Stomach queasy? Try Sorry, Everyone .
INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Wow, Neelix is being useful...no...Ah, it's Janeway does Terminator II...nicely spooky...Doctor fills in the exposition and proves once again just how useless he can be...Uh! What's that on his neck!! That's DISGUSTING!...best use of those holodeck characters I've seen on the show. Too bad they won't stay like that...Janeway saves the day...and paints! (lousy music)
PLOT
Janeway and Neelix return from an away mission with the Tak-Tak, a people who, apart from giving your breath that cool, clean feeling, contort when they speak and got mad when Janeway put her hands on her hips. Neelix has helped smooth things over, though we never do understand why they went there. [Writers, throw us a bone!] Janeway suggests making Neelix an ambassador. For this, she will be punished.
Voyager isn't where it's supposed to be, and the two of them cautiously go aboard the darkened, seemingly empty ship. Stuff has been left about, very Andromeda Strain, as though the crew just dropped everything and went...somewhere. Janeway finds lifesigns coming from several decks up, and she and Neelix end up in a turbo lift when something starts beating at the walls. A tentacle squirts a "mucilaginous compound" all over Neelix. They make it out of the lift, but Neelix starts getting sick. Janeway goes to get some medicine, but can't make it back before Neelix screams and then disappears.
Janeway makes her way to engineering and arms herself for battle with everything from grenades to a knife. From there she goes to the bridge. Something is buzzing around the bridge, stalking her, but for some reason she doesn't seem to notice. She scans the ship for lifesigns and sends out a distress signal. The buzzing thing comes up right behind her, closer and closer, until...SLAP! Turns out it's the size of a mosquito, crushed now in Janeway's bloody palm. She uses what look like a disinfectant, then sees that the lifesigns are gathered in the mess hall.
In the mess, Janeway sees Harry, Chakotay and the others slumped over and unconscious. In by far the most rePULsive moment of Star Trek history -- except maybe Star Trek II and the ear-things -- little fly-things come buzzing out of an open wound on Chakotay's neck and suddenly I think I'm watching the X-Files. But contrary to my hopes, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do not appear, even in the holodeck. Instead, we get a meter-sized version of the virus which takes a swipe at Janeway and then gets blown up by her phaser rifle. She limps out of the mess for sickbay. She works the doors open, and confronts the Doctor's phaser. He seems a mite upset.
The Doctor treats Janeway's wounds and rather lengthily explains that while she and Neelix were away, the ship went to help a mining colony, the Garens, who were suffering from a virus. The Doctor beamed down to find that this virus...get this...lives on a microscopic level, then infects a host body, sucks up its growth hormones, makes a sort of hive, and then squirts out macroscopic versions of itself that fly around, presumably looking for new hosts. Eventually, these babies get real big...but I get ahead of myself.
Doc beams back aboard the ship and (this is the irritating part) some of the viruses travel back with him and migrate into the pattern buffer. Finally, they get into a bio-neural gel-pack which spits up all over Torres' hand. The Doctor watches as everybody on the deck gets sick, then makes a cure and goes to the mess hall. Before he can give everyone a shot, however, the BIG versions of the virus attack him and almost ruin his portable emitter. It seems the energy of his holobody feels like body heat to them. He retreats to sickbay while the monster viruses give their disease to everyone else. End of flashback.
Janeway and the Doctor rig up a couple canisters of the antigen and take separate paths to the mess hall and environmental controls. The Doctor gets trapped, but Janeway makes it to environmental control. Unfortunately, just as she's about to spread the antigen, the ship is fired upon by the Tak-Tak [Note to Janeway: No more distress calls.]. The Tak-Tak, being the humanitarians that they are, have killed, or "purified," all the Garens, and now want to do the same to Voyager. Janeway buys herself an hour and, since environmental controls are out, rigs up an "antigen bomb." As bait, she uses the holodeck Club Med program -- all those half-naked bodies -- to make a bunch of targets for the macroviruses. They gather, she goes to throw the bomb, and gets knocked to the floor by a virus and has to stab it with her knife. Then she throws the bomb, and the Doctor inoculates everyone else. The Tak-Tak guy agrees not to destroy the ship, and all is returned to normal.
Chakotay reports on repairs. I guess they're primarily focused on cleaning up, as they now have a ship full of snot [insert Harry Kim joke here]. He invites Janeway to come skiing. She says she's gotten enough exercise for a while and continues painting while listening to light jazz, giving evidence that KJOY-FM will live forever.
CHARACTER
Okay, obviously Janeway is the focus here, though Neelix and the Doctor get their turns too. Since the beginning of the show, the writers have been trying to make clear a certain duality with Janeway that is expected in the 24th Century, but -- supposedly -- difficult for people in the 20th. She's tough and she's laid-back. This week's episode features Janeway the Warrior, and I thought it was fun...but a little strident...kind of Janeway the WARRIOR. But at least we all get the idea.
Frankly, I already knew she was tough, so it doesn't really expand my idea of the character much, though it's nice to see that Janeway can swagger when she's alone. She seems consciously to tone it down when others are around. Perhaps her next holonovel will be "Xena: Warrior Princess."
I'm not even going to comment (much) on that music. Bleh.
I have also noticed that Janeway really likes that phaser rifle. No problem with that, but why not have someone comment on it? I can see Paris now: "Uh, Captain, if you can't get that top off the jar, why don't you try tapping it on the counter before calling for the compression phaser rifles?"
Neelix's possible promotion to ambassador is important, because soon the ship, having finally left the Kazon behind, will be traveling beyond Neelix's stomping grounds. Chef and morale officer aren't going to cut it if he's to stay in command-level briefings. My earlier joke aside, ambassadorship suits him. He is basically the Johnny Carson of the ship already, why not make it official? He's got a healthy level of suspicion, and the fact that he's not always completely forthcoming will help him. Janeway must constantly display the trusting, goodwill attitude of the Federation or undergo a severe personality change, so why not let Neelix be her buffer? Let him suspect while she extends the hand of friendship. In that way, he could almost take over Troi's role of being the captain's early warning signal. And who knows, maybe she'll actually listen to him once in a while.
The Doctor's new-found vulnerability works nicely for him. He is realizing, I think, that while his mobility is a great gift, it comes with a price. I wonder if he won't start showing some real preference for staying in sickbay, where he's pretty much invulnerable, and will need to be tempted outside. The Doctor has suffered a bit, I think, from being made too human too quickly, doubtlessly because he was the first popular character of the show, and the writers felt pressure to feature him. They tried to slow things down a bit in "The Swarm" by resetting his program. It would be nice to see him explore his existence more as a hologram, not an almost-human, but even in that mode, he's always fun to watch.
THOUGHT
I like how automatically we can accept the idea that the Tak-Tak, as an "unforgiving" race, instantly kill anything potentially harmful, like a sick mining colony or the ship. They're a nice contrast to the Federation ideal of helping people, and a reminder that the Delta Quad is a hostile sector.
The idea of the virus I applaud both because it's super-creepy and has absolutely no reference to AIDS.
However, could you really kill a giant virus with a knife? I liked when she chopped its tentacle off, but it's not like it has a gut to disrupt when you stab it in the body.
SPECTACLE
Okay, did we really have to see the virus-bugs come flying out of people's necks twice on the show? I, for one, am not going to be forgetting the sight anytime soon. Thank God I wasn't trying to eat dinner.
Kudos to Paris for a completely revolted expression when he was watching it happen to Torres. Not exactly sexy, is it?
When Janeway creeps around the bridge, there's a very nice forward shot up to the viewscreen. Good job.
Diction:
My favorite line (and very Star Trek):
"Grab a phaser, Ambassador. We're going to get some answers." -- Janeway teaching Neelix about cowboy diplomacy.
Also good:
"We appear to be low on options." -- Doctor.
SONG
I like to recognize each time the wonderful work they do with a real orchestra each episode, and it was wonderfully creepy in the first two acts. Could it have a been a little more "up" during the action scenes?
Okay, now the section where I acknowledge some of that Star Trek baggage:
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) LOVE
Good catch when Janeway's looking at the sick Neelix and says, "You've got a high fever. Fluid in your lungs." And he responds, "Lung."
They also remembered Torres' two stomachs.
I like the Doctor not knowing how to get to environmental control.
All right, let's address that holodeck issue, which was actually used well this time. All those tanned bodies with hankies on looked like some sort of macrovirus feast, quite appropriately too. I can see the ad now: "Club Med Vacations for Disease-Carrying Mutant Viruses on Only $100 a Day."
People often complain that while the ship is supposed to be low on power, the holodeck keeps working. The show has said several times now, including once in the pilot, that the holodeck runs on not only a different power source, but a different type of power, which makes sense considering that it makes a different kind of "matter" product. Turning off the holodeck is kind of like turning off the car radio to conserve power because you're low on gas.
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) HATE
Hmmm, maybe something will occur to me later.
Okay, that wraps this one up.
Star Trek Voyager Reviews
Or go ahead to ST Voyager Reviews -- Warlord.
Or go back to ST Voyager Reviews -- Alter Ego.