Craggus’ Trek Trek:
Now, Voyager! Vol 19
Craggus’ Trek Trek Now Voyager Vol 19 sees the series cruise into its seventh season with a set of mostly solid if unspectacular episodes.
Star Trek Voyager S7E01: Unimatrix Zero, Part II
The would-be shocking cliffhanger is almost immediately handwaved away, further reducing the Borg’s menace when even their primary threat – assimilation – can now apparently be easily counteracted. Resistance has never been so fruitful. Although the theoretical stakes are high, it never really feels like any of the characters are in real danger and it ends up as many of Voyager’s two-parters do with all the action front-loaded in part one, leaving all the talking for the second half. It’s a second half that remixes many of the story beats from “The Best Of Both Worlds Part II” and, despite promising the beginnings of a Borg civil war, seemingly makes no lasting impact on the Borg at all.
Star Trek Voyager S7E02: Imperfection
It seems counter-intuitive to have another Borg story so soon after the season-spanning two-parter, especially as dialogue confirms the events here take place after the following two episodes. Perhaps the production team were attempting to maximise the distance between the Borg’s penultimate appearance and their inevitable return for the series finale. In any event, Imperfection marks a definite turn in the series narrative as the writers start preparing for the end. Here, we see the departure of all but one of Seven’s Borgling brood but given what eventually befalls Icheb, maybe that’s a blessing. The tale of Borgan failure certainly darkly foreshadows Icheb’s ultimate fate in the franchise: as a spare parts store, and the drama is deftly handled by Jeri Ryan and Manu Intiraymi in one of the latter’s best episodes.
Star Trek Voyager S7E03: Drive
Wedding Bells are rung as Tom and B’Elanna tie the knot just after they participate in The Cannonball Run – in space! It’s a light-hearted enough episode although it deals with terrorism as an alien threatens to disrupt an interplanetary space racing competition. Its twists and turns are pretty obvious, especially after Harry Kim begins one of his trademark doomed romances, thereby clearly identifying who the villain will be.
Star Trek Voyager S7E04: Repression
Murder he wrote! Tuvok turns detective once again following a series of assaults on Maquis crewmembers in this twisty-turny Star Trek take on the Manchurian Candidate. It’s a neat murder mystery that escalates a little too quickly into a full-fledged mutiny and while the resolution feels a little too easy after the tension and drama that proceeded it, it’s probably the best of the Detective Tuvok tropes even if it feels weird for the series to be stirring up the Starfleet/ Maquis divide again at this late stage.
Star Trek Voyager S7E05: Critical Care
As I’ve observed more than once during this Trek Trek, Voyager, more than any other Trek series, enjoys dabbling in the horror genre and here it dives headlong into one of its most horrifying homages yet: the American Healthcare system. As Star Trek allegories go, this one is just a shade more subtle than “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” but it’s also a great watch, thanks to the ever-reliable Robert Picardo and a fabulously loathsome villain brought to chillingly familiar, bureaucratic life by guest star Larry Drake. It doesn’t really pull its punches in portraying the absurdity of healthcare as an ROI-focussed business instead of a status-agnostic lifesaving service. Bonus points, too, for not shying away from showing how superficial and hypocritical the “healthcare is an entitlement, not a right” folk really are.
Star Trek Voyager S7E06: Inside Man
Dwight Schultz is back on board for what probably constitutes the worst Barclay episode of Voyager, although that still means it’s a fairly decent episode of Voyager overall. Arriving onboard Voyager as a hologram, Barclay quickly win friends and influences people – particularly Captain Janeway – to follow a new plan to use an artificial shortcut to the Alpha Quadrant through a geodesic fold in space created in the heart of a nearby red giant star. Only the Doctor isn’t won over by Barclay’s high-energy enthusiasm and atypical savoir-faire and suspects something is wrong. Of course, something is wrong and it’s all a conspiracy to acquire some of Seven of Nine’s Borg nanoprobes by the Ferengi, exploiting Barclay’s trusting nature. All the ingredients are here for a splendid caper episode and the guest stars (Marina Sirtis makes her third and final Voyager appearance here) are game but somehow it just doesn’t quite come together and fizzles instead of fizzing.
Star Trek Voyager S7E07: Body And Soul
Once again an episode provides a platform for a member of the cast to showcase their range and versatility but for once it’s not Robert Picardo’s Doctor but instead, Jeri Ryan getting to do her best impression of him as the holographic health worker has to hide in her cybernetic implants to avoid the attentions of a race who are unrelentingly hostile to holograms and holographic technology. Part hostage drama, part bedroom farce, it’s a lot of fun and Ryan has the time of her life sending up not only the stiff and statuesque nature of her character but also her esteemed co-star’s mannerisms. Meanwhile, back on Voyager Tuvok undergoes Pon Farr with Tom Paris but that’s hardly any fun at all.
Star Trek Voyager S7E08: Nightingale
aka Captain Kim and the Standard Issue Star Trek morality play. Harry Kim’s career progression (or lack thereof) gets some belated attention, used as a springboard for Kim to jump at the chance to command a ship of its own. Poor Garrett Wang, though, because when he gets his moment, the writers are keen to show why Harry’s simply not up to the job yet. Aside from the subtle character assassination job, the episode is so rote it’s “spiced up” with a mistaken Icheb crush storyline which also kind of spins its wheels before stalling and going nowhere. The only real point of note is that Icheb’s personalised nutritional supplement sure looks like nachos to me. I guess he’s a typical teenager after all.
