VOY: “Waking Moments”

Date: November 21, 2020

Season 4, Episode 13

Musical Accompaniment: My 4-star music list, as I realize I’ve been listening to the 5-star almost exclusively.

Interstellar News: We got a new couch today and it’s wonderful!

TL;DR: The crew all experience nightmares and encountered the same alien in their dreams. Kim and five other crew members are stuck in dream land so Chakotay induces lucid dreaming and meets with the alien who tells him to leave their territory and the crew will wake up. The crew do wake up but it’s a ploy by the aliens to take over the ship, except Chakotay’s really still asleep and the Doctor reports he’s been asleep for over a day. The rest of the crew is asleep and experiencing a group unconsciousness, Chakotay wakes up again and beams down to the planet where the alien bodies are located. Chakotay wakes up one of the aliens, aims a torpedo, gives them an ultimatum, and then Voyager gets to head on their way… though everyone now has insomnia.

Favorite Quote:

Janeway: Either I’ve become impervious to antimatter explosions, or we’re still dreaming.

Torres: A warp core explosion should have destroyed the ship.

Janeway: If I were awake, or if any of this were real, which it obviously isn’t. Things just weren’t adding up. Chakotay’s disappearance. The warp core failing to eject. And as Chakotay said, lucid dreaming is about taking control, so I took a chance.

Tuvok: Surely there must have been a less extreme method of testing your assumptions. As Captain, you shouldn’t be taking chances with your life.

Janeway: I’m touched by your concern, Tuvok.

Janeway being snarky, Torres being an engineering, and Tuvok being logical.

“I won’t dignify this inquisition with a response.”: This was an episode that certainly kept me on my toes. It didn’t take me long to realize everyone was dreaming, but it was weird that Kim and Seven were making out and that was his nightmare, or that everyone was terrified of the alien that invaded their dreams. This is something that rings true to me that would happen if you lived and worked with the same people for four years, you begin to discuss things you might not usually. I loved the twists where Chakotay didn’t realize he was still sleeping and wasn’t really sure if he was awake, it kind of reminded me of when Data and Picard where in the holodeck or when Riker didn’t know what was real. I also liked when the crew was stuck asleep with the aliens having taken over the ship and Seven’s idea of creating a diversion is to beat up Kim. I’m a little sad that the end is “I don’t know if I’m awake or not but I’ve totally got all my weapons pointed at you and the EMH will blow you all up if you don’t let us go”, but it also tracks with Chakotay taking matters into his own hands once he realized there was no way to tell if he was awake or not. 7 orders of crab rangoon for this episode, with yummy sweet and sour sauce.

TA Out!