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Star Trek Voy - Season 2 - Episode 20

Star Trek Voy - 2x20 - Investigations

Originally Aired: 1996-3-13

Synopsis:
Neelix smokes out a traitor. [DVD]

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 6.77

Rate episode?

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# Votes: 6 1 0 4 5 2 7 15 19 14 8

Problems
- The stardates in this episode have gone backwards since the last, even though the episode is set after the last episode.

Factoids
None

Remarkable Scenes
- The doctor: "I'm a doctor, not a performer." Count 14 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- The scene where Janeway tells Neelix that Paris is leaving the ship.
- Neelix talking to Paris about his decision to leave.
- The doctor unable to contain himself concerning his time in the spotlight.
- Jonas trying to cover up his secret transmissions.
- The doctor interrupting Jonas' attempt of murder.
- Janeway and Tuvok spilling the beans on their plan to discover who the saboteur is.
- Neelix killing Jonas.

My Review
This one's obviously been building a while. I was satisfied with the progression of the events. There wasn't anything too amazingly impressive in the episode, but some highlights were Voyager's decent use of arc building. Granted, the whole Jonas / Tom's behavior arc was little obvious and could have been done better, I'd rather have it than do without it. Neelix is where this episode shines. His little local television program reminded me somewhat of cheesy local TV stations, but it gave Neelix something fun(ny) to do for a change. It was nicely shown in this episode; I especially the doctor's (or rather his lack of) involvement in the show, though I am glad we don't see anymore of Neelix' television show. It was a bit obnoxious, and much more of it would have been over the top.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Pete Miller on 2006-08-07 at 10:57pm:
    Personally, I enjoyed this episode quite a bit. I never for a moment guessed that there was a connection between Paris' behavior and Jonas' behavior. So when Janeaway finally revealed what was going on, it came as quite a twist to me. I guess I'm not used to Star Trek employing the plot twist.

    I also enjoyed Neelix's little tv show. If you've ever waited in line at the Jaws ride at Universal Studios and seen the "Wake up, Amity" show, you'll agree with me when I say that this reminded me alot of it. The best, however, was Neelix giving that mole an ass whooping. Jonas was such a bitch.
  • From rpeh on 2010-08-19 at 11:47am:
    I enjoyed this one too and I agree with the previous commenter that it was far from obvious there was a link between Jonas and Tom.

    My one gripe isn't just about this episode. Does nobody know how to fight unarmed any more? And the jump-at-opponent-who-moves-and-you-fly-into-the-disintegrator is such a cliche!
  • From wanton on 2011-08-31 at 11:50am:
    I wanted to make a single comment here: I strongly disagree that Neelix' program was a cheesy and obnoxious addition, and I am actually disappointed it is not to reappear again.

    I thought this was a brilliant device with a unique function that's hard to put your finger on... Voyager is a crew of over a 100 people... granted that's not over a 1000 like the Enterprise, but it is still a sizable group. Having Neelix' show shown to a "mass audience" had this odd effect of giving one the sense of the entire crew, and tying that crew into a cohesive mass.

    With Neelix around with his little PAD, whenever something happened you got this tiny sense of consideration for what the entirety of the crew would think of things.

    Watching the show, you got the sense that you were one of those nameless crewmen on board, being filled in on the details... It was neat to look through the eyes of a more realistic audience for a moment...

    It also gave Neelix something potentially *important* rather than just funny to do... I would've really preferred that he keep on as the resident journalist and added extra color and an *extra dimension* to everything on Voyager.

    Having an *independent* journalist on board clearly put an unexpected spin on events and unforeseen pressures on Janeway and Tuvak, which was really interesting to watch.

    So, in short, I don't think this should've been dismissed as a one-time novelty, either by us the viewers or the show's producers. This was a serious and effective little plot device, and I regret that it's use was limited to a single episode.
  • From gen on 2012-02-14 at 4:40am:
    (I hope this makes it into Kethinov's factoids! )

    Out of a kind of critical mass of curiosity about Star Trek's ubiquitous pointed sideburns, I searched on memory-alpha and stumbled into an unrelated but nevertheless cool piece of trivia: At 2:45 into the episode, standing in the hall and talking to Harry is none other than Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein, reigning King of Jordan!

    (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_II_bin_al-Hussein)

    That sounds like a joke, but it's absolutely true. He's a longtime Trek fan and the cameo was arranged as a kind of surprise by his U.S. advisor (Al-Hussein was Crown Prince at the time). See link below for more info.

    http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Abdullah_II

  • From Dave on 2014-03-15 at 6:14pm:
    I loved the way in which Neelix watches Jonas die and then walks off without any sense of sadness about what happened. As he leaves Engineering, he's more like 'hehe! I got him!'

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