115 – Juggernaut

Grade: B-

Summary

A Malon ship spews out green toxic gas into space. The ship is in serious trouble, however. It will not only explode but also create an explosion that could destroy everything within a 3 LY radius. Meanwhile, Tuvok has been meeting with Torres, helping her to control her anger.

Commentary

If you like Roxann Dawson, you’ll love this episode, as she is the main focus. Right from the start, you can tell this is going to be her episode. After the first set of commercials, we start by seeing B’Elanna in a meditation session with Tuvok. Personally, I’m very glad to see that this scene actually had something to do with the rest of the episode. It is common for Star Trek to begin stories on the Holodeck or in ways that contribute very little to the development of the story. But Juggernaut is different, and fortunately so.

I was very happy to see that this was more than just a “B’Elanna loses her temper” episode – we’ve already seen that plenty of times, and I’m not interested to see more of that. Thankfully, it goes a little deeper, and since I’m already a big fan of Roxann Dawson, then this is a welcome relief.

When this episode first started, I wasn’t all that excited to see yet another Malon episode, and honestly, I’m not sure how they could be out this far away. A few episodes ago, Voyager put another 20,000 LY between themselves and the Malon when they used the stolen warp drive from the Borg. And a few episodes before that, Voyager made up an additional 10,000 LY on the way back to Earth. So by this point, the ship is at least half-way home to Earth from where they were when they first met the Malon. How big is their empire anyway?

Well, at least this episode is very spooky, and atmospheric. Yes, there could have been a few improvements in the story here and there, but in general, it’s an entertaining 45 minutes. Actually, this was perhaps the spookiest Voyager episode that I’ve seen. The atmosphere is very different from what we’ve seen before.

If you do make it all the way to the end of the episode, B’Elanna gets into a sonic shower in the last scene. I believe this is the first time in Star Trek that a sonic shower has been shown in an episode. At first, I thought this was completely gratuitous, but then they use the episode to show how she deals with her anger issues. It’s rare for this series to show characters dealing with recurring issues, so in a way, it was refreshing to see it this time.

Of Note

As far as I know, B’Elanna is the first character of a TV series to be shown using a sonic shower. It has been referenced in many episodes before, including in Next Generation, Deep Space Nine and on Voyager, but I don’t believe we have ever seen it before this.

I’m not kidding about the explosion on the ship. The Malon alien said that everything within 3 LY would be destroyed. That means the most destructive power in the universe is a Malon ship. Honestly, I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just sell their waste as weapons. I like my sci-fi stories to be a little more realistic.