LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 4 episodes 11 - 15

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!

Concerning Flight - VOY 8/10

Our episode starts with Janeway in the Leonardo Davinci holodeck again. He’s testing a flying machine, and they both test it, jumping off ab ridge, right into some water. She KNEW that machine would not work, but she jumped off the bridge anyway. Janeway’s here for a good time.

Anyways they’re suddenly attacked by some aliens who basically mug them, transporting stuff through their shields (don’t ask questions) and then running the hell away. They steal a bunch of things, including the main computer, and now Voyager has to limp along. THey manage to track the stuff down to a commerce planet, where it’s being sold off and whatnot. And then, as they’re investigating, they meet…

GIMLI! Look, if you get John Reese Davies, you use him for all he’s worth. It’s Davinci! He’s been downloaded into the Doctor’s emitter, and is walking around this planet. He’s very entertaining, and is also seeing things through his limited holonovel’s programming, so he thinks its America. The working title for this episode was “Davinci’s Day Out” which is very funny.

We also find who did the stealing. His name is Tau, and he’s a consumate businessman. He’s totally willing to sell the computer back actually, all it would take is a small price. Like, a warship, maybe? Yeah there’s no way they’re affording this, it’s too valuable. Tuvok goes back to the ship while Janeway stays behind with Davinci to try and learn more, but once Tau learns who she is, he holds her captive, cause ooh, imagine the money he can make holding her hostage! Aaaand then davinci slams a tank into his head and knocks him out cold. Let’s fuckin’ go.

This is taxing and straining Davinci, who was NOT built for this. He gets shot and starts having an existential crisis, but Janeway plays to him well.

Yes but not how you’re thinking.

They escape in a contraption Davinci’s been working on… a flying apparatus, based on things Janeway suggested to him. It’s actually a touching moment. They’re teleported out of the air and rescued, as Voyager makes its escape. This was just a cute episode.

Mortal Coil - VOY 9/10

We’ve got a Neelix episode! Neelix is being Ship Dad, helping take care of everyone, it’s actually super sweet. He helps the only kid on the ship (who’s suddenly like 8 years old don’t worry about it) get to sleep by telling her stories about his faith. His people believe in The Great Forest, a wonderful afterlife. He’s such a sweetheart, I don’t get why ANYONE wouldn’t like him.

Anyway, Neelix is killed abruptly in an away mission to collect Protoplasm, which I guess is the prototype of plasm. I can’t believe they killed off Neelix like that. Well, all that making us like him stuff at the start is just there to make us realize what we lost, huh?

No obviously, Neelix isn’t DEAD dead. Well, he is. He is very dead. He’s been dead for 18 hours by the time they get him back, cold and gone. But according to Seven, the Borg have techniques that could work, as late as 78 hours after death. Hot damn, I’m sure that’ll be super useful in the future! Oh nevermind.

Neelix is still his chipper friendly self… or so it seems. He’s still a sweetheart, and wants to do what he can to help out, though everyone is a bit worried about him, obviously. He volunteers to help Chokie look into what went wrong in the Holodeck. Chokie is like “are you SURE you’re okay?” but maybe he should have pushed a bit harder cause yeah, when Neelix sees his own fucking corpse, it kinda… snaps something in him. He realizes he was dead for 18 hours, and there was nothing. He was told all his life he’d go to an afterlife and be with his loved ones who had died, and it had carried him through so much. But now he can’t believe that. We’ll all just, poof, be gone. It affects him.

It’s also bad timing, because a Talaxian holiday is happening like, in a day. And it’s a day celebrating family and love and life, and Neelix is just straight up depressed. He has to tell another bedtime story to the kid, and she INSISTS on hearing about the Great Forest, his afterlife, and it’s… HEARTTBREAKING. I have to admit, Neelix’s actor is fucking KILLING it here. He’s the same, but he’s clearly lower energy, and it’s NOT easy to play a chipper happy character who’s depressed and trying to hide it from others and have it come across not hamfisted. He’s doing a FANTASTIC job.

Neelix is still dying, btw, he needs to be constantly upkept. He hates it, and snaps at Seven before almost dying again. He then, once revived, asks for help from Chokie. Neelix wants to go on a vision quest. Chakotay SAYS THE THING! :D He says “WE ARE FAR FROM THE BONES OF OUR ANCESTORS”! Thats a big meme in our watch group. Anyways the vision quest goes VERY poorly. His dead sister is like “there’s no afterlife so there’s no point to being alive.” and then she dies horribly in front of him.

What the fuck Chakotay, did you really need to give him the BAD shit???

Neelix is back to his friendly self, kind of. He goes to apologize to Seven for snapping at her, and is very… cagey. Reverent, almost. He’s also avoiding telling Chakotay what he ACTUALLY saw, and Chakotay is unhappy, cause he can kind of tell. something is clearly wrong. Neelix goes about his time, doing the work he has to do, making sure everything is neat and tidy. Then he leaves notes for everyone.

Are they laying this on thick? Maybe a little. But like, as someone who has been suicidal, and has basically done EXACTLY this, planning things out and trying to leave neat and orderly? Yeah. It also hits. Poor Neelix. Chakotay pretty much talks him down from the edge of the bridge. He’s bad at it, and his actor is not doing a good job, but Neelix is doing his best. He has to stick around. People need him. He does good work here. He goes to tuck his goddaughter in, and tells her more stories.

She dreams of the Great Forest. And the positivity of faith continues.

This made me very emotional.

Waking Moments - VOY 6/10

We start with everyone having dreams. Harry dreams he’s making out with Seven. Tom is crashing a ship. Janeway dreams everyone died cause she took too long to get home. And Tuvok came to the bridge not wearing pants, which is VERY funny. Then all their dreams end with a weird alien just staring at them. Everyone quickly comes to the conclusion something is funny, cause they’re ALL eepy as fuck. Everyone is okay though… except Harry, who appears to be unable to wake up. And others quickly join him. So what can they do?

Get CHAKOTAY OF COURSE! God, they sure do love Chakotay in this part of the show. And what does he do? The ONLY THING HE DOES! HIS ONE CHARACTER TRAIT. Be vaguely native american!!

Chakotay does some lucid dreaming, and converses with the aliens. They’re paranoid that people will hurt them, so they’re trying to keep people asleep. Seems a bit unneccesary, but okay. Chakotay promises to leave, and they get directions, and off they go. Well that’s a fast episode, huh?

Everyone wakes up, and things seem fine. Kim is awkward around Seven, it’s cute. Anyways they’re suddenly attacked by the aliens, who are super powerful and impossible to defeat. They’re now all trapped in the cargo bay as the aliens have full run of the ship. Eventually, however, Chakotay realizes… he’s actually still asleep.

He wakes up, and makes SURE of it this time. It’s just him and the Doctor, who can’t sleep. Everyone else was pushed into sleep. Chakotay theorizes: These aliens are always asleep, and keep others asleep where they’re the most powerful. He’s got to chase them down.

Meanwhile, back in the dream, chakotay just up and disappeared right aftter saying “oh I’m still asleep”. Turns out they’re all in a shared dream. Seven calls it “collective unconsciousness”. Janeway tests this theory by literally standing in front of an antimatter explosion.

There’s a good jump cut where we think Janeway woke herself up like Chakotay did, but then we find out, nope. He fell back asleep. The doctor wakes him back up chemically.

Janeway gets to be a badass with a gun again, I love it.

Chakotay finds the sleeping aliens, has the Doctor target a nuke on them, and then falls asleep, and tells them “I will kill you all if you don’t stop immediately”. Chakotay was just about to wipe out an entire species.

Everyone is out, they think. They all have bad insomnia, understandable. And that’s it. The aliens’ like, real reasons aren’t explained, and uh, it feels kinda flat.

Message in a Bottle - VOY 5/10

Seven calls Chokie and Janeway into her Astrometrics Lab. Recently, she made a super long range scanner. Now, she found a relay network that goes a LONG way. It’s abandoned but functional… And at the other end, they see a Federation vessel. They try sending a message, but some technobabble stops them. But they CAN send the doctor!! Hopefully after he connects with them they can jsut send him back, but we’ll see. Good luck, Doctor.

He’s now on a ship called the Prometheus!! Unfortunately, everyone is dead. Some Romulans have taken over the ship. This is just a few months before the Romulans entered the war, I guess. This is an experimental combat ship, which is kinda neat. The Doctor manages to bluff his way into helping save a Romulan who gets injured. He needs help, though. So he summons THIS ship’s EMH.

This is the new EMH. He fucking sucks. He’s also played by Andy Dick, who kinda sucks, which doesn’t help. He’s AMAZINGLY unlikable. He finds out they’re in a combat situation and just turns himself off. He refuses to help the Romulan, that’s “the enemy”. While the idea of a die-hard episode with the Doctor is very good, and one of my favorites, it’s uh… very annoying. New EMH is very unlikable, and Old Doctor can’t help but do a dick waving contest. He brags about having sex, among other things.

Back on Voyager, the owners of the relay network realize whats going on and tell them to cut that shit out. Uh oh. Seven solves this problem by literally electrocuting this guy. Holy shit.

The Doctor is caught, but EMH2 saves him. He’s still annoying. He knocks all the Romulans out with nerve gas, and they try to stop the ship. Too bad they have no idea what they’re doing. They cause the warp core to fall apart, and then more Romulans show up. Things aren’t going well.

There’s also a C plot where Paris is sick of being back up doctor, so he asks Harry to make a new EMH. Harry tries, turns out its REALLY hard so he gives up cause fuck that shit.

This episode is weird cause it’s trying to be a hectic, tense thing with two doctors trying to recommandeer this ship, and yet its like half of a bad comedy, and the other half is the Doctor making actually good quips.

The Doctor succeeds, there’s a lot of dead Romulans, and then he beams back and lets them know that Starfleet now knows they’re alive, and are working to help. I found this episode kinda annoying, but it’s got some good stuff to it.

Hunters - VOY 8/10

Immediately following the last episode, Voyager gets a new message through the relays from Starfleet Command. Unfortunately, it’s cut off, but they can get the full message if they rescue it from a nearby relay or whatever. Meanwhile, the ACTUAL owners of the relay, who are unhappy about all this, the Hirogen, decide to do something about it.

Seven is hard at work trying to get the messages working. She’s like “this is important to the Captain, so I must work hard for it.” Oh she’d do ANYTHING for the Captain, wouldn’t she~

The next bit is them getting their letters. Some good news, some bad. Tuvok learns he’s a grandfather now. Janeway smiles then it slowly fades as she reads her’s. Chakotay goes to be alone after reading his. He learns all of the Maquis are dead, whoopsies. Others are reacting differently. Paris hasn’t gotten any letters and doesn’t give a shit. Harry has gotten none and its KILLING him.

Seven and Tuvok go in a shuttle to fiddle with the relay so that they can get the messages more easily. They’re attacked by the Hirogen, and captured.

I’m actually liking how people are reacting to these letters. Paris is like “I want no part of this. What I have here is so much better than what I had back home.” I actually like this quite a bit. They made me like a PARIS MOMENT.

There’s a scene where Seven meets with JAneway, who is sad. And I was like “please, PLEASe, Seven, ask Janeway what’s wrong, so she can explain her husband married someone else to you, and NOT to Chakotay later on. And then you can go ‘I am sorry to hear that. But it sounds like you are available, can we go on a date this weekend’”. Unfortunately she just walked out the door and we pretty much just get that scene with Chokie.

These are the Hirogen. They’re ALL about prey and hunting. They’re pretty much the aliens from the Tosk episode, but about EVERYONE, not just Tosk. They’re kinda cool tbh ngl. They’re not like, EVIL really. They just have very different morals. The Hirogen who captures Seven and Tuvok explains “You will probably die, more of my people are coming, these people I caught are my prize. Just leave so you don’t die too.” Obviously Janeway doesn’t just leave. They are, however, VERY scary, and fully intend to butcher the fuck out of Tuvok and Seven.

They weaken the relay, which is holding a black hole in it. The other Hirogen attack Voyager, which causes the ENTIRE relay to blow the fuck up. All the Hirogen explode, though they do save Seven and Tuvok, and manage to escape.

Unfortunately, the explosion destabalized the entire relay system, so no more of that. They’re alone once more. But they got Harry’s message after all! I hope it doesn’t say like “Hey Harry, we got a new son. His name is John.”

We get one last scene with Janeway and Chokie where he shoots his shot. “I hope you like your boyfriends bland!”

Good episode all around, even if it has the Status Quo Curse.