3.17 unity

Chakotay’s shuttle crash-lands on a war-zone planet inhabited by warring peoples. He is injured and rescued by a young woman who wants the help of the Federation to maintain their group, which is trying to create a peaceful society amid the chaos. She helps Chakotay gets well but also isolates him from the others. In the meantime, Voyager has encountered a Borg cube – completely disabled – with Borg ‘corpses’ inside. One of them is taken back to sick bay, where the doctor’s inadvertent probe causes the Borg to sit up and start flicking those little mechanical appendages, which temporarily scares the life out of Torres and Kes (and the doctor). While Janeway orders an away team to take the opportunity to study Borg technology as much as possible, Chakotay gets curious and stumbles upon the community exposed – they are former Borg, unlinked from the collective. With Chakotay near death and Voyager still nowhere in sight, this collective offers to link with Chakotay – it is only temporary – and use their combined will to help heal him. Reluctantly, he agrees, and it works. It also has a temporary residual effect – when the Borg woman touches her cheek, Chakotay feels it on his cheek, and there is an intimate interlude. Voyager eventually finds Chakotay, and the Borg woman asks Janeway to allow them to try to stop the fighting by turning the link back on at the ship, allowing the peaceful collective to link with the warring factions, but Janeway considers it too dangerous and refuses, offering medical and food supplies instead. But as Chakotay and Torres shuttle away from the planet, Chakotay begins to hear the voices of the peaceful collective again. They are under attack and are about to be killed, and they force him to phaser Torres and turn on the Borg transmitter. It works, and the new collective sends a thank you message to the bridge of Voyager. In the final scene, Janeway and Chakotay discuss the odds that this new collective can remain positive, or be corrupted by their power, which they have already shown they are willing to use to their own ends.

There is a nice scene between Chakotay and Kaplan at the start of the show; Kaplan is obviously nervous that, as a junior officer, she doesn’t know where in space they are. Chakotay very gently puts her at ease with his teasing humor. What a supervisor! I want to work for this guy in space. (Of course, Kaplan dies in the next scene, but that’s irrelevant).

Nit: Okay, did I miss something? The Borg bodies (which are partially organic) were preserved in the ‘vacuum of space’. But wouldn’t they start to decompose immediately as soon as the away team beamed over, sans suits, into an atmosphere? And what about the one in sick bay?

3.16 blood fever

Ensign Vorek (a Vulcan) suddenly asks Torres to be his mate. She is flattered but shocked and refuses, but he grabs her forcefully, and she has to fight him off. A subsequent examination reveals that he is suffering from the Pon Far, the time of mating, which occurs every 7 years. It is a time of complete passion and lack of logic, and the doctor cannot draw on any medical info, for Vulcans do not speak about it – it is considered a private affair and a personal challenge to control it, even though the chemical imbalances can cause death. There is a great scene in sick bay, where the doctor tells Tuvok that, for a logical race, Vulcans are puritanical when it comes to sex. The doctor confines Vorek to his quarters.

Torres leads an away team of Paris and Neelix to get the mineral galacite, and, when Neelix falls and almost hurts her when abseiling, she gets very agitato and bites Paris during an argument. Now it seems that, when Vorek touched Torres, he was initiating a mating mind meld, and she is suffering from Pon Far – and the chemical imbalances will kill her too if they are not resolved. Chakotay and Tuvok beam down to help, just as Torres finds the galacite – but it is part of a series of constructed conduits. Some camouflaged aliens step out of the rock faces and are very suspicious of how Voyager found them. When a seismic disturbance rocks the cave, Torres panics and attacks one of the aliens. The subsequent cave-in puts Torres and Paris alone together, and, suffering greatly, she attempts to mate with him – but he refuses, saying she isn’t herself. She admits that she does desire him, but was afraid to admit it, but he doesn’t believe her. By now she has removed most of her uniform and these are definitely the most sensual scenes so far in Voyager.

Back on the ship the doctor has convinced Vorek to try an alternative therapy – a holographic Vulcan mate. Vorek agrees, and the doctor leaves them alone. Some time later, Vorek summons the doctor back. He is calm and under control, and the doctor, pleased that his therapy has worked, allows Vorek to return to duty.

On the planet, Chakotay and Tuvok are being interrogated by the aliens; they convince them that they mean no harm, and offer to help provide more camouflage so they can become even less detectable to passing ships. The away team joins up again on the surface, but contact with the ship is not working, and, with Torres condition worsening, pimp Tuvok tells Paris that he must ‘help’ Torres now or she may die. Off they go, hand in hand, and they start wrestling seriously, but, suddenly Vorek appears, in a rage, having disabled communications with the ship. He claims the right of challenge, to fight for his mate, and Paris is ready, but Torres wants to fight Vorek herself. They are allowed to bash each other up pretty good, but it has the desired effect, as the Pon Far fever is purged.

Back on the ship, Paris and a calm Torres look uncomfortable as they share a turbolift. Paris confronts Torres, and she says that they should forget the incident, but Paris says that they shouldn’t, that he saw her scary Klingon side, and it wasn’t that scary – in fact, he wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Torres leaves the turbolift, and, without turning, says, "Be careful what you wish for."

Back on the planet, Tuvok and Janeway are examining the ruins, when Tuvok discovers the remains of the race that attacked and killed the inhabitants – a Borg (ominous music plays).

A great episode, it has a little of everything.

3.15 coda

Janeway and Chakotay’s shuttle crash-lands and they are attacked and Janeway is killed by Vidiians…and suddenly, they are back in the shuttle. Variations of this happen, until Janeway, transported back to the ship cannot be revived. She is still there, outside her body, but no one can see her, although Kes senses her presence. However, the crew cannot find any other evidence that she is alive. Her father appears, occupying the same area as her. She is of course initially dubious about who he is. But he explains that she has died, that she must come with him, to accept her fate, that because her death was unexpected, she does not want to leave the crew. After watching her own memorial ceremony, she realizes that he is probably right, but when he becomes more insistent – and impatient – she realizes that her real father would never be so forceful – that he would have wanted her to figure things out for herself. As she resists, she sees glimpses of where she really is – still unconscious, taken over by an entity, on the verge of death, but being asked to resist by Tuvok, Chakotay, and the doctor. She fights against and confronts the entity, who admits that he feeds off people in this state. He leaves – but threatens to come back – and Janeway regains consciousness.

Call me confused but I’m not sure how the time loop fits into the rest of the story. Otherwise, it’s an interesting premise, expanding upon the idea of ghosts.

3.14 alter ego

Voyager investigates a nebula composed of plasma strands, which normally would ignore and self-destruct, but this one is different. Meanwhile, Harry Kim falls in love with Mirena, a blonde holodeck woman. Unable to control his infatuation, he asks for Tuvok to help him control his emotions. Tuvok and Kim confront the woman on the holodeck, and Tuvok finds himself quite intrigued with her – and she with him. As his time with her becomes more frequent, Kim gets jealous and confronts Tuvok, believing that he is attracted to Mirena. Tuvok says he is not, but Mirena has other ideas. Even after being deleted from the holodeck program, she appears in Tuvok’s quarters, wearing the doctor’s holo-emitter and a Starfleet uniform. She has also infiltrated the computer system and disabled the engines, forcing Voyager to stay in the nebula. The reason for this becomes evident after Paris, Tuvok and Torres are attacked by holodeck luau characters (including smiling Polynesian women who try to strangle Torres with leis); Mirena is being controlled by someone in a space station inside the nebula. Tuvok beams there and meets the alien female whose job it is to control the nebula’s plasma explosions. Isolated, she has often tapped into other passing ship’s computer systems, but she found the holodeck particularly intriguing, and she has fallen in love with Tuvok, who, like her, is isolated even while being among the crew. She threatens to ignite the plasma strands around the ship unless Tuvok agrees to stay with her. Tuvok admits that he is attracted to her, but he also tells her that he has a spouse and a mission. He tells her that if she really cared for him, she would not force him to stay. Reluctantly, she realizes he is right and she releases him and the ship. He suggests that she stop isolating herself, that it has affected her, that she should get a replacement and spend some time on her home world with her people. She agrees, then wonders aloud how Tuvok will deal with having to remain alone.

This is one of my favorite episodes. I thought the resolution was surprising, with enough twists that you never expect it to go in that direction. I thought Kim’s acting at the beginning was both realistic and humorous. The first scene in the holodeck with Kim, Tuvok and Mirena is hilarious, especially this segment:
"Mirena: I tried a reverse curl today, and I think I pulled a tendon. (She places Kim’s hand on her leg). Feel this.
Kim: (Leaves his hand there, but turns away from Mirena and looks directly at Tuvok) It’s like a knot.
Tuvok: I’m sure it is.
(Camera changes to low angle shot with Mirena’s leg in the foreground, Kim and Tuvok in the background, a la The Graduate)."

Another subtle touch happens in the scene when Janeway ‘orders’ Tuvok to attend the luau. When the camera focuses on Chakotay’s amused look, the normal Trek background music plays a subtle Polynesian riff.

3.13 fair trade

Voyager has reached an area of space called ‘The Necrid Expanse’. Janeway asks Neelix for his usual outpouring of information, but Neelix doesn’t say much. He does vaguely remember that there is a space station nearby. At the station, Neelix scrounges for a star chart – he is worried because Voyager has reached the borders of the area he has explored, and he feels his usefulness is now finished. On the station he meet an old friend and trader, another Talaxian. There associations were always a little on the other side of the law. His friend is looking for that one last score (all legal, of course) so he can get his ship back and get off of the space station. Neelix, who owes him a debt from a previous incident, agrees to help. But his friend has lied about the danger of the transaction and also the nature of it – he is dealing illegal narcotics, and the meeting results in the death of the other participant. Now Neelix is in even deeper; if he doesn’t go one step further and get a warp plasma sample, both he and his friend will be killed by the Kalotti, the local drug cartel. But Neelix can’t steal from Voyager, instead, he comes up with a plan to not only confess to the crime but to avoid 50 years of prison by helping to trap the Kalotti. The plan works, and Neelix is accepted back onto Voyager, after getting a stern lecture from Janeway about how they are a family and they must stick together, and trust each other. A decent episode, weakened somewhat by its very familiar plot structure.

3.12 macrocosm

On an away trade mission, Janeway’s ‘hands on shoulders’ gesture is a deep insult to the unusual and flamboyant race called the Tictac; fortunately, Neelix has learned all of their nuances and performs admirably. They travel back to the rendezvous coordinates in the shuttlecraft but Voyager has not arrived and is disabled in space with life-signs distorted by an electric field. The ship seems deserted except for big and small flying insects that disable Neelix and sting Janeway. With life support failing and her temperature and that of the vessel rising, Janeway strips off a few layers of clothing and grabs the biggest photonic cannon she can find and stalks through the ship. She finds the crew but they are disabled, barely alive, breeding grounds for the organisms. She gets sicker, but fortunately runs into the doctor, who treats her. He is not immune, however, as the insects are attracted to the heat from his holo-matrix. Janeway and the doctor split up in an attempt to deploy an antigen using the ship’s life support systems. But the plan fails when the Tictac attack in an attempt to ‘purge’ the galaxy of the infection. Janeway convinces them to hold off, that she has a cure and is willing to share it. Unable to use life support to deploy the antigen, she creates an ‘antigen bomb’, then lures all the organisms to the holodeck, where they are attacking the holo-people. She deploys the bomb and the creatures are destroyed.

A bug horror movie, nothing more, with so-so special effects.

3.11 the q and the grey

After the crew watches a supernova from record-breaking close range, Janeway heads for her quarters for some rest, but instead is surprised to find a red bed with red, heart-shaped pillows, accompanied by ‘Q’ (John DeLancie: see numerous other episodes of Star Trek) who wishes to mate with her. He zaps her out of her uniform into a silky night-dress, and tries to give her everything from puppies to a quick fix to get back to the alpha quadrant. None of his advances work, and Janeway wonders what his real motives are. Then suddenly another ‘Q’ arrives, a woman, who says she and Q have been going together for about 4 billions years. As two more supernovas explode nearby, throwing Voyager into dangerous turbulence, Q zaps Janeway into the Continuum to see the source of the supernovas and his real reason for wanting a child. The Continuum has been thrown into upheaval by the suicide of an earlier member (see the episode ‘death wish’); now they are fighting a civil war that threatens to irreparably destroy the universe. Q presents the battle using the format of the American civil war. He is injured, then they are both captured, and are sentenced to death, but meanwhile, the female Q has been helping Voyager to find and enter the Continuum. Armed with weapons, the crew appears as Union soldiers, and rescues Janeway and Q and force a truce. Janeway convinces the Qs to have a baby, which they do by touching fingers. Back on Voyager, Q visits with his new son, who is wearing a little Starfleet uniform.

I’m not sure if the story works that well, but I once again loved John DeLancie’s over the top performance. Best line by Q: "Well, mine’s bigger!" (He has out-tattooed Chakotay with a huge facial design).