VOY: “The Chute” and “The Swarm”

Date: October 11, 2020

Season 3, Episodes 3 and 4

Musical Accompaniment: Spooky Music for Spooky Season

Interstellar News: Happy 11th Day of Halloween! The is entitled “The Review”, heh.

“The Chute” in TL;DR: Kim and Paris are imprisoned after being wrongfully accused of a terrorist bombing. There are no guards, but also no means of escape, so the prisoners fight among themselves. Paris is stabbed and Kim makes a deal with another prisoner as well as using his technical skills to try and climb up the chute that dispenses the food. Unfortunately the other end leads to space so there’s no chance of escape. Voyager finds the ship responsible, it has two young people on it, but the Akritirians won’t let Paris and Kim out. Janeway convinces the kids to take her to the prison where she and Tuvok break out Kim and Paris in the nick of time, as the device implanted in their head almost made Kim kill Paris.

Favorite Quote:

Paris: You did a terrific job, Neelix.

Janeway: I agree. Excellent piloting.

Neelix: I’m glad to hear you say that, Captain, because I’ve been thinking. Until Tom here gets back on his feet, perhaps I could, er, try my hand at conn for a while.

EMH: That won’t be necessary. Lieutenant Paris is just fine, thanks to excellent doctoring.

The EMH must always have the last word.

“This man is my friend. Nobody touches him.”: This episode boils down to “Alcatraz in space” with Janeway getting to be the badass who tries everything. In prison Paris is the protector and Kim is his bitch, but after Paris gets stabbed Kim really steps up to the plate and not only protects his friend but doesn’t take his eye off the prize of escape. It’s heartbreaking when he gets to the top and finds out there’s no escape, almost as much as it is when the EMH reveals that Zio was right and the clamp was stimulating aggressive tendencies. Janeway also goes through a lot this episode, though nothing as physically grueling as what Paris and Kim go through. First she tries diplomacy, next is detective work, after that comes a sneaky plan with the finale being her and Tuvok coming in guns blazing. It was a fun episode and I enjoyed it. 6 otters, happily swimming in the pool.

“The Swarm” in TL;DR: Torres and Paris are in a shuttle when two aliens beam aboard and shoot them. On Voyager, the EMH is singing opera and then has to attend to Torres and Paris. Torres is fine, Paris needs some help, and the EMH is starting to forget things. His memory circuits are degrading due to a cascade failure, partly because of all the “useless” information that doesn’t pertain to medicine and partly because he’s been on for so long. In order to avoid a factory reset, Torres runs the diagnostic program in the holodeck which produces a holo-Dr. Zimmerman and Kes tries to graft its matrix onto the EMH’s. Meanwhile Voyager tries to avoid a hostile race, fails at sneaking, and then chain reactions their way out. The EMH overlay works, kind of, as he’s similar to how he was in “Caretaker” but also hums the opera he was singing at the top of the episode.

Favorite Quote:

Janeway: I’m not going to tell this crew we’re adding another fifteen months to this journey. We’ll have to find another option.

Tuvok: If we are not to go around their space the only available option is to go through it.

Janeway: Precisely.

Janeway has finally found something she won’t stand for, though I am surprised she didn’t try diplomacy first.

“You are questioning my bedside manner?”: I kind of hated that the new alien race didn’t have anything to do with the EMH’s memory issues, but then it was kind of amusing that it’s his personality that caused the issue in the first place. It was extra fun to have the EMH and an impression of Dr. Zimmerman in the same episode. I also loved that Kes was the one to consider getting to the root of the issue instead of just slapping a bandage on the problem and hoping it fixed it. She’s really coming along in her problem solving skills and applying the knowledge she’s learning in the medical field to other every day problems. I was surprised and shocked that Janeway was so caviler about storming through an enemy’s territory, but maybe she’s had enough of the side quests for a while. This was a very ‘meh’ episode and it only gets 4 York peppermint patties.

TA Out!