B'Elanna Torres and the terrible day that turns out ok could easily be the name of this episode. Pretty much everything that could go wrong for B'Elanna does but in the end she overcomes her personal fears and admits she loves Paris. Now it wasn't super clear from his reaction at that moment that he reciprocated, but he has been into her for at least the last season. The plot with the bird head aliens who extort Voyager for medical supplies and thorium wasn't the greatest B story of all time, but it worked to give a reasonable reason for Tom and B'Elanna to be marooned together.
First we open with Seven requesting a duty shift from Chakotay. Cut to the engine room where everything is going wrong for Torres. Plasma is leaking, she over slept, her sonic shower broke, and Tom is there it pester her about the dinner date she agreed to. To finish things up Chakotay shows up to tell Torres that she has a new working to give shifts to, Seven of Nine. Speaking of, she is talking with Janeway in her ready room about her new assignment. She promises to not sabotage anything and also tells Janeway that she prefers going by Seven of Nine rather than her human name Annika. They head to the bridge where a ship full of bird head aliens is requesting aide. Janeway agrees but can't fulfill all their demands. They claim to have been left without a planet after the Borg attacked their world which makes them feel great when they notice Seven on the bridge. They are pushy about their demands but Janeway isn't having it.
In the mess hall Torres is fuming over her dinner when Neelix shows up with a blood pie. It apparently a Klingon holiday called The Day of Honor where you eat blood pie and show off how badass a Klingon you are. There is supposed to be a ceremony which Paris was going to go through with her. Instead she insists no blood pie and no ceremony. But she tries it anyway. And sticks with it for about a minute before beating up the holograms and leaving. The next day Seven is in engineering to try to get them into a transwarp conduit or something but it goes horribly wrong and they have to eject the warp core leaving the ship adrift. Janeway sends Torres and Paris back to get to core in a shuttle since Voyager is stuck.
They find the core but the bird heads found it first. Not only to the make off with the core, they destroy the shuttle leaving Paris and Torres in space suits without long range communications. The bird heads show up at Voyager with the core and a few dozen more of their ships. They demand both supplies and Seven of Nine. It is a good lesson for her in how the crew works though because Janeway refuses to turn her over. Seven even manages to rig up a replicator for the Thorium the bird heads need. Things get bad for Torres and Paris as Paris' suit is damaged and they have to share oxygen. Not only that Torres tank isn't full so they only have minutes to live. Just as they are about to pass out Torres admits that she has always been afraid to say it, but she loves Tom. And then Voyager beams them to safety.
Review: A solid character episode that would have fit in pretty well on DS9 but still works just fine in Voyager. It is also nice to see the writers letting two characters who clearly have a lot in common actually get together for once.
7 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment