While I thoroughly enjoyed the first half of this episode the second half felt a little bit lacking. I think a fair portion of my problem stems from this being compressed from an original four parter down to the existing two parter so some of the parts like Chakotay and Torres getting captured felt a little rushed. Also, didn't the militia guy state that several black cars and a helicopter were approaching? When it turns out to just be Tuvok and the Doctor I kinda wondered what was going on. In fact had a mysterious aircraft crashed in the Arizona desert I would like to think that the feds would show up to see what happened. Which brings up another point, do they really expect us to believe that a 1996 cell phone worked on a remote desert road? I know they are calling up to Voyager, but did they modify them to transmit directly or is it somehow rigged to use the network to connect?
We begin with Paris working with Sarah (I know the characters name is Rain, but especially in this episode she seems to just be acting as herself plus the occasional line about being a scientist). Tuvok shows up with breakfast as Paris' attempt to rig up a locator beacon fails. Instead they head to the observatory to send a signal from there. Starling meanwhile now has the Doctor and is determined to torture information out of him, but despite being able to give him pain it doesn't seem to be working. He gets a call from Sarah, she wants him to personally come pick her up but of course he doesn't trust her. He shows up anyway and doesn't fall for the ploy of getting into her van but they manage to grab him anyway despite his attempts to block the transport beam. There is a struggle in the car where the Doctor manages to stop the goon, but totally fails to grab the phaser from the guy causing many problems later. Side note, Starling gave the Doctor a mobile transmitter he uses for the rest of the series.
To actually get Starling Chakotay and Torres had to fly in low with a shuttle and while they get him and send him on to Voyager their ship is damaged and crashes in the desert. They get captured by survivalist militia dudes who think they are evil federal agents. Janeway yells at Starling and leaves him behind a forcefield in sickbay but he uses a satellite to beam back to his lab where he prepares to leave in the time ship. In an obvious ploy the head goon is sent out with a truck with a fake timeship signature and gets super obviously tailed by Paris and Sarah. The militia dudes are freaking out and call for back up. But "some black cars and a helicopter" show up to save the day, but for some reason it is just Tuvok and the Doctor. After some one liners they save the day and manage to get the shuttle working in time to save Paris and Sarah. But of course the timeship was in LA the whole time and Starling takes off in it. The captain manages to manually launch a torpedo at the last second saving the day. Just then another time rift opens and the same guy from the 29th century tells them they were detected as an anomaly in the future and will be sent back to where they were. Janeway tries to get them sent home instead but gets told, "nope, temporal prime directive." Oh snap!
Review: This half felt a lot more rushed and like some parts got mixed up in the compression. Still a lot of fun overall although Sarah Silverman felt even more like she was just playing the comic version of herself than the character, but it didn't hurt too much. I am adding a point for the stone cold shut down of Janeway in the end of the episode.
7 out of 10
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