I get what they were trying to do with B'Elanna's depression, but the episode comes across as disingenuous because there was no lead up to this. B'Elanna's MacGyver moment at the end of the episode was chuckle-worthy bad.
What a boring episode focussing on the most annoying character in the series. How easy it would have been to just take the B storyline and work that into something interesting. Tell us something about the alien species that we just learned about a few episodes ago. Their whole lifestyle and moral orientation seems to be worth more than just being used as a two dimensionial and unconsequential villain of the week side story.
Hell, even the construction of the Delta flyer should have provided enough material and techno babble for almost a whole episode, without needing to resort to a character centric episodic arc about the bitchiest, whiniest crew member of the Voyager.
Let's hope that in the future they discover a treatment to cure depression as easily as McCoy cured a patients need for dialysis with a pill.
I don't think that's very credible. Yes, she's a hothead, a Klingon and the duty aboard an isolated ship can cause serious issues, but I don't understand why she's suddenly developing such behavior. Are these really symptoms of a depression? They tried the same with Paris (in that body swap episode where he worked in this 20th century holo car) but that also came totally unexpected. They don't tell these stories well. Her engineering skills are impressive though (but I'm also impressed that they were able to build such a ship in their cargo bay. Who needs a shipyard anyway?)
The B-plot (or is that the A-plot?) with the probe is very mediocre. The guy in their Jules Verne/steampunk diving suits are awful. The flyer is nice, though. I hope that's a vessel that we see more often in future episodes: if we're lucky that vessel could be what the Defiant or at least the runabouts were for DS9.
The good part of the episode is dealing with B'Elanna's feelings. Even if it comes totally out of the blue and the moping around B'Elanna was pretty annoying. The worst part is everything dealing with the Malon and the probe recovery. I had completely forgotten that species even exists in Star Trek.
The building of the Delta Flyer was somewhere in between. I would have liked an episode centering around the developement instead of just shoehorning it in. You really have to suspend disbelief to buy in they build a ship in under a week from scratch. Not even counting in the fact they energy it would take to replicate every single piece.
Review by LeftHandedGuitaristBlockedParent2018-06-13T14:24:09Z
A pretty uninspired look at self-harm, which never quite rings true. I have a similar issue with this as I did with the DS9 episode, 'The Sound of Her Voice', in that we are suddenly presented with a main character who is depressed/struggling and apparently has been for quite some time, but the show has done nothing to show this to us in the previous episodes. B'Elanna is acting very out of character and while I know from first hand experience the way that depression sneaks up on you, this doesn't work at all.
The depiction of the depression itself is also a little simplified. I'm disappointed, because the episode actually made me dislike her when I should have been feeling sympathy. Chakotay's smirk whenever he's talking continues to bug me, too.
The Delta Flyer is kind of cool, the show has needed a runabout style craft for quite some time. I do think that Tom's retro controls are a bit dumb though, and they look like something from an old Atari console.
B'Elanna disengages the holodeck safeties a number of times in this episode, and on each occasion the computer asks her for confirmation and provides a warning. Great, but only two episodes ago Seven disengaged the holodeck safeties and it was instant. A small thing, but consistency counts for everything in storytelling, and Voyager continues to fail at this.
The Malon also still suck. Are we going to be spending more time with them?