Star Trek: Voyager Season 7
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
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701: Unimatrix Zero Part II 2000 October 4
(First watched 2009-07-03) So getting assimilated was part of their plan? And they had a neural supressant to prevent them from being a proper part of the Collective? Hmm. Didn't seem to work very well on Tuvok, though.
Borg Queen seemed a bit stupid destroying those ships with a few unconnected drones. Sure she can't feel their presence, but shouldn't they know where they last were? And couldn't process of elimination (Which drone is moving around that we aren't making move around?) find them out pretty quickly and without so much loss? Interesting, though, that this was used against Janeway, who would prefer to not even bring harm to drones.
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702: Imperfection 2000 October 11
(First watched 2009-07-03) So a week after Janeway doesn't want to cause unnecessary drone death, she wants to go hunting to kill a drone to help save Seven. Buh.
So there went the little Borglings, leaving them with only Icheb AKA Borg Wesley Crusher, the prodigy teen who wants to work on the bridge and apply to Starfleet Academy. He's actually a pretty interesting recurring character, though, and well used in this episode. However, things must be different from now on--he no longer has the role of big brother to play.
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703: Drive 2000 October 18
(First watched 2009-07-04) I'd been wondering what was taking Paris and Torres so long. Those silver doubles got hitched more than a year ago.
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704: Repression 2000 October 25
(First watched 2009-07-05) So the investigator is also the investigatee... fun stuff. Though I was kind of leaning that way already with all the "hunches" Tuvok had, that the "photonic residue" or whatever bullshit stencil that was in the holodeck looked like him, and that even its pose looked mindmeldy.
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705: Critical Care 2000 November 1
(First watched 2009-07-06) Ahh, a strong Doctor episode. We didn't quite get a full picture of the society he ended up with, but it's interesting to see how he reacted to it. They seem to have the worst-case-scenario of universal health care. That is, anyone gets it... if they're valuable enough to the state. Realistically they're probably right that focusing care on "important" individuals helped the whole population of the planet, but it does sound heartless and they went to extremes--like using what would be life-saving medicine for some patients, and giving it to more important people as a daily supplement.
This episode reminds me in some ways of TNG's The Most Toys, with an artificial life form being stolen from Starfleet duty and in the end doing more to harm someone than would've been thought possible of him.
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706: Inside Man 2000 November 8
(First watched 2009-07-07) Always a pleasure to see Dwight Schultz, who this time gets to play a very different type of Barclay, as well as the original.
Barclay finding Troi when she's on vacation is a bit What About Bob?
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707: Body and Soul 2000 November 15
(First watched 2009-07-08) I don't know whether it's because I like the Doctor so much or Jeri Ryan did a better job, but seeing Seven as the Doctor was much more put-up-with-able than that episode where she was acting like a Ferengi and other such people from the Collective.
In any other episode, a line like "You became sexually aroused in my body!" would be really really out of place.
So Tuvok finally has his pon farr problem. And it's much more tactfully taken care of than in the Doctor's daydream from last season. Very sweet of Neelix to try to make a soup for Tuvok when he thinks it's the flu--made without any spices, to be as tasteless as possible, just as Tuvok likes it.
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708: Nightingale 2000 November 22
(First watched 2009-07-10) Heh. By now even Kim is getting annoyed at lack of promotion, and thinks back home he might even be up to Lieutenant Commander by now.
I didn't like Seven's convincing him to act near the end, though. It basically went like
Harry: "It turns out their mission wasn't as peaceful as we thought. I can't captain them anymore."
Seven: "Well you're just a bad captain."
Harry: "I'll show you!"
The Icheb B-story was fun. Having been... something less a drone, it's easier to relate to his fumbling of social situations than the way Seven hammers through everything.
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709: Flesh and Blood Part I 2000 November 29
(First watched 2009-07-10) Once again the issue of holographic rights comes up, and Janeway wants to take the attitude of "Of course we treat you as equals! as far as it suits us." Her making ultimatums about them needing to shut down or forcibly be shut down and put off their problems until later... that wouldn't go over well if the situations were reversed. Can you imagine someone telling Janeway that she'll need to let the crew die for a few hours, but don't worry because with their advanced tech they can revive them in a few hours?
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710: Flesh and Blood Part II 2000 November 29
(First watched 2009-07-10) Sooo we learn too late that Iden is a bit nuts and sees himself as a lead religious figure.
Voyager hiding in a blind spot seemed a bit silly. Like the Millenium Falcon hiding with the trash times a hundred. No Hirogen look out the back window?
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711: Shattered 2001 January 17
(First watched 2009-07-12) Now that was a fun excuse to briefly return to some things of the past, and a preview of a possible future. But how many goddamn times is a pre-Caretaker Janeway going to be asked to trust and assist a member of her future crew?
What a coincidence that nobody seems to be present in multiple timeframes across the ship. They only have access to 1 Janeway, 1 Harry, 1 Tom, etc.
Apart from the bit with future Naomi and Icheb, what part of the experience could cause a temporal prime directive problem for season 7 Janeway, such that Chakotay refuses to talk about it?
I especially liked seeing the early seasons version of the Doctor again, bitter about being ignored and stuck in sickbay.
Tuvok gets to pull a very small scale "dying Spock".
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712: Lineage 2001 January 24
(First watched 2009-07-12) B'Elanna Can't Get Over Her Childhood Issues and Takes It Out on Her Fetus: The Episode
That holographic representation of a baby was uuugly. The holographic godfather was beaming, though.
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713: Repentance 2001 January 31
(First watched 2009-07-12) So this tried to obviously mirror a lot of problems with our justice system. Certain races getting worse punishment. The rich being able to get shorter or no punishment. Questions of mental illness.
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714: Prophecy 2001 February 7
(First watched 2009-07-13) At first I was annoyed by them running into yet another Alpha Quadrant thing. Buuut the idea of running into a sect of Klingons who have been heading the opposite direction for a century is pretty neat.
Neelix rooming with Tuvok, and trashing the place with a Klingon woman. Ahahahaha.
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715: The Void 2001 February 14
(First watched 2009-07-13) Finally being forced to deal with limited resources again. Not a year of hell, but perhaps a week of heck.
Listening to Fantome and his people "speak" their new language was quite cool. Under other circumstances that might've made for a more fleshed-out episode of its own. Though how such a species can be native to the Void is beyond me. There seems to be nowhere there for them to have originated from, so it would mean they've just been bouncing around from ship to ship for long enough for it to become a culture? And for as frequently as ships got sucked in in this episode (and how many it would take to keep pirates supplied for long), it seems there should've been a lot more wreckage in there.
Heeey... Fantome's actor was also Hugh?
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716: Workforce Part I 2001 February 21
(First watched 2009-07-14) Heeey, the ECH is back, but this time it's not a joke. Sooo, what, they've given him command/tactical information... but it's just not available to him when in "regular doctor" mode?
It's not like this is the first time such a thing has happened in sci-fi or Star Trek, but it's still a bit crazy how people's behavior can be almost identical to what it was before, even when they believe they have a completely different backstory. Tuvok was an interesting exception, in that he didn't repress his feelings as he normally would, but still overanalyzed things in a Vulcan way.
Neelix is right: it would've been much more fun if Chakotay had gone disguised as a Talaxian.
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