Craggus’ Trek Trek:
Now, Voyager! Vol 10
Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 10 sees Voyager’s fourth season really hit its stride and deliver one of the series’ best two parters into the bargain as it leans into what the entire series should have been like.
Star Trek Voyager S4E06: The Raven
Voyager flirts with the idea of Seven rejoining the Borg once again as segue way to deliver her origin story. What could have been a fairly dutiful introspective story is bolstered by a strong underpinning storyline involving a taciturn alien race known as the B’omar Sovereignty whose reluctance to allow Voyager passage through their territory descends into outright hostility when Seven seizes a shuttle and heads into their space on a mission of her own. Although the episode doesn’t dwell on it, it’s a prime example of Janeway not giving a single shit for the Prime Directive when one of her “family” is at risk. Although Janeway’s making all the emotional overtures here, it’s actually Tuvok who manages to make a real connection to Seven in this episode, risking his own potential assimilation to help her complete her journey of personal discovery
Star Trek Voyager S4E07: Scientific Method
Although it feels a little like a retread of Distant Origin, with elements of TNG’s Schisms, it still finds enough room to bring a new spin on the premise of the crew being observed/ experimented on without their knowledge or consent and sheds some interesting light on the subject of medical testing and experimentation, and putting Janeway and her crew on the other side of a particularly high-handed application of “the needs of the many” principle. It’s a wonder that Tuvok hasn’t had his recently awarded promotion rescinded already given the frequency with which the USS Voyager is infiltrated by the Delta quadrant’s many, many technologically advanced and morally regressed alien races but overall, it’s a nice ensemble show which gives the whole cast something to do and even throws a mischievous spanner in the works of Tom and B’Elanna’s nascent relationship.
Star Trek Voyager S4E08: Year Of Hell
Nothing sums up the wasted potential of Star Trek Voyager’s premise better than the episode which compresses what should have been the bulk of Voyager’s odyssey through the Delta Quadrant into a single story: Year Of Hell. Finally fulfilling the promise of season three’s Before And After, Voyager finally arrives in Krenim space only to find it in a state of temporal flux- not that Janeway and crew are aware of this until they invent temporal shielding and immunise the ship against Annorax’s timeline meddling. While the uncharitable may wonder why the Krenim’s dicking around with causality didn’t attract the attention of any of the Temporal powers of 29th Century Star Trek canon, it may be because ultimately the story will resolve itself with the most outrageous application of Voyager’s famed reset button to date. But let’s not quibble about the destination when the journey is so thrilling. The gradual deterioration of Voyager under relentless attacks is well realised and the marking of time adds a real sense of impending doom to the episode while guest star Kurtwood Smith is fantastic as the obsessively ruthless trans-temporal Ahab, chasing perfection at the expense of good. For an early-season two-parter, it has big season finale energy, especially when – in a downbeat cliffhanger – Janeway is forced to make the decision she swore she never would and orders the crew to abandon ship.
Star Trek Voyager S4E09: Year Of Hell, Part II
Inevitably talkier than its predecessor, Year Of Hell Part II also takes the time to explore its villain and his motives in more detail, as Chakotay and Paris find themselves aboard the ship and momentarily sympathetic to his aims. It all comes down to a final confrontation between an absolutely battered USS Voyager and the Krenim time ship that provides a lot of the visual language the later Star Trek The Next Generation movies would use, especially Star Trek: Nemesis. It’s a fairly brutal episode by Star Trek standards, especially when it comes to its treatment of the regular cast who, by the end, aren’t really in much better shape than the ship itself. The use of the reset button here is, at least, properly earned by the story and makes sense both narratively and in-world and there’s a poignant coda that suggests that poor old Annorax has effectively locked himself into a causality loop that he will play out again and again while Voyager continues on its merry way. It’s another Voyager two-part story that would have made a hell of a movie.
Star Trek Voyager S4E10: Random Thoughts
When B’Elanna is accused of a literal thought-crime, it’s the jumping-off point for another Detective Tuvok tale which bizarrely doubles down on the idea – first hinted at in Meld – that beneath Tuvok’s layer of Vulcan emotional control lies the mind of a violent, psychopathic killer. The idea of a telepathic society outlawing and eradicating violent thought only for violent thoughts to gain currency as an illicit underground narcotic is an interesting one and the show explores it as well as a prime time network show could at the time, which is ironic given the episode’s implicit commentary on violence as entertainment.
Star Trek Voyager S4E11: Concerning Flight
AKA Leonardo’s Big Day Out is an overall frothier affair than we’ve had of late as Voyager suffers a drive-by looting and has to go in search of the stolen items, which include the Doctor’s mobile emitter and Janeway’s impishly pugnacious Leonardo Da Vinci hologram. It’s always fun to see John Rhys-Davies on screen and while the idea of an interstellar band of pirates trading in stolen technology and resources feels a little Star Wars-y, it feels good for Voyager to get its hands a little dirty instead of staying in its sanitised, principled Starfleet regulatory comfort zone, although to today’s ears it’s something of a revelation that 23rd century holographic Leonardo Da Vinci was an unusually prescient Brexiteer as he eloquently sums up the current British political zeitgeist: “Europe is despicable! Here I am free to do as I wish! Free from judgment! Free to fail!”
Star Trek Voyager S4E12: Mortal Coil
It’s time for another Neelixistential crisis as everyone’s favourite Voyager punching bag is put through the metaphysical wringer once more. No doubt there was a section of fandom rejoicing at the fact that Neelix dies very early in this episode. Of course, he’s only Star Trek dead, not *dead* dead, so thanks to some Borg medical knowledge he’s soon back on his feet. Except now he’s facing the bleak prospect that everything he’s always believed about the afterlife is a lie. Once again, Voyager is able to explore particularly dark and morbid territory by having its fuzziest, most wholesome character shoulder the emotional burden. Ethan Phillips is, as usual, superb, walking that fine line between light comic relief and authentic emotional angst and bringing depth and texture to a powerfully character-driven episode.
Star Trek Voyager S4E13: Waking Moments
Dipping back into the horror well, Voyager brings us a Star Trek spin on A Nightmare On Elm Street as the crew begin to have unsettling nightmares which involve them being stalked by a sinister alien. There are shades of Brannon Braga’s terrific TNG episode Frame Of Mind in the way the episode plays with nested layers of reality and dreamscape, with Chakotay and his lucid dreaming, at the centre of the drama once again, assisted by the dreamless Doctor. There’s plenty of fun and frights in the crew’s various nightmares and a nice undercurrent of dread permeating the whole story which leads to a satisfyingly dramatic conclusion, even if it is following the increasingly well-worn path of the ship’s security being infiltrated by an undetected alien force.
And that’s it for Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 10 – see you next week!🖖
