Craggus’ Trek Trek:
Now, Voyager! Vol 6
Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 6 opens with the close of Season 2, traditionally the point at which Berman Trek series really start to hit their stride.
Star Trek Voyager S2E26: Basics, Part I
The haphazard plotting of the season’s arc finally comes to fruition in a story that really nails Voyager’s unique selling point: its isolation and vulnerability so far away from home. There are shades of disaster movie tropes in the carefully arranged story components as it heads into its exciting cliffhanger and it’s in the callbacks to previous episodes that it impresses the most – not so much the Kazon or Seska stuff, but the inclusion of Suder, bringing the middle chapter of a trilogy of redemption for the psychotic Betazoid. Michael Piller, writing his last story for the televised wing of the franchise, nails the propulsive, kinetic pace of an increasingly perilous situation and manages to make the capture of Voyager both compelling and credible, despite the oft-spoken-of but rarely demonstrated ‘superiority’ of the Starfleet vessel. It’s a great cliffhanger, finishing off a stronger-than-many-remember second season with the board set for a bold start to season 3.
Star Trek Voyager S3E01: Basics, Part II
You might be forgiven for expecting everything to be quickly back to normal given the series’ propensity for egregious reset button-pushing but Piller revels in putting these technophile characters through the mill as they’re forced to survive in a hostile and barren environment. Onboard Voyager itself, there’s fun and games as The Doctor and Suder join forces to wage guerilla warfare against the occupying Kazons while Tom Paris rallies unlikely Talaxian allies to help retake the ship. Less cohesive than the first part and with a restoration of Starfleet control that sees the Kazon abandon their hard-won prize a little too easily, there’s still much to enjoy about this season opener as Piller makes a compelling case for the series to go back to Basics in terms of its storytelling and characters.
Star Trek Voyager S3E02: Flashback
It’s celebration time as Star Trek celebrates its 30th Anniversary and while it never reaches the dizzying, dazzling heights of Deep Space Nine’s Trials And Tribble-ations, Voyager’s tribute to its progenitor is a fun romp through some “deleted scenes” from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. There’s a shade of “it was all a dream” in the delve into Tuvok’s memories and the episode itself has a condescending attitude towards the swashbuckling 23rd century that’s in sharp contrast to DS9’s deep and abiding affection, but it’s undeniably fun to see Captain Sulu, Janice Rand and the supporting cast of Star Trek VI back on screen. It’s a nice touch to offer a moment where Janeway dons the venerable “Monster Maroon”, even if it doesn’t actually fit her at all and, let’s be honest, it’s central MacGuffin of a living meme that survives by spreading from host to host foreshadowed the toxic virality of social media decades in advance.
Star Trek Voyager S3E03: The Chute
It’s been about a year, so it must be time to put Harry Kim through the wringer again. No temporal paradoxes this time, though, just a cliched hard-boiled prison drama with yet another paranoid authoritarian alien race for Janeway to clench her jaw at. Fortunately, Garrett Wang and Robert Duncan McNeill deliver strong enough performances to elevate the fairly basic alien prison material into something a bit more special. If nothing else, it’s good to see the usually squeaky-clean Harry Kim get a bit down and dirty.
Star Trek Voyager S3E04: The Swarm
An interesting episode structure inverts the usual Star Trek approach and puts the B-story in the foreground while the A-story – the attack of a swarm of alien ships – happens in the background. The great Robert Picardo once again pulls double-duty as both The Doctor and Lewis Zimmerman, this time the latter in the form of a diagnostic programme trying to develop a solution for the Emergency Medical Hologram programme’s deterioration after being forced to far exceed its operating parameters. It’s a well-balanced episode with both action and character-driven plot points to enjoy.
Star Trek Voyager S3E05: False Profits
How much you enjoy this episode probably depends on how much you love continuity callbacks. Me? I love ’em so this follow-up to TNG’s third season episode The Price is pretty much a delight. Picking up the story of the Ferengi who were lost in the unstable Barzan wormhole, the crew of the USS Voyager discover an alien world which has been deeply corrupted by the Alpha Quadrant’s arch-capitalists and, nearby, the remnants of the Barzan wormhole itself which may lead them all back home. As usual with Ferengi episodes, it’s played broadly for comedy and there’s an entertaining turn from Neelix as he gets to pose as a fellow Ferengi (Ethan Phillips, of course, is no stranger to the lobes having played Ferengi Farek in TNG’s Ménage à Troi). It’s a frothy story, for sure, but a welcome change of pace after a break-neck start to the third season.
Star Trek Voyager S3E06: Remember
Belying its roots as a story originally written for The Next Generation, this hard-hitting Holocaust denial allegory swaps out Troi for Torres and makes the resulting story stronger by it not being another empath/ telepath violation tale and Torres’ frustration at the lack of consequences has fresh bite in 2021. It’s a strong episode let down by Voyager’s increasingly slapdash approach to their aliens of the week as the Enarans turn out to be another species with organic webbing headbands. It’s Voyager’s design equivalent of ‘fetch’ and Voyager is determined to make it happen.
Star Trek Voyager S3E07: Sacred Ground
Sometimes in a TV series, you can feel the writers trying new things to shake up characters or relationships which aren’t flourishing as expected and so it is here with this drab Kes and Janeway pairing. Outside of sickbay, Kes is struggling to find a place in Voyager’s firmament and so this episode addresses it by basically knocking her unconscious and making her a vehicle for Janeway to confront her spiritual cynicism as she undergoes a metaphysical quest to rescue Kes’ soul. Overly talky and, for Star Trek, surprisingly – possibly frustratingly ambiguous, it introduces an element of fallibility and uncertainty to the character of Janeway which is welcome but does little to arrest Kes’ fade into the background.
And on that note, we’re at the end of Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 6 and our first away mission into the depths of season three.🖖
