Also, Jonas being the only person in engineering is really bizarre.
And not only once. I counted, what, three times when he was the only person there. Isn't there a Starfleet regulation somewhere about never having critical departments manned by only one crew member? (There should be.)
Edit: I hope this reply was worth having to rewrite the first half of my top-level review from scratch, because Trakt lost my in-progress draft when I posted this. Nice bug. (I've also learned that Trakt really doesn't like emoji, by trying to use one in this edit.)
@dgw Replies are always worth it... at least when they are replies to my reviews, it's a nice notification!
@lefthandedguitarist I found myself unexpectedly impressed by the way the show laid the groundwork for this episode over the course of the past six or so, and built to this climax bit by bit, even if it's not perfect. Between this and the show introducing Lt. Durst the episode before the same actor plays a Vidian wearing Durst's skin in "Faces", I'm pretty taken aback at Voyager's willingness to indulge in some serialization and forethought in its early seasons.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2017-11-06T09:30:04Z
I'm as surprised as anyone that I've found an episode with Neelix in such a prominent role that I quite enjoyed. But it's not because of him, it's because it's the culmination of a plot thread that has been building over the past bunch of episodes - even though that culmination may not be the most satisfying end. At any rate, Neelix's scenes saying goodbye to Tom did work very well.
It turns out Tom Paris has been faking his misbehaviour (duh) because Janeway and Tuvok suspect there's a spy on board. They decided to keep Chakotay out of the loop to make it seem more real, but I think it's really because they didn't trust Chakotay not to mess things up. I think what's impressed me most about it all is that the show kept this thread running over the course of several episodes, and it just feels like such a breath of fresh air to have some serialisation that I'm happy to sit back and enjoy it, despite it not being all that compelling.
Tom's fight to escape from Seska and the Kazon is unimpressive, seeminly limited to one corridor set that he has to run back and forth through. Seska herself is revelling in being evil, and I have to admit I get a weird thrill out of the cheesiness of it all. I almost didn't expect Jonas to die, and at least he goes out in style.
Neelix's TV show could become grating if we see lots more of it, but the funny subplot with the Doctor did entertain me. One moment that took me right out of the episode was when Janeway contacts engineering and explains everything that's going on to Jonas ("we need the transporter, because we've detected a Kazon shuttle and there is one human life sign on board and we think it might be Tom Paris") despite no captain ever taking the time to do this in Trek history. Also, Jonas being the only person in engineering is really bizarre.