Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Deadlock

Can you believe it? It's another review from me, Julia Houston, the gal who just can't say enough (no matter what people try to tell her) about that show she really LIKES, Star Trek Voyager. Today she's going to rant endlessly (and give away many spoilers) about the episode, "Deadlocked," which is actually one of the few episodes she doesn't like very much. In short, it's a bummer and no fun to watch. However, it's still better than just about anything else on TV.

Want proof? Go to Welcome to Total TV Online!

Satisfied? Well then...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
And what will be our villain de jour? The Vidiians...no...a spacial anomaly!...Hey, Voyager's really taking a pounding...Oh, I see, we're going to get another Voyager...No, we're not!...Oh, this is sad and horrible! I don't want to see them all die!...Bleh.

PLOT
Neelix is getting Wildman to look over his galley replicator when she goes into labor.

On the bridge, Janeway paces and the men all look uncomfortable (except for Tuvok, who's been through this four times before and is Vulcan to boot) as they all wait for natal news from Sickbay.

So the we get to go to Sickbay for the usual huffin' and puffin' scene.

Back on the bridge, much more interestingly, Kim picks up a Vidiian fleet on sensors and two Vidiian planets. Paris finds a plasma drift to scoot through so they can pass by undetected.

In Sickbay, Wildman’s labor turns problematic as the ridges on her baby's head have become lodged in the uterine wall. In what my OB/GYN brother-in-law told me is the coolest Trek scene to date, the Doctor and Kes beam the baby out of the mother into a little baby bio-bed. It's a girl with spikes on her little forehead, and she's fine, except for a hemosopheric imbalance. The Doctor is getting ready to fix it right up, when suddenly the ship comes out of that plasma drift and encounters subspace turbulence.

All drive -- warp, impulse, thrusters -- stalls out and it seems they've developed some sort of anti-matter leak. Janeway and Torres decide to start proton bursts to stop the leak, but while Torres is still getting this ready, the ship starts to flash with these bursts. The bursts aren't coming from engineering, and they're causing major damage to the ship.

Sickbay is losing power, greatly complicating Baby Wildman's treatment as well as the treatment for the wounded people now pouring in. In fact, the ship is really getting trashed by these polaron bursts.

Kim is sent to seal a hull breach.

Things get worse in Sickbay and the Doc starts to fade a bit.

Torres, Hogan and Kim work to seal that breach.

Janeway has Chakotay magnetize the hull.

Wildman worries that her baby will die, but Doc assures her it won't happen if he has anything to do about it.

Hogan is hurt in an explosion.

Baby Wildman dies, and Neelix tries to comfort Wildman.

Kes goes to help Hogan and disappears in the corridor.

Kim doesn't get away from the hull breach fast enough and gets sucked into space. Torres reports this and Kes' disappearance. She throws some tubing into the space where Kes went and it vanishes as well.

The magnetizing of the hull helps for a minute, then things get even worse and they all have to evacuate the bridge. On the way out, Janeway sees a transparent version of herself and the bridge crew. The two Janeways make eye contact, and the first Janeway gets into a turbo-lift while the second Janeway turns to the second Chakotay. This second Voyager is nice and clean and undamaged. Janeway2 reports that she saw herself, "and I looked like hell." Kim2 says there was a spacial distortion on the bridge.

Doc2 gives baby2 (from now on to be called "Spike") to Wildman2, and they all wonder about Kes1, who's unconscious on a biobed. They have more than just Kes1, though, on Voyager2. They have that piece of conduit that Torres threw. Janeway2 figures what with that and seeing Janeway1, there must be two Voyagers and she stops Torres from making more proton bursts.

Chakotay2 and Torres2 show Janeway2 that Voyager somehow (i.e. Tektalk galore) became doubled when they passed through that cloud to avoid the Vidiians. Two Voyagers are occupying the same space. Janeway2 talks about a study she once read where they did this sort of thing...but the problem is that while the matter of the ship has been doubled, the anti-matter hasn't been, so the two ships are sharing the same anti-matter, like Siamese twins sharing one heart. That isn't going to work for much longer before the anti-matter is completely drained.

Janeway2 tells Torres2 to figure out how to communicate with this other Voyager. Candice Bergman1 appears and tells them about Sprint's Dime-a-Minute plan, but they are so annoyed by her perky smile that they phaser her into oblivion and go for MCI.

Janeway2 and Torres2 get Voyager1's attention with a simple signal, and we see that things aren't going well for Voyager1. Engineering has become the "bridge" and the Janeways and Torreses work back and forth to establish a real link. The Janeways talk.

Let's see how Janeway likes getting The Look!

Anyway, Janeway1 tells her remaining officers what's going on and that she believes Janeway2's story about what has happened because of the information (including a childhood story) that she knows. Janeway2 wants to try merging the two ships. Paris1 (not showing the slightest grief at Kim's death, and yes, I know he's on duty) remembers that the Doc needs to use his back-up power supply.

Well, they try the merge and it doesn't work. In fact, now the link between the two ships is lost and the anti-matter leak is worse.

So Janeway2 goes with Kes1 as she returns to Voyager1, which looks even more badly damaged than before. The Janeways talk in engineering, but their mutual theories (evacuation from one to the other, separating the ships completely) don't really get them anywhere. Finally, Janeway1 tries to send Janeway2 back to her ship, and Janeway2 figures out that Janeway1 plans to blow up her ship to let Voyager2 survive. Janeway2 says that she wants Janeway1 to wait until it's the absolute last thing to do.

Janeway2 returns to Voyager2 and Janeway1 is about to blow up Voyager1 when the Vidiians show up, delighted to have found this stalled ship full of juicy body parts. The Vidiian ship latches onto Voyager...Voyager2, that is, then board the ship and start harvesting organs right and left.

Doc2 tries to hide Spike.

Janeway1 calls Janeway2 and says there are no Vidiians here. She could send over a security detail, but Janeway2 says that would only give away the existence of Voyager1, and then she sets her own auto-destruct sequence. Janeway1 knows better than to argue with Janeway2.

Janeway2 decides she can make things a bit better, though, and orders Kim2 to go over to Voyager1, telling him to pick up Spike along the way. Kim2 doesn't like the idea of abandoning ship, but he goes rather than face The Look2.

The auto-destruct engaged, Janeway2 and Chakotay2 decide, what the hey? and have wild sex right there on the bridge, screaming about ancient legends of great whoopee and...

Well, actually, they sit in their chairs and wait. But I bet they think about whoopee.

The Vidiians harvest Kes2 and Paris2 and Wildman2 and generally or every2 they can find.

Kim2 gets to Sickbay2 and takes Spike from Doc2.

The Vidiians board the bridge2 and get a nicely snide little greeting from Janeway2 before we get a really big Voyager2 BOOM that also deals with the Vidiian ship.

Kim2 and Spike cross over in the nick of time to be greeted by Kes1, Torres1, and Tuvok1 (but no Paris1or2).

Voyager1 -- which can go back to being just Voyager now that the competition has been eliminated -- continues on its way, though it will take three days of repairs before the bridge will be habitable again. Tuvok asks Janeway if she would have blown up the ship for Voyuager2, and Janeway says she would have...which is hardly surprising, considering how much she's wanted to use that self-destruct since they started this adventure.

Wildman holds Spike and thanks Kim for bringing her over. Doc asks Kim if Doc2 had a name, and Kim tells Janeway that this isn't really his ship and he feels very weird about the whole thing. She says that weird is part of the job.