Star Trek: VOY Reviews - From Start to Suicide!

I'd be the crazy guy who wanted the implants. Hell yeah, reinforce every structure and system in my body. Gimme multi-spectrum vision and and FM receiver in my head.

You know the nanoprobes cleanse the system of intoxicants, don'tcha?

I think the nanoprobes created magical midget flying ponies surrounded by a quasi-somebody-else's-problem field, readily visible only to Janeway as they were designed to be her problem alone. Seven was able to use these ponies to swarm and dazzle Janeway into the occasional fit of competence, but when the ponies were inactive, Janeway, in a state of pony withdrawal, because sullen, egomaniacal, and even sociopathic.

Either that, or like all characters and devices on Voyager their characteristics were driven entirely by the "plot" of the week.

In an upcoming review, we'll see one of the most puzzling uses of nanoprobes mar an otherwise decent episode.

Oh, I'm totally with you there.

In-universe though, I think Borg upgrades would be more popular if the Borg weren't basically the Nazis of the 24th century.

Nazi's gassed those who were 'different', the Borg just want to everyone to be like them - a bit like the Federation, but less cuddly. I could make some political comparisons too, but I'll leave that for another day

I'll just keep replenishing the intoxicants and maintain a constant state of warfare within my body.

WHAT is your dog doing it your avatar?

He's pinching a loaf. Isn't that how your dog looks when she lays a log?

Our dog actually looks even funnier than that. Since he's a dachshund, he looks like kinda like an inchworm when he takes a dump.

Can't speak for Forbin's dogs but that's not how our dog looks when offloading.

So, uh, back on topic.

Hunters
We open with shots of space and garbled radio traffic. Voyager's picked up a new transmission via the transmitter network, and it's Starfleet. Harry (yes, he still exists!) figures out that it's apparently become lodged in one of the nearby transmitters, and Voyager warps off to find it and discover what Starfleet has to say. But it's a little more like a party line than they'd care to discover - the owners of the network have been listening in, and they order a ship to meet Voyager at the transmitter array and capture their prey.

On the way to the array, the crew speculates on what the transmission could be. Harry maintains hope that they've discovered a new form of propulsion that will speed the journey, and Chuckles suggests that they've found "a stable wormhole" like the one to the "Gamma Quadrant." Fuck, you name-drop Picard like being Patrick Stewart is going out of style, but you can't even name it as the Bajoran Wormhole? Would the pretentious dicks over at DS9 get their panties in a twist, or are you just too fucking proud to acknowledge that they've actually made something of real merit?

Anyway, the Doctor harangues Seven for not checking in more frequently with him and not regenerating as often as she should, but the ship soon reaches a small ship at the edge of the array which, incidentally, is powered by a quantum singularity (and yes, they'll actually call it a black hole). And it's 100,000 years old. The ship's sole inhabitant is pretty dead, so they beam him to sickbay.

Or rather, they beam his skin to sickbay - the rest of him has been scooped out like a pint of Ben and Jerry's after a messy breakup. Seven notes that the Borg encountered something similar to this before, but since there was nothing to assimilate, they didn't really give a shit.

Anyway, they finally get close enough to the station and start the download. What they quickly realize is that it isn't information on a new means of propulsion or a wormhole. They're letters from the crew's loved ones. Naturally, Harry is thrilled, but his letter isn't in the initial batch, so he acts like a fucking prick for the rest of the episode.

One of the first letters is from a friend of Chakotay's though, and she has some sobering news. The Maquis have been eradicated. But they talk about this in the most hilariously vague terminology possible, again like they don't want to acknowledge something from DS9, but are forced to because otherwise bitchy fans on the internet will moan and complain about it. He tells Torres, and she flips shit (this'll be later referenced in Season Five's Extreme Risk, IIRC). Hell, they don't even mention the goddamn Dominion, instead referencing a "powerful ally from the Gamma Quadrant." Now, in the previous episode we got Voyager's only direct reference to the Dominion War, so why the fuck couldn't they build upon that now?

Janeway gets shitty news too. Chuckles wanders in, apparently fully OK with all of his friends being slaughtered by now, and asks her what's up. Mark's left her and gotten hitched. He supposedly waited "longer than most," but I have a feeling he was thanking the Prophets when Voyager disappeared.

Anyway, after dozens more letters, Harry still hasn't received one, so he bitches to Tom. Tom blows him off because he doesn't even want one - the only person who would send him one would be his father, and he doesn't want to hear from him. And with that, Tom steals all of Harry's thunder and the letter conflict is swiped from Garrett Wang's "100 Most Beautiful" hands.

The link from the array starts to destabilize, so Tuvok and Seven head out in a shuttle to act as an intermediary link, as the shuttle can better brave the gravity abnormalities around the array. Of course, as they do so, they promptly get kidnapped by the Hirogen.

And the Hirogen are pretty cranky about it, as they were awful prey - they got captured immediately, and provided no challenge in the hunt. The Hirogen are seven feet tall and wear intimidating armor. Their ships are clad in the bones of their prey and the weapons used to kill them, and vats boil away flesh for consumption or preserve the tissue as a prize.

The captain of the Hirogen vessel (played by the huge Tiny Ron) decides to skin Tuvok first and make Seven watch, then collect her tightly wound intestinal tract as a relic of the hunt. Delightful fellow, eh?

Torres pulls down part of Tom's message and tells him excitedly, but he's a dick to her about it, which leads to them eventually bonding over the news about the Maquis and Tom's unhappiness about his father. Remarkably, this is the only real time in the episode that you can tell it was penned by Jeri Taylor. Anyway, the Hirogen captain decides that the entire crew of Voyager would be much better prey to hunt, and challenges Janeway to bring it on as his backup arrives.

So, naturally, Janeway pulls some technobabble out of her ass and fires some anti-somethingorother burst at the station, causing it to implode. The visual effects here are actually really nice - there's a very nice crumple-inward effect to it all as it gets sucked into the black hole. Two of the Hirogen vessels are caught and destroyed immediately, and Voyager manages to beam Tuvok and Seven back just in time before warping away from the gravity well.

Torres gives Kim his letter - the last one she was able to fully download, but reports to Tom that his letter didn't get finished. She tells him to just assume that his father was saying that he was proud of Tom, and Tom agrees . Chuckles and Janeway discuss Mark's letter, and she reveals that even in the Delta Quadrant, she'll have to be alone. You can immediately see a "Wait...why not me? Take me off the friend ladder please and let us fuck" look on his face.

A decent episode. If anything, it's best as an introduction to the relatively well-handled Hirogen, who play a significant role in S4. They're essentially Klingons without all the trappings of honor and greatness - they are just out to kill and have a challenge at it.

Rating: ***
Torpedoes remaining: 13/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 9
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 8 (because of the false hope from the Starfleet communication)

I noted these awkward references to the Dominion and DS9 in the last two TNG movies.

Trek, by this point, had become very fragmented for some reason. I think having two Treks on the air at once and actually competing with each other is part of what killed the franchise.

And let's face it... VOY could not compare to DS9 and anyone watching the two series concurrently would note the disparity in writing and character development. They should have started VOY after DS9 had finished.

^
Well I remember at the time everyone thought DS9 was killing the franchise, Voyager was seen as getting back on the right track being set on a ship and all. Ds9 didn't really get the 'gold star' until after the fact when fan opinions got a voice on the internet.

The only thing that would have done was given us shoddy 9/11 allegories for Voyager Season 3.

Honestly, both of them being on the air at the same time shouldn't have been a problem because Voyager's very premise allowed them to do their own thing and literally be affected by nothing at all that happend on DS9, in the TNG movies, etc., etc.

By this point on Voyager, the ship should have been in relative shambles, and the communique from Starfleet should have been them saying that they're basically on their own because the Dominion is kicking their ass, and Voyager being pissed off that Starfleet's abandoned them.

Voyager Season 4 isn't bad, in fact, it's pretty passable Trek, but they've blown so much potential, without even going overboard with the constantly depressing BSG route.

I find this discussion very appropriate for a thread on Voyager.

Prey
A Species 8472 bioship rockets through the frame, closely followed by a Hirogen hunting vessel. They chase the bioship into a dense asteroid field and start tracking it on one of the asteroids. One of the hunters wants to use a scan to track their prey, but the other insists on doing it the old fashioned way. They round a corner, and see an 8472, clearly injured, cowering in a cave. They aim these fucking huge guns at the thing and open fire - the 8472 takes shot after shot before finally dying.

Meanwhile, on Voyager, the Doctor is leading Seven through insulting 'etiquette' lessons, failing to realize that Seven is abrupt because she finds social graces to be inefficient, not because she isn't aware of their existence. The ship soon stumbles upon the Hirogen vessel, and Janeway immediately orders a red alert, citing that they might not be too happy with Voyager after getting three of their ships pulled into a black hole (which, I forgot to mention, brought down the entire communications network).

However, the Hirogen vessel makes no hostile action. In fact, it doesn't even seem to be in operation. Only one lifesign is present aboard the ship, so naturally, Janeway orders an away team to head over as "a sign of good will." Fuck that, they skin their enemies and put their skulls on the wall - they aren't going to think twice about doing the same to you because you saved one hunter after getting a dozen of them compressed to the point of nonexistence.

Anyway, Tuvok, Tom, and Chuckles beam over (because apparently, random members of the senior staff are more qualified for such a situation than the security staff aboard Voyager - the scary thing is, that might be accurate). Tom finds a Hirogen helmet, and soon discovers that it's owner's head is still occupying it. They find the other hunter (played by Tony Todd - again, an excellent casting choice) and beam him to Voyager's sickbay for treatment.

Of course, far be it from the crew to respect the hunter's privacy - they download his computer logs and discover that the ship's basically been all over this area of space. The scene establishes some background on the Hirogen - namely, that they're nomadic, with no home planet, and ritualize the killing of their prey. We then see the ship's exterior - something's crawling up the rim of the saucer section, and it's the 8472 - obviously the perpetrator of the disaster on the Hirogen crew. And it looks like it's found a new home.

Meanwhile, the Doctor is flummoxed - nothing he gives the Hirogen is accepted by his body's immune system, and the Hirogen insists on resuming the hunt. Janeway counteres that, without treatment, he'll die, so he stays put for the moment. But soon, six Hirogen vessels are detected on Voyager's sensors - they'll be around to rescue their comrade soon enough. Harry then reports on a number of mysterious mechanical failures across the ship, and he and Tuvok go to investigate. They discover that a hole has been ripped in the hull. Torres is putting around in Engineering and looks up at a strange hissing sound. The 8472 jumps down and attacks.

Janeway makes it to Engineering to find a few injured crew members, but nothing like what Harry enjoyed back in Scorpion. Janeway and Seven go back to Sickbay to talk to the hunter, who again insists on resuming the hunt, offering unique insight into the behavior of his prey. Seven and the Hirogen soon join sides and claim that the 8472 must be destroyed, but Janeway insists on containment. Because, y'know, that worked so well for the Hirogen. However, as the 8472 cuts life support and artificial gravity to an entire deck, Janeway clears the Hirogen for the hunt, provided he only incapacitates the creature. He agrees, but Janeway saddles him with Chakotay and Tom.

Everyone suits up in the EV suits swiped from First Contact and heads off to capture the 8472. Tom, Chakotay, and the Hirogen are in one party, and Tuvok and Seven are in another. The Hirogen's party soon finds the creature, and the Hirogen fucks up Chakotay's shit and shoots Tom before advancing on the creature. Tuvok shows up, though, and phasers him into unconsciousness.

The Hirogen is taken back to sickbay, and security staff monitor the wounded 8472. The creature telepathically communicates with Tuvok and tells him that his ship was damaged in the war with the Borg, and he just wants to return to fluidic space. So naturally, when Janeway hears of this, she agrees and has Torres start working on re-entering fluidic space. Because, y'know, the relations with the 8472 are so much better than the relations with the Hirogen.

However, the hunter soon escapes sickbay as the Hirogen vessels arrive and summarily attack. He immediately incapacitates the security team monitoring the 8472, and begins hand-to-hand combat. Seven and the Doctor arrive, and Seven takes matters into her own hands. She activates a transporter override and beams both the hunter and the prey to one of the Hirogen vessels. They break off their attack and leave, content with the capture of their prey.

Janeway is unsurprisingly pissed. Which is fucking stupid, because Seven was the only one there who was behaving at all logically the entire time. Janeway revokes Seven's privileges and sends her off to the cargo bay - no Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants moment today.

Overall, a good episode. Tony Todd's performance definitely brought it up a notch, and it continues the Hirogen arc in a satisfactory manner. This won't be the last time we see Species 8472, but it'll be the last time we see them in a not-fucking-ridiculous manner.

Rating: ***
Torpedoes remaining: 13/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 9
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 8

Kyle, you are handing out a lot of 3 star ratings lately.

I know, it's almost terrifying in a way.

Don't worry, we're more than halfway through S4 - once we get back into S5, we'll start seeing the downward spiral once more. Hell, S6 is particularly awful.

I guess. It looks more like he's humping a mouse.

The Hirogen were pretty cool. Shame Voyager didn't take them on more as the enemy then they did with the Borg. In fact since the Hirogen were nomadic they could have been chasing Voyager all across the Delta Quadrant.

In fact had the Hirogen been created as Voyager started then they could have battered that ship for its entire voyage so it would look beat up like it did in Year of Hell.

Damn Voyager seriously needs a remake on HBO or Showtime or something.

Prey is a solid episode if for no other reason than the "prey" was given over to the hunting party in the end. A surprise I doubt many saw coming. Pragmatism rarely beats out idealism in the Trek universe regardless of series.

^That was what I liked about Seven, she made a nice departure from the usual Starfleet types who like give lectures on morality whilst their ships being shot to scrap.

It was depressing how they kept trying make Seven into one of them. For something that supposedly celebrates diversity, the Federation has zero tolerance for dissenting viewpoints to it's own.

We've had an explanation over the Klingon foreheads, I now think Trek needs to tell us why most Starfleet officers are born without anuses...

For years now folks have been lamenting the wasted potential of Voyager, usually by pointing out the stronger points or eps of the series. All starting with complaining that the reconciliation of the two crews (Starfleet and Maquis) happened too quickly.

As someone who isn't a fan of pilot episodes but understands the necessity of setting up a show's premise I was glad the prerequisite drama was wrapped up so quickly. Voyager was an episodic series, I'm glad they didn't drag their feet in establishing the status quo.

Then come the cries of mishandled villains, most notably:

• Vidiians
• Hirogen
• Species 8472

The Vidiians were quite possibly the creepiest species ever introduced in Star Trek mythology. The Hirogen were trophy gathering knuckleheads and Species 8472 were the first believable Borg killers. Sure you can always improve on existing ideas but coming up with new ideas is the real challenge.

Gotta give credit where credit is due.

As for wanting Voyager to be a beat-up, patched together wreck comprised of differing alien technologies as she crosses the finish line into the Alpha quadrant, well that's certainly an interesting ending yet one that isn't possible in an episodic series.

What happened to "Concerning Flight"?

Only a true nerd would catch that error!

While I don't shun the label, I only noticed it because it came up on the related videos on YouTube while watching "Random Thoughts".

Totally possible, BSG did basically that.

Not that I ever wanted Voyager to go to that level of darkness, but a midpoint beyond the two would have been amazing.

Voyager was not Star Trek. That's what you've got to remember. The purpose of the premise was to be able to market the show as Star Trek™ and leech off the fan base without running the risk of interacting meaningfully with the known Star Trek universe. Voyager wasn't a story about Federation types lost in space making their way home; it was a random ship doing random stories of the week using Star Trek props, bumpy foreheads, and military titles.

If Voyager had been part of the Star Trek Universe it would have been written roughly as you wanted, but the last thing the writers and producers wanted was to be part of that universe. Voyager was, more or less, really crappy fan fiction that didn't use established characters.

Wow, I can't believe I missed a couple. Of course, they weren't good ones, so maybe that's my subconscious trying to help me out a little. For the purpose of the tallies, I'm going to just pretend that they're next in line.

Concerning Flight
Janeway and da Vinci are futzing about in the holodeck, soaking wet after a failed attempt to fly using da Vinci's glider. He has decided that he will move to France, apparently misinformed, because he believes that people there aren't giant dicks.

However, the ship rocks, and Janeway is called to the bridge. Voyager is under assault from a number of nimble fighters, and after they punch through Voyager's shields, pieces of equipment are beamed off of the ship. Paris helpfully quips "I feel like we've been mugged" - I wonder if his neck gets sore staring up at the viewscreen or turning back to crack bad jokes with Janeway and Chuckles?

The crew does inventory, and discovers that a few things are missing, including a computer core, the Doctor's mobile emitter, and two photon torpedo casings. Since they were significant enough to mention, I'll have to assume they're part of the inventory. Minus two!

Anyway, the crew somehow figures out where the thieves took the loot, and they go to the planet to investigate. Janeway naturally beams down, because she is obviously best equipped to deal with dangerous criminals. Tuvok accompanies her so that the plot may be more ridiculous. They soon discover Voyager's computer core has been hooked up and is for sale, and that the da Vinci hologram is strutting his stuff with the Doctor's mobile emitter. He welcomes Janeway to America.



After he shows her all the loot his 'patron' has hooked him up with, Janeway persuades da Vinci to introduce his patron to her. In a painful dialog, Tuvok keeps da Vinci busy while Janeway negotiates for the return of the computer core. A joke about Vulcan (the island) is made. Yeah.

Anyway, suffice to say, Janeway doesn't have the extra warship lying around that the thief wants for the computer core, so they immediately decide to do what they should have done in the first place and steal the fucking thing back. I mean, fuck, do you think Picard would have tried to bargain for a computer core stolen from the Enterprise? Fuck no, even he with his high-and-mighty Starfleet ideals would have stolen it back.

Tuvok tries to insist that Janeway return to the ship to help figure out a way to beam the core back to Voyager, but she rattles off this speech about da Vinci that includes James Kirk and some other random people and won't listen to fucking common sense. So Tuvok basically says "Fuck it" and beams back up while Janeway goes on her little real-world holodeck adventure.

Da Vinci leads her to what is obviously some fuel processing plant outside of LA, but this is apparently where the thief is keeping the computer core. He helps her find a way in by suggesting that thieves would only use doors on the side of the building in the shade. What. The. Fuck. Anyway, they get in there and Janeway sets up some pattern enhancers and they beam out the computer core, after da Vinci comes to believe that it is, really, a woman trapped inside of a box.

The thieves show up and phaser da Vinci, and he then realizes that he isn't a living creature. Boo hoo. They basically start running to escape, with the thieves chasing them. Janeway hopes to make it out of the transporter inhibiter shroud they're in. And they do so. By running across a new duranium-alloy glider that da Vinci has constructed, then flying it off a cliff. They beam them aboard, and da Vinci is transferred back to the holodeck, where he is more than content to live in Florence.

I remembered this episode being better than it was, but this was literally the Star Trek equivalent of Scooby Doo or something - almost the entire episode was spent with people running around. And rather than actually give a good look at how a non-sentient hologram would handle the outside world, they instead give us this train wreck. John Rhys-Davies did as good a job as he could with the material, but there were times that you could tell he was frustrated, even under all those ridiculous balloon clothes. Possibly the most bizarre thing of all is that throughout the series so far, Janeway has gone to absurd lengths to make sure that Voyager's technology didn't end up floating around the Delta Quadrant, but in this episode, she is more than content with leaving all but the computer core and the Doctor's holoemitter with the thieves to sell. These thieves, by the way, stole only goods that would be sellable to warring nations. So, way to go, Janeway. More deaths on your shoulders.

Rating: *
Torpedoes remaining: 11/38
Shuttlecraft destroyed: 9
Failed endings to the three-hour tour: 8