Friday, May 9, 2008

3.24 displaced

As Paris and Torres engage in another series of foreplay cloaked as an argument, a bewildered alien materializes in the hallway next to them, believing he has been abducted. Soon, it is revealed that Kes disappeared at the same moment. Soon, another alien appears, and another crewmember disappears. The aliens appear to offer no threat, but Janeway soon calculates that one crewmember is being replaced every nine minutes – in 18 hours the entire ship will be taken over by Narians. Soon, only Chakotay is left, and, when Torres is ‘moved to the top of the list’ by a Narian scientist, she rematerializes in a biosphere with the rest of the missing crew, treated and well fed, but nonetheless in prison while the Narians use the ship for their own purposes. While Chakotay continues to sabotage the ship, Janeway, Paris, Tuvok and Torres use the doctor to find a hidden portal and enter the command center. There they find that there are over 90 bio-spheres, with 1000 prisoners from different races. Cleverly, they use the same displacement device to transfer the Narian leader from Voyager to a frozen biosphere, where, since the Narians cannot tolerate cold, he agrees to Janeway’s terms of surrender. Another clever twist in a story that starts so innocently.

Nit: Torres and Paris are in the frozen biosphere, and the only weapon they have is a dinky little phaser ‘improvised’ by Tuvok from spare parts. Torres states that there is only enough power for one more phaser shot. She boosts the power cell output. One Narian stumbles by and is overcome by the low temps and falls down, disabled. Another walks nearby and Torres shoots him, just in time, with perhaps their last phaser burst. Both Narians are carrying flash phaser rifles. Why do Torres and Paris leave without taking either or both of these rifles?

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