Tme and Time Again Star Trek

Star Trek: Voyager

"Time and Again"

Air engagement: ane/30/1995
Teleplay by David Kemper and Michael Piller
Story by David Kemper
Directed by Les Landau

"We ate him. Considering nosotros are demons and we eat children ... and I haven't had my supper yet." — Paris to inquisitive child

Voyager displays ane more fashion how to exist derivative of TNG by offer an exercise in not ane, but two undecayed Star Trek clichés—the Violation of the Prime Directive and Coiffure Members Lost in Time motifs. What is basically a tame, mundane, lackluster time story fortunately displays some energy in the closing deed with a halfway punchy (though somewhat predictable) ending. Fans of the other Expedition series volition surely notice this equally more than of the same.

The series has obvious potential, but again refuses to use information technology past telling a story that could merely every bit easily take been told on TNG or DS9. These are non the episodes that should have used to launch the series. The writers should've delivered ii knockouts to get the audiences going. Instead, they supply two relatively pedestrian plots.

While cruising through a star arrangement, a sub-space shockwave alerts the Voyager to a planet whose entire population has just been annihilated by subspace radiation. Upon beaming down to investigate, the away team discovers fractures in fourth dimension caused by the aftereffects. Janeway and Paris "fall" into one of these cracks, and notice themselves shifted back approximately one twenty-four hours in the by where the planet's population is live and well, without the slightest inkling they're going to be gone tomorrow.

Unfortunately, after act one's setup, we become fairly uneventful acts 2, 3 and iv. Nosotros get into the event with the Prime Directive again, as Janeway orders an exasperated Paris non to warn anybody what is going to happen. The balance of the Voyager crew begins to look for a way to retrieve Janeway and Paris through time, which means we get some other episode mired in technobabble.

The bandage goes through the motions simply doesn't strike any notes. We larn nearly nothing new about the characters or their personalities, and the dialog lacks strength. There's a bit with Kes' telepathic abilities, every bit she "sees" the deaths of everyone on the planet in her sleep. Just her scenes come across equally needlessly melodramatic, marked past the bothersome sight of her breaking into tears on Neelix's shoulder over the horrible sight. Saving some grace is Robert Picardo'south amiable performance every bit the holographic medico (who comes across every bit the episode's near interesting character). He's a being who may have more than than his superficial qualities suggest—the Voyager version, I suppose, of Data from TNG.

Janeway and Paris learn the planet's impending destruction volition be the result of the people'due south own use of unstable power sources, possibly due to some activists who know the dangers of the technology and program to sabotage a power plant to make a point. The story changes direction when Janeway realizes that their very presence may be what causes the disaster. This leads her to decide she has to stop the activists from performing their dastardly human action. This is where the story finally picks up (though too tardily) equally Janeway plays the heroine by following the bad guys into the power establish, where she pulls a gun and an all-business attitude on them.

Only the determination is far as well ambiguous. It turns out that the crew's rescue attempt through time causes the explosion, and all of a sudden the scene takes us back in time (or frontward, from Janeway's point of view) to before the Voyager even encounters the subspace shockwave. The time manipulations are reminiscent of "Crusade and Upshot," but this conclusion doesn't offer any explanations to the questions it raises. (Nigh of all, why does Kes come up to the span to avert the crew from restarting the same time loop again?) The ending completely ignores its paradox without any offer of credibility.

Weighing down the sci-fi element is the fact that the planet'due south residents are way too human, making the Delta Quadrant that much less fascinating. Unfortunately, plot requirements require information technology, which is some other reason why this story is a bad movement this early in the series. And frankly, Chattaway's score here is dreadful, particularly during the obligatory gunfight scene. Information technology owes more than to fingernails on a chalkboard than notes on a page.

Here's hoping Voyager does something genuinely new adjacent week.

Previous episode: Parallax
Next episode: Phage

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