Episodes like this are garbage. 45 minutes of anticipation with zero resolution. Waste of time.
Me at the start of this episode:
- What the hell, B'Elanna and Tom are getting married? When did this all happen?
- Tom's a Lieutenant? He was demoted. How stupid are the writers on this show?
- Voyager has a new warp core? Why is this the first we're hearing of it?! I hate this show.
And as it turns out it's all a deception, nicely done. I did not see it coming. That still doesn't change the fact that the episode is all just a bit shit, really. It's got to be one of the most depressing ones, too. The crew's generally subdued reactions to finding out they're not who they think they were, Tom being the one angry crew member and suddenly becoming an arsehole bad boy (like the series initially set him up to be, but forgot about), these things just don't ring true.
The makeup effects also look very silly, and I honestly couldn't stop laughing as the episode progressed. The performances didn't help either, with Janeway mostly coming across as sleepy, Neelix looking like a leprechaun and Harry looking like a frog.
On the positive side, I like that the episode picked up a storyline from a previous one and I was impressed that Jeri Ryan still looked gorgeous even with the "melting" makeup. The ending is really dark and final, something which I wasn't expecting.
Good episode but sad, really sad...
Love the episode concept. It was told well and for the most part the crew behaved fairly close to what would be expected, except the copy of Janeway fails to make the right decision to protect her crew and return to the Demon planet. And when they find a potential alternative planet, instead of firing back to protect the ship, Janeway waits as usual for Voyager to take hit after hit after hit after hit before taking any action. Chalk up another two failures for Janeway. Even the copy makes horrible decisions.
Well... that was depressing.
It's nice that they follow up on one of the more crazier episodes. Otherwise it's a pretty boring episode. You realize pretty quickly that's not the real Voyager crew you watched in the episodes before. The ending is also not very satisfying. Surprisingly sad given they are only duplicates. I really wanted them to reach their home. Back home, they could have learned why the copies were sent off from the demon planet in the first place. Why was that important to the inhabitants of the demon planet? And how did they copy the ship? As I remember the episode, they just copied the DNA and created copies of the crew. They did not copy technology did they? And what happened then? These guys watched the real Voyager take off. Thus they knew who is real and who's the copy. Does that mean they copied (themselves) again and have implanted the second batch the idea that they were the real deal? Hmmm.... I should not think too hard about it.
Not sure why they had to meet the real Voyager in the end. Was that just to show that everyone understands that the real crew (who we accompanied in the last episodes) is totally unaffected by the copies' voyage? I mean, in the real world, Tom isn't an Lt, is still a bachelor, and Voyager has never invented a new propulsion system, right? We only meet the copied ship and its crew in this one episode, right? Every other episode told the voyage of the real Voyager, right?
I actually kind of liked that the episode had a sort of sad or somber ending. Often everything in the ST universe works out perfectly, so it was a nice change of pace to see that they were just too late to be saved.
I don't know if they always intended to follow up on this story but I'm glad they did as this was too much to just leave it behind.
If you pay close attention you actually notice that something is off because Tom's still a Lieutenant. Some other things didn't add up as well, like the enhanced propulsion system but here Voyagers inconsistency actually was favorable. They've thrown other things in without precursor before.
One thing I find highly interesting is that copy Janeway is as stubborn and thickheaded as the original. She accepts what they are yet still refuses to turn back and instead heads on to Earth. Could have saved them all by turning back earlier. Couldn't happen of course but that's beside the point.
Didn't Tom and Harry already know they were duplicates? The saw themselves on the planet. Were the dups duplicated as well? Overlooking this...cool episode.
Shout by AnaVIP 4BlockedParent2023-01-09T09:35:06Z
Weren't duplicates able to breathe only on their home planet? This really got me confused because I clearly remember that Tom's and Kim's duplicates were suffocating on Voyager and could only breathe the planet's atmosphere. How were they able to take off then and be in contact with other species? Assuming they adapted the ship, they still wouldn't be able to roam around. It was a good episode nevertheless.