5.17 the disease

The Varros and Voyager have formed an uneasy alliance. The suspicious Varros have allowed the Voyager crew to effect repairs on their ship. In exchange, Janeway hopes to gain an ally and perhaps trade some technology. But all Harry Kim wants is some sexy alien booty, despite the fact that he is violating a 3 centimeter thick book of alien interaction protocol. He’s discreet, but his body isn’t; it becomes luminescent after having a sexual encounter with ‘Tal’. Seven notices; the doctor is obliged to tell the captain. The captain feels obliged to formally reprimand Kim. But Harry is in love with Tal, and once again he sees her and is caught. His impassioned speech to Janeway about love, and the inclement destruction of the Varros ship, is enough to distract her. Apparently, the huge Varros generational ship does not consist of one big happy Partridge Family; some of the race would like to dismantle the ship and head out on their own. Voyager helps them to avert casualties as the ship is dismantled and little sections head out where they want. Harry says goodbye to Tal and decides to deal with the downside of lovesickness without chemical help, prompting both Janeway and Seven to hold him in awe.

Nit#1: It’s interesting how hard Janeway comes down on Kim for an inter-species relationship, considering that just a few episodes ago she was performing a tonsillectomy with her tongue on the Devoran inspector.

Nit#2: How dare Janeway say she treats all crewmembers alike (this is in response to the always on-target Chakotay’s questioning of Janeway’s choice to put an official reprimand on Kim’s record). If I recall, back in an episode called ‘Hunters’, Janeway didn’t even ask Seven to spend a day in the brig, even though she beamed a member of species 8472 to certain death aboard an Hirogen ship!

5.16 dark frontier (part 2)

The Borg have set this elaborate trap to get Seven back. They do not want her as a drone; they want her to keep her individuality and use it as a weapon in their master plan to assimilate earth by using Borg nanoprobes. But Seven is resistant, and even begins to exert influence over the Borg queen, who personally spends most of her day trying to woo Seven back into the collective. Her attempts are not really working, especially when she tries to impress Seven by showing her that her parents are still alive and part of the collective – one of the drones comes forward and is clearly her father, Magnus.

Meanwhile, the Delta Flyer has been equipped with trans-warp drive and special shielding to mask their warp signature, and, with Paris, Janeway, Tuvok and Torres, they have successfully tracked and found the Borg sphere, which is now part of a vast interconnected city consisting of billions of Borg drones. Janeway is able to send a quick message to Seven, telling her that they are coming and for Seven to hold on. This clues the Borg queen in on the existence, if not the exact location, of the Delta Flyer. Janeway beams in, giving Paris instructions to destroy the commandcenter, including Seven, the Queen and herself. The Queen tries to find the ship and block transport, but Seven figures out a way to disable her. At transwarp speed, the Flyer outruns the Borg sphere, emerges from the conduit, and blasts the conduit exit, destroy the sphere as it hurtles through.

Nit#1: Lucky that Seven father as a drone was never given any facial implants that hid his human face, otherwise it might have been difficult for her/us to tell it was her father.

Nit#2: Not long after the "Seven’s father" scene, the queen sends the Borg scurrying around the ship. A Borg drone emerges from the side and walks toward the camera. Watch his face and mouth. It is set in a very uncharacteristic snarl (normally the drones are blank – they do not show any expressions of hatred). This Borg seems to be saying, "I’m gonna go kick myself some imperfect species butt now! You want a piece of me?" This expression fades as he continues to walk down the hallway, so that as he leaves the shot he has returned to a normal Borg expression.

5.15 dark frontier (part 1)

A damaged Borg sphere provides Janeway with the opportunity to steal a transwarp coil and cut about 20 years off their return journey. Tired of being attacked by the Borg, Janeway wants to be on the aggressive, so a careful away mission is planned, featuring lots of moody holodeck Borg sphere recreations. It also involves Seven being assigned to study the notes taken by her parents, who studied the Borg for three years at close range before being assimilated – and getting their little daughter Annika assimilated too.

Things get complicated when Seven, who is an almost necessary and valuable member of the away team, begins to show signs of stress. She has been receiving messages from the Borg via her cranial implant, warning her that if she does not rejoin the collective, the away mission will fail. As the away mission concludes successfully, she tells Janeway that she wishes to rejoin the collective. Janeway has no choice but to let her go or be assimilated herself.

5.14 bliss

It’s a dream come true – a wormhole that leads straight back to the Alpha Quadrant. What’s more, messages are coming through the wormhole from Starfleet and friends, and they are all 100% positive – ambassadors appointed, full pardons for Maquis, great jobs and promotions offered. And the crew, under some strange influence, believes it all, and will even try to stop those that are dubious (like Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman). The crew enters the ‘wormhole’, which is actually a huge, spaceship-eating organism that has been using telepathy and telemetry to fool everyone. Seven contacts another ship inside the beast, a lone warrior who has been battling it for 40 years, attempting to atone for the death of his family. With the rest of the crew sleeping, Seven, Naomi, ‘Captain Ahab’, and the doctor are able to find a way out. The crew awakens to find that they are still in the Alpha Quadrant; the alien Captain Ahab sets off in pursuit of the beast once more.

5.13 gravity

Tuvok and Paris are sucked into a one-way vortex and crash-land on an inhospitable planet. The shuttle is irreparably damaged; even worse, just after landing, Paris is accosted at phaser-point and various materials are stolen by a militant woman wearing a scarf over her face. But when Tuvok saves her from two attackers, they all become friends. With the universal translator down, it’s up to the doctor, who has the UT program written into his code, to initially translate. Together the four of them are able to find shelter and defend themselves from the violent tribes on the planet. Meanwhile, outside the anomaly, time is passing 75% slower. The away team has experienced over three months on the planet and believe that they have been stranded; on Voyager, only a day or two has passed. Janeway has a plan to use a beacon as a relay to beam the away team out, but her efforts are hassled by aliens who have lost a number of ships to the anomaly and now wish to close it permanently – and they will not delay their work. Back on the planet, the female (Nos) is attracted to Tuvok, and he will not return her affection, which is causing some friction. We flash back to a teen Tuvok, obsessed with a young woman; he is having his emotions purged by a Vulcan master. In the present, this same battle is still waging within Tuvok, and Paris tries to get him to loosen up, to no avail. It seems that the emotions of Vulcans are actually so powerful that they would destroy them if left unchecked – or so they believe, anyway.

Just in the nick of time, Voyager is able to beam the away team – and Nos - to safety. Voyager brings her back to her homeworld; in the transporter room, just before she leaves, Tuvok mind melds with her and reveals all.

5.12 bride of chaotica!

As Tom and Harry cavort on the holodeck in another ‘Captain Proton’ adventure (in the black and white style of a 1950s sci-fi movie), they see an unusual anomaly. They leave the holodeck to find that the ship is caught on a subspace ‘sandbar’ and is unable to move.  Meanwhile, on the holodeck, photonic (holographic) aliens have entered, believing that the holodeck is real. It is real for them, and Chaotica, the evil enemy of Captain Proton, is at war with them and has killed 50 of them. When Tom and Tuvok investigate, the aliens scan them and do not believe that they are real, having never met carbon-based life. It’s up to the (photonic) ship’s doctor, masquerading as the president of the earth, to ask the aliens to hold off attacking so that Captain Proton can save the day. But Proton needs someone to break into Chaotica’s Fortress of Doom – and the best choice goes to Chaotica’s love interest, the evil Queen Arachnia. Paris calls on Janeway, who accepts with the classic line, "I’m a size 4." Although initially appalled by the specifications of her costume and her need to be a love interest to Chaotica (including using a vial of her pheromones as a distraction), she takes on the role with gusto, overacting and pulling faces with the best of them. Eventually, she is able to overpower Chaotica on her own; the aliens leave the holodeck, and Voyager can resume its journey.

A very fun and funny episode, framed around a serious problem affecting the ship.

5.11 latent image

The doctor is taking holo-images of the crew as part of routine physical examinations. Cool effect, as Harry Kim’s body is revealed from the skeleton out. But the image also reveals that the doctor performed surgery on Harry – a surgery that neither of them remembers. With help from Seven, the doctor finds five holo-images that he snapped. They include a female ensign of which he has no memory. But further investigation fails when these images are wiped away. The doctor tells Janeway; she suggests that he deactivate himself, to protect himself from whomever may be tampering with his program. But before going, the doctor rigs up a little trap – and reveals that it is Janeway herself who is deleting his files. The reason? 18 months earlier, after a vicious attack by an alien, the doctor had to make a choice between saving Harry Kim and saving Ensign Jetrel. He only had time to save one. He chose to save Kim; and the decision caused him to completely lose his ability to work. Faced with what she considered to be a ‘malfunctioning program’, Janeway chose to erase all of his memories of the incident, rather than let him try to deal with it. She still stands by that decision, until Seven convinces her that she has no right to treat the doctor like a program when, like herself, who has outgrown her Borg origins, is so much more. Janeway reconsiders, and shares the memories with the doctor – who promptly goes back into the loop of self-deprecation. But this time, Janeway vows to help him work through it, if possible, and by the end of the episode, we can see the signs that he is beginning to recover.

Nit#1: Since the only physical proof of the attack were Kim’s scars, wouldn’t it have been better for Janeway, while she was erasing the doctor’s memories, to implant the memory that he had performed the operation for some other valid reason? After all, this is a program we are dealing with here.

Nit#2: I know you are getting tired of this one, but couldn’t Seven of Nine have brought Ensign Jetrel back to life using Borg nanoprobes, the way she did for Neelix in ‘mortal coil’?