Amazon.com video review:
When Tom Paris figures out a way to fly one of Voyager's
shuttlecraft at warp 10--also known as "transwarp speed" and "ultimate
velocity"--he becomes something of a hero, because it promises an early
return home for Voyager. Then Tom begins to undergo a strange
transformation. Apparently, he's crossed more thresholds than just the
warp-speed barrier--he's also broken through the evolutionary wall, because
he begins to evolve in a fashion that recalls David Cronenberg's The
Fly (including a scene in which he pulls out his own tongue). That's the
price you pay for being a pioneer, I guess. The price for being a fan of this
show, on the other hand, is sitting through episodes like this one, which has
the kind of familiar plot line that goes all the way back to Star Trek
classic and has been recycled several times along the way. Still, it's hard
to remember an episode of any TV show with an ending as jaw-droppingly
silly--and matter-of-factly handled--as this one. --Marshall Fine
Amazon.com video review:
Ah, the Vulcan mind-meld, a longtime favorite that goes all the way
back to Mr. Spock in the classic Star Trek. It's at the center of this
episode, in which Tuvok (Tim Russ) arrests an engineer named Suder (the
ever-creepy Brad Dourif) who has killed a fellow crew member "because I
didn't like the way he was looking at me." This doesn't sit right with the
ever-logical Vulcan Tuvok, who can't get anything else out of Suder and
cannot comprehend the notion of random violence. So he performs the notorious
mind-meld on Suder--and discovers that, in fact, humans are capable of
unprovoked violence, a wholly foreign concept to the Vulcan mind. But even as
the process imparts some of Tuvok's Vulcan aloofness and logic to Suder, it
unleashes a distinctly human reaction in Tuvok, triggering long-suppressed
emotions that allow him to experience the kind of violent rage that Suder
undergoes. Terrific performance by Tim Russ, allowing him to escape Leonard
Nimoy mode and actually act human; he's matched by Dourif, who has been
playing psychos since One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. --Marshall
Fine
Amazon.com video review:
An episode that focuses on Klingon engineer B'Elanna Torres (Roxann
Biggs-Dawson) and harks back to the show's origins. Voyager
encounters Dreadnought, once a Cardassian missile system targeted at the
Maquis, which the Maquis captured when it failed to detonate. At that time,
Torres had reprogrammed the missile system to go after the Cardassians. Now
Dreadnought has inexplicably appeared in Delta Quadrant and has mistakenly
identified a peaceful planet as a target. Torres beams aboard the missile,
whose computer welcomes her and allows her to shut it down--or so it leads
her to believe. In fact, the missile's computer has come to the conclusion
that she is operating under duress by the Cardassians, so it ignores her
orders and continues to whiz toward the peaceful planet. Even as Captain
Janeway tries to warn the imperiled world, Torres must match wits with
Dreadnought in an effort to neutralize its deadly threat. A suspenseful
episode right down to the final moments. --Marshall Fine
Amazon.com video review:
An episode that seems to focus on "morale chief" Neelix (Ethan
Phillips) but which, in fact, brings to a conclusion a pair of subplots that
have been festering for several shows. Ostensibly, this story is about
Neelix's intraship TV show about news of the day. But when Tom Paris (Robert
Duncan McNeill) transfers off Voyager, Neelix is upset--and he's more
upset when, after discovering that a spy has been sending communications to
the Kazon, he comes to the conclusion that the spy was Paris. Viewers will
know better and may enjoy the cat-and-mouse nature of the scenes involving
Neelix and the real spy. On the other hand, the final battle
sequence--involving Voyager and the Kazon ship, as well as
hand-to-hand grappling between Neelix and the villain--is decidedly
lackluster, particularly the fisticuffs with Neelix, who doesn't appear able
to punch his way out of a paper bag. --Marshall Fine
Amazon.com video review:
Voyager's most intriguing character, the holographic Doctor
(Robert Picardo), gets a plot of his own. When Voyager rescues a dying
Vidiian woman named Denara Pel (Susan Diol) who suffers from the phage (an
AIDS-like epidemic), the Doctor springs into action, digitizing her brain and
creating a holographic version of her, as he tries to save her actual body
with a brain graft. But even as he works on her humanoid form, he finds
himself beguiled by the holographic version he has created--and despite the
fact that he is also a computer-generated hologram, he realizes he is falling
in love with her. Picardo, one of the great unsung character actors in movies
of the 1980s (he's a regular in the films of director Joe Dante), has a good
time with the persnickety hologram's attempts to come to grips with human
emotions, including a lesson in love from the redoubtable Tom Paris (Robert
Duncan McNeill). --Marshall Fine
