148 – Imperfection

Grade: A

Summary

Voyager bids farewell to three of the four remaining Borg youth who have been on this ship for the past several months. Shortly thereafter, Seven finds out that her cortical node is failing, and that she will soon die if she does not get a replacement or a repaired node.

The first plan that Janeway puts forward is to return to where they had found a partially destroyed Borg ship and see if they can take a node from a dead Borg. However, that doesn’t work, so they have to come up with another way to save Seven’s life. Icheb then brings a plan that will risk his own life in order to save her.

Commentary

Bravo! Well done, Voyager! This is the best episode of Voyager that I have ever seen. This episode dealt with the issue of making a sacrifice for the good of another person in exactly the way that only Voyager could do.

At first, I thought this episode would take the easy way out. When Janeway takes the Delta Flyer to a destroyed Borg ship, I thought for sure there would be a few action scenes, some space firefights, etc., and that ultimately the cortical node would just work and everything would be back to normal without any real consequences. That would be an average Voyager episode. It would have ended up without any feeling or depth whatsoever.

Instead, we have a reversal in the middle of the episode, and we have several character-defining scenes between Seven and other crewmembers which help establish this episode as a very real story that could really have happened with actual real people. This is a story that can relate to pretty much anyone. Who wouldn’t go out of their way to sacrifice for their family and friends?

I loved the discussions between Seven and B’Elanna, and between Seven and Janeway. Everyone on this ship, including Neelix, helps support Seven in only the way that they can do it. It’s wonderful to see that. Everyone in this episode stays true to their character, and it’s about time that Voyager’s writers do some justice to everyone.

Perhaps the scenes I enjoyed the most were at the end when Icheb explains his motives. He correctly tells Seven that Captain Janeway will go out of her way and put all the lives of her own crew at risk simply to save strangers, and Janeway doesn’t deny it. In fact, she agrees. Sometimes it’s obvious she takes far too many risks, but she continues to do it. Icheb then asks Seven to please allow him to put his own life at risk to be able to save her, since she would do the same for everyone else. It’s a wonderful scene, and Manu Intiraymi completely knocks it out of the park.

This was perhaps the most emotional episode of Voyager that I have ever seen. I loved it.

Of Note

If you watch this episode, pause it right when Seven lists the names of the crew who have died during the past 6 years of this show. You’ll see names on there like J. Bartlett, L. McGarry, T. Ziegler, Josh Lyman, and S. Seaborne, who were all characters in the TV show The West Wing.