This episode seems to exist to get rid of the second most annoying Neelix plot thread so far, his rivalry with Paris over who can court Kes. First of all, she just turned two, so this whole thing is creepy to start with, and second of all it kinda seemed to just show up out of the blue this season. Suddenly Neelix's crisis every single episode is that he is jealous again, oh no!!! The plot about finding the reptile alien baby is kinda silly, but it works in a very TOS kind of way. Although as Kirk stated, humans naturally are disgusted by reptiles or something like that, so why is Paris so into this creature?
We open with Kes training to pilot a shuttle with Paris on the holodeck. Things get rough and she ends up in his arms. Paris shows up at Kim's quarters while he is practicing clarinet and tells him he is in love with Kes. Next the two are back to back in the mess hall with Neelix staring Paris down. Kes leaves and Neelix throws a plate of food at Paris. Paris throws a plate at Neelix and the two wrestle to the ground, only to be summoned immediately to the captains ready room. She needs Paris to fly Neelix to a planet they found to look for food and she doesn't want any guff from either of them.
The two fly down together but of course crash. They snipe at each other the whole time and on the surface there is a gas that makes their skin itch. There are no plants to speak of and they find a cave and seal themselves in. After some more fighting they hear a sound and when they investigate they find three large eggs, and one hatches before their eyes. Inside is a reptile baby about the size of a human baby. At the same time Voyager is attacked by an unknown alien ship while trying to mount a rescue. The ship seems more interested in blocking their way to the planet rather than aggressively attacking.
Paris and Neelix struggle to keep the reptile baby alive and finally realize the gas that is making their skin crawl is what the baby needs for nutrition so they take it outside and start compressing the stuff into a hypo spray. They repeat the myth over and over again about a mother bird not coming back for a baby that has been touched. Totally not true BTW. Eventually the alien ship flies in and sends an adult reptile down to collect the child. Neelix and Paris wait to be sure the baby is accepted before beaming up to Voyager. Oh, and somewhere along the way the talk about Kes and agree Neelix can date her and Paris will be her friend. No, she doesn't get a say silly.
Review: A Neelix heavy episode is never going to be my favorite, but this one manages to not be totally awful. The crap about baby birds really irritated me though so I am going to rate this one below average.
4 out of 10
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