Date: February 1, 2021
Season 6, Episode 9
Music Video of the Day: In honor of Black History Month, I’m going to highlight some of my favorite Black artists.
Interstellar News: I told you I’d be back! It’s nice to be feeling a little more like myself and get a workout in today.
“I don’t have the benefit of a cortical processor. Why don’t you give me the abridged version?”: Seven refits her alcove so she can process Voyager’s information more quickly. She identifies photonic fleas that are causing an issue with power on the ship, at which Janeway and Torres are impressed. They encounter an alien named Tash who is building a catapult to try to get him home sooner than 10 years. Seven discovers this uses Caretaker technology and then jumps the shark with her conspiracy theories. One is that Janeway stranded them there on purpose in order to invade the DQ, another that Chakotay is reviving the Maquis, and lastly that she was the original reason for Voyager coming to the DQ. Janeway talks her off the ledge, Seven gets her implant fixed, and they use the catapult to cut three years off of their journey home.
Favorite Quote:
Janeway: We’ve been through too much to stop trusting each other.
Chakotay: You didn’t poison the coffee, did you?
Janeway: Not any more than I usually do.
Janeway and Chakotay exchanging jokes.
“Quantity is less relevant than quality. You must be able to interpret the data and enjoy the process.”: This episode starts off promising and then drops really quickly. Seven’s proof of flea infestation is very much like all of the wonderful detective bits from Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot and quite impressive. As she takes on more information she gets overloaded, but it’s not clear she’s gone absolutely batshit until she calls Janeway in. The problem with conspiracy theories is that the abundance of facts put together in a particular way eventually sounds plausible to even the most level headed of us, but they always have one failure. Think of how many things had to happen in JUST THE RIGHT SET OF EVENTS in order for the conspiracy to work. How did Tash know that Voyager would be in that part of space at that very moment? Think of Kes propelling them 10,000 light years across Borg space, or the many other times Voyager hit a speed ramp. It’s just like “Rascals” and “Badda-Bing Badda-Bang” where everything had to happen in a certain way for the plan to not fall completely apart. It was fun to watch Seven go off the deep end, and then it was just sad. Overall, this episode earns itself 4 chicken dumplings.
TA Out!
To Boldly Go Where Everyone Has Gone Before 