Okay then, this is a spoiler-laden review of Star Trek Voyager's episode, "Time and Again." It is expressly intended for the enjoyment of those who like Voyager and just can't get enough of those wacky time loops! I know there may be some who don't like Voyager and just can't get enough of those wacky time loops! Maybe you even get somewhat annoyed by Voyager and just can't get enough of those wacky time loops! So perhaps you'd like to get away from it all by going for a hike?
Still around? I hear the fish are biting...All right then...
INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
I'm am experiencing deja vu. I just know I've been here before, when it was an episode of TNG...Janeway and Paris work well together, but who hired the kid?...Give the Doctor more lines!...Interesting, I guess, but what was the point?
PLOT
Paris is hustling Kim into a double date with the Delaney sisters when the ship is rocked by a shock wave from a polaric explosion. Kes wakes up in distress. It might be from the silly outfit she has to wear for the rest of the show.
While Kes comes on to the bridge saying she's seen some sort of horrible explosion, Janeway and Tuvok trace the shock wave to its point of origin: a planet around a red sun that may once have been lovely, but now it just a gray, lifeless orb. Not a single strand of organic matter remains. No people, no pets, no plants. It's kind of like my apartment.
Figuring there may have been some sort of horrible war which destroyed life on the planet, Janeway, Tuvok, Paris, and Torres beam down to check things out.
Kes cries to Neelix and wonders if her vision isn't some new manifestation of the mental abilities her people once had before they became Caretaker co-dependent.
The away team is checking out the damage, and realizes that the polaric charge may not have been from a bomb, but from an accident in the planet's main power systems. They all seem amazed. A planet powered by a potentially dangerous source! What idiot would do something like that?
Trying to find out more about Three Mile Island, Paris steps into a subspace fracture caused by the polaric explosion. For a second, he sees the planet as it was before, with sunlight and children playing. Back with the others, he relates his experience and Janeway realizes the danger they are all in from these floating subspace fractures -- too late! She and Paris are enveloped by another fracture. They stand in the sunlit square, caught in the planet's past.
A little boy, Latika, screams. I think at first it's because his outfit is even worse than Kes', but it's because he saw Paris and Janeway appear from nowhere. Fortunately, a nearby cop tells the boy to be quiet and directs our heroes to a store where they can too can dress like unemployed acrobats.
Paris finds a clock and figures out that they have come about one day into this planet's past. Janeway sets her combadge to emit a subspace beacon so the Voyager crew can find them.
Back on Voyager, Kim and Torres do some figuring of their own. They realize where Paris and the captain have gotten to, and think they can figure out a way to retrieve them.
The Doctor tells a worried Kes that although he can't really help her because she's the only member of her species he's ever seen, he thinks her psychic vision is nothing to worry about. If she does have latent mental abilities, then adjusting to living in space may just be bringing them out.
Paris bemoans that they can't help these people avoid the explosion that will destroy them all, and Janeway beats him on the head with the Prime Directive. Can you imagine Kirk supporting something like that? Picard would try to, I suppose, but Data would talk him out of it. Sisko wouldn't be there in the first place.
Latika bothers them again. Paris chases him off. They follow the power conduits to the local polaric energy plant, and run into a semi-riot. Janeway gets pistol-whipped.
Torres and Kim show off the polaric generator they made from an old erector set and chewing gum. It transmits a 30-second subspace disruption which should allow them to retrieve Paris and Janeway. The only problem will be getting the rupture to reach the right place and time. To keep from falling into another rupture, the away team will be fitted with anti-polaric field emitters. Chakotay heads for the transporter, and Kes shows up to insist that she go with them.
Paris and Janeway are introduced to Fanar Makull and Niturl, the somewhat paranoid leaders of an anti-polaric energy, Greenpeacy eco-terrorist group. These men have the nerve to call Janeway's name unusual and don't believe her story that she and Paris were just at the plant for the tour. Makull and Niturl can read massive polaric energy coming from the two of them, so they figure either Janeway and Paris were at the sight of some horrible polaric explosion -- ha ha ha -- or inside the power plant the day before. This must mean they are some sort of corporate spies.
Janeway's protestations that they're just in town to look at real estate are undercut further by the extremely unwelcome arrival of Latika, who was "snooping" around outside. The eco-thugs plunk Latika next to Paris, and the boys bond.
Macull decides that the spies' arrival means the corporation is wise to the group's activities and moves up the timetable for some protest stunt they have planned from next week to today.
Suddenly Janeway is up and talking. She and Paris are from a starship in the future. They beamed down and got sucked into a subspace fracture. The world will be destroyed in a few hours by a polaric detonation. This makes perfect sense to us (?), but for some odd reason, Makull doesn't believe her.
Meanwhile, the away team has been trying to figure out where to rupture subspace. They stand in Makull's room, now gray and bleak from the explosion, and Kes makes a sort of brief mental connection to Janeway. On the basis of that, Chakotay has Kim and Torres scan. Yep, it's them all right. Chakotay tries to contact Janeway, but when his garbled signal comes through her combadge, Niturl thinks the device is some sort of spy thing. Makull strips her and Paris of their combadges and drags them off to the power plant. The subspace rupture just barely misses rescuing them.
Makull takes Paris, Janeway and Latika to the plant. On the way, Paris asks his captain how come she spilled the beans after warning him off with the Prime Directive. She tells him she'll do what she wants to because she's captain, and if he doesn't like it, he can stay on this planet and in that outfit forever.
Well, actually she explains that Makull's decision to move his terrorist stunt up from next week to this afternoon got her thinking. Voyager is the cause of this schedule change. Somehow [grab your temporal thinking caps!] Voyager's own interference in this planet's past will cause an explosion in Voyager's own present...or something like that. Anyway, Janeway and Paris are themselves responsible for helping with the explosion, so they must do all they can to resist being used by the eco-terrorists.
Back on Voyager, with time running out as the subspace fractures dissipate, Torres and Kim suggest that they organize their rescue efforts at the flashpoint of the explosion, inside the power station. Tuvok objects on the grounds that Janeway would never go there, but Chakotay doesn't even bother to consider this and orders everyone to the flashpoint. Tuvok looks irritated.
You know, Chakotay, it's not wise to upset a Wookie.
Makull orders Janeway to help them get past the guard at the plant gate, but instead she reveals that she is a hostage. Gunfighting ensues, and Paris gets shot in the gut. Janeway leaves him with Latika and goes after Makull and company.
The away team gets to the flashpoint, and Kes senses that this is where Janeway died. Chakotay orders Kim and Torres to set up their polaric generator.
Inside the plant, Janeway holds a gun on Makull and his cohorts. She can't get them to hand over the weapons, but she does get them to wait a few minutes. She just wants to get past the moment of the explosion.
Kim and Torres succeed in rupturing subspace, but, as Janeway sees in horror, this means that the fracture itself will cut right through one of the polaric energy conduits. It's Voyager's own rescue attempt of Janeway which will destroy this planet.
Janeway gets her phaser from Makull and closes up the rupture. Everything flashes bright white and is undone. The explosion is avoided, and we're back listening to Paris pressure Kim into that date with the Delaney sisters.
Kes comes to the bridge in terror again, but now she kind of looks stupid as Janeway scans the planet nearby and finds nothing amiss. Voyager notes its location and moves on.
