LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 6 episodes 21 - 26

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!

Collective - VOY 9/10

Some miners are excited to meet Voyager and make a deal with them. Apparently Voyager needs some Dolomite to save sick kids, so they’ll trade some dilithium for it. The away team beams down and uh, uh oh. That don’t look like Tuvok.

So yeah, some people are impersonating Voyager. They steal the Dolomite and get the fuck out. Meanwhile, ACTUAL Voyager is dealing with some nonsense. Janeway tries to shower and her shower screams at her and breaks the mirror. Imagine how horrifying that’d be. They find the problem, and it’s a thing given to them by some monks who were raising money for sick orphans. Ahh, I see.

We find out that Neelix and Tom got cheated by this group. The girl of the group was VERY excited to hear a WOMAN was in charge of the Voyager. Also there’s a B plot about how Tom and Neelix are grumpy that they got marked. Can you imagine a B plot that’s fun, AND fits the actual episode and builds from the A plot?

After Voyager gets yelled at by some angry miners, it’s time for a hunt. They find them being attacked by another mark, who then turns on them thinking they’re the Voyager protecting the Delta Flyer. The “Delta Flyer” gets away, but they get “Captain Janeway”.

We get some fun shit with Janeway trying to con this conwoman. She makes Tuvok lie. Tuvok is not good at lying. Neelix goes to the conwoman, Dala, and tries to be nice at her. He gets his ass kicked and she escapes with his gun. Neelix, why did you bring a gun in??? OH it’s cause they were intentionally letting her escape so she’d lead them to them.

The episode from this point off is like the old ball and cup game that Neelix and Tom are playing. Lots of deception and hand offs. Turns out Tom snuck aboard the delta flier that Dala stole. They then do a teleporter switcheroo and replace her with the Doctor, who “betrays” them as Dala.

Also one of the impersonators has been REALLY getting into the character of Tuvok. When he meets Tuvok he’s so excited and is like “logic dictates neither of us have the advantage in this fight” and Tuvok goes “Your logic is flawed” and beats his ass, it’s good.

This episode is goofy and fun.

Muse - VOY 7.5/10

On a primitive, Ancient Greek-like planet, a play is put on about some a Voyager story, where Torres crashes onto their shores after sending Kim out an escape pod. The patron of the play loved it, and is excited to hear more stories about this Torres. The Poet, Kelis, is apprehensive, but can’t resist his patron. He then goes off to his muse… who happened to be a captured Belanna Torres in a crashed Delta Flyer not far from there.

Torres comes to, and is like “wtf is going on also why did you cut me up” “Oh I was releasing the heat from your body, that’s how you treat fever :D” “Oh god.” While she was out, he listened to her audio logs and wrote about it. He believes she’s an “Eternal”, a god basically. But she’s a new Eternal they’ve never heard of, from a new clan. It’s got some Steven King Misery energy. Torres agrees that if he lets her go, she’ll give him some more stories. She kinda leans into the “I’m a god” thing by saying they have rules, and then almost shoots him to get him to leave. But when things aren’t going so well, she can’t fix her ship, and is hungry, so he feeds her in exchange for stories.

They make a new deal. Some dilithium, which is only on his patron’s lands, or no more stories about Voyager. Don’t get caught :). Their partnership is VERY strenuous. He’s not unfriendly, but Torres is Torres.

LOL this dude trying to teach his actors how to play his parts, and getting REAL into the specifics. No no NO, a Borg wouldn’t act like that!! No no no, LOGICAL Klingons do not CRY!!

His Patron is going to war soon, which will cause famine and kill a lot of people. But Kelis has a plan… a SHOCKINGLY progressive one. Her magic cannot stop a war or change minds, sure, how you know what can? Culture. Writing. Words. We can write a play to try and convince the world of peace. He convinces her to come and help him directly. But no one but the players can know she’s an Eternal, or the patron might try and capture her to get her to help him declare war.

It doesn’t go well at first. The most he can think to do to bring passion to the play is make everyone kiss. Torres and him talk it through, and he decides a good idea is to instead have an enemy, the Borg, and the Borg Queen. . Captain Janeway goes on a mission of vengeance, but finds instead the desire to bring peace. That’s a good ending!

There’s also a thing with the poet’s lover being jealous. She claims if Torres shows up she’ll expose her as an Eternal. Ah, the woms be cray cray. And Harry Kim finding Torres. He explains that he landed 100km away and walked. Holy SHIT, Harry. With Harry’s help they contact Voyager. They’re gonna be alright! But what about the play? :o Torres finds she’s REALLY gotten into this play. So she teleports in to save the play.

The lead actress, in a fit of jealousy does in fact cry out that Torres is really an Eternal, but he’s like “Oooh it’s part of the show :D”.

Nice cute scene with her in the end as she beams away, saying that they don’t need her, as long as they do what’s right. It’s a cute episode in all!

Fury - VOY 5/10

Janeway is grumpy that Tuvok has been hiding something from her… Oh, it’s his birthday! Aww. He blows out the candle, but only cause it’s a fire hazard. Anyways then Kes shows up, demands to be let on board, beams on board just before ramming her ship into Voyager, and walks down the hall as it explodes like its a fucking action movie. Huh.

She’s causing bulkhead explosions and harming people as she walks down the halls, using magic mind powers to do it. So many people are PROBABLY dead. Torres at the very least is dead, but probably so many more. Kes touches the warp core then vorps out of our reality and into the past.

Back in the past, she’s sneaking around the ship, morphing herself into a young version of herself. She captures her younger self in the hydroponics bay, which I don’t actually think we’ve seen since Kes left Voyager a few seasons ago.

It’s fun to see a Voyager that’s pretending to be season 1. Janeway has her bun. Doctor can’t just wander everywhere. Kes and Neelix are dating. We even see Naomi’s mom!! I wanted to find ANYTHING they fucked up, but the only thing I could find is that they were still using that weird dead lipstick that they’ve been using for Janeway this entire season.

Back in the past, they’re trying to avoid some Vidiians, which Kes is taking some real interest in. Also Tuvok is getting confused. He’s talking about the Delta Flyer, staring at Kes like “I sense a disturbance in the Logic”, and sees Naomi Wildman in the elevator. He then wanders into a Borg infested cargo bay. Weird. He goes to explain it to the Captain, explaining what happened. Which sets in to motion that they know something is up.

She scans Tuvok to see what’s up as he has a seizure, and they realize it’s Tachyons. Those mother fuckers again!! Just as the Vidiians show up and attack on Kes’ suggestion and orders. Ey, the first continuity error, they’re using the wrong phaser rifles! Janeway confronts Kes who’s like “I was corrupted by your ideas, a CHILD! You took me from my home! I BELIEVED YOU!” Okay Kes, whatever. Janeway ends up having to murder Kes, and they manage to hold off the Vidiians. Everything is alright. For now. She needs to stop this from happening again. Time to cause a temporal paradox!! Or y’know, multiverse theory shenanigans.

In the future, everything happens as usual. JAneway had ALMOST forgotten, but once Kes shows back up, she evacuates Deck 11 and puts on shields, avoids her from blowing up most of the ship. Most of the damage is reduced, but not entirely. At least there’s no deaths.

Kes’s hologram shows up and talks to older Kes, begging her to not do this. Trying to get her to remember who she was. She eventually seems to come to a weird understanding, she had kinda forgotten somehow?? She comes to her senses and is no longer violent, and decides to go home. Back 30,000 light years I guess. It’ll only take her six fucking years.

I feel this episode didn’t explain or show the reason why Kes would suddenly be evil. Ocampan Dementia??? I dunno. IT’s not explained well at all, and so it kinda falls flat. The novels apparently make this even worse, cause Kes merges with another Ocampan who’s pregnant with a caretaker and makes an evil Kes clone, it sounds stupid as fuck.

Life Line - VOY 7.5/10

More than just an infuriating but weirdly fun PS2 game, it’s another episode about the Alpha Quadrant! Barclay has gotten in contact with Voyager and the Pathfinder project is going amazingly. What ISN’T going well is his mentor’s health. Dr. Zimmerman, the man who invented the EMH, is sick and dying and no one knows why. Last time we saw this guy he was a horrible dickhead to Bashir.

Back on Voyager, they get good news. The Pathfinder Project has found a way to send information! A datastream. It uses a quaser, but only works once a month. They can send info back up to 16 hours later. Letters from home. Sounds nice. Everyone gets letters, including the Doctor! It’s from Barclay, who wanted to let him know that Zimmerman has only a few months to live. They never “met” really, but the Doctor views him as a kind of doctor, and thinks he can cure him using some Vidiian and Borg technology! He asks to be sent in the datastream, which no one is SUPER happy about, but they allow him to cause he’s VERY adamant about this. It doesn’t go well.

Zimmerman is, as usual, the absolute worst. He looks down on the doctor cause he’s a lowly mark 1. He intentionally sabatoges the doctor’s attempts to scan him. He’s just a general nuisance. The Doctor can’t leave for another month, so he just has to put up with it. Also, the actor is AMAZING with this, Zimmer man has such a different way of talking as Zimmerman, it stands out. Reg wants to help, so he also calls the only person who MIGHT be able to help. Troi is here! She wants to try and counsel Zimmerman. Good luck, girl.

Obviously it doesn’t go well. Zimmerman is very bad at dealing with people, and frankly so is the doctor. But EVENTUALLY they get through to him because Zimmerman is only good with one thing, and thats holograms. He has two friends. One is Reg, and the other is his assistant, who is a hologram. Older than the mark 1, even. And when the Doctor’s program is in danger, he DOES step up to fix him. THough he also tries to “make him better”, which the doctor does NOT want.

Eventually they come to an understanding. Zimmerman is pissed at the EMH and hates it, because it was his biggest failure. And it’s a failure BECAUSE of him. He made it just like him, and no one fucking likes him. They’re all literally scrubbing barges now, all with his face.

Also it turns out Reg set up a thing to cause the degredation in the Doctor’s program and almost destroy him. All to try and push for this to happen. And it worked! Zimmerman FINALLY allows the doctor to work on him, and it works out. Cute episode. I hope the Doctor doesn’t return to find that everyone is dead cause of Tom being the surgeon on call.

The Haunting of Deck Twelve - VOY 8.5/10

Something is happening, and they need to turn off the power as they move through a nebula. All of the power is shut off and they float through. As it turns off, the kids wake up from their regeneration, and Neelix is there as their chaperone! He has stories and games! But they’re interested in one thing in particular. Naomi has told them there’s a GHOST on their deck… so Neelix has them gather around, and tells them a ghost story. It’s time for an episode of ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE TREK!

Several months ago, before the kids had come aboard, they were in a nebula, sucking up Deuterium from it, when they were ZAPPED by something! Something had boarded Voyager… ooooh, ghosties! Things start malfunctioning. Anything they try to figure out why it’s happening isn’t working. Chakotay almost dies as the elevator breaks. Seven is trapped by force fields and poisoned by the creation of a micro nebula.

The kids are very into the story.

More problems happen. All of them seem to relate to the idea of re-creating the nebula they were in before. Also that Bajoran from the lower decks episode is here! I liked her, even if the episode was kinda meh. She’ll never appear again. Anyways all the banter on this is REALLY good. Voyager suffered in the early days from a Lack of Banter, which is SUCH a Trek thing. Good Trek Needs Banter. The episode is KINDA like that episode of TNG where everyone is split up into groups as the Enterprise is broken down. We’ve got Neelix and Tuvok, Tuvok trying to calm Neelix as he has panic attacks. Kim and the Bajoran trying to find others. And the Captain trying to communicate with this thing taking over her ship, which is communicating through the computer’s syntax. “Captain Janeway, please report” kinda stuff.

THey learn it joined by accident during the nebula destabelizing, and when they go to try and return it, they find it gone, fully. Its home is gone, so it decides to blow up Voyager. Everyone has to evacuate.

The creature won’t let Janeway go though, and almost kills her, but she convinces it to let them take back control of their ship. This was of course, just them delivering the lifeform. Unless of course, everything Neelix made up was fake. The powe rcomes back on, and Neelix packs up. Of course it WAS true, and he hopes it lives happily ever after as they leave the nebula behind.

Unimatrix Zero - VOY 6/10

We start with the Borg Queen harassing some drone and being overly evil mustache twirlingly villainy about dismantling him because he has a disease. I really, really dislike the Borg Queen. Always have. They needed a villain for people to latch onto but she makes NO sense for the Borg and she’s SO human-y in her evilness, like, she’s NOT Borg, at all. It’s annoying. She even uses contractions! What kind of a Borg uses contractions?!

Meanwhile, Seven is dreaming. She hates it. Of course she does.

Tom comes to work and everyone is grumpy with him. He finds a box on his chair, and what’s in it? Oh, why it’s a pip! He’s being promoted back up to Lieutenant! :D Good for you, Mr. Paris. I guess they got tired of writing around it. Also this happens.

Oh Harry, you know you’re never getting promoted.

Someone in Seven’s dream contacts her. He explains this isn’t a real dream, it’s a a shared dream amongst the borg, specifically ones with a genetic mutation. They’ve been here in the dream for years. They all know each other and interract each night. Seven did this every night for 16 years, and made lots of friends there, as she’s told. This seems like it was just written up now, and not quite fits in. Anyways they call it Unimatrix Zero, and some of the people there want Seven to help them break them out doing some technobabble and making the entirety of Borg join Unimatrix Zero.

Tuvok uses Vulcan Magic to link Janeway with Seven’s mind and send them both into Unimatrix Zero. At the same time, the Queen is being stupid and I hate her, and she’s like “It is time to PAY THEM A VISIT, MUAHAHAHA”

They invade the dream and assimilate them in the dream so they can find where exactly they are. Janeway fights them off with a fucking Batleth that she picks up from a fallen Klingon. When the Borg Queen sees her….

Apparently they’re rivals or something. I guess she DID ruin her plans for Locutus 2.0.

They develop a virus that will not only protect the dreamers from being found like that, while also making sure they wake up with memories. They need to do a dangerous thing to try and spread it through the Borg, but they gotta do it. They get a message, though. Kim does the whole “Captain, I think it’s for you” thing that makes this feel like a TNG movie more than a Trek episode.

She offers them transwarp if they fuck off. That’s honestly the funniest thing. “You’re such a god damn hassle, please leave”. Janeway refuses, she’d prolly be betrayed anyway tbf. They begin the operation, infiltrating a Borg Cube, with the Queen watching like “Ohhh I expected more from you” like she’s a fucking Batman villain watching Batman sneak around her hideout. The Borg also blow up the Delta Flyer. Rip Delta Flyer.

They’re all caught and injected with nanoprobes, assimilating them. “So far so good,” Chokie says, leaving, and we get a scene of Janeway and the others as drones

To be continued!

One more season, so only like five more weeks of Voyager. This was a GOOD season? Like, the best Voyager season by far. Some stinkers, but a LOT of good episodes. Very worth watching.