140 – Good Shepherd

Grade: D-

Summary

Three crewmen we have never before seen or heard of (and never will again) have been floundering in their jobs on Voyager. Janeway is so disturbed at the thought that some of her crewmen are underachieving that she decides to take all three of them on the very next away mission – so they can have a chance to shine. And then she can go back to ignoring them.

Commentary

Uh, no thank you. It says something that this episode was even worse than Spirit Folk. The story wasn’t even remotely interesting or believable.

This episode just fails on so many levels. The directing seems to have taken several giant steps backwards. The acting is mediocre at best, but that’s probably to be expected. By this point in the series, it doesn’t seem like Kate Mulgrew was doing her best work of her career. The dialogue was awful, and overall, the script was dull and predictable.

Nothing unexpected happens in this episode. There’s only one aspect of this that makes it a D- instead of an F: the opening scenes of going through the ship were finally creative. We see parts of the ship that have never been seen before. That was actually interesting. But the rest of it is utter failure. I’m not surprised that this episode is rarely seen on TV these days. It’s awful.

Of Note

Janeway apparently doesn’t know her own ship or all the crew, either. She’s rarely seen all the way down on Deck 15, and when she goes to find Crewman Harren, she needs directions from someone who’s just standing guard there. I personally have a hard time believing she wouldn’t know her crew or her own ship. She’s had 6 years to get to know everyone, and it’s not like they’ve added or changed crew members over the years.