480. ElogiumFORMULA: The Child + Genesis + Galaxy's Child + The Loss
WHY WE LIKE IT: Scientific thinking at work.
WHY WE DON'T: Gross-out sex stuff.
REVIEW: It's springtime on Voyager and everybody's smooching it up in turbolifts and dark corners. And just as Janeway has to contemplate the idea of crew members pairing off, the ship gets caught in a mating ritual with space organisms, and Kes' reproductive cycle gets mysteriously kick-started, oh, and we're introduced to Ensign Wildman who fesses up and reveals she got pregnant back on DS9. Well, that's a theme certainly barging in and making itself known!
Of all these elements, though Wildman's baby will have the most (the only) impact on the series, the most successful (the only successful) is the B-plot with the swarm of space creatures. It works because there's actually some scientific thinking applied, and Chakotay uses his brain and education to save the ship's sexy, sexy butt.
The A-plot, in which Kes goes in heat, is far less palatable (less palatable than space slugs trying to mate with a spaceship). I give the creators props for trying to show alien sexuality that is totally unlike ours, but it's really quite gross and at times ridiculous. You might smile at Kes eating flowers, but the rest of the time, she's reduced to acting like a cavewoman. The physical symptoms aren't pretty either. With a shotgun to his back, Neelix contemplates becoming a father, and so follows the usual platitudes about parenthood (unless there's an original insight I missed?). Of course, Kes isn't sure she's ready anymore, but this monumental decision is taken away by ye olde resette button. She neither has to have a baby, nor have these events made her miss her chance. Lame!
LESSON: Your biological clock will not be denied!
REWATCHABILITY - Medium-Low: Not a total wash, but the main plot is at once nasty and irrelevant. Season 3's Before and After is a proper "what if" Kes had started populating the ship with fast-growing crew members that is a lot better than this cop-out episode.
Comments
Yet somehow they did it.
B'Elanna I guess.
(sorry, I'm just not into Seven's type... similarly, I have no interest in T'Pel.)
(T'Pol's okay, but with Hoshi Sato on the show, who'd notice?)