VOY: One

         I admit I am generally not a fan of hallucination episodes and this one didn't do anything to change that opinion. Pretty early on it became clear Seven was seeing things so it was pretty obvious you could ignore most of what was happening. The only thing that kept it interesting was that the ship itself was starting to break down in various ways that did at least put real problems in her way as well. I actually really liked that they used this episode to get her to start stepping out of her shell socially and at least beginning to engage with the other crew in what might be mistaken for actual conversation. It was totally reasonable to have her possess a complete lack of social skills with her background, but it has stifled her character development and seeing her do more than bark at people is nice.
         We open with Seven in the mess hall interrogating her shipmates about themselves until the Doctor pauses the simulation. She has a hard time understanding what she did wrong but he isn't giving up. Voyager meanwhile has encountered a nebula so big it would take months to fly around, but when they go in all the crew except Seven suffer horrible burns and several are killed. Janeway asks for options and after some discussion the Doctor's idea of putting everyone but him and Seven in stasis pods is decided upon. Paris in particular isn't pumped about the idea of spending a month in a pod, even if he is asleep, but they all go out just fine. Things go smoothly at first except for Paris escaping a few times and Seven bickering with the Doctor a bit. He insists on continuing their social training but they are interrupted by the ship announcing an anti-matter leak. But it turns out the gel packs are failing and giving false sensor readings. 
         The ships computer starts having problems and eventually so too does the Doctors mobile emitter trapping him in sickbay. They encounter a ship with a lone alien who offers to trade. Seven beams him over but he gets creepy really fast. He manages to escape her partially because she hears Tom calling out. The alien threatens to destroy the ship sending Seven rushing after him. She also starts getting visions of Borg. While chasing the alien she runs into the Doctor who confirms she is hallucinating, the radiation from the nebula is damaging her implants. Eventually power starts failing to the engines so she turns off several pods. But to save them she transfers the remaining lifesupport power to the pods and passes out. She wakes up in sickbay to a thankful Janeway. That evening she joins Paris, Kim and Torres in the mess hall for some idle chat.

         Review: Not a bad episode that is improved a bit by no Neelix. The hallucination sequence was a bit more than I needed, but luckily enough else was going to that it didn't ruin things. Overall balances out to an average episode.

5 out of 10