Date: September 22, 2020

Season 2, Episode 6

Musical Accompaniment: 25 Piano covers or another BBQ show on Netflix, haven’t decided.

Interstellar News: Things at work are heating up and I’m worried I won’t even make it to Enterprise at this point. I’ve been super stressed but I got a lot done today, including five loads of laundry.

TL;DR: It’s Kes’s second birthday and they throw a surprise party in the holodeck, leaving Kim and Tuvok on the bridge. They encounter a subspace distortion and communications go down and then everyone gets lost. Torres can’t find engineering, Janeway, Chakotay, and Paris are in the turbolift to everywhere but the bridge, the EMH is stuck on the holodeck, and Kes and Neelix can’t find her quarters. They all wind up back at the holodeck and break off to try again. Paris and Torres go to the turbolift to retrace their steps back to engineering, which works, though they wind up back at the holodeck when they try to transport themselves to the bridge. Neelix and Chakotay go on foot, encounter Tuvok at some point, and then Neelix disappears.

Kim and Janeway go through the tubes and encounter the distortion, which effects Janeway. Kes stays with the doctor to help in case there are any medical emergencies, which comes in handy when Kim brings Janeway in, she’s delirious. Everyone winds up at the holodeck again, and Chakotay chooses the more risky plan proposed by Torres as opposed to Tuvok’s. It doesn’t work and they decide to do nothing and see what happens, which turns out to be the correct thing. Janeway wakes up and explains the distortion was trying to communicate with her and their computer has over 20 gigaquads of new information, though their information was also downloaded. Neelix brings the birthday cake to the bridge and Kes asks for a picture of him to put in her locket that Tom made for her.

Favorite Quote:

Sandrine: My new bartender. Handsome, isn’t he?

EMH: I’m here in an official capacity, of course. In case of a medical emergency.

Kes: Emergency?

EMH: Surprises have been known to cause acute hyperventilation, oesophageal spasms and in extreme cases, even coronary arrest. One can never be too careful.

The EMH, always a font of medical information.

“When every logical course of action is exhausted, the only option that remains is inaction.”: This was a very strange and, dare I say, twisted episode. We start out with introducing Kes to a surprise birthday party, everyone gives her gifts, Neelix bakes a cake, and then there’s the disaster… similar in some ways to TNG’s “Disaster“. Everyone is trying to get somewhere and they all keep winding back up in the holodeck program that never ends. The crew is doing what they always do, trying to find a way out of a situation they don’t even understand. It’s what is so wonderful and dangerous about engineers. Just like we saw in “Statistical Probabilities” when the “Jack Pack” thought they knew what was best and forged ahead, Torres can’t sit still. THING BROKEN, MUST FIX.

There’s not a lot of great here. Paris is still a little skeevy, Neelix is jealous in a way that is unfair to Kes, Torres lets her temper and confidence get the best of her, Kim’s mostly there to support, and Janeway is unconscious for most of the episode. We do get to see how Chakotay and Tuvok each choose to lead, a bit, but it’s nothing to write home about. Kim did have the fabulous idea of making the map out of the tri-corder data and the ending was interesting, as there’s all this new data to take a look at and Janeway got to do Starfleet proud by encountering a new life form. Baxter, who was last seen in “Eye of the Needle” acting a fool and not exercising correctly was at it again, which I did like as a call back to the other crew members who are also stuck on the ship. I also really disliked Chakotay and Neelix’s conversation about jealousy. YOU CANNOT “LOSE” A PERSON, because you can’t own someone. Neelix doesn’t own Kes, so he can stop being her partner or they can stop being friends and maybe they won’t be in each other’s lives but a person is not in your life to be yours. I choose to share my life with the people that love me and if they ever choose to stop then maybe we won’t share my life as much any more but they are always a part of my life.

Anyway, I say all that to then point out that Tuvok was super out of his element and it takes a lot to flummox a Vulcan and he played it perfectly. I was neither underwhelmed nor overwhelmed by this episode. I was just… whelmed. 5 new pairs of socks for this episode.

TA Out!

Date: September 20, 2020

Season 2, Episode 5

Musical Accompaniment: I’m watching The American Barbecue Showdown on Netflix while I write this. I can cook and bake, but I cannot fry or grill… and I love watching grilling competitions. I absolutely love ribs and that’s the episode I’m watching.

Interstellar News: The last few days have been absolutely terrible and today has only had one highlight… watching Silverado. I’m sorry I’ve not been up for more than one episode a day, I hope to be back tomorrow.

TL;DR: Kim wakes up on present-day Earth and it’s what life would be like if he never was accepted to the Voyager‘s crew… except he remembers all of his time on Voyager. Libby is his fiancee, he’s in Starfleet’s Engineering Corps, and he get a Vulcan mocha, extra sweet from a very flamboyant Italian man named Cosimo every morning. Kim tries to figure out what happened and he goes to see Paris, who also never made it to Voyager as he got into a fight with Quark and Odo put him in lockup. Paris is a drunken mess and when Kim returns to San Fransisco he’s put under observation because they think he’s a spy. Kim and Cosimo speak, Cosimo is an alien who was sent to check up on Kim because he was in an accident and got lost in the time stream. He tells Kim what he could do if he wants and Kim attempts to escape. Paris comes to help Kim, they break into Starfleet headquarters, steal a runabout, and recreate the accident… and it works. He’s transported back to Voyager from the runabout, debriefs with Janeway, and tells Paris he owes him.

Favorite Quote:

Kim: You also told me you were afraid of what would happen to you if you didn’t take Captain Janeway up on her offer. Now I see why.

Paris: What do you see, Ensign?

Kim: A loser and a drunk.

Kim: I guess in this reality, that’s all you’ll ever be.

Kim getting one on Paris.

“Look, that was another lifetime. I’m doing the best I can.”: This episode reminded me of a less successful “flash-sideways” like they did in Lost. I thought this was a fun way to show how Kim’s life would be different, but the story never sucks me in to WHY Kim is so determined to get back. Just four episodes ago Kim was figuring out if he wanted to stay with the 37’s or live the rest of his life on a starship and now he’s fighting against an almost idyllic life to return to life as an Ensign? I don’t get it. Maybe if there had been more to what happened on the runabout or if he was trying to stop Voyager from getting blown up, but all he wants is to get back and doesn’t help me to understand why. Kim never once tells anyone about what he thinks happened to Voyager and it’s also not really clear what they think happened to Voyager either.

I also have no idea why Paris shows up at the end. The Paris we see is down on his luck, drunk, and has never met Harry Kim before. Why would he travel from France to San Fransisco to help some guy he just met and why oh why would he be okay with dying when he had no idea if Kim was even right? I’m also appalled by Starfleet Security’s ineptitude for the last half of the episode, they were just abysmally awful. I don’t really have a lot to say about this episode, because it just wasn’t great. There were so many things that were missing or could have been done better and this was not Voyager’s best. I’m going to watch more BBQ show now, because it’s more entertaining.

TA Out!

Date: August 19, 2020

Season 2, Episode 4

Musical Accompaniment: A neat playlist to accompany a short story that features all of these songs.

Interstellar News: I thought I was going to watch so much more Trek today, but I just couldn’t. Life has been very stressful these last few months, but more so this last week.

TL;DR: Chakotay interrupts two of the crew smooching which leads to he and Janeway having an academic discussion about fraternization policies, free will, and having babies while lost in space. Voyager encounters some space dwelling lifeforms and goes to take a closer look. Neelix is an asshat to Kes because Paris is being nice to her, but later she is seen eating beetles and stuffing her face with anything she can find. Neelix brings her to sickbay where she finally tells Janeway and the EMH that she’s going through elogium (puberty), which only happens once, and if she ever wants to procreate, it’s got to be now.

Voyager gets stuck in the midst of the life forms, who mistake it for a potential mate. The other potential mate gets mad but Chakotay pulls the submissive card, the ship turns blue and does a barrel roll, and they are able to escape. Kes asks Neelix to be her mate, he goes to Tuvok for advice, but then she starts freaking out and decides to not go through with it. Eventually the EMH speculates that the elogium was false and brought on prematurely from the energy field created by the life forms. Janeway worries about the environment of a starship for a child’s upbringing when Ensign Wildman comes in and reports she’s pregnant, although her husband is back on Deep Space Nine.

Favorite Quote:

Neelix: A daughter? I don’t have anything to teach a daughter.

Tuvok: Why would it be any different from what you would teach a son?

Neelix: It just would. She’d learn more from her mother.

Tuvok: I have three sons and one daughter. I can assure you she benefits as much from my presence and guidance as my sons do. It is unfortunate that I must be so far removed from all of them now.

Tuvok, the OG feminist of the starship Voyager.

“It appears we have lost our sex appeal, Captain.”: This episode was… weird. I liked that the one story caused the other story, as the life forms messed with Kes in a way that she thought she was going through the Ocampa version of puberty. We learn more about the Ocampa here, that they only live for a decade or less, and she’s not even two… but that makes everything super freaking creepy when you think about her and Neelix’s relationship. I don’t have anything against an age gap as long as it’s past a certain age (like 21 or 25 in humans, before that the frontal lobe is still forming and you should just enjoy life until then). The EMH is super fascinated by the pre-mating ritual and I love his enthusiasm for learning, looks like I found my Ravenclaw.

Janeway and Chakotay discussing fraternization, a potential replacement crew, and mating rituals is quite possibly one of the funniest things considering a comment I made a few episodes ago about “mommy, daddy, and Uncle Tuvok“. It’s a real conversation that needed to happen and one I am very surprised did not happen sooner. I got a little bit of a “Galaxy’s Child” vibe from this episode, only this one was more sexual in nature. I disliked how Janeway said people were going to start pairing off, because some people might not want to. They may be in a committed relationship and prefer to remain monogamous. They might be asexual or could be the only one of their kind on board and unable to mate with the other crew. It’s a hard ask and goes way above the call of Starfleet duty, let alone those who are Maquis. Though, if there’s any hope of getting back to Federation space… sigh. I’m not sure how I feel about the Kes and Neelix story line. One one hand I hated the “I trust you not him” bit by Neelix, it’s a bullshit excuse and line, but I did absolutely love Tuvok and Neelix’s conversation.

I also think it’s a great little Easter egg that Ensign Wildman is the one to tell Kes about mashed potatoes, and then she’s the one who winds up pregnant at the end. Wildman is in several scenes throughout the episode and it’s a nice touch. I also geebled at the end by how much garlic Neelix has in his kitchen. He would make any Italian grandmother very proud. I’m very torn on my feelings for this episode, so it’s 5 bulbs of garlic for this one.

TA Out!