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Star Trek Voy - Season 5 - Episode 22

Star Trek Voy - 5x22 - Someone to Watch Over Me

Originally Aired: 1999-4-28

Synopsis:
The Doctor takes an interest in Seven. [DVD]

My Rating - 8

Fan Rating Average - 7.25

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 13 2 2 3 2 4 7 8 21 24 36

Problems
None

Factoids
- There are 146 crewmembers aboard Voyager according to Neelix.
- Voyager was designed for long range deep space exploration according to Neelix.
- According to the doctor, species 8472 may have as many as 5 sexes...

Remarkable Scenes
- Torres discovering that Seven of Nine is following her and Tom.
- Torres: "How the hell do you know when we're having intimate relations?" Seven: "There is no one on deck nine, section twelve who doesn't know when you're having intimate relations."
- Torres: "Borg provokes Klingon. Klingon breaks Borg's nose."
- Janeway: "This is a starship, not a nature preserve." Not exact, but I'll count it. Count 31 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- The doctor: "They say gossip travels faster than warp speed."
- The doctor: "You're a woman, Seven." Seven: "Is that an observation or a diagnosis?"
- The doctor's silly slideshow.
- Seven of Nine attempting poorly to get a holographic date.
- Tom making a bet with the doctor.
- The doctor: "Seven, has anyone ever told you you have have a beautiful voice? It's a true gift!" Seven: "The gift is from the Collective. A vocal subprocessor designed to facilitate the sonic interface for Borg transponders."
- Seven of Nine's "flawless" singing, along with the duet.
- Harry discussing Seven of Nine's date candidate selection.
- Seven of Nine asking out Chapman.
- Seven of Nine's behavior on the date.
- Seven of Nine tearing a ligament in Chapman's arm.
- The drunken ambassador.

My Review
This episode is original and a nice change of pace. Neelix' role with the alien ambassador is a lot like the Enterprise crew's roles with the alien ambassadors in TNG: Liaisons (especially Troi's ambassador), which is certainly a compliment. But Seven of Nine steals the show. I don't know whether her attempts to start dating are embarrassing or hilarious to watch, maybe a little of both. The episode is almost tragic, as the doctor desires a relationship with Seven, but is unable to bring himself to ask her out. Maybe he felt it would be a conflict of interest, or maybe he feels more content in a fatherly role than as a lover. In any case, the mingling of the two plot threads worked extremely well and ended up being one of Voyager's surprisingly better episodes. I like being pleasantly surprised.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Rob UK on 2013-10-26 at 7:08am:
    I enjoy this episode for the quirky backdoor feelings and insight you get into the crew and life onboard, the confrontation about hearing the intimate relations was great, being on a starship in the future is like living in a tower block in modern day, i could do a nature reserve study on any one of my neighbors with great accuracy.

    The key swing comedy factor for me is the doctors slideshow

    "Here we see how fortress ovum is besieged by countless little warriors" with all the arm movements and hand gestures is a classic.
  • From thaibites on 2015-02-13 at 7:56pm:
    Another horrendous soap opera episode that gets an 8 rating from HRM Eric Newport. Are you people all gay? Unbelievable...
  • From parkbench on 2016-02-12 at 4:54am:
    well, a truly mediocre episode with lackluster pacing and based purely on the novelty of seeing the characters in a banal situation. but rather than explore this in any profound way or use it to get behind some of the themes of voyager, we get more voyager aimless meandering--another crappy love interest episode that star trek is famous for, recycling a hundred stereotypes a minute and wielding them all in the least-thought out, least creative and safest character on the show--seven of nine, unfortunately little more than eye-candy in most of the episodes. it's like they felt bad for having janeway for the first few seasons and had to pander even more than they usually do. so embarrassing.

    apparently the writing for this one was so bad that it caused the above commenter to lower several grades of intelligence and equate mediocrity with emotions, and emotions with gay people. the discovery of the century, no doubt. i fear for this (no doubt) man, anyone who must care for him, and whatever offspring he may one day produce. be on the lookout for profound moments like this one. oh, i'm gay, by the way.

    anyway, back to seven. really i can't stand most episodes about her, because they read like poor imitations of Data episodes, and even some of those aren't that amazing! i found myself compelled to skip at the beginning and now wish i had.

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