Star Trek:

Season 1

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 1] Caretaker Part I
Shown 3rd December 2001 [Monday]

In a scene straight out of Star Wars IV: A New Hope , including the scrolling exposition, a giant Cardassian warship chases a small rebel vessel. They fly into a spacial disruption. The Maquis ship, crewed by Chakotay (Robert Beltran ), Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Belanna Torres ( Roxann Biggs-Dawson ) is lost without trace.

Back on Earth, Captain Janeway ( Kate Mulgrew ) is selected for the rescue mission. She gets a handpicked crew, including Tom Paris - a Fed who (like two senior officers in DS9 ) defected to the Maquis. He will be a great asset. After all, his father is an Admiral.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 2] Caretaker Part II
Shown 4th December 2001 [Tuesday]

Trapped in the Delta Quadrant, Voyager encounters an alien trader named Neelix. He is an interesting character with a lot of potential, a scavenger who has had illicit dealings with local civilisations. He introduces them to the barbaric Kazon. A potential Ferengi-type character, he is a wheeler-dealer who cons Janeway into rescuing his girlfriend Kes ( Jennifer Lien ).

Harry and Belanna are trapped in the Ocampa city, two miles underground.

Janeway must make a decision - use the Caretaker's Array to get Voyager home (and allow the Kazon to salvage its technology) or destroy the Array (and trap Voyager 75 years from home).

There are lots of interesting ideas that were intended to be explored further in the main series. Chakotay and Tom Paris are meant to have a mutual animosity, but this is never referred to in the weekly show.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 3] Parallax
Shown 5th December 2001 [Wednesday]

Voyager detects a ship's emergency beacon, and flies towards a subspace anomaly to rescue the other ship. However, they get trapped inside the anomaly.

When they discover what the source of the emergency beacon was, Tom Paris remarks on how impossible the whole scenario is. He then asks Am I making any sense? ... And Janeway replies No!!! WTF? His statement is the only thing about the episode that DOES make sense.

There is an attempt at character development of Belanna Torres ( Roxann Biggs-Dawson ) and an undercurrent of conflict concerning the Maquis. However, by the end of the episode this has all been neatly tied up and the show's potential has been reduced immensely. This was the first appearance of Seska ( Martha Hackett ).

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 4] Time And Again
Shown 6th December 2001 [Thursday]

Voyager discovers a planet that was recently devastated by a massive explosion. Half the bridge crew beams down to investigate. Kes ( Jennifer Lien ) has a psychic flash, then Paris and Janeway are sucked through a time portal.

The explosion, caused by the civilisation's power source (a blatant metaphor for Nuclear power), has opened rips in time. Paris and Janeway find themselves in the past, just a couple of days before the doomsday explosion. Luckily the aliens look exactly like humans! The local anti-nuclear demonstrations consist of amateurish cops and middle-class rioters. Also, Janeway and Paris work well as a team on the Away mission.

Kes' species have psychic powers, or at least they used to, and she is slowly awakening hers.

Voyager's appearance in the system creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their attempts to prevent the disaster turn out to be what caused it in the first place!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 5] Phage
Shown 7th December 2001 [Friday]

Neelix decides to turn the Captain's private dining hall into a public galley. This is the start of his destruction as a character - he has been blatantly transformed into comic relief fodder. Thus, nobody will shed any tears when his lungs are stolen!

In sick bay, Neelix asks the HoloDoc Are you programmed to sing? Yes, in the destruction of one character are the seeds of another. Meanwhile, poor Kes is almost willing to seek solace in the arms of Paris. She also decides to become a medic.

The villains of the episode are the organ-stealing Vidiians, one of the show's better villains. They have been afflicted with a disease known as the Phage which causes them to slowly rot away. As a result they constantly need to be transplanted with new organs. Janeway orders them never to attack her crew again, or she will retaliate against them. Will they heed this?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 6] The Cloud
Shown 8th December 2001 [Saturday]

Janeway needs a coffee fix, but her choices are limited. Either she accepts an alien coffee substitute from Neelix, or she uses a replicator (and thus depletes the ship's limited energy supplies). There is a third option - enter a strange Nebula cloud and harvest some energy particles. Unfortunately, she discovers there is something

We get a few character moments for the crew. Tom Paris takes Harry Kim to the Holodeck, where he has programmed a pub in Marseilles. Janeway tries to bond with Chakotay, as he is the nearest thing as an equal in rank. Torres gets the Doctor's help to investigate a bio-chemical mystery. She also offers to help

Neelix is a two-faced git - he is all slimy charm to Janeway's face, but expresses a very negative opinion of her to Kes in private. He has to make a choice - get back in his little ship, or appoint himself Morale Officer.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 7] Eye of the Needle
Shown 10th December 2001 [Monday]

Voyager discovers a small wormhole. They use it to contact a ship in the Alpha Quadrant, piloted by a Romulan named Telek ( Vaughn Armstrong ).

Belanna is not close to mother, and does not keep in touch with her. The Captain calls her Torres, Belanna calls Harry Starfleet.

The EMH is dissed by crew. Kes talks Janeway into helping him gives him control over when he is switched on.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 8] Ex Post Facto
Shown 11th December 2001 [Tuesday]

Tom Paris is convicted of murder. The alien court inserts the victim's memories into Tom's brain, and makes him relive them every 48 hours.

The victim's wife was a femme fatale.

Tuvok believes Paris is innocent, and sets out to prove this.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 9] Emanations
Shown 12th December 2001 [Wednesday]

While exploring a hollow asteroid filled with corpses, Harry Kim is sucked through a mini-wormhole. He arrives on the world the corpses came from, part of a religious ceremony presided over by Jerry Hardin ( X-Files ).

Aboard Voyager, Seska ( Martha Hackett ) is still working in Engineering.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 10] Prime Factors
Shown 13th December 2001 [Thursday]

Voyager discovers a planet with a highly-advanced civilisation, based on hedonism. The locals have technology that allows them to transport people into a different Quadrant! However, the locals have their own Prime Directive which means they cannot share the technology with the Federation.

Janeway wonders if it is justifiable for her to break the local law. Tuvok, Torres and Seska ( Martha Hackett ) wonder if it is justifiable to ignore Janeway's orders and break the law themselves.

Janeway takes a long time to deduce that the locals' hedonism is merely selfishness.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 11] State of Flux
Shown 14th December 2001 [Friday]

Voyager is stalked by a Kazon warship. But rather than attack, the Kazon send out a distress call. Neelix suspects it's a trap, but Janeway goes to the rescue anyway. They discover that the Kazon ship is in trouble because they retrofitted Federation technology ...

It seems there is a traitor aboard Voyager, breaking the Fed rule about not sharing tech with (TECHNOLOGICALLY) inferior species. The suspects are members of Torres' team in Engineering. Among other things, they were the ones who wanted to buy the alien tech in the previous episode. Seska ( Martha Hackett ) is Chakotay's on-again off-again GF. The officer who Torres replaced as Chief Engineer is also a suspect. Torres and Tuvok, the two members of the conspiracy who confessed to Janeway, are not even considered as suspects!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 12] Heroes and Demons
Shown 15th December 2001 [Saturday]

Voyager encounters a photonic energy being. Harry Kim is in the holodeck, running Beowolf, and he does not come out! Tuvok and Chakotay go in to look, but they do not make it out either.

The only person who can go into the holodeck is the EMH. He encounters a babelicious Viking warrior-woman ( Marjorie Monaghan ) and the villainous Christopher Neame ( Babylon 5 ).

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 13] Cathexis
Shown 17th December 2001 [Monday]

Janeway passes the time by participating in a Gothic holo-novel. It seems reminiscent of Turn of the Screw , and includes Carolyn Seymour as a rival bitch-queen.

Chakotay and Tuvok return from an away mission. Tuvok is OK, but Chakotay is in a coma. Crew members start sabotaging the ship. This leads on to a paranoid whodunnit story.

Kes is manifesting telepathic powers, and detects a psychic presence. The Doctor discovers that there may be an alien life form possessing people. Since the Doc is immune to possession, Janeway gives him the command codes. After his first Away mission last week, he is certainly progressing up the ladder of success.

Security Officer Brian Markinson ( Caprica ) gets a couple of lines of dialogue. He is not the usual kind of redshirt - but what is his life expectancy?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 14] Faces
Shown 18th December 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager is searching for an Away Team - Torres, Paris and Durst. They went to an asteroid, and Harry Kim deduces that the asteroid's internal structure has changed in the last 2 days. Since there is no geological cause, it must be a technological act by a space-faring civilisation. Nobody realises that the only species that meets the criteria is the Vidiians, who stole Neelix's lungs a dozen episodes ago.

Tom Paris teams up with a friendly Talaxian (Rob Labelle - First Wave ). Security Officer Durst (Brian Markinson - Caprica ), a Starfleet Lieutenant from the previous ep, was also part of the Away Team. He is not well-known enough to be recognisable, so he is just another red-shirt. As this is his second episode, he has already outlived his life expectancy!

Belanna's Klingon side has been extracted so she can be tested for resistance to the Phage. To escape, she tries to seduce her captor. Unfortunately, Belanna's Vidian captor believes that killing one of her crewmates and wearing the man's face as a mask is a good way to win her affections. He justifies the murder by saying His organs will save more than a dozen lives. This sounds an awful lot like Spock's famous saying The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 15] Jetrel
Shown 19th December 2001 [Wednesday]

An alien scientist named Jetrel arrives on Voyager, looking for Neelix. It seems that Neelix was on the rescue team after his home was destroyed by a superweapon. He may have been contaminated with a fatal dose of radiation. But the only one who can cure him is Jetrel ... the scientist who created the superweapon!

Can Voyager use its targetting scanners to select scattered atoms, then use the transporter to re-materialise them? The transporter does that all the time, but now Tuvok and Janeway find it to be impossible.

The episode centers around Neelix, and Ethan Philips is amazing in the role. A pity he is never given as good an opportunity later in the series.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 1, Episode 16] Learning Curve
Shown 20th December 2001 [Thursday]

Tuvok discovers that the Maquis are an undisciplined bunch. Janeway orders him to give Physical Training sessions to a group of them, so they can suck it up and become Starfleet drones like everyone else.

There is something wrong with the ship's bio-neural gel packs. Because of the reliance on new untested bio-technology, the ship is vulnerable to biological complaints. Naturally, the Doctor and Kes are more useful at this than Torres and her crew.

Since the only way that any bacteria could get on board is as cargo on a shuttlecraft, and Neelix was in charge of purchasing and procuring, it is obvious that the greatest threat the ship has faced this season is ... Neelix's cooking! Yes, the joke is cheesy ... as is the episode.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season , Episode ]
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Season 2

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 1] The 37s
Shown 21st December 2001 [Friday]

By incredible coincidence, Voyager detects a pickup truck. Paris switches on the AM radio, and discovers an SOS broadcast in morse code. They trace it to a planet with unusual weather, where shuttles and transporters cannot be used.

Janeway gets Paris to land the ship 2 kilometres from the target. That means the Away teams will have to walk half an hour each way, which might slow the dramatic proceedings a bit.

The Away team discover alien-made cryogenics tubes. The aliens abducted some Earthlings in 1937. These included Amelia Earhart ( Sharon Lawrence ) and her navigator (David Graf - Police Academy). Unfortunately, when these '37s are defrosted they are quite ungrateful.

One of the characters takes a fatal wound to the heart. Luckily, the Feds carry the patient for half an hour back to Voyager, where the Doctor patches him right up. This is typical of TV shows - the doctors can work miracles when the script demands it, but normally they do not even bother to perform basic first aid or even check for a pulse before declaring someone dead.

If a group of humans inherited some advanced alien technology, would they be able to create an advanced civilisation? Or, despite having access to advanced tech, would their society stagnate? And how many of the Starfleet and Maquis mixed crew would prefer to stay in the stagnant society rather than suffer on Voyager?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 2] Initiations
Shown September 2000
Shown 22nd December 2001 [Saturday]

Chakotay is attacked by a pubescent Kazon boy who wants to earn his name by gloriously defeating someone in battle. The Kazon is played by the kid who plays Nog the Ferengi in Deep Space 9.

The two are takes on the classic Hollywood stereotypes of Native American culture. Chakotay is the new, politically correct spiritual type. The Kazon are classic bloodthirsty nomads, who collect clothing as trophies instead of scalps.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 3] Projections
Shown 24th December 2001 [Monday - Xmas Eve]

The Doctor has to save the ship from disaster. He is helped by Reg Barclay (Dwight Shultz - ). Unfortunately, all is not what it seems. Even the Doctor discovers it is hard to keep track of who or what is a hologram ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 4] Elogium
Shown 25th December 2001 [Tuesday - Xmas Day]

Voyager finds itself swimming with space whales

Kes gets cravings for unusual foods. She has hit puberty. Unfortunately, this also means she has to mate within the next 50 hours or she will never be able to have a child.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 5] Non Sequitur
Shown 26th December 2001 [Wednesday - Boxing Day]

Harry Kim finds himself on an Alternate Earth.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 6] Twisted
Shown 27th December 2001 [Thursday]

The ship's interior is twisted into a maze. Paris and Kes are trapped together, as are Torres and Chakotay.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 7] Parturition
Shown September 2000
Shown 28th December 2001 [Friday]

Neelix gets jealous when his GF, Kes, spends all her spare time with Tom Paris instead. Then Neelix and Paris crash-land on a deserted planet, and must learn to get along while they await rescue. They have to work together to help an alien hatchling.

This episode is un-notable, with the exception of one piece of dialogue. Paris tells Neelix some Trekkie crap about reversing polarities or something. Neelix replies Don't give me any of your TECHNOBABBLE!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 8] Persistence of Vision
Shown 29th December 2001 [Saturday]

Janeway spends more time in her holonovel, an apparent pastiche of Turn of the Screw by Henry James. She plays a governess in a Victorian household run by Carolyn Seymour . One of the children in her care is creepy little Henry (Thomas Dekker - Sarah Connor Chronicles ).

A telepathic alien is brainwashing the crew. This brings out hidden desires in their subconsciouses. Torres has to make a choice - save the ship, or knowingly stay in an erotic hallucination with Chakotay. Kes hallucinates her own desire - she sees Tom Paris in trouble, not her boyfriend Neelix! Seska faces off against Chakotay.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 9] Tattoo
Shown 31st December 2001 [Monday - New Years Eve]

Chakotay visits a jungle world, where he meets Native Americans led by Richard Chaves ( War of the Worlds ). It turns out the planet was seeded with Humans several centuries ago, like in The 37s.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 2, Episode 10] Cold Fire
Shown 1st January 2002 [Tuesday - New Years Day]

Voyager encounters a space station similar to the Caretaker's array. It appears to have been built by the Caretaker's companion. The inhabitants are Ocampa, ruled by Garry Graham ( Alien Nation ). He tempts Kes to join them.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 11] Manoeuvres
Shown 7th November 2000
Shown 2nd January 2002 [Wednesday]

Voyager is attacked by the Kazon Nistrom sect, who are now getting tactical and strategic advice from the treacherous Cardassian Seska [ Martha Hackett ]. Chakotay takes this very personally, and vows to settle the score. Meanwhile, the Kazon try to barter with other kazon sects, using stolen Voyager technology to show their power.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 12] Resistance
Shown 3rd January 2002 [Thursday]

Voyager is running short on Plot Device-ium. An Away Team beams down to a planet, and instead of openly dealing with the (repressive and paranoid) government they buy the stuff from the Resistance. However, some cops dressed like Streethawk arrest them.

Neelix gets back to the ship with the stuff. Tuvok and Torres get captured. And who led the team? Someone expendable like Chakotay? No, it was Janeway herself!

Chakotay tries to negotiate with the Government, and deals with low-level magistrate Alan Scarfe ( Seven Days ). However, Scarfe and his army (well, two thugs) are torturing the two Voyager prisoners. Voyager's motto is - do not save the injured parties, just leave a lot of corpses.

Janeway is in the house of an apparently crazy old man (Joel Grey - Buffy, Season 5 ). He claims she is his daughter, and offers to help her break into the prison. He makes her wear a necklace and write a letter - but she does not realise that he may be an Agent Provocateur!

There is a good bit to the episode, though. Janeway uses her feminine wiles for a change. To break into the prison, Janeway has to pose as a street-whore for the guards!

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 13] Prototype
Shown 4th January 2002 [Friday]

Torres helps a Robot. It wants to procreate. Things get complicated when Janeway refuses to help it.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 14] Alliances
Shown 7th January 2002 [Monday]

Janeway decides that to survive, Voyager must make an alliance with a local power. She holds a peace conference with Seska ( Martha Hackett ) and the Kazon Nistrom.

Neelix discovers a group of interstellar refugees, survivors of a race called the Treib who once enslaved the Kazon.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 15] Threshold
Shown 8th January 2002 [Tuesday]

Paris discovers the secret of Transwarp travel. There is a reference to Zephram Cochrane. This in itself should be indication it is a bad idea.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 16] Meld
Shown 2nd January 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 9th January 2002 [Wednesday]

Tuvok investigates a murder, and decides to mind-meld with suspect Ensign Suder (Brad Dourif - Alien Resurrection ). This is of quite illogical.

Mr Jonas (Raphael Sbarge - Once Upon A Time ) is on the engineering staff, with his own little sub-plot.

Tom Paris is insubordinate.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 17] Dreadnought
Shown 9th January 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 10th January 2002 [Thursday]

Voyager is up against a Cardassian superweapon that Torres reprogrammed. Now she must outsmart herself ...

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 18] Death Wish
Shown 16th January 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 11th January 2002 [Friday]

Voyager rescues an errant Q (Gerrit Graham - Philadelphia Experiment 2 ) who has been exiled from the Continuum. His wish: to be allowed to die. John de Lancie pops up, too.

In the classic Star Trek fashion, this story deals with an important issue through metaphor.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 19] Lifesigns
Shown 23rd January 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 14th January 2002 [Monday]

The Holographic Doctor falls in love with a Viidan woman. Voyager takes a female Vidian doctor aboard, and the Holodoc treats her. He uploads her consciousness into the hologram buffers, so that she becomes a holographic entity like him. They socialise together, and he falls in love with her.

The B-story sets up foreshadowing for next episode. Crewman Jonas (Raphael Sbarge - Once Upon A Time ) is secretly communicating with Seska ( Martha Hackett ). Meanwhile, Paris has fallen out with Chakotay. Paris is insubordinate to Janeway, and Seska plans to attack Voyager. Both these plot threads are continued in the next episode.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 20] Investigations
Shown 30th January 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 15th January 2002 [Tuesday]

Paris leaves the crew, and is soon kidnapped by Seska's Kazon allies.

Meanwhile, Neelix investigates and deduces that Paris was working for Seska all along.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 21] Deadlock
Shown 16th January 2002 [Wednesday]

Voyager is split between alternate universes - sort of. The Vidiians attack, just as a pregnant mother gives birth. Will the baby Naomi Wildman survive the battle?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 22] Innocence
Shown 20th February 2001 - Tuesday
Shown 17th January 2002 [Thursday]

Voyager encounters weird aliens, like in Buck Rogers Season 2 . Tuvok tries to help three alien children abandoned by their own race.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 23] The Thaw
Shown 18th January 2002 [Friday]

Voyager rescues some Aliens in Cryo. Their brains are linked into a Virtual Reality machine. The Clown (Michael McKean - Smallville ) reads their fears. He can induce a fatal heart-attack, and nobody in the Voyager crew bothers to perform CPR (or the hi-tech Starfleet equivalent).

This raises another question. Since it demands a living host, why not plug in Ensign Suder? He is completely expendable, being confined to his quarters for homicide of a fellow crew-member. Also, it would cut down on his use of life support (a limited commodity in the Delta Quadrant). He is a drain on the ship's limited resources, and it is inhumane to keep him in solitary confinement indefinitely.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 24] Tuvix
Shown 20th March 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 19th January 2002 [Saturday]

Tuvok and Neelix are involved in a transporter accident that merges them into a single entity that calls itself Tuvix. At first they cannot reverse the process, so Tuvix fulfills the role of both the composite characters.

The part is well-cast, well-acted and even the makeup is excellent.

The story has a basic flaw. Because of Star Trek's disgusting lack of plot development, we know the reset button will be pushed at the end of the episode. Therefore when Janeway confronts the dilemma of destroying Tuvix to restore Neelix and Tuvok, we know what her decision will be - even if the viewers all know it to be the wrong one!

There is another problem with the logic. The transporter works by disentigrating the person and replicating them from the buffers. Therefore, Janeway can replicate an infinite number of Neelixes and Tuvoks without harming Tuvix.

Is Janeway guilty of murder? Starfleet loves to boast about encountering new life forms - is a Talaxian/Vulcan hybrid not good enough for them? In all fairness, the Federation has SOME standards. Look at the trouble Data and the EMH have had, trying to get equal rights. Would the Feds treat the product of another technology as well?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 25] Resolutions
Shown 21st January 2002 [Monday]

Janeway and Chakotay have contracted an apparently incurable disease. They are marooned on an M-Class world. Sexual tension is implied, but they decide not to do it. Huh!

Meanwhile, Tuvok is left in charge of Voyager. The ship has poor morale for some reason. The crew is unhappy about losing their leaders, although for both of them to get infected smacks of incompetance. Why do they not abandon Ensign Suder while they are at it? He is a drain on the ship's limited resources, and it is inhumane to keep him in solitary confinement indefinitely.

The biggest surprise is that Starfleet's bland boy wonder Harry Kim is the biggest mutineer on a ship filled with Chakotay's Maquis thugs. Harry tries to force Tuvok to contact the Vidiians. They can offer to trade Belanna's Klingon DNA, a nice piece of continuity. Also, the Doctor's GF has a cameo.

All this ignores the fact that the Vidiians are the biggest threat Voyager has faced so far.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 2, Episode 26] Basics, Part I
Shown 3th April 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 23rd January 2002 [Tuesday]

Seska ( Martha Hackett ) outwits Janeway. That doesn't sound too difficult, eh? Of course, she reckons without the EMH and Ensign Suder [Brad Dourif].

Season 3

Star Trek: VGR [Season 3, Episode 1] Basics, Part II
Shown 10th April 2001 [Tuesday]
Shown 23rd January 2002 [Wednesday]

Voyager's crew has been marooned in a desert on an M-class world. Without the ship's super-tech Neelix is the only one with any survival skills. Before the credits begin, a redshirt gets snatched by an unseen menace in a scene that may have inspired Aussie SF movie Pitch Black.

The Doctor is the only officer left aboard the ship - except for Ensign Suder (Brad Dourif - Child's Play ) the convicted psychopathic murderer. Lieutenant Paris has taken a shuttle to get help from the Talaxians. They have to retake the ship, while the marooned crew struggle to survive.

The crew are on a prehistoric world. There is a cave monster and some Neanderthals. The desert is inhabited by a CGI beastie and humanoids with putty on their foreheads. Their behaviour is reminiscent of the ape-men in 2001 - A Space Odyssey , and their language is untranslatable by the Universal Translator. The crew fight back with homemade bows and spears. There is also an exploding volcano to contend with. All straight out of 1 Million Years BC !

We get to find out who the father of Seska's baby is. We also get an end to the Seska story arc.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 2] Flashback
Shown 24th January 2002 [Thursday]

Tuvok has strange visions. It turns out that a repressed memory is manifesting itself, and it will soon cause him permanent brain damage. His only hope is for Janeway to mind meld with him. Together, they explore Tuvok's memory.

They find themselves on the bridge of the USS Excelsior during the events of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . Not only are there excerpts from the original film, there are actually re-staged scenes where Tuvok and Janeway interact with the characters in Tuvok's memory. Captain Sulu (George Takei) and Janice Rand ( Grace Lee Whitney ) both appear.

This was apparently the Pilot episode of the Captain Sulu series, a touted replacement because Voyager's ratings were falling.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 3] The Chute
Shown 28th January 2002 [Monday]

Harry Kim finds himself trapped in an underground prison with fifty violent aliens. Luckily he has the (comparatively) tough and streetwise Tom Paris to watch his ass.

Meanwhile, Janeway is insensed that her splods have been arrested, convicted and imprisoned of a crime they are blatantly innocent of. Does she take on the fascist regime, and rescue her crewmen? No, she tracks down the real freedom fighters - resorting to piracy and kidnapping on the flimsiest of pretexts.

In the prison, Harry must defeat the security systems that protect the only way in or out ... The Chute. However, the prison conditions and neural implants drive our heroes to the brink of insanity ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 4] The Swarm
Shown September 2000
Shown 29th January 2002 [Tuesday]

This is from back in the days when Janeway was tough, before 7of9 appeared and took over as the token tough female. VGR approaches an area of space controlled by a species who do not let strangers enter their space. It will take VGR 15 months to go around. Hey, they are going to take seventy years to get back anyway, what does a few extra months mean to anyone? Janeway does not see it that way; in direct violation of the Prime Directive she decides to barge on through!

Paris and Torres are in a shuttle on an Away Mission, flirting away. They are boarded and zapped by mysterious aliens - creatures that actually LOOK alien! The aliens attack anyone who enters their space, and bypassing it would take Voyager an extra fifteen months!

Meanwhile, the Doctor is practising his opera singing in his spare time when he somehow forgets the lyrics. Most of the episode's screen time is taken up with the Holodoc's premature senility. It turns out that he is starting to suffer from memory loss, which soon interferes with his ability to perform surgery. It seems that he has a serious memory fragmentation.

Standard procedure is a complete reboot, which means that he will lose all the character development of the last years. Kes starts up the diagnostic program, a hologram of Dr Lewis Zimmerman (the EMH's creator). Robert Picardo is excellent in the dual roles of senile EMH and irritating Zimmerman.

The Doc has exceeded his 1500 hours warantee - he has been running for two years! The obvious option is to re-install the program, and reboot - thus losing all the personality improvements that have developed.

Nobody realises two very important things.

The Doc is an AI - like Commander Data and the Exocomps ( ST: TNG ) he is sentient! The Federation's own rules cannot allow him to be killed!

If the Doc's personality were changed his interpersonal skills (and interpersonal communication) would be impaired - thus damaging his ability to interact with the crew and service them as needed.

A side note: the Doc (a hologram!!!) is shown scrubbing pre-operation, and he has to use his fingers to press the off switch when he has finished - thus contaminating himself again!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 5] False Profits
Shown 25th January 2002 [Friday]

Voyager arrives at a planet where there is evidence of use of a replicator. It turns out that, thanks to Star Trek: TNG , a pair of Alpha Quadrant types ended up on the world. They co-opted the local religion and declared themselves gods, the Sages. These so-called Sages live in a palacial temple while the local citizens have a medieval society. Hmm. That would never happen on Earth, eh? Yes, the Sages have to TEACH greed to the [human?] natives!

Neelix expertly cons the Sages - this is a wonderful example of what a cutting-edge character he could have been, instead of just comic relief. Unfortunately this does not last long. Neelix turns out to be more cowardly than a Ferengi.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 6] Remember
Shown 30th January 2002 [Wednesday]

Torres starts to have very vivid erotic dreams. Voyager has an alien delegation aboard, and since the aliens are telepathic the dreams may in fact be memories.

Torres continues to dream about life in the alien culture. Her father (Bruce Davison - X-Men ) is very manipulative. The outsiders are Amish types. The alien culture revealed in the dreams gets gradually more repressive, with quite a shocking ending. The Federation motto is for people to Put aside their differences. Since this philosophy is based on Stalinist Russia, the moral of the story is to obey the Iain M. Banks quote and start looking for the mass graves.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 7] Sacred Ground
Shown 26th January 2002 [Saturday]

In an alien planet's shrine, Kes gets zapped into a coma by a strange forcefield. The local Magistrate (Harry Groener, the Mayor in Buffy Season 3 ) helps as much as he can. Unfortunately the shrine is outside of his authority, because the world has seperation of church and state.

Janeway must undertake the aliens' religious ritual. However, the religion states that proof denies faith. Can Janeway, a scientist from a culture of atheists, abandon science and instead adopt blind faith in the unknown?

Robert Duncan MacNeill directed this episode, so Tom Paris does not appear much.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 8] Future's End Part I
Shown 31st January 2002 [Thursday]

Voyager is attacked by a Federation ship from the 29th century. Apparently there will be a temporal disaster caused by Voyager. The ship gets sucked into a temporal rift and ends up in ... 1996!

In Los Angeles, the source of the temporal anomaly, a billionaire (Ed Begly Jnr - ) is plotting something. Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok and Paris beam down - leaving Harry Kim in charge! Then the Transporter buffers crash, trapping all the senior staff in 1996 LA!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 9] Future's End Part II
Shown 1st February 2002 [Friday]

Tuvok and Paris are on the run with the nerdy babe ( Sarah Silverman ).

The villain has abducted the Doctor. But on the bright side, he also gives him a 29th Century holo-emiter. That was nice of him!

Chakotay and Torres try to abduct the villain. However, they end up crashing the shuttle. Worse, they land in Arizona and get involved in an unnecessary sub-plot involving an anti-Government Militia.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 10] Warlord
Shown 2nd February 2002 [Saturday]

Kes is possessed by the spirit of a dead alien warlord. The result? An unthreatening villain, and a wasted opportunity to develop Kes' character.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 11] The Q & The Grey
Shown 4th February 2002 [Monday]

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 12] Macrocosm
Shown 5th February 2002 [Tuesday]

Janeway and Neelix return to Voyager, and discovers it infested with massive, man-sized viruses.

The Doctor gives an account of his first Away Mission.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 13] Fair Trade
Shown 6th February 2002 [Wednesday]

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 14] Alter Ego
Shown 7th February 2002 [Thursday]

Harry Kim falls in love with a holodeck character. She is not all that she seems, and prefers the company of Tuvok!

Torres accompanies a Vulcan officer to the Holodeck Luau. Their relationship comes up again in the episode Blood Fever!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 15] Coda
Shown September 2000
Shown 22nd October 2001 [Monday]
Shown 8th February 2002 [Friday]

Janeway and Chakotay are on an away mission together. Yes, both command officers! Their shuttle crashes, and Chakotay drags the injured Captain to a cave. She finds herself in the afterlife, with her father as her guide.

As ever, there is lots of pseudo-science. In the climax scene we see the holodoc in the cave (i.e. outside of med-bay), so he must have got his remote emitter by this stage.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 16] Blood Fever
Shown 29th October 2001 [Monday]
Shown 9th February 2002 [Saturday]

A Vulcan crew-member begins to act irrationally. He tries to mind-meld with Torres, who breaks his jaw. The holodoc discovers that the Vulcan has Ponn Farr ... Hell, any SF fan could have told him that.

Voyager detects an abandoned mining colony. Torres (chief engineer), Tom Paris (rock-climber) and Neelix (former Miner) beam down to investigate the mines and caves. Torres begins to act irrationally, especially when she and Paris get trapped underground together.

Of note, this episode was directed by Andrew Robinson (Garak in Deep Space 9 ). Also, it is Voyager's first encounter with an important race ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 17] Unity
Shown 12th November 2001 [Monday]
Shown 11th February 2002 [Monday]

Chakotay and a female redshirt are on a shuttle that crash-lands on a planet with a primitive society. Chakotay develops a relationship with a human woman who lives on the world, and discovers that her group use a mental link to maintain a peaceful, Federation-type society.

Meanwhile, Voyager discovers the remains of a Borg cube.

Robert Duncan MacNeill directed this episode, so Tom Paris does not appear much.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 18] The Darkling
Shown 12th February 2002 [Tuesday]

The Doctor adds some historical characters to the Polynesian holodeck program - Ghandi, Byron, T'Pau. Then he adds some of their personality attributes to his own program. Unfortunately, he ends up with more than an improved bedside manner!

Kes and Neelix have broken up. She spends her time with a new alien, a pilot from a species of explorers. He offers to take her aboard as a crew-member. Unfortunately, someone violently attacks her new friend.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 19] Rise
Shown 13th February 2002 [Wednesday]
Shown 5th September 2005 [Monday]

Tuvok and Neelix, on a rescue mission, end up stranded on a planet about to be smashed by an asteroid. Luckily, Neelix has the skills to repair an orbital elevator.

The ep's main influence appears to be Flight of the Phoenix. Neelix's embellishment of his skills is lifted directly from it. But this ep allows the annoying little rodent to play the underdog, and gain our sympathy (to a small degree).

To give a bit more action-adventure, lifted from the works of Alastair MacLean, one of the survivors on the elevator is a saboteur ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 20] Favourite Son
Shown 14th February 2002 [Thursday]

Harry Kim starts to recover memories he never knew he had. It turns out that he is not really human, and has alien origins.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 21] Before And After
Shown 15th February 2002 [Friday]

Kes has visions of the future. The EMH will call himself Dr Van Gogh.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 22] Real Life
Shown 16th February 2002 [Saturday]

The Doctor creates a holographic family for himself. Unfortunately, they are bland 1950s-style suburban stereotypes. Torres adds some random elements, to make it edgier and more 1990s.

Meanwhile, the ship detects a subspace anomaly. It is incredibly powerful and dangerous, but will give them enough energy to supplement their replicator rations. Tom Paris is sent out to harvest the energy. Although this may seem predictable and bland in contrast to the Doctor's drama, Paris' story actually proves a good counterpoint to it. Paris also has another interesting subplot as he warms up towards Belanna Torres.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 23] Distant Origin
Shown 18th February 2002 [Monday]

A pair of scaley-faced aliens are hunting Voyager down. They infiltrate the ship and spy on Paris and Torres' flirtation ...

It turns out that their species is descended from Hadrosaurs - plant-eating dinosaurs from Earth! They want to prove it scientifically. However, their own species' government are a bunch of religious zealots. And their technology far outstrips Voyager's.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 24] Worst Case Scenario
Shown 19th February 2002 [Tuesday]

The crew start playing a holonovel about a Maquis Mutiny.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 25] Displaced
Shown 20th February 2002 [Wednesday]

Voyager's crew start disappearing, one by one. They are replaced by harmless-looking alien civilians. Yes, apparently this is a strange natural phenomenon.

Paris and Torres are spending a lot of scenes together. That is what is really important about the ep - character development, rather than the generic alien encounter.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 3, Episode 26] Scorpion Part I
Shown 21st February 2002 [Thursday]

Janeway seems to have given up on her creepy gothic Victorian romance holonovel. Now she tries to rent some workspace from Leonardo Va Vinci (John Rhys Davies - Sliders ).

Voyager arrives at Borg space. Luckily the Borg are already pre-occupied with Species 8472, biological organisms from another dimension known as Fluidic Space. Harry gets infected with alien DNA. Will he survive this Season-ending cliffhanger?

Janeway makes a temporary alliance with the Borg. A Borg unit is given access to a cargo bay. Their leader is 7of9 ( Jeri Lynn Ryan ).

Season 4

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 1] Scorpion Part II
Shown 22nd February 2002 [Friday]

Janeway makes a deal with the Borg. She insists they use a representative to communicate with her, to mirror the use of Locutus in Best of Both Worlds. The end result is ... 7of9, the suited-up Jeri Lynn Ryan .

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 2] The Gift
Shown 23rd February 2002 [Saturday]

Kes' psychic powers drive her to a meltdown.

The Doctor removes most of 7of9's implants. The result is ... Jeri Lynn Ryan

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 3] Day of Honour
Shown 25th February 2002 [Monday]

Since this is more or less a sequel to Blood Fever, Ensign Vorek gets a walk-on part at the start of the episode. As Torres turns her rage on Paris, he flirts with 7of9. However, she would rather seek advice from Janeway.

Meanwhile, 7of9 starts to bond with Janeway.

A disaster happens in Engineering, as per usual, and they have to eject the warp core. Torres and Paris fly out to collect it. However, they end up trapped in their spacesuits, with the oxygen running out and little hope of rescue. Torres opens her heart to Paris ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 4] Nemesis
Shown 26th February 2002 [Tuesday]

Chakotay is captured by some human soldiers on a jungle planet. They have no armour or uniforms beyond camouflage t-shirts! Their rifles are 1990s bullpups, not very alien at all. The Universal Translator is having problems with their language - we get lots of phrases that belong in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome .

Slowly but surely, Chakotay is sucked into the war. The villains, with make-up reminiscent of the creature in the film Predator , are keen on committing war crimes against civilians. The strange thing is that, despite being a Maquis captain, he sticks to Federation pacifism for as long as possible!

When Voyager arrives, they make contact with one side. Now, which side do you think that is?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 5] Revulsion
Shown 27th February 2002 [Wednesday]

This takes place three days after Day of Honour. After Tuvok's official promotion to Lieutenant Commander, Paris and Torres meet up to discuss things.

Voyager detects a distress beacon from a ship. The only survivor is a hologram, so the Doctor and Torres are sent to the ship. The Hologram is hostile to organic life-forms, sometimes violently so. It is nice to see a potentially evil version of the Doctor. However, the character is totally OTT and lacking in any subtlety.

Speaking of unsubtle, Harry Kim and 7of9 are building the astrometrics lab. Harry is subject to the same response that all heterosexual men have towards her ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 6] The Raven
Shown 28th February 2002 [Thursday]

7of9 goes rogue. She thinks the Borg are calling her home. We get to discover her origin story.

Unfortunately, Voyager is in negotiations with an Interstellar empire. The aliens are paranoid, and insist that the Feds take an unfeasibly circuitous route around thei

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 7] Scientific Method
Shown 24th September 2005 [Saturday]

The crew start acting unusually. Janeway seems under a lot of stress, while Paris and Torres cannot keep their hands off each other. Then Chakotay starts to age rapidly, while Neelix has his alien DNA assert itself.

The Doctor discovers what is going on. He manages to communicate with 7of9, so she is the only one who can save the day. Unfortunately, since she TWICE sabotage the ship in two previous episodes she is now under close surveillance from Tuvok.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 8] Year of Hell, Part I
Shown 20th Feb 1999 [Saturday]

7of9 and Harry Kim have completed the Astrometrics lab, and plotted a new route home. It will shave five years off their journey - but unbenkownst to them it will take them into the path of Anorax (Kurtwood Smith - Robocop ), who has a superweapon that can alter the past!

This starts part one of a two-part story; finally the Space Cadets get their asses kicked! The villains are some kind of human mutants (they have Trill-like freckles and dimly-lit ships, but they are obviously not aliens - Narns and Ferengi are aliens!) that have control over time-warps or something. The details are unclear - this reviewer had trouble staying awake. But we know something Janeway doesn't; the bad guys are winning because their leader is the Federation's President from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - no wonder he knows all their weaknesses!

Two noticeable references made in the show are

Paris mentions the Titanic, no doubt topical when this episode was first screened in the USA (early 1998), a year before it aired in the UK.

7 of 9's reference to Star Trek VIII: First Contact - The Borg were present during those events.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 9] Year of Hell, Part II
Shown 27th September 2005 [Tuesday]

Taking up from where last ep left off, Chakotay and Paris are Anorax's .... guests. Yes, in typical supervillain style he monologues them! Chakotay starts to bond with Annorax, this interstellar Ahab/Nemo, who shows him how to calculate temporal changes. Paris ferments rebellion among the lower decks. No change there then.

Janeway had the crew take to the lifepods. She now only has the senior staff left with which to run the ship. 7of9 is Tuvok's eyes, since he was blinded in an explosion. The power is down, everything is damaged as the villains attack them constantly, week after week for several months. Just like the show should have shown us in every episode for the last 3 years!

Janeway makes an all-or-nothing gamble that since the original timeline was damaged when the Timeship was first used, the answer is to remove the Timeship itself. Strange that a weapon like the Timeship is not pulled in by Starfleet's TimeCops from the 29th Century, But this just illustrates how poor time-travel stories are in terms of continuity.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 10] Random Thoughts
Shown 28th September 2005 [Wednesday]

Voyager's crew have shore leave on a planet of caucasian telepaths. Neelix wants to get some sex from a girl who sells watermelons, and despite being able to read his surface thoughts she is not repelled. In fact, the whole planetary population is perfectly happy with reading everyone's surface thoughts.

The locals do not need CSI technology, because the interrogator (a nice version of the Psi-Cops from Babylon 5 ) can read the mind of every witness and suspect.

Just like in the Star Trek: TNG episode Justice, Starfleet did not bother to get a list of laws and punishments before giving people shore leave.

Tuvok must find a scapegoat. Luckily, he stumbles across the perfect patsy. By criminalising violent thoughts, the Government have inadvertently glamourised it. Tuvok uncovers an illicit black market in illegal thoughts. The real problem is that the locals have no way of handling violent thoughts. They are driven to actual violence ...

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 11] Concerning Flight
Shown Third Week, October 2000

Janeway spends her spare time with a hologram of Leonardo Da Vinci (John Rhys Davies - Sliders, Raiders of the Lost Ark).

Voyager is attacked by a group of aliens with transporters that can cut through Voyager's shields and remove things. The aliens steal the central processor from Voyager's main computer.

Janeway investigates, helped by Leonardo - who uses the Holodoc's mobile emitter!

This episode raises important questions about the Prime Directive. Should Janeway destroy the aliens to prevent them mis-using Federation technology?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 12] Mortal Coil
Shown Third Week, October 2000
Shown 1st March 2002 [Friday]

This is a Neelix episode. It starts well enough, with him interacting with 7of9 and playing father-figure to the ship's token little kiddie.

Then Neelix goes on an away mission, and is physically killed. His body is left to rot for eighteen hours, then 7of9 brings him back to life by injecting him with Borg nanoprobes. This manages to reverse the effects of rigor mortis and the fact that most of his soft tissue would have been practically unsalvageable. Ah well, the wonders of technobabble.

Anyway, Neelix now has a conflict of faith. His near-death (well, actual-death) experience showed him that there is no afterlife, so what is the point of living?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 13] Waking Moments
Shown 16th May 1999 [Sunday]
Shown 4th March 2002 [Monday]

Voyager is invaded by a hostile species that attacks the crew through their dreams.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 14] Message In a Bottle
Shown 5th March 2002 [Tuesday]

Voyager discovers a network of apparently disused communication relay stations. Janeway uses it to have the Holodoc sent to a Starfleet ship on the border of the Alpha Quadrant.

The Starfleet ship has been taken over by Romulans led by Judson Scott ( Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan ). The Holodoc must save the day, but his only help is the ultra-gay EMH Mark II prototype (Andy Dick). The two doctors bicker like Niles and Frasier Crane, which makes it pretty obvious where the inspiration came from. For some reason they do not think to reconfigure their appearances and look Romulan! However, they manage to provoke a big space battle.

Back on Voyager, the central computer's HDD has no backup of the EMH program. Harry and Paris try to create a new one, to no success. Meanwhile, Torres and 7of9 discover that the relay stations are owned and used by the Hirogen. This provides a role for Tiny Ron, who usually plays the servant of the Ferengi Grand Nagus.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 15] Hunters
23rd May 1999 [Sunday]
Shown 6th March 2002 [Wednesday]

Now in its 4th Season, just received its first mail from home. Chakotay discovers that while they were gone the Cardassians made an alliance with the Dominion and destroyed the Maquis.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 16] Prey
Shown 7th March 2002 [Thursday]
Shown 12th October 2005 - Wednesday

One of the Hirogen hunters is after an elusive and deadly prey. A lone member of Species 8472 is on the loose.

In this ep, 8472 are still the vicious, murderous monsters they always were. But this one, hunted and alone, almost evokes sympathy.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 17] Retrospect
Shown September 1999
Shown 8th March 2002 [Friday]

7of9 plays a central role in this episode - not surprising, as she is the only interesting character out of the whole mundane crew.

Voyager encounters some friendly aliens who secretly want Borg technology. Or do they?

This episode is a despicable attempt to portray 7of9, the callous and unfeeling mechanical psychopath, as a rape victim. A creature that by her own admission was responsible for the destruction of countless millions now descends into self-pity after the Doctor helps her recover a repressed memory of being violated. Violation is a state of mind - one that a Borg should be incapable of feeling.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 4, Episode 18-9] The Killing Game Part 1-2
Shown 5th September 1999 [Sunday]
Shown 11-12th March 2002 [Monday & Tuesday]

This sees the entire crew cast as members of the French Resistance and US Army, in a French town occupied by Aliens in Nazi uniforms.

It turns out that the Nazis are a species of alien blood-sports fanatics, who wiped the crew's memories and put them in the holodeck for an entertaining hunt.

The aliens are a lot more sympathetic than the usual two-dimensional villains these shows churn out every week. However, the stereotypical portrayal of them as Nazis is predictable. Why would the hunters want to play the side who LOST the war? And why not try to humanise the German characters by making them the Voyager crew? The Wehrmacht holograms even try to execute US Army POWs, until they are stopped by Neelix the Klingon!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 20] Vis A Vis
Shown 13th March 2002 [Wednesday]

Tom Paris has finally got his life sold out - I mean, SORTED out!. He is monogamous with Belanna (but they sleep in seperate rooms, never mind beds!), he is friendly with arch-rival Chakotay (remember the mutual bitterness in the Pilot episode?), he has become a straight-and-narrow boring git!

Luckily for everyone (including the audience, who might die of boredom) a rogue trader pops up. It is Bulldog from Frasier, with putty on his nose, and he offers to trade with Voyager. He has cool new technology, and Tom is assigned to help him work on modifying a shuttle.

Without spoiling the twist, we get to see the old Tom Paris. Getting drunk, flirting with Belanna and 7of9 ...

Unfortunately, he does not fit in with the Starfleet fascists any more. Even the Maquis - the who? They are all Starfleet clones now! Will the reset button get pressed?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 21] The Omega Directive
Shown 14th March 2002 [Thursday]

The ship’s computer pulls up a red alert, but the details are classified. Only Janeway has access to the info, although 7of9 has prior knowledge of the problem due to the Borg’s assimilation of Picard (and all his knowledge). Yes, 7of9 knows everything Picard knew prior Best of Both Worlds.

The Omega molecule, a highly unstable source of almost infinite power, has been synthesised. This is a plot device that has never been mentioned before or since, even though 7of9 seems confident that she can improve upon the Borg’s containment techniques.

The ship locates the source of the molecule – a scientific lab on an alien moon. The aliens have had an accident, not a full-scale Praxis but that is still a possibility. Janeway sends in an away team, and is accused of breaking the Prime Directive. However, the civilisation involved is capable of space flight and Omega synthesisation so it is presumably Warp-capable. Hardly a breach by any standards.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 22] Unforgettable
Shown 15th March 2002 [Friday]

Chakotay falls in love with Virginia Madsen . But she is part of an Alien culture that erases the memories (both psychological and digital) of everyone they encounter.

Despite being in the most high-tech ship in Starfleet, the only way that Chakotay can think of recording his memories is with a pen and paper.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 23] Living Witness
Shown 16th March 2002 [Saturday]

This episode concerns the Warship Voyager, equipped with extra guns and armour, and a cool darkened interior. All the crewmembers wear black leather gloves, and all Security troopers carry rifles. Even Neelix is in uniform! 7of9 is realistic - still borged up, rather than just the tits and ass. The rest of the crew are undisciplined sadists who would do well in the Mirror, Mirror universe. Janeway is incredibly cool, and the Doctor is an android who uses biogenic weapons and tortures prisoners.

It turns out that this is just a simulation in a museum run by Voyager's enemies, 700 years in the future. Voyager got involved in a war between two humanoid species. The two alien species still have trouble getting on, and they blame Voyager's intervention for their social problems. The species who allied themselves with Voyager are holocaust deniers,

The museum curator uncovers the Holodoc's backup module. Yes, apparently Voyager had a backup EMH all along! The Doctor straightens out the curator, but the new evidence causes social upheaval.

The Doctor's version shows Voyager as technologically vulnerable and the crew as inept and bumbling. Just like in regular episodes. 7of9 is a damsel in distress, though she gets tougher only when the writers thought it appropriate. The eeevil Voyager is much more interesting, and would make a much better show. Tim Russ directed this episode, and did a nice job of it.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 24] Demon
Shown 18th March 2002 [Monday]

Voyager's magical engines are running short of fairy-dust. Instantly, after 4 years, the ship's systerms start to fail. Their only answer is a Demon-class world.

The Demon-class world is so uninhabitable that even being in orbit is a danger to Voyager. However, when the landing party inevitably get in trouble Janeway doesn't hesitate to land the entire ship!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 25] One
Shown 19th March 2002 [Tuesday]

To get through a deadly Nebula the crew must go into status. Only 7of9 and the Holodoc are safe.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 4, Episode 26] Hope and Fear
Shown 22nd October 2005 [Saturday]

An alien tourist named Arturus (Ray Wise - Twin Peaks, Swamp Thing, RoboCop ) pops up and helps the Voyager crew. He is a multi-skilled genius who asks nothing in return. Is he too good to be true?

Season 5

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 5, Episode 1] Night
Shown Fourth Week, January 2000
Shown 21st March 2002 [Thursday]

The ship is trapped in an area of space the crew nickname the void, because it is absent of any stars. It is so large that no stars from outside the area are visible to the naked eye. Janeway is overcome with regret over her decision to strand the ship seventy years from home.

It appears the void is the battleground between two unknown alien species - but who are the good guys?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 5, Episode 2] Drone
Shown 20th October 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 22nd March 2002 [Friday]

The Holodoc is on an Away mission with 7of9, on a shuttle in a nebula. An emergency means they have to beam back to Voyager, but the Doc's 29th-Century-tech remote transmitter is damaged. Unbeknown to everyone, it has bonded with some of 7of9's nanoprobes and begins to assililate things. It clones and creates a unique drone, and 7of9 is assigned to educate it in humanity.

What do we learn about Voyager? Well, Belanna Torres sleeps alone (not with Tom Paris), and wearing an Ivanova-style nightie into the bargain.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 5, Episode 3] Extreme Risk
Shown 1st Week February 2000
Shown 21st October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 23rd March 2002 [Saturday]

The episode continues the themes expressed in the void episode. The theta-radiation garbage-dumpers are back, venting their nuclear waste into the super-dense atmosphere of a gas giant, where the Voyager crew are trying to recover a lost Federation probe. The two crews compete to build shuttles strong enough to survive the planet's atmosphere long enough to recover the probe.

This time the disturbed crew-member is Belanna Torres, who shuts herself off from her companions and engages in self-destructive holodeck programs. She is brought round not by Tom Paris (her lover) but by Chakotay (her ex-boss, whom she used to be attracted to) ... HUH? Nonsensical! So much for character development!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 5, Episode 4] In The Flesh
Shown 2nd Week February 2000
Shown 27th October 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 25th March 2002 [Monday]

Admiral Tucker Smallwood ( Space: Above & Beyond ) suspects that there is a spy in the Starfleet training academy. The spy is ... Chakotay!

Chakotay photographs everything he can see. The Starfleet types wandering around include at least one Ferengi - surely Nog was the first Ferengi in Starfleet, and that was after Voyager got lost in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay gets a date with Kate Vernon , and it is Ponn Farr night at the Vulcan night-club.

All is not as it seems. Voyager has found a Federation base in the Delta Quadrant! Further investigation shows that Species 8472 has returned. But this is not the B5-inspired Shadow-like Survival of the Fittest CGI creature; this is a touchy-feely cheapo Drek non-villain! They are more scared of the humans that the humans are of them - but at least they see through the Federation's charade of being civilized.

One more problem with this trash (Only one? I hear you cry) - the references to 8472 as being not of this galaxy ... They are not of this UNIVERSE, they are from fluidic space!

Also, there is a hint of continuity - they still have Paris' new shuttle (built in the last episode).

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 5] Once Upon A Time
Shown 3rd Week February 2000
Shown 28th October 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 26th March 2002 [Tuesday]

This ep sees a token child aboard the starship. We meet a young girl, Naomi Wildman, who is in Neelix' care while her mother (a female redshirt!) is on an Away Mission with Paris and Tuvok. Yes, some damn fool took a pre-teen on a warship that was going into hostile territory where the Cardassians and Maquis were going head to head.

It is nice to see members of the crew who are not senior officers. Also, there's a genuine possibility that a character might die.

Paris' new shuttle crashes, and the team are MIA ...

The child asks Neelix about his sisters; naturally he lies and does not tell her they are dead. His nightmare flashback indicates he saw them die. Anyway, as the story unfolds it is Neelix who cannot handle loss, not the child.

We learn something useful about Federation society. The child uses an innovative holodeck program that encourages her to learn. The thing is, we are never shown the below-average people in their society.

Paris and company make their last messages; Paris address his to Torres. Odd, considering they were barely on speaking terms a couple of episodes previously.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 6] Timeless
Shown 4th Week February 2000
Shown 3rd November 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 27th March 2002 [Wednesday]

This episode was directed by (and guest-starring) LeVar Burton.

Fifteen years in the future, Chakotay and Harry come back to rescue the rest of the crew. Yes, they made it home on Tom's shuttle, but the ship was lost without trace. Their only hope - a Borg temporal transmitter that may enable them to change the past.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 7] Infinite Regress
Shown 4th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 28th March 2002 [Thursday]

7of9 ( Jeri Lynn Ryan ) develops multiple personality syndrome. This shows off what a talented actress she is, covering personalities that include a Klingon, a Vulcan and a pre-teens girl who plays with Naomi Wildman. And best of all, Ms Ryan has a beautiful smile!

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 8] Nothing Human
Shown 10th November 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 29th March 2002 [Friday]

B'Elanna encounters one of the few non-humanoid species in Trek. It bonds itself to her, sucking nutrients from her system. The Holodoc must do something, or she will die.

Non-humanoids are so rare that the only holo-consultant the Holodoc can create is a Cardassian. Well, it is better than the attempt Harry Kim came up with in Message in a Bottle. Unfortunately, the Cardassian is based on a real fellow, who is accused of War Crimes by the Maquis. He claims he only did his duty as a doctor, but the character is written and played as completely unlikeable.

We get a very unconvincing debate about the morality of using information gained by unethical means. Starfleet is against it. They should have dismantled all their starships, then, because space travel comes from military technology. Especially Von Braun's V2s, built for the Nazis by slave labourers, and the Russian missiles that helped keep Stalinism on its legs for decades after it should have died.

7of9 complains that the Borg get bad-mouthed for getting their info by means of assimilation, and claims the Cardassian is getting away with it. However, the opposite appears to be true. The high moral and ethical standards enforced by Starfleet Medical are not enforced when it comes to Starfleet Astrometrics. All 7of9’s knowledge, from after her assimilation in her pre-teen years, comes from genocidal activity as a Borg drone. By the logic used in this episode, when Janeway accepts any Astrometrics info from 7of9 she is thus endorsing the methods used in gathering that info. But would the Borg’s victims object to her helping her crew in such a way?

Finally, the ep starts by showing Belanna and the Maquis as racist against Cardies - and ends by showing them to be correct. Dr Cray Mossett is judged for his Inhumanity ... but he is not human, and cannot be held to Starfleet standards. A jury of his peers would be Cardassians, with the same standards (however mortally lax) as his. They would argue that things are relative, and that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Would Leonard McCoy kill a thousand to save a million? Of course not! But would Kirk and Spock make that decision, if put in a hopeless situation?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 9] Thirty Days
Shown 11th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 30th March 2002 [Saturday]

The ep starts with Janeway bypassing the Court Martial procedure and punishing Tom Paris without any kind of trial. He is demoted to Ensign, and given thirty days in the brig. Yes, the ship has an active brig despite having few disciplinary problems. Tom is denied replicated food and holodeck privileges, and even conversation with Neelix! The main story is told in flashback, as Tom narrates a letter to his father explaining how he got imprisoned.

It started when Tom and Harry were in a Captain Proton holodeck sim with a pair of twins, the infamous Delany sisters. It turns out that Harry Kim has fallen for the wrong sister!

Voyager arrives at a waterworld, inhabited by an alien colony that lives underwater and has submarine starships. Tom takes the Delta Flyer to the world's core, to see why it is suffering mysterious quakes. Along for the ride are Harry, 7of9 and an alien scientist (Willie Garson - Stargate SG-1 ). They discover that the world is being destroyed by the colony's oxygen refineries.

Janeway invokes the Prime Directive, refusing to intervene to prevent the colony from inadvertently destroying its own world. Tom decides to help the aliens, whether they want it or not.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 10] Counterpoint
Shown First Week, April 2000
Shown 17th November 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 1st April 2002 [Monday]

Janeway and Co smuggle refugee telepaths through an Empire which has a higher level of tech than the Feds, and interns all telepathic races.

Neelix keeps the children amused with tales of the holo-characters Flodder & Treebus - why not just take them to the holodeck and let them run the educational programs themselves?

The head Inspector defects to Voyager, and offers to help them find a wormhole and escape. But can he be trusted? Janeway and he develop a relationship of sorts. Janeway admits she breaks the Prime Directive, then sorts it out at the Board of Enquiry. I'm on first-name terms with several of the Admirals.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 11] Latent Image
Shown Second Week, April 2000
Shown 18th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 2nd April 2002 [Tuesday]

The Doctor discovers that his memories have been tampered with. His investigations show that 18 months previously, before 7of9 joined the crew, the Doctor and Harry Kim went on an away mission with an unknown Ensign.

The inevitable flashback does not feature Kes, even though she was the Doctor's assistant during that period.

7of9 is in her red-brown bodysuit again. The show centres around a philosophical debate.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 12] Bride of Chaotica
Shown First week, May 2000
Shown 24th November 2001 [Saturday]
Shown 3rd April 2002 [Wednesday]

Voyager gets trapped in a subspace breach. Worse, portals from another dimension start to open in the Holodeck. Aliens start to cross over and explore. The good news is, they are humanoid and speak English. The bad news is, they are photonic and think that the Captain Proton simulation is reality!

Tom Paris is Captain Proton and Harry Kim is his sidekick. The Doctor becomes President of Earth. Janeway poses as Queen Arachnia of the Spider People.

The villain is a Ming-type creation who calls himself Emperor Chaotica.

Important things to note are:

Why would someone whose real life involves so much adventure choose to indulge in escapist fiction?

The dated 1930s serial is SO much better than the usual crap this series delivers.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 13] Gravity
Shown Second week, May 2000
Shown 25th November 2001 [Sunday]
Shown 4th April 2002 [Thursday]

This episode centres around Tuvok. He and Tom Paris crash-land on a desolate planet trapped in a subspace pocket. Lori Petty special guest stars as a Jawa, and Tuvok has to explore his emotions for her.

The Emergency Medical Hologram is along, with his remote projector. There is no mention of an EMH on Voyager at the same time - can they have two EMHs at the same time, or is there only one? Tuvok has to switch the EMH off to conserve power; the EMH complains I'm a Doctor, not a battery!

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 14] Bliss
Shown 5th April 2002 [Friday]

Voyager detects a wormhole that will take them directly back to Earth. Is this too good to be true?

7of9 (in her blue bodysuit), Naomi Wilder and the EMH have to save the ship. To help is Morgan Shepherd ( SeaQuest DSV, American Gothic ) an alien Ahab. His Moby Dick seems the inspiration for the Bu-Dong creature from Farscape .

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 5, Episode 15] Dark Frontier Part I: Dark Visions
Shown Fourth Week, January 2000
Shown Second week, June 2000
Shown 6th April 2002 [Saturday]

This episode centres around 7 of 9. A new Borg drone is discovered and isolated from the hive-mind. However, the Collective (now a big metal ball with a flashy disco interior) locate them and attack the ship.

Voyager is attacked by the Borg, and takes out its attacker. When they salvage the wreckage they discover its long-distance scanner logs, which indicate that a crippled Borg scout-ship is nearby. Janeway takes this as an opportunity to attack the Borg and steal a transwarp coil.

7of9 is ordered to examine her parents'journals. It turns out that her parents were sent to study the Borg - yes, even before their first appearance in Star Trek: TNG the Borg were known to Starfleet. Now, this makes sense when you take Star Trek 7: Generations into account, but it is still a niggling problem in continuity.

7of9 is contacted by the Queen - she knows of VGR's plans, and wants the human-friendly ex-drone to rejoin the collective.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 16] Dark Frontier (Part II)
Shown 8th April 2002 [Monday]

7of9 is back with the collective, under the direct command of the Borg Queen ( Susannah Thompson ). The plan is for 7of9 to be the new Locutus, using her knowledge of humans and individuality to bring the Federation down more easily. To facilitate this, the Borg Queen attempts to replace Janeway as 7of9's mother figure.

Back on Voyager, Janeway and Naomi Wildman (7of9's adoptive mother and daughter respectively) are obsessed with getting 7of9 back. Everyone else seems to have given up on her. Can they at least temporarily power down her recharge booth because she will not be using it in the forseeable future?

The Borg Queen reveals that she was once a member of Species 121. This explains how she is a different Queen from the one in Star Trek: First Contact ). Presumably, the original Queen ( Alice Krige ) was the scientist who created Borg, and would thus be Species 1. The new Queen ( Susannah Thompson ) is no doubt a protege that the first Queen chose, in the same way that 7of9 has been chosen for special treatment.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 17] The Disease
Shown Fourth Week, June 2000
Shown 9th April 2002 [Tuesday]

Ensign Harry Kim screws an alien babe ( Musetta Vander ), and gets a rash!

Janeway states that the handbook for interspecies relationships is three inches thick. Amazing to think they still have a paper handbook when everything seems to be digital files stored on I-Pads. Well, at least the show has predicted the creation of the I-Pad and hopefully the demise of the laser-printer too!

The alien culture is xenophobic. However, some of the aliens are rebellious and want to split up the generational ship.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 18] Course: Oblivion
Shown Third Week July 2000
Shown 10th April 2002 [Wednesday]

Tom and Belanna finally get married. However, just as they prepare to have their holodeck honeymoon they discover that the newly enhanced Warp core (which will get them to Earth within only two years) has given the entire crew a lethal dose of radiation poisoning.

This is quite an incredible episode, in that it does not have the usual reset button. This is NOT the end of the series, but it does ask a couple of questions about continuity. With all that has happened,

How Tom and Belanna did not get married in a previous episode?

Why did Belanna not implement the enhanced Warp core in a previous episode?

How come the ship has not progressed more rapidly towards Earth by the final tag scene.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 19] The Fight
Shown 11th April 2002 [Thursday]

Chakotay is afflicted with halucinations, courtesy of telepathic aliens from Chaotic Space. He remembers his favourite holodeck program, boxing, and halucinates that he is the Maquis Mauler in the ring fighting Kid Chaos.

We get yet more flashbacks to Chakotay's childhood, where he learns about his heritage from his grandfather. In other words, instead of developing the character they use cliches.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 20] Think Tank
Shown 12th April 2002 [Friday]

Voyager is attacked by a species of Bounty Hunters. Luckily, the Feds may have some new potential allies. Jason Alexander (Seinfeld) is a representative of the Think Tank, a collective of geniuses from different species. They solve problems, such as curing the Vidiian Phage, but they do it for a price. This breaks two Federation rules - interference (i.e. helping people) and profit (i.e. a fair exchange of good and services). Janeway has doubts about dealing with them.

It turns out that the Think Tank's goal all along was to add 7of9 to their collective. She claims to be the most intelligent member of Voyager's crew, because she had access to the Borg database. Now, it may be true that she used to be plugged into a massive library, but simply having access to Google does not make people smarter. True intelligence is speed of cop-on - it is the ability to process info quickly. 7of9's perceived arrogance is her real problem, her difficulty in bonding with the human crew. This is illustrated in her solution to an electronic Rubik's Cube that Tom Paris brought aboard. She takes the most efficient route - she cheats by scanning the device! Not only does she miss the purpose of the device, she also lacks the intellect to defeat it in an honest way.

Can Voyager's officers team up and out-think the think tank? Since their most intelligent member is supposed to be 7of9, the answer seems to be No.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 21] Juggernaut
Shown 13th April 2002 [Saturday]

Voyager encounters a Malon garbage scow that is badly contaminated. They rescue the crew, but the ship is en route to destroy an inhabited system. An Away Team must go aboard, and steer the ship away.

This is a Belanna Torres episode. She is at her best - very aggressive, only now is she receiving anti-aggression meditation therapy from Tuvok! Once aboard the Malon ship she strips down to her standard issue skimpy vest and starts to sweat profusely. Luckily for us her cohorts, Neelix and Chakotay, keep their clothes on.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 22] Someone To Watch Over Me
Shown August 2000
Shown 15th April 2002 [Monday]

As a result of a bet with Tom Paris, the Holo-Doc gives 7of9 socialisation lessons to prove that she can be more ... human. The Doc himself is somewhat attracted to her. Shades of Pygmalion ...

Meanwhile, Neelix is assigned to look after an alien ambassador from a very repressed culture. The ambassador can't break down synthohol, and as a result gets drunk!

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 23] 11.59
Shown August 2000
Shown 16th April 2002 [Tuesday]

Janeway reminisces about an ancestor of hers, Shannen O'Donnell, who she says was one of the prime movers in a Biosphere type project called the Millennium Gate. We are shown a flashback of O'Donnell (played by the same actress) at December, 2000 CE, in a small town where the Millennium Gate is going to be built. However, in the flashback we learn that the accepted view of history is not completely factual.

Unlike most Flashback episodes, we do not get to see the entire cast in 20th Century garb - just Janeway and guest-star Kevin Tighe.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 24] Relativity
Shown August 2000
Shown 17th April 2002 [Wednesday]

Bruce McGill ( Quantum Leap ) is the Captain of the Federation time-ship. He refers to a previous encounter with Janeway, where she abandoned him in the late 20th Century.

Janeway does not give a damn about paradoxes.

Apparently 7of9's Borg occular implants are better than Federation time-ship sensors from 500 years in the future! Also, for the second time in the series 7of9 refers to the events of Star Trek VII: First Contact.

It turns out that the villain is only trying to destroy VGR to prevent himself suffering the terrible fate that drives him to destroy VGR in revenge ... However, the so-called villain is captured and punished BEFORE he commits the crime, and thus is given his motivation for his so-called crime.

Why didn't someone go back in time and stop Janeway from harassing him, and thus ensuring that he never got the motivation for revenge against her?

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 25] Warhead
Shown 18th April 2002 [Thursday]

Harry Kim is on duty as commander of Voyager's night shift. He orders that the ship investigate a mysterious distress signal. Then he leads the away team, and discovers a rocket with a built-in A.I. He orders it beamed aboard, for further study. After all, it is their job to meet strange new life-forms, even artificial ones.

The plan is to create a new holomatrix for the A.I. to interface with the crew. This would be a great chance for a new guest-star, as when Cray Mossett the Cardassian exo-biologist came to stay. However, this is unnecessary because the A.I. takes over the HoloDoc's program. And as the episode title suggests, it is an explosive missile intended to destroy a target on an alien world.

Harry and Belanna are trapped in the medical bay with the A.I. ... Belanna has been in this situation before, held hostage and forced to rebuild a mechanical marvel. However, she does not get to say much - Harry takes full responsibility, and does most of the talking. He is a bit out of his depth, as Robert Picardo is an incredible dramatic actor who provides exactly the right level of frustration necessary for an intelligent rocket intent on fulfilling the purpose of its creation.

Star Trek: VGR [Season 5, Episode 26] Equinox Part I
Shown September 2000
Shown 19th April 2002 [Friday]

Voyager meets another Starfleet ship, the USS Equinox. It is a Federation Nova-class planetary research vessel commanded by Captain Ransom (John Savage - Dark Angel ). The Equinox is under attack from CGI aliens of unknown origin. However, Ransom and his crew are concealing an unpleasant secret.

One of the crew (played by Titus Welliver - Agents of Shield ) is Torres' BF from the Academy - and he is every bit as skilled as she is. Rick Worthy ( Supernatural, Vampire Diaries ) is along for the ride as well. Yes, it looks like goody-two-shoes Janeway has finally met her match!

Season 6

Star Trek: VGR [Season 6, Episode 1] Equinox Part II
Shown 17th April 2001 [Tuesday]

Janeway has become Ahab, intent on her revenge. She becomes so ruthless that she would stand by and let aliens kill members of the Equinox's crew. At the end she even resorts to slavery! She blames the crew of the Equinox, who were only obeying their Captain's orders. This is doubly ironic, because not only does she break her own rules she even has Chakotay relieved of duty for trying to stop her!

Aboard the Equinox we get to see 7of9 manacled to a table. Once the Voyager's Doctor has his ethics removed he is willing to work on her to extract information the Equinox crew need. However, 7of9 resists even though she knows it is futile.

The episode has decent production values, with actual outdoor footage! However, this does not make up for the flawed characterisation of Janeway.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 2] Survival Instinct
Shown 8th May 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager takes aboard three humanoids who are actually ex-Borg. They abduct 7of9 in an attempt to undo some of the side-effects of their Borgification. This is quite a good story, with no happy ever after ending of the type this show usually provides.

Of note, one of the ex-Borg is Tim Kelleher - Jeri Ryan's co-star in Dark Skies - and another is Vaughn Armstrong .

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 3] Barge of the Dead
Shown 1st May 2001 [Tuesday]

Torres dies and finds herself on the Barge of the Dead, taking her to the Klingon afterlife. There are some beautiful (and expensive-looking) sets - quite amazing, especially compared to the usual standard of one-off sets in this show.

One scene shows that the replicators can create Klingon blood-wine, although tellingly they should not be able to create alcoholic drinks. However, they cannot create living gagh. Similarly, in DS9 we learn that the Ferengi on Earth have to visit the Sisco restaurant to get live food.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 4] Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy
Shown 29th May 2001 [Tuesday]

The Holodoc gives an opera recital that is so excellent it sends Tuvok into the Ponn Farr. Well, it has been seven years since he has had any action. Later on, at a meeting, the Holodoc is sexually harrassed by Torres, 7of9 and even Janeway herself!

Meanwhile, nearby aliens hack into the Holodoc's subprocesses. They receive input on everything he is aware of - but unknown to them, all they intercept is his daydreams!

The daydreams get out of control. He fantasises about painting 7of9 topless, but forgets to do the breasts and nipples! :)

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 5] Alice
Shown 5th June 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager's crew meet a trader, and Paris buys an old shuttle off him. The shuttle has a neurogenic interface, and after Paris uses it he becomes obsessed with the new ship. Oddly, Chakotay states that Voyager has its full complement of shuttles - even though they have lost one in every other episode for six years!

Finally Belanna has to reveal her true feelings for Tom. They even get to kiss. After only seven years!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 6] Riddles
Shown 12th June 2001 [Tuesday]

Tuvok is on an away mission with Neelix when he is shot by an invisible alien. Janeway calls in a local alien investigator, a sort of knobbly-foreheaded Fox Mulder.

Neelix is overcome with guilt. Tuvok has brain damage and amnesia ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 7] Dragons Teeth
Shown 19th June 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager accidentally discovers a system of Hyperspace tunnels. The aliens who use the tunnels attack Voyager, which takes refuge on a dead world. However, it turns out that the world is not as dead as they thought.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 8] One Small Step
Shown 10th July 2001 [Tuesday]

An object closely follows Voyager.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 9] The Voyager Conspiracy
Shown 17th July 2001 [Tuesday]

7of9 builds herself a Borg learn-while-you-sleep device that allows her to download information. She comes to conclusions that, as Tuvok says, are logical but highly speculative.

An encounter with a hyperspace catapult inspires 7of9 to check through the files on the Caretaker's Array. 7of9 tells Chakotay of her Conspiracy Theory, and sets him against Janeway. Is she exploring the Delta Quadrant or mapping it for invasion? Either way, she is not endangering the ship or its crew.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 10] Pathfinder
Shown 24th July 2001 [Tuesday]

Dwight Schultz (A-Team) pops up as Reg Barclay, the most human character in the Federation. He goes to see his old shipmate, Deanna Troi ( Marina Sirtis ). Barclay is working on a new technical development, Pathfinder, and has a cat named Neelix. Troi is still on the Enterprise, serving under Captain Picard.

Barclay spends his spare time on a holodeck simulation of Voyager. This is easy to tell from the real thing: the Maquis are not in Starfleet uniform, and there is no sign of the new crew members 7of9, Kes or ... Neelix.

Barclay's personal project is to communicate with Voyager. They have a general location thanks to the Holodoc contacting Starfleet two years earlier. Tom's Father, Admiral Paris (Richard Herd - V ) pops up.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 11] Fair Haven
Shown 31st July 2001 [Tuesday]

Tom Paris develops a holodeck program set in Fair Haven, an Irish village in the Victorian era. Typical yank, he seems to have left out any reference to Queen Vic or the fact that Ireland ran the British Empire. Ah well. Worse is the use of Gaelic in sign-posts, because Gaelic was a dead language even then.

Voyager passes through a three-day Ion Storm. Neelix persuades Janeway to let the holodeck run permanently, and everyone has a go.

Janeway becomes romantically entangled. She meets a male hologram and modifies him - she makes him better educated, more confident and taller.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 12] Blink of an Eye
Shown 14th August 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager encounters a strange planet with a primative civilisation. Voyage is caught in (and interacts with) the planet's gravity field: the planet's time passes at a faster speed than on Voyager, and the ship's attempts to leave cause tectonic shifts ...

The Holodoc is the only member of the Voyager crew who can go undercover on the planet ... Later, the natives develop nechnology and send up a space ship. The pilot is David Dae Kim ( Crusade, Angel, Lost ).

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 13] Virtuoso
Shown 21st August 2001 [Tuesday]

VGR arrives at a highly advanced civilisation that has no concept of music. They are taken with the Holodoc, whose opera singing (albeit dubbed) makes him a megastar.

Predictably, the Doctor has a crisis of conscience. Should he stay with Voyager and the crew that takes him for granted, or remain on the planet where he's a megastar. Janeway objects when he calls her Katherine - but McCoy and Crusher were both on first-name terms with their Captains. But if he stays, when will his fifteen minutes of fame going to run out?

7of9, strangely absent from the early part of the episode, appears in the second half and acts as the Doctor's conscience.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 14] Memorial
Shown 28th August 2001 [Tuesday]

Chakotay, Neelix, Paris and Kim return from a two-week Away Mission. They have flashbacks to a battle they could not have fought in, and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Torres actually shows affection towards Paris!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 15] Tsunkatse
Shown 4th September 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager arrives at a peaceful planet, and Janeway decides to give everyone shore leave. She heads off somewhere and leaves Chakotay in charge. He delegates command to his subordinates so he can spectate at the local Martial Arts contest, Tsunkatse.

7of9 and Tuvok fly off in a shuttle and are kidnapped by aliens. The boss is played by Jeffrey Combs (Weyoun in DS9 ), while JG Herzler (Gowron in DS9 ) pops up as a helpful member of the Hunter species.

7of9 has to fight The Rock ( The Mummy Returns ) in an arena. However, as in his movie appearance he just flexes his muscles and does not say anything of interest.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 16] Collective
Shown 18th September 2001 [Tuesday]

On an away mission in a shuttle, Chakotay, Harry, Paris and Neelix are attacked by the Borg. Voyager discovers that the Cube is damaged, and when 7of9 goes aboard she discovers the only drones are teenagers! Yes, we get yet another society of adolescents story. Oddly, 7of9 (who supposedly has superhuman strength) is quite wimpish here.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 17] Spirit Folk
Shown 11th September 2001 [Tuesday]

Tom Paris' hologram program, Fair Haven, has been running 24/7 for several months. And believe it or not, just like every holodeck for the last two decades it goes haywire and holds the crew hostage. Does nobody learn from past experience?

The village inhabitants think that Paris and Harry Kim are faerie folk.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 18] Ashes To Ashes
Shown 25th September 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager is hailed by a humanoid woman who claims to be one of their crew, killed by the Hirogen three years previously. She was apparently resurrected by an alien species, but has now returned to continue her former life.

She settles into a period of adjustment. She is Harry Kim's love interest - but as Tom Paris points out, Harry has a bad history with women. Harry’s friend has recognisably human features, but unlike the Alpha Quadrant aliens like Bajorans and Trills there is an actual ALIEN look to the character. And she must have shared a costume designer with 7of9, because her one-piece is hourglass-figure-hugging.

Meanwhile, 7of9 is in charge of the ex-Borg kiddies. She uses the immortal line fun will now commence! 7of9 is having trouble with the Borg children. The reality is that they need a mother, someone like Janeway. 7of9 may be physically a well-developed woman, but she was Borged when she was younger than the little ex-Borg girl who is Naomi Wildman’s age. In other words, she is as childlike as they are - in the same way that Commander Data had a childlike naivete.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 19] Child's Play
Shown 2nd October 2001 [Tuesday]

The oldest of the Borg kids, E-Chubb, is a scientific genius. Hell, they all are. Not a high-school drop-out among them. However, E-Chubb's parents have been located on a primitive farming colony. He is due to be sent back to them, somewhat against his will.

There are several inconsistencies about the episode. The main oddity about the episode is the lack of sexual tension between E-chubb and 7of9. She has emotional difficulty being seperated from him, but though he has reached puberty he is not her lover. The episode does not even indicated that he is attracted to her, although to a teenage male like him 7of9 must be quite something!

There is another problem with regards to the parents. It seems that the age gap is too small - either the actor playing the kid is too old, or those playing the parents are too young. However, this is lampshaded by Janeway reminding us that E-Chubb was force-grown in a Borg maturation chamber, and thus may be a lot younger than he looks. More importantly, his father is played by Mark A Sheppard ( Supernatural ), best known as a rent-a-villain actor. However, Sheppard actually plays a more nuanced character than he is usually allowed to.

The episode is based around the Prime Directive, but the ending is a complete denial of that.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 20] Good Shepherd
Shown 9th October 2001 [Tuesday]

7of9 runs a performance review and uncovers a trio of Misfits - an academic, a hypochondriac and his number-blind Bajoran babe girlfriend. Yes, there are PEOPLE aboard the ship, not just Starfleet drones.

Janeway leads the trio on an Away Mission in the Delta Flyer.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 21] Live Fast And Prosper
Shown 16th October 2001 [Tuesday]

A pair of con-artists are impersonating Janeway and Tuvok in order to steal cargoes from unsuspecting aliens. Somehow they have managed to duplicate the uniforms, the background information, everything they need! It turns out that Neelix and Paris, two of the crew's most cynical and street-wise members, have been conned!

Chakotay, Torres and 7of9 barely appear in this episode.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 22] Muse
Shown 23rd October 2001 [Tuesday]

A bunch of near-humans in an Ancient Greek-style amphitheatre are acting out a stage-play based on a Torres/Kim Away Mission. Torres crashed the Delta Flyer, and the playwrite who found her is using her as his muse.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 23] Fury
Shown 30th October 2001 [Tuesday]

Kes returns to Voyager. Not only does she look well past fifty, now she is powerful and hostile! She gets to the Warp Core, kills Torres and travels back in time.

We get a flashback to the days before the holodoc had a remote emitter, before 7of9 and the Delta Flyer. Naomi Wildman has not been born yet - her mother is pregnant with her. Kes wanders around, masquerading as her younger self, plotting to sell the ship out to the Vidians. Only Tuvok has any idea that something is awry.

Kes originally left the ship when Janeway kicked her off - even though the Ocampan was an incredibly dangerous risk to lifeforms in the Delta Quadrant. Now, Janeway's approach is equally weak. An acquaintance of this reviewer suggested that Janeway should not have let such a valuable resource go to waste, but rather just lobotomise the bitch and use her as a psychic weapon.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 24] Life Line
Shown 6th November 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager is contacted yet again by Ensign Barclay (Dwight Shultz). The Holodoc discovers that his creator, Dr Zimmerman, is dying of a mystery illness. He gets Janeway to transmit him over the ether (leaving no backup program on Voyager's HDD!) so he can save his Father.

It turns out that the EMH and Zimmerman are much too alike to get on. As a result, Barclay gets Counsellor Troi ( Marina Sirtis ) to give them Family Counselling!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 25] The Haunting Of Deck 12
Shown 13th November 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager has a ship-wide power blackout. Neelix tells the Borg Kids a ghost story about a space-dwelling life-form that took over the ship before the kids came aboard. Apparently the ghost-like entity is still on Deck 12 ...

It is nice to see the kids pick holes in Neelix's story, especially his use of technobabble. However, Farscape does this kind of story so much better.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 6, Episode 26] Unimatrix Zero, Part I
Shown 20th November 2001 [Tuesday]

The Borg Queen makes another appearance. Janeway, Tuvok and Torres get captured and borgified, but with the EMH's help they can survive it.

Season 7

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 1] Unimatrix Zero, Part II
Shown 27th November 2001 [Tuesday]

7of9 meets with her fellow free-thinking Borg in a VR chat-room named Unimatrix Zero. Apparently while she was a Borg she and a male Borg were independant enough to have an on-line relationship. Yes, she has a boyfriend! Even more interesting, we get to see Ms Ryan as a woman, not a Borg.

The Borg Queen detects the independant activity going on. She tries to stop it, firstly by having entire ships self-destruct and then by attacking Unimatrix Zero itself.

Tom Paris, now Acting Second Officer to Chakotay, gets to do what the Second Officer always does - question orders.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 2] Imperfection
Shown 4th December 2001 [Tuesday]

The twins get left off with their own people, and the little girl gets left there too. Naomi Wildman will have nobody of her own age any more, but nobody bothers to point this out.

E-Chub stays on Voyager with 7of9. Just as well, because her cortical implant starts to malfunction and they need a spare one in order to save her.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 3] Drive
Shown 11th December 2001 [Tuesday]

Tom and Harry have rebuilt the Delta Flyer, and take it for a test-drive. They end up volunteering to participate in a sub-light shuttle-pod race in an obstacle-packed star system.

Tom chose the race over a romantic getaway. As a result, Belanna thinks there is something wrong with her relationship with Tom.

Neelix gets into his element as a commentator on the race.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 4] Repression
Shown 18th December 2001 [Tuesday]

Voyager receives a transmission from Starfleet - it is mail from home! Soon after, Tuvok has to investigate a series of mysterious attacks on Maquis members of the crew. Someone starts picking off Voyager’s crew, one at a time. The assailant is targeting former Maquis members, Which raises the tension levels to where they sat in the pilot episode. The victims have microfractures to the side of the head and a resultant coma. This sounds like a violent equivalent of the Vulcan mind meld, which nobody suggests.

It turns out that a Maquis fanatic Bajoran scientist (Keith Sjarabaka - Angel ) in the Alpha Quadrant has plans for Voyager’s crew – specifically Chakotay, Torres and Tuvok. He intends for Chakotay and his former Maquis crew to take over Voyager.

We discover how Tuvok infiltrated the Maquis so easily. But what about Paris? Not only was he convicted and imprisoned by Starfleet for Maquis membership, he is also Belanna Torres' lover. Supposedly.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 5] Critical Care
Shown 15th January 2002 [Tuesday]

A slimy thief (John Kassir) sells an overworked Hospital administrator (Larry Drake - Prey ) a new piece of medical equipment - the Holodoc!

The hospital's resources are divided by a computer called the Allocator. People who are useful to society (eg Chief Engineer of a water treatment plant that keeps half a continent alive) get preferential treatment. The Holodoc tries to set this straight. His ethics are now somewhat flexible ...

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 6] Inside Man
Shown 22nd January 2002 [Tuesday]

Voyager's monthly e-mail from Starfleet has jammed the receiver. They discover it is a hologram version of Lieutenant Barclay (Dwight Schultz) who claims he can get them home. He has a dubious plan to create a spacial fold that links two red giant stars.

Meanwhile, back in the Alpha Quadrant Barclay is typically paranoid. He takes a vacation on the beach with Troi ( Marina Sirtis ). They uncover a conspiracy, and call in Admiral Richard Herd.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 7] Body And Soul
Shown 29th January 2002 [Tuesday]

Harry, 7of9 and the EMH are on an Away Mission in the Delta Flyer. They are boarded and captured by aliens (including Megan Gallagher ), who are having a biogenic war against holograms. They try to destroy the Doctor, so he hides - in 7of9's cerebral implants. Nobody thinks of using her Borg super-strength to escape.

Meanwhile, back on Voyager Tuvok is entering the Ponn Farr - and the only medic aboard is Tom Paris.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 8] Nightingale
Shown 26th February 2002 [Tuesday]

Kim, 7of9 and Neelix are in the Delta Flyer, scanning a nebula for Dilithium. They encounter a warship attacking a cloaked transport ship. Kim drives off the warship, and boards the transport to provide medical aid. The transport's crew have been killed, so Kim ends up commanding it. 7of9 joins him and provides advice.

Meanwhile, Voyager is getting an overhaul. Belanna enlists the help of the Borg teenager, E-Chubb. He thinks she is developing romantic desires for her!

The director is LeVar Burton.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 9] Flesh & Blood
Shown 5th March 2002 [Tuesday]

The Doctor is feeling taken for granted, as always. The holograms have decided to go against the Starfleet programming they were given, and are fighting a war of genocide against the Hirogen! Their leader is Bajoran Vedek Jeff Yagher ( V: The Series ).

The Hirogen appear, led by Vaughn Armstrong . What side will Janeway take?

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 10] Flesh & Blood, Part II
Shown 12th March 2002 [Tuesday]

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 11] Shattered
Shown 26th March 2002 [Tuesday]

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 12] Lineage
Shown 2nd April 2002 [Tuesday]

Belanna Torres is finally pregnant. The foetus has Klingon traits, and Belanna wants the child genetically engineered to be human.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 13] Repentance
Shown 9th April 2002 [Tuesday]

Jeff Kober ( Tank Girl ) is a violent psycho, but 7of9 is not intimidated by him.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 14] Prophecy
Shown 07/Feb/01

Voyager encounters a ship of Klingon pilgrims. They are following a prophecy that states they will discover a holy child. Their leader believes that the child is Belanna's unborn daughter.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 15] The Void
Shown 14/Feb/01

Voyager gets sucked in a subspace sinkhole, where there are no solar systems or natural resources. Janeway is holier-than-thou. and refuses an alliance with Robin Sachs (Ethan in Buffy the Vampire Slayer ). That said, her other allies are also morally dubious.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 16] Workforce, Part I
Shown 21/Feb/01

Voyager’s crew are working in a power plant. The only worker not known by a number is the efficiency supervisor, Aneka Hansen (formerly known as 7of9). Janeway starts a romance with James Read ( Charmed ).

Chakotay, Harry and Neelix return from an Away Mission to find Voyager damaged and abandoned. However, despite being under repeated attacks from scavengers the Doctor – now the Emergency Command Hologram – has managed quite well in their absence.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 17] Workforce, Part 2
Shown 28/Feb/01

Chakotay is trapped on the planet’s surface, hunted by the local cops. Will his Maquis skills keep him a step ahead of the manhunt, or is he rusty?

Despite having tech equal to the Feds (warp drive, energy weapons, scanners and shields) they are suffering a crippling labour shortage. But the Federation, with similar technology, has replicators and holodecks (and even androids) which mean there is vast unemployment and underemployment!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 18] Human Error
Shown 07/Mar/01

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 19] Q2
Shown 11/Apr/01

Q (John de Lancie) appears on Voyager, along with his offspring (conceived in The Q and the Grey). Q Junior (played by De Lancie's real-life son) is the same age as E-Chubb, who himself is the show's less annoying version of Wesley Crusher.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 20] Author, Author
Shown 18/Apr/01

Barclay and Admiral Paris have perfected a way of giving Voyager’s crew limited video-chat capabilities on a regular basis. By this stage Voyager is basically the same as any Starfleet ship in the Alpha quadrant, although they have to ration the three-minute video-chats. 7of9 is typically cynical about the whole thing, which leads to a bit of friction.

The EMH uses his vid-chat time to contact a Bolian publisher in the Alpha Quadrant. They plan to distribute the Doctor’s holo-novel, Photons Be Free. The story is set upon a Starfleet vessel that is marooned in the Delta Quadrant. Yes, the whole thing is a thinly-veiled version of Voyager, with every character’s worst traits emphasised. Even Janeway is like a mirror universe version of herself, killing an injured crew-member (completely against Starfleet regulations, of course). Not unlike the holo-simulation of the eeevil crew, used in the episode where aliens have villainised the Feds.

It is nice to let the crew see things from the Doctor’s perspective, although they are too caught up in their own egos to have any empathy for him. The holo-emitter in the story is a heavy backpack, which seems excessively unpleasant to the humanoids – but the EMH is a being of pure light, and thus even an emitter the size of a comm-badge is still a burden.

The final twist is that the publisher double-crosses the EMH, stating that a non-person has no rights as a content creator. In a scene reminiscent of the famous TNG episode Measure of a Man , Janeway and her officers must prove that the EMH is a sentient creature.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 21] Friendship One
Shown 25/Apr/01

Since Voyager is just another Starfleet vessel, this week they get a Starfleet mission. They are sent looking for a warp-speed probe that was sent out 300 years previously, and ended up in the Delta Quadrant. They find it on a world suffering nuclear winter, which is always a bad sign. It turns out that as well as music, the probe’s database also contained instructions on antimatter technology. After building nuclear missiles, the locals also decided to build a dodgy Chernobyl-style power plant. Sensors are blocked by the radiation, so they need to send an Away Team with transport enhancers.

Sending out the probe was certainly not the smartest idea. As 7of9 points out, if it had been intercepted by the Borg then the Human race would have been assimilated long before they had the ability to defend themselves. That said, as a mostly pre-Warp they would have had nothing worth assimilating. But can the Feds be held responsible for a pre-Federation probe?

Tom Paris is protective of Belanna, and refuses to let her go on the away mission. Just as well, considering how things turn out. And Paris seems to have matured quite a bit, using his medical training to help a pregnant woman.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 22] Natural Law
Shown 02/May/01

Voyager arrives at an M-class, warp-capable civilisation. Chakotay and 7of9 crash-land in a remote area, where they befriend the stone-age natives. The natives’ culture is vaguely reminiscent of Chakotay’s own, but the newcomers’ arrival starts a Cargo Cult.

Paris gets accused of a minor infraction by Traffic Control, And under local law he must re-sit his piloting exam. The instructor is a real by-the-book type. Paris tries to blame the Delta Flyer’s designer, But the instructor has read the tech manual and knows that Paris WAS the designer!

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 23] Homestead
Shown 09/May/01

The sensors detect a remote Talaxian colony in an asteroid belt. Janeway allows Neelix, Paris and Tuvok to take the Delta Flyer and investigate. It turns out that the Talaxians are xenophobic, but with good reason. They have been driven out of every home they tried to settle in. Even the asteroid belt they are in now is being mined by an aggressive species.

Janeway and Tuvok state it would breach the Prime Directive if they were to help the Talaxians defend their asteroid home. However, since both societies involved are Warp-capable this is not really relevant. On the other hand, this could be just them trying to spur Neelix into being more pro-active, to become the warrior his people need in their time of danger.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 24] Renaissance Man
Shown 16/May/01

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 25] Endgame I
Shown 23/May/01

Voyager detects a cluster of anomalies that could be wormholes. They investigate further, ignoring some other sensor readings that could be starships. Worse, they ignore the fact that the one species known to use hyperspace tech is the Borg …

The main story starts twenty years after Voyager returned to Earth, which took 23 years. Several decades in the future, the Voyager crew-members who made it home meet up for their annual re-union. Janeway made Admiral, and worked with Starfleet Intelligence before getting a teaching position with Professor Reg Barclay (Dwight Schultz). Harry Kim is Captain of his own ship. Belanna and Paris’ daughter is an Ensign in Starfleet. But Admiral Janeway has a plan, to go back and help the crew members who didn’t make it. Unfortunately, Harry in the future wants to maintain the time-line!

Back in the main timestream, 7of9 has started dating Chakotay for real. Their third date passes without comment, but she has the Doctor remove her cortical node so she can take things further. Strangely, her implant did not shut down when she had Multiple Personality Syndrome.

Star Trek: Voyager [Season 7, Episode 26] Endgame II
Shown 23/May/01

Captain Janeway discovers what her older self was hiding. The younger, more impetuous version of Janeway decides to rethink the plan that the older, more cautious one took years to come up with. This is a bit of a turn-around – previously she thought that the old timeline was okay, since most of the crew eventually got home. Now she chooses to do more than break the Temporal Prime Directive – she wants to change the timeline entirely by destroying a Borg Hyperspace Nexus.

The Nexus is only one of six in the whole galaxy. It gives the Borg access to Hyperspace routes anywhere in the four Quadrants, so it is the Borg’s main strategic advantage. The Queen herself ( Alice Krige ) is in charge of the Nexus. This implies there are five other Queens, one for every Nexus. It must be a new development, however – it can bypass all Starfleet defences from the Picard era, and send the whole Borg armada straight to Earth!

Janeway must find a way to hijack and hot-wire the Borg Queen's Trans-warp centre, to get Voyager home and outsmart the Borg Queen.