3.9 future’s end (part 2)

Needing help, Tuvok and Paris ask the young woman scientist to aid them; they are able to get a signal to the ship. The doctor, meanwhile, has refused to give info to Starling (great line: "If you need medical attention, I would refer you to a more local physician"), so Starling, at the touch of a key, inflicts pain on the doctor – the first time he has felt pain. Chakotay and Torres take a shuttle, masked so that earth radar will not discover it, and beam Starling to the ship. But Starling’s associate finds a way to beam him back out. Paris and the woman pursue a dead end re: the timeship, allowing Starling to launch. But Janeway manually programs a photon torpedo and blasts him just as he is about to enter the temporal rift and destroy the 29^th century. Out of the rift comes the timeship, again commanded by Captain Braxton, but this time, he is only there to escort Voyager back to their proper time, and, unfortunately, place, despite Janeway’s request to be moved to the alpha quadrant.

If the doctor is a program that was downloaded onto Starling’s computer, why does Starling torture the doctor for information? Why doesn’t he just read the information from the program?

The doctor states that he isn’t afraid of being tortured, because he can’t feel pain. Yet, a few episodes earlier (‘Tattoo’), the doctor infected himself with the flu. There is quite a lot of pain associated with having the flu, so why is he so surprised that Starling can inflict pain now?

I love the idea of the juxtaposition of Star Trek characters from the future placed in the present. The idea, when executed properly, fills me with glee. Of course, nothing can quite match the way it was handled in Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home. I couldn’t help but harken back to Kirk yelling, "Well, double damn on you" to an irate driver, or Spock’s attempt to curse. This, too, is a gleeful and fun episode. It’s great to have someone from the present (in this case, the young woman who is really ‘us’, the audience) commenting on Trek. And she’s a good actress, too, very natural.

And now the nits: (1) I am not impressed with how little technology has developed between the 24^th and 29^th century. There must have been a real slow-down in progress. The weapon that is used against the Voyager crew seems just about the same as a 24^th century phaser. Wouldn’t there be some kind of heat-seeking or DNA-seeking weapon by then? You know, get a reading on Tuvok, program it on, and the weapon beam goes around corners, etc. But although there is a reference made to Starling having home field advantage by having all that technology, he doesn’t seem to get much use out of it. (2) I don’t even know if it’s worth bringing this up, but I’ve got to question Voyager’s understanding of polluting/endangering the time line. For example, Paris and Tuvok take a truck for a test drive and don’t bring it back. Tuvok suggests that it would have been better to take a cab, but Paris says that borrowing one truck won’t mess up the time line. Well, how does he know? Example: the salesperson who let them take the truck for a test drive loses his/her job because the truck isn’t brought back. Disgruntled, s/he buys an ouzi and guns down a few people. One of the people was going to grow up to discover warp technology. Poof – Voyager and its crew disappears. But let’s take it even further. Tuvok suggests that it would have been safer to take a taxi. Why is this safer? Example: the taxi driver sees them waiting and picks them up. They are not supposed to be in the time period. If they had not been here, he would have picked up someone waiting one block further on. The person waiting further on is not picked up, and is gunned down in a random shooting. Who was that person? The person who was going to discover warp technology! Poof again. And don’t think it has to be so dramatic – I’m just trying to save time in explaining. But basically my point is: as soon as you are in the wrong time period, you are changing and polluting the timeline dramatically, even if you are just standing on the street corner staring into space.