LizstarTrek - Voyager Season 7 episodes 19 - 22

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!

Q2 - VOY 7/10

Q is back! And he brought his son! Remember Q? Q is Q’s son. We saw Q and Q have raw unsafe sex on screen, not a joke, and then Q was made. Janeway is Q’s godmother. Everything about those sentences is 100% accurate. This kid actually bears a striking resemblance to John De Lancie. There’s a good reason for that, cause he’s his son and everything. Q leaves Q, who I’ll just call Q2 now, on Voyager, aaaand he’s very annoying.

He makes a dance rave in the engine room. He tries to embarass Seven by vorping away her clothes. She doesn’t give a shit, so he gets bored of her and leaves. Seven is the ONLY person immune to Q. They need someone to rein him in. Enter Neelix, the person on the ship who’s best with kids. It doesn’t go well. He loses his vocal cords.

Eventually it hits a head when he wants to see what humanity is like under pressure, and sends some Borg over who almost kill everyone before Q fixes it. Q goes to Janeway for advice, and basically, in the end, Q has to shape up in seven days, or he’ll be turned into an amoeba for all eternity, and he’s turned into a human for those seven days.

It starts well enough. They kind of set him up to fail, but he can actually do things well when he wants to. The problem is, he doesn’t want to, and he starts to use Icheb and other people’s kindness to make him do thing for him. But Janeway is smart enough to know immediately what happened, and gives him ONE more chance, but it’s no longer hands off. They are now rough on him, but it works out very well. He actually becomes a pretty good person after a few days. But turns out that’s not good enough. He’s becoming a good Human. Q doesn’t want a Human. He wants a Q, whatever that is, because our “miniscule minds” can’t understand it.

Janeway offers for him to just stay a Human instead, but he doesn’t want that either. He wants to be a Q, like his father. Aww.

Q2 decides to just hide so he’s not turned into an Amoeba. Weird flex, cause you’d still stay a Human that way, but alright. He basically kidnaps poor Icheb, his only real friend here. Icheb is NOT happy. They also immediately get fired upon and almost killed. Icheb gets horribly injured this way. And Q refuses to heal him, because that’s just another lesson. Welp. Poor Icheb.

Q2 steps up and goes back to the people who fought him, accepts full responsibility, aaaaand it was all a test by Q. This actually makes sense, the one time we saw Q test Q, it was when Q was made a Human and the test was passed when he offered to die for someone else. Buuuut it’s not enough. We see Q in those stupid fucking outfits again, yaaaaay, but then they give him a LESSER sentence of staying a Human. But once Q says he’ll quit being a Q if they do this, they decide not to. Apparently. Q says so, at least. If you MUST know, there were a few minor concessions.

As payment for helping them, Q gives them a few year boost on their journey. Now it’s only… 50 more years. Yay!

It was fine, I liked it. Q2 was fun, well acted. Felt his turn around was a little too sudden. He goes from lazy to hard worky to bored in between single hard cuts.

Author, Author - VOY 9/10

We start with the Doctor in a swanky suit, looking like Atrus about to write me a book to Riven, and we hear that book, then we get the Doctor walking around behind himself, saving the edits to his new book. Ooh.

Meanwhile, Reg, Seven, and Steven develop a new setup that will allow for 11 minutes of live video communication every single day. They have a face time, and they also show a live feed of Earth, that’s cute. So now there’s a line forming, set up by slots, on who gets to talk first. The Doctor gets first dibs, and uses it to talk to a publisher about a new holonovel he’s writing. It’s… sophisticated art. Paris decides to experience it, cause he’s the person on the crew most interested in holo novels. It’s a little long winded. And then we get the first chapter and we see some of the characters.

BAJORAN CHOKIE. BAJOKIE. Look at his fucking face tattoo holy shit. The Bajoran symbol with a Cardassian snake on the pike. Christ.

Anyways the characters are huge assholes. Very accurate. Bajokie demands the doctor heal a certain character first. When Paris refuses, Fake Janeway comes and shoots the injured crewmen instead and goes “now no one is in line.” He tells the others about it, who find it mostly funny and laughable, but decide to check it out too. It’s kind of an interesting reprise of the episode where there was a holo novel about a revolt.

Sexy Tuvok with a goatee appears on screen. “Say the words, Liz”.

The Paris Clone makes the doctor leave so he can fuck a crewmate in the medbay. Human Torres Clone is like YOU ARE A TOOL, NOTHING MORE. The holo emitter is 50 kilos. Someone should ask the Doctor if he’s okay. This is Republican level “I’m a victim”. There’s also a sub plot with Seven of Nine’s clone trying to help him escape, but it fails. And the main point of the holonovel is stated, outright: He has no rights.

Janeway is NOT pleased, but the Doctor makes it clear, it’s not about them at all. It’s about the Alpha Quadrant. His fellow holograms like him are scrubbing garbage scows. And he thinks that this will bring their plight to public attention. Understandable. But he doesn’t care if he hurts his friends feelings to do that.

The Doctor goes to make a few edits to his novel and finds that it’s been edited, and cannot be turned off. It’s now about a sleezy Doctor. That fucking hair. The doctor is OFFENDED, but hey. It’s not about the Doctor! He just kinda looks like it. When he gets pissy as Paris, it hits REALLY hard. Paris handles it amazingly. “I thought I was starting to make you view me in a better light. I’m just worried that I haven’t been. Here’s your holo novel back.”

Neelix liked the Doctor’s novel, that’s cute. The Doctor wants to rewrite it though, and Neelix offers his call. What… what was Neelix going to use that call for? was he just gonna call a random fucking person on Earth?

There’s also a subplot about connecting and reconnecting with family. Seven is observing the others as they do their talks. Torres reconnects with her father after decades.

Weeeeelp, the Doctor asks them to hold back on publishing the holonovel, but they do it anyway. Why? Cause it’s good for them, and the Doctor has no rights in Starfleet, cause he’s a hologram. Whop whop whop. The point of the holonovel was pretty accurate and true after all. Tuvok now has to do Picard’s job and give the Doctor rights, 11 minutes of a time. It doesn’t go well, cause lol who cares about hologram’s legal rights. Dude I thought we solved this 20 seasons ago, back in TNG.

But the Doctor has one thing up his sleeve. Friends. People who care about him, and will help him gain his rights. Even with how the Doctor has treated the others and said in his novel, he’s still their friend, and they’re still going to help him.

As a finish to the subplot, Seven talks to her aunt, her only living relative. It’s cute.

The judge eventually says “I’m not going to say holograms are people because lol I dunno. But sure, he can legally recall his book”. Holo victory in a few ways. Especially since so many have already played it… but you know who’s playing it the most. All the holograms currently mining and cleaning up trash. We get an end shot of these holgrams slaving away.

This doesn’t feel quite Measure of a Man, but it was very good. I dunno if anything will COME of this, it feels like it should, but we’re kinda running low on season for it to get a conclusion. I mean, I don’t like the plot point. We’re a post scarcity socialist utopia, why are we CONSTANTLY obsessed with creating slave labor??? But its fine.

Friendship One - VOY 8/10

We get a cold open of a thing landing in a planet as people study and go “wtf is that”

Janeway is talking to an Admiral about the Voth. Too bad we’ll never see them again, they sound important. Anyways he tells her about a new job they have for her. “Friendship One” was a probe from 2066 that they sent out that kept giving out a message of peace and outreach. It should be nearby, so we need to go collect it. I dunno, last time we did that, Chakotay had a weird-ass meltdown.

Belanna wants to go on the away mission, Paris says no cause she’s pregnant. She agrees, but next baby they have, he has to carry it. He says deal. Man, too bad Voyager ended this season. We could have gotten an M-Preg episode! Now we have to wait till Enterprise. Anyways they land. It’s a poisonous frozen wasteland. While down there, they find example that people lived here long ago… Or now. They pull weapons on Paris, Neelix, and rando. Back on the delta flyer, Kim and Chakotay are attacked and Chakotay makes them just fucking leave, abandoning the away team. Alright then. They DO collect a guy who tried to sneak on board though.

This is Verin, their leader. He demands they help his people off the planet, in exchange for the hostages. The guy they collected explains that they used the info from the probe to make antimatter… and it blew the fuck up, irradiating the entire planet. They believe it was intentional, some evil act for some fucking reason. Obviously not, and they want to do what they can to help, but it’s hard when you’re not trusted.

So it’s time to make some trust. Janeway listens to the person they have, a scientist, asking his advice and thoughts. Paris tries to befriend a little girl. Neelix tries to connect to them by explaining the Metron Cascade. It doesn’t always work. The adults make the girl stay away, and they get a little offended by Neelix trying to connect him.

They offer to send food and medicine in exchange for one of the hostages. They send Joe Carey, a guy who’s been around for a VERY long time. He was the guy in season 1 who was going to be head engineer and butted heads with Torres. And now he’s dead. He’s sent with a hole shot in his heart, as a sign of “no, we will not compromise at all”. Fucking cold.

Paris delivers a baby, and Tuvok and the Doctor comes and saves the hostages, doing a trick and a Uhura maneuver. A bit of a false flag operation, nbd. They send the baby up with them for treatment. Janeway is ready to send the baby back after treatment with food and medicine and leave. Neelix and Paris, the two hostages, refuse to leave. Cause what the fuck, we NEED to help these people. Yes they killed Carey, and they said they don’t really want our help, but we need to do our best to help them, anyway.The scientist they got originally helps them, and most of them are willing to hope… not the dude who murdered Joe, but fuck that guy I guess.

Well, fuck that guy doubly. He decides to send a fucking nuke at them. But everyone turns on him. Good.

Everything worked out. At a high price. Yes, Joe Carey was only a minor character in a few episode, but he was here for seven fucking seasons. He was building a Voyager in a bottle ): Anyways, good episode. As a note, the rest of my group watching this with me did not like this episode very much.

Natural Law - VOY 3/10

On a way to a conference, Chokie and Seven (God don’t put these two together) are observing nature when they hit a weird barrier and crash land on the planet instead. Whoopsies!

At the same time, Paris is flying in the Delta Flyer and gets a message that he broke a law. He was going too fast and he penalty is a 3 day safety flying course. Here’s Memory Alpha’s description of the episode:

“En route to a scientific conference on Ledos, Chakotay and Seven’s shuttle is driven out of control by a force field layer over a wilderness area. Meanwhile, Paris gets a speeding ticket in the Delta Flyer, and is sentenced to a three-day safety course.”

What an incredible use of meanwhile. That’s a fucking TNG Season 8 description if ever I’ve seen one.

They find some native people on this technologically advanced planet. Chakotay’s injured himself and has to stay near them even though he’s like “we can NOT interract with these people”. He’s found cause he’s sitting RIGHT fucking next to them, and then when they treat his wounds, he’s like “Welp guess we’ll just break the prime directive, whatever”. Fucking Chokie. They don’t communicate, and were kinda spooked by the com badge, so they broke it.

Oh I’m sorry, this isn’t a picture from this episode. But it really worries me that it’s hard to tell a difference. I never say this, but can we focus on the B plot? This is just a bunch of Native American stereotypes. It’s… extremely painful. I thought we were past this, y’all. I mean obviously we were not, you hired a KNOWN FRAUD as your Native American instructor, but I thought we were beyond… waves hand wildly THIS. And Chakotay is throwing himself into it. He’s learning their hand signal language, says goodbye like them. Like, yes, I’d prolly try to do a similar thing if I was in this situation? I guess I don’t begrudge him that, but I would have done everything I could to not contaminate this culture because that’s MY JOB AS STARFLEET. I’d put in more effort is what I’m saying.

And Seven is struggling alone now, trying to get stuff from the crash. She don’t want to communicate or help the native cause that’s their fucking job, and is suffering cause of it. She’s the bad guy in this :)

This episode can bite me. This girl who took an interest in her helps guide her, but she guides her to… enjoy some scenery. See, Seven, you were trying to escape the crash landing too much, you should have stopped and smelled the roses while hanging with the pre-bronze age civilization that’s going to make you a God.

We learn what’s the deal with the area. The civilized aliens here are the Ledosians. The people inside as the Ventu, basically a pre-evolved version of them. Centuries ago the Ledosians were fighting the Ventu for land, and polluting their spaces, so an alien species saw this and built the barrier. But as a result, the Ledosians, even centuries later when they’ve gotten better and wouldn’t hurt the Ventu, have no way of lowering the barrier.

Luckily, Seven and Chakotay lower the barrier from the inside out. But it ends up hurting one of the Ventu. Seven stays behind to help her, the girl who was so curious about her. The girl gives her a blanket as a gift, which is sweet I guess. I much prefer this, and kind of would have liked a “Seven meets a pre-vocal civilization and befriends a girl there” episode, but I dunno. Anyways all’s well that ends- oh whoops, the Ledosians are now moving in, and are like “Now that the barrier’s down, it’s time to colonize :D We can educate them and get so much more land~” Ohhhh no.

They try to teleport back their thing keeping the barrier down. They fire on Voyager instead to lower their teleporters. While Paris is doing his test, he gets orders and violates every single law of space flight they have to get the teleporters back. It’s KIND of fun!

The Ventu had a profound impact on Seven. She’s sad about what might happen to the Ventu if the Ledosians ever find a way to lower the barrier using her technology. Maybe she shouldn’t have developed it. He goes “Well, if you hadn’t, we’d still be there, and I’m glad to be here”. Yes Chakotay, we know you don’t care about those aliens’ well being or their culture.

Compare this to the TNG episode where Picard’s people interrupts a pre-warp civilization, and they form a religion about TNG, and how that’s handled, and you’ll agree with me that this episode is bad, especially in comparison. The Paris stuff was funny.