LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 3 episodes 1-7

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!

Basics, Part 2 - VOY 7.5/10

We jump back to our crew, now a bunch of exiles on a planet. Things are looking up! Oh except one of them, a Maquis dude-bro, who’s eaten by some kind of lizard while trying to grab bones. And it’s all Neelix’s fault. Also they have to eat grubs. It’s gross and no one is happy. Understandably.

Oh hey, Paris is alive! His shuttle is on fire and struggling but he’s alive. And being kinda badass, still fighting off Kazon.

Seska comes in and talks to the Doctor, who’s been hiding, but can be good at deception! She actually asks him if he’s good at deception, and it’s like “No,” the Doctor lied. She wasn’t here for any of his character development. Anyways he informs her no, that is NOT Chakotay’s son. He just kinda looks Human. Who knows what a Kazon/Cardassian hybrid looks like?

The Doctor and Suder team up. Suder is willing to help take the ship back, and save everyone. Suder is like “Oh boy, here I go killin’ again!” He’s not happy. He’s been trying so hard.

Neelix and Kes are kidnapped by alien cave people. It’s a stupid scene. We already have die hard on the ship, and a survival situation, and Paris sneaking around space, do we ALSO need aliens trying to slave trade for Kes?? Also, when they couldn’t start a fire, Chakotay is like “We need SOME kind of kindling! Where could we find some?!” and they use hair, which would prolly would but wouldn’t be the best idea. You know what would be? ALL THE GRASS THAT’S ALL AROUND. INCLUDING THE ONES THAT THE ALIEN CAVE PEOPLE USE TO START A FIRE TO SMOKE THEM OUT.

This episode would be better without any of the stuff on the planet. If they just focused on the die-harding on the ship and we saw the crew at the end, broken and bruised, it’d be kinda interesting. Though maybe not. Maybe in that universe I’d be like “why did we not see any survival???” Anyways, horrible CGI beast that uses the same sound effect as a Hydralisk eats another crew member. They’re dropping like flies.

I think people might not like Suder? I find him very interesting. I am also chemically unbalanced and mentally unwell, and while I’m not like, unbalanced in a way I want to MURDER people, I respect and admire a character who’s internal demons are telling him to do things he doesn’t want to do, and he’s fighting against them. Even more so when he has to feed those demons to survive and help others. I LIKE that. Yes, calling him a sociopath, and 90s sensibilites are… a thing, but I like him, and he’s MOSTLY handled well.

Seska finds out about the Doctor sabatoging the ship, and though she thinks there’s another person on there. But the Doctor is VERY VERY good at deception, actually, and convinces her he did it all on his own and PRETENDED there was another on board, so they’d search him whoever that is. Genius. Seska buys the bait, but kills the doctor, blowing up his server. RIP Doctor, a real one. Suder’s all that’s left. The Doctor left a heartfelt message to him. He’s our only hope. He can do it.

A full Uhura Maneuver later, and there are a dozen dead Kazon. He’s shot in the back by a dying one, but manages to overload the systems in time for Paris and his fleet to take Voyager. The resulting explosion kills a LOT of Kazon, and also kills Seska, who crawls for her baby. Culluh cries over her corpse and takes the baby, abandoning ship. They’ve lost. Paris and his allies board the ship and head back to rescue everyone.

They mourn Suder as a hero, repair the Doctor, and Chakotay mourns Seska in his own way. I’d have thrown her out an airlock, but whatever works. They take off from their new home to the old one. They didn’t even get to take a shower, Paris is still covered in smudge lmfao

I loved half of this. The other half, not so much. It’s also worth noting that we will NEVER seen the Kazon ever again. With the Vidiians and the Kazons done, we’re almost at a soft reboot! We have no more bad guys. Gotta get some new ones.

Flashback - VOY 8/10

Things are okay on Voyager! They maybe found a new energy source and are going to pick it up. Suddenly, Tuvok has what seems to be a panic attack. He freaks out and leaves the room for sickbay, while having a flashback to something from his past. Young him, trying to save a girl from falling in a pit…. only issue is, it wasn’t a memory. It never happened. No one knows why this happened, could be so many reasons. While they study is, Tuvok Isn’t Doin’ Great. He goes back to active duty the following day, totally fine. But uh, he’s not. And he’s like “Well we should be wary about cloaked ships this close to Klingon space” and everyone is like “…what???? Dude” and then heh as another panic attack.

Basically, in Vulcans, if they’re repressing a memory, it causes really bad things to their brain and causes them to die. How to fix this? A mind meld with a close family member, so they can bring that unconscious memory into the conscious memory, work through the trauma. Mind meld therapy session. Tuvok has no family on the ship obviously, so he mind melds with Janeway instead. She’ll basically be watching in a memory, no one reacting to her. He’ll take her back to his childhood…. and yet instead, we’re taken to the excelsior, 80 years ago.

So, Tuvok’s actor was on the Excelsior in Star Trek 6. They kinda retconned that that was young Tuvok, which is pretty great. We get to see some TOS characters! The last time we see… ANY of them, I’m pretty sure, until like, waaaay into Discovery. We’ll at least never see these actors again. (Technically Trials and Tribbleations aired after this, but there was no new We see Sulu, who’s pretty great and fun here, and Rand! This is actually taking place DURING Star Trek 6, when Sulu goes to the Klingons to try and save Kirk.

Tuvok has another attack, and Janeway is forced out of his mind. After a bit they try again, and we learn some more Tuvok background. He was kind of a racist back then and didn’t even want to be in Starfleet to begin with. He eventually had a change of heart, “though heart had little to do with it. It was an entirely logical decision”. I’m sure.

KANG IS HERE! He politely tells Sulu to fuck off. Sulu does not fuck off. They give them a slip, but are attacked, and Tuvok’s roommate dies. This seems to do something to the meld, and the meld is falling apart, killing them both… but Janeway feels like they’re CLOSE. However, the disrupted meld causes issues, and everyone can see Janeway now. They need to restart the meld, with Janeway stealing Rand’s clothes. If I were a woman on the Excelsior and Janeway asked me to take off my clothes, I’d do it.

Back in the real world, the doctor finds out that a third memory engram is in there, some kind of virus. A viral memory. Weird. Anyways it had infected Tuvok’s roommate, and jumped to him. He wipes it out using radiation, the end. Feels like the actual things they were doing in the memory didn’t do anything and weren’t actually important? The Doctor just solved it with deus ex radiation. But it was fun to see TOS characters.

The Chute - VOY 6/10

KIM

MUST

SUFFER!

Kim falls down the titular chute into some kind of jail, and is immediately beaten up by the prisoners there. Including Paris, who joins in on the beating. Computer, delete Paris. Paris makes up a story about a bombing and how Kim sold him out to get him away, and then they explain. The two of them were blamed for a bombing and thrown down here. It’s a prison 300 meters underground, in a hole. So it’s the prison in Batman Rises. but they also have been implanted with some kind of thing in their brains, and it’s making them itchy. Also it’s literally driving everyone insane.

We find out a bit more about what’s going on. These people, the Akritirians, are a fascist government. There was a terrorist bombing and they kinda arbitrarily decided it was Kim and Paris. They then declare that they will take Voyager and throw everyone on it in prison, so they attack Voyager. Of course, Voyager can handle it, but this is mostly extremely annoying for them. They NEED to get their people back. But how?

Paris is stabbed in a prison fight, because prisoners don’t play fair. They find a prisoner who’s SHOCKINGLY sane. He’s been in there for six years, and is handling it really, really well, writing alone in his little hut. Harry gets him to join them, as he’s possibly onto a way through the chute and back out of the jail.

He’s writing a manifesto. He’s got it all figured out. He knows why they put the clamps in them. It’s not torture. It’s population control. This understanding kinda allows him to just… ignore its effects. It’s never clear if he’s ACTUALLY sane or not. Anyways, Harry does it, breaking through the chute, they can escape!! Except… nope. They’re not under the ground. They’re in space.

Well that’s not good.

Janeway finds the actual bombers, and has them dragged to the Akitirians. But the Akitirians refuse to release Kim and Paris, because it’s how fascism works. Isn’t it effective? :D Janeway gives the prisoners an ultimatum. Take us to the prison, or you’re going to the Akitirians anyway, even if we get nothing out of it. When he tries making demands about letting others out, she’s like “Nope.” It’s…. pretty hardass of her, especially after that one fucking episode where she was pretending to be the daughter of someone fighting against a fascist regime. LOTS of fascist regimes in this part of space? Anyways, they go to the prison, and Janeway dives down the chute, blasting everyone immediately. That’s so funny. And wonderful. Anyways they make it out, safe, and work through Kim almost killing him while they were both being driven insane.

It was tense and kinda good, but some things about it kinda annoyed me and felt flat.

The Swarm - VOY 7/10

Our episode starts with Paris and Torres doing banter on a ship when some cool-ass aliens beam onto their ship. Paris is like “uh, hi, I’m Paris-“ and is IMMEDIATELY shot. I can only assume they went “OH FUCK, IT’S THAT GUY, FUCKING GET HIM”. They then beam off the ship. Guess they just wanted to kill Paris. My favorite new aliens.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is doing some opera in the holodeck. It’s nice that he has hobbies. Picardo is doing his own singing here, and it’s real good! But the Doctor is having some… issues. He forgets the lyrics. When he goes to treat Paris and Torres, he seems forgetful and distracted. But he doesn’t seem to notice. I’m sure he won’t have anything important to do- oh, looks like PARIS NEEDS SURGERY. With Kes’ help, they stabilize him.

So, since the Doctor has been awake for so long, his program is starting to fall apart, basically. They can just restart him to bring him back to normal, but that erases who he is after 2 years of experiences, and restarts him anew. Everyone thinks that’s bad, but the doctor is okay with it, because he can’t help people this way, and that’s his #1 goal. But Kes convinces them to at least TRY to save him. Torres is trying, but having trouble. So she calls on the one person who might be able to help them.

They set up a holodeck of Dr. Zimmerman, the EMH’s creator. He is… awful. And his answer to the problem is “just erase his personality who cares”. Poor EMH is starting to become SCARED about his existence. Meanwhile, they’re trying to sneak through the bug people’s home, because otherwise it’ll add 15 months of time onto their travel. This is weirdly the B plot.

This feels like a response to Measure of a Man, but with a twist of talking about dimensia and alzheimers. Like, it has the “he’s just a machine, he doesn’t need friendships or hobbies” angle, but also a “he’s useless to us as he is.” Even KES starts to think they should just reinitialize him, after he doesn’t even remember who she is. What’s the point of those friendships and love if he can’t rememeber? Whoof. Keep in mind, this isn’t ME saying that, that’s a point the episode is saying. It’s really painful to even see the Doctor, my favorite episode here, fall apart like this.

This episode has a lot of treknobabble. They say the word “Interferometric pulses” a lot which is very funny. Anyways they stop the swarm, it’s a weird addition to this episode.

They sacrifice the Dr. Zimmerman diagnostic program in order to rebuild the EMH’s emgrams or whatever. No one knows if it’ll actually work, but after the fusion is complete, the EMH is here, and working, but doesn’t seem to know anyone ): Sad… but as he walks away, he starts humming opera to himself. I think it’ll just take a minute for him to warm up.

Pretty good episode all together.

False Profits - VOY 7.5/10

Voyager comes across a wormhole that goes to the Alpha Quadrant. Oh boy, the show is gonna end, how lovely. They can’t quite get into it cause it’s so eratic, but they’re working on it. Meanwhile, a nearby planet shows scans of a replicator’s emissions, which is apparently a thing, so it seems someone from the Alpha Quadrant is here. Chakotay and Paris go down to a planet filled with totally-not-humans, and are IMMEDIATELY accosted by a bunch of money grubbing swindlers. They make their way to The Holy Temple, and get a look at the prophets.

<img src=”https://imgur.com/X6hpIlJ.png” alt=”trek”

Do you remember that episode of TNG where they were trying to get the rights to a wormhole to the Delta Quadrant, but it was unstable and some Ferengi got stranded on the other side? HERE THEY ARE! This FINALLY pays off, an amazing brick joke in the works. And of course, they’re taken the replicator on their ship and are acting as gods who can summon anything they want.

Technically they can’t stop them, because the Ferengi are not Federation, and don’t have a Prime Directive… buuuut, technically, them being there IS kind of the Federation’s fault. Or at least, they can tell themselves it is. So they can interfere and fix their problem. Legally. The Ferengi argue that if they’re taken from this planet it’ll drive them into chaos, because their gods suddenly abandoned them. Janeway HAS to agree. So in order to save these people, they need to out Ferengi the Ferengi.

<img src=”https://imgur.com/HKhbjXW.png” alt=”trek”

They got Neelix pretending to be a Ferengi sent by the Grand Nagus. Beautiful. It works EXTREMELY well… until the ferengi decide to circumvent it by just trying to assassinate him. Neelix then freaks out and explains the whole thing. Shockingly they DON’T kill him and let him go, as a warning.

Instead, they just listen to the song that explains what the prophets to when they come out. And so they bring the NEXT prophet along (still Neelix) to announce its time for them to go home, on wings of fire. This works… until it turns out that they interpret that azs “BURN THE SAGES ALIVE”.

<img src=”https://imgur.com/iAlIVTs.png” alt=”trek”

They manage to beam them out in time. But even still, the Ferengi manage to FIGHT SECURITY AND BREAK OUT, getting into their ship and trying to get back to the planet. They ALSO destabilize the wormhole, because status quo is king. Voyager would have ended if they had more than one person guarding the Ferengi.

Remember - VOY 8.5/10

Voyager is near some nice friendly aliens who are helping to upgrade their systems. That’s pleasant. After a long day of work, Torres goes to sleep, and has a dream where she’s making out and fucking some dude. This dream is SO intense that it has her sleep through her duty shift. She seems to like these dreams, they’re vivid and fun. It’s like a living holo novel where she’s got a bad boy boyfriend her father doesn’t approve of.

Meanwhile, we find out that these friendly aliens are psychic! They have EXTREMELY laws about consent. Ohhhh no I know where this episode is going. By the way, this episode is a re-used episode concept from TNG, where the original idea was about this happening to Troi. YEP. IT’S ONE OF THOSE EPISODES. WHY DID THEY KEEP TRYING TO WRITE THESE EPISODES ABOUT TROI?

After a dream ends in her lover being burned and scarred, Torres decides that actually, this is probably something she should look into. She’s gonna ask one of the Inarans about it, but she passes out before she can get to anyone, so now EVERYONE knows about it. She wnats to keep exploring these dreams to learn more, something about it unsettles her, but it might be hurting her brainmeats.

Her dreams continue. Her boyfriend is a “Regressive”, basically amish. They don’t use technology, and living in the city, the “normal people” are worried because they might start a plague or something. So they’re just being… moved! They’re being relocated, it’s TOTALLY a thing they’ll agree with and like! And not forced at all! Yep! That’s right!

This is A genocide episode. These people are being genocided just behind the scenes. They’re transporting people away and just killing them. And when Torres wakes up again, she has a theory on who it is. It’s an old lady on the ship who’s dying, and she goes to save her, but the lady is like “No, I have to give you the rest of it, they’re trying to silence me”. Ruh roh.

Yeah there’s a lot of disgusting genocidal rhetoric that you see in this episode. It’s REALLY scary and fucked up. And she’s FORCED to join in on the genocide by her abusive family and the fascist regime she lives in. When it all ends, she has a GIANT speech about how disgusted she is by all of them for the cover up, interrupting a lovely party with talk of genocide. How rude??

She manages to pass the memories along to someone, just so that this memory isn’t lost forever. Even if nothing can be done.

This was SO much better than I expected. It’s not a mind-assault episode like I thoguht it’d be. Torres having agency, and trying to both push the puzzle forward and then spread the word helped a lot.

Sacred Ground - VOY 6/10

While exploring some alien’s holy shrine, Kes is electrocuted by a shrine and everyone is like “well clearly she pissed off the spirits, so there’s nothing we can do.” They can find no scientific paths to saving her, but there is ONE path. There’s an ancient story of a king who’s son did what Kes did, and the king did a ritual to speak to the spirits, and begged them to save his son. So that’s what Janeway is going to do. But she’s pretty… science-minded. How is she going to be able to handle this religious experience?

It’s an interesting setup. I like how it shows Janeway. She is very openly athiest, but extremely open towards religions and belief systems. Except in THIS case, where it’s killing a member of her crew. And the religious members are excited to help her with this. No one ACTUALLY wants Kes to die. So if there’s a way out that satisfies both parties.

There’s some very fun like, ancient mystical monk rituals. Every so often we jump back to the ship where Chakotay is grumpy and wants to rescue Janeway and everyone like “Dude she went through this of her own volition, let the woman do her job”.

When she finally gets an audience with the spirits (the doctor, viewing her biometric levels, says she’s being given a psychative drug). The spirits in her dream tell her she has everything she needs to save Kes, that everything she went through was meaningless. Her guide says that too. And when she goes back, they try to use the info to save Kes, but it doesn’t work. And again the doctor repeats those words. Everything she did was meaningless. Her guide explains that yeah, all that was just cause that’s what she was expecting. The ritual isn’t even a real thing. She just has to believe in the spirits. She has to take Kes and walk into the “biogenic field”, aka the spirits, and trust them.

Chakotay is the voice of “this is stupid don’t do that” which is very weird? CHAKOTAY of all people like “HOW CAN YOU BELIEVE IN THESE FOOLISH BELIEFS”? Oochie Mama, we are far from the bones of our out of character. She takes her through anyway, and it saves Kes. The Doctor has a big scientific explanation for what happened, but Janeway is a bit… out of it. Her belief in science, what was a solid rock to her, is kind of broken.

While the concept was kinda cool and a few scenes were fun, it was a LITTLE boring sadly.

Future’s End Part 1 - VOY 7/10

Back in the 60s, something slams into a mountain as a hippie watches. Far out.

Back in the present, y’know, the 2300s, Voyager meets a Federation ship from the 2900s. It attacks Voyager, explaining that Voyager is causing a major problem in their future, and must be blown up. In the fight, they’re both sent back in time to 1996. Now they’re stuck in the past and need to find that “timeship”. They have reading to go off of. Los Angeles.

It’s always funny to see modern times in Star Trek.

And also fun to see how the Trek crew try to fit in.

A SETI girl at an observatory catches wind of them in orbit, specifically based on a reading that some rich guy told her to look out for. He calls her up and he’s like “Do NOT contact them” and uh, she does anyway. It’s a very silly “standard greeting” for aliens. Very funny.

They find Braxton, the guy who was in the timeship, the guy from the 2900th century. He explains that his ship causes the timebreak in the future, so yeah, it was all his fault, it’s a paradox they have to carefully untie. He’s also a homeless raving lunatic who is very VERY bad at being a timecop. He’s a timecop from the future trying to stop time crimes, and in the past he tried to tell everyone he’s from the future and he’s treated like a raving lunatic, cause he’s acting like one. God how can you be this bad? He also explains that his ship was found by that rich CEO I mentioned earlier. Holy shit, the rich CEO was the hippie. That’s very funny.

They split into a few parties. Tuvok and Paris go to wipe the hard-drive of the cute dorky lady at SETI. At the same time, Janeway and Chakotay are going to break into the CEO’s house to find the stuff he stole. The CEO ALSO sends a goon to take out the dorky lady for sending that message to Voyager, and tells him to take “the weapon”, AKA a future phaser to kill him and the Voyagers.

I love this nerdy girl, I wish she’d join the crew. Voyager coulda been so much cooler if they just kept adding characters that they find. This show’d be better with her and Airheart joining the Voyager crew.

The rich CEO captures Janeway and Chakotay fiddlign with his systems, and even after being told he’s gonna blow up the future, he doesn’t seem to care. Like… dude? He’s trying to be a laughing maniacal villain, but like…. look I know he’s a rich guy and is thus evil, but it’s kinda stupid to be told, by people you KNOW are from the future, “you’re gonna blow up everything”, and then go “lol nah I know what I’m doing”. He’s being a fucking idiot.

Kim flies Voyager down to save them, teleporting them out. This ALSO makes it so EVERYONE sees Voyager. How are all of them SO BAD AT THIS?! The episode ends with the CEO stealing a lot of data from Voyager, including the doctor, who is now physically in his office. How is the CEO defeating Voyager with a DOS PC? How is the Doctor physically in his room? Again, with a DOS PC??? I don’t fucking know. And it’s very annoying.

It’s fine, but some of the things about it really bugged me. I’ll have to see how they wrap it out.