LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 4 episodes 20-25

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!

Vis a Vis - VOY 6.5/10

Paris is playing around in the Holodeck with his favorite past-time, muscle cars. It’s honestly pretty cute. I like a 24th century guy being a gearhead, it’s a fun hobby. The Doctor gets on his case about how he’s not putting enough effort into being the backup doctor, and he’s like “I didn’t even WANT to do that, I was assigned to it”. But it’s his job now, so, buh. The further we get in this show the more I like Paris. Anyways, Paris is then called to his station, so he has to arrive all covered in grease and shit which is funny, and he finds out why. There’s a weird-ass ship that’s zorping around. Paris guesses it’s a Coaxial Warp Drive, which literally folds space time around itself in order to travel real far real fast. That could be useful.

Too bad the warp core is exploding. Paris does some shenanigans to keep the ship from exploding, and all’s good. The alien needs some help getting his ship from exploding, so Paris volunteers, cause he’s interested in the ship’s drive. When he asks, Chokey is like “Well, you’ve had bad reports from the doctor about shirking your duties, are you okay?” and he’s like “Yes? I just don’t care about being a doctor”, and Chokey rides his ass for a minute before assigning him to work on the ship. But then he has to dip from THAT cause he had a date with Belanna. He’s late to it and she’s all pissy and angry at him, saying he’s hiding shit. Lady, he was ASSIGNED TO WORK ON THIS. What was he going to do, tell his superior officer no??

I can’t believe this show made me like Paris. I’m genuinely offended. And not only that, but it’s swapped how things were. At the start, Paris got away with a lot of bullshit, and we kept yelling at him, cause he was awful. Now, people are riding his ass and acting like he’s being awful and he’s genuinely not doing anything, just doing his job and living with his hobbies.

Now to be fair, Paris IS feeling that Wanderlust. He’s comfortable here, but that’s making him uneasy. He’s not USED to feeling comfortable, to being happy. So he’s kinda self sabotaging, slightly. That honestly makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t help that Steth, the alien, offers him an escape on his ship. I mean, they can go fly around and explore, and then can meet up with Voyager later! Unfortunately for Paris, Steth here has some Weird Shit going on with morphing and DNA forms and he keeps turning into a she and it’s weird. Either way, Paris gets caught up in it and gets his form stolen by this clearly fae creature, who then shoots him and takes his place on Yovager. His ship then speeds off, presumably with Paris’ corpse.

Anyways, Steth is very bad at being Tom. You’d think they’d like, actually REALLY research a person before trying to subsume their life. That seems weird. Everyone is IMMEDIATELY sus of him because like, duh. He doesn’t even know where the fuck the Medbay is. It’s really awkward to watch. You’d think someone who’s entire life is this would be better at it. He ends up making out with Torres and then choking her out while drunk. It’s weird.

No, obviously, Real Paris isn’t dead. His drive has just been shut down, and he’s thrown at the people who ACTUALLY owned it, who are about to blow him up for stealing the drive. But before they can, another ship comes and scares them away, and the REAL Steth is here. Paris hastily explains whats going on.

Janeway confronts “Tom”, and the next thing we know, security is barging in and stuns Tom. Phew, the Doctor is safe. Real Tom and Real Steth come, and the captain is like “Okay, he’s probably the cause of all this. Hold him in a Hold on, I need to do a thing real quick”, and then dips the fuck out in a shuttle. Welp, he swapped with Janeway. But Tom convinces Chokie to let him go with a heart to heart, and he catches the DNA Swapper.

It ends with Tom trying to open up to Torres and they make out in his Camaro. He’s all “It’s a MINT CONDITION 1960 COMARO”. Tom, it’s a hologram. Come on man.

The Omega Directive - VOY 8/10

We start with Seven waking up and talking about what she’s going to do today. She’s gonna read The Christmas Carol, as suggested by the Doctor. That’s cute. Suddenly everything is interrupted by the ship dropping out of warp, and everyone is confused as an Omega symbol appears on all screens and they get locked out. Janeway is like “Hey, don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. but don’t tell ANYONE about this”. Sussy.

Turns out it’s sonething called The Omega Directive. Something called an Omega Particle has been detected. If that’s detected, the goal is to destroy it, at all costs. It’s very, VERY dangerous. Only Captains and above even know about it. All of the crew is curious, but not allowed to know… except one. Seven was Borg, and so she knows all the Borg knew. That includes what they learned from assimilated Starfleet captains. So she’s in on it. But she’s not interested in helping destroy the Omega Particle. She wants to harness it. The Borg think it’s possible, and ALMOST got it, but not quite. Sure it destroyed 23 Borg vessels in the attempt, but it’s worth attempting again! Oh Seven.

Everyone has theories and fan theories. Everyone is reacting to it differently. Even Tuvok admits to being curious. That means he’s very, very, VERY curious.

Janeway explains to Chokie what’s going to happen. She and Seven are gonna go out in a specially reinforced shuttle with a giant bomb. Either they return happy and alive, or Voyager senses an explosion and has 10 seconds to get out or it’ll be vaporized. Chokie convinces her that this is a very special case, so she should explain to the crew what’s up. So she does. A single molecule of this stuff, when it was synthesized, existed for a second, before collapsing. The explosion killed all the scientists, but MORe important, destroyed Subspace. Warp travel is not possible in that sector anymore. Any more of this stuff could wipe out sub space in an entire quadrant, and that would be very, VERY bad.

Imagine that. The Federation not being able to use FTL travel. God, how horrible that’d be.

They make it to the source. A planet with a horribly damaged science facility. Subspace isn’t here, so they slowly get to it and find some survivors, who explain that they lost containment, but some of their experiment survived.

Seven speaks to the head scientist, who explains that this experiment is his people’s salvation. He’s disgusted by them wanting to blow it up.

Down on the planet, they find the Omega molecules. She’s ready to destroy it, and doesn’t even want to study it at all, even when it’s stable right now. Even as a woman as science, she feels like science has limits, and she knows when to quit. It’s just too dangeorous. That amount of Omega would straight up destroy half the quadrant. That is a LOT of space. It’s even enough to throw the Prime Directive out the window.

Seven tells Chokie she thinks she can stabalize the particles and save them. She BEGS Chakotay to let her. She still has some Borg Programming left, and the Borg basically worship Omega as a God. It’s a perfect molecule, a million parts working together as one. Like the Borg collective. It’s interesting that the Borg basically have a religion. When Chokie can’t convince Janeway, Seven tries ONE MORE time on Janeway. She could probably beat her in combat and do it if she wanted, but she won’t. She does understand why Janeway is doing this. THIS is a good Seven and Janeway clash!!! It makes WAY more sense that that shit last time. They both have a clash of personality and opinion where neither of them come off as a complete asshole! It’s great!

Seven manages to see a stabalized Omega for a few seconds, before they manage to throw it out and explode it. The episode ends with Janeway and Seven discussing religious experiences. This was a nice one.

The Omega Directive - VOY 3.5/10

Voyager is caught between two cloaked ships fighting. It looks like one explodes, before they get an audio message that simple says “Chakotay, please, I need your help”. Fascinating start. Too bad it will CLEARLY involve Chakotay.

Her ship is falling apart, and for some reason they can’t beam her over, and so they beam over to help her. Chakotay saves her from some rubble, and she’s like “Ohhh Chakotay, I knew you’d come for me~” and he’s like “who the hell are you”? When they get her over to the ship, I guess they could beam her once Chakotay was with her, the Doctor’s scanners won’t work on her either. Her name is Kellin. She begs the captain to give her Asylum, because “they” are chasing her.

She explains to Chokie that her biology makes it so people forget her the next day. That’s just how her people are, the Ramurans. Some pheramone shenanigans. Apparently this also won’t let technology talk about her. Why they couldn’t just… write about her or talk about her on a log, I dunno. She claims it’s a virus that erased all data of her from the logs. And now her reason for being here is she fell in love with Chokie and gave up her life on her planet, which is VERY taboo on her planet. Honestly I believe the shit with the pheremones more than I believe someone falling in love with Chakotay after 2 weeks of being near him. Chakotay trusts her, for some reason. After all, he’s a VERY good judge of character. He doesn’t have any actual desire to continue any relationship with her. To him, it didn’t happen, he has no feelings.

Some of her people come to take Kellin away, and she helps them detect the ships, so they can actually fight back. CHakotay keeps being flaky about whether he trusts her or not. At first he does, then he’s like “No, I don’t”, then he begs her not to go when she’s like “You’ll be in danger if I’m here and clearly you’re not into me”. God. I DO get Chakotay not trusting her, after all the Seska shit, but buh. Wait until the end when we find out she’s actually a Romulan spy.

We also learn what her previous job was. She was the person who hunted people who ran from the Homeworld, and used a memory wiper on them to make them forget the outside world so that they want to stay home. That’s fucking horrifying.

Eventually things get into a nice comfort. They all start to like the idea of her become a member of the crew. Oh boy, I can’t wait for that to happen! No, obviously not.

One of the agents from her planet gets aboard and wipes her memory. It wipes slowly, which is ESPECIALLY horrifying. She’s like “Please, if I forget you, please make me fall in love with you like you fell in love with me this time”. Chakotay almost beats the shit out of this guy, but he’s so smug about it. He’s like “Of course I’m right for doing this. This is the wya of our world, our laws”. Fucking gross behavior, to wipe someones mind like this, but eh.

Of course, her memory is gone. She doesn’t remember him or why she’d want to be here, so she just… leave. He can’t convince her to stay. Chakotay, who’s going to lose all his memories again, writes the log down on paper. Neelix has a nice scene about love before the episode ends. So, I don’t think this episode is bad in concept, or even mostly in practice. Most of it is good. It’s basically a retread of that one episode with Riker loving the agender alien. The problem with this episode, and there’s only really one, is that Chakotay is a sucking black void of charisma. Chakotay is the Omega Particle of boring. He is perfect.

Living Witness - VOY 8.5/10

We start with a scene between Janeway and an evil smarmy guy, a Vaskan. He brings JAneway and Voyager into a war. She is OVERLY evil, with Tasha Yar hair and black gloves. She agrees, if he helps them get home. There’s also a Kazon soldier who walksbuy. She then uses Biogenic weapons on the planet, despite the original evil smarmy guy’s statement that he didn’t want to kill that many people, just win the war and defeat his one enemy. The Doctor makes a biogenic weapon, and then they release it on the planet, killing millions.

We find out this was a simulation and a video being shown many years in the future on the planet, which is owned by the Kyrians, to explain The Voyager Incident, when Biogenic weapons were put on their planet. This is an AMAZING cold open. VERY entertaining, and you IMMEDIATLEY know what’s happening (it’s propaganda). It’s mostly just fun to watch everyone over act as super evil people. And to see all the things they got wrong. They’re from Mars. Tuvok SMILES. We all recoiled in horror at it. They have multiple Borg drones on board they use as weapons. Fucking NEELIX is at Ops. Of course, Chakotay’stattoo is all over his face.

The Voyager Conflict ends with the leader of the Kyrians being killed brutally in a firing squad, as the Kyrian watches in terror. It’s shown this is a museum in the future. The Kyrians lost the war and are now under the control of the Vaskans, and are basically second class citizens. A Vaskan is annoyed by this, and claims they made up this just to make the Vaskans out to the villains. But the Kyrian museum curator and historian has some new evidence that should help cement the historical record. It’s some data, maybe some records!

He researches it and finds out it’s code… for a hologram. SURPRISE. IT WAS A DOCTOR EPISODE THE ENTIRE TIME! The Doctor finds out he’s 700 years in the future, and is horrified at the idea he’ll be a museum piece. Although probably not. On their planet, AI are responsible for their own crimes. And he DID make the Biogenic weapon.

Everything in the diagram made about the incident astounds the Doctor. They’re making him out to be a murderer, and the entire crew maniacs. “Halfway across the galaxy, I hope, Janeway is spinning in her grave”. He explains that they were just doing a trade agreement with the Vaskans, and then the Kyrians started a war with them suddenly, and Voyager was caught in the middle. The museum curator is stunned, and disgusted. No way, he’s a second class citizen, how could HIS people be the aggressors? He shuts down the Doctor, but it also confused why a medical hologram would be willing to lie so much. So he eventually comes back and apologizes. He’s ready to learn the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it might be.

When he shows his recreation of events, one of the other Kyrians in the Museum is disgusted by it. There’s a lot of political and racial disagreements here. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it portraying the clearly second class citizens as willing to throw people under the bus and hurt them just to make themselves feel better. He might have a way to prove himself innocent, though. He has a medical tricorder that can prove it was Kyrian weapons that started the conflict, and help his side of events. Unfortunately he loses it in the fucking RACE RIOT that occurs over this, as Kyrians storm the museum and smash it up. The Doctor makes a decision.

He should be erased. Him EXISTING and trying to find the truth is making more people die. Two people died already. Who cares about the truth, what matters is lives. But the museum director disagrees. They’ve been abusing history, and all its done is worsen relations. They need to try and learn the truth so they can move past it, and live together. It’s a nice moment. And then, abruptly, we find out THIS was a simulation, some further point in the future, just like it was at the start of the episode. It’s like poetry, it rhymes. The world is at peace, and all is good. The Doctor stayed with them for a while and worked as their chief medical director for years before taking a small vessel and flying back to the Alpha Quadrant… hoping to reach home.

So, I think some parts of this episode were maybe clumsily handled, and you could easily twist its narrative to imply it’s saying heinous shit. I could argue right now it’s a holocaust denial episode. But it’s not, it’s trying to have a more positive message, and even if it’s not perfect about that, it’s fine. I liked most of it.

Demon - VOY 7/10

Voyager is out of Deuterium. They’re running on empty and people need to vacate the living spaces and sleep in one room to conserve power. But before Astrometrics is shut down, Seven finds a planet nearby with lots of Deuterium. They just need to go grab it. Unfortunately, the ship is Class Y. There’s no worse planet for supporting Human life. Worse than zero atmosphere? Worse than a GAS GIANT? Wow. Harry volunteers himself to go down and mine it, cause teleporters aren’t working. He also volunteers Paris to come with him. I’m sure this will go VERY well.

Harry IMMEDIATELY falls in some goop, and a seal breaks on his suit. He runs out of oxygen. Paris fishes him out, and then a seal breaks on his suit too. They both run out of oxygen and die, on screen. We hear the beep and everything.

There’s also a B-plot about Neelix trying to turn the Medbay into a barracks. That happens. The Doctor is a shitty dickhead about it. It doesn’t fit.

They’re about to run out of energy, and the Deuterium is down there. They can’t contact Harry or Paris. Hey, do you remember that Voyager can land? They won’t be able to go back up if they do, but they CAN land. Well, they do. And Chakotay and Seven go out to find our Dead Boys. They find out Dead Boys, shockingly alive. Not only that, but outside of their fucking suits. Paris is outside his suit and SUPER thrilled about it, he’s like “it was exhilerating! You should take off your helmets too :D Join us :D”

It’s creepy.

They take Harry and Paris back, and they IMMEDIATELY start suffocating. The doctor checks them out (not before being a dick to Neelix again) and finds some weird silver goo in their blood, which he determines bioformmed them. Like terraformation. They can only breath the atmosphere here, so either they fix it, or they leave them behind. Janeway and Torres determine it has “Memetic” properties, and can mimic things it touches. But as they go out and explore more… they find Harry and Paris’ corpses. Well, not corpses, they are BARELY alive, even though they’ve had no oxygen for ages. The Non-Dead Kim freaks out about this, and runs off declaring that he “belongs here”, as the others teleport back.

Janeway is weirdly aggressive, as the ship is being held down by this silver goop. She has a beam thing that can hurt it, and help them escape, and Fake Kim BEGS her to stop. She’s still aggressive, and like “okay I will blow you all away if you don’t let us go”. Kim literally says “WE DESERVE LIFE”. We’ve had arguments about this in episodes before, but we’ve not really had a Starfleet Captain willing to throw away sentient life like this.

So, to explain, this goop, it’s called “The Silver Blood” by Janeway. It gained sentience by finding Kim and Harry. And it doesn’t want to be alone, so it wants to use the rest to make it a family. Janeway lets people give it their DNA so it can literally create a second race of changelings to take over the Delta Quadrant, and then blast off with more Deuterium than they could ever want. This episode was alright.