reflects, holding onto the necklace that Caelyn gave her, which had apparently been his wife’s.

Very touching, and depressing. A good episode.

Prototype - VOY 8.5/10

The episode starts with what I can only call “an FMV horror game intro”, where some fizzy flashy degraded black and white VHS recording of something watching our heroes hears them talk about how it’s exciting new technology that they want to study.

It’s some kind of horrifying fucking metal looking thing that’s also kinda floppy and spandexy, and it’s glitchy and makes weird noises. Torres immediately imprints on it. This is unironically the most relatable she has EVER been. They give her several scenes where she’s up all night trying to think about how to keep this thing alive when she doesn’t even understand how it works 100%, and she talks with both Neelix and the Doctor about this, and they help her look at it in a different way by adding their thoughts on it. This is GREAT.

She brings this thing back alive, and learns who it is. It’s Automated Unit ####, some numbers, and she learns about them. It’s an automated robot made by the Builders, who were wiped out years ago, and now they’re falling apart. They cannot fix themselves, and asks Torres to save them. And she wants to. But now we get Janeway to do a Prime Directive argument. We don’t even KNOW these creatures, and you want us to edit them and move on our way?? That might cause problems we can’t even forsee. I KINDA see the argument. Torres doesn’t agree. But the robot is very VERY manipulating of her emotions. Asshole lol. The asshole is brought to 11 as, when the robot is getting ready to leave, he just ups and kidnaps Torres.

They try to stop it but uh, they can’t even TOUCH these guy’s shields, and are almost blown up. They only stop when Torres agrees to build their prototype, if they stop. But uh, the other units are like “If you don’t do this, we will kill you all. And do it soon because reasons”. That’ll surely help, a LOT. Torres is very sassy and sarcastic about all this, and I GREATLY prefer sassy sarcastic Torres to angry grr growl Torres. Anyways clearly she knows what she’s doing and makes a Prototype.

And then they’re attacked by some other robots. They’re similar, but not quite the same. Apparently though, their builders are ALSO extinct. But this is the distraction Voyager is looking for, as they try to sneak into the line of fire and rescue Torres. Torres learns more of their history. The Kravic and the Pralor made the robots for a war, and when that war ended, were like “okay we’re done :)” and the robots just fucking… killed them all. So Torres is like “what the fuck that’s horrible. Oh my god and I MADE YOU ALL ABLE TO PROCREATE.” So she destroys the prototype just as she’s beamed away. Good timing on Voyager’s part

This episode was actually pretty good. And made me like Torres! Which is good cause most of the time I groan at her. Though gosh those robots look like awful wish.com Cybermen.

Alliances - VOY 6.5/10

The episode starts with Voyager getting its shit kicked in by some Kazon. The Voyager is getting beat a LOT tonight. It’s time for something to change. Chakotay suggests that we abandon our Starfleet ideals and adopt the policies of the Maquis, who live life constantly in battle with no allies. Wow, adopt their policies and strategies, like losing and having bad nonsensical morals??

Tensions are getting very high. Some people just want to give the Kazon the technology and move on with their lives. Yeah like the Kazon would just stop. Janeway keeps going “This is not negotiable.” and Chakotay keeps going “I understand, and I won’t argue, but-“ continues to argue

She finally relents. They need to make allies, and the different Kazon sects are their best bet. So they have two choices. Neelix has a contact with a weaker sect. And of course there’s Culluh and Seska. Both of these fall flat. Neelix is captured, and Janeway tells Culluh to pound sand after he’s sexist. Neelix meets some aliens, the Trabe, in the prison, and they all stage a revolt and escape, meeting Voyager back up with a bunch of Kazon ships. These ships are actually Trabe ships, which had been stolen.

We learn more about the Trabe. They used to be a force many planets strong. They uplifted and then enslaved the Kazon, who eventually started an uprising. Many generations have passed since that slavery, and the Trabe realize how evil that was now, they’ve moved ooooon. But the Kazon just keep demanding violence! Tch, they don’t understand how the younger Trabe now are innocent! This is me rolling my eyes.

An alliance with them is better than none at all. Though the Trabe leader suggests a different thing: They can ally, and then call a conference with the Kazon, asking for peace, with Voyager AND the Trabe’s power as a bargaining chip. That might work! Before the conference though, there are warnings of a terrorist attack. One of the Majes might be willing to do take out all of the other sects leaders in one swoop.

There’s also stuff with a lower deck dude betraying them to the Kazon, but that’s not really followed up on in this episode.

The conference is not going well. None of the Kazon are happy to see their slavers (the greatest villains this sector has ever seen, they say), and call the Federation hypocrites. And it goes from bad to worse as it turns out the terrorist attack was actually the TRABE, setting up an assassination of all of the Majes. Janeway, and all the others, are DISGUSTED, and immediately cut all relationships with the Trabe.

This one is alright.

Threshold - VOY 5/10

The Big One.

Our episode starts with Paris trying out a new trans-warp engine in a shuttle, testing it. It goes to warp 9.95, the shuttle rips itself apart, and he dies. Whoop nope, sorry, it was the holodeck. Sorry to disappoint.

Okay so let’s explain warp. At warp 10, you are at infinite velocity. You are touching every point in space at the same time. With that, you could THEORETICALLY go anywhere in the blink of an eye. They need to figure out how to keep it from breaking apart the shuttle, but with Neelix’s help, they find out a way to fix the issue. Now Paris needs to just test it.

Though the Doctor is worried. There’s a 2% chance, based on a condition Paris has, that he will die. But Paris is like “I’ll take that risk.” He has something to PROVE. He’s GOT to do this.

The flight makes him disappear off their sensors. Oh no, we didn’t think him going fast would mean he’d go fast!! But then he comes back, passed out. When he wakes up, we learn that he could see ALL of space, at once. And so could the computers, but they could only hold the data of the nearby area, which is sent to the star charts. So at least that’s good. This episode is very important for that alone at least. But he’s fine, and he went warp 10! It worked!

But then he starts having an allergic reaction to Neelix’s coffee. No one is surprised. But it gets really bad, and he’s sent to the Doctor. He’s mutating, in every way. He can’t breath the atmosphere, so they make a new atmosphere of special gas around him, as the Doctor tries to help him. Paris is sassing and being a sarcastic asshole the entire time, up until his death. He dies, on that table, asking they tell his dad that he did it. Rest in piss, Tom Paris.

He wakes up later that night, all his eternal organs working perfectly. Especially his new heart that he somehow grew in the middle of the night. He’s also losing all his hair, and mutating further.

So far? This is… good. I liked the start a lot. I liked them all shooting the shit trying to solve a problem. I liked the character moments. So far, it’s good!

Anyways now that he looks like a fucking Arilou from Star Control 3, he’s… acting errationally. He’s like “this might be good for me!! Don’t try to change me back :D” Which like, huh. He’s also apologetic and says he’s scared, then tries to attack Janeway. He’s being REALLY weird. There’s also more horrifying body horror. Yay!

He begs to be let out, to be released, because he UNDERSTANDS. The pass is in the present. Whatever that means. But he knows where he must go, and he MUST do it. Pleeeaaase uwu. They will absolutely not do that. Instead, they need to destroy all of the new mutant DNA in his body. And they do that by using anti-proton bursts directed at him, so they hook him RIGHT into the warp core.

Here’s Neli’s Mutated Tom Paris figurine, in front of him on the TV :D

Paris breaks out, and attacks Janeway, dragging her to the shuttle. Voyager tries to chase, but it’s too late, they go to transwarp, going to warp 10. And now Janeway is also everything everywhere all at once.

Three days later, they find the shuttle. It dropped out of trans warp. And the Doctor figures out the plot twist. Traveling at infinite velocity increased the speed of evolution, so Paris just… evolved into what Humans will be in a million years. That’s not how evolution works but go off, king. They follow the shuttle to a planet, and find them.

This is our evolutionary future. This is what we’ll become. Frogs that look like minor enemies in Diablo 2. Finally, a reason to give up on evolutionary theory and believe in divine will, so that this will never happen. Anyways they find the two of them, and their childrens. Which is good. Janeway and Paris Frog Fucked and made babies, which are now on that planet. They’re brought back, and Doctor saves them. Janeway makes a joke about having children. It’s uncomfy. Paris is sad that doing all of this didn’t immediately fix his life and make him feel like he’s actually important and good. It didn’t make him love himself. He’s gotta work on that. It took being a frog to realize that. Frog is greater than therapy. I coulda told you that.

This episode was way better than I EVER could have expected. And I didn’t expect it to be all that bad. This is constantly talked about as the WORST episode ever, but like, I knew it wouldn’t be. I expected it to be a Spock’s Brain scenario, stupid, eye rolly, but fine. This was that, but better. The acting was good. The character development was good! It made me actually LIKE PARIS!!! Every single thing was… good! It was a GOOD episode! That also has frog fucking in it! Even with the Cronenberg nightmare mutation shit, that’s GOOD! If it STOPPED at that, and it was just “warping makes you mutate cause you touch every disease at once, and we need to stop Paris”, I’d have given this like an 8, with a shrug of “eh, the mutation was weird but I’ve seen weirder. Remember Spider Reg?”

Good acting, good character moments… weird ending that was SUPPOSED to be about “what if evolution isn’t always progressive?” but kinda doesn’t hit that mark. It doesn’t even try! That was all written out and now it’s just weird.

But this is not the worst Trek episode ever. This probably isn’t even in the bottom 25 of the ones we’ve watched so far. Honestly it’s FINE, except for the weird finale.

---

Meld - VOY 7/10

Our episode starts with a bunch of little things that don’t feel connected at all. Kim and Paris are putting on an office betting pool. Engineering has to figure out some issue that’s plaguing them. Neelix is being weirdly culturally insensitive about Vulcan holidays. He’s like “HEY HAPPY VULCAN DAY OF BLARG” and Tuvok is like “The Day of Blarg is a day of atonement and silence, not one of merriment?” It has big “YO HAPPY YOM KIPPUR!” energy to it I’m not gonna lie.

Anyways then Tuvok has to solve a murder mystery. It’s a bit of a tonal shift.

There’s no motive, no real leads. Just that he was working near another guy at the time. It was CLEARLY a murder and not an accident. The guy who was working with him is a Betazoid Maquis member who all the other Maquis don’t like much because he… “wanted” to kill Cardassians, not just that he killed them to protect people/their land. At first this guy denies it but after they get a TINY amount of DNA evidence, he’s like “oh yeah no I totally did it. No real reason for it.”

So seeing this, I was hoping this would be a cool Tuvok murder mystery episode, like the good Odo murder mystery episodes. But instead, we’ve got the killer. Tuvok is clearly just bothered by the lack of motive. He wants a motive, NEEDS one. Not only does this murder have no logic, it doesn’t even fit emotion. That could be interesting.

The Doctor says he looked at the guy’s Brain Meat and he doesn’t have bipolar disorder, “so he’s not insane”. I’m fucking sorry?????

Anyways this is bothering him a lot. He MUST understand this killer’s mind. So he mind melds. I feel like Janeway, or literally anyone, should have stepped in and told him what a bad idea this is.

Anyways yeah he’s just a dude who liked killing people. Who knew? Honestly we’re all stunned it took him this long to kill someone. Tuvok suggests just executing him, but Janeway does not like that, because it’s not the fucking 21st century, we’re not BARBARIANS. So they just put him in his room for the rest of the trip cause what, is he gonna be in the brig for 50 years? We need that. So he’s just kept in there, under security. She’s also worried that the mindmeld will have leftover effects on Tuvok, who’s like “oh please don’t worry about it mom I’m fiiiine”

And then Tuvok murders Neelix.

No joke. There is a brutal scene where Tuvok chokes him out and fucking kills him. Its just a holodeck program, but like, holy shit. He goes to talk to the murderer, who is pretty chill and calm after the murder. Something has gone wrong with the meld. He goes and locks himself in his room, revoking his security details, and then going apeshit.

They manage to get him out and do treatments. One of these treatments is basically to remove his vulcan logical lockout and let him shake it all out, like a primal vulcan. Seeing him act NOT like a Vulcan is WEIRD. Seeing him laugh is WEIRD. It’s great.

Anyways Tuvok breaks out and goes to murder the murderer, because he HAS to execute him for his crimes. The murderer is like “Ah I know the urges to kill. It won’t help you. It won’t save you from your inner demons”, and Tuvok almost kills him, but is able to stop himself. And thus he… is slowly coming back to normal.

Also there’s little stuff in there about Paris doing the office pool, but uh, it has no relevance to anything and is here just so that Paris and Kim are in the episode I guess. Though Memory Alpha says this is “Paris’ Insubordination Subplot” so I guess we’ll see lol

This one was fine. Anytime we see a Vulcan act not like a Vulcan is interesting.

Dreadnought - VOY 8/10

While flying along, Voyager finds a debris field left by some SERIOUS weapons fire. After studying it, they find out that it was done by a Cardassian missile. A while ago, Torres reprogrammed a Cardassian superweapon missile, an automated ship that could shoot and blow up stuff. It prolly got pulled here the same way they did, and is now fucking shit up.

It’s going on its way, blowing shit up, and is now on a collision course with a nearby planet filled with people. They try to warn these people, but they’re like “We’ve heard all about you. Threatening us, eh?” I like how Voyager has really bad rep lmfao Anyways, Torres beams over to fix it, which seems to work, but then it just zooms back off, even faster.

Turns out the computer was bluffing. It assumed Torres was compromised and was lying about it being in the Delta Quadrant, because why the hell would it be in the Delta Quadrant? So it locked her out and went back on its way, faster this time. Any attempts to stop it fails, it keeps adapting.

The planet sends it own forces to try and stop the missile, but there’s NO way they’ll survive, it’s a suicide mission. Torres is still on the missile, even though if they succeed it’ll blow up with her on it. No one can stop this fucking missile. So uh, okay. This episode is really fun and tense? I like it? But also, it’s REALLY stupid. They got this super weapon, and they didn’t reverse engineer it to make more, or anything? She instead reprogrammed it, turning it into a bomb to hit a single Cardassian weapons array. Uhhh…. that feels like a waste of everything. Like, this is REAL exciting and cool, but I can’t help but have that loud nerd in my mind go “THIS IS FUCKING STUPIIIIID”

Janeway is going to sacrifice Voyager by basically shoving it in front of the missile, while it’s exploding from a warp core breach. Meanwhile, Torres tries EVERYTHING, first trying to communicate with it, then by re-activates the OLD computer on Dreadnaught, which makes it go wild, and breaks it. This gives her a chance, and she managed to blow it up, and is teleported back, safe and sound. Good and fun episode.

Deathwish - VOY 8/10

CW: Suicide

They encounter something weird stuck in an asteroid, and beam it up. It’s a person! He introduces himself as Q. He’s very friendly, but also VERY incompetent. And he makes his intentions clear: He wants to die. He tries to kill himself, and just kills every single man on the ship instead. Whoops. This show is now basically improved in every way. I WILL miss Neelix and Kim and Tuvok a bit, I guess.

Anyways Q shows up. OUR Q. He and Q2 have a big fucking hissy fit that almost destroys Voyager, but eventually status quo is brought back, as Q2 demands asylum. This now becomes a court episode, Q VS Q2, with Tuvok representing Q2. Q1 is uh, very sexist and awful, he almost feels like the writers mocking the annoying sexists who complain about Janeway existing. Anyways, Q makes his argument, that the death of a Q is an upset to the balance of society. That he has affected SO many people in his life, so him dying would be bad cause he could not help anyone else. It’s all very bad arguments.

He drags Riker here though. It’s nice to see him.

Q1 makes Janeway an offer, outside of court. That’s illegal, dog? Whatever. Anyways, he’s like “We’ll teleport you home if you rule in our favor <3” Asshole. Q2 makes an argument by transporting them all to the Continuum. The first mortals EVER there. What is the Q Continuum like? It’s a one mile stretch of California desert. With a single house. A dog. A scarecrow. It is static, nonchanging. And they WANT it that way, because that’s the way it is. It’s… depressing, and very, VERY boring. And Q1, OUR Q, was actually the thing that shook it up first. But he’s a “born-again Q” now. How boring.

Q continues to be a weird sexist creep. Thankfully Janeway puts him in his place in a VERY good way. And in the end, she rules in favor of saving Q2. Of not sending him back to prison. Janeway begs him to stay with them, and well… he doesn’t. Q1 helps him die, because he learns from Q2. And boom, status quo, right? Well, no. Not status quo. But we won’t learn about that for a while.

It was talking about an interesting good topic, and it handles it MOSTLY well, with a few failings. And Q being a weird horny sexist bothered me. But it was a good episode.

Lifesigns - VOY 6.5/10

We’ve got the returns of the Vidiians! Specifically, A Vidiian, a woman who is dying. They beam her to sick back, and try to save her. She has a thing connected to her brain that basically holds her memory and brain, but the meat its connected to is just dying. So what do they do? He creates a holographic body for her and connects it to that, basically. Boom! Sure she can’t uh, leave the holodeck or medbay, but y’know

They still need to fix her ACTUAL body, and Klingons are resistant to the Phage :D OH yeah, that trauma. Remember how that one guy carved up her friend’s face? Yeah Torres is not really interested in helping. But this girl, Denara, is actually really pleasant and nice, so she does. But while that’s working, the two of them, the two holograms, go on a date. Y’know, just hanging out. They go to the bar! It’s lovely. Denara is CLEARLY making the schmooves on the Doctor. She even gives him a name! Schmullus. It uh, rolls off the tongue.

Also, there’s been a few plotlines in recent episodes that keep being brought up. Again, Paris’ insubordiantion, which reaches a head as Chakotay tries to pleasantly ask him what’s wrong, and he just explodes in his face and says THE PROBLEM IS YOU, DAD. I don’t like EITHER of these people so I cannot care in the least. Also there’s the spy who’s feeding stuff to the Kazon. He shows up once an episode to go “THIS IS WHAT’S HAPPENING >:3” to the Kazon, and uh, that’s it. That’s his job. ALSO not interesting. In fact, pretty distracting and detrimental. We all keep making fun of him.

The Doctor, Schmullus, is wondering why he’s feeling weird around her. It’s cause he’s in love with her, duh. So Kes tells him to confess. So he does in the most uh, Doctor way possible. While poking her brain to see if things work, he’s like “By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask if you’re interested in me, because I am interested romantically in you”. Not very uh… romantic, Doc. She actually turns him down. I guess even I misread her energy. I mean, I still think maybe you shouldn’t hit on a patient but whatever.

So the Doctor gets advice from Paris… and Denara gets advice from Kes. She WAS interested in him, but she’s having a lot of conflicting feelings, about everything.

These two are awkward but it’s pretty cute tbh.

Anyways wow this kinda relationship is bad WHO KNEW??? Turns out she doesn’t want to be put back in her real body, so she tries to kill her real body. They have a philosophical discussion about this, that’s a LITTLE eye rolly. Mostly she’s scared because she hates what she was, and is worried the doctor will feel different about her.

Eventually of course, she decides to go back to her old body. Obviously she doesn’t. They dance once last time, before she goes off to her people to help them. All the Doctor stuff of this was pretty alright, but the Paris stuff was… bad.

Investigations - VOY 9/10

Neelix is starting a NEWS PROGRAM! As the Moral Officer, he’s doing what he can to brighten people’s day~ So he’s every day he’ll showcase news, crewmember’s talents, etc etc. He’s going about trying to get people interested in the program. It’s actually really adorable. In school, did you have the school news program, run by students? It has that energy. He also gets a call from a friend, a Talaxian who’s working for a convoy. It seems like there’s someone on board Voyager who’s going to be leaving soon, and wants to join the convoy. Oh no!

It’s Paris! Yep, all that stupid Paris shit in the previous episodes has been leading up to this. Paris doesn’t belong here, he wants out. Neelix is upset, cause they’d become actual buddies, and he’s worried he’s the reason Paris is leaving. No, Paris has no one to blame but himself. We then get a Jerk Off Paris scene, where Neelix uses his show to talk about how great Paris is.

Paris does not deserve this.

Anyways Neelix goes around watching what’s going on on the ship, sees an Engineering problem and is reporting on it, when suddenly they’re alerted: The convoy was attacked. And they took nothing… except PARIS!! Seska thinks she can use him, and convince him to go to her side. But it looks like IT WAS ALL A LONG CON :o.

But…. how did they even LEARN that Paris was there??? Neelix is CERTAIN there’s a spy on board! Of course, there is. We know that. And we even know who it is. This makes for a good How Get ‘Em. The “Hero” who saved the day during the Engineering shit earlier is the bad guy, of course, but Neelix doesn’t know that. AND he enlists this guy’s help! Oh boy.

Before this guy can fucking merc Neelix, Neelix is saved by being called elsewhere. He tells Tuvok his suspicions, who’s like “This could be dangerous. We’ll look into it, don’t look further.” Neelix does anyway. So he continues to hunt, and finds out that it was TOM PARIS ALL ALONG!

Uh no, obviously not. They knew that a spy was on here for WEEKS, the guy was not good at his job. But they didn’t know who it was, and needed to flush him out. So they did a sting operation with Tom. Pretty smart and good tbh. And I kinda love it. It also makes Tom MORE likable that he’d be willing to do this. But with Neelix ANNOUNCING Paris was the spy, what do they do? Use it to their advantage to make the spy… uncomfortable, so he might make a mistake.

As Paris tries to make his way back from sabatoging the Kazon, Neelix is stuck with the spy. He knows EXACTLY what’s going on now. It’s clear who the spy is. It’s just Neelix and him.

We get a fun fight scene, and then he’s Disney Death’d. GG, everything works out in the end!

Wow. This was an ACTUALLY good episode. AND PARIS WAS ACTUALLY LIKABLE! Good shit.

---

Deadlock - VOY 10/10

The episode starts with a kid being born on the Enterprise! This lady has been getting more pregnant for this season, and everyone is optimistic, but feelings are… weird. The first baby born on Voyager, and in the Delta Quadrant. There’s some complications (the baby has alien spikes on its forhead and it jammed them in her fucking vaginal wall, which holy SHIT), and I went “…why don’t they just beam the baby out??” “I dunno, maybe there’s reasons”. Smash cut to them beaming the baby out. I called it. Then Voyager is attacked. If it exploded, it’d explode in pink right now. It’s a girl!

They’re near Vidiian space right now, but they can’t really see what’s attacking them, they’re just suddenly taking damage. They seem to be coming out of thin air, from inside the ship. They were GOING to do some proton bursts, but they couldn’t send them out, and now are being hit by them. Meanwhile, more wounded go to the sickbay, and the baby’s cell membranes are losing cohesion. Aaaand the attacks are making the doctor phase out. Oh no. And in the end, unfortunately, they can’t save the baby. God, that’s fucking STUNNING that they show that on screen, jesus.

Kim goes to do some Miracle Work that MIGHT fix things. Just, y’know, how usual stuff, y’know how he is, he’s been working on something that can fix things. But then he’s ripped out of the ship by depressurization and fucking dies. Rest in piss, Harry.

Kes runs into help and seems to disappear into thin air. SOMETHING weird is going on. They try ONE MORE THING to fix the issue, and it works for a minute… but then it just starts back up again. Things are fucked. we’re done. Time to evacuate. As Janeway runs out, she sees something… strange.

There’s a weird double-image. And then, we’ve several hours earlier. Janeway sees a ghost image of herself, who “looks like hell”, and has them scan for abnormalities. Unnerved, she goes to check on the baby and… something else. Everything is fine. Nothing is ruined. Kim is alive, and so is the babboo with spikes glues on her head. They go to check on the other thing, and it’s a second Kes. She explains what happened. Every single thing about these two Voyagers is the same… except that THIS voyager was sending out proton bursts, and is hitting the other. They figure it out, and stop the bursts, and then try to communicate. They want to make things right, which is great. They have a plan to merge back in.

It ALMOST works but something goes wrong, and they can’t try again. They could just…. use the bursts to save themselves, because they DO still need those, they’ll die without them in 30 minutes. But they can’t try to merge again. And those proton bursts will just kill the other ship, and no one wants to do that. Not even the other ship, the dying one, is willing to try that now. Every possibility seems to not work. Nothing they do can save them… except one thing. Wounded!Janeway is going to self destruct her ship to save the other ship. We get a great scene with the two of them arguing with each other about it. But while Unwounded!Janeway is still trying to find out something, the fucking Vidiians show up. Every system is too weakened to do anything to stop them.

The Vidiians board undamaged!Voyager, capture and harvest organs from Tuvok and Paris. Whoof. Things are looking VERY bad, and the turns have tabled. Unwounded!Janeway has no other option… She sends Kim and the baby through the rift, and then self destructs her ship, with one last message to Wounded!Janeway.

The Vidiians enter the bridge in a BIG Star Trek 3 moment. Kim makes it, with some extreme action. The Vidiians and the other Voyager are blown to fuck, and while Voyager is licking its wounds, it can move back on… wounded, confused, and hurting. But everyone is still alive. And it was all so WEIRD… but Kim, Weird is part of the job.

This is, by far, the best Voyager episode we’ve seen. Might be the best we ever get.

Innocence - VOY 6/10

Time for a more CHEERFUL episode after that last one! Tuvok and an ensign crash land on a moon, and the ensign dies in a tragic way. Welp. But then Tuvok finds a child, captures her, and learns that her people also crash landed on the moon a bit ago. They’re all alone. Now Tuvok has to babysit these kids, keep them safe, and makes sure they get home safely.

TIME FOR FUN UNCLE TUVOK! Fun Uncle Tuvok is an injoke with our community. You’d expect he’d be the serious no fun uncle, and you’re sent to his house to be baby sat like, “awww, not Uncle Tuvok!” and he’s like “Hello children. For enrichment today, we will be practicing firing phasers.” It just fits. We love Funcle Tuvok.

Meanwhile, on Voyager, Janeway is meeting some aliens! They’ve been intrigued about the story of Voyager, and want to meet them. They’re very private but pleasant people. Things seem to be going okay, but eventually they go “We need to stay private, and thus are calling this off. An emergency has called us away, goodbye”. Aww. No new friends.

Back on the moon, the kids say that there WERE more of them, but they had died, pulled into a nearby cave by the “Morrok”, a being that eats them in the night.

I love watching Tuvok have to be a dad/uncle/dadcle. He’s really good at this. There’s also good shit about Vulcan parenting here, and if Vulcans truly love their family in the same way.

The Drayans are coming down. Tuvok is like “oh good they’re here to rescue you”, but the kids are like “No, they sent us here in the first place. We were sent here to die”. Tuvok is VISIBLY confused by this, but helps them hide. According to their religion, children are to be sent to this moon to die, their energy will be properly returned to the world then. Tuvok is very concerned about a society that will SACRIFICE CHILDREN but he’ll do what he can to save them.

Back on Voyager, they learn that Tuvok’s shuttle has crashed. They go to check it out and the Drayan leader lady is like “How DARE YOU come here. This is our sacred grounds! We let you come into our solar system, we even let you explore to find your minerals you need, and you BETRAYED us by TRESPASSING ON SACRED GROUNDS WE DIDN’T TELL YOU ABOUT, AND WE DIDN’T HAVE A SIGN UP FOR. This is DISGUSTING behavior out of you, Voyager. I should NEVER have trusted you.” Anyways that’s really fucking annoying.

Tuvok sings the kids to sleep, it’s adorable. He has a good singing voice.

When they wake up in the morning, two of the kids are gone. The Morrok got them. Tuvok goes into the cave to investigate, and finds the children’s clothes, but no children attached to them.

The Leader Drayan is still rude and awful. This episode would be solved immediately if this uber-religious rightwing isolationist leader would EXPLAIN WHAT’S GOING ON to Voyager, and work with them. But it fits. It makes sense. It’s just fucking ANNOYING.

Anyways this finally reaches an impass, all of them on the surface, and the leader FINALLY explains. Tressa, the last child alive, is 96 years old. Their aging process is backwards. They become children, innocent, and their memories clouded and confused. NORMALLY there are attendants to keep the children safe and make them feel comforted in their final moments, but they died in the crash. So Tuvok has filled that role, helping them feel safe on their final moments.

So this twist is okay? I don’t mind it. I might even like it. The only thing this episode fumbles is the fucking leader lady who’s like “Ah, you did your role as attendant well. It is an honorable role to protect children on the Crystalis.” MOTHER FUCKER, WE COULD HAVE JUST SOLVED THIS WITH YOU EXPLAINING IT A MILLION YEARS AGO. Forced conflict is EXTREMELY annoying. Weird isolationist fucking weirdo. And JANEWAY has to apologize. Ugh.

This episode is great for Daddy Tuvok. All of the rest of the stuff about it is weak to bluh.

Innocence - VOY 8/10

Voyager comes across a planet that 19 years ago was a major trading hub, but underwent a solar flare that made the planet uninhabitable. No life signs, seems everyone was killed… but then they get a hail from the surface :o It’s an automated message that they put themselves in stasis. They will wake up 15 years after the sun explodes to fix things, don’t wake them up before then. Uh, it’s been 4 years since then, uh oh. They beam the cryopods up, and find that 3 are still alive, and 2 are dead. The Doctor sees that they died from… stress, nothing physical. Heart attacks.

There’s evidence that something in the computer killed them. But why? Only one way to find out. Torres and Kim go into the computer to find out what’s going on… and they find HORRORS.

So inside of the computer is a horrifying Clown Hell. It’s… very, VERY TOS. This is an episode where Kim is a hostage to a TOS episode. That’s literally how this episode was described to me, and yes.

Kim is immediately captured by the Clowns and almost gets guillotined by Lumpy the Wookie here, but is stopped by the the others in the machine. Turns out this horrible clown nightmare, and the Main Clown, is the computer. The computer is supposed to adapt to the people’s thoughts, and in this instance, it adapted to their fear to make an embodiment of fear. A clown. Yep.

Kim manages to negotiate and get them to let Torres go. Now it’s just him and the three other hostages, who’s entire hope is broken after 19 years of this hell, while Torres and the others outside try to come up with a way to get him out. Meanwhile, Harry is tortured over and over the clown, trying to scare him and break him.

This is just “I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream” by IM is a clown. He’s here to torture them, and he’s god in here. And he’s about to surgically cut into Kim… but it’s stopped… by the Big Damn Hero

They send the Doctor in there, and I had SUCH a strong reaction to this. I SCREAMED OUT, “YES!!!! YEEEESSS!” The Doctor will SAVE this episode. The Clown refuses to negotiate at first, and Viorsa, one of the hostages, gives a coded message about how disable the clown. They send in the Doctor again to distract him while they disable the clown, and at first it looks like it’s going to work… then the Clown notices, and kills one of the hostages. Viorsa, who gave the message, gets his fucking head chopped off by the guillotine. And they’re about to kill another, when Janeway capitulates and restores the program.

Janeway sends one more final ultimatum…. all the hostages go free, or they shut down the computer, and risk brain damage for the hostages. In return…. the clown gets Janeway.

…or does he? He excitedly lets the hostages go, but then Janeway informs him, she’s not Janeway. She’s a hologram. Janeway connected her brain, but didn’t go to sleep into the system. Fear has lost. She has conquered fear, as she has so many times.

And then it just ends with Fear the Clown going “…where shall I go?” “Like all fear, you vanish.” “I’m afraid…” “I know.” “…drat….” FADE. TO. BLACK. I CANNOT BELIEVE THEY ENDED IT LIKE THAT.

If you told me “there is an episode of Voyager where Harry Kim is kidnapped and tortured by Clowns”, I’d never in a million years expect it’d be good and I’d like it. Holy shit.

Tuvix - VOY I have no fucking idea/10

The big one. This is one of two Voyager episodes I’d heard of before starting this. Which means it’s GOTTA be good.

Tuvok and Neelix are getting some flowers on an away mission. They’re being themselves, Neelix being sweet and sumemry and Tuvok being Tuvokian, as Neelix calls it. Anyways there’s a transporter malfunction but they beam them back up anyway, aaaaaand whoops, there’s an accident. Their patterns merged.

Logically, this should NOT work based on how teleporters actually work. Like, that’s not how molecules work. But whatever, it’s sci-fi, does it really matter that much? This episode is a vehicle for a moral dilemma, so let’s ignore the HOWS for the most part, and see how they handle it?

Everyone is a little weirded out by it, but are just trying to figure how how it went wrong. The new fusion, asking to be called Tuvix, is basically just ready to go back to work. He wants to go back to Tuvok’s post at tactical, cause Voyager needs it. He’s got Tuvok’s intelligence, and Neelix’s jubilence. He ESPECIALLY weirds out Kes, who uh, y’know, one of them is her boyfriend. He still seems interested in her, of course, but she’s… a little distant, and it’s not unnoticed.

Tuvix is fitting in at least, doing good work. But no attempts to find a way to separate him are successful. He’s a little worried, but he’s trying to move on with his life. Kes is mourning Tuvok and Neelix, but like… this is a thing that’s a bit weird for us. Like, there are a lot of ways that you could look at this. I can’t help but look at him through a transition outlook, and everyone looking at this person transforming into something new as the person DYING is a little uncomfy. Especialyl as Kes responds to Tuvix being into her as “What about Tuvok’s wife???” YOU CAN LOVE MULTIPLE PEOPLE, DOG. Like, I DO get acting like they’re dead, but they’re NOT. And they need support too.

He IS slowly integrating into the crew though, and giving Kes her space. He’s there for about a week.

Well this quote is going to age like milk.

Using a special thing that connects to the DNA of one race but not the other, the doctor develops a way to separate them. It’s good, he can be fixed! Just uh, one problem. He doesn’t want to be “fixed”. Janeway puts it in a good way. “At what point has he stopped being a teleporter accident and become a person”. And that’s the moral dilemma. It’s an interesting one! How does the episode handle it?

Janeway decides that while Tuvix wants to live, there are two voices they can’t hear, Tuvok and Neelix, and they also have a right to live. It’s a… rough, bad argument, and I don’t like it. Tuvok basically fights for his life, begging Kes to talk to Janeway about it, but Kes sobs to Janeway and tells her to go through with the operation.

NO ONE is happy about this. Certainly not Janeway. But she decides to force the matter and seperate them. Tuvix BEGS the bridge to stop her, to do something. No one speaks up.

Even when he forgives them, calls them his friends, they say NOTHING. THey’ve been friends with this guy for a MONTH, worked with him, but can’t even say ANYTHING. Can’t even say goodbye. They refuse to LOOK at him, like he’s NOTHING. LIKE HE’S NOT A PERSON WORTH ANYTHING, EVEN AFTER ALL HE’S DONE.

The Doctor refuses to do the surgery, because he refuses to kill. And this is a murder. It is staged as such, and everyone accepts it as such. But Janeway does it, kills Tuvix, Neelix and Tuvok are there now, and she walks off upset. The end. Episode done.

This was… massively out of character for everyone. Very unstarfleet. Everyone here was a fucking psychopath except for the Doctor. It’s disgusting and hard to watch. I don’t even know my feelings and opinions on this episode. I have no idea…

This episode kinda broke us. It’s a WILD moral dilemma. It also made Neli just want to stop watching for the night. I don’t blame her.

Maybe I’ll think about what score to give this later. This episode succeeds in making it a thing to discuss. And like, if we had Tuvix in the long run? It’d prolly hurt Voyager in the end. And they need to survive. I GUESS? Though Tuvix seemed to be better at his two jobs than the seperate parts had been, so that’s also kinda thrown out… Like, if he was suddenly a shit cook and a shit tactical officer, it’d be more understandable.

Resolutions - VOY 4/10

Very abruptly, we find out that Janeway and Chakotay are infected with a virus. There’s a thing on a planet that’s stopping them from dying, and the only people who might be able to help them are the Vidiians. Well, the last time we saw the Vidiians, they boarded voyagers and ripped out alternate-Paris’ liver, so we probably shouldn’t do that. Janeway contacts Tuvok and tells him he’s the captain now, and to continue on home, leaving them behind. Oh, and DO NOT contact the Vidiians.

Literally no one is happy about this. Tuvok isn’t happy or unhappy about it, neccesarily. He’s Tuvok about it. Everyone else is unhappy to almost pissed at the idea of leaving them there. But they’ve been there for a month. And while Janeway could maybe research the cure on her own, they only left them with a shuttle, which can go warp 4. So y’know, a 700 year trip.

While the episode does its best to try and ship Janeway and Chakotay, a concept I find as distasteful as putting peanut butter together with raw sewage, the crew members of Voyager go about their way. They really can’t do anything. It’s Janeway’s wishes, and also now the wishes of their captain. Things are tense, and Harry is VERY anti-this. It feels like he’s constantly pushing for mutiny immediately. For what its worth, the entire crew either has sympathies or agrees with him. We HAVE to contact the Vidiians!!! What are they going to do, harvest our organs? - last words of someone who had their organs harvested.

Chakotay kabedons Janeway and I just started yelling. Also they find a monkey. Like, it’s not even an alien or a monkey pretending to be an alien in any way, it’s just straight up a monkey and they’re like “oh, a monkey like alien!” No dog. That’s a monkey. Do you remember in TOS when they needed an alien animal and they put a dog in a fursuit? This is less effort than that.

Janeway legit has more chemistry with this monkey than she does with Chakotay.

Anyways Tuvok eventually yields, and gives in. They contact the Vidiians. Dr. Pel is contacted, the same lady who fell in love with the Doctor a few episodes ago, and confirms that yeah, they can cure that illness easily, come pick it up. Yay!

The episode is still trying to chip Chakotay and Janeway. There’s a sensual massage scene. I distracted myself by searching for “kabedon” on discord’s gif index, and found a lot of yuri which made me happy.

Anyways the Vidiians betray them and attack cause yum yum tasty organs. Pel had no idea, and sneaks them a comm line so they can plan a secret teleport of the serum. They manage to get it through with some tricky flying and lowering of shields, and make it out. They make it back and tell Janeway and Chakotay that they’ll be all fine. Chakotay and Janeway seem to be a little sad that they can no longer be flirty on the planet anymore, but it’s back to business casual. And nothing of value was gained. At least Janeway got to say goodbye to the monkey. Also I think this is the last time we ever see the Vidiians! They sure go out with a bang. Apparently this episode took FOUR MONTHS of their lives.

Basics, Part 1 - VOY 7/10

Hey, Suder is back! Suder is the murderer who killed a guy cause he really likes killing. He’s been doing way better now, working through it with Tuvok, they’re melding regularly almost as therapy. Suder has gotten good at growing plants! I’m glad he’s making something of his time in house arrest.

Meanwhile, Seska contacts the Voyager, as a message to Chakotay. She claims they’re coming for her and Chakotay’s baby, and she needs his help. If you don’t remember, she claimed she stole his DNA to make a baby. She also told the Nistrim leader that it was his baby. To handle this, Chakotay does a fucking vision quest dream, and he says the thing! My community loves to mock the “we are far from the bones of our ancestors” line, and uh, he straight up said it again, so YAY. If you think it’s bad form to mock a Native American representation like this, well, it’s not one. It was entirely made up. So don’t think that.

They go on a rescue mission. This kid is innocent, at least, is what’s decided. And that’s true. They go to where Seska said she’d be, and find a damaged ship with a dying Kazon on board, They rescue him, he’s been poisoned by gasses, but is okay for now. Chakotay doesn’t trust him, but they listen to him anyway. He’s going to help them sneak into Nistrim space.

Suder is still around. He’s creepy and scary as usual, but he’s using his manic energy for good this time. He has a plan to help improve hydroponics. He’s clearly not… 100% though.

During battle with the Nistrim, the Kazon on their ship is doing a weird ritual. He keeps doing the catholic cross thing, just 8 inches up. I didn’t know the Kazon were catholic! Praise be to Kazon Jesus.

During the battle, they do a thing where they create holograms in space. And we get the Doctor screaming in space which is fun

Anyways the Kazon on the ship was a spy, no way! He blows himself up to damage Voyager and weaken them. Things suddenly take a very bad turn. Paris runs off to take a shuttle to nearby Talaxians and ask them for aid. He is immediately shot down, and thought dead. Voyager is boarded, and Culluh shows up and takes control. They now own Voyager. Yep, Seska lied to them, and it was a trap. Whoopsies.

All crew members are rounded up and shipped off Voyager. The Doctor hides, as he’s a hologram, he can do that, and Suder has seemingly disappeared. And of course, Paris is dead. Everyone else is shipped off and deposited on a shitty volcanic planet. They all watch as Voyager takes off… the end, Voyager was cancelled after this, and became a really weird dead end in the timeline.

No obviously not. But that is the end of the season.

….Voyager so far is a pretty meh show lol