LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 3 episodes 26-28

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!

Displaced - VOY 8/10

Paris and Torres are having an argument in the hall about working out and hoe she doesn’t like it cause it makes her wanna rip his head off, and then they are interrupted by some dude appearing in the hall randomly. He has no idea what the hell happened, but he’s not… a bad guy in any way, it seems. He’s some random dude who just appeared on the ship. They look into why he showed up when more show up, and not only that, but some of their crew are disappearing too. They find out there’s some kind of energy nearby that was also near the planet, so they study it. Again, everyone is friendly and just wants back to their planet. Its a good mystery.

We get the answer to the mystery pretty fast. Turns out the Nyrians are just playing dumb, this is an intentional plan to comandeer Voyager. It might work too, there’s only like 30 more people on Voyager. Soon its JUST Chakotay and one other dude, so they just decide to sabatoge and damage the ship as much as they can. A fair idea. The Nyrians, as they’re called, are weak to bright lights and cold climate, so Chakotay fucks up the lights to make them suffer, and then downloads the EMH to save him from being deleted.

Now we find what’s going on. This is how the Nyrians do war. They just… replace people with themselves, and then give up the act when they outnumber them. It’s kind of genius and very interesting. And now our people need to find a way out. They’re introduced to a “neighbor” on this colony, who moved between them with “portals” he found, though it toook him 9 years. They trade with him for info, and use the Doctor to discover these portals. Everyone splits into groups, basically. Chakotay and Tuvok make weapons and tools, and the Doctor is turned into a makeshift tricorder, basically, which is very funny.

They go exploring and find out they’re on a ship, a big colony ship with little biospheres, basically. It’s very interesting and tense as they sneak around, with the Nyrians hunting after them. Torres and Paris lead them on a goose chase into a cold and bright biosphere, while Tuvok and Janeway hack into their systems and try to gain access to their teleporter. We see Torres and Paris flirt in the cold for a bit before Janeway gains control of the teleportwer and just… teleports people into the ice world like “I will send ALL of you here if you do not release our people at ONCE”. They agree cause holy SHIT. Janeway is very badass in this scene.

This episode is pretty nice. Fun story, and the Torres and Paris stuff is kind of cute at points.

Worst Case Scenario - VOY 9.5/10

Chakotay and Torres are walking along, and Chakotay is a bit awkward and weird. He brings up that Tuvok sucks, and no one likes him. Or that annoying Janeway. “Janeway isn’t winning any populatity contests, either”. Uh. Yes she is. At least, with me. Also it’s very funny they’re putting this energy out three seasons in and after we saw Torres’ reaction at Janeways’ funeral. He says there’s gonna be a mutiny, and he wants to know what side she’s on. She’s ASTOUNDED. WHAT?

Everyone is acting so… weird. It’s almost like we’re in season 1 again.

When it comes to it, Torres joins the Maquis side and shoots Harry. She’s REALLY bothered by this but hey, it’s just stunning, they’re not gonna kill anyone today. And then she sees who else is with them.

Seska is here! Hey, she’s all good again! I KNEW I could see her parachute! Seska is aggressive to Torres, and… calls her “federation”. Huh! Aaand then Paris walks in, even though he’s supposed to be elsewhere with the Captain right now. What? Well, this is a holodeck program. A holonovel that someone wrote in season 1 of Voyager, where you play an Ensign during a maquis mutiny. It’s fanfic. It’s IN UNIVERSE FANFIC. All the characters act like how some random person views them. Chakotay is a badass leader who’s ready to mutiny at any moment. Janeway is a rube. Tuvok is a hardass. Neelix turns on the side with the maquis at the first opportunity.

Paris finds this FASCINATING. He wants in. They restart the program. And we see the opening scnes all again, with Paris being REALLY interested in joining the mutiny…. until the last moment, where he tries to protect Tuvok and stop the mutiny. Seems he wants to try the Renegade option of this game. He then tries to rejoin the mutiny… seems he’s just trying random shit.

Back in the REAL life, news is spreading about the holo novel. People find it VERY exciting and fun, I imagine playing fanfic of yourself is pretty fun. And then as Paris gets further in, suddenly… the episode ends.

COCK BLOCKED.

It of course gets to Janeway. And she wants everyone to look into who the author is. But there’s no need. Tuvok admits it was him. And it wasn’t a novel, or entertainment. It was a training exercise for a very real possibility, but after a few weeks, it became obvious a mutiny was not going to happen. And he tried to delete it, but Torres is too good at her job and found it. And now they should delete it immediately, or it might cause problems with the crew.

Janeway LITERALLY goes “Loosen up, Tuvok”. This is ENTERTAINMENT, and people are loving it. So she requests they finish the novel. Paris is VERY on board with it, and Tuvok begrudgingly goes and helps him with it. As they start testing the file, opening it for editing…. something happens. Turns out, Seska had found the file a month before leaving, and edited the file so next time Tuvok edited it, it’d just fucking torture him, over and over. Safeties are off, and the characters are edited. Chakotay is horny for Seska, of course. And the Doctor is psychotic. They go to him for help when Paris gets injured and he just injects Paris with acid in his wound. The people outside are trying to find a way to stop it, but Seska’s program is editing it on the fly to stop them.

With everyone trying to save them, and them just trying to not die, it’s extremely hectic and exciting. Eventually, they outsmart her and get the Seska program to kill herself by accident, which ends the program and frees them. Everyone laughs at the situation, and are like “Well, never making a holonovel like THAT again”

This was great. Good crew moments, and very fun.

Scorpion - VOY 8.5/10

Our episode starts with borg cubes menacing towards the camera, going “Resistance is futile”. And then something hits them and they fucking explode. What a cold open. What could be so scary it can take out the BORG so effortlessly???

The episode ACTUALLY starts with Janeway nerding out in a holonovel talking to Leonardi Davinci. It’s cute. But she’s called out to be informed that they’ve detected Borg. They’re entering Borg Space. They found a space where they can MAYBE avoid Borg, but if and when they engage the Borg, they NEED to be ready.

Kes gets some psychic visions, piles of dead Borg, and the destruction of Voyager. That’s not good. And then the Borg show up… 15 Borg vessels show up, they fall out of Warp, and things get very bad, VERY fast. They pretty much ignore Voyager though, and go past. And then later, they find those Borg again. And what happened to them?

Dead. All of them, dead. It’s a reverse Wolf 359. What could have done this to the Borg? We find it… kind of. There’s a mass of some kind of organic material on one of the cubes. A team beams onto a cube, and enters into the thing… it’s a ship of some kind. Organic. It’s EXTREMELY Gieger-y. They have a lot of things analogous to ship systems, but using organic things. And then we see it…

It’s a CGI monstrosity.

It slimes Harry, beats the shit out of Voyager which runs away, and doesn’t chase, sending a telepathic message to Kes that’s basically “The weak will die”. The cells of the alien are attacking Harry and essentially eating him from the inside out. Whoever this alien is, it’s VERY dangerous, and actually a perfect counter to the Borg. That doesn’t mean much to poor Kim, who is 100% conscious of himself being fucking devoured. This is maybe THE most fucked up “Harry Kim Must Suffer” moments so far. We also learn that the Borg call these “Species 8472”.

Also this safe space with no Borg? There’s a reason. It’s filled with the Species. We have a few options. Run back. Leave. Just live in the Delta Quadrant. Or… ally with the Borg. They’re helping cure the Species, and they can trade that info to the Borg for safe passage. Chakotay is bothered by this idea. He says the Borg will betray us anyway, and either way, trying to help the Borg assimilate the Species could be DISASTROUS. But maybe leaving the Species to beat the Borg and then “clean out all the weak” would also be very, very bad. They’re at a crossroads that could change the fate of the galaxy.

Janeway is taken to the Borg, and makes the deal. They try to work things out… but then the Species shows up, Death Stars the fucking planet they’re near, and then… to be continued.

….I gotta admit, the second half of this season was weirdly good.