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Description: Well, gentle readers, I'm going to do something I usually don't do: I'm going to give you the plot of the episode ahead of time. The reason is that I've got a point to make about why this website even exists, and this episode is my Exhibit A. First, let me point out the three main Voyager plot ideas:
Now, let me lay out the first ten episodes of the series for you (I know we're only on the fifth, but I've seen the rest... unfortunately).
Look at that... 80% of the first ten episodes of this series all have the same plot-o-matic spitting things out. Come on, people! And that leaves us with two episodes that weren't part of that, Mushroom Soup, and this one. The plot to this one? Okay, ready? Don't say I didn't warn you:
Voyager hurts a living cloud while Janeway makes contact with her newt spirit guide.
Folks, can you look at this and ask me why I think Voyager is absurd and deserves the harsh mockery I bestow upon it? If you don't agree, read that sentence again and ask yourself at what point did Star Trek go from exploring strange new worlds to smelling of stale bong water.
Okay, let's get down to the episode. The captain gives a long, and I mean long, log entry on how she needs to be larger than life for the crew, now that they're stranded out in the delta quadrant thanks to her deep personal stupidity. During that time she goes from one part of the ship to another, doing her best to make the crew feel as uncomfortable as possible. It's fun to have a hobby. She shows up in the mess hall, causing a far greater tragedy than even being stranded decades from home: Harry has to act. Again, please, whatever angry Greek deity that's involved, please stop the slow transformation of poor Harry into a tree and just get it over with. Have you no mercy?!
Now, the rating for the episode is unusually difficult. The reason for this is that this episode is every bit as moronic as the plot description makes it out to be. However, what separates this from an episode like Parallax is that it seems like the episode is moving forward in spite of its own stupidity. I have a theory on this... now, I don't want to go off on a bash of Brannon Braga. Lord knows that bashing him is the national past time of almost every Trek fan. However, Brannon Braga is responsible for the story of this episode; the teleplay (the actual script) was written by Tom Szollosi and the late Michael Piller (who passed away from cancer just a few months before this review was written... much the same way that Buddy Holly gets into a plane crash but we can't get one member of N'Sync to stumble into traffic, talent dies and mediocrity marches on). With the exception of Harry, for the most part this episode comes across as if everyone involved knows that they're working on a piece of shit, and so have decided they're just going to make what they can of it; we're going to see actors, script writers, and directors all doing their damndest to make a silk purse out of the sow's ear that is The Cloud. I really have to give everyone kudos for trying, I mean A+ for effort gang. You can't save this, but Lord knows you're going down swinging.
So while Tom and Harry are having their discussion, we get to see Janeway in the background, being repulsed by the weird shit Neelix has and be frustrated by the lack of coffee anywhere. You can see in the picture below round two of "Urge to kill rising." The director is going to have fun with the background stuff in this episode. Like I said, the man's trying. But of course in episode terms, we all know this is going to be a problem. Janeway must have coffee or Janeway smash! She goes looking for Neelix, and instead finds some carrot ends sitting on a pile of dry ice. Here's a tip for the f/x challenged: smoke goes up; even the stoner idiot I got stuck with for a roommate one semester knew that. If it just sits there, we know you're using dry ice.
Janeway finds Neelix and asks for coffee (if I'm moving too fast for you, please tell me). Neelix says they don't have any more, but he has something even better! Kill him now, captain, just do it... why waste time. Janeway says to nevermind, she'll use her replicator ration for it. Neelix tells her she can't do that. What? What the hell's the point of having a ration if you can't use it? I guess it's kind of like those "Fun Bucks" you get at amusement parks that can't actually be spent anywhere. Neelix, however, gives her a long speech about why she can't do it (winning the Stupid Neelix Moment for this episode), and you see Janeway trying so hard... she must let the world think that she is dead until she can find a way to control the raging spirit that dwells within her.
Janeway gives up and heads to the bridge, and it turns out they've found a nebula full of Omicron particles that can be used to provide fuel for the ship. They could, of course, maybe try to make a fusion reactor using hydrogen, the most comment element in the whole goddamn universe, but why do that when you can do something potentially dangerous? So, it's forward ho as Janeway discusses things with Chakotay, about how exploring the nebula will raise some spirits. Yeah, nothing like looking at gaseous patterns to make me forget all about not only being stranded far away from home, but also that I'm being forced to endure lectures from that rodent-like freak with pajamas on his head serving me ugly vegetables and cups of diarrhea.
At this point Chakotay broaches the subject of animal spirit guides, part of the Native American culture... much like the Europeans have a tradition of wearing kilts and playing the bagpipes. You've just got to love that Hollywood racism. Janeway is absolutely fascinated by this topic and would love to experience it further, since being a former science officer she would obviously believe in animal spirit guides. Sadly, she's got to focus on the big cloud for the moment. They go through some technobabble mumbo jumbo, pass through an energy barrier, and enter the inside area of the nebula, showing us that it's filled with giant aqaurium stones.
At this point we cut down to the mess hall and see Neelix going off about the Voyager crew. You know, this is the first serious moral dilemma I've had to face when it comes to Voyager. I mean, Neelix is an annoying waste of carbon and water, and yet, he irrately points out the utter stupidity of the Voyager crew in general and the captain in particular. Regarding Voyager's tendencies: "'Uh, well uh, let's see if we can't find some space anomaly today that might rip [Voyager] apart!'" Regarding the idea that Janeway cares about her crew: "You don't care a great deal about your crew and introduce them to the specter of death at every opportunity." You know, he may be a shithead, but he's got a point.
At this point wads of blue goo begin hitting Voyager and drain their energy. They try to leave but the energy barrier won't let them through. They try more power to the thrusters, but they can't get through. Janeway, of course, has an ace up her sleeve: she fires her phasers at the energy field. Shockingly, this has no effect. Chakotay suggests firing one of their 38 photon torpedoes, but Janeway points out they have no way of replacing them when they're gone. Yeah, I'm real sure that's going to stop the writers of this show. Janeway fires off a torpedo and they shimmy their way out.
We come back from commercial into seeing Harry lying alone in bed (I'm sure finding Harry alone in bed is a shock to you all). Tom slips in and wakes Harry up, but Harry wonders how he got in. "You'd be surprised the things you learn in prison," Tom says. Given the fact that you gots a purty mouth, I'm sure you were surprised Tom. Now if you find that comment grotesque, let me say that Harry follows it up by commenting that he remembers what it was like being in his mother's womb. Uh huh... Harry, you are just a frightening creature. Tom brings Harry to the holodeck to show him the French poolhall, where several painful moments pass.
Okay, we have an energy crisis on Voyager, so much so that replicating coffee is frowned upon. Naturally, this explains why usings holograms and forcefields to simulate a poolhall is a good use of resources. Heh, okay, I'm dicking when Voyager, believe it or not the writers anticipated this one with a little voodoo shark. Apparently the holodeck runs on a separate power system that just can't be tapped into in any other way (it blew out some stuff a few episodes ago when they tried it). Hmph. You'd think that if they can integrate quantum slipstream, Borg transwarp, and alternate future Janeway's Batmobile armor into the ship without a problem they could figure out how to integrate one part of the goddamn ship to work with another part.
Leaving the poolhall behind, we cut down to Engineering. Janeway wanted samples of the blue blobs analyzed, and since this was an important matter of specialized science she put Seven Of Nine in charge of it. Oh no, wait, Seven of Nine hasn't joined the crew yet, that's right. I guess it means we go to first runner up for science genius, Torres, an Academy washout who served as a Maquis greasemonkey; I'm sure she's just the person for the job. She puts it into a centrifuge, and it turns into a salt shaker, thus proving something apparently. She heads down to Sickbay to talk to the Doctor. The Doctor is always a highlight, but here he's priceless, easily scoring the Best Moment for this episode. When Torres is angry about his "Please state the nature..." speech, he says he only assumes that maybe his programmer figured an Emergency Medical Hologram might only be summoned for emergencies. She suggests he changes it. "There's an interesting concept, a hologram that programs himself. What would I do with that ability? Create a family... raise an army..." When handed even poor dialogue Picardo can crank out gold. With the fine wordsmithing of the man who brought us Best Of Both Worlds, well, he literally can make you laugh out loud when you're in a room by yourself. Back to the episode, and Torres reveals that she came down because she found nucleogenic peptide bonds in the salt shaker. Peptides are snippets of protein; nucleogenic is Star Trek bullshit science, but if you put the two together, it means basic signs of life.
Oh God, how could I have forgotten. Well, here comes Chakotay with a roll of cloth under his arm. Yes, time for the spirit walk. Chakotay has his medicine bundle, which he's never shown to anyone before, but has brought to the captain anyway. It's got a blackbird's wing, a rock, and an akoonah, a magical machine that does the same work as using drugs, kind of like watching a Rob Zombie video. So Janeway puts her hand on the akoonah and is told to stare at the rock (I'm not sure what the wing is there for... I guess it just wouldn't be suitably American Indian-y without something like that there). He talks about grandfathers and has Janeway close her eyes and tell her to imagine the place she was the most relaxed and peaceful she's ever been, and naturally that can be only one place: Harry's mother's womb.
Naw, I'm just messin' with ya.
Janeway arrives on a beach and meets her animal guide. I believe it's a newt; I apologize if I'm wrong, but I'm going to go on with that unless the real answer is even sillier. But at that moment, the door chimes and snaps her out of it. It's Torres, and the three discuss her own attempt to find an animal guide. You can contrive an explanation to have this make sense with the dialogue from a couple minutes ago, but honestly, why bother? You've got Harry drinking holographic wine and Janeway can't get herself a cup of coffee, logic is just sitting this episode out folks.
Back on the bridge, Janeway is trying to determine if they injured the cloud being (Torres has revealed her and the Doctor's findings). The Doctor considers it "You rammed your ship through it, fired phasers at it, and blew a hole in it with a photon torpedo... hm, yes." A lot of technical exposition takes place, but it's okay because you get to see the Doctor pacing back and forth in the background looking annoyed the whole time. Again, I give credit: by doing this, we get the necessary dialogue out there, but we can actually be entertained at the same time. Out of all this comes a plan to go back inside and try to fix the damage.
Word comes down on what's going on and Neelix flips out and goes to see the captain. Ah, now he's back in full shithead mode... thanks Neelix, I was starting to lose my faith there for a moment. Neelix calls the cloud a monster and demands Janeway let him and Kes wait outside in his ship. She says that after they're done he's free to leave, but they're not going to drop him off every time things get a little dicey, then sends him on his way. Again, I don't want to harp on it, but if we could only have this kind of acting, writing, and directing in an episode with a story that wasn't completely idiotic Voyager could actually have been a decent series. Lose a little technobabble and stop dressing Neelix up like a blind hobo and it could be downright good entertainment.
From this point on the usual Voyager stuff happens. They fly in, things break, people fall over and get hurt bad, Neelix serves food, the Doctor mocks people, and then the problem is solved. More pool, more Janeway talking to amphibians, and the end.
Rating: 3
Star Trek, and all related characters are property and trademark of Paramount Pictures.
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the views of anyone
connected with Star Trek: Voyager, or the staff and management of Paramount Pictures.
All original material copyrighted.
"We talk to animals." Dr. Chakotay Doolittle
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