VOY: “The Disease”

Date: December 23, 2020

Season 5, Episode 16

Musical Accompaniment: Finishing my 4-star playlist and then moving on to something else.

Interstellar News: Merry Christmas Eve Eve!

TL;DR: Voyager has been helping the Varro, who are on a multi-generational ship and generally distrustful of outsiders, fix their engines for the last two weeks. Janeway and Jippeq have a tentative understanding with each other, but it’s Kim and Tal who have fallen madly in love despite clear fraternization rules. Kim asks Seven about love, she likens it to a disease, and Paris covers for Kim but eventually Kim has to go to sick bay and tells the Doctor who has to tell Janeway. Janeway does her best “I’m mad and disappointed, now stop seeing her”, but Kim can’t bring himself to let go of Tal. Tuvok and Neelix find a Varro stowed away in a Jeffries tube and Chakotay finds out that there are Varro who want to leave the ship and it’s clear there is sabotage afoot on the Varro ship. Kim borrows a shuttlecraft and they visit a nearby nebula but are caught by Tuvok and Tal is in trouble for sabotaging the ship. The Varro ship begins to explode but Voyager shields them enough to evacuate. Some of the smaller ships decide to stay together, but others decide they want to settle on their own planet. Kim and Tal say goodbye, Kim continues to refuse treatment for his broken heart, and Janeway explains how protective she’s always felt of him. In the mess hall Seven comes to thank Kim for completing some scans, reconsiders her analogy, and wishes him to get well soon.

Favorite Quotes:

Doctor’s Orders: “Sometimes I think everyone on this ship has been possessed by alien hormones.”

Seven of Nine: The Borg have referenced this condition in over six thousand assimilated species.

Kim: Condition? You make it sound like a disease.

Seven of Nine: Physiologically, it bears a striking similarity to disease. A series of biochemical responses that trigger an emotional cascade impairing normal functioning.

Seven is not wrong. Being in love can be absolutely awful some times.

“You had intimate contact with an alien species without medical clearance?”: I would watch this episode again if only for the Doctor. He was more upset at Kim for breaking protocol than I think even Janeway was. I mean we find out Starfleet has a regulation and a WHOLE HANDBOOK regarding inter-species relations, but not a word for what to do when you’re lost in space… come on now. This was also a real coming of age story for Kim who reminds Janeway and all of us that he’s been on the ship for five years and he’s not just a kid any more. Unless Tal was willing to come on Voyager or Kim was willing to stay behind, they both knew their relationship was going to come to an end. This is the one piece that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, though, is why didn’t that happen? If they were so in love why didn’t one of them decide to stay, especially if the bond is supposed to be for life and could have been life threatening to Tal. We went awful quick from the Varro captain being all gloom and doom to “oh, we have medication for that”, and it makes me tilt my head like a puppy who is confused. I did enjoy the sabotage plot where it starts off small, but then it escalated all too quickly in my mind. A decent episode and it gets 6 songs that are all titled “Untitled”.

TA Out!