471. State of FluxFORMULA: Caretaker + For the Cause
WHY WE LIKE IT: Seska goes rogue.
WHY WE DON'T: So the Kazon are really Voyager's "legacy villains", eh?
REVIEW: During a scavenging expedition spearheaded by Neelix, the crew comes across the Kazon again, for the first time since the pilot. How Tuvok knows they're part of the Nistrim sect remains a mystery, though maybe he debriefed Neelix a heck of a lot more than was seen. And when a small Kazon ship is discovered with a Starfleet-issue replicator aboard, it looks like one of Voyager's crew is responsible.
Aspersions are almost immediately cast on Seska, the resident trouble-maker, and since it's a little hard to believe that the sincere Carey is behind the technology leak, there's not much of a twist that it turns out to be her. The revelation that she and Chakotay had a relationship comes a bit late, or her betrayal too early, and it just seems to raise the stakes artificially. We're still early enough that it doesn't come off as unbelievable, but still. It would have been interesting to see more of this given how hard he works to integrate the two crews and how little she cares about that. The bit where he wonders who WASN'T spying on him aboard his ship is fun, and I have to give the writers points for the whole "fall from paradise" trope, with her as the seductive snake (she was Cardassian all along) and Carey narrowly avoiding biting into a poison apple.
Always nice to see a Cardassian working it in the Cardassian way, and her plan to implicate Carey has all the twists and turns you'd expect. Less interesting are the Kazon, even if given a face in Maje Culluh. These guys are barbarians that at least give Janeway the chance to flex her muscles "with all the 'unique technologies' at [her] command." With Seska joining them, you can bet they'll be seen again, and that'll cause problems since Voyager really shouldn't really be staying in Kazon space so long (but we'll get to that in due time).
One last character bit: In order to differentiate B'Elanna from other engineers, she tells us she doesn't exaggerate. Her estimates are dead on. Ok, but we'll see how much that prevents Janeway from cutting those estimates in half when push comes to shove.
LESSON: Sometimes, everything you've heard is true.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-High: An important one as far as the overall plot goes, but a little obvious, and dismisses Seska a touch too soon.
Comments
But it's Starfleet and engineers must be unknowingly trained to give overestimates or else they have no concept of how long things are actually going to take 90% of the time.