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Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 12

Star Trek Voy - 3x12 - Macrocosm

Originally Aired: 1996-12-11

Synopsis:
Voyager comes under siege. [DVD]

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 4.46

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 18 3 20 7 10 10 12 14 15 8 1

Problems
- The concept surrounding the macro viruses is a little ridiculous, but not too bad.

Factoids
- This episode establishes that Klingons have a redundant stomach. Good continuity with TNG: Ethics.

Remarkable Scenes
- Janeway making a fool of herself in front of the Tak Tak.
- Ensign Wildman was watching Neelix' "Good Morning Voyager" program. Good continuity with Voy: Investigations.
- Janeway says Neelix has a high fever and fluid in his lungs. Neelix replies, "Lung." Good continuity with Voy: The Phage.
- Janeway suiting up for war.
- The doctor's "attention to detail."
- The doctor grabbing a macro virus and killing it with a hypospray. He then says: "Well, one down, ten billion to go."
- Janeway using Neelix', Paris', and Kim's resort program as bait for the macro viruses. Just like Picard luring the Borg in Star Trek VIII: First Contact. :)
- Janeway knifing one of the macroviruses then unleashing her antigen bomb.

My Review
So the diplomatic genius Janeway finally falters and Neelix has to save the day in the beginning of this episode. That's a detail I like on many levels. It shows that Janeway isn't perfect, and that Neelix is actually useful. That may sound somewhat cruel, but that's the impression the writers have been giving us since day one. That Janeway is infallible and Neelix is just a cheerful passenger. Unfortunately, this episode spends most of its time on these "macro" viruses which are utter scientific nonsense. The main issue is a scaling problem; the characteristics of viruses scaled a meter wide don't translate at all. My favorite tidbit in this episode is how they were somehow able to hover. In the end, this episode has the same problems that TAS: The Infinite Vulcan had, really. A giant Spock is no better than a meter-wide hovering virus. At the risk of bashing this episode Voy: Threshold style, I must say I'm far more forgiving of this episode than I am of TAS: The Infinite Vulcan or Voy: Threshold because once you get over the science of the episode, it's really quite good. And honestly, some of the macro stuff could be rationalized. Aside from the opening scene where Neelix shines, this is Janeway's episode. I can't really say much else besides bravo and good job. This is one of Janeway's better episodes. The doctor too was also fun to watch. A decent episode.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From adam on 2010-09-27 at 6:57am:
    Trying to be Ripley from Alien..? Interesting. Didn't realize how buff Janeway was.
  • From Inga on 2013-09-03 at 4:35pm:
    @adam that's exactly what I thought! :)
  • From Hugo Ahlenius on 2013-10-30 at 12:36pm:
    Something that doesn't make sense - they are growing a lot, but out of what? They would need to harvest matter out of somewhere (proteins/atoms etc)...
  • From thaibites on 2014-03-12 at 1:46am:
    OK, here's one more for you. When the creatures emerged from a victim, they made a sound like a buzzing fly. They had no wings, so how could they make that sound? (I guess if you can magically hover in air, you can make any sound you want.)
    I liked this episode a lot. Good action and suspense - Janeway was a badass bitch!

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