WHY WE LIKE IT: Origin stories!
WHY WE DON'T: One of them is pretty slim.
REVIEW: In the wake of our finding out Dal's secret origins (well, almost, there's still a lot to tell there), the kids recount how they were captured by the Kazon and sold to the Diviner to pass the time as their engine reboots. I'm reminded of Torchwood's Fragments, and that's a good thing. And these stories don't tell the whole story, so there's more that could be told in later episodes. Now, if I could just resolve in my mind just what Kazon slavers are doing on this end of the Delta Quadrant...
First up is Rok, who was apparently a "monster" for entertainment value. Remember, without the universal translator, she just sounds like a roaring brute, and though she never shared a language with the beat-up old knight who played the "hero" in their mock combats, there was still an understanding there. To a point. With no way to communicate her eventual displeasure with people thinking of her as a monster, she simply turned the tables one day, turned an epic into a comedy, and got fired. Or rather, sold! Sometimes, you're not in the relationship you think you are. It explains her disdain for combat, and makes sense given her scientific ambitions that this wouldn't be enough for her. And the old man is still out there. It's perhaps a bit like Dal's relationship to his Ferengi mistress, but the characters are different enough to be worth following up on.
It's a bit unfortunate that Zero's story is so thin. It's very interesting to see Medusans flying free, even if using their TOS-era ship (well, Remastered TOS) only compounds how little it seems to fit their general biology. The Kazon also have the visors and box from Is There in Truth No Beauty, but beyond the continuity call-backs, there's little to say. Jankom Pog's story also has a ship from the past (the Tellarite cruiser appeared in Enterprise), and it's the best of the lot. It doesn't tell us how he lost the arm (so there's more to tell), but it builds on the early mention of his having come to the DQ in a sleeper ship by confirming that he is pre-Federation, and showing the comedy of errors aboard his ship when he was accidentally woken up after a small hull breach, and though a trainee, had to fix one thing, then another and another, until he'd been awake so long, he'd used up an important amount of oxygen and had to sacrifice himself for the crew to survive the rest of the journey. The frantic comedy sequence has him spar with a drone that keeps requiring his name for access, which develops into his trademark verbal tic of speaking in the third person. It also tracks how he can be such a good engineer. And... what happened to that crew, ultimately?
Bonus origin: Asencia tells the Diviner how she left their planet at the same time, but wound up in a time frame 3 years ago, whereas he'd been searching for the Protostar for 20. The best part of the story is Chakotay sending the ship back through the wormhole without a crew just so the Vau N'Akat can't have it. His chuckle is priceless. And of course it means he's out there, in the future, to be rescued later. This all awakens the Diviner's memories and ruthlessness, so when Admiral Janeway walks in, wanting answers (she's recognized that the fugitive Gwyn is of the same mysterious species), she's walking into an ambush. From here on out, it will feel like we're moving from cliffhanger to cliffhanger. Things are getting exciting.
LESSON: The least someone can do is remember your name.
REWATCHABILITY - High: The background information is valuable, but each story also opens up new possible stories.
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