Another mixed feelings episode, there seem to be a lot of those lately. I enjoyed the episode for the growth it gave Seven, but I wish they had developed the archeology angle on Chakotay a bit earlier to make his obsession in this ep a little more reasonable. It makes me wonder if this was another adapted TNG script. I read that Barge of the Dead was an adapted DS9 script to it would make more sense for this episode to be about Picard than Chakotay. I do enjoy when Trek tries to predict the near future space program. Sure they are pretty much always wrong, but it is a window into what people in the late 90's thought the future of space would be. I should also point out I worked a prescribed burn in the park today and am super tired as a result so if something I write doesn't make sense today that is probably why.
We open with an astronaut on a mission to Mars. He is alone in the command module when his craft detects a large object incoming. Just before we cut to credits he sees a huge bulging disk shaped object approaching. On Voyager Chakotay is trying to relax with a book when his door starts chiming. He finds no one outside and tries to call the bridge but his combadge doesn't work properly either. For some reason he heads to engineering instead of the bridge and finds Seven working to optimize the computer which has apparently caused the problems. She seems unconcerned which is fine since we never return to this subplot. On the bridge the ship is rocked by gravitational distortions as the same phenomenon from the opening shows up. Seven recognizes it as a graviton ellipse and knows the technobabble solution to the problem. Chakotay recognizes that it may be the same thing that killed Mars astronaut John Kelly who happens to be both Paris and Chakotay's hero.
They decide to scan the thing to look for debris from the missing Mars mission and find evidence. Seven doesn't understand why they are so obsessed but Janeway talks her into joining a mission to try and study/retrieve the spacecraft. They find the thing just find but the ellipse starts freaking out and Chakotay decides to risk their lives to save the ancient craft which really pisses Seven off. Things go badly and Chakotay is hurt and the Flyer crippled. Seven is super pissed with Chakotay when he awakens and he apologizes. Torres figures out that they can save themselves by getting a part from the old ship so Seven gets to job of retrieving it. While there she plays the personal logs of John Kelly and clearly becomes interested as she retrieves both his logs and his body before beaming back to save the day. The episode closes with the burial of John Kelly.
Review: The parts that worked in this episode were quite good, but it seemed like they were trying to cram too much in and some threads got lost along the way. Still fairly fun but not as good as it could have been.
5 out of 10
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