143 – Fury

Grade: C

Summary

Janeway is taking a stroll down memory lane while talking with Tuvok. It seems pointless, but then she suddenly presents him a birthday cake. Suddenly, Voyager receives a distress call from an Ocampan on a ship. It turns out it’s Kes and she wants Janeway’s help. But then she crashes her ship into Voyager’s hull and walks through the ship, causing explosions everywhere. Kes is back and she’s angry.

Commentary

Yeah, this isn’t a great episode, and I’m honestly not sure it’s even a good idea. Kes had a pretty good send-off, about three years before this episode. Then they bring her back to this one, but the episode turns out to be rather listless.

Kes revisits Voyager so she can go back in time to 56 days after she originally joined the ship. Her plan is to take herself back to Ocampa so she won’t stick around on Voyager. Apparently, New Kes blames Janeway for her inability to control her own abilities that Janeway helped her develop. OK, right there, that’s about the most confused plot I’ve ever heard.

First of all, why did she go back to 56 days after Voyager entered the Delta Quadrant? Why didn’t she go back to before Kes even joined Voyager? Wouldn’t it have been easier for her to have convinced herself to just stay on Ocampa rather than go with Neelix onto Voyager? Of course it would, but then we wouldn’t have this episode.

Second, Kes’ abilities were strong enough at one point to send Voyager 10,000 LY closer to the Earth. She obviously has more power than the ship’s warp drive. Additionally, she’s on some kind of shuttlecraft, so why would she even need Voyager at all to be able to go back in time and mess up the timeline? Well, if she didn’t come back to Voyager, we wouldn’t have this episode.

Third, as soon as Kes is on Voyager causing destruction all around, Janeway tries to contact her. Doesn’t she realize that Kes doesn’t have a combadge? How is she supposed to hear her?

Fourth, Future Kes contacts the Vidiians to ask for “safe passage” through their space for herself and her other self, and in exchange, she will give them Voyager and all of the crew. What? Why would she do this? Does she hate Voyager that much? This doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Besides, why would she even need safe passage when she’s able to hurl a ship 10,000 LY in an instant?

Fifth, and this bothers me about almost every Voyager episode – Janeway never even fires a shot back at the Vidiians when they were under attack. The Vidiians are merciless – they keep firing until Voyager has no shields or weapons left, but Voyager could have fired something back as soon as they were attacked. Why does it always take so long for Janeway to fire back?

Well, it’s not a terrible episode. If you like lots of battles, explosions, sci-fi mayhem and lots of action, then you’ll probably be OK with this one. I think I’ve grown tired of this kind of show, however. I prefer to have some characters and a plot that holds up to logical scrutiny.

Of Note

The Doctor mentions “Jarvik” as one of his possible names, which is the name of one of the inventors of the artificial heart. Just pick a name already. Sheesh.