An episode that changes tone quite a lot along the way. It started out fairly poor then evolved into something quite epic. I wasn't surprised to read that this was originally intended to be a double episode.
There is some creative stuff going on throughout this, although its execution left something to be desired. Maybe I'm now too familiar with '90s Star Trek, but it seemed obvious to me that the Vaaudwar were not going to be good guys from almost the moment Gedrin is revived. From there it just became a matter of waiting for my suspicions to come true.
But I was quite pleasantly surprised by how far the episode goes in increasing their threat. It feels like a lot is crammed in that needed to be expanded upon - for example, Neelix researching the Vaaudwar in his people's language history, and the random scene of a depressed Naomi Wildman hinting at more story to be told - but in some ways this worked in the episodes favour as it kept things pretty exciting all the way through.
I now also expect any opportunity for Voyager to get home faster to be rendered useless to them, so I really wish that episodes would stop dangling the possibility.
There was a really well done space battle towards the end, reminiscent of what we would see in Deep Space Nine. In general, it felt like the effects work (both digital and practical, for example in the alien makeup) were of a higher quality than usual. The episode's story itself doesn't do anything all that remarkable, but it kept all of the characters working together well and even Janeway didn't suddenly change her personality as she is wont to do in times of crisis.
However, Chakotay's dialogue that shoehorned in the "dragon's teeth" reference of the title was awkward as hell, and didn't fit at all. Also, the ending suggests that we'll see the Vaaudwar again, but I just don't believe that for a second.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2018-09-04T14:50:32Z
An episode that changes tone quite a lot along the way. It started out fairly poor then evolved into something quite epic. I wasn't surprised to read that this was originally intended to be a double episode.
There is some creative stuff going on throughout this, although its execution left something to be desired. Maybe I'm now too familiar with '90s Star Trek, but it seemed obvious to me that the Vaaudwar were not going to be good guys from almost the moment Gedrin is revived. From there it just became a matter of waiting for my suspicions to come true.
But I was quite pleasantly surprised by how far the episode goes in increasing their threat. It feels like a lot is crammed in that needed to be expanded upon - for example, Neelix researching the Vaaudwar in his people's language history, and the random scene of a depressed Naomi Wildman hinting at more story to be told - but in some ways this worked in the episodes favour as it kept things pretty exciting all the way through.
I now also expect any opportunity for Voyager to get home faster to be rendered useless to them, so I really wish that episodes would stop dangling the possibility.
There was a really well done space battle towards the end, reminiscent of what we would see in Deep Space Nine. In general, it felt like the effects work (both digital and practical, for example in the alien makeup) were of a higher quality than usual. The episode's story itself doesn't do anything all that remarkable, but it kept all of the characters working together well and even Janeway didn't suddenly change her personality as she is wont to do in times of crisis.
However, Chakotay's dialogue that shoehorned in the "dragon's teeth" reference of the title was awkward as hell, and didn't fit at all. Also, the ending suggests that we'll see the Vaaudwar again, but I just don't believe that for a second.