VOY: “Friendship One” and “Natural Law”

Date: August 9, 2021

Season 7, Episodes 20 and 21

Music Video of the Day:

Interstellar News: Today was an interesting day filled with lots of work, a bit of play, and some more Enterprise. I’m doing a double post tonight and hopefully tomorrow so I can get more caught up to where I’m at in the rewatch.

“Friendship One” in TL;DR: Voyager, now in contact with the AQ, is given a mission to recover an old Earth probe… Friendship One. Neelix, Paris, Chakotay, and Carey find it on what’s not quite an abandoned planet. A man named Verin, the local leader, wants a new home and believes it’s the people of Earth who are to blame for what’s become of their planet. The EMH is able to heal one of the locals and save what would have been a stillborn baby, but not before Carey is executed by Verin because he’s a petulant child. The rest of the locals side with Voyager, who helps them fix the atmosphere, and Janeway laments another loss.

Favorite Quotes:

Torres: Being pregnant doesn’t make me an invalid.

Paris: No, it doesn’t. But there’s a toxic atmosphere down there and you’re breathing for two.

Torres: All right, you win. But if we have another baby, you carry it, and I’ll go on the away missions.

Paris: It’s a deal.

Torres makes a good point, Paris makes a good point, and in the end they have a very calm and adult conversation. What show am I watching again? Who says Klingons can’t be reasonable?!?!

Chakotay: The urge to explore is pretty powerful.

Janeway: But it can’t justify the loss of lives, whether it’s millions or just one.

Janeway, lamenting about Carey. Too bad she didn’t do this all the other times, sigh.

“When you need to infiltrate a toxic environment, it helps to be a hologram.”: I absolutely swore, upon seeing Carey, that if he died I was going to riot. I seriously considered stopping Voyager and just not finishing the series… but the completionist in me won. There are some things I did like about this episode; like Kim finding the probe, Janeway and crew getting a look at the unintended consequences of past actions, Torres and Paris having a very appropriate conversation about risk, and the local folks realizing that Voyager was just trying to help. I cannot, however, forgive the writers for killing Carey so close to the end… so I absolutely refuse to rate this episode. Neener neener.

“Natural Law” in TL;DR: Chakotay and Seven get stuck behind an energy barrier and meet some very primitive natives, the Ventu. Chakotay nerds out and figures out how to communicate with them, but eventually realizes he may have overshared. Voyager tries to work with the Ledosians to try to free Chakotay and Seven, though Seven eventually figures it out on her own. Paris is stuck doing flying lessons while the Ledosians start to interfere with the Ventu. Voyager decides to close the barrier again to protect the Ventu.

Favorite Quote:

Kleg: According to the maintenance records, you were this vessel’s chief designer. I make it a point of professional pride to research every case I’m assigned to. Are you familiar with that term, Lieutenant? Professional pride?

Paris: Yes, sir. In fact, that is why I’m so eager to get underway. I want to prove to you that I’m a good pilot.

Paris doing everything he can to get out of flying lessons.

“Their isolation may limit their potential, but if that isolation ends, so will a unique way of life.“: I didn’t really enjoy the whole “Paris goes to flight school” bit, aside from it doing its best to teach Paris humility. I did love Chakotay and Seven on the planet with the Ventu and the lessons they each learned. It was very much what the Federation meant when they wanted to explore new worlds and not interfere with other cultures. Seven learns that technology is not everything and Chakotay realizes that even the smallest gestures can have the longest lasting impacts. This episode earns itself seven “borks” from the Swedish Chef.

TA Out!