VOY: Coda

         When this episode opened with a time loop and the characters immediately figuring out that they were stuck in a time loop I got a bit annoyed. Time loops are bread and butter for TNG but I kinda feel like they have been pretty played out. Of course when it turned out to not be a time loop but instead be a trick of the grim reaper I didn't feel all that much better. Having pretty much the entire episode be a hallucination at least keeps too many questions from being raised, but by having the alien trying to steal her soul be literally trying to steal her soul it isn't great. I don't care they he calls the thing he is going to put her soul into a matrix, we all know what is going on.
         We open with Neelix and Janeway practically cackling about how well the ship talent show went and how no matter what they need to keep Tuvok and his vulcan poetry out next time. She jumps on a shuttle with Chakotay and they also start talking about the talent show but something goes wrong and their shuttle crashes. Janeway is badly hurt and seems to be dead but Chakotay manages to revive her. He discovers that the crash wasn't an accident, they were shot down by Vidiians who are on their way. They flee to a cave where they die fighting and wake up on the shuttle again. They both immediately realize it is a time loop but manage to get killed again before Janeway finds she is back on Voyager and Chakotay doesn't remember the loop. Instead they were captured by the vidiians but escaped. The Doctor has bad news though, she has the phage. After sedating her for a few days he tells her she needs to die for the crew and she struggles to live before dying.
         Next she is awake watching Chakotay fail to revive her. She follows her body to sickbay where she is again not revived. This time the ghost of her father shows up and gets hella pushy about her "crossing over" with him. She manages to get Kes to detect her once but it fails. She watches her own funeral and her "father" shows up again and tries to get her to give up but she keeps fighting. She also starts getting flashes of the Doctor trying to revive her and realizes there is a reason the guy is getting hella pushy. She figures out he is an alien and he admits her was there to take her consciousness after she died but she is too tough and won't give in. She banishes him and wakes up on the surface of the planet.

         Review: It is hard to get too excited about life after death hallucination episodes, but this one at least manages to put on the veneer of science fiction which is nice. Pretty average and a bit dull in the middle.

4 out of 10