Craggus’ Trek Trek:
Now, Voyager! Vol 14
Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 14 starts with a wonderful 1930s sci-fi serial holodeck gone wrong adventure and ends with an intriguing set of adveraries that sadly never get a second crack at Janeway and her crew.
Star Trek Voyager S5E12: Bride Of Chaotica!
A glorious pantomime of an episode celebrating the classic sci-fi adventure serials of the 1930s through that most reliable of bases, a holodeck malfunction. This time, Voyager finds itself run ‘aground’ on a subspace sandbar, caused by trans-dimensional photonic beings on a mission of exploration mistaking the holodeck for an alien world and the characters within Tom Paris’ programme as hostile lifeforms. It’s proof, if proof were needed, that constraints often breed creativity as an episode was required which didn’t use the bridge set due to it having been damaged in a fire and the result is tremendous fun with Kate Mulgrew obviously relishing the chance to camp it up.
Star Trek Voyager S5E13: Gravity
Yet another shuttle crash episode, this one marooning Tom, Tuvok and The Doctor at the bottom of a gravitational anomaly where, due to the tremendous gravitational forces, time moves at a different rate to the rest of the universe. It’s a little bit of a waste of a great sci-if premise by frittering it away on a doomed romance. Enlivened by the presence of guest star Lori Petty, it’s a tale of unrequited love as she falls for and is rebuffed by Tuvok, with a bittersweet ending that sees a moment of unexpected intimacy as Tuvok helps her understand his rejection by mind-melding.
Star Trek Voyager S5E14: Bliss
Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 14 brings us a superb homage to classic Original Series Star Trek storytelling as Voyager is ensnared by a cosmic pitcher plant and it’s up to the always great pairing of Seven of Nine and Naomi Wildman (with help from The Doctor) to save the day. As the rest of the crew fall under the spell of too-good-to-be-true hallucinations, Seven makes contact with a crusty old space dog called Qatai, who’s dedicated his life to escaping and destroying the creature. There are no big allegorical concepts or morals here – beyond heavy allusions to Moby Dick – just a good old fashioned adventure romp with a neat idea and great performances from the leads.
Star Trek Voyager S5E15-16: Dark Frontier
There’ll be spectacle There’ll be fantasy There’ll be derring-do and stuff like you would never see Hey! A movie! Yeah! We’re gonna get a movie Starring everybody – And the Borg! Voyager gets a feature-length outing to coincide with February Sweeps and the production team pulls out all the stops to deliver something which they were hoping would be able to stand shoulder to shoulder with First Contact (the movie, not the TNG episode). It’s a lofty ambition and one that initially it struggles to live up to as it gets bogged down in the continuity complicating adventures of Seven’s parents who seem to know of and be studying the Borg way in advance of Picard’s first meeting with the collective in Q-Who but it picks up considerably once the Borg Queen makes her series debut and makes Seven an offer she can’t refuse. What begins as a heist to steal some useful Borg technology becomes a rescue mission to rescue Seven from the clutches of the Borg. While some of the scenes on board Voyager drag, the scenes between Seven and the Borg queen are superb, as are the dark hints that Seven’s presence on Voyager was all part of some grand Borg design. Speaking of Borg design, we also get our first good look at what would pass for the Bord homeworld, Unimatrix One. An impressive two-parter, it never really hits the cinematic heights of its theatrical stablemate, but it sets the scene nicely for the ongoing Borg Queen arc which will run all the way to the season finale.
Star Trek Voyager S5E17: The Disease
Harry Kim finds himself in a very toxic relationship as Voyager encounter yet another xenophobic alien race who nevertheless want Starfleet’s help in a dull Star-Trek-by-the-numbers Harry Kim episode. Love as a sexually transmitted physiological condition plays out over a cliched tale of unionists and separatists with neither side coming across as sympathetic.
Star Trek Voyager S5E18: Course: Oblivion
With a title lifted straight from the Gerry Anderson playbook, this might just be the finest example of the Voyager subgenre of episodes where the crew aren’t actually the crew. An unexpected but very welcome sequel to the episode Demon, the only complaint I have about Course: Oblivion is that it gives up its big twist a little too early in the episode because while it’s still a terrific character study of desperate times and desperate measures, it’s even better when the crew are dealing with an unknown existential threat to both the ship and their lives. That ending, though. Brutal.
Star Trek Voyager S5E19: The Fight
Voyager finds itself caught in “chaotic space” in this chaotic and, at times, borderline incoherent episode which brings us an ill-conceived “Rocky” pastiche complete with guest star Ray Walston forced to reprise Boothby reimagined as a knock-off Burgess Meredith in what might as well have been titled “We Don’t Know What To Do With Chakotay Anymore”. Although never mentioned or alluded to before, Chakotay suddenly has a hobby of boxing that goes back to his academy days but when he starts to hallucinate, it slowly becomes clear that it’s not boxing-related brain damage that is causing the problem but the chaotic space and the creatures who call it home. Robert Beltran does what he can with a script that requires little of him but to dodge, duck, dip, dive and do a lot of shouting but this is an idea and a story that doesn’t go the distance.
Star Trek Voyager S5E20: Think Tank
With a wonderful turn by guest star Jason Alexander, Think Tank gave us a Q-style adventure without the need for the omnipotent annoyance to turn up himself. Instead, Janeway finds herself facing off against a cadre of self-appointed galactic intellectuals who end up being too clever for their own good. The battle of high intellect versus low cunning is well articulated and the episode even manages to pack in a surprising amount of action for a supposed battle of wits. It’s a shame this is the only encounter we have with the Think Tank, though, because they’re ripe for a ‘revenge of’ return and you can’t help but think if we’d encountered them back in season three or four they probably would have come back to torment the Voyager crew again.
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