VOY is finally feeling a little more settled in and seems to be trying to pull a DS9 with this episode. What I mean by that is there are lots of side stories and character bits that are too numerous to even be sorted into the classic A, B and C stories. Also, as much as I may complain about Janeway sometimes she is getting better, and Neelix is getting worse. I get that he wants to cook for them, but having the entire gag be that he is a terrible cook and his food makes people sick kinda ruins the entire concept of him contributing to the ship. Plus having him barge into Janeway's office to yell at her is just straight obnoxious, not even mentioning his appearance on the bridge to "raise moral." More like raze moral.
We open with Janeway walking around the ship making what seems is a mental captains log (even though she asks the computer the delete a sentance, can it read her mind???) talking about how her role as captain is changing now that they are so on their own. In the mess hall she chats with Paris and Kim about how they are doing before going in search of coffee. Sadly all they have is some sludge Neelix made and he yells at her when she considers using her replicator ration on some. (Janeway is harsh in a lot of people, why not Neelix??) Luckily she is called by the bridge which she interprets as being called to the bridge to get away from Neelix. It seems they have located a nebula which may contain the anti-matter they need to get their power reserves back into better shape. They fly right in only to discover an energy barrier which of course Janeway wants to just punch through. As soon as they are inside it closes behind them and blobs of goop start hitting the ship and draining even more energy.
Determined to get out Janeway eventually decides to fire a photon torpedo at the barrier and they escape into open space. Torres gets a sample of the goop and takes it to the EMS who determines that it is organic and therefore actually a giant life form which they have injured. Somewhere in here Neelix gets pissed about going into the nebula and demands to be sent away in his own ship which Janeway denies and Paris breaks into Kim's quarters to drag him to his favorite holodeck cafe/brothel/pool hall. Janeway decides she needs to heal the injured lifeform and takes the ship back in, but it doesn't work and they get attacked again losing a lot more energy. Eventually they manage to fly the ship into the wound and seal it back up. Afterwards Kim convinces Janeway to join them in the cafe and after being propositioned a few times she cleans up at the pool table. I almost forgot that somewhere in here Chakotay introduces Janeway to her spirit animal, in her case a gecko.
Review: Some good and some bad in this episode. I kinda feel like I would like it a whole lot better if Neelix had left and we just had to deal with the crew trying to get home.
5 out of 10
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