VOY: “Thirty Days”

Date: December 15, 2020

Season 5, Episode 9

Musical Accompaniment: Now on songs that begin with the letter ‘R’, like this gem:

Interstellar News: Christmas is in 10 days! 2020 is over in 16 days!! I am no where close to being done with Voyager!!!

TL;DR: We open with Paris being demoted to Ensign and sentenced to 30 days in the Brig. After Neelix brings him some food a few days later, he decides to start writing a letter to his father explaining his incarceration. In flashbacks we see Voyager encounter an ocean being held together by a containment field where the Moneans live. Paris has, apparently, always been fascinated by the water and Voyager wants to help the Moneans with their problem. Paris, Kim, Seven, and Riga dive down in the modified Delta Flyer and encounter a 100, 000 year old reactor as well as a giant sea creature. The reactor is the cause of the problems because the Moneans have been mining oxygen. Paris and Riga are passionate in their assertions that immediate action needs to be taken, but the Counsel only promises to take it under advisement. They decide to shut down the refineries anyway, but are stopped at the last minute by Janeway… which is where we come back to Paris getting demoted. He finishes the letter and tells the computer to send it when they’re in range of the Federation.

Favorite Quote:

Paris: Call me Skipper.

Kim: Sailor talk. You’ll get used to it.

Seven of Nine: I think not.

Seven is fantastic and you can’t tell me otherwise. Her attitude sucks, but her lines are well delivered.

“We can’t expect an entire society to change because we think they should.”: So we’ve gotten to the “don’t mess with the ocean” episode. Didn’t they make a whole movie about that already? There were some bits here that were brilliant. The Captain Proton bit with the twins was wonderful, especially when Kim continues to be ridiculous with his choice of women. The reveal that an old culture moved their ocean out into space and created this reactor that worked perfectly for 100,000 years only to be almost destroyed within 300 years is too close to the truth. When you look at how much damage humans have done to the Earth in their relatively short time on the planet, it’s staggering. I love seeing enthusiastic Paris, just like with the old car floating through space, it shows he cares about something other than himself. I also really enjoyed the guy who plated Riga, as he was fabulous in White Collar. The part I don’t get is WHY ARE THERE STILL WAYS TO TAKE A SHUTTLE OUT OF THE SHIP UNAUTHORIZED?!?! Didn’t Tuvok swear he was going to put a stop to it? I wonder if Paris will be back to his normal rank in the next episode, le sigh. 3 pips for this episode, though the sea monster was bad ass.

TA Out!