Back from Tahoe round one and straight into VOY once again. This episode is interesting in some ways, and kinda awful in others. They do at least find something for Neelix to do on the ship so that is a good thing. We also narrowly miss an opportunity to get rid of him which isn't so good. The scene were Janeway gets super fiery over the phagliens (Vidiians I guess, I like my name better) is well acted, but her threat is clearly entirely empty. If she isn't willing to cut the lungs out of a dude who just stole them from a member of her crew what does the threat of deadly force even mean? Also, if anyone on their ship could have donated a lung to Neelix why did the doctor immediately jump to his holographic lung plan? Has he never heard of organ donation or is it just that he thinks of holographic plans first? Both seem like a serious lapse in his programming.
We open with Neelix telling them about a local planetoid that has dilithium available to mine, but before that Janeway is off to have breakfast. She heads to her private dining room only to find Neelix has taken it over and turned it into a kitchen. Before she can reprimand him too harshly they arrive at the planetoid and she heads to the bridge with Neelix in tow. She sends Chakotay on an away mission to look for dilithium along with Kim and Neelix. Their tricorders show dilithium is there, but they can't find it so they split up and we see that one of the walls of the cave is actually a holographic projection. It seems they have been tricked as no dilithium is actually there. Neelix is startled when a holographic projection turns off in front of him and he sees a shadowy figure who immediately hits him with with some sort of energy weapon and he collapses as Chakotay finds him and beams Neelix directly to sickbay.
The doctor discovers that Neelix's lungs have been removed by the weapon. The doctor rigs up some sort of holographic lungs but they keep Neelix trapped in sickbay unable to move which he finds intolerable. They beam down to investigate the caves further and find an organ storage facility, but Neelix's lungs are gone. Janeway runs into one of the organ stealing Vidiians but he manages to escape before she can capture him. They flee in their ship and hide in an asteroid. But Paris manage to follow them in and after some shenanigans about there being a reflection of the ship they capture the Vidiians. They explain they have a disease that makes them need to steal organs or die and Janeway threatens them, but won't actually take Neelix's lungs out of the dude who now breaths through them. For her leniency the Vidiian points out that any of them could donate a lung to save Neelix and Kes agrees to do it.
Review: Pretty average for Trek over all which from what I have seen of VOY so far isn't bad. The Vidiian existence based on stolen organs is a pretty cool scifi idea and their design is well done. I have to wonder why Neelix thought there would be dilithium on the planetoid in the first place and why he wanted to go down to the help search so badly. Kinda feels like he was setting them up...
5 out of 10
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