I actually typed Beyond in the title accidentally before going back and correcting it with the title of today's episode. And it isn't like Beyond is a dead on copy of The Swarm, but it does borrow liberally in terms of a swarm of tiny ships that each have a few soldiers on board who clamp on to their enemy and the deposit the soldiers on the inside. What keeps them from feeling super similar though is the fact that the titular swarm is really more of a B story to the actual story about Kes trying to save the Doctor from total memory loss. This involves both the efforts of the crew but also another version of the creator of the Doctor in this case embodying the EMH diagnostic program.
We open with Paris and Torres in a shuttle together and Paris can't resist hitting on her, but she isn't interested. They are looking for anomalous energy signature and after hours of looking they find one, a tiny ship which latches onto their hull and two aliens beam over and blast them. On the ship the Doctor working on an opera with another hologram who he finds insufferable. The two injured crew return but the Doctor isn't himself and has trouble treating them. Torres helps to diagnose him and finds his program is failing from being on so long. In briefing Neelix explains that he has heard of these aliens but all he knows is they are super hostile and don't like anyone in their space. The problem is the space they claim is huge and will take months to get around. Janeway decides to just go for it, but with a bit of planning. They plot a route through the thinnest part of their space and come up with a plan to mask themselves and it seems to work.
The Doctor is seriously starting to lose all his memory and they don't want to just reset him so Kes and Torres come up with a plan to graft the part of his program that works from the diagnostic program into the Doctor to try and stabilize him. On the bridge they are flying through the hostile region at high warp when they encounter a huge swarm of the ships. None of them seem to notice them though but eventually they find a freighter and for some reason decide to investigate. They only find one alien and he dies as soon as he is aboard but one of the swarm ships was on his ship and the whole group are suddenly very interested in Voyager. They break through the shields and are only defeated by the best technobabble in the galaxy in some sort of feedback loop. The procedure on the Doctor stabilizes him, but he seems to have lost his memory. He doesn't know who Kes is, but as he gets back to work he starts singing the opera song from the opening.
Review: The A story about the swarm was kinda weak. Could have used a bit where they get trapped on a planet with a madman and a black and white refugee who helps them salvage an old ship to save the Yorktown. Oh wait... But seriously, the story with the Doctor seemed a lot more interesting than the whole swarm deal.
5 out of 10
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