Star Trek VGR Episode 55 - Fair Trade

An interesting look into the past of Neelix. I like this character, I wish they would develop him better though. Is he a bafoon? Is he a pacifist? Is he an adventurer? Get the character straight already!

So Voyager is about to enter a mysterious part of space called the Nekrit Expanse. Neelix (who has been feeling useless) is determined to guide them through it safely. Voyager stops at a space station to get supplies for the journey. Neelix is obsessed with obtaining a map of the Expanse.

Neelix meets up with an old partner named Wixiban. Evidently they used to sell drugs together??? Wixiban has a plan to get the map but they must do "one last job" together. They meet up with a drug dealer to make the trade but the deal goes wrong and a bunch of people are killed. After anguishing over the situation Neelix decides to confess to the stations leader. He makes a deal to go under cover to bring down the dealer. Things go bad again and Neelix is injured ... but in the end he is cleared, the dealer is caught, Janeway is pissed but tells Neelix that he is considered family to her.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 54 - Macrocosm

This plays out like a Janeway and Neelix buddy cop film. Not really. Basically there is a macro-virus infecting everyone on the ship with a sickness. It is up to Janeway and Neelix (with the help of the Doctor) to save eveyone. In the meantime they are being attacked by Tak Tak traders, who also have the virus. After finding the anti-dote, Janeway saves the crew and shares the cure with the Tak Tak. This episode shows another side of Janeway, instead of being the straight faced Captain, she was more of a badass ... it doesn't really work. She will always look like a librarian no matter what.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 53 - The Q and the Grey

"Q visits Voyager with a proposal for Janeway as civil war breaks out in the Q Continuum."


What a bizarre episode, but I guess most Q ones are strange anyway. I always enjoy seeing Q, even though he annoys the hell out of me. He serves as a good way to break up the shows monotony. So in this episode, Q shows up in Janeway's quarters at night and wants to have a baby with her. Q's ex-wife eventually then shows up and she is obviously irritated.

Q then abducts Janeway and takes her to the Continuum where there is a civil war going on. In fact it is playing out like the American Civil War ... for some reason. While Q and Janeway fight to stop the Civil War, Voyager is witnessing a bunch of supernovae happening around the galaxy. This Q civil war is causing the galaxy to die. Q's ex-wife is the only one that can help get Voyager to the Continuum to save Janeway, so she basically is given command of the ship. And she is a huge bitch. I like her.

The Q's begin to lose their powers because of this situation. Voyager arrives, they save Janeway and Q just before they are about to be executed. They then stop the Civil War by defeating "the south". Q ends up back with his ex-wife, and he asks Janeway to watch them have sex?? They just touch fingers, that's it.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 52 - Warlord

"Kes is controlled by an alien warlord named Tieran."

After Voyager saves a distressed ship, the Warlord named Tieran finds a new host body in Kes. She breaks up with Neelix and leaves Voyager in a shuttlecraft. She gets back to her home base and starts to take command again. Evidently Tieran had been banished at some point. Oh, also Tieran is a guy so it's sort of odd that he is now in the body of Kes.

This may be the finest performance of Jennifer Lien on Voyager. Tuvok shows up undercover and tries to help Kes break free of her mental bondage. She struggles within her mind with Tieran. Eventually they manage to separate the two. Voyagers crew along with the Demmas fight their way into the Warlords stronghold and save Kes.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 51 - Future's End, Part II

In a weird side plot, Torres ends up captured by Militiamen?? Weird. Anyway, the Voyager crew, Rain and Braxton all work together to thwart Starling. This was a fun and well acted two part episode. In fact, it had the feel of a Star Trek film. It certainly wouldn't have been any worse than some of the Next Gen films. Even the film quality had that movie feel to it. I thought it was excellent. Ed Begley Jr. is the best guest star ever. It seems like that's all he really does is guest appearances on random shows, but he is always good.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 50 - Future's End, Part I

I'm not sure what other people think of this two part episode, but I really enjoyed it. Of course, every Star Trek series just has to have a "go back in time to Earth episode", but honestly it never gets old for me. This one might be one of the best of them. Although Janeway does have the dumbest line in all of Trek, "The question isnt where we are...its when we are." When we are???

It starts off with a cool scene from 1960's Earth in which a hippy witnesses a UFO crash. Flash forward to the Delta Quadrant. A Federation Timeship piloted by Captain Braxton shows up and starts attacking Voyager. He says that he must destroy Voyager to save Earth's future. Voyager fights back and both ships end up pulled through a temporal rift. Braxton ends up in 1969, his ship is the one seen by the hippy. Voyager ends up in 1996.

The hippy that found Braxton's ship used the technology to build a powerful tech company. By 1996 he is the most important man on the planet, named Henry Starling. He is played brilliantly by Ed Begley Jr. Meanwhile one of his employees (named Rain) at an observatory discovers Voyager in space. She is played by Sarah Silverman, who's acting was sort of spotty but then again she is not really an actress. Evidently producers wanted to bring her on as a member of the crew fulltime, but eventually chose to go with Jeri Ryan. So anyway, Starling sees her as a threat and wants her killed. Tuvok and Paris are sent to protect her, while Janeway and Chakotay track down Braxton (now a homeless man). He tells them that Earths destruction is actually caused by Starling. They go to convince Starling not to use his technology to go into the 20th century but he refuses. In fact, he ends up accessing Voyagers computers and steals more info. Also, he steals The Doctor.


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Star Trek VGR Episode 49 - Sacred Ground

The crew go to a very religious planet inhabited by the Nechani. While there Kes touches an artifact and goes into a coma. Neelix discovers that this happened one other time on the planet and the person was saved by a ritual. Janeway decides to go through the ritual, it consists of intense physical, emotional and mental activities. Her guide (Becky Ann Baker from Freaks and Geeks) takes her along and she finally passes.


Now she must seek the answer from the spirits. She gets a bite from a venomous creature and journeys to the other side. Which ends up being a bunch of old people sitting in a sauna! Seriously. It was pretty funny. They are played by the great Estelle Harris, Keene Curtis and Parley Baer (who was the mayor on the Andy Griffith Show). Also in this episode, is Harry Groener who was the Mayor on Buffy.


Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah. So Janeway asks the spirits if they know the cure and they say no ... Janeway already knows it. So she goes back to Voyager and feels compelled to do the ritual again, this time carrying Kes. This cures her. The Doctor thinks up a plausible scientific explanation for her sudden cure, but Janeway isn't so sure it wasn't do to religion.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 48 - Remember

A telepathic race is aboard the ship. They have the ability to "mind meld" with people at will. Torres begins having lucid dreams about being in a relationship with a man and her father disapproving because he is from another race. Even though these people seem gentle, these memories imprinted into Torres show of a genocide. There is an old
woman from this telepathic race on the ship and she has been giving Torres these memories as a way of letting everyone know the truth. Her race had killed off that other race, Torres was playing the part of her in the dreams. It was a good episode, I have seen that it is considered the best episode of season three. I'm not so sure. Guest Stars in this were Chip Esten, Eugene Roche and Bruce Davison.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 47 - False Profits

Yes, the Ferengi! Even better than that, this episode is a direct link to the TNG episode "The Price" in which these two Ferengi go into a wormhole and get trapped in the Delta Quadrant. So while they were there, they crashed on a planet and pretend to be gods. They take over the planet and run the place like dictators.


Voyager discovers them and Janeway makes the decision to step in. Neelix pretends to be an emissary of the Grand Nagus and tries to force the Ferengi to leave.  The two Ferengi discover the ruse. Neelix uses his wits to convince the population that he is the real prophet. In a sign of honor the population decides to burn the three alive, so naturally they beam the hell out of there. The Ferengi manage to steal their ship off of Voyager and head through a small wormhole that only opens up for like a minute, every 7 years. Of course. So here is where Janeway fucked this up. They could have made a deal with these two Ferengi, send them back to the Alpha Quadrant with word of Voyagers whereabouts and compensate them.


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Star Trek VGR Episode 46 - The Swarm

Voyager encounters a xenophobic race known as the Swarm. They pretty much kill anyone that enters their space. They look pretty cool too. Voyager discovers a survivor of a Swarm attack, he is an alien that looks like comedian Steven Wright he tells them of the destructive nature of this race. They form a giant lattice out of their ships and no
one is able to pass through, that is how the Swarm operate.

Side plot, is that The Doctor is loosing his memory. His disagnostic program is trying to clear memory space because it is getting full. They finally figure out how to shut down his diagnostic program and he gets back to normal. In the beginning of the episode, he is learning an opera. ...like opera will still be around in the future, ha!

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Star Trek VGR Episode 45 - The Chute

"Tom Paris and Harry Kim are trapped in a prison. Tom gets stabbed trying to protect Kim, leaving him to try and find an escape plan alone. Simultaneously, Voyager is trying to find a way to prove their innocence."


I do enjoy these episodes that just start in the middle of the action. No build up, just boom... Harry and Kim are in prison. Another good element in this, is the role reversal of Kim and Paris. They are in a legit prison, where you have to fight to survive. Kim is sort of a wimp and Paris has to keep him alive. But, suddenly Paris is stabbed and now Kim must be the protector. They find this sort of cult leader type of guy in the prison and he helps them find a way out... meanwhile they are all fitted with a brain implant that makes them become crazed at times. They find a tunnel (chute) and follow it all the way to an opening....into space. The camera pans out to show that this opening is just a small dot on a huge ship. Great scene.

Janeway and crew find the real culprits of the crime. Which they do, they are revolutionaries and Janeway uses them to find out where Kim and Paris are being held. They use Neelix's ship and hook up to that tunnel hole and do a raid to free harry and Tom.  Robert Pine is in this episode.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 44 - Flashbacks

This one has to be in my top 20 all time Star Trek episodes. The premise is that Tuvok keeps having this painful memory of a little girl falling off of a cliff. It is causing him to have seizures. He does a dangerous mind meld with Janeway in order to bring her into his memory and figure out what is going on. They do the meld and end up in his memory of being an Ensign on the Excelsior under Captain Sulu. It is taking place around the time of the Undiscovered Country movie. Sulu is about to sneak into Klingon space in order to save Kirk and McCoy. The episode has Sulu (Takei), Rand (Whitney) and Kang (Ansara) in it. I am an absolute sucker for these nostalgia episodes. This one is extra satisfying because George Takei is in it. His personality is so electric, I think if they had given him his own show based on the Excelsior it would have at least lasted a solid two seasons. He was so good as the Captain in this episode.

Janeway and Tuvok keep "reliving" the memory trying to figure it out (Rand keeps telling the same "gaseous anomaly" joke over and over again, which is funny). At some point they get stuck in the memory. Meanwhile back on Voyager, The Doctor and Kes figure out what is going on. There is a parasite that disguises itself as a memory, this makes the parasite nearly impossible to find. It will feed off of its host and eventually kill them. I find this concept incredibly interesting. Anyway, The Doctor manages to kill the parasite and end the flashback.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 43 - Basics pt. 2

This episode had the setup to be an A+, but instead it was a B-. Not terrible, but could have been so much more. On the planet the crew deal with hostile cave people, dinosaur worms and volcanos. Could it get anymore stereotypical? This stuff worked for TOS but that starship has sailed.

At one point Chokotay refers to himself as an Indian...which I doubt he would do.

On the ship, The Doctor and Lon sabotage the ship systems. The Kazon are going crazy trying to figure it out, but Seska soon realizes that someone is on the ship. She finds The Doctor and deactivates him. Lon, on his own, continues to sabotage the ship and he shuts down the weapons system just as Paris arrives with a Talaxian force. There is a fight and many are killed, including Seska and Lon. The baby survives and is taken away by a Kazon. Voyager is taken back and the crew is retrieved from the planet.

I really wanted Lon to go crazy and just kill everyone. That would have been fun. Instead he was stealthy. Either way, I hate that they killed him off, this was possibly one of the most interesting and original crewmembers ever. I mean, a homicidal maniac?? How cool is that.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 42 - Basics pt. 1

As far as season finale's go, I think this was one of the better ones in the Star Trek universe. It starts off with a message coming into Voyager from Seska saying how she has had Chakotay's baby and that the Kazon are trying to take it. A vessel then arrives with an injured Kazon, he says that Seska has been killed and that the baby is in trouble. Chakotay and Janeway make the decision to go save the baby.

Voyager ends up surrounded by Kazon vessels. They do a good job fighting them off. Now it gets crazy. That injured Kazon suddenly detonates himself in a suicide bomber move. It seriously messes up the ship, leaving nearly all systems offline. Janeway tries to self destruct the ship (for like the 4th time in 2 seasons), but even that won't function. The Kazon then board the ship and take the entire crew hostage. Paris however was out in a shuttle at the time. Anyway, Seska shows up. It was all a trap. She is married to the head Kazon now. Janeway tries to negotiate with this guy, and he punches her in the face!

The Kazon take the crew down to desolate planet (likened to Earths early stages). They will be marooned here. There is also a good side plot. Remember Lon Suder? He was that homicidal maniac played by Brad Dourif. Well after murdering a bunch of people he was sentenced to life confined in his quarters. While there he has been training his mind with Tuvok and also doing in-depth genetic research on plants. Janeway praises him for his work. Later on they show Lon sitting in the dark and he has the look of a psychopathic killer on his face. So.... The only two people that remain hidden on Voyager are Lon and The Doctor! This could be good.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 41 - Resolutions

"Janeway and Chakotay must adapt to life quarantined on a planet after they contract an incurable disease."

So now Janeway and Chakotay must live together on this planet forever while Voyager continues on with Tuvok as the Captain. They start to have a romantic relationship, which seems odd. As in, there is no hint of this previously and it seems that within a day on the planet they are already having feelings.

Anyway, Janeway forbids the crew from contacting the Vidiians, even though they probably know the cure. Eventually, they disobey her request and send Torres to contact them, but of course it's a trap and Voyager barely escapes. BUT, in the meantime...remember Pel? That Vidiian doctor that The Doctor saved? She has the cure and smuggles it over to The Doctor. So yeah...that's about it.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 40 - Tuvix

"A transporter accident merges Tuvok and Neelix into a new person."


This has the potential to be the dumbest Star Trek episode, but damn they played this one perfectly. Instead of making it goofy, they went the complete opposite and it made it deep and sad and dare I say meaningful. Tuvok and Neelix merge to make a totally new person named Tuvix. He is has the personality of both Neelix and Tuvok, but at the same time is uniquely himself. When the The Doctor discovers a "cure", it puts Janeway in a dilemma; should she basically kill Tuvix in order to restore her two crewmembers.

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Star Trek VGR Episode 39 - The Thaw

The crew find some stasis pods that are hooked up to a computer. They discover that the computer has essentially come to life and has these pod inhabitants stuck in a virtual world of fear. The computer manifests itself as The Clown... a frightening, crazed, maniacal friggin clown. Played by Michael McKean, in maybe his finest role ever. Kim ends up trapped in this world and the Doctor goes in to negotiate a hostage transfer. Voyager will be giving up Janeway, in exchange for all the others. The Clown agrees, but it was a trick ... Janeway was just a hologram.


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