5.25 warhead

Harry Kim has been performing well, taking the captain’s chair during the ‘night’ shift. A distress call from an M-class planet causes him to change course. Chakotay asks him to head the away mission; he and the doctor (and an anonymous crew member whom I thought for sure was going to die but didn’t) find a ‘device’ embedded in the rock that believes it possesses human form. The doctor is able to communicate with it; he also feels an empathy toward its artificial intelligence, and convinces Kim to beam it back to help it. Further studies reveal that the device, although unaware, is a weapon of mass destruction. As B’Elanna and Harry work to disable it, its defenses activate, and it takes over the doctor’s body with its intellect – and threatens to blow up Voyager if they do not deliver it to its designated target. Harry and B’Elanna are trapped in sick bay with it, and Kim is upset that it was his command decision to take the thing on board. He begins talking to it, attempting to convince it that it now has sentience, that it can do what it wants, and that it doesn’t have to destroy its target. After repairing some of its damaged internal files, they discover that the war has ended and the weapon was sent an encoded message to break off the attack. Still it does not want to deviate from its mission. But Kim is able to break it down, and when another 30 warheads detect it and show up, wanting it to join them and hit their former targets, it goes – but only with the plan to detonate and destroy them as the only way out.

This is a great episode for Harry Kim. He shows command potential, and his impassioned arguments and pleas to the warhead are excellent.

Nit#1: What is this with ‘night’ duty? Why do I get the feeling that some people are forgetting that there is no night in space, which things don’t slow down at night. Or maybe the ‘night’ shift is just the euphemistic name for the ‘off’ shift when most of the crew (and especially Chakotay and Janeway) are not on duty.

Nit#2: When Kim is first on the bridge, the navigator reports a distress call. Kim walks over and leans over her (invading the pretty blonde’s personal space, but I guess that’s a captain’s prerogative) as she reports the source of the distress call. It is a long distance away, requiring a major course change, which Kim gives the order to make. The scene shifts to an external view of Voyager approaching a planet, the source of the distress call. Since this required a major course deviation, I assume this little side-trip took at least a couple of hours. However, when we return to the bridge, Kim is still leaning over the ensign’s shoulder, at the exact same place he was in the previous bridge scene! He really likes her!