Even when Neelix is actually helpful to the crew it seems like he can only do so in the most annoying ways possible. Also I was pleased to see that Paris' freak out over the past few weeks was a ploy rather than him just randomly deciding to be a pain in Chakotay's ass. I am still not convinced that the gambling plot was part of it, it seemed like he just wanted to have a little fun, but maybe it was at least supposed to be the reason he decided to do it so openly. It was nice to see that Tuvok is good enough at his job to have been aware of the transmissions from the ship, but a bit of a bummer that it was Neelix who found out who it actually was and who had to fight Jonas mano a mano.
The episode opens with Neelix's latest endeavor, a daily video program filled with entertainment for the crew. Kim points out that nobody wants to watch a bunch of crusty jugglers so Neelix goes to the Doctor for a segment and then ignores him the rest of the episode. Neelix gets a call from a Talaxian convoy letting him know that someone on Voyager wants to leave the ship. It isn't a shock when he realizes the person who wants to leave is Paris. Neelix tries to talk him out of it but Paris is committed to leaving and departs quickly and without ceremony. At briefing the next day Torres is pulled away to engineering by an overheating in the warp plasma. Jonas is the one who calls her and he is injured in the process despite (or possibly to cover) his involvement in the sabotage. They also get a call from the same Talaxian telling them the convoy was attacked but the only thing taken was Paris which makes Neelix realize they have a spy on board.
We see Paris on the Kazon ship and he refuses to work with them. As soon as he is alone he breaks into their computer system and figures out who the spy on Voyager is. Meanwhile Neelix works with some engineer who isn't Jonas (who gets super nervous in the background) and traces the illicit transmissions back to Paris' quarters and rather than going to the captain releases the news immediately via his new show. He gets called into the captains ready room along with Tuvok and told that Paris isn't the guilty party, he was tricking everybody the last few weeks so it would look logical for him to leave Voyager and appear to switch sides. On the Kazon ship Paris manages to escape in a shuttle but they are right on his tale. Neelix is back in engineering investigating when he finds himself alone with Jonas. Jonas seals them both in and starts working on disabling the weapons systems. The two fight and Jonas ends up vaporized by warp plasma. Janeway manages to rescue Paris at the last second and Neelix gets the weapons online just in time to save the ship from the Kazon. The episode concludes with Neelix doing an interview with Paris about what happened.
Review: A Neelix-centric episode is probably never going to be my favorite, but this is about as good as I have seen from him so far. He still manages to be annoying but he also manages to save the ship and we wrap the Jonas sabotage sub-plot and the Paris insubordination plot quickly which is definitely good.
4 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment