While Janeway describes the villains of this episode as a think tank I believe it would be more accurate to call them space conmen. And honestly Trek doesn't have enough conmen running around trying to get what they can grab. The Federation is so gullible sometimes it is shocking they haven't been tricked into being vassals to the Ferengi. The Hazari seemed like they gave in a little too easily to Janeway, but at the same time there is no profit in revenge as they say in this episode. Also major props for featuring non-humanoid life forms as actually intelligent creatures. Trek gets lazy with slapping makeup on actors way too often for my taste.
We open with a blue alien showing on in a strange ship looking for Kurros. He arrives looking a bit like a space monk and the blue guy thanks him and the others on the ship for saving his planet. Unfortunately he says he can't transfer the ores he promised for saving the planet so Kurros threatens to undo the solution until he gives in. On Voyager they detect a planetoid filled with dilithium and go to check it out but infornately it explodes with a gas that destroys their warp field. And just then a heavily armed Hazari ship shows up and locks a tractor beam. Janeway threatens to explode the cloud of gas if they don't leave. They don't so she blows up the cloud barely escaping, but for some reason the Hazari don't pursue. But it doesn't take them long to figure out why, Hazari ships are closing in from every side. Janeway struggles to come up with a plan but before she can work anything out a projection of Kurros appears and offers to solve Voyagers problem. Janeway is interested and beams to the think tank ship with Seven. Seven briefly links with a computer intelligence on the ship and Janeway offers a manifest to Kurros to look over.
It doesn't take him long to come back with a list of demands, all of which are easy except one, he wants Seven to join the think tank. Janeway leaves it up to Seven but she isn't interested. They are soon attacked by the Hazari again and barely escape. Kurros makes it clear they can still accept his offer before Janeway cuts off his projection. Despite the Hazari being a dangerous foe Janeway manages to capture one of their ships and finds that it was Kurros that hired them. The Hazari captain recognizes Kurros too, he disguised himself when he hired the Hazari and Janeway makes him realize capturing Kurros would be much more profitable. They trick the think tank into showing up to claim Seven and she disables their communications making them vulnerable. Voyager gets the hell out of their as the Hazari try to break through the think tanks shields and neutronium hull.
Review: A good con episode is always fun and this one mostly works. The Hazari didn't turn out to be very persistent which seemed a bit off, but overall I really liked it.
7 out of 10
No comments:
Post a Comment