Voyager, season 7

FOUR-STAR EPISODES: 3
AVERAGE EPISODE RATING: 2.9
-Unimatrix Zero, pt. 2 ***
Reports of janeway, tuvok, and torres' assimilation were exaggerated, as the doctor gave them neural suppressants which maintained their individuality (though they are full drones, on the surface...a nice visual, particularly with b'elanna). They infect the collective with the nanovirus. The queen fights back, and unamatrix zero must be sacrificed. The albatross around this one's neck, as in part 1, is the near-total lack of chemistry between seven and her former love. The sudden turnaround of her refusal to embrace him also feels artificial. But...tain't often you see a pissed-off klingon ex-drone leading a borg sphere into battle. I'm just saying.
-Imperfection ***
A degrading cortical implant is killing seven. Icheb has a risky solution, which he forces upon her when she refuses to allow him to be imperiled. WEST WING fans, watch this one with the eye of a hawk.
-Drive *
This one really pulls you in...sharp dialogue, beautiful visuals, the snazziest Starfleet flight suits you'll ever see, plus a nice helping of cyia batten (CHARLIE WILSON'S WAR, CHARLIE'S ANGELS: FULL THROTTLE). It veers into mawkish monogamy however, then explodes into preposterous contrivance when it asks us to believe that tom would stop his ship in middle of a galactic grand prix to talk to b'elanna about, y'know, relationship stuff. Don't hold anything that could shatter a TV screen when the final shot rolls - "Just Married" and tin cans on the Delta Flyer! How hilariously appropriate is the title of the subsequent episode?
-Repression **
Tuvok investigates attacks on former maquis crewmembers. He discovers that the assailant is himself, under the hypnotic control of a radical maquis vedek back on Bajor, who is causing him to mindmeld with his victims and bring them under the vedek's control. They commandeer the ship, even though the conflict has been over for three years. Captain chakotay has tuvok prove his loyalty by trying to kill janeway. This episode puts the "far" in far-fetched...yet it almost works.
-Critical Care ***
The doctor is kidnapped and forced to treat people on a planet where the quality of care is proportional to a person's social class. A fine guest turn by larry drake (L.A. LAW, THE KARATE KID).
-Inside Man ***
Reg! Deanna! A ferengi crew intercept a Starfleet transmission to Voyager, and re-program it to send a hologram of barclay with instructions that will get Voyager home...with, however, all biological life aboard dead, so that they can harvest seven's nanoprobes. The fake reg is mucho suave, and the doctor is the only one who suspects something is amiss. Back in the alpha quadrant, the real reg (who has been hoodwinked by a dabo woman) works to save the crew with the help of troi, whom he picks up on the sexiest risan beach you've ever seen. Delightful.
-Body and Soul ****
-written by eric morris, phyllis strong, michael sussman
-directed by robert duncan mcneill
Smashing. Kim, seven, and the doctor are taken prisoner by hologram-fighting aliens. She stashes the doc's file in her implants, and his personality takes control of her. He (in she) goes on a sensate binge, and two of the aliens get into romantic conundrums with him (in her). Charming guest turns by megan gallagher (CHINA BEACH, MILLENIUM) and fritz sperberg (NORTH, PATRIOT GAMES). Jeri ryan's performance is a revelation, and picardo is his usual wry wonderfulness. Their characters' paradoxical lives are brought into focus. This one might paste a goofy smile on your face.
-Nightingale **
Aiding a medical transport, kim has growing pains on his first command. This one suffers from a flawed premise - harry ignores the Starfleet non-interference policy for humanitarian reasons, but when he discovers that pretext is a lie...he still takes sides in an alien war. With ron (BARNEY MILLER, FIREFLY) glass!
-Flesh and Blood 1&2 ***
Voyager receives a distress call from the hirogen, who took the holotechnology they were given, and created a race of sentient beings to hunt. The holograms escaped, and are now fighting back. They manage to kidnap the doctor, and his sympathies are won by their calm, charismatic leader (jeff yagher - V, MY FELLOW AMERICANS). Their crew are an alpha quadrant cornucopia - cardassian, klingon, breen, and others. The doctor implores janeway to give them aid. When she attempts to deactivate them, he throws in with the holograms, who then kidnap b'elanna. Their leader turns out to be a spiritual megalomaniac content to massacre his enemies. A rather brilliant episode, and very resonant in terms of the doctor's sentient growth (and the unspoken realization that the crew still have a long way to go in accepting him as an equal).
-Shattered ****
-written by michael taylor
-directed by terry windell
Voyager is split into past, present, and future temporal zones. Chakotay is the only one who can move from zone to zone, courtesy of an injection by a pre-mobile emitter doctor. He must convince a badlands-era janeway to work with him. They meet icheb and naomi from seventeen years in the future, and a fully borg seven from the past. The more janeway learns, the more uncomfortable she becomes with stranding Voyager in the delta quadrant. It's a love note to the show's history...and it works, even tugging the heartstrings.
-Lineage ***
When torres and tom discover that their baby will have klingon ridges, she reacts hysterically, reprogramming the doctor to genetically resequence the baby. This one is laudably ambitious, dealing with childhood alienation. A noble attempt is made to get into the parental rejection issues at the root of b'elanna's damage. Despite the paris/torres flaccidity, this one works. The effort is undermined however, by horrible 20th-century attitudes, to wit:
TOM: This isn't about their expectations or hopes. Or...doubts. None of this belongs to them.
B'ELANNA: It belongs to us. All of it.
The "happy couple" are freaking out at the thought of impending parenthood. This is a healthy, sane reaction, but the writer wants to pretend that it's just part of life. It's not - it's just part of life when two isolated people are expected to be the entire support system for an new being. Nothing good can come of that, but despite all the lifelong neuroses it causes, our culture tells us it's okay. An injection of sanity would have been for someone to say:
CHAKOTAY: Chill out, you two. This baby is all of ours. And we're all going to raise it.
-Repentance **
Voyager rescues the crew of a death row prison ship. Issues of class imbalance arise, and seven realizes that one of the murderers has a brain imbalance which has disabled his conscience. Once the doctor unwittingly corrects this genetic deficiency, she sees in him a mirror of her own destructive life as a drone. It all never quite lifts off, just because of misfiring chemistry. Fine turns by jeff kober (ALIEN NATION, CHINA BEACH) and f.j. rio (DEEP SPACE NINE, BEVERLY HILLS 90210) are wasted.
-Prophecy **
Voyager finds a multi-generational klingon ship, whose crew come to believe that b'elanna's unborn child is their messiah. The most striking TREK use of CGI to recreate a classic vessel. I want to love this one, i really really do...but the substance underpinning the gloss is too flawed. They suddenly find themselves with two hundred war-era klingons aboard, and react with minimal security. Tom agrees to a duel to defend his wife's honor, which feels a bit out of character, but might have been saved by a perfectly choreographed fight...no such luck, though. Neelix mating with a klingon almost works...but only almost. They destroy the klingon battlecruiser way too soon. There's a whole lot of spiritual mumbo jumbo which is annoying AND unrealistically resolved - all these pilgrims who have been travelling for eighty years suddenly find their messiah, then are content to abandon said messiah to settle an alien planet? A lovely guest turn by wren t. brown (WAITING TO EXHALE, WHOOPI) as an atypical klingon captain.
-The Void ***
Voyager falls into a matterless pocket of subspace which traps ships. Morality is quickly put to the test, but in a wasteland of predatory survival, janeway forges tenuous alliances. The ragtag confederation escapes, thanks to the doctor's befriending of a native, mute species that all the other ships consider unintelligent vermin.
-Workforce 1&2 ***
Most of the crew are shanghaied to work on an alien planet, with their memories manipulated or erased. Janeway's "paradise syndrome" moment, as she falls into the embrace of good man jaffen (james read - REMINGTON STEELE, LEGALLY BLONDE 1-2). It's her most resonant, satisfying romance (a questionable accomplishment, as i thought the previous episode was going to be about her love life). Tuvok's buried consciousness struggles to arise. Alone aboard Voyager, the doctor's emergency command program is activated, and he fends off alien attack. A little quease is injected into the proceedings by tom befriending the bristly b'elanna (who, unbeknownst to him, is carrying his child). Don most (HAPPY DAYS, EDtv) plays an amoral doctor, and john aniston (THE SHAKIEST GUN IN THE WEST, DAYS OF OUR LIVES) brings his friendly genitals to the party. Superb.
-Human Error ***
Seven practices her social skills on the holodeck, including romance with chakotay. It's poignant and hopeful, until she triggers a borg subroutine which shuts down her cortical node if emotions resurface fully. Tenderly beautiful.
-Q2 ***
When q finds his son (a spot-on turn by keegan de lancie - EXIT TO EDEN, THE VELOCITY OF GARY) too much to handle, he dumps him on janeway. The scamp turns the engine room into a nightclub, removes seven's clothes, puts three borg cubes on their tail, and kidnaps icheb and the delta flyer. Daddy q pops in and out (of janeway's bathtub, among other things), trying to avoid responsibility. In the end, both father and son grow up a little. Brilliant.
-Author, Author ***
Through a video feed, a Starfleet arbitrator (joe campanella - ONE DAY AT A TIME, MAMA'S FAMILY) is called in to determine the doctor's sentient status after his holonovel is published back home against his wishes. The novel portrays Voyager-like characters in an unflattering light, amid the struggle of photonic life to be accorded freedom and respect. At first the holo-characterizations seem preposterously unfair (or preposterously funny, like lt. marseilles and three of eight)...but seen as metaphor, i'd rush to the doc's defense. Barclay and admiral paris are at the hearing. This is the episode the doctor's character arc has been building to for seven seasons. Unlike comparable TREK trial episodes, they use a lot of humor to leaven the seriousness...and it hits beautifully on both levels.
-Friendship One ***
Receiving its first Starfleet mission in six years, Voyager is sent after a 21st-century probe. Tragically, it caused an anti-matter reaction when it struck the atmosphere of an alien planet, and a nuclear winter ensued. The irradiated survivors take an away team hostage, believing that Earth is trying to conquer them. They kill joe carey (after seven seasons, only four episodes from home). Greater tragedy is barely averted, as their leader aims anti-matter missiles at Voyager, and tom saves the life of a premature baby. Voyager begins the task of clearing their atmosphere, and they see their sun's rays for the first time in generations.
-Natural Law ***
Chakotay is wounded in a shuttle crash with seven, and taken in by a pre-agricultural culture. The most beautiful, realistic depiction of a "primitive" race in TREK history. They are gentle and capable and offer help with no thought of reward...which makes me think that someone on the writing staff has been doing their research. Dismissive at first, seven forms a touching bond with a teenager (autumn reeser - THE BRADY BUNCH IN THE WHITE HOUSE, ENTOURAGE).
-Homestead **
They finally write off neelix's character - and only 6.9 seasons too late. Voyager encounters an imperiled colony of talaxians, neelix falls in love, and he saves the day. The plot is more appropriate to a john wayne film than a vision of 24th-century humanity, and the only thing saving this from one star is a charming guest turn by julianne christie (IT'S PAT, ENCINO MAN), plus a four-star farewell from tuvok.
-Renaissance Man ***
It's a doctorpalooza! He spends most of the episode impersonating nearly the entire bridge staff in order to sabotage the ship, because aliens will kill janeway if he doesn't. How long will it take you to realize that janeway isn't herself (literally)? Wonderful action, and subtle humor throughout. Dozens of decoy docs, from a bird's-eye (bald-eye) view! Paris kisses him! Can he outfight tuvok?? And the scene when he thinks he's about to decompile, and confesses all his transgressions? Hysterical. The only missing element (and long overdue, at that), is janeway finally putting a pip on his empty collar. Otherwise, pure wonderfulness.
-Endgame ****
-written by kenneth biller, robert doherty
-directed by allan kroeker
A scorcher of a double-length series finale. Alice krige (FIRST CONTACT, CHARIOTS OF FIRE) returns as the borg queen, to face off against two janeways...one from a future in which it took Voyager 23 years to get home (with horrible losses - seven of nine dead, chakotay dead of grief, tuvok crippled by delta-induced dementia). Admiral janeway says fuck the temporal prime directive, and steals Federation technology to go back in time and try to bring Voyager home through a borg transwarp hub. The younger janeway wants to destroy the hub instead. Seven agrees to surgery which will finally allow her full emotional expression, so she can consummate her flirtations with chakotay - which is not unsatisfying, though not as satisfying as altogether avoiding the banal question "WHOM will she pick??" Her rejection of monogamy is on record, so we'll blame this on a failure of writerly imagination - but we're at least happy that sexual healing has arrived. Barclay and admiral paris await in the alpha quadrant with a fleet, and lisa locicero (RENO 911!, RUSH HOUR 2) is wonderful as miral paris, the grown-up daughter of youknowwhom. Future harry is a captain. Future doctor picks a name, and marries an organic. Plus another helping of (klingon) vaughn armstrong. At the end, when they're suddenly, finally home, one feels almost cheated at the underplaying of the emotional response...it's hard to believe that the release from the enormity of their isolation wouldn't result in a more rawly human reaction. The only one not crying should have been Tuvok. But i quibble. Brilliant.