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SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
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601: Equinox Part II 1999 September 22
(First watched 2009-06-19) So of course after all the yapping at the Equinox crew that they shouldn't have been following the captain's shitty unStarfleet-like orders, she gets pissed at Chakotay and Tuvok for questioning her shitty unStarfleet-like orders.
I like the look of the Equinox. It's kinda like a mini Sovereign class. Or being a smaller ship with raised nacelles, a bit like the NX at certain angles, too. But definitely the Sovereign's nacelles.
So if Equinox had been harvesting these lifeforms and already gone extra thousands of light years along their course... why was the planet of the species they learned about them from only 50 light years distant?
So if the Equinox was primarily a planetary research vessel, what was it doing in the Badlands? At least, that's where most of the other Alpha Quadrant stuff the Caretaker grabbed at seems to have come from.
So the Doctor deleted the Equinox EMH. Especially from his perspective, wasn't that a pretty casual murder?
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602: Survival Instinct 1999 September 29
(First watched 2009-06-20) How come regular drone Seven in an emergency situation could do a better, less-reversible job of assimilating fellow drones than what the Collective normally does?
One of Seven's fellow drones was from the Excalibur, best known from the New Frontier books.
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603: Barge of the Dead 1999 October 6
(First watched 2009-06-21) I like the phrase "born-again Klingon".
I also like how part of Torres's conception of hell is an eternity on Voyager. Not even she's a fan of the show.
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604: Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy 1999 October 13
(First watched 2009-06-21) As a big Doctor fan, quite a hoot.
Considering how long Voyager was out in the Delta Quadrant I wondered if Tuvok's pon farr problems would become an issue. I just didn't think it would be an issue in the Doctor's fantasy life.
The ECH animation with four pips popping out was pretty haha.
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605: Alice 1999 October 20
(First watched 2009-06-22) I suppose it would've been too obvious to name the episode Christine. Also some shades of Urgo.
I like how Chakotay initially was against purchasing Alice because they were already full of shuttles. Y'all are crashing these things all the damn time; some backups couldn't hurt.
I like the Ferengi five stages of acquisition: infatuation, justification, appropriation, obsession, resale.
I knew the trader sounded familiar. Indeed he was also Enterprise's Silik.
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606: Riddles 1999 November 3
(First watched 2009-06-23) Tuvok and Neelix have always been one of Voyager's more interesting pairs, and this episode plays on that well; even if Tuvok isn't really himself for most of it.
So the guy trades away the Ba'neth detection technology with the understanding that they'll work around it, in exchange for information on healing Tuvok. While that's awfully nice for his hosts, isn't it going to be pretty awful for the ships they continue to attack and kill people on in the future?
So with Tuvok's reluctance to become the old Tuvok, I was wondering if we had another Tuvix situation. However, in this case he ended up volunteering to go back to how he was; murder avoided.
So at the end Tuvok seems especially unthankful. Not even a "Thank you, Mr. Neelix, for the time and effort expended to assist me during my difficulties." But I guess it's understandable; beneath that stoic exterior he's probably quite embarrassed about the whole thing.
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607: Dragon's Teeth 1999 November 10
(First watched 2009-06-23) So this newly reborn group of a few hundred people decide to get back to prominence by force, decide their technology is too out of date to do it... and decide they can do it with Voyager. Problem 1, Voyager still can't fight an entire war by itself. Problem 2, if Voyager WAS that hot, why would they have been able to stop it with their fleet of ships they already decided wasn't good enough?
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608: One Small Step 1999 November 17
(First watched 2009-06-24) Now here's an episode with a hefty bit taking place in the past that works well.
Soooo... Seven recovered the astronaut's body, and then they just shoot it into space. As long as he's going to have a space burial, wouldn't it have been more appropriate to just leave him with his craft in the anomaly he spent his last days studying?
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609: The Voyager Conspiracy 1999 November 24
(First watched 2009-06-24) Ahaha. Seven downloads too much too quickly and starts spouting off about the 24th century equivalents of black helicopters and FEMA relocation camps. Making crazy conspiracy theories about Starfleet to Chakotay, and crazy conspiracy theories about the Maquis to Janeway. I'm glad it was fairly easily resolved, though, without them getting into some cliché phaser-pointing standoff before they realized the real problem was with Seven.
However, some of the stuff Seven noticed was pretty weird. I mean, even if it wasn't a plot by anyone on Voyager, what was with the tractor beam from an unknown ship grabbing the power generator from the Caretaker in just the right fraction of a second?
So they cut another three years travel time off. Must be down to about 30 years now?
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610: Pathfinder 1999 December 1
(First watched 2009-06-25) Episodes where Deanna Troi is a guest star and the regular cast of the series are mainly present as holograms can be frickin' awful, but this time it really worked. Not having the real Voyager crew appear until the very end helps sell their isolation and the victory that the communication is. Also not killing anyone off while having Riker smiling over everyone's shoulders helps.
I like how Barclay's representation of the Voyager crew slightly differs from the real one. Not just in that they all adore him, but how for instance Chakotay and B'Elanna aren't wearing Starfleet uniforms but what passes for a Maquis look.
Barclay is still clearly an individual with issues, but even so it's clear he's advanced since Hollow Pursuits. In that older episode he retreats to the holodeck because he's afraid of any real-world confrontation. In this episode he definitely uses the holodeck as a surrogate friend and co-worker, he actually is using it in a productive way--and outside of the holodeck is willing to (nervously) champion and rebel for an idea he's having trouble selling to his superiors.
So their initial guess of where Voyager would currently be located is way off, since Voyager has gotten a big nudge or three since then. On the one hand it seems difficult to think that Barclay would've had enough chances at guessing various other locations to actually get one close enough in time, but since we don't really have a good idea of how close they needed to be to the wormhole to send and receive a message it might be easier than it seems. At least, enough to make it believable in fiction.
So along with the obvious TNG connection with Barclay and Troi, I notice Barclay also makes mention of DS9.
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611: Fair Haven 2000 January 12
(First watched 2009-06-26) Weird. We've seen people be attracted to holocharacters before, but they never deleted their spouse and gave them an education with the flick of a button.
I've said before that Voyager deals with artificial life pretty well, but this episode reminds me that there are some things they just won't or can't get too deep into. Everyone seems to accept the Doctor as a proper sentient being by this point, but they don't see the similar holodeck characters in the same way. Is it something about the complexity of his program? That he's been going on so long that he's evolved from his beginnings? If Fair Haven had been left running long enough (like Vic's at Deep Space 9), would those characters be afforded the same benefit of the doubt? Such that erasing a man's wife and making him more your type would be seen as grossly wrong?
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612: Blink of an Eye 2000 January 19
(First watched 2009-06-26) Wow, what a great episode! From the title and the weirdness of the planet I'd figured out the gimmick before they spelled it out, but it was a fascinating one. Amazing to see the thousands of years of history change that one spot on the planet as they were stuck.
The one thing that is a bit goofy is that if things were and will continue to be that fast for the planet, it's amazing that Voyager showed up to be around for the world's most developmental few hours. I know Voyager was an inspiration, but it's hard to believe they'd been sitting around in a tribal phase for billions of years just waiting. Also, if it the current civilization of that planet is ever going to go out into space, shouldn't it be soon? Voyager could hang out at the edge of the solar system, wait a day, and perhaps in the intervening ~240 years the people will have left the planet and be willing to offer assistance.
So the Doctor spent several years on the planet, got quite engrossed in the culture... and even had a son? Wow. Wow wow wow.
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613: Virtuoso 2000 January 26
(First watched 2009-06-27) I love a good Doctor episode, and one that brings into question holographic rights and how far Janeway is willing to push the crew around. And the episode was some meta fun in showing obsessed fans. Sooo the episode was interesting in those regards.
However, in light of the previous week's episode, it rings hollow. The Doctor just spent 3 years on a world, became a part of that culture, and ended up a family man with a lady friend and even son. That after this there are references to him having spent all of his five years on Voyager, and that he falls so quickly for the next woman to show any interest in him, just feels wrong.
It just feels like this episode and the last should've been in the opposite order. Then Blink of an Eye's Doctor story could've been seen as his chance to fulfill desires expressed in this episode.
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614: Memorial 2000 February 2
(First watched 2009-06-27) DS9 has covered post-trauma before, but here we get a faker, technobabble-caused version.
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615: Tsunkatse 2000 February 9
(First watched 2009-06-28) Kumite! Kumite!
Some interesting guest stars in this episode. Dwayne Johnson essentially plays himself. Or at least a version of his wrestling persona, if it were an enslaved alien with a funny forehead. Then there are regular DS9 guest stars Jeffrey Combs playing not-Weyoun and J.G. Hertzler playing not-Martok.
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616: Collective 2000 February 16
(First watched 2009-06-28) So... Borg children, huh. But though they picked up some new passengers, they couldn't harvest any useful tech from the Borg cube?
I notice the lame version of "futile" seems to be the norm in this episode. I wonder if this is permanent?
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617: Spirit Folk 2000 February 23
(First watched 2009-06-28) So as I have said even recently, I enjoy explorations into the reality of holocharacters... but in the end of this episode the people of the town are just fed an alternate bullshit cover story, and immediately go from wanting to burn them as witches to accepting them? That's pretty unsatisfying.
Also, destruction of the holodeck control panel disables safety protocols? Doesn't seem a very secure place to store all the important stuff.
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