89 – The Omega Directive

Grade: C+

Summary

Seven of Nine has completed her regeneration cycle. Next, she will work with Ensign Kim, who has been playing Vulcan kalto all evening. Seven makes one last winning move so Kim will be “ready” to work with her. Suddenly, Tom sees an Omega symbol on his screen, and Janeway goes all cryptic about it. Nobody knows what’s going on and she says they’ll discuss it later. Is this a message from Starfleet headquarters – or perhaps some crazy computer virus?

Commentary

When this episode started, I was mostly wondering what this Omega message was all about, and how it made it all the way to the Delta Quadrant. Then I realized that since this is a standing order from Starfleet Headquarters, it’s probably installed in every computer system on every starship in the fleet. But I really had one problem with it – we’ve never heard of this thing before and suddenly it’s even more important than the Prime Directive.

So we’re supposed to believe that this thing is so dangerous to the entire universe that whenever it is found, starship captains are authorized to barge their way into their labs and destroy all of the molecules, the research materials, etc., and then speed off on their way, as if nothing has happened? Very weird. I don’t believe this really fits in with Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future.

OK, so with that setup, you’d think the story would actually be pretty impressive. Wouldn’t it have been awesome to have seen one of these things explode and destroy an entire city or something? No, we only see the aftermath of an accident. Then we see some angry aliens who understandably are angry with Janeway and her goal to destroy all their work. Just imagine how it would go over if back in the 1940s, there were aliens from space who came and destroyed all the work on the Manhattan Project? Of course we would be angry about that.

Well, the really stupid thing is that by the end of this episode, the aliens who were taken for medical treatment are just returned to their home planet without any repercussions. I really don’t think this would work out this way. Besides, I don’t think anything was actually resolved. What’s to prevent these aliens from just starting their research over again? As they were saying, this molecule would provide enough energy to power their entire civilization. You know as soon as Voyager is out of their space, they’ll start re-creating this stuff immediately.

As to the Borg view of “perfection”, I really think Jeri Ryan did a great job portraying a Borg with some extreme emotions. She obviously did not want to destroy the molecules because it was her ambition to find a way to harness it. When Janeway put her in charge, it was funny to see her changing things up. Harry didn’t like being “demoted” to 2 of 9 or whatever she called him, but it was rather amusing to see this happen.

Speaking of Jeri Ryan, I absolutely refuse to believe anyone who says she was added to this show for reasons other than just eye candy. Though she has proven on a number of occasions to be a competent actress in this series, Brannon Braga really only wants people to watch the show. He doesn’t care if you realize Ryan is a decent actress. Jeri Ryan’s costume in this episode is tight enough that she almost looks completely unclothed. If Braga wanted us to focus on her acting, he would have just made her dress like Dr. Crusher from TNG.

Well, anyway, this episode is not that great.

Of Note

In this episode, there is apparently a “Medical Rescue Team” that beams onto the space station to help the aliens who have been working with the Omega molecule. But just last week, we heard how Tom is the only one who can take over Sickbay if something were to happen to the Doctor. I really hate inconsistencies like this. This is perhaps a result of creating episodes one at a time like Voyager did instead of looking at the entire season as DS9 ended with.