Our crew has been completely castrated by the Devore, whose space they decided to go through rather than around, even though it means being subjected to ridiculous inspections that are impossible to pass. A Devore inspector, Kashyk, takes particular joy in depriving Janeway of control of her own ship. As the absurd inspection begins, he makes himself at home in her ready room, and puts on some classical music throughout the ship. They pass the inspection, even though they are hiding the telepaths that the Devore are looking for, by keeping them in the transporter buffers. Apparently since the only thing that they were not allowed to bring into Devore space was those damn dirty mind-readers, they decided to stop and pick up a bunch just to spice things up a bit. Oh, and Tuvok and the other Vulcan count as telepaths too. All nit-picking aside, this opening sequence is really just masterful. The viewer is trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and it's all so frustrating as our heroes are powerless and just submit to the ridiculous requests of these unknowns. The music, the mystery, the suspense...I'm telling you, it's great.Shortly after they leave, a shuttle comes to Voyager. It's Kashyk, all by himself. He explains that he knows about the refugees, they are about to be busted, and that he is a secret sympathizer that wants to help them escape. He and Janeway work together VERY closely to come up with a way to find a wormhole to get them to safe space. They track down and abduct a local scientist to grill him about his knowledge of a wormhole. The alien has great make-up and hilariously flares his nose when he gets excited or upset. Here, check it out:
But before they can pull the whole thing off, more Devore show up for an inspection. They've been found out. They decide that the only way to stave off the inspection is for Kashyk to go back to work early and take back over harassment duties. The two share a long kiss, and he heads out.
The inspection begins exactly as the last one, with the music, and the ready room, and all the drama. Except this time, he marches Janeway to the bridge. It becomes clear by his demeanor that he's double-crossed her. He orders Prax, his right hand man, to unleash the pattern buffers and expose the telepaths. By the way, if I ever have a head henchman, I'm definitely calling him Prax. And I will say it with the same odd accent that Kashyk has. "Prax! Get me more nachos," I'll say. Anyway, guess what? All that materializes is some barrels of vegetables. Then, in her best this-is-my-ship-bitch voice, she tells the computer to change the music. The double-crosser has been double-crossed, and the refugees have already been taken to safety. It's another great scene, for completely different reasons than the first. It's the ying to the first scene's yang. After seeing our crew so helpless, we deserve to see the tides turned and Janeway back in control.
However, there are problems with the story, despite this being a Fantastic episode. Kashyk, who has full power to seize the ship and end the voyage, decides to just let them go. He says he wouldn't want to suffer the embarrassment of being outsmarted, and so they wipe the record of his undercover mission and leave Voyager alone. Okay, well I guess that's one way. Another way would have been to document that she admitted harboring telepaths and arrest her ass. Or scrub the undercover mission and just bust her for something else. Kashyk still had the upper hand in the situation, and it makes no sense for him to turn tail and run. Unless...he really fell for Janeway. Also, where was Tuvok this time?Published October 31, 2017
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