Voyager S1E3 "Time and Again" Review by AnswerMan

Horrible:Meh:Adequate:Good:Fantastic

Voyager feels a shock wave, which is traced back to a nearby planet that just spontaneously combusted all its life forms at once. Kes is experiencing some sort of psychic moment, so she just barges in on the bridge, which is behavior that apparently is tolerated on this ship. Scans are run, and the atmosphere is fine and the radiation levels are within tolerance, so an away team led by Janeway beams down to see what’s up.

Shirts with built-in girdles, genius!

Once on the desolate planet, Janeway and Paris are sucked into a temporal fracture (because those things are like, everywhere man) and find themselves among the living on the planet the day before the whole thing goes boom. They quickly learn that the planet is powered by highly unstable polaric energy, and there is a plan by a group of protestors to sabotage a portion of the system to expose just how dangerous it is. The two shipmates try to blend in, but despite the fact that the aliens look exactly like humans (seriously, they don’t even have extra bumps anywhere), they still stand out as suspicious, especially to one meddling kid. Paris tells the kid that he’s sorry while he considers what will happen to him in less than 24 hours, and gets to thinking that maybe they should change some things in the timeline.

Janeway reminds Paris that they can’t interfere with the complete destruction of all life on the planet, because that would be immoral. On this point she is adamant. But fast forward about three minutes and she does a complete 180 as she theorizes that their presence has actually caused the dissidents to speed up their plan by a week, and that they themselves are actually the catalyst for the catastrophic event. With this revelation, she literally goes from ready to die in the name of the Prime Directive to falling all over herself to brag to the pre-warp aliens about her rank and her fancy spaceship. It seems too abrupt of a change of heart to me. When Paris points out that the same result would have happened, but just a week later (a point that I think is quite valid, since the whole planet is apparently one match strike away from exploding), she argues that anything could have happened in that week, and they can’t be certain that the same horrible end would have occurred. The revelation that they are (maybe?) responsible for the destruction of the planet is the first plot twist, and comes off poorly.

Meanwhile back on Voyager they are hatching a rescue plan that involves the usual technobabble, but this time it is accompanied by a cool graphic presented Vanna White style by Harry Kim.

One of the standout moments in the episode is when Tuvok is just so disrespectful to Chakotay in Janeway’s absence. There is an exchange in the conference room where the key members of the crew are plotting how to save Janeway and Paris, and Tuvok just decides to be a contentious dick for no good reason.

Torres: "At this point, we’re suggesting we concentrate our search at the flash point."

Tuvok the Dick: "May I ask what you expect to accomplish by doing that?"

Kim: "We figure the Captain and Paris might have looked for the origin of the explosion to try and prevent it."

Tuvok: "Unlikely. It would be a highly questionable decision in light of the Prime Directive."

Chakotay: "If it were me, I would have tried to get there."

Tuvok: "The issue is whether Captain Janeway would go there, not you, Commander."

Everyone else (in their heads): This fucking guy..

As Chakotay shoots him that death stare, we realize that Tuvok is not only belittling him in front of everyone, but is suggesting that it’s not surprising to him that the former Maquis leader would lack the character of a Star Fleet officer and shit all over the prime directive. It’s a tense moment, and Chakotay opts to just ignore his snide remark and orders them to proceed at the flash point anyway, a call that happens to be the right one. In this exchange I got the feeling that at one point the writers were planning on making Tuvok and Chakotay strong adversaries. This makes sense in light of the fact that Tuvok was spying on the Maquis ship, and how later in “Worst Case Scenario” Tuvok is exposed as having written a training program for how to deal with a Maquis mutiny. The two clearly do have a distrust of each other, and I think that a sharper edge to their relationship might have been interesting, but it just never came to fruition.

Another great exchange happens when Neelix and Kes go to the sickbay to have The Doctor check her brain out in light of her recent psychic premonitions. The Doctor has a hissy when he discovers that not only have the two drifters joined the the crew without him being informed, but he was also unaware of the entire Maquis crew joining them as well without the transfer of any medical records. Then he finds out that the captain is missing, and concludes that he is apparently on a doomed ship. He cuts Kes short and informs her that since he has never seen one of her species, he really hasn’t a clue if she’s ok or not. But with a little pressing, he actually has some very kind and reassuring words for her. This is good foreshadowing of the interesting relationship that The Doctor and Kes will develop, as well as the strong abilities that Kes possesses.

Anyway, the plan to open up the time portal or whatever where they hope the Captain and Paris are located works. Except …opening up the time rift near the polaric equipment turns out to be the actual event that turns everything to toast on the planet. This is plot twist two, and it works quite well. Janeway thwarts the armegeddon this time by firing her phaser into the rift, which everyone knows is the key to sealing those things up. Now why original Janeway didn’t respond the same way, or how any of the other paradoxes are remedied, I have no idea. But all immediately goes back to normal and we’re brought back to the moment that Kes intrudes onto the bridge. She insists that everyone on the planet is dead, but a quick look at the view screen reveals all is well.

All in all I would say this is an ADEQUATE episode. It kept me interested, had some good character development, and even a plot twist that I didn’t see coming. While most of the details are handled by the usual technobabble, and the ending is the ultimate use of the reset button, I enjoyed watching it all play out.

Published Mar 15, 2017