The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From packman_jon on 2012-05-15 at 1:57am:
  Watching this episode made me think about how lucky Miles is having him live in the 24th Century versus late 19th or early 20th century. Having him go undercover in a gang/mob/crime syndicate indirectly lets him experience what life might have been like for someone of his heritage - mostly if he would have grown up poor as an Irish-American - would have had to do to make ends meet. Another good DS9 episode!
• From hugo on 2012-12-31 at 11:39pm:
  So is this classified as an "O'Brien must suffer" episode? I liked the setup and the setting, but I felt the ending was a bit dull. And everything was a bit cliche too. I don't think the emotional trust/connection between Bilby and O'Brien came out really in the buildup to the end.
  
  @packmanjohn - don't exaggerate, you make it sound like most poor irish-americans (one of the biggest immigrant groups!) were mobsters...
  
  
• From L on 2013-08-07 at 7:55am:
  A genre episode that didn't quiet work.
  They laid on the male-bonding/betrayal of trust dilemma so thick that it was hard to tell if it was a spoof or a homage to the trope. It was just a bit much.
  The Vorta being so 'evil mobster'-like seemed really out of character for what they were supposedly cloned to be.
  
  The most interesting thing was the remote hacking via implant.
  Still, I like O'Brian episodes.
  
  
• From Dave on 2016-04-18 at 2:28am:
  This episode is basically Donnie Brasco in space. Very strange.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 6:07pm:
  Some additions to your review, which I totally agree with otherwise (especially the absurdities):
  - another problem: the peak of the absurdness in this episode is how easily Spock gets off the hook. Last time I checked this was a military organisation, and stealing a starship, insubordination and mutiny, for whatever cause other than protecting the lives of millions against an evil superior is still punishable. So now all of a sudden it is ok because it was an act of compassion? Yeah right.
  
  - another highlight: Kirk, acting as a jury member in the trial against Spock. This is one of the very few occasions we see what a hardass military commander he can be - calm, cool, deadly, convicting Spock to death because this is what military law calls for. We tend to forget this side of him because most of the time he is all chummy with the crew and all angry and emotional with the enemy. Now I understand why he got to command a starship with a crew of 400+.
• From Old Fat Trekkie on 2011-12-06 at 9:02pm:
  Great site. I do wish to participate in the future.
  Here is my comment.
  
  There is a scene where Pike continues to signal "No". Commodore Mendez states that he could be questioned for days, without determining the issue. If I assume he can respond "Yes" or "No" to any questions, then any child who has ever played, "Is it bigger than a breadbox?" clearly knows that this is false. Let me ask 50 questions ...
• From Mike Meares on 2012-02-26 at 12:30pm:
  I thoroughly enjoyed the Menagerie! And I totally agree with Kethinov’s review! I still remember watching it for the first time and being in shock at what was unfolding right before my eyes! And
  I still enjoy watching it today.
  
  I really can’t separate Part One from Part Two, they are linked together and that is the way I will review them. Although I do agree with Kethinov as far as Part One being far superior to Part Two.
  
  However, like Kethinov pointed out there are numerous questions that pop up about both episodes. I am not sure I would call them “trivial” as he does, but as he correctly pointed out in his review they could be explained away. Well most of them but not all. I just wish the writers had spent a little more time on explaining them.
  
  I apologize in advance to anyone who takes offense at this, but just because I have questions about the Menagerie doesn’t mean I don’t think it is a terrific episode. I just feel it isn’t the best written Star Trek episode.
  
  I could name quite a few “mistakes” in both episodes but I will limit my criticism to just two mistakes or problems. And they are whoppers.
  
  The biggest problem with the Menagerie is that it is based upon the court martial of Mister Spock. Why is this a problem you say? Because in order to conduct a court martial you have to have three officers of command rank onboard. Since leaving Star Base 11, Commodore Mendez was an allusion created by the Talosians. Therefore you did not have three officers of command rank onboard; Ergo, Mister Spock could not have been court martial!
  
  However, this raises an even bigger and more serious issue to the story.
  
  If the Talosians could send their allusions all the way to Star Base 11 then why all the charade? When the Enterprise got to Star Base 11 the Talosians could have just created the allusion that everything was normal and Spock could have taken Captain Pike to Talos and gotten back to Star Base 11 and nobody would have been the wiser!
  
  Granted, it would have been difficult to stretch that into a two part episode! LOL!
  
  Nitpick: I could say something about Star Base 11 having back to back episodes( based on the way the episodes were filmed ) of a Court Martial against Kirk and then one against Spock, but I won’t! LOL! It is a good thing the Enterprise never went back to Star Base 11. Dr. McCoy or Scotty would have been next! LOL!
  
  More Nitpick: When they were questioning Pike did anyone ever think of asking a Vulcan to Mind Meld with him? Just asking.
• From Old Fat Trekkie on 2012-02-29 at 9:45pm:
  Mike, we don't need a mind meld. See my last comment. 50 intelligent questions that can be answered "Yes" or "No" will get to the bottom of almost anything. I do believe we may assume that in the 23rd century, folks will still be able to ask intelligent questions.
• From Schreck on 2013-05-23 at 9:41pm:
  The first and only two-parter of TOS that gives us a nice storyline about what happened to Pike and it gives us some nice continuity in the series which is lacking. I give it a 7 and my brother a 6.5

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 8:50pm:
  Decker as a Commodore: well, that depends. In some fleets on Earth (e.g. in the UK), a Commodore (a flag rank) outranks a Captain, so if this is the case in Starfleet Decker outranks Kirk and can take command of the Enterprise even against Kirk’s direct order. That is however weird since Commodores don’t command single ships on a regular basis. Unless the writers accepted this kind of plot hole for dramatic purposes.
  On the other hand, an American Commodore has the rank of a Captain, but temporarily is given command of a small fleet and is thus temporarily elevated in rank so he outranks the other Captains. The authority attached to the rank is temporary; the person stays a Captain and retains the duties attached to a Captain’s rank. Out of courtesy, however, the title is sometimes still used even after the temporary mission is over, so Decker may well have been a regular Captain who was once elevated to Commodore for a special mission and retained the title from it. What do you think?
  
• From TashaFan on 2008-09-19 at 2:24am:
  Decker is a Commodore for dramatic effect. As a Commodore he outranks Kirk and therefore it is clear that when Kirk forces him to relinquish command, it's not a battle of equals, but Decker has been emasculated by his junior. It also means Kirk's actions are not just an argument among peers but are actual insubordination. If Decker was just another Captain there would be much less dramatic conflict. Although I agree with the other comment, in the episode with the M5 computer we see that Commodore Bob Wesley is indeed in command of a fleet of four ships.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-15 at 11:01pm:
  This was an altogether awesome episode. The central plot and its resolution are both quite good. At the forefront of the entire thing is the twisted psyche of the Commodore, clinging to a failed captaincy, trying to redeem himself in his own bizarre, suicidal way. The Commodore is rather brilliantly written and portrayed and a kind of twisted pleasure to watch. (Interesting how in his misguided efforts he ultimately did help stop the doomsday device by giving Kirk the right idea).
  
  The command tensionS on the Enterprise between the Commodore, Spock, and McCoy was especially great.
  
  I have to comment here about the Commodore's fight sequences en route to the shuttlebay, which were absolutely awesome. Something in the choreography was definitely lost, irretrievably lost between the transition from TOS to all the later series. (I just watched TNG The Hunted which is about a supersoldier and has numerous fights, all of them atrocious when compared to TOS...)
  
  The doomsday machine was an interesting idea (later recycled somewhat in TNG 1x21 Arsenal of Freedom and Voyager 2x17 Dreadnought) and was executed sufficiently well. I can't quite decide whether the model and special effects were silly or awesome (I think some strange mixture of both). The final explosion was definitively cool.
  
  Problem(?):
  If the Enterprise was more maneuverable than the doomsday device, it stretches credibility a bit to have it reappear "out of nowhere" and catch everyone by surprise early in the episode. Of course, there was the matter of "subspace interference," but from what I recall, that was mostly discussed in terms of communications, not things like long-range sensors, the viewscreen, etc...
• From warpfactor 10.1 on 2012-09-20 at 5:20pm:
  I'd forgotten what a great episode this was. I thought it was exciting despite the fact that I knew Kirk wasn't going to die (hope that doesn't spoil it for anyone). The dramatic tension regarding Decker's clash with Spock and Kirk was well done. Guests often get to overact but somehow it doesn't seem out of place and is almost necessary given the relatively short episodes. Although Decker seems as mad as a box of frogs at least he was prepared to go down with his ship which is more than can be said for at least one captain recently.
  I thought the visual effects were done well (being no fan of CGI).
  The one thing stopping me giving it quite as high a score as I might is NO UHURA! There can be no excuse for that. No wonder Scotty was a bit subdued.
• From Royals42 on 2013-06-12 at 6:22pm:
  Is it just me or is there no thought whatsoever on shooting Photon Torpedos. I know it probably wouldn't have done much but maybe shooting a dozen right up the throat of that thing would have been comparable to the explosion of the ship.
  
  Other than that it was in my top 5 episodes of TOS. #1 of course is Balance of Terror! It was exciting to see something from another Galaxy and it would have been more interesting if they had examined it more after they "killed it." However maybe it's identity would have made it less menacing.
• From Scott Hearon on 2014-04-06 at 11:55am:
  Excellent episode. I gave it an 8/10.
  
  The only things that bug me are: (1) the way that Decker becomes oddly smug and calmly self-satisfied right in the middle of his fit of obsessed vengeance/guilt. It seemed completely out of place. (2) At this point, I'm rather tired of just how insanely quickly Kirk becomes bemused and cracks wise, even immediately after a horribly traumatic experience. I know some hardcore devotees of TOS will consider this blasphemy, but it just rubs me the wrong way.
  
  All else about this episode is great. The shift of Decker from victim to villain to hero is splendid viewing. The antagonist Doomsday Machine, obviously social commentary about the Cold War arms race, is the most terrifying thing that I've seen in a Star Trek episode. Having Scotty be a major part of defeating it was fun, and the entire 3-way interaction between the Machine, Kirk on the Constellation, and Decker on the Enterprise was perfectly balanced. The drama that ensues moves the tale along at a great pace, and it truly is one of the absolute best episodes.
• From Chris Long on 2017-11-08 at 9:39pm:
  I know I'm late to this great website so forgive me.
  
  The acting by the guy who played Decker was superb. The one thing that draws me back to TOS is a generally outstanding acting by the cast and the guest stars!
  
  The "Don't you think I know that?" line is one of the most heart-wrenching in television in general.
  
  Contrasted against Kirk's casualness at the end of episodes where billions of people have died, it was pretty stark.
  
  In agreement with Scott Hearon, I'm constantly annoyed by that little 'habit' of TOS.
• From Alan Feldman on 2022-06-25 at 6:49pm:
  "Planetary system" suffers from the same bad logic used against "solar system." The argument goes: 'Solar system contains "Sol," and so cannot refer to other solar systems.' Well, planetary system contains "planet," and therefore cannot refer to the planets' sun, the system's meteoroids, asteroids, moons, Kuiper objects, Oort cloud, etc. So "planetary system" suffers from the same logical "error" that "solar system" does. The only reason we even have such a term is the discovery of exoplanets. That was novel. Stars are old hat. So astronomers were studying these newly discovered planets, which obviously make up planetary systems. But a solar system is so much more than a planetary system: Its sun, moons, meteoroids, asteroids, Kuiper objects, etc. But the powers-that-be have already forced upon us this equally, if not more so, defective term. So be it. Again: "Solar system" contains Sol, so it only means ours (contrary to the dictionary). So that means that "planetary system" can only refer to planets, as it contains "planet," and not the rest of the remote solar system. Equally bad logic in both cases.
• From Alan Feldman on 2022-06-25 at 7:25pm:
  I heartily recommended the original non-CGI version. While there are problems with the special effects, the new version needlessly introduced some serious problems.
  
  First of all, the machine is basically a flamethrower. Supposed to be pure anti-proton beam, which you could imagine is the case in the original. But in the new version, it's just a flamethrower. A flamethrower! It comes all the way from another galaxy, and it's a flamethrower. Well whoop-dee-do. And when the thing is finally killed, it droops.
  
  NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
  
  It's out in deep space. There's no up and down in space! There's enough of a problem with gravity almost everywhere, including on a ship with almost no power. And now the thing droops?! This is not an improvement!!! In the original it actually looked dead. Frozen, even. And the explosion that kills it is in some sense better in the original.
  
  I also think the old one looked scarier with its abstract optical effect at the "bottom" of its "throat." In the new one, it's just some flames.
  
  Somewhere in the CGI version you can see the nacelles in the viewer. We're talking 200 or 300 years in the future, and they can't have a clear, non-claustrophobic view? Really?
  
  Yet another problem: What are the horizontal "wrinkles", esp. when the ship is approaching the camera? Looks like some weird form of interlacing. Maybe it's just my copy. If not, so much for "superior image quality."
  
  >----o----<
  
  As great an episode as this is, it has some problems:
  
  How the hell did Scotty, immediately upon materializing, know there was a problem with the transporter?
  
  How did the communications officer get those reports so fast? There is practically no time between her reciting them.
  
  Why didn't they fire down the throat of the thing? Why didn't the thing blast them when they're right in front of it? OK, maybe the thing wanted to swallow it for "nourishment."
  
  I think it's in no small part the music that makes this ep so good, despite all its problems. And yes, William Windom puts in an awesome performance. Oh, and as usual, the sound effects are awesome.
  
  Again, I heartily recommend the original version, even though you can see stars through its "wall" at the front of the machine.
  
  BTW, I still love this episode. Certainly no. 1 for action, and most importantly as always, a good story.
  
  >----o----<
  
  Ever notice that the windows in the shuttle craft are too high for the "pilot" to see out of?
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Dstyle on 2015-08-12 at 9:56pm:
  Despite creating world peace, ending poverty, and eradicating hunger, humanity had yet to learn the catastrophic dangers of introducing non-native species into a new environment. Sorry, random planet: you're about to be overrun with slugs!
• From Zorak on 2016-09-17 at 4:08pm:
  That part with the slug actually bothered me quite a bit, and not just because it made me roll my eyes at how symbolic it was supposed to be. It's Hoshi's (and Phlox!?) complete naivete in thinking that slug would be just fine marooned on an alien world. They completely doomed that slug and acted like they were it's saviors. What rubbish.
• From Hugo on 2016-11-24 at 1:49pm:
  Totally agree about the slug!
  
  I thought it was quite refreshing to see aliens that breath a different kind of atmosphere and have a different environment - and the language/communication problems was also good to see.
  
  The final 5 minutes felt quite standard Trek - with that standoff etc, and a quick resolution...

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Ivan on 2006-07-29 at 10:21pm:
  During the scene where Fajo is provoking Dataabout his not capable of killing someone, I kept shouting 'Kill him!'. The Data in this episode shows some kind of 'emotion' but in an android sort-of-way. 9/10
• From DSOmo on 2007-07-29 at 8:41am:
  - When Data begins his final run to the Enterprise in the opening scenes, he reports his progress to Geordi. After the crew of the trader ship stuns Data, his captors talk freely about the components of Data's body. Isn't it very convenient that Data's communicator happened to shut off at just the right time so Geordi wouldn't hear their discussions? Wouldn't an open communications line be standard in these types of dangerous situations?
  - The opening shot shows the Enterprise almost head to head with Fajo's ship. That means that Data must execute two 180-degree turns to get from Fajo's shuttle bay to Shuttle Bay 2. If hytritium is so unstable, why not put the ships back to back? In that way Data could fly out of one shuttle bay and make a straight line to the other.
  - Evidently, whenever there is any sort of dangerous job, Picard sends poor old Data to do it. For Fajo's plan to work he had to know, in advance, that Data would be the shuttle pilot. Requesting Data would cause too much suspicion later.
• From Schn on 2010-02-01 at 12:41pm:
  Is there really a mystery? The transporter chief stated that the weapon was in the process of discharge while in transit. It seemed to me that we realise in this episode that Data has more complex rules for killing than self defence.
• From thaibites on 2011-03-02 at 12:51am:
  This episode is great! I love Data episodes (mainly because you know that Riker or Troi won't be humping the first alien that comes on board). Anyway, Data calculated the possibility of how many people would suffer or be killed by his captor, and then fired. He knew if he killed one man, many lives would be saved. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
  Also, the personality of the captor is spot-on. The actor did an outstanding job of portraying an unpredictable, quirky, manic collector who was capable of doing anything. At what point does eccentricity devolve into self-absorbed madness...?
• From CAlexander on 2011-05-01 at 5:14pm:
  The good part of this episode is the way that Data reacts to his imprisonment. The writing is excellent at portraying his unique point of view. On the other hand, the plot on the Enterprise, while necessary for pacing, didn't seem to work so well for me. The fact that I knew the answer to the mystery seemed to rob the scenes of interest.
• From Lee on 2012-04-07 at 9:43pm:
  After watching this episode, I first thought too, that Data wanted to kill his captor. But he tells Riker and O'Brien, that the weapon might have been triggered during transport. So that would mean, he would be lying to them! For me, that is impossible, especially since killing him would have been justified, so Data had no reason (at least not from his "android-point-of-view") to lie.
  
  But it could have also been a problem with the dubbing, because I watch all the episodes in German with my family (they don't understand English well). So just ignore this comment if it all makes sense in the English version.
• From Ggen on 2012-04-08 at 12:48am:
  Great episode. Vaja (?) (the captor) basically makes this entire episode. He's a unique and all around excellent guest character...
  
  The little "subplot" with the water poisoning situation, which eventually traces back to Vaja, is done well also.
  
  Finally, we have the interesting little tid-bit of an ending: Data for all intensive purposes kills Vaja, with an exceptionally "vicious" weapon, no less. (Not really but he resolves and attempts to - comes within milliseconds of success). This despite the fact that no life was actually in jeopardy, only his own freedom. (He could've chosen to obey, to placate Vaja, to remain captive)
  
  So, was Vaja right in his early discussions with Data? Was Data's talk about using deadly force only for "defensive purposes" a kind of justification of murder?
  
  That Data hides all this from Riker and the crew after the fact is equally interesting. Perhaps Data is most human in these rare little contradictions, questionable judgements, and deceptions...
• From Jack on 2014-05-11 at 6:15am:
  Something to add to the Problems section: After the shuttle explosion Geordi is talking to Picard and Riker in Picard's ready room and Picard calls Geordi "Lieutenant" but Geordi is a Lieutenant Commander.
• From Rob UK on 2014-06-18 at 3:41am:
  Good episode, I believe that Data was on the edge of a cascade failure (See Lal in The Offspring) which brought on the quasi emotional state and more human behaviour, all triggered by the moral conflict and emotional turmoil so strong his positronic brain and programming malfunctioned, the trigger for the cascade failure in Lal was the thought of being taken away from her father and friends. Maybe if Data had murdered his captor and stayed he too would have experienced a cascade failure resulting in his death exactly as his more evolved daughter did under less emotional duress.
  
  All just 5am theorising after spending too much time with midnight mary watching the Trek telethon style

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From spock on 2007-01-07 at 11:51am:
  Entertaining, but unnecessary. I don't think we needed an entire episode devoted to showing how evil Kai Winn is. The ghostbusters style showdown was truely the worst piece of writing since "profit and lace"
• From Curtis on 2009-11-29 at 3:53am:
  I thought this one was pretty awful. That "battle" was pure baloney and, again, we didn't need a whole episode to show that Kai Winn was evil. This one just seemed to heavy-handed to me.
• From L on 2013-08-13 at 3:23am:
  This is where my mild dislike of the spiritual/religious theme in DS9 turns to outright contempt and DS9 really loses me. (though I'll finish the last season before starting on Voyager)
  
  Sisko is willing to let his son be killed for the sake of a ridiculous light and dark battle of some sanctimonious and patronising energy aliens (who don't even exist in linear space and time or understand cause and effect, so how would that even work?), because 'it's the will of the prophets'? Screw that.
  
  The willingness to subjugate one's will and self to a mysterious force simply because it's bigger than you has no place in Star Trek or any supposedly enlightened future. How many times has something god-like turned out to just be a fallible energy alien that lives on a different scale to us?
  
  Any sympathy I had for Bajoran culture is gone as all I can see is a superstitious people's brain-washed chanting.
  
  It is true that our tendency to repeatedly fall for this nonsense and find something to worship so as to ease our tiny little frightened minds is the human condition, and so it is perhaps where the traditional idealism of Star Trek really ends and maybe the writers wanted to take it in a more realistic direction. It can be excused on that level if it's being presented as a common tendency of all sentient beings alone in the universe, but it seems to be presented here as a noble quality with all the talk of 'faith' and so on.
  
  I thought at least Dax was the one hold-out with her "They'll always just be 'wormhole aliens' to me" line, but even she prays to them in the last episode.
  
  Maybe the final season exposes and properly condemns this fetishising of the abandonment of rational questioning in the name of 'spirituality' and payment for the granting of favour. I certainly hope so.
• From Alex on 2021-03-18 at 11:31pm:
  The initial conflict of Sisko taking away the stone tablet was so artificial. Why did they need to take it with them at all? Energy readings (of which there was none) could've been examined at first with the tricorder, and since the inscriptions were the focus of attention, couldn't they basically work with a photo? When the need to return it becomes pressing enough, apparently Dax can work just fine with a holographic projection of the tablet. Why not just work with that from the beginning?
  Yeah, he had to shatter it. But he just as well could've beamed down to the cave with a sledgehammer, or something.
  An annoying episode. Sometimes there's slow episodes, silly episodes, or ran-out-of-material episodes. This one is more "characters ignore basic logic and fumble cluelessly for half an hour before something anticlimactic happens". For me it's 4, at most.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Kail on 2017-09-26 at 10:00pm:
  "It is established in TOS: Turnabout Intruder that women cannot be captains in Starfleet. This was a difficult thing to suspend disbelief on at the time, but since women were shown to be captains not much later during the TOS films, it was assumed this sexism existed prior to the late 23rd century only. Star Trek: Enterprise further complicated this by depicting female captains in the 22nd century, narrowing the window of time for this sexist period in Star Trek's history to only the 23rd century. With Star Trek: Discovery, the issue is complicated even further by depicting a female captain (Georgiou) grooming a female subordinate (Burnham) to rise to the captaincy only a decade prior to TOS: Turnabout Intruder. This narrows the window of this sexist period of Star Trek's history to only a small number of years, making the episode even more difficult to rationalize."
  
  I have ALWAYS taken Lester's comment "Your world of Starship Captains doesn't allow women" as Kirk's obsession with becoming a Captain left no room for her, not that female Captains are not allowed.
• From KosstAmojan on 2017-09-28 at 12:23am:
  You're konwn as a reviewer not only of Star Trek series but also of some other SF series. Did you also planning reviewing of The Orville?
• From Kethinov on 2017-09-28 at 3:48am:
  I have been struggling with that question. I was leaning towards not reviewing it assuming it would be strictly parody, as I have no interest in reviewing things that feel like Galaxy Quest. But having seen some early episodes of The Orville, I'm starting to think it might be worth reviewing, as it's not strictly parody.
  
  FWIW, I am also planning to review The Expanse, Killjoys, Dark Matter, the Star Wars films, Stargate, Babylon 5, Extant, and update several of the old reviews with expanded content. So stay tuned for, uhh... years to come. As this will take time haha. This site will also be relaunching with the brand new design I've been promising Real Soon Now™?. It's close to being finished, but not quite there yet...
• From KosstAmojan on 2017-09-29 at 1:43am:
  Wow! Just wow. Nice to read :).
• From John C on 2017-10-02 at 2:08pm:
  Just to say..glad to see you keeping up with it all! Been looking at your reviews since we started watching TNG two or three years a go and now we're half way through Voyager. We had a peep at this episode also, my son liked it "because it was modern".
• From Claus on 2017-10-02 at 6:25pm:
  Fantastic! This is the first time in history, that I have seen a Star Trek episode when it was brand new. TOS was never broadcasted in Denmark, and the other shows were broadcasted (or sold on DVD's) with years of delay.
  
  Star Trek Discovery looks amazing, and I really like the new darker tone. As one could expect, the pilot has a lot of action. And although it looks great, it is also a little bit boring. I would rather have all the characters introduced first in a slower paced episode. But is is certainly a very promising start.
  
  It is very clear that Kethinov LOVES continuity. Over the last 2 years I have seen/revisited all episodes in all the Star Trek series (TOS and DS9 for the first time). And after each episode I read all the comments in here. Often I agreed, but also many times an episode gets a much too low ranking, just because of some continuity problems.
  
  As for this new series, no one can expect that designs on spaceships, uniforms, weapons etc. would be consistent with the older series. Also, no one can expect that younger viewers have seen TOS. So I think it is very natural to update all of this and not take into account how klingons looked like 50 years ago when the budget was very limited. Furthermore, who really cares what Spock said back then about female captains or mutiny...
  In short, I think most of the issues in your "list of problems" should be rephrased "design and reboot updates".
• From kevin on 2017-10-03 at 12:52am:
  Some good, but overall was a bit hard to watch with how it was filmed. Odd camera angles, lens flares that were not even from the lens, and a lot of zooming in and out. Need to watch a few more to decide. Right now "The ORVILLE" seems to be closer to real Star Trek.
• From Kethinov on 2017-10-03 at 3:10pm:
  Claus, I strongly disagree that continuity problems should be papered over as "design and reboot updates." In fact, I just finished an entire article outlining why it is terrible storytelling to ask your audience to treat aesthetic canon as disposable here: http://kethinov.com/startrek_selectivenostalgia.php
• From Claus on 2017-10-04 at 3:01pm:
  Kethinov, I have read your article, and it's very well written. However, it is also a bit disturbing how seriously you view things. I think it's possible to be a Star Trek fan without being a fanatic. In the end it's all about entertainment, it's not a religion (even though many trekkies might see Star Trek as a kind of a religion).
  
  You are right about that there are too many remakes out there (especially regarding movies). But not all remakes are bad. I love it when somebody dares to break convention and try out a whole new path. Just look at the very much alternative X-Men series Legion. Incredible! Or Twin Peaks The Return. I salute you Lynch.
  
  In my mind nothing is sacred. To say otherwise is to restrict the creativity of the artists.
  
• From Kethinov on 2017-10-05 at 2:16pm:
  This disregard for aesthetic canon is bad storytelling, not "religion" or "fanaticism." If you think about it beyond the surface for just a few minutes, it's easy to see why.
  
  What if each season on Discovery they "updated" the uniforms with a new design? What if they redesigned the interior sets? Or the exterior design of the ship? What if they totally overhauled the makeup for Saru? What if these changes persisted in flashbacks?
  
  Wouldn't it eventually get to the point where your "nothing is sacred" attitude about aesthetic canon would reach its breaking point?
• From Claus on 2017-10-06 at 8:40am:
  Well, we can discuss from now on and forever, but I don't think that will change anything. The main reason is, that I simply don't buy the concept of an "aesthetic canon". It's good fun to watch how the older series looked like, but that's it. I'm not attached to it. So if anyone wants to bring things closer to how it "should have looked", then go for it.
  
  Example: I'm a HUGE Game of Thrones fan. And of course I noticed that the look of the Children of the Forest was changed significantly from season 4 to season 6. I was like, ok, that is also a good interpretation. They looked good before, and now they look even better (but in a very different way).
  
  We are all glad that we now actually have a new Star Trek show. So let's enjoy what we have, instead of being upset about what we don't have.
  
• From Kethinov on 2017-10-06 at 2:34pm:
  That's a pretty good analogy, because visually rebooting the children of the forest in Game of Thrones is another good illustration of this kind of shoddy storytelling, and you're right that your indifference to it (whereas it bothered me and plenty of others) captures the core our disagreement pretty well. Where I'd quibble with you there is the visual changes there were pretty subtle. Nothing like the total overhaul we're seeing today on Star Trek.
  
  What's happening on Star Trek would be closer to if Game of Thrones suddenly totally reimagined the dragons to look more like European dragons (with four legs and wings) than the present Chinese-like dragons for no reason, or recast an actor to someone who looks totally different, e.g. what happened Daario Naharis. Sometimes this stuff is unavoidable (e.g. if actors become unavailable), but they could've at least recast him to a similar looking actor. They didn't even try.
  
  Those things are all good illustrations of bad storytelling because this is a visual medium, not a novel series. Good stories on visual mediums take visual continuity seriously. And a lot of people value it. Their anger at this is valid, and you should not go around telling people to stop caring about aesthetic canon simply because you don't see why it matters to so many.
  
  You said you shrugged when Game of Thrones made those minor visual tweaks, as if that sufficiently answers the question I asked you about when you'd reach a breaking point if the changes became more frequent and with greater magnitude. But that doesn't really answer my question. So I encourage you to reconsider the question, and take it more seriously this time:
  
  What if each season on Discovery they "updated" the uniforms with a new design? What if they redesigned the interior sets? Or the exterior design of the ship? What if they totally overhauled the makeup for Saru? What if these changes persisted in flashbacks?
  
  Wouldn't it eventually get to the point where your "nothing is sacred" attitude about aesthetic canon would reach its breaking point?
  
  Or, put another way:
  
  What if each season on Game of Thrones they replaced all the actors? Changed the anatomy of the dragons? Totally overhauled the makeup for the White Walkers? What if these changes persisted in flashbacks?
  
  Wouldn't it eventually get to the point where your "nothing is sacred" attitude about aesthetic canon would reach its breaking point?
  
  You tried to indirectly answer "no," but that's hard to believe. Most people have a breaking point with this stuff. Many Star Trek fans have reached theirs. And justifiably so.
• From Claus on 2017-10-06 at 10:07pm:
  Sorry I didn't answer your questions. I just thought they were meant as rhetorical. Because, it goes without saying, that everybody has a breaking point to what they can accept. I'm just more flexible than you.
  
  If Discovery updated the uniforms, interior sets and exterior design each season, I would properly frown upon that. But if it was done nicely, I could certainly live with it. And as for Saru, they are very welcome to change his make-up. His current face does not really look alive. It should be improved.
  
  If the look of the dragons and the Others (White Walkers) in GoT were changed to the better, I also wouldn't mind. I think my breaking point would be if the dragons were changed so they looked like the fellbeasts from LOTR (the Nazgûl dragons). Or if Tyrion was replaced by a non-dwarf. :-)
  
  However, I don't think it's fair to compare changes BETWEEN tv series 50 years apart (from TOS to Discovery) to changes WITHIN a single tv series (from Discovery season 1 to the next season). It is obvious that the show runners have more freedom of creativity when a whole new show is being produced, than when producing the next season of an existing tv series.
  
  Finally, I would like to point out that the attitude of "nothing is sacred" is quite common in my country. I have never met anybody who would be upset by things from your "list of problems". We prefer to just enjoy the show and to shrug off inconsistencies.
  
  Apparently, you are also able to shrug off things, since you gave the first two episodes very high rankings at 8 and 9 respectively. That's kind of admirable. If it were me, and I was very annoyed by something in an episode, I would punish it by a low ranking ;-)
  
• From Kethinov on 2017-10-07 at 12:46am:
  It's important to note that the high ratings Discovery's pilot received here are not a tacit approval of how they're handling aesthetic canon. A good reviewer will separate critiques of the premise from critiques of the execution. Discovery is getting high ratings here because while the premise (with regards to setting and aesthetic canon) is bad, the story is good. Good reviewers should always give a good grade to a good story, even if it's just a well executed bad idea.
  
  Meanwhile, the critique of the premise as articulated in the separate article still stands. Throwing out two generations of painstakingly maintained aesthetic canon will serve only to damage the long term health of the broader Star Trek franchise for no real gain.
  
  Future generations who watch Star Trek in chronological order will be subjected to unnecessarily painful transitions, going from Enterprise, to Discovery, to TOS. Before Discovery aired, the transition from Enterprise to TOS was relatively smooth, due to context clues about the upcoming change in industrial design aesthetics that were foreshadowed in various episodes, most notably when Ent: In A Mirror, Darkly foreshadowed the transition by having 22nd century characters interact with (accurately portrayed) 23rd century technology and comment on the differences.
  
  Likewise in the Star Wars franchise, you can watch the prequels, then Rogue One, and then the original trilogy and it works incredibly well because the producers carefully managed the aesthetic transitions between episode 3, Rogue One, and episode 4. Three generations of Star Wars films can be watched in rapid succession, but they feel aesthetically consistent. What a remarkable achievement!
  
  That's an ideal Star Trek should've aspired to. But Discovery takes Star Trek in the opposite direction because the producers were too lazy to do this right like the Star Wars folks did with Rogue One, or even like Gene Roddenberry did with the original series films and TNG by setting them further in the future each time he wanted to update the look. The producers of each of the five previous series understood this and worked hard to integrate visually into their predecessors' aesthetic canon. After fifty years of doing it right, Discovery comes along and demolishes all that hard work in a single episode for absolutely no coherent reason whatsoever.
  
  I think that sad and unnecessary decision has irrevocably damaged the Star Trek franchise's future. And I don't think history or future generations will look kindly on it whether Discovery's actual story turns out to be good or not.
• From McCoy on 2017-10-25 at 2:25pm:
  I've watched first 4 episodes and I'm done... Sorry.
  Wasn't expecting much after trailers but this is... Wow... I must admit, Discovery is better than Abrams reboots but it's still bad.
  I agree completely with every complain about continuity/design errors. I've studied literary theory and I know what a consequence in fictional worlds is. You can't "redesign" C3PO, because "hey, he looks and walks silly, nowadays nobody will take this kind of robot design serious". It's a matter of consequence inside fictional world. If they wanted "updated" visual style, they've should move timeline 10 years after Voyager and no one would complain. But nooo... Let's make prequel... Oh my...
  But even in after-Voy times nothing justify new look of Klingons. If you think Klingons looks not enough "alien", then make new aliens instead of messing with existing ones.
  And honestly, it's a boring show. I don't see much problems or curious sf ideas. Just generic shooting in space plus "modern" dark themes and killing characters to force tension.
  Don't want to spoil, but there is also a "mushroom" concept. And it's stupid as hell. Worse sf than legendary Threshold. I though for a moment they're kidding. Is this suppose to be a parody?
  What I like? Burnham, Georgiou, Saru and Lorca are well played. But it's not enough. Good actor won't save the show, if he won't get good scenario and dialogues.
• From Inga on 2017-12-26 at 1:06am:
  First of all, I want to mention that the 60s sexism is in no way a piece of continuity worth preserving (just like I never understood the need to justify the lack of Klingon ridges in the 23rd century in-canon). In addition to that, as Kail, the first commentator said, it is arguable whether it really was the case at all. When you really think about it, the male-female dynamic in the entire show is pretty archaic because of the times the series was filmed. Should the creators of any TOS prequel try to emulate the 60s gender roles as well?
  I also disagree that Discovery had to be present in the pilot. The format of this show is a bit different, which makes a later introduction seem a bit more organic.
  Other than that, I’m very glad you’re reviewing this show as well! I used to read your reviews a lot when I first discovered Star Trek (which was pretty late in my life, I have to admit) and I found them very helpful!
  I’d also add McCoy’s comment about Klingons. Not only are the new designs unnecessary, they kinda make Klingons less likable. It has already been established that all humanoid species come from the same ancestor, so there is no need to make them look more alien. The make-up is so heavy that their faces look contorted and the female Klingon’s lips don’t always move in full (a part of her lower lip always sags).
  As for their language, although I usually love it when aliens speak their own language, the actors were speaking sooooo agonizingly slowly… There is no way an actual species would all speak at such slow pace. Most native speakers of any language speak faster due to language economy – the desire to convey as much info with as little vocalization, which is the reason why we shorten our words.
  
• From Graham Bessellieu on 2019-07-14 at 7:02am:
  Overall, I found this DIS pilot lacking character development. While I'm not as concerned about "aesthetic canon" as Kethinov, the high-tech display does make it a stretch to imagine it pre-TOS. It feels more a re-imagining of the ST universe, (peppered with nostalgia). The showcased performances felt contrived and flat.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-07-06 at 6:45pm:
  These are the damned UGLIEST uniforms ever made on star trek. Why in the HELL would the producers decide to do away with the colors that have defined Star Trek for years, and go to these drab, hideous excuses for uniforms??? I absolutely hate them as I hated Picard's overcoat in the later seasons of TNG. I just can never get why the producers switch the uniforms so much. The armed forces of most nations rarely change their uniforms, but apparently Starfleet changes theirs every 4 years.
• From JTL on 2008-08-12 at 10:15pm:
  Absolutely hideous episode. This is a science fiction show about the future, and the subplot of the 'emissary' is both damned annoying and almost entirely illogical. The philosophy of Star Trek on religion has, up until Deep Space Nine, been to be as open-minded as possible while still holding true to the principle that God is improbable. No scientifically explainable method of action exists for these idiotic visions Sisko experiences, except for the extremely tenuous hypothesis that the Prophets imparted this information to him subconsciously.
  
  I liked this show about as much as I liked TNG up until this point. Maybe I'll enjoy it again once the Dominion War begins in earnest, but this is the point where Star Trek stops being science fiction and begins being fantasy. I give it a 0/10.
• From JRPoole on 2009-06-17 at 6:23pm:
  JTL's comment nails my concern about DS9 on the head. I think that it's a better show than TNG overall, but this religious mumbo jumbo gets old and it doesn't seem in keeping with the theme of Trek. It seems to me that Trek got a little new-agey and lost its ant-religion stance somehow after Gene Roddenberry's death.
  
  Up until now, it's been possible to rationalize away the religious aspects of DS9. The Prophets are really just non-corporeal entities living in the wormhole, not really gods at all. The Orbs have scientific properties that expand the mind, etc. This episode makes that rationalization difficult, and all but verifies the Bajoran religion as fact. Still, it's a nicely constructed episode, and the Cassidy's return is handled well, if a little too quickly.
• From Phillip Watson on 2009-08-06 at 7:12pm:
  A problem I have in this episode is that due to the change in Uniforms(Bashir wears the old one later in the series) then Sisko was operated on by the Changeling. Why didn't he take the oppurtunity to have him die on the operating table
• From ZeuS on 2011-07-16 at 2:35am:
  Absolutely hideous and completely out of place for a Star Trek series religious nonsense.
  
  0/10 simply because there is no negative score that I could give.
• From Bernard on 2011-07-17 at 11:43pm:
  Okay, the time has come to comment here!
  
  I alluded to this episode when commenting on season four episode 'Ascension'. 'Ascension' was the last episode about the wormhole aliens and also the first glimpse of the prophets. 'Rapture' to me is where the wheels come off this particular story arc and we are fed superstitious nonsense instead of science fiction.
  
  Early on in the series the Bajorans religious beliefs are portrayed realistically. The reasons behind those beliefs are realistic and clever (i.e. they believe in prophets that are actually just non-corporeal aliens living inside a wormhole adjacent to Bajor. These aliens had, up until this point, no idea about corporeal matters least of all the Bajorans). That is clever and you can make clever stories to illustrate the differences between religious fanatics and pure science/scientists just like in the episode 'In the Hands of the Prophets' between Vedek Winn and Keiko. What happens in this episode and hereafter flies completely in the face of all of that and tells us that actually the wormhole aliens DO take an interest in Bajor and they ARE in fact the Prophets. Gene would truly be rolling in his grave. Oh, and I'm not exactly a total lover of Roddenberry philosophy by the way. In fact I think many aspects of the various series' were allowed to become far more realistic and less idealistic and preachy once the great man had passed away.
  
  Sisko loses respect too as a result of all this nonsense, although Avery Brooks is acting his behind off throughout so tip of the hat there. Kai Winn is excellent in this episode as always too. Ultimately it is all an act of futility because I agree with the last commentator, this episode can only ever receive zero from me.
  
  0/10
  
  
• From MJ on 2011-07-23 at 5:17pm:
  I agree with other comments here, for the most part. I've never been a fan of DS9's Prophet/Wormhole story arc, and I think it goes against the Star Trek tradition. But one thing I did like about this episode was its portrayal of Kai Wynn. Throughout the series, she's incredibly manipulative, calculating and arrogant. For this episode, though, we get something a little more complicated. Wynn's remarks to Kira about courage and faith as means to resist Cardassian occupation made for a very nice moment, and her efforts to help Sisko with his visions actually seemed genuine instead of obviously selfish. Her conversation with Kira at the end about not having certainly anymore was also solidly done. It was probably the only episode where I didn't cringe when Wynn had something to say. And Brooks did a great job acting here...not overly dramatic.
  
  Still, the episode retreated into the New Age mysticism that is DS9's trademark and worst contribution to the Star Trek series. Fortunately, we get enough great episodes dealing with other story arcs like the Maquis, the Dominion Wars, and relationships between characters to more than compensate for this.
• From RodimusBen on 2011-10-30 at 3:48pm:
  The reason this episode is a favorite of mine is precisely the reason others seem to hate it-- it brings the spiritual aspect of Deep Space Nine to the forefront. Spiritualism is one of the reasons that DS9 is the best Trek series. It doesn't ignore this essential part of the human experience, but embraces it and shows how science and religion can coexist in the same worldview.
  
  Everything that happens in this episode can be explained through the information we've been given (or will be given in later seasons) about Sisko and the Prophets. If you choose to see it from a scientific perspective, that's fine. If you see it as an allegory for human spirituality and our own religious faith, then you can do that too. The most poignant moment of the episode is in ops, when all the regulars are talking about Sisko's situation. Worf and Kira, people of faith, "get it." Dax and O'Brien don't. And that dichotomy between the faithful and the faithless is about as close to a universal truism as Star Trek gets.
• From Wes on 2012-04-03 at 1:49pm:
  My absolute favorite Star Trek uniforms!
  
  I also like this episode quite a bit. The symbolic prophecy is pretty awesome and chilling when we get to the end of this season and beginning of next season.
  
  DS9's spirituality has validated the spirituality of any Star Trek character who was spiritual. Before DS9, they were almost depicted as silly for their beliefs.
• From Lee on 2012-04-08 at 11:28am:
  I neither hate nor love this episode. I don't think it "violates" the true spirit of Star Trek, since it IS Star Trek, and as such it has rewritten this spirit, at least in DS9. (I hope this sentence makes sense)
  
  TNG was anti-religious, VOY was anti-religious too, but didn't make such a huge "foofaraw" around it and DS9 was spiritual and religious. I don't have a problem with that.
  
  Don't get me wrong, I don't like the prophets, pah-wraiths and the Bajorans either. But I accept it as part of the storyline and as long as it creates suspense I like it. I don't rate this episode bad, because it's an exciting and moving episode.
  
  I don't get it when people try to impose their view of "true Star Trek" on some episodes. I also like the much-hated series Enterprise so far, although it wasted a lot of potential. But it's a part of Star Trek, whether you like it or not.
• From Selador on 2013-06-03 at 10:37pm:
  That's a pretty big spoiler right there Phillip Watson, cheers for that.
  
  The problem with this episode is similar to the one with BSG. I'm not giving it a 0 since it was exciting and had some really good scenes, Sisko's descriptions were at times pretty poetic, but mainly because I choose to believe that a rational explanation for Sisko's visions can be found within the episode. They're not gods that are revealing these things to him, they're wormhole aliens: surely gods wouldn't need to mess with brain polarity or whatever.
  
  I reckon that Winn is not as evil as she seems, she's misunderstood.
• From Dstyle on 2013-11-17 at 5:39pm:
  Did anyone else wish they could move Sisko's communicator? He seems to be the only one who can't figure out where it goes on the new uniform.
  
  I have a lot of thoughts about this episode, but before I get into them, I want to express my extreme disappointment in this site right now re: spoilers. I'm watching DS9 for the first time, and for the most part I've enjoyed coming on this site after each episode to read other people's reactions and share my own if I have any I feel are worth sharing. I've come across the occasional spoiler and just soldiered on, but I think the comments on this episode are the last straw. Specifically, the comment by Phillip Watson, which seems to casually give away what I can only assume is a major spoiler (based on the downthread reaction by Selador) to make some minor observation about the new uniforms. What annoys me most is that this spoiler has been sitting there in the comments since 2009 and the site administrator hasn't done anything about it. There are all kinds of things that can be done to hide spoilers while preserving the original comment, and I think those sorts of things need to be done if this site is going to be a place where all fans--new and old alike--can come together to discuss the episode. Fans who are rewatching the series need to respect the experience of those viewing it for the first time, and the site administrator should do whatever he can to make this site usable for first time viewers. After this I'm probably going to stop coming here after each DS9 episode, which I'm a little sad about.
  
  That said, I'm a bit surprised about the negative reactions to this episode. Sure, it dealt with religion and spirituality, but that has been a theme of this series from the very beginning: it's not like DS9 is suddenly betraying it's core principles or something. DS9 had to put up or shut up about the emissary, and after it seemed on the verge of shutting up last season with Accession, I was very happy to see them put up in a big way here. I obviously haven't seen this whole series so I don't know how the prophets/WHAs act in future episodes, but I don't think Sisko's prophesies necessarily mean the WHAs have suddenly taken an interest in Bajor, just that they're aware of them and what happens to them. Sisko, who obviously does care about Bajor, can act on that awareness which has apparently been bestowed upon him as well.
  
  And the new uniforms are better than the old uniforms, in my opinion. The old uniforms just looked like pajamas to me.
• From Mike on 2016-11-02 at 2:01am:
  A lot of reviews here have already discussed the religious/spiritual side of DS9. My comment is geared more toward the "spoiler" issue.
  
  DS9 had been around about 10 years when reviews started popping up here, and by now, it's been almost 20. I understand a new generation of fans is watching the show for the first time. But given that the show is reviewed and analyzed in every corner of the internet dealing with Star Trek, it's reasonable for long-time fans to discuss details about the entire show without having to worry about "spoilers".
  
  The Bashir changeling/uniform problem that Philip Watson mentions is also mentioned on many other sites and is one of the things fans discuss whenever the DS9 timeline comes up. Rather than expect people to tiptoe around these potential spoilers, a first-time viewer should just watch the show and then browse the internet for reviews and forums later on.
• From ST on 2017-04-22 at 7:17am:
  I kind of liked how the religious experiences weren't just Sisko being granted special powers. Whatever alien technology was affecting him, it didn't discriminate. The process would have killed him, even when the believers thought he would have lived. So though others here think the episode was mindlessly accepting about religion, it was actually kind of critical at the same time without rubbing it in your face. What if your religion did revolve around alien technology so that it actually appeared to work? Wouldn't that have its ups and its downsides?
  That's kind of what I like about DS9 in particular--the clash of cultures and beliefs is so much richer in DS9 than it is in other Trek series. There's no naivete about culture: no finding the secret supercomputer, destroying it, then having the residents up and abandon thousands of years worth of culture as if it were nothing.
  
• From Armsauce on 2017-05-30 at 10:07pm:
  I find it really hard to rationalize Sisko's behavior in this one. He seems really out of character even taking the visions into account.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-10-24 at 3:40am:
  Another miss? Hardly. This episode not only provided a wonderful insight into Neelix's character, but also provided a refreshing counterbalance for Star Trek's usual cynical atheist episodes. Regardless of your personal beliefs, it gets a little tiring to see episode after episode painting religion as either evil (Distant Origin) or as a creation of ignorance and fools (Who watches the Watchers). I like that Star Trek gives religion a little credibility with a character like Chakotay, and now with Neelix. It makes the show as a whole seem less judgemental. Even the great Gene Roddenberry didn't know for sure what happens after death, and it's extremely arrogant to assert that anyone does.
  
  I love to see that in the Star Trek world, there are still those who hold strictly scientific views of life and death, those that hold strictly religious views, and those who are struggling to find out where they stand.
  
  This episode is a good 'Star Trekkish' episode in my opinion, and really provides excellent character development all around for the crew. Certainly not a 2.
• From David from California on 2007-10-31 at 5:08pm:
  Prehaps interestingly, as an atheist I come from the complete opposite position as the previous commento philosophically--yet we both very much liked this episode, perhaps against the consensus of the large majority of Star Trek fans?
  
  While watching, I supported Neelix's questioning of his supernatural beliefs, no matter what would have prompted it. Sure, I prefer for any story to come down more favorably on the side of rejecting religion, but I wasn't bothered here because the logic of the events of the story did not support religion necessarily. That just would not be Star Trek, thank god.
  
  Rather, it was simply the character of Chakotay who endorses religion, and I wouldn't have it any other way because then it wouldn't be Chakotay! His religious mysticism is a key part of his character, and it doesn't offend this particulary atheist, even as I'd believe if he were real that he'd be misguided in those beliefs to the extent he takes them seriously rather than just respecting his cultural traditions. As written on the whole, he's a good and brave man no matter his beliefs, and that's why I like him and I'm not bothered by the religious aspect.
  
  As to why I liked the episode enough to comment here--it was the central plot conflict of Neelix having to choose between embracing life's values or killing himself due to the widespread false choice in people's minds between believing in the supernatural vs. being some kind of amoral nihilist.
  
  Neelix faced this false alternative--which apparently survives alive and well into the future according to Star Trek, unfortunately--and in the end doesn't really appear to be choosing to live out of some "strengthening of faith" as Chakotay admonishes, but rather by being reminded of the *secular* values he can enjoy in this life: the friendship and the respect of Seven and others, having a purpose on board Voyager, watching Naomi grow up, and so on.
  
  Well, as he stood there on the transporter and started to see this way of valuing his own life for what it can offer him--no matter the questions of religion--rejecting the idea that nihilism is the only alternative to it as his subconscious had told him it was in his vision-quest, and choosing to live for those reasons--well I was just in tears over this emotional resolution to the story, frankly. I thought it was very moving.
  
  So whether one's an atheist or religious viewer, I think this little character episode has a lot to offer people who like seeing these matters treated well in a drama. Ok, it's not a high-stakes, high-concept episode, but a very good quieter one, IMO. I rated it a 7/10.
• From Tony on 2008-09-23 at 3:13am:
  To provide more of a neutural between the last two comments. I actually felt that this episode attacked religion more than any other episode I've seen except "Distant Origin," in that Neelix didn't go to his heaven. Overall Star Trek makes it a point to neither support nor regect religion, just by watching this one, "Barge of the Dead," "Sacred Ground," or any other religion based episode, you can see that they never truely say whether it's real or not. This suports the very real fact that religion cannot be proven or disproven by science. I must add, however, that this particular episode in and of itself was mediocre.
• From Tony on 2008-09-26 at 4:04pm:
  I feel the need to clarify part of what I said in my last comment. The sentence "I actually felt that this episode attacked religion more than any other episode I've seen except 'Distant Origin,' in that Neelix didn't go to his heaven," was poorly written in that while this episode attacks religion to some extent in a general sense, "Distant Origin" attacks only religious extremism, specifically that of creationism.
• From Scott on 2008-11-10 at 6:52pm:
  Harsh review i have to say, I havent seen this sort of episode done before on Star Trek before, although im not saying there isnt one. I thought it was very refreshing to have someone die, come back to life and feel hollow because the death was not as it had been made up to be for all of Neelix's life. If anything spoiled it for me it was Chakotay's akoochemoya crap trying to help neelix find some answers using his vision quest. I was glad neelix wasnt swayed by chakotay initally but the ending was good and it was good to see the wildman child feeling safe with neelix around. Awesome neelix episode.
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-16 at 11:28am:
  3/10
  
  This episode almost gave us our long awaited opportunity to be rid of a character almost as annoying as Lwaxana Troi. Alas it was not to be.
• From onlinebroker on 2012-04-02 at 2:09pm:
  Talifer, how can you hate Lwaxana, she's awesome and the reactions of the crews to her are very funny. Plus her voice is in almost every star trek episode, does that ruin everything for you?
  Anyway, I found this episode extremely puzzling. Why would Neelix try to kill himself when he discovers there's nothing after death? Discovering that should make him want to avoid death even more, since he now knows there is nothing else!
• From TheAnt on 2013-10-11 at 5:28pm:
  
  Even though I have to agree that ST is best when it stay away from religion of any kind, it do not completely ruin this episode.
  
  Remarkable scenes in my book is Sevens comment that the 'Cadaver have been sufficiently prepared.'
  The doc replies: 'And some say I have a lousy bedside manner.'
  And I just did love Seven as a party crasher. No I will not quote her, see it for yourself. :)
  
  My personal reason for not giving it a higher score is the lack of continuity - seven present a means to resurrect a person from recent death - but we have other crew members die after this episode without any attempt to bring them back.
  
  Neelix ancestor faith also happen to be a sympathic one IMO, and so it is a story on how to find a new meaning to life.
  Here Neelix search for a new crutch is both sad and a bit scary, yet fully believable.
  In reality it is a process that often take a person many years to rid themselves of the programming. (Though we here OFC get it presented in rather condensed form.)
  Yet even despite the bad trip Neelix get in the vision quest which give him the final push to suicide, Chakotay and the message from Samatha Wildman provide the answer and meaning - that we're here for each other to help, support and make other people happy.
  "It is the way you make people feel when you are around!"
  And that is a reason much better than any false promise of heaven than all made up religions ever will be able to give us!
• From L on 2013-12-27 at 9:18am:
  Quite a touching episode really, and a fine way to look at what can still be a taboo-ish subject - the obvious fantasy of afterlife beliefs and what it means to throw off a thing that has kept one in a comforting illusion. Never an easy thing.
  Also it looked at, as pointed out above, the false-dichotomy that people think they have to succumb to - if no heaven (or god or religion), then life is meaningless. What an absurd, illogical conclusion! Glad he saw through that one.
  
  I can't fathom how looking at a thing honestly to examine its true nature can be seen as an 'attack' on religion or something that Star Trek should not do.
  Surely it's a self-evident truth.
  
  It's an examination of the fairy tales we still allow ourselves to hold as adults and how that can leave us hurting even more when we need to deal with reality suddenly.
  
  The little girl dreaming of Neelix's heaven was a way of affirming the true value of such beliefs - it's nice to imagine nice things. For her it was a story that took her mind to a nice place, not an expectation about reality that would inevitably fail her.
• From Rick on 2017-05-06 at 3:25am:
  A generally good episode but I take serious issue with the Doctor's reaction (and opposition) to Seven's idea to revive Neelix. What is the Doctor's issue with reviving someone back to life? He has revived numerous people that less advanced cultures would consider dead. His reaction does not seem to be vanity (i.e. that he is being upstaged by Seven's knowledge), but rather one of horror at the fact of reviving someone after 18 hours. Why? Seems pretty anti-Star Trek to be against new technology just because you dont understand it. What would the Doctor's reaction be to trying to cure an alien of something easily curable for him, but something that the alien's culture deemed as automatic death? Im sure it would be horror and a demand to treat the individual over the objection of others.
• From tigertooth on 2017-05-13 at 4:21am:
  Is it just me, or is there more discussion of the portrayal of religion in Distant Origin in this thread than there is in the thread for Distant Origin?
  
  Anyway, I never saw Distant Origin as being anti-religious. I saw it more as anti-anti-science. Religion doesn't have to be anti-science, so it never occurred to me to take Distant Origin as anti-religion.
  
  This episode was closer to being anti-religion, but I found Neelix's struggle with doubt (a common struggle with religious people) to be touching. But it wasn't a fully formed story.
  
  I felt like there was going to be a deus ex machina where there were aliens in the nebula affecting Neelix, but they didn't go there. I'm not sure, but I think the episode was better for staying away from that. But still, there was something missing. Poignant, but not truly satisfying.
• From Scott on 2018-10-09 at 1:49am:
  While I generally rely on Kethinov's reviews to help me decide which episodes to watch, I've learned to be careful when the reason for a poor review is its religious content. As a reviewer he has a point of view (or perhaps a bias) that is significantly different from my own. I tend to drill down into the viewer comments on any of those episodes before deciding whether to watch.
  
  I applaud Star Trek for not trying to make the people of the future all of one opinion or the other and vehemently deny that Star Trek is fundamentally anti-religious (even if it is often skeptical.)
  
  I gave the episode a 6, largely for the interplay between the world views of Seven, Neelix and Chakotay.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Jakob M. Mokoru on 2008-11-12 at 11:15am:
  "Why has Star Trek been consistently delivering poor season finales for the last few years?"
  Hmm, maybe because Rick Berman and/or Brannon Braga wrote them?
  
• From Pete on 2011-01-11 at 1:54am:
  Yes, yes, and yes. Your review hit the nail on the head. Bermaga just cannot help themselves.
  
  Because what would make a fitting endcap to the Xindi arc? Oh of course, silly me--World War II!
  
  They have to remind you who the showrunners are every now and then.
• From Lee on 2012-04-11 at 9:10am:
  I actually feel the same way!
  I was really excited about the Xindi story arc and it got better and better! I even loved the final solution! But then, the last two minutes of the episode just suck so hard, that it kinda destroyed the whole feeling of season 3. If they only let out this stupid cliffhanger! I had to recover from the shock almost a week before watching the two-parter (!) with Alien Nazis.
  
• From Dstyle on 2015-10-23 at 2:13pm:
  Okay, this ending. It needs to be reckoned with.
  
  I'm actually not too upset that they keep the Temporal Cold War alive a little longer, because, honestly, they still have a bunch of loose ends that haven't been tied up. A couple episodes back, when they pulled one of the Sphere-builders out of that anomoly, my first reaction was, "Oh yeah, the Suliban!" because hey, remember the Suliban? And their mysterious future shadow person, who could only communicate through time? I don't care if it's not tidy, just wrap that storyline up for us so we can move on.
  
  So I can't fault them for keeping the Temporal Cold War going, at least for a couple more episodes. The problem, of course, is the fact that they decided to do it with some damn Nazis. I have thoughts on that, but I'll save them for my comments on the season 4 two-part opener, which I just finished watching. Seriously: Nazis. C'mon, Trek.
• From Zorak on 2016-10-13 at 2:58pm:
  I agree with you about the ending, but not much else. I don't even know what led to the ending because I was so bored by the episode, I stopped giving it my full attention. As far as I'm concerned, this was 45 minutes of Archer running down a hallway while a fireball chased him interrupted on occasion by people having fistfights, grandstanding "we're not gonna let you do thing" one liners, and explosions.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-12-31 at 4:11am:
  Although this was an overall great episode, there were a lot of little things that bothered me.
  
  1. Another ship landing!? This is unbelievable, even for Janeway.
  2. Seven of Nine opening that stasis chamber! What is she, a n00b? I mean I get it with her Borg guilt crap, but I'm not convinced that anyone would do that without clearing it with the captain. What an idiotic thing to do. She should have been formally disciplined.
  3. Why did Janeway get in that alliance with a species she had known for about 2 hours? Even I could tell that they weren't trustworthy right off, and I'm no Starfleet captain. This is what the Prime Directive is for. Both Seven of Nine and Janeway are directly responsible if that race were to rise to power again.
  
  I realize that these are picky things, but the writers really disrespect the fans to make these ridiculous things happen. If Janeway was in the alpha quadrant doing this shit, she would be demoted immediately imho.
• From Steve Mohns on 2010-08-05 at 5:49pm:
  This could have been an excellent episode. The idea is pretty original and clever. It certainly didn't lack for action and excitement. But there were several glaring annoyances in the plot that had me shaking my head. Why would the Vaadwaur on the bridge so easily accept the planned destruction of his race by Janeway? I could understand if he were pacifistic and had chosen not to help his race take over the Enterprise, but to head back down to the planet to give his life to help Voyageur target his people's ships was difficult to believe.
  Also, Janeway eases 7's guilt by telling her that she might have done the same thing. The real problem was not that 7 wanted to revive the Vaadwaurian, but that she just did it unilaterally. Surely that wasn't her decision to make. She should have had that pointed out to her by Janeway at the end of the episode at minimum as a moral lesson.
  A potentially fine episode marred by poor writing choices.
• From spline on 2014-02-03 at 10:58am:
  Agree with the others, could have been much better, but I really hate it when otherwise smart characters act stupidly, and this episode was full of that kind of writing.
  
  On an amusing note, after Tuvok leaves Gedrin to target the fighters on the planet (with the chamber collapsing around them), Tuvok is never mentioned again! Voyager just goes to warp without him being beamed up or anything.
  
  After the cut, even better, Janeway's voiceover says, "...however, Seven of Nine has made an unsettling discovery." I wanted the scene to be Seven saying, "Captain, I believe we have left Tuvok behind." "Oh well, he will adapt." *chuckles all around* *freeze frame on smiles* *roll credits*
• From Dstyle on 2015-07-21 at 1:58pm:
  Janeway: "I don't know if the Vaadwaur can be trusted. What I wouldn't give to have a Betazoid on board!"
  Chakotay: "You mean like Ensign Jarot?"
  Janeway: "Huh?"
  Chakotay: "Ensign Jarot. Back in the episode with the Devore she was one of the telepathic crew members we had to hide in the transporter buffers during the Devore inspections."
  Janeway: "Oh yeah. What ever happened to her?"
  Chakotay: (shrugs) "You got me. I guess she died?"
  Janeway: "Yeah, guess so. Shame, there have been SO MANY instances where having a Betazoid on the bridge would have been really helpful."
  Chakotay: "Yeah, we sure underutilized her, didn't we?"
• From Dstyle on 2015-07-22 at 6:55pm:
  I also couldn't help notice that these Delta Quadrant aliens who have been in stasis for almost 900 years are rocking some very 90s shoulder pads. That's very fashion forward of you, Vaadwaur!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bernard on 2009-12-06 at 10:57pm:
  Why? Why, oh why did I just subject myself to this episode again?
  
  Truly horrendous.
  
  Yes there are good moments for a couple of the characters, but we've already established that Kira doesn't like being on the opposite side to the 'little guy' in Past Prologue so we don't really gain anything from it that we havn't already seen. The B plot has nothing to do with the A plot and it is also mundane.
  
  Low point of the season surely.... though I've just seen what is next.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From GDorn on 2012-01-13 at 8:12am:
  I found it hard to believe that sickbay isn't stocked with quarantine suits compatible with medical equipment.
• From krs312 on 2012-10-29 at 3:15pm:
  Definitely should have been Q. My wife thought they were until I told her. Almost seems like the episode was written that way but someone changed it to be Organians so they could reference TOS.
• From Rick on 2014-04-08 at 1:19am:
  Why didnt any species in the last 800 years leave a warning beacon about the virus?
• From Mike Chambers on 2014-07-15 at 6:57am:
  When Hoshi broke out... WHY would there even be ANY way to unlock the quarantine chamber from the inside??

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From rhea on 2008-04-27 at 10:07pm:
  True, in a lot of ways it is The Doomsday Machine II, but on the level of character interaction, we still learn something new. The captain is (all too briefly) in captain mode, deciding which of his friends to send to death. The inability of McCoy to wish Spock luck but being worried nonetheless is quite telling, more clearly defining their love-hate-relationship. Spock is remarkable in his stoic expectation of death. What annoyed me was that it was again Kirk who saved the Enterprise with the idea of the antibody and the antimatter bomb, when clearly Spock had the same idea before (but was unable to communicate it). Why not once give the credit to him?
• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2010-06-07 at 2:09am:
  I just watched the Blu-Ray version and I thought they did a great job with the new visuals. They didn't do a complete redesign of the organism; they just show more detail. That's a good thing.
  
  As far as my overall opinion of this episode, I'd say it's a good one. There's a lot of tension and drama. Spock embarks on a dangerous mission, Kirk has to make tough decisions, Scotty's having troubles with the ship, etc. I think we see real suffering with the crew, as opposed to manufactured suffering.
• From Glenn239 on 2012-09-27 at 1:10pm:
  A solid drama-based episode that is in the top 1/3rd. That it was a rehash of the Doomsday Machine speaks for it, not against it. Star Trek repacked everything and I'd rather it reprise its great moments than its weak ones. I find much of what is called 'character building' in the series to be exercises in piling onto pre-existing cliques. I'm much more interested in a story establishing an interesting premise to which the crew responds - like this one does – and then examining the relationships between each member along the way, only as is necessary to resolve the problem. Yes, we get it. McCoy backbites Spock every chance he gets and Kirk and Spock are secretly in love or whatever. Now, can we please go phaser the Klingons? That’s why this episode is a ‘9’; good premise, good resolution, and good character interaction along the way.
• From Chris on 2018-08-15 at 5:22am:
  What I hate about this episode is...
  - When they clearly went into the 'dark zone' and Kirk is mystified as to where the stars went! What????
  - McCoy might have survived if he'd been wearing a helmet and a seatbelt!
  - Spock's clearly smug attitude towards McCoy about superior whatever... abilities...
  
  I do think that Kirk just took a key from Spock's last transmission and figured out what he was trying to say. I don't think he came up with it on his own.
  
  I liked the McCoy-Spock interactions and thought that part was excellently done! ... for the most part.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From TashaFan on 2008-09-19 at 1:46am:
  Another thing I noticed about this is how at the very end Spock shows up with one Redshirt(tm) and one quick phaser shot destroys the computer that was creating the artificial women. (Although it continues to spin in crazy patterns, just more slowly). An awfully quick solution so the danger certainly seems to have been manufactured and then conveniently disposed of once it's time to end the episode, I quite agree. So here's another supercomputer destroyed. But shouldn't Kirk have argued it to death?
• From Arianwen on 2010-09-01 at 10:45pm:
  Another remarkable scene - or rather sequence - from this episode: Scotty's time in the crawlway. The tension it generates is palpable and the final moments, when he's panicking over the magnetic probe ("it's stuck!") are pure gold. It feels very real; on the whole, a great episode for Scotty.
  
  Also good to see a female goldshirt actually being efficient on the flight-deck, and doing her job, her whole job and nothing but her job. (With a little bit of panicking to keep the crew company.)
• From Strider on 2012-07-01 at 4:48am:
  I was also very excited to see the female navigator! That actor was also one of the Native American women from "The Paradise Syndrome." While she was portrayed as a competent helmsman, you could also see that she was new to bridge duty and probably to working with Spock, because she makes a few mistakes that a person used to this dirty wouldn't have made. Though it's true tat ST has a mixed record in portraying women, I found these details to be realistic and not necessarily based on Radha's gender.
  
  
  I liked how big a role D'Amato played before his (inevitable) death--he really seemed to fit into the landing party, like he'd been with them before. And he got to offer some real expertise in his field, as well. Unlike all the doomed redshirts, I was sorry to see D'Amato go. He'd have been a good addition to the supporting cast. The actor who played him, Arthur Batanides, became a very accomplished television actor.
  
  Spock is awfully "Spocky" in this episode, isn't he? None of the irritated humor of "The Mark of Gideon," and none of the stress we usually see when he's worried about Kirk. However, it's my observation that the more deeply Spock feels emotions, the more Vulcan he becomes in response. Also, in this episode, he has what's essentially a science problem to solve, and that's what he's best at.
  
  Lots of good Scotty scenes in this episode as well. I loved when Scotty had just saved the ship against all odds (again) and Spock starts lecturing him on humans' need for gratitude, and Scotty just collapses in the crawlway in relief.
  
  Otherwise this episode's plot is weak, and the disco ball/cube computer corny. And I wanted Spock to tell Kirk, "Dude, we got the Enterprise up to warp 14.1! It was AWESOME!"
• From Alan Feldman on 2014-03-27 at 2:07am:
  "THAT WHICH SURVIVES"
  
  A solar hour is 1/24th of a solar day. A solar day is how long it takes the earth to rotate once relative to the sun. (Note that a sidereal day is how long it takes for the earth to rotate once relative to the fixed stars, which is about 23h56m. Since the earth has moved about 1 degree in its orbit over that time, the sun appears in a different place, and it takes about 4 extra minutes for the earth to rotate that additional degree.)
  
  So a solar day is 24 hours long.
  
  On a starship carrying humans it makes sense to emulate 24-hour days. In "The Conscience of the King" Kirk even says that's what they do. Hence, solar days on Star Trek.
  
  I like the scene where Scotty saves the ship. But why doesn't Spock say thank you? He says that in other episodes. Anyway, it works here, so that's good.
  
  Yeah, lame episode. What's the point of custom killer women who all look exactly the same? And the light-show computer? Bizarre.
  
  What's with that additional piece of Miss America's costume covering up her belly button? Looks silly. It's purpose is just so blatantly obvious. Didn't we see Nichelle Nichols' navel in "Mirror, Mirror"? And Nancy Kovack's (Nona) in "A Private Little War"?
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
  
  
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-05-06 at 5:38pm:
  Why didn't she have to say "I'm for you transporter room guy"?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Chris Wright on 2011-11-29 at 3:46am:
  I liked this episode a lot, but it would have been nice if mirror universe Worf had confronted Sisko face to face. I also see this episode showing us how incredibly powerful the Defiant is. If the Federation can make one it can makes thousands and never worry about the Klingons or the Dominion. Loved the Bashir-as-Han Solo-you're all clear kid-moment.
• From L on 2013-05-27 at 10:21am:
  I missed the episode that set all this up due to a scratched library dvd. So in the alternate universe everyone's a jerk and inappropriately sexual? Got it.
• From McCoy on 2017-01-21 at 12:32pm:
  Well, that was a horrible episode. I really like DS9 more than other series (exept TOS - this one is my fav), but all the mirror episodes are just bad. However I like one moment in this episode - Worf: "Make it so!".
• From Armsauce on 2018-07-15 at 7:05pm:
  Mirror Nog is great

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Remco on 2009-02-12 at 2:54am:
  Damn, this is a scary thing for Star Trek to do. Janeway kills an innocent life form. I really like Tuvok and Neelix, but Janeway's act of involuntary euthanasia to improve the situation of two other people is just morally wrong. It brings to mind some Nazi imagery. They systematically killed elderly and handicapped. For the good of the country, they argued.
  
  I wouldn't be too disturbed about this if Star Trek wasn't always about an almost perfect world, certainly where Starfleet is involved. This final decision is something you'd expect to happen in Battlestar Galactica, not in the highly moral world of Star Trek.
  
  So, while this was an excellent episode emotionally, I have to question what the creators think of the moral issue. Do they think forced euthanasia is somehow justified in certain circumstances?
  
  Maybe it's more acceptable to people who support the death sentence, which I don't. But hey, we're all biased.
  
  Hard to rate, this one.
• From JRPoole on 2009-03-24 at 4:04am:
  Wow. If I'd known ahead of time that this episode was about a transporter accident fusing Neelix and Tuvok, I may have skipped it because it has all the makings of a really bad episode. As soon as Tuvix appeared on the platform, I was ready to give this one a zero.
  
  However, they pulled it off. I like this episode precisely because the ending is uncomfortable. There really isn't a right decision here, and Janeway, to her credit, made a very hard choice. It's all too often that Trek is too moral for its own good, and it's nice to see an episode that presents a moral decision as a real challenge, not something that seems obvious from the beginning.
  
  The only real quibble I have here is that there's no time to get Tuvok and Neelix's reactions to the incident. Nice work all around-especially by Kate Mulgrew, who acts this one perfectly--and definitely one of the best Voyager outings so far.
• From Mark McC on 2009-06-06 at 11:12pm:
  Having seen the synopsis before watching this episode, I was prepared for a lighthearted affair. Boy, was I wrong!
  
  I disagree on the portrayal of the Tuvix character. I was expecting him to be a conflicting mixture of the two personalities but the combination of Tuvok's cool logic and subtle humour and Neelix's over-the-top emotional outbursts and irrating cheerfulness seem to have cancelled each other out. Tuvix to me was a bland character with little personality and no appeal.
  
  I'm not sure what to think of Janeway's decision at the end. I may be wrong, but haven't we seen transporters being used to duplicate material before now (I'm thinking of duplicate Riker here) ?
  
  If so, surely they could have found a way to restore Neelix and Tuvok while keeping Tuvix. Tuvix certainly didn't contain every molecule of both Neelix and Tuvok's bodies (he was definitely shorter than Tuvok) so the transporter must have had to replicate their bodies using Tuvix's DNA as a starting point. Why would this need to be a destructive process at all?
• From siukong on 2010-08-09 at 7:38am:
  Most of the time in Star Trek I'm willing to suspend my disbelief when it comes to other species being virtually identical to humans. In this case I can't really let it slide though. I tell myself that if I'm accepting teleportation I should accept anything, but as someone with a biological background I just can't. Hybrids just don't work that way.
  
  The writers would have us believe that Vulcans and Talaxians - two species separated by thousands of light years - are so anatomically similar that something like this could happen with absolutely no complications. Which brings me to the second reason I dislike this episode: Janeway's final decision. If some sort of organ incompatibility was forcing her to bring back Tuvok and Neelix it would make sense, but as it stands I don't get it. It makes Janeway out to be very inconsistent. She apparently finds things like suicide and capital punishment to be abhorrent, but not this? This feels very out of place in context with the values espoused in the rest of Star Trek.
• From penguinphysics on 2010-11-07 at 5:51am:
  Just one question: How many lungs did Tuvix have and how many did Neelix have when they were separated?
• From Pete on 2012-01-31 at 11:18am:
  To siukong, did you ever see the ST: TNG episode "The Chase"? It basically makes it canon that all humanoid races in the galaxy are created from the same stuff and was populated by an "elder race." TOS' "Return to Tomorrow" also kinda hinted at this. On this basis, it's not that difficult to accept that such a merger as Tuvix could occur.
  
  I see your point, though.
• From peterwolf on 2015-06-26 at 3:04am:
  THe whole story is ambiguous and comes to an inevitable end, in which both Tuvok and Neelix have to be restored. Something is wrong 9n the storyline. It seems that both Neelix and Tuvok have become quite weak and even cowardish when to decide to split or not to split. Certainly, it was the wrong approach for the story that janeway akes the tough decisions. It would have been much better, if Tuvix had decide on its own to split in the two persons again. Thus, Janeway showed no strength but mercilessness, which leaves just bad feelings afzer the episode. Wasted opportunities.
• From Rick on 2017-04-28 at 12:34am:
  "In this episode, Janeway blatantly breaks the Prime Directive when she murders Tuvix."
  
  What? What does this action have to do with the Prime Directive? And please dont try to say that Tuvix is a new species and blah blah blah. This isnt related to the Prime Directive.
• From Mike on 2017-07-04 at 1:42am:
  This episode has an interesting parallel with DS9: Facets, when Odo and Curzon Dax decide they prefer to remain a single being. OF course, the main difference is that they are ultimately convinced to separate again, whereas "Tuvix" is separated involuntarily. But the fundamental problem remains: whose decision is it, really? Does the hybrid being have the right to continue to exist when the two beings that are part of the hybrid never had the intention of making the union permanent?
  
  All the talk about murder and the ridiculous Nazi comparisons made above are pretty much out of line to me. Janeway was making a very tough call, and I love how the episode leaves you conflicted and not at all morally satisfied at the end. Judge all you want, but it was a difficult decision. Had Janeway agreed to allow Tuvix to remain, she'd have been overriding the desires of two people, neither of whom entered this arrangement voluntarily and certainly would have preferred to continue living their own lives.
• From Martin on 2020-01-22 at 2:55am:
  Loved the episode
  Just one ditail: transporters can copy a patter and replicate it. We've seen that sort of thing in TNG episode where Ricker is splitted in to two identical people
  what about copying Tuvix's pattern, separate it and bringing both tuvok and neelix, but also keeping tuvix life? 3 people could've been saved, not only one or two, exclusively
  i'm i wrong here ?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bernard on 2009-12-31 at 4:07pm:
  Quite a sweet episode, everything seems to tuck into place neatly by the end. Marvelous performances by both Rene Auberjonois and Majel Barrett Roddenberry ultimately carry this episode to it's decent score from me, a 7.
• From Fan on 2011-08-12 at 6:38am:
  I was going to whine a little about how Odo being contained in the folds of Lwaxana's dress was unrealistic, but I figured it out - her dress would just have to be made out of some kind of non-porous or micro-porous material, and the whole matter would've had to have been kind of sloppy (which would actually add to the story some, because it works even better as a kind of double entendre for something else that's messy and private and involves trust and vulnerability, and also makes the whole event even more significant for Odo, with Lwaxana's active efforts saving his life).
  
  Maybe some of this should've been hinted at in the actual episode instead of just having that shot of Odo melting into the folds of her dress?
  
  Anyway, this episode was quite good. There was a lot of good humor, as the review suggests. Odo's facial expressions and body language in the elevator is priceless. O'Brian's plan to adopt the non-biological lifeform by creating a stimulating "doghouse" program - that was pretty great too. Oh yah, Bashir getting the commendations at the end from the "Ambassadors of Unhappiness" - also good
• From Abigail on 2019-08-30 at 10:19pm:
  I actually thought this episode was really boring. The Lwaxana/Odo interaction was somewhat entertaining, and we got some good backstory about Odo, but that was about 5 worthwhile minutes out of a 45-minute, generally dull and pointless, episode.
  
  I do seem to be in the minority with this opinion, though, it appears!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Abigail on 2008-12-26 at 3:58am:
  Maybe time travel isn't really supposed to make sense, but I never got a good explanation out of this episode for how the 8-year-old Molly and the 18-year-old Molly could end up in the portal simultaneously. If it was just because the 18-year-old was sent back a few moments after the 8-year-old arrived, that's not really a good enough explanation. If they had sent her back four years later, would she have found 12-year-old Molly?
  
  Also, it disturbed me that Keiko and Miles were even willing to send the 18-year-old back. I didn't see that as the best option. However, since she ended up finding her younger self, it was still a satisfactory ending (minus the fact that I'm a little confused about how she found her younger self ...)
• From Damien Bradley on 2013-02-18 at 7:56am:
  Bah! Reset button episode. The whole time I was thinking, "they had better not get the 8 year old Molly back." ... but they did. That kind of ruined it for me. I thought it would be really cool to see how this new, 18 year old "feral" Molly would progress and re-integrate herself into society, but no, they of course found a way to magically get the original Molly back. I'm surprised you liked this episode, Eric; you mention reset buttons all the time and how annoying they can be.
• From OmicronThetaDeltaPhi on 2014-06-30 at 2:14am:
  It was an interesting episode. It was a moving episode. But one thing deeply bothers me about it: The outrageous attitude of the Federation Magistrate towards Molly.
  
  He wants to take a frightened girl away from her parents by force, and lock her up in a "special care center". Without even seeing her. Without consulting her parents. Without even having a hearing.
  
  What's the deal with that??!! Is this Star Trek, or "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"?
  
  Fans usually target episodes like "For the Uniform" and "In the Pale Moonlight" as being anti-Roddenberry. But to me, it is episodes like this one which put the biggest stain on the utopian future that Star Trek is supposed to be.
  
  
  
• From ChristopherA on 2021-04-05 at 7:55pm:
  @OmicronThetaDeltaPhi: I don’t remember it that way. The dialog is set up in such a way to make the protagonists sympathetic and the Federation official seem heartless. But actually, she is in jail for knifing someone, presumably she had a hearing but it is irrelevant since we know she is guilty, they don’t need her parents’ permission to detain her, in fact it would be inappropriate to just ignore the crime and release her to her parents. Moving her to a detention facility where she can actually get psychiatric help is actually far more helpful than just a normal prison.
  
  The works into one of Abigail’s points, that even though the narrative is designed to support the O’Brians’ belief that the only solution is to return her through the time portal, that is pretty questionable. Sure, her parents tried to help her and failed, but maybe, just maybe, a staff of experienced psychiatric expert actually COULD help her acclimate where her layman parents could not. Humans are social animals, they could at least give it a try before they commit various crimes and muck around with time travel equipment they don’t understand in order to condemn her to a life of eternal solitude.
  
  I thought the concept of the episode was worthwhile and interesting to think about, but it was kind of boring to actually watch, definitely not my favorite.
  

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Edward on 2014-09-14 at 4:41pm:
  I wouldn't mind another Nazi story if it wasn't so bad constructed:
  The aliens kill Lenin in 1916 and Russia never becomes comunist. So in 1939, instead of the USSR Hitler split Poland with, there is the same Russia that fought the Germans in World War I.
  How is that not a threat?
  
• From Dstyle on 2015-10-23 at 5:55pm:
  Daniels: "Hey, this Temporal Cold War is heating up pretty fast! Looks like Vosk has been meddling about in 20th century Earth, messing up the whole time line! He needs to be stopped!"
  Daniels' fellow Temporal Agent: "Agreed! So, should we send a ship from the 29th century to go deal with him?"
  Daniels: "Nah, I was thinking maybe Archer and the NX Enterprise."
  Temporal Agent: "Uh, Archer? The guy who is so crucial to the forming of the Federation that you're always trying to make sure he doesn't put himself in danger by going on missions himself? You're thinking you want to send him and his 22nd century star ship? The one with 'hull plating' for shielding? The one that can barely do Warp 5?"
  Daniels: "Yup, if anyone can do it, Archer can!"
  Temporal Agent: "Well, I can think of a few better candidates for this mission: people who are trained and prepared for temporal incursion, like..."
  Daniels: "Sorry, gotta run! I want it to be a surprise!" (disappears into a time tunnel or whatever)
  
  Okay, the whole premise of this double episode is absurd if you think about it for longer than 10 seconds, but I can look past that if it finally ties up this Temporal Cold War. The thing that really bothers me are the Nazis. The damn Nazis. Seriously, Enterprise? Why not just give the Nazi aliens glowing red demon eyes while you're at it? Oh, right, you did.
  
  HEY VIEWERS! THOSE RED EYE ALIENS ARE EVIL! LIKE, SERIOUSLY EVIL! LOOK, THEY'RE EVEN WEARING SWASTIKAS AND EVERYTHING! WHAT'S THAT? 'WHY AM I YELLING?' I'M NOT YELLING! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? I'M BEING SUBTLE!
  
  It's annoying, sure, but it also does the narrative a grave disservice. There's that scene where Vosk is talking to Archer about how his species has a very different view of time travel technology than the view laid out in the temporal accords: how it can be used carefully and judiciously to make improvements in the timeline and help better your civilization. It could have been an interesting and nuanced way of looking at the issue of time incursions from a different angle, but, NOPE! Dude is dressed like Hitler! Can't take any of the shit he says seriously!
  
  I mean, I suppose the implication could be that, in the wrong hands, time travel technology could lead to catastrophic outcomes (LIKE IF THE NAZIS HAD THIS TECHNOLOGY! SEE WHAT WE DID THERE?), but it would have been much better if the writers had trusted their viewers (and Archer, for that matter) to come to that realization on our own.
  
• From MJeffries on 2016-10-08 at 1:59am:
  Dstyles
  I have been reading star trek reviews and comments for some years now and never once commented myself but your fictitious conversation between Daniels and other is so hilarious that I could not resist. it made my night, good job
• From Zorak on 2016-10-15 at 3:57am:
  So at this point there is someone new running things huh? Interesting. I certainly didn't hate Enterprise up to this point. It just had so many ups and downs. Long stretches of good episodes and long stretches of bad episodes.
  
  This whole Nazi thing was definitely pretty ridiculous. It wasn't really boring though. They could have done a worse job killing off the Temporal Cold War. A decent set of episodes for getting rid of an unwanted problem.
  
  I'm with you. The whole temporal cold war was a poor decision for this series.
  
  I look forward to seeing the new direction they take things from here.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Mike on 2008-08-13 at 5:24pm:
  Re-watch the film, and pay attention to the extraordinary music and crazy direction. While there are clearly stupid/silly sides to this episode, the filmmakers of ST are still taking things VERY seriously. You can't see filmmaking this crazy outside of avant-garde filmmaking in the 1960s; not even Twilight Zone.
• From Orion on 2011-03-16 at 5:26am:
  The story could have used a few rewrites. It just jumps from situation to situation and ends up being a typical "get the ship out of danger" episode when it could have been something a whole lot deeper.
• From Deggsy on 2012-02-28 at 1:25pm:
  Was it established that this was the Great Barrier we've seen in previous episodes? I assumed that it was just a re-used shot, and that the Enterprise has slipped into a pocket of subspace similar to the Chaotic Space in the Voyager episode "The Fight", and so needed assistance to navigate out of.
  The one factor of this episode I cringed at the most was how everyone (okay, the men) fawned over the character, declaring her to be so beautiful. It's what the Jabootu website calls an Informed Attribute, where the characters tell us about it rather than show it. Diana Muldaur is a handsome woman, but you'd think these men didn't see women all the time onboard...
• From Old Fat Trekkie on 2012-02-29 at 1:28am:
  Well Deggsy, I can see you haven't made your way to "Mudd's Women" yet. In that episode the men didn't fawn, they actually drooled. And, yes, it is the same barrier – and of course, in both episodes it is quite idiotic. If it actually did exist, how could one ever see anything outside of the Milky Way? Let’s just chalk it up to less than perfect writing. But, then again, who would have ever thought at the time there would be fifteen thousand PhD theses picking the series apart, or that folks wold be doing exactly what you and I are doing right now.
  
  Keep on Trek’en,
  Old Fat Trekkie
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-04-06 at 3:56am:
  "Is There in Truth No Beauty?"
  
  Problem: If the Medusan is too ugly to look at, why are we, the audience, given any glimpse of it at all? If it doesn't make us go mad, why should it be able to make any of the characters do so?
  
  AEF, aka betaneptune
• From Stefan on 2013-04-10 at 10:35am:
  Apparently this episode was subject to "executive meddling" after shooting was done, according to the director. http://senensky.com/is-there-in-truth-no-beauty/
• From jd_juggler on 2015-03-26 at 8:51pm:
  This episode establishes that people still play tennis in the future.
  
  It also shows the rare (if no completely unprecedented) instance of Kirk being completely unsuccessful in his efforts to seduce a woman. She gave him absolutely no encouragement but he still tried to kiss her.
• From Farfle on 2016-09-02 at 4:42am:
  There were some funny moments. The first, while perhaps not intentional, I couldn't help but chuckle:
  
  1. Right after Kirk was trying to seduce her in the garden, and she was having none of it, they then find out she was blind, and immediately Kirk says "Well that makes perfect sense!"
  
  2. On the bridge right after the Ambassador inhabits Spock's body, Spock starts talking all weirdly and Bones turns to Kirk and says "That's not Spock", Spock then makes a deriding reply to him, in which Bones turns to Kirk again and says "That's Spock!" with a smile on his face.
  
  As I'm watching the whole series through, when I get to episodes like this that are original, I'm finding myself enjoying them more and more even if they do have their problems. Give me ones like this any day (as well as Spock's Brain) vs the same crappy reused stories and ideas Gene Roddenberry bludgeoned us with back in Seasons 1 and 2.
• From Peterwolf on 2020-06-26 at 8:46pm:
  Contrary to most other comments, I think that this episode is truly beautiful in many ways. The dialogues are very well written, some camera scenes are excellent like in the best art films of the 1960s, perfectly accompanied by the uncommon music and the acting is on a higher level than in most other TOS episodes. The marvellous sparkling lights suggest that the Medusan Kolos could be too beautiful and not too ugly to see him without getting mad ... Miranda is an exceptional female character, which is realized by distinct and specific relationships to four men: The unfortunate rejected lover Larry, McCoy, who admires her, Kirk, who respects her, but tries to trick her, in order to give Spock an opportunity to prepare the mind link with Kolos and Spock as rival. Miranda tells Kirk "you are a complicated man", which shows a deep understanding of Kirk's ever emerging inner conflicts throughout the whole TOS series. That much about continuity. Above all, Miranda and Spock have to solve the most serious conflict. The merged Spock-Kolos character speaks some of the most beautiful and poetic sentences in all Star Trek series. There are so true words about human nature, spoken with emotion and wisdom. Eventually, the opposing characters Spock and Miranda end up in a mutual mind-meld, which solves the conflict in a rather serious happy end. Seemingly, this episode had too little action, like starship phaser battles, but too much psychology and philosophy in it. I give 12 points or more.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Whoa Nellie on 2007-04-15 at 8:45pm:
  This episode is a perfect 10. It was marvelous to get to see the relaxed, off-duty Jean-Luc Picard suavely romance the beautiful, lady archaeologist. Wonderfully written by Ira Steven Behr, this episode is an homage to the great romantic films of the 40's. Vash is Bacall to Picard's Bogart. Watch Bogart and Bacall in the classic movie "To Have and Have Not" and then watch "Captain's Holiday." Vash's brazenness complements Picard's more sedate personality perfectly. Picard and Vash have a very compelling 'battle of wills' dynamic to their relationship. The characterizations and relationship dynamics between Picard and Vash makes this episode a pure joy to watch this episode.
  
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-07-28 at 4:27am:
  The Uthat is located in a cave that is twenty-seven kilometers from the resort. It takes Picard and Vash two days to get there. Yet when they leave, they leave their backpack behind. The backpack had their food, drink, and bedding. Did they steal Sovak's transportation? Did they "rough it" all the way back?
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-10 at 11:56pm:
  This is a fun episode, but not a truly great one.  I agree with the review above in that it's great fun to watch Picard off of the Enterprise, especially when he "pulls a Kirk" and hooks up with the guest star of the week.  I also like the alusions to the films the reviewer above mentions, and the whole episode is good entertainment.
  
  The result of all this, however, is that it's hard to take this episode seriously. If the Uhtat is all it's cracked up to be, it could have been the subject of a seasons-long plot arc. As is, it's largely tossed off. This brings me to another gripe. If the Vorgons are really time travellers from the 27th century, why can't they just time travel again, back to five minutes before Picard destroys the Uhtat now that they know how, when, and where he does it? Like the aliens in "Allegience" a few episodes earlier (who, by the way, look very simliar)
  
  And the Uhtat itself is a little problematic. A crystal? Really? Come on.
  
  All that aside, this is a solid episode if you don't think too much about it. The interaction between Picard and the crew is hilarious, especially at the end, and we weren't subjected to a lame sub-plot about what was going on onboard the Enterprise during Picard's absence.
• From KStrock on 2009-03-09 at 3:39am:
  Why does Riker mention Risa like Picard's never heard of it? Even Archer and crew were well aware of Risa's reputation.
• From Inga on 2012-01-21 at 6:29pm:
  The dialogues between Picard and Vash were terribly cliched.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-25 at 1:48am:
  Enjoyable and quite amusing, with an excellent guest character (Vash), but a bit on the silly side. I question the mish-mash of elements composing the main plot: a legendary artifact, star-killing technology, and alien time travelers from the future. Was all of that really necessary to let Picard play Indiana Jones with a sexy woman for a little while?
  
  And what was up with that Transport Code 14 business...?
  
  Some redeeming features to be sure (the Horgon thing was hysterical), but the whole episode could've been streamlined and simplified and polished up a bit.
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-12-03 at 6:11pm:
  I would marry Lwaxana Troi and have 7 kids with her before spending 2 minutes with Vash.0/10
• From Chuck the Canuck on 2023-05-20 at 3:32am:
  When I was younger, I mistook the Vorgons in this episode for the Vogons from "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and thought this was some kind of crossover episode. I feel like that would've been more interesting.
  
  It's not bad, though. I enjoyed the crew's efforts to get Picard to go on holiday. I laughed at how annoyed Picard was getting while trying to relax. And it was a more adventurous episode, kind of in the vein of TNG: Starship Mine in a later season. Nothing wrong with that.
  
  Vash is a great character and I'm glad she reappears again later in TNG and DS9.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From djb on 2009-01-24 at 10:28pm:
  A few comments --
  
  One is just a gripe about a rather consistent habit in Trek to make all people of a certain race have the same hairstyle. The Romulans, for example, always have black hair (except Sela), and always have it in a short bob with bangs (sometimes with a peak in the bangs). Is this realistic? It's not always like this. Probably just a budget issue, and a desire to differentiate different aliens from each other.
  
  The other is that I liked seeing Quark's generous side. Nice touch.
  
  Overall I kind of liked this episode. I liked seeing further development between Bashir and O'Brien, and the twist at the end about the coffee made me laugh out loud.
  
  Also, I liked seeing Keiko's reaction to the news of her husband's death. She was obviously distraught, but she didn't burst into tears uncontrollably. Maybe it's something to do with her Japanese heritage. Also, you could tell (great acting, Rosalind!) that she never quite believed it--call it intuition or whatever--you could see just a hint of doubt on her face when she receives the news. Anyway, another nice touch.
  
  The whole thing of killing everyone involved with the harvesters was kind of dumb. Once the jig was up, and Sisko knew of the plot, the aliens didn't really take seriously that killing two starfleet officers was an act of war that would carry serious repercussions. They're just like, "no everyone involved has to die, blah blah blah," as if there were ever a chance that even if O'Brien and Bashir knew enough about the harvesters, they would misuse that information. Pretty audacious!
• From Bernard on 2011-03-07 at 9:14pm:
  Another episode devoted to the unlikely pairing of Bashir and O'Brien. That is not such a bad thing though, as the pair have an obvious chemistry that works for both conflict and camraderie.
  
  The plot is fairly basic and uninspiring with easy solutions all around. That and the fairly slow pace drag this episode down to below average.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-19 at 5:04pm:
  Sorry, guys, but this episode makes no sense.
  
  We are told at the beginning that these "harvesters" are terrible, devastating weapons that must be wiped from the face of the galaxy. The current crop of aliens is literally willing to kill to rid the universe of this weapon.
  
  Two issues, one minor and one huge:
  
  First issue: Clearly, since O'Brien is infected with the harvesters, the last batch was not successfully destroyed. Some of it clearly remains. There are ways to deal with this, but it is never explained.
  
  Second issue (and this is the biggie): O'Brien is actually infected with the harvesters. And what happens? Does he die a horrible lingering death? Not at all! Several days later, while seriously sick, he is still strong enough to stand. And then when he makes it back to the station, Bashir fixes him up just fine!
  
  Given the fact that the Federation obviously possesses the technology to counter the harvesters, why destroy them at all? They are obsolete. Instead of destroying them, simply make the cure available!
  
  And any putative grasp at the Prime Directive would be useless: The Federation is already interfering by assisting in the destruction process. Why stop at half measures? Simply make the weapon irrelevant.
  
  This creates a logical,issue big enough to drive a truck through.
• From Abigail on 2019-09-15 at 9:51pm:
  I was mostly annoyed by how amazingly easy it was to cure O'Brien after he was infected by the harvesters. The whole episode was about how dangerous these things are, how they must be destroyed, how everyone who knows about them must be killed -- and then when O'Brien gets sick, no worries! It's no problem whatsoever to find a cure -- not even really a plot point. We'll fix him right up!
  
  Kind of ruins the premise of the episode.
• From ChristopherA on 2020-07-19 at 4:36am:
  I had no issue with the idea that the aliens wanted to kill everyone who knew anything about the harvesters, I thought it was a clever surprise. Exploring the idea of aliens who think very differently from humans is classic Star Trek. But the handling of the harvesters is terrible, I agree with previous commenters that it makes little sense for the aliens to launch their plot before the final harvesters are destroyed, and the main point of the episode is nerfed by making the harvesters be so easily cured.
• From Abigail on 2021-06-11 at 7:02pm:
  I just logged in to review this episode after watching it, only to find that I received it in 2015 and said the same thing, haha. I stand by my previous review. The fact that they could so easily cure O'Brien after being infected by these oh-so-deadly harvesters made the entire episode pointless. Why would you need to make such a big deal about destroying a biological weapon (and everyone know who knows about it) that leads to an easily curable disease??

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-06-14 at 8:21pm:
  I tend to enjoy the flashback story template. This one was good; however, none of the flashback episodes can compare to DS9 "Whispers", which is absolutely wonderful.
• From JRPoole on 2009-01-08 at 3:33am:
  Okay, so the aliens of the week don't look (quite) exactly like humans, but they have DOGS?
  
  Here's my observation on Voyager up to this point: the character development B plots are almost always very good, while the alien or anomaly of the week A plots are generally lame.
  
  The one notable exception is the Romulan temporal plot in "Eye of the Needle," which is excellent. Other than that, we get re-hashed space entity cliches, an awful time travel episode, and this mess about Paris' troubles, which are strikingly similar to the trouble Riker managed to get himself into in "A Matter of Perspective."
  
  The characters, however, are all getting good treatment. I love the interaction between Neelix and Janeway when they lock horns, and the Doctor is proving to be pretty interesting.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From carsonist on 2010-01-19 at 10:22pm:
  This plot would have worked much better if there had been any chemistry at all between Janeway and Kashyk. I could see they were implying a relationship when they were working together, but there was no spark whatsoever. When they kissed, I was surprised because it simply made no sense.
• From Lennier on 2010-06-14 at 4:26am:
  Doesn't Kashyk's organization massively resemble the Psi Corps from Babylon 5?
  
  So the episode has some originality regarding the music choices but also some striking unoriginality there.
  
  "Black uniforms, jack boots, giving orders... Some days, they scare the hell out of me." - Michael Garibaldi
• From Kenobie on 2011-04-10 at 9:01am:
  There seemed to be 2 glaring mistakes on this episode. #1: when they found out about the location of the worm hole in the solar system, it was said that it was 8 Light years away, the enemy commander said that there was a problem with the solar system, as it has a sensor array that would pick them up. It had a sensor range of 10 Light years. Would that not mean they are already in range?
  
  #2: At the end when the telepaths leave in the 2 shuttles.the commander, gives the ship back to Jane-way, as the telepaths are gone and the failure would look bad. Where are the Vulcan Tovok and the engineer. surly they did no leave too!
• From plus on 2011-11-01 at 7:29am:
  Holy crappoly... this just ranked itself into my short list of favorite voyager episodes. It has an almost magical elegance to it. Everything flows smoothly, one scene to the next - unlike some episodes which seem jerky and abbreviated, like a movie trailer.
  
  I love the complexity of the relationship between Janeway and her counterpoint, Kashyk.
  
  Mahler and Tchaikovsky make for a great soundtrack as well.
  
  I could probably say more but the point is, this is a very well written and well directed episode.
• From Rick on 2013-01-08 at 6:46am:
  I agree with an above poster: where the hell were Tuvok and the other vulcan at the end of the episode? I guess held in transporter suspension in a different part of the ship?
  
  And on a separate note, relating to the entire series: is voyager the slowest ship in the quadrant? because it sure doesnt seem like they can ever outrun anyone. It wouldnt matter too much if you were outgunned by 10 warships if you could just outrun them, but obviously that wouldnt make fore very good episodes.
• From TheAnt on 2013-10-12 at 10:13pm:
  "The Sting" episode.
  
  The story is excellent, and told with a good flow without interruptions this time. Almost like one actual movie.
  Professor Torat made for one very good alien, and not just another humanoid with nothing more than a funny bump on the forehead, and good acting there as well.
  
  @carsonist: I hope you read this and go see the episode again, the attraction between Janeway and Kashyk is so strong I expected they would jump each other any second. Even though it turned uot it were faked by Kashyk, it rather did show good acting and quite a sign that his character were supposed to have one heck of an ability of manipulation.
  
  But yes there's one inconsistency, the whereabouts of Tuvok and the Vulcan from engineering named Vorik is unaccounted for.
  
  Also I have to chime in with a tumbs up on the selection of music, good choice and very nice to have one departure on the variations of Gustav Holst "The planets" which we hear so many times on Voyager.
  
  So why do I call this episode 'The Sting' well like in that film the viewers are kept in the dark on several details - first the whereabouts of 2 crewmembers and the fact that Voyager hold refugees. But also in the conclusion, that Janeway and the crew created a what appeared to be a wormhole in the predicted location - which were false, and that the telepaths already were on their way to escape in another location in space.
  A solid 10.
• From Dstyle on 2015-06-24 at 5:02pm:
  So Kashyk let Voyager go because... wait, why did Kashyk let Voyager go? As far as I'm concerned this is the end of the series. Voyager is impounded by the gestapo aliens and the crew is sent to a detention camp, where they languish and die. Kashyk's "Let's just pretend this whole failure never happened" thing is ridiculous. And then Voyager, I guess, just leaves their space, which isn't apparently all that large, at least not compared to species like the Kazon or the Malon who seem to control vast reaches of the Delta quadrant.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From JRPoole on 2008-09-29 at 3:01pm:
  Two Rikers = way better than two Kirks.
  
  I love this episode, and I rate it higher than most here. While it is a little annoying that we don't hear from Thomas Riker very much after this, it's pretty realistic. They both seem to want to go their separate ways, and they do. This was an interesting idea for an episode. How weird must it be for Riker to watch his double/former self hooking up with Deanna?
  
  I also like this episode for the back story it gives on Troi and Riker's relationship. It's always seemed that they split up amicably with little drama (though it's also clear that they still hook up from time to time) and finally we get the real story. Will broke Deanna's heart. Awww.
• From djb on 2008-11-26 at 9:39pm:
  While I disagree with the idea that someone can be duplicated like this (which betrays a purely materialistic and mechanistic view of the universe), I really like the issues that this episode brings up.
  
  Lt. Riker is basically Riker from eight years ago. We can see how much Commander Riker has matured in that time, and naturally his other self has not, being stuck alone for eight years. What would you do if you met yourself from nearly a decade ago? Would you not get a little impatient and condescending at your own immaturity? Conversely, would your past self not feel intimidated or condescended to by your older self, or perhaps resentful of the decisions he made? This very matter is well-written and well-acted.
  
  I love how they get into some back story about Riker and Troi, which was nice as there are far too many episodes where we see hardly anything of Troi. Interesting that Lieutenant Riker acts as if Commander Riker is a different person and made different decisions than he would have; of course that is not true. They are one and the same person, and therefore both would have made the same decision. I imagine that that is something that Lt. Riker doesn't wish to face in himself: that he was willing to leave the woman he loved for the sake of his career. The only way he can cope with that is by acting as if they are different people.
  
  The only problem I had with the execution of this episode was that when they found the marooned Riker, he had the same haircut and facial hair as the Commander. One would expect his hair to be long and his beard to be big and scruffy. True, he might have been able to fashion some kind of razor from whatever equipment there was down there, but he still would most likely have a different appearance. Maybe their makeup budget fell short!
  
  A strong episode; I'd give it a 7.
• From Mark McC on 2009-02-12 at 12:52pm:
  An interesting episode, but the premise opens up a lot of questions about the use of transporters. If it's so easy to duplicate someone, complete with all their memories, personality and experience, what's to stop someone doing this deliberately?
  
  People could keep backup copies of themselves before going on dangerous away missions. Or an evil person planning to commit a crime could duplicate themselves, have the clone commit the crime while they set themselves up with an alibi, then kill the clone (or maybe the clone would have the same idea and try to kill them!)
  
  What happens in cases like this if the person duplicated has a husband/wife and children? If Riker's relationship with Troi caused problems, imagine how difficult it would be in a family situation to suddenly have two mothers wanting to care for one child.
  
  Good to see that Dr Crusher is always updating her medical knowledge. In the previous episode she had no way at all of telling that Khaless was a clone of the original. Here she simply has to point her tricorder at Lt Riker for a few seconds before declaring that the telltale <technobabble> patterns indicating whether he's a clone aren't present (or maybe it only works for humans).
• From J Reffin on 2009-08-05 at 5:59pm:
  This episode has made me reflect on what it must be like to have an identical twin. The differences to the "two Rikers" is not that great - same DNA and (usually) very similar upbringing and experiences until early adulthood. In my experience, identical twins tend to get along fairly well - but then they have had rather longer to get used to the idea.
  
  A good episode though once again poor Troi gets put through the emotional wringer.
• From Bernard on 2009-12-09 at 6:33pm:
  Happened by this episode a couple of nights ago by way of TV reruns. I enjoyed it so much I dug it out and watched it again!
  
  All of Jonathan Frakes' scenes are remarkable in this episode. He really got it spot on in terms of how both Rikers must be feeling. Hats off to him.
  
  I know it's an interesting premise created by the plot device that sets up so many episodes, the transporter, but who cares. It's the storytelling that gets you past minor problems like that.
  
  Like other reviewers before me, I too wish they had used Thomas Riker more frequently after this. Definitely worth an 8 though for me.
• From Mike on 2010-12-01 at 8:25am:
  If you watch when Com. Riker grabs Lt. Riker on the shoulder (about 17 minutes in) it's really obvious that they're using two different arms. In fact, his arm almost looks like a muppet. Otherwise though, I thought the special effects were pretty good, and that the episode was pretty enjoyable over all.
• From ChristopherA on 2019-04-18 at 5:21pm:
  I think this is an excellent episode, I would rate it higher than a 6. I don't see how you can rate this episode down because you don't like what is done (or not done) with the character in later episodes.
  
  The only thing holding this back from for me is that I still feel Riker feels a bit flat compared to the other characters; I don't feel I got as much from his acting as I get when I watch episodes focused on other characters.
• From jeffenator98 on 2019-10-03 at 5:05pm:
  God awful. 2/10
• From Chris Long on 2020-06-13 at 1:44am:
  I get very irritated with a lot of TNG episodes due to all the 'mysteries' that seem to occur throughout the series... stuff happening in crew quarters that can never be verified because of some imaginary privacy this that appears to dominate. I call BS on any of those notions. Further, several years ago I saw a science episode about the brain where they could almost read a man's mind!
  It was flaky but convincing enough to illustrate how close humanity and its science is to really be able to read someone's mind!
  That has nothing to do with any complaint about this episode because I really love it!!!
  
  I saw a dimension of Frakes' acting that I never saw before. He has always been so businesslike but his humanity really shone through when he and Troi were talking in 10-Forward. I was truly moved.
  A great episode all around!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Paul on 2010-08-31 at 10:09pm:
  I thought it was a little disappointing that the aliens were exactly like humans, but I guess it's possible that they had ridges on their bum or something instead of their nose /forehead :)
  
  However I thought the son'a aliens were very effective, I liked the creepiness of their stretched skin and the bodyshop procedures they had to endure.
  
  
• From Nick on 2010-09-01 at 1:03am:
  The worst trek film by far. The way it systematically converts the Next Generation cast into comic relief is so disrespectful.
  
  Not to mention how much of a hypocrite Picard's character becomes. Remember, in the series he was forced to relocate another alien species whose planet fell under Cardassian territory. He went along with his orders, begrudgingly, because they all would have just been killed by the Cardassians if he hadn't.
  
  In this case the Baku planet fell under Sona'a territory, and even though Picard thwarted the few ships they had in the Briar Patch at the time, they could have easily sent in a whole fleet afterwards, killed the Baku, and used the planet's rings or whatever to develop a cure for aging. The Sona'aa were allied with the Dominion, just like the Cardassians. It's not like the Federation could just flick them away... they were a very hostile spacefaring race.
  
  (It looks even worse when you consider the planet on the show had a bunch of Indians, and in Insurrection the Baku were a bunch of white people... hmm....)
• From George on 2010-12-25 at 3:51am:
  Not to quibble with what Nick said, but the Baku planet was not in Son'a territory. Admiral Dougherty has a line to the effect of "we had the planet, they had the technology" or something along those lines. It was a Federation planet which they teamed up with the Son'a to exploit. For that reason, there's a distinct difference from the TNG episode Nick referenced. I thought Picard's stand was pretty good on principle, but ultimately I was slightly overwhelmed by the movie as a whole, no disrespect to our erstwhile webmaster. Still a good flick.
• From MJ on 2011-02-25 at 9:26pm:
  What bothers me most about this movie is how easily Picard and his crew come to their decision to take off the uniforms and go against the Federation's plans. The real struggle in this movie belongs entirely to Admiral Dougherty, who is trying to weigh the benefits of this new resource to the Federation against what it will cost the Bak'u. For him, it is a moral struggle. Not so for Picard, who takes the apparent moral high ground with ease and has little, if any, hesitation. This from a man who has agonized over decisions to violate or uphold the Prime Directive on many occasions, not to mention other situations that involved ethical dilemmas. This movie robbed TNG of its greatest strength; that being situations in which there are multiple points of view, each of them valid and justifiable, and yet irreconcilable with each other. Usually, an entire TV episode is devoted to flushing out all these points of view. Here, the position of the Bak'u is quite clearly portrayed as the "correct" one, and the Son'a plan is sinister; Dougherty's struggle between the two is shown to be a sign of weakness and ultimately, he makes the "wrong" choice.
  
  Obviously, the movie provided what a TV episode cannot: stunning visual effects, interesting costume design and make-up, unique and high quality camera shots, and humor and jokes that have a wider appeal. All of this helps the movie tremendously, but does not completely make up for the fact that something went fundamentally wrong in the transition from the TV to the movie screen in TNG.
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-22 at 10:30pm:
  The plastic surgery aliens were the only really good thing about this.
  
  Despite a few good moments, this whole movie is a failure because all of its premises are mistaken:
  
  1. There are only 600 people on a huge planet. Why not just establish several unintrusive colonies? Negotiate with the natives, especially when we learn that they are not ignorant savages, but warp-capable geniuses.
  
  2. Why would the Sona bother with niceties? The Federation is involved in a war for its life. Just insert some covert commandos and wipe out the tiny village. By the time the Federation notices, it will be too late, and the negotiations can begin.
  
  3. The crew of the Enterprise received the benefits of the radiation even while in orbit: just allow tourists to fly through the rings.
  
  
• From EvanT on 2011-06-24 at 11:30pm:
  I absolutely loathe this film. It's like a negative of "Journey's End" and a rehash of the same episode, all in one.
  
  In "Journey's End" we had Federation Citizens not wanting to leave a planet they had lived on for generations that the Federation just gave up in a treaty. Wesley tries to help them and gets shot down by Picard ("as long you wear that uniform, you'll follow orders!") and Wesley resigns.
  
  Here we have a group of 600 non-indigenous(!) people (warp-capable too) trespassing on a Federation planet which holds a precious resource and hogging it (their longevity isn't even natural) Now Picard is adamant that they must be protected, orders be damned. Gee, I wonder why? Could it have something to do with that Baku lady?
  
  Is it me or is he ridiculously out of character? (and most of this happens before he gets affected by the radiation)
  
  As RedLetterMedia put it, I doubt Picard would have an insurrection for that old indian guy :P in "Journey's End". They should call the next film "Star Trek; His Erection" (he's got great reviews of all TNG films).
  
  I agree that the concept and the basic morals the script tries to send across are good and solid for Star Trek, but the execution is dreadful, full of holes and riddled with continuity errors (not to mention logical inconsistencies). I can't give this more than 3/10.
• From Sean on 2011-08-10 at 9:22am:
  For a long time, "Insurrection" was always the weakest TNG film for me. I only saw the film once in theatres, but I found it slow and boring. However, I think the problem for me (and a lot of other people) was that they were expecting First Contact II. The film's marketing campaign really did not help, making it look much more action-packed than it really was (even re-using footage from ST:FC in the trailers!).
  
  So, I re-watched "Insurrection" with an open mind, and I liked it. I've heard it compared to TNG: Journey's End, where Picard makes exactly the opposite decision that he does in "Insurrection", and whine that this is out of character. However, I think what this film subtly does at the beginning is remind the audience that the Federation is not what it once was. The Cardassians, the Borg and especially the Dominion are crippling the once mighty Federation. In fact, when the Evora are accepted into the Federation, the cast mention that the Federation needs all the friends they can get. To me, in TNG: Journey's End, Picard rationalised moving the Native Americans because the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. Now, several years later, and with the Federation in the middle of a bloody war, Picard has come to the realisation that if the Federation is to survive, they can't be seen as oppressive and dominating - and above all else, they cannot play God (hmm, does that sound like the Prime Directive?). "Who the hell are we to determine the next course of evolution for these people?", indeed. I actually prefer the outcome of this movie to TNG: Journey's End.
  
  Also, it's nice that all the crew get something to do other than just "yes sir!", and it's obvious they were having a lot of fun while shooting this film. It's not as masterful as "First Contact", but it's still a fine film.
• From Jake on 2012-12-01 at 3:55am:
  wasn't there a reference to Data falling into a lake and having to walk for miles to the shore in one of the episodes? Why didn't he inflate?
• From Rick on 2013-05-13 at 4:32am:
  In response to everyone comparing this to the tng native american relocation episode: they are quite different.
  
  Insurrection is about a planet within the borders of the federation that is being sold out to highest bidder in order to benefit others. The tng episode is about a disputed planet that is eventually determined to be cardassian as a part of treaty to avoid a war. In fact, during the episode I think that Picard even said they knew the planet was disputed when they settled there.
• From Axel on 2018-08-05 at 2:19am:
  I think a lot of fans forget that in order for movies to achieve the financial success the studio wants, they have to appeal to a wider audience. It's not enough for the production to simply create a movie-screen version of a TNG episode; it has to appeal to a much larger, and indeed international, audience. So while it's annoying for fans to see Worf become little more than the comic relief of this movie, or the movie to only make brief mentions of the Dominion War that hardcore fans have been watching on TV for years, the film has to be a standalone story that everybody can watch.
  
  Looked at that way, I think it's a good movie. Not as good as First Contact, but definitely the second-best TNG movie. And it included enough TNG backstory to appeal to fans of the show: we see Troi and Riker get back together, Geordi have a touching moment with his eyesight, and of course, fan-favorite Data in action.
  
  I agree the visual elements are incredible and that the Bak'u could look at least a little alien. Overall, though, I did enjoy this one. Or, maybe it just looks better in hindsight compared to the absolute trainwreck of a TNG movie that'd watch a couple years later called Nemesis.
• From Graham Bessellieu on 2019-07-25 at 5:08pm:
  I'm in agreement with Kethinov here, "Insurrection" is not only one of the most beautifully shot Trek films, I now consider it one of the most successful "Trek" films at its heart. By that I mean, while "First Contact" is an excellent film, thrilling and bold, it lacks the principled themes which define the heart of Trek, such as the ethics of cultural imperialism explored in this film.
  
  One could argue the regenerative / medicinal theme of the Ba'ku to be underdeveloped, the "face-stretching" of the Son'a awkward, Picard's love interest a bit cliche, or the frequent comedic one-liners to be contrived, but I'm willing to overlook these, for the most part.
  
  It's lovely to see Riker and Troi rekindle their romance, Data's relationship to the Ba'ku boy is endearing, and the overall mystery of uncovering what's going on between the Federation and the Ba'ku keeps the viewer curious.
  
  While "Insurrection" may be akin to a TNG episode, in many respects, perhaps that is its very strength.
• From Azalea Jane on 2021-09-12 at 6:38am:
  I know I saw this movie once before, because I remember the Riker/Troi bath shaving scene. But it must have been when it came out, because I had forgotten virtually all of it!
  
  I was pleasantly surprised to come away from this film feeling pretty good about it. Clearly, it's not universally loved, but I went in with basically no expectations, so it wasn't hard for it to let me down. It wasn't a sweeping epic with huge stakes like the other TNG cast films. No destruction of the Enterprise or Kirk dying, no near-assimilation of Earth, no Romulan political intrigue. It feels a bit more like a long, expensive, cinematically-shot episode. But honestly, that's fine. After First Contact, it makes sense to switch gears a little bit. As Kethinov pointed out, it's a really beautiful film. The fact that Jonathan Frakes directed both this and First Contact speaks to his range as a director. The film has a lot of nice moments, but one that particularly moved me was Geordi getting to see with real eyes for the first time. Oh, Geordi. You deserve it.
  
  All that said, I think the various criticisms and plot holes are valid observations. It's true that many of the implications are not fully thought-out. Why can only 600 non-indigenous people live on a whole planet? How did the Son'a come to produce Ketracel White? Why don't we see the rings of the planet from the surface? Shouldn't the features of the Briar Patch be visible at night? Also, the "boobs getting firmer" exchange was dumb. Sorta funny, but annoying and undermines the film. Data would know that Worf doesn't have boobs. (eyeroll) Unfortunately, the women of the regular cast have comparatively little to actually DO in this film aside from sort of just ... be there. At least they were good shots with the phaser rifles. *sighs in cynical feminist* I know, it was '98. A different time. I reserve the right to be salty!
  
  Even though it's pretty self-contained, I think this film does also add some important plot development regarding the decline of the Federation -- likely much to do with the Dominion War, but continuing well after. We see this tackled head-on in Picard (of which I've only seen five episodes at present). I'm reminded of Picard's line in the premiere, telling why he resigned (which he did only ten years after the events of this film): "Because it was no longer Starfleet!" While not all fans might like to see the Great and Lovable Federation lose its moral compass, I think that's a great way to explore how the Federation and Starfleet could eventually be redeemed, and perhaps become even stronger and more morally upright than it was before. In past TNG episodes, there have often been individual problematic admirals, but rarely is the Federation as a whole implicated.
  
  It was nice seeing Riker and Troi rekindle their romance. I've always loved their relationship. It didn't need to go this direction, but it did. I'll say too, Riker looks much better beardless here than he did in Season 1! I'm not sure if it's his age or that Frakes has gotten more comfortable playing the character.
  
  For a film, it's a beautiful and solid episode!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From S. Egil on 2009-08-17 at 12:21am:
  This episode cleverly links the idea of Davy Crockett's heroic death with the lament of Cor, who has been denied such a glorious end. Cor's complaints sound remarkably like those found in the old Norse epics. Some modern viewers reject the warrior ethos entirely, but the episode convincingly expresses and even defends it, ending with the traditional and appropriate violence and sentimentality. As Worf says in the prologue, if you belive in the legend (of Crockett), you will believe he died a hero. Worf and the other Klingons would know that a tribe (or nation) that stops believing in its heores is doomed to extinction: an imbedded message in this episode?
• From MJ on 2011-08-04 at 8:57pm:
  I think this is the best episode of Season 7, and one of my favorites in all of DS9. It's got everything you could want in an episode: action, drama, conflict, depth of character and meaningful interactions...and they managed to unfold everything perfectly. You really feel for all the main characters here. Martok, whose hard work and family sacrifices were crushed because he wasn't of noble birth, is consumed with bitterness after hearing Kor's name...at first, of course. Worf, who is trying to do a favor to a revered friend. And of course, Kor, who just wants what every Klingon wants: an honorable death in battle. His quote about savoring the fruit of life was quite a powerful moment. I also loved the character of Darok, the old aid to Martok. He had a couple of funny lines, and his conversation with Kor at the end where he reveals Worf's plan knowing that this will be the opportunity Kor has been looking for was a brilliant way to bring about the end drama. I also like when he offers up blood wine on the bridge, perhaps harkening back to the days when Klingon warriors drank whenever they pleased.
  
  Martok, who is my favorite Klingon character in all of Star Trek, is shown once again why he is a natural leader. He has all the qualities one would want, and most are brought to bear in this episode: a smart plan of attack, fairness in hearing Worf's reasoning and granting his request despite his bitterness toward Kor, and ultimately of course, realizing that seeing Kor a senile old man brings him no real satisfaction, and although he never says it outright, forgives and even honors Kor.
  
  This was DS9 at its best. A well deserved 10.
• From Jim Mumford on 2014-01-26 at 2:20pm:
  - Kor: "Saver the fruit of life, my young friends. It has a sweet taste when it is fresh from the vine. But don't live too long. The taste turns bitter after a time."
  
  Aint dat the truth !
• From Thavash on 2019-01-06 at 7:48pm:
  Fantastic episode. When Kor delivers his “fruit of life” quote it’s one of the best scenes of the season

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-12-18 at 6:22am:
  The temporal cold war was just a bad idea. WTF are they thinking doing a prequel like this and then going around all cavalier-like and fucking things up?
  
  The whole "We can't get you back to your own time" thing was dumb. Of course he gets back to his own time. Not convincing.
  
  That faceless bad guy is soooo stereotypical. He reminds me of a James Bond bad guy or something. "Do you remember what happened the last time you failed me?" What is this guy, Darth Vader?
• From Zorak on 2016-09-26 at 3:21pm:
  Like most episodes of Enterprise, this was well done and enjoyable despite it's glaring flaws. I definitely agree that the Temporal Cold War stuff really doesn't belong, but it's never the plot that really grates on me. Instead it's usually a combination of Archer being Archer and one specific scene.
  
  Putting the Archer stuff aside (I mean come on, despite all evidence to the contrary he is 100% certain his actions destroyed the colony and refuses to consider any other possibilities), it's the boarding of the Suliban vessel that bothered me in this one.
  
  This scene is far too Star Wars-y for my taste. Archer, T'pol, and Trip are not Han, Luke, and Leia. They shouldn't be running through the Death Star and taking out battalions of storm troopers despite all odds. Star Trek isn't a space opera. It's sci-fi with a heavy focus on social commentary and characterization. Even with support from stun grenades and the Enterpirse, it's completely illogical for 3 officers (the senior most officers at that)to attempt a boarding action against all odds for the sake of action scenes.
  
  I guess the core of what bothers me is the writers relying on Archer making poor decisions to drive the plot and action forward. It makes it very difficult to root for Archer and like him as a captain.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From g@g on 2012-01-31 at 6:24am:
  Here are a few more problems:
  
  A) Wtf is up with the queen's drones being able to go into Unimatrix Zero (and presumably retain their connected to the hive)? It doesn't really square, does it? Isn't that the whole point - that when you go there, you maintain your individuality? If the queen figured out a special means, or constructed a special piece of hardware, that might be understandable, but there was no mention of such a thing.
  
  B) OK. Wtf is up with the queen's counter-plan to release her reprogrammed virus *within* Unimatrix Zero? If it's possible to release the counter-virus within Unimatrix Zero, why did Janeway and Tuvak and Voyager's pregnant chief engineer risk their necks (and then some)? Why didn't Seven just "take a nap" and release the original virus that way? If there was an explanation, it should've been shared with the audience.
  
  C) Why did Janeway embark on this madness in the first place? This has got to be one of her craziest plans ever. To expose herself and two of Voyager's most critical senior officers (one of them with a baby on the way) to assimilation, was pretty much *insane* - experimental neural suppressant notwithstanding. Going Borg and coming back is no small matter, as we've been reminded over and over again (think: 3x17 Unity, with the ex-Borg who'd lost limbs and were otherwise horribly deformed; 6x2 Survival Instinct, with the hopelessly linked ex-Borg "Triad"; and any number of traumatic Seven of Nine episodes starting with 4x6 The Raven, in which she had a frightening relapse and started sprouting new Borg implants like they were acne, but including also 7x2 Imperfection, when her cortical implant failed and almost took her with it, and, in hindsight, 7x18 Human Error, when she encountered her Borg "fail-safe" device.) The point is, assimilation isn't something to fool around with! You don't just visit the Collective for a weekend and come right back. This should've been obvious to Janeway. It was an utterly insane tactical decision, even for her. It made for some interesting aesthetics, but not very thoughtful command. How the doc pieced them back together is beyond me.
• From g@g on 2012-02-01 at 3:34am:
  I just thought of another problem. The residents of Unimatrix Zero apparently have some Neo-like control over this Matrix-like pseudo-existence. This is hinted at when Seven is informed that she "doesn't have to look like that here," meaning she can change her appearance and get rid of her remaining Borg implants (which she does, and manifests some new threads also).
  
  How this is done, and how far it extends, is simply not discussed, which presents plot problems later on. If they can change their appearance within Unimatrix Zero, if they have "supernatural" control over their environment, or perhaps only of their own forms, why were they such easy prey for the Queen's drones? Couldn't they have altered their appearance to, say, become twice as large, or turn into species 8472?
  
  (Or into tigers or machine gun wielding, trenchcoat wearing kung fu masters?)
  
  The Matrix-like dimension of the matter could've given the episode a bit more depth. If this was essentially a dreamworld, where were the lucid dreamers?
• From Abigail on 2013-06-30 at 12:01am:
  One of g@g's thoughts above also occurred to me and really bothered me during this episode. I was bothered a lot by the fact that the Queen was purportedly able to release the counter-virus within Unimatrix Zero. Like g@g said, then why couldn't the initial virus be released that way?! I had trouble getting past that during the episode.
  I hadn't thought about the last point he made - that they could change their appearance, so why not make themselves "tigers or machine-gun wielding, trenchcoat-wearing kung fu masters"? :) Another good point!
• From Dstyle on 2015-07-30 at 4:48pm:
  Borg Queen: "There are 50,000 drones on that cube, but I can no longer hear 3 of them. <cube self destructs, image is replaced by Borg sphere> There are 2,000 drones on this sphere, but only one of them is silent to me. <sphere self destructs> Need I go on? Do you want me to stop?"
  Janeway: "No, by all means, please continue. You, ah, you don't really understand how war works, do you?"
  
  Neither, apparently, does Janeway.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-12-11 at 5:17am:
  Injecting that water into Tripp intravenously would be a VERY bad idea!
  
  Again with this "chef". Do we ever get to see this person?
• From Chris Wright on 2011-11-22 at 6:42pm:
  Zobral's accent sounded like a really bad, overdone Eastern European/Russian one. You should also recognize the actor who played him as the drill sgt. In Starship Troopers. Love this site btw!
• From Dstyle on 2015-09-05 at 6:17pm:
  I'm really enjoying this show a lot, but I feel like the make up department had really been phoning it in with the last few humanoid aliens we've met. I can just imagine the descriptions in the scripts: "Yeah, so these aliens are basically just white guys with, uh, I don't know, give them scaly patches on their temples or chin tattoos or something."
• From Zorak on 2016-09-25 at 8:27pm:
  I don't have any strong opinions on this episode, but it is nice that Archer is starting to see some consequences for the (completely out of line in my opinion) actions he has taken. I'm hoping they'll run with it and not just hit the reset button on this development for Archer. I'd really like to see them tone down on this savior complex Archer seems to have.
• From Hugo Ahlenius on 2017-05-31 at 5:10am:
  The ep felt quite padded, with not much actual story, and the scenes with the guys in the desert were too long... !

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Pete Miller on 2006-04-23 at 1:43am:
  GOD the phaser scenes in this episode are cool. I love seeing people fly across a room!
  
  How hard is it for picard to restrict all access to the computer to himself and riker???
  
  Data's inhabitant seems to be a very angry person
• From Dean on 2007-05-30 at 11:02am:
  Why didn't Data simulate Riker's or Picard's voice, so they would have control over the ship?
• From DSOmo on 2007-09-28 at 7:44am:
  - During the shuttle trip down to the planet, Troi sits in the back bench seat. After the crash, Riker blows an escape hatch from the back end of the shuttle, and they climb out. Evidently the designers put the escape hatch behind a wall that is blocked by a bench seat. Does this seem like a reasonable location for an escape hatch?
  - Just after Troi, Data, and O'Brien leave the bridge, Worf traps them in a turbo lift. O'Brien helps them escape by accessing the main computer. He does this by using a panel inside the turbolift. It's amazing how these panels appear inside the turbolifts just when they are needed (see comments for "Brothers")
  - After Troi, Data, and O'Brien take hostages in Ten-Forward, Picard tries to negotiate with them. After listening to Picard for a few minutes, Troi tells Data and O'Brien what the captain is trying to accomplish. She talks as if Picard cannot hear them. Picard tries to open a dialogue again. This time Troi talks and Picard can hear her. What's the difference? What indication does Troi give the computer that some of her statements are meant for her fellow conspirators and others are meant for Picard?
  - During one rescue attempt, Geordi and Ro climb into an access tube and situate themselves directly above Ten-Forward. While they settle in, they discuss their strategy. Once they are in place, Geordi hits his communicator and begins whispering to the bridge. Why is Geordi whispering? He talks at medium volume the entire time they set up the equipment. If he was worried that the conspirators in Ten-Forward would hear him, wouldn't he whisper the entire time he was in the access tube?
  - At the end of the show, the spirits release Troi, Data, and O'Brien because Picard threatens to detonate the cargo bay hatch. Picard claims this will kill all the spirits when everthing in the cargo bay is blown into space. In other words, the spirits need an oxygen environment to live?
• From Mark McC on 2009-01-22 at 6:33pm:
  Regarding O'Brien transporting down to install the transporter signal booster, wouldn't it make sense for Starfleet to equip each shuttlecraft with those rods? Especially when 90% of shuttlecraft launches seem to end up crash-landing on a planet where the normal transporter doesn't work!
  
  Why is Worf still in charge of security? Once again, the Enterprise's systems are effortlessly compromised by people hitting buttons on assorted control panels scattered throughout the ship. I can't see the rationale behind Ten-Forward and every turbolift having easily accessible panels where anyone can access vital command-and-control functions with no way for the bridge crew to shut them out.
• From Rick on 2014-03-11 at 4:44pm:
  As other commenters have noted, the writing in this episode is ridiculous because apparently every bridge command can be overridden by tapping a few keys on any computer terminal on the ship. How tough is it to design a computer system that follows Picard/Riker's commands?

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Vlad on 2006-05-22 at 1:41pm:
  If there was a voting pool for the funniest Star Trek episode ever, this should take first place! I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Q minus his powers was more irritable than an Andorian and more fun than a Ferengi. And again, as it was the case with "The Survivors", we learn a little something about what makes us human with the help of a superbeing... as unlikely as that may seem.
  
  Oh, and Corbin Bernsen's otrageous appearance as Q at the end was an added bonus. What an amazing actor he is!
  
• From DSOmo on 2007-07-23 at 5:26am:
  - When Worf takes Q to the brig, Worf has to press a button on a panel beside the door before it opens. Later in the episode, Data simply walks through the doorway. Why the difference?
  - When Q hurts his back in Engineering, Data taps his communicator and calls for a medical team. Note: He TAPS his communicator. If badge tapping is simply habitual, why is Data tapping his badge? He is an android. Data doesn't do things out of habit. Data always "does things by the book." If the book says that a badge tap is unnecessary, Data would not tap his badge.
  - Dr Crusher fixes Q's back with a tool that looks exactly like a hypospray. But it doesn't make a hypospray sound. Maybe the hypospray is a mulipurpose machine. Then again, maybe the prop department didn't have time to make another medical device.
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-14 at 1:21pm:
  This is one of the top 10 episodes of all time. Q is hilarious, the writing is crisp, the Calamarain are interesting, Guinan's response to Q is great, as is Picard's, and this is all-around top-notch.
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-20 at 11:55pm:
  There were definitely a few jokes I liked, but in general I found Q's complaints about humanity tiresome and overly exaggerated.
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-21 at 9:22am:
  Sooooo, what about the Prime Directive? If the idea of the Prime Directive is to allow a sentient species's society to evolve naturally, wouldn't preventing natural catastrophe be exactly the type of interference to short circuit evolution? Indeed, this exact point is made in TNG: Pen Pals where there is a huge debate over saving a species whose planet is threatened by geological activity. Why no debate here? Perhaps the Enterprise folks have decided to Hell with either Prime Directive.
• From Ggen on 2012-03-16 at 7:57pm:
  Solid episode. Another excellent Q edition. Love the premise of Q becoming human and stumbling through all the physiological and psychological pitfalls. And a nice little ironic reversal with Q suddenly helpless and at Picard's mercy.
  
  The other story arc, with a Japanese-like alien race ( I think they were even played by Asian actors ), worrying about a moon-related Tsunami, was also nicely done. Same for the rather nondescript aliens seeking revenge on Q.
  
  As one would expect in any good Q episode, this one is chock full of witticisms and clever lines. One of my favorites is Picard's "It's a perfectly good shuttlecraft." The Mariachi sequence at the end is ridiculously appropriate, though the final "Engage" cigar gag was just a little bit much.
  
  
• From vote oh bummer! on 2021-07-24 at 9:50am:
  Great and fun episode. I guess showing some orphans or grieving friends and familiy of the 18 people Q got killed last time around would have ruined the good times.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Rob on 2008-04-18 at 11:16pm:
  I really like the scene where the Prophets force Sisko to realize that he's "not acting linear" regarding his wife's death. It's heart breaking watching him break down and Avery does a wonderful job to make us feel his heartbreak. I think this one scene probably shows more raw emotion than all of TOS (except Spock's death in Wrath of Khan) and TNG combined.
  
  
• From JRPoole on 2008-11-12 at 5:08pm:
  This is probably the best pilot of all the series. The only flaw is noted in the review; the scenes with the prophets drag on and the scene shuffling through Sisko's memory is well executed but borders on corny at times. Still, a fine maiden voyage, so to speak.
• From Bernard on 2009-11-12 at 11:58pm:
  Just started rewatching DS9 back through again on dvd. This two parter/feature length gets better every time I watch it. I would agree with the previous poster that it is most definitely the best pilot episode, setting up the premise of DS9 perfectly. Shame much of the rest of season one does not build on it as well as it could have done.
  Avery Brooks' performance is nothing short of exceptional considering the range of emotion that he has to convey while coming to grips with his new character. I also like the handling of the introductions of all the main cast as well as our first sitings of Rom, Nog, Gul Dukat and even Morn!
• From Cory on 2011-09-28 at 2:45am:
  I'm confused, maybe somebody can clear this up for me, I thought the aliens in the wormhole stated it disrupts them whenever anyone passes though, how did Sisko manage to convince them to not only re open the wormhole but to allow passage from any ship that desires it?
• From Jeff Browning on 2011-10-09 at 10:54pm:
  Since I keep pointing out scientific issues, I can't resist pointing out the gaping hole in the story with respect to the "wormhole aliens" as they come to be known in DS9. This concerns the temporal nature of these aliens, I.e., that they supposedly exist in a non-linear fashion with respect to time.
  
  Any one remotely familiar with either Einsteinian or Quantum physics knows this is completely nonsense. The existence of a four dimensional universe consisting of three spatial and one temporal dimensions is a basic feature of our physical universe. Only string theory postulates any deviation from this, and that is in a very different form from that shown on DS9. That is, string theory postulates the existence of several temporal dimensions, all of which are linear. (Only one of these has sufficient depth to have any relation to normal matter.) Also, the experimental basis for both Einsteinian and Quantum physics is overwhelming, while the experimental basis for string theory is non-existent, making it a form of intellectual masturbation in my view. But I digress.
  
  Lots of quality scifi concerns the varying rates at which life forms live in linear time. One excellent example is "Dragon's Egg" by Robert L. Forward in which he proposes the possibility of life on the surface of neutron stars. The compounds in these life forms would be nuclear rather than chemical, and thus would be much faster than normal biological processes. Thus, these life forms would live and die very quickly. (Nonetheless, they would be "linear".)
  
  In order for a life form to transcend time it would have to exist outside of the physical universe. The only intelligent being that could exist outside of our physical universe and still relate to creatures within it would be God. (This is the very nature of the definition of God in philosophical terms.) While the writers of DS9 attempt to take on the issues of religion and philosophy in ways that no other series has attempted (in the process going where no other star trek series has gone before), they pull back from making the WHAs truly divine. These creatures are severely limited in their physical locality, for example. They live only in the wormhole. This may be a very strange location in non-Newtonian space. It is nonetheless a single location. A truly divine creature would be capable of co-existing everywhere in the universe simultaneously.
  
  In the end, the WHAs present some difficult scientific and philosophical issues which the writers of DS9 do a pretty poor job of reconciling.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Zorak on 2016-09-22 at 10:40am:
  I was also confused by the plot of this episode. I didn't much understand any of what happened with the Tesnians or the debris of the Enterprise or the situation at large. It was all kind of glossed over. Putting that aside, I liked most of this episode. I've always liked Trip and have wanted to see more Reed and it was a good episode for both of them.
  
  Mostly, this episode was about developing Reed. Trip is already so well developed that he was just Trip. There were a few things that bothered me though, about Reed.
  
  #1 Reed is a bit mysterious. That's a big part of his characters appeal. I think by showing so much of who he was they diminished the mystery quite a bit.
  
  #2 What is with Reed and food? First, when a hostage on Terra Nova, he grimaces at the presumably disgusting "digger" meat. Then on his birthday they explicitly make a big deal out of how much he doesn't care about food and will eat whatever is in front of him. Now in this episode he seems to have a significant reaction to the Sea Bass meal. It's like the writers are going out of there way to contradict themselves.
  
  #3 The worst scene of the episode and one of the worst things I've ever seen on Star Trek. Reeds dream of T'pol. I have so far found the humor on Enterprise to be spot on. Hilarious at times. But this scene was one of the worst pieces of anti-comedy I have ever had to sit through. Had this scene not lasted so long, I'd have overlooked it. But apparently someone thought the "stinky" thing was so cute and funny, that they just kept running with it for what was really an absurd amount of time.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Bob on 2012-03-26 at 11:26am:
  OK... so this annoys me, if you watch Balance of Terror, where the Enterprise fist meets the Romulans, Spock says no human has seen a Romulan, because viewscreens where not availiable during the Earth - Romulan war!!
  
  So...just saying we are not seeing the Roulans now is not enough, because your just ignoring the very reason Spock gave!! Either follow the written history,or dont...on this basis the entire Enterprise series is not canon because they have viewscreens. Also, spock makes it clear the Romulan war is fought with old nuclear(?) technology, not phasers and photon torpedoes....*sigh*
• From Kethinov on 2012-03-26 at 9:56pm:
  Spock's exact line was this: "As you may recall from your histories, this conflict was fought by our standards today with primitive atomic weapons and in primitive space vessels which allowed no quarter, no captives. Nor was there even ship-to-ship visual communication. Therefore, no human, Romulan, or ally has ever seen the other."
  
  He didn't say there were not viewscreens. He said there was no ship-to-ship visual communication. That statement allows for Enterprise's interpretation that the Romulans possessed the capability but refrained from using it to conceal their identities. No continuity error there.
  
  As for "primitive atomic weapons," that one is harder to rationalize. Spock did also say "by our standards today" though which could imply that the phasers and photon torpedos of Ent and TOS may in fact be based on some type of atomic power, with Ent's simply being less advanced.
• From krs321 on 2012-11-02 at 3:29pm:
  Yeah, the only thing that's way off is the use of atomic weapons. There is obviously no way this is reconcilable with any timeline. I don't think the writers even wanted to waste time on it.
  
  I don't recall which, but there is an episode where the Enterprise is damaged by an old nuclear weapon and I'm pretty sure by now we'd have heard if the NX-1 used atomic-based weapons vs antimatter weapons (slash the antimatter-engine powered phase-cannons)
• From Hugo on 2020-05-13 at 5:07pm:
  Go Sato!
  
  The whole plot with the insider spy felt unnecessary...

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From CAlexander on 2011-04-18 at 1:21pm:
  I liked the general plot and concept of the show, hunting down Kodos the Executioner, Kodos' reactions, and the whole thing ending in tragedy. I wasn't as interested in the part about Captain Kirk's erratic behavior, or the inclusion of Keven Riley. And I think you hit the nail on the head with Lenore – she is indeed painful to watch.
  
  - I wish I knew the story about Kodos and how he managed to seize power while only leaving a small handful of witnesses, with the ones we see having been quite young at the time. But perhaps it is an artistic choice to leave it to our imaginations.
  - Genetic testing, of course, was not around in the '60's, so the writer didn't foresee it existing in the 23rd century. I'd file it in the same category as other 60's anachronisms on the Enterprise.
  - I believe you misunderstood McCoy's final statement. Lenore's conversation during the final confrontation indicates that she is psychologically disturbed and at least partially delusional. McCoy is just saying that after the trauma of killing her father, she has retreated into her own fantasy world where her father is still alive. She is now getting psychological treatment to cure her "insanity". The wording is confusing because we never hear McCoy diagnose her as mentally ill, and he says something like "She is getting the best available treatment. She doesn't remember anything." But these are just two separate facts he is offering in hopes of comforting Captain Kirk – that she is getting the best medical care, and that she is no longer hysterical with guilt. The whole thing is a rather 60's view of mental illness, but straightforward in that context.
  
• From Mike Meares on 2012-03-07 at 10:04am:
  The Conscience of the King is an interesting episode, but I am forced to agree with the review here as I don’t rate this one higher than a 5 either.
  
  I find myself still enjoy watching this episode, mainly because of the interaction of the three main characters; Kirk, Spock and McCoy. And the acting of Arnold Moss playing the role of Anton Karidian. I thought he was very good.
  
  But the episode is flawed in many, many, many ways. I thought there was way too many mistakes in the writing that should have been corrected before this episode was even filmed.
  
  Looking back on the series as a whole I just found it really distracting that the Captain had this many love interests. Kirk just seems to fall in love at the drop of a hat. I find this unbearable to watch.
  
  And is it just me or does the age thing between Lenore and Kirk bother anyone else? Lenore can not be more than 19 ( and since the events of Tarsus IV took place twenty years prior she may even be younger than that! ) and Kirk is 33 years old. He is almost twice her age!
  
  And Riley, who could not have been more than five years old when he saw Kodos, couldn’t have possibly remembered his face nor his voice.
  
  The way in which Lenore is able to go around killing people seemed a little odd to me.
  
  After killing Dr. Leighton, Lenore and Kirk take a walk together all alone down a path. Now Lenore could have possibly directed Kirk anywhere on their walk, but they end up right at the body of Dr. Leighton! Really? It is almost as if she wanted Kirk to find the body! But why? And she was on the path with Kirk alone. Why doesn’t she kill Kirk right then and there?
  
  Afterwards Kirk invites Lenore and her acting company to come aboard the Enterprise. If Captain Kirk doesn’t do this how in God’s name is Lenore ever, EVER going to get to Kirk and Riley to kill them?
  
  And if Kodos wanted to hide his identity from people, why does he become an actor where the whole universe can see his face?
  
  The story doesn’t make sense!
  
  And Lenore gets her hands on a Phaser! Really? When Riley takes a Phaser security knows about it in an instant! But Lenore takes one and nobody knows? Really?
  
  Lenore places the Phaser in Kirk’s cabin and sets it on overload! Really? How in the hell does she do that? How does she even get a Phaser? And how can she possible know how to make it overload?
  
  We saw in The Cage when Number One sets her Phaser to overload. Number One sets it manually and it starts overloading quickly. But Lenore does this while Kirk and Spock are in the Captain’s cabin talking! And they don’t see her enter the cabin, set the Phaser to overload, hide the Phaser and leave the room? Give me a break!
  
  And while we are on the Phaser…..
  
  We have seen people use a Phaser to zap people out of existence! Why doesn’t Lenore do this to Kirk and Riley? And really why not to all her victims? Their bodies would never be found! Lenore is alone (AGAIN!) with Kirk on the Hanger Deck and could zap him easily (And Riley in the engineering room too). But she doesn’t! Why not you ask? Good question.
  
  All in all a very average episode for Star Trek!
• From John on 2012-12-04 at 4:18pm:
  One of the most memorable scenes was Lenore Karidian dressed in what amounted to a furry barrel. Definite fashion ticket!
• From happydude on 2013-04-16 at 1:26am:
  You have completely misinterpreted McCoy's line at the end. He says, and I quote, "She'll receive the best of care, Jim. She remembers nothing. She even thinks her father is still alive giving performances in front of cheering crowds." What he's saying is that the event of her unintentionally murdering her own father was so traumatic for her that she has blocked it from her memory. No where in there does McCoy say, hint or even imply that her memory was intentionally wiped.
  
  Tell me, at the end of Sacrifice of Angels over on DS9, when Dukat was in his cell imagining himself talking to Ziyal, did you assume that it was because the Feds messed with his mind to make her think she was still alive? Or did you assume that he had become unhinged was unable to accept his daughter's death?
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-06-26 at 1:05am:
  "The Conscience of the King"
  
  I like the surprise twist that it was Kodos's daughter, Lenore, who was killing the witnesses, not Kodos himself. Spock, despite being so sure of himself, missed this fascinating detail.
  
  Why is Lenore interested in Kirk when she wants him dead? And she accuses him of using _her_ as a tool?!
  
  Yes, the Kirk/Spock/McCoy dynamic is great. In fact, that's one of the few reasons to watch the lesser episodes (except, perhaps, the very worst of the bunch).
  
  The Double Red Alert scene with the phaser on overload was intense. But what's with the Pressure Vent Disposal contraption? A little too convenient, I would say. How does it work? Also, there's barely enough time for a TV viewer of the time to be able to read the label.
  
  I, too, like Calexander, would like to know more about what happened when Kodos seized power. On the other hand, that would take some of the mystery out of it, and perhaps make it too easy to figure out if Karidian is really Kodos.
  
  Re Mike Meares comments:
  
  Kirk does not fall in love at the drop of a hat. He wasn't hot for any of Mudd's women, or Andrea, Miri, Mea 3, Sylvia (in "Catspaw"), Marta (in "Whom Gods Destroy"), Nancy Hedford, and many other women he came across. Actually, not even this episode. Kirk only fell for Lenore _after_ he courted her for a while. That's the drop of at least a _few_ hats!
  
  Lenore _was_ 19. The computer told this to Kirk.
  
  Yes, trying to hide your past by taking on the role an actor in a troupe is, well, kind of dumb.
  
  Where did Lenore get the phaser? She must have had one before boarding the Enterprise. Or maybe she bribed a guard.
  
  How does she know how to make it overload? She obviously watched the tutorial on YouTube! :)
  
  About the slow overload: You can't compare the phasers. "The Cage" happened thirteen years prior. The phasers don't even look alike and are therefore different models. So she set the phaser on time-delay slow-overload mode, giving her plenty of time to plant the thing and leave. But I'm surprised that Kirk and Spock had so much difficulty finding it, esp. Spock with his super-duper Vulcan hearing. Apparently she forgot to put it in silent mode, if it even has such thing.
  
  About zapping people out of existence: this violates the Law of Conservation of Energy (energy in the form of mass). Both Kodos and the salt monster were not vaporized out of existence when killed by a phaser. (Actually the salt monster took a direct hit [with the phaser set to kill, I assume] and was merely stunned. It took a second hit to kill it. So maybe a third hit would make it vanish.) Maybe it depends on how high the phaser is set, or the type of phaser or the model number. Kind of scary if it would be so ridiculously easy and quick for a murderer to dispose of his victim!
  
  Imagine the horror of accidentally killing a loved one!
  
  Speaking of accidents, what if you use your phaser intending to stun someone, only to find out that you killed him because you actually had it set to kill?!
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
  
• From Alan Feldman on 2014-05-31 at 12:37pm:
  More on "The Conscience of the King":
  
  How would Lenore know when Kirk would be in his quarters so that she could correctly set the timer on the phaser? How did she get in there in the first place? It seems that quite often in the series anyone can just open the door to anyone else's room!
• From Rick on 2015-02-28 at 5:12am:
  I thought Barbara Anderson did a fantastic job playing Lenore. She would go on to win an Emmy a few years later for Ironside. Very good actress.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Orion Pimpdaddy on 2010-07-07 at 4:08am:
  I completely disagree with the scores people are giving for this episode. This is one of the best episodes of the original series. Why? Well, I'll try to prove my point:
  
  -The villian, Rojan, is a very effective opponent for Kirk. Almost as good as Khan. He's cunning and calm, until he starts having feeling of jealously. He's vicious as well, having crumbled one of the redshirts in his hand.
  
  -The crew is completely defeated and faces a perilous situation. In one of the most tense moments, Kirk was about to blow up the ship to stop the Kelvins. The usual sci-fi gimmicks to resolve the situation are thrown out the window at that point, so they have to resolve the situation without the use of technology.
  
  -The takeover by Kirk, Scotty, Bones, and Spock is skillfully done. Each using their own personality to overwhelm the adversary.
  
  -The description of the Kelvans by Spock adds much needed depth, and eliminates the "alien of the week" problem.
• From Alan Feldman on 2012-12-20 at 4:06am:
  "By Any Other Name"
  
  Great episode, in spite of all its problems.
  
  What's with the energy barrier? What is its origin? I'm with Kethinov on this. And why in blazes can't they just go "over" or "under" it? OK, maybe the barrier envelops the entire galaxy somehow. Nope! Rojan says it's at the rim of our galaxy. Just another absurdity to add to the list.
  
  More "remarkable scenes":
  
  The two that center on the following lines:
  
  KELINDA: Oh. You are trying to seduce me.
  
  KELINDA: Yes. I was wondering: Would you please apologize to me again?
  
  It's pretty amazing seeing our heroes sitting at the table so badly defeated. The hopelessness, despair, anger, and near total resignation about their fate. But then they come up with their brilliant plan for defeating the Kelvans and carry out that plan brilliantly, making this a really fun episode.
  
  But . . .
  
  I really don't think you can have a moon that big so close to the planet. You'd have some serious tidal forces, for one thing.
  
  Converting from 100-limb creatures to humans -- that's quite a feat! And how did they find out so much about humans and the Enterprise and such? And they turned themselves into "textbook humans". And they have the paralysis device. And they can transport themselves around at will with it. And shrink people into polyhedral shapes. Yeah, they're far superior and all that. Yet the energy barrier destroyed their ship. But it's worth going with all this just so that we can have this fun story.
  
  Kelinda's mind, despite now being only "human", can nevertheless propel Spock across the cave. But barely 10 seconds later Kirk grabs her, administers a gentle karate chop to the shoulder, and down she goes.
  
  How can five Kelvans control the entire Federation? Rojan just plainly states it and somehow that's enough. And even if they can, what about the Organians, Klingons, Romulans, Talosians, Metrons, Tholians, Trelane's parents, etc.? Can they control them, too? OK, drop the Tholians.
  
  The Kelvans modify the engines so the ship can go at warp 11. But the ship cannot go that fast in later episodes.
  
  Good luck surviving on just vitamin pills! Really. They're "textbook humans", after all.
  
  Rojan was calm, cool, cold, cruel, plain, straightforward. Well done.
  
  Watching Spock subtly noodge Rojan into jealousy combined with Captain Kirk's fun efforts to push him into a full blown jealous rage was great! I also enjoyed, of course, Scotty drinking Tomar under the table.
  
  Speaking of which, when do enemies like these simply sit down and play a casual game of chess and engage in friendly conversation?
  
  Why did Hanar permit McCoy to give him the shots? And it seemed like a kind of random, out-of-the-blue moment when Hanar confronted Rojan on the bridge. Sort of pointless -- kind of its own self-contained subplot -- but needed somehow. I suppose they had to give Bones _something_ to do.
  
  When Drea neutralized three of the crew on the bridge, one of them was holding one of those Etch A Sketch clipboard things. Actually, I guess its screen is more like a wrinkled version of the gray thing from the same era that you can write on with a stick pencil and erase by pulling up the clear plastic sheet, or something like that. Whatever it is, it didn't make any sound as it hit the floor.
  
  So we have three male and two female Kelvans. And they were going to reproduce for their multi-generational trip back to Andromeda. So that would have been three men sharing two women -- or two women sharing three men. Either way you put it, it doesn't sound like a good idea to me! Maybe Tomar is gay.
  
  Definitely a fun episode.
• From Alan Feldman on 2013-12-21 at 4:34am:
  More on "BY ANY OTHER NAME"
  
  Man, it didn't take long for the Kelvans to explore our galaxy! They were lucky just to get to that planet in a "life craft". And, while stranded on that planet, with only their life craft, they somehow managed to quickly find out all they need to take over the not just the _Enterprise_, but entire galaxy, to boot! How in blazes did they do that?
  
  More about the energy barrier: Hey, we know there's "dark matter" and "dark energy" in the universe, but we don't have much of a clue as to what they even _are_. If there really were an energy barrier at the rim of our galaxy, we might not know much about it, either. But we presently have no indication that there is such a thing. But assuming it's there, as I said in my last comment, why can't you just go over or under it?
  
  They should send the robot ship just outside the barrier, communicate with the Kelvans in the Andromeda Galaxy from there. Then it can shuttle back inside our galaxy and relay the response to us, and so forth. That should save a lot of time!
  
  Again, this is definitely a fun episode.
  
  AEF, a.k.a. betaneptune
• From Scott Hearon on 2014-04-10 at 7:24pm:
  This has been one of my absolute favorite episodes, so far. And for some unexpected reasons.
  
  The science-fiction aspects of this story are excellent. The Kelvans are a very interesting race, and the way they are revealed through Spock's thwarted mind-meld was an excellent device. The Kelvans almost conjure up images of Lovecraft's "Great Old Ones," which is terrifying.
  
  The threat that the aliens pose is about as severe as any I've seen in earlier episodes. The sense of powerlessness among the command and crew of the Enterprise is palpable, and the cold-blooded execution of the female red-shirt drives the point home.
  
  The element that I surprisingly enjoyed in this one is the humor. I really haven't been a fan of the humor in Star Trek, since it's almost always exceptionally cheesy and campy. For some reason, though, I thought the gags in this one were great. Scotty out-drinking that ogre of a Kelvan and Spock coolly stoking Rojan's jealousy were comic gold.
  
  One of the best all-around tales of the series, no doubt.
• From Chris on 2018-03-20 at 6:45pm:
  Loved this episode!
  Emotionally swings from horror, sadness, and despair, to hilarity and ultimately triumph!
  
  Now, on to my nits! ;-)
  These are shapeshifters who apparently will retain the form they've assumed after several weeks. There was a little contradiction to this in the beginning though when Rojan was talking to Henar about returning home. At least it sounded like that to me. Perhaps they were unaware of this quirk?
  
  The question about the barrier at the rim of the Milky Way always struck as odd. If light can pass through the rim, then so should things that move FTL... at least that's MY science!!! ;-)
  
  I found it weird that the Kelvins felt the need to construct such a kick-ass and overly complex jail cell when they could have simply frozen the crew until needed.
  
  There are other obvious nits, but they've been addressed in the other reviews and comments.
  
  One quote that sort of started all the hilarity for me was McCoy: "If he keeps on reacting like that, he's gonna need a diet..."
  He seems to get a lot of good one-liners! "He might take up knitting, but nothing more serious than that!" Ha!!! Gold, man!
  
  Awesome episode!!!
  
  On another note... Mr. Feldman's comment got me to thinking about Dark Matter and Energy.
  
  Perhaps Dark Matter is purely made up of 'Gravitons' which hold galaxies together, and Dark Energy is made up of 'Anti-Gravitons' which pushes most galaxies apart! I realize that no one has ever observed 'Gravitons' before but to me, this explains a lot. Perhaps they really exert a very strong force, but are so few and far between, their net exertion is very little... and are thus VERY hard to detect? Kind of like lasers... not much effect until one is pointed at your light receivers!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-06-03 at 6:40pm:
  Remmick: "You don't like me, do you?" Worf: "Is it required, sir?"
  
  - When the shuttle begins heading toward the planet, the bridge crew runs through the options. Yar says he is out of transporter range. People are beaming up and down from the planet. Doesn't it seem reasonable that the Enterprise could beam someone out of a shuttle that sits between it and the planet?
  - After giving his report to Admiral Quinn, Remmick walks to the door - actually he almost runs into it - and then turns. The door doesn't open. For the next few moments, Remmick stands with his back very close to the door. Then, before he even begins to turn, the door opens and Remmick leaves. How did the door know exactly when to open?
• From CAlexander on 2011-03-09 at 5:40pm:
  - The entire scene with Jake and the shuttle seemed very forced. The shuttle leaves, then two seconds later, it is beyond tractor and transporter range, even though both it and the Enterprise are next to the planet. That is hard enough to believe by itself. But the Enterprise can move, and is faster than a shuttle, so how can they be so helpless?
  - Wesley's "Do you want this to become violent?" comment was part of the test. He knew he was supposed to act rude towards that species of alien, so that is what he was doing. If he was a bit overboard in his attempts to act discourteous, that fits well with his character of being enthusiastic but young and unpolished.
  - Remmick's paranoid questioning was interesting in that he seemed just as irrational to me as to the crew during the episode, but at the end I could see how it might make sense to "be the bad cop" given what he was ordered to do. However his misbehavior during the shuttle incident was not so easily forgiven; is a good Starfleet officer really going to obstruct the crew during a life-or-death situation?
• From 0mcn on 2012-01-30 at 6:47am:
  
  No else said it so I will. Finally an alien that looks like an alien. No wonder they were nominated for best makeup. Not only that but part of his costume is a device that helps him breathe (or does something for him) so yes this makes me happy. :)
• From a2a on 2012-02-08 at 9:09am:
  I thought this episode was excellent. Some major and minor points: 1) Remmick was a great character, especially in light of the episode's resolution and his final attitude towards the enterprise 2) The "invisible" segue's between the interrogations was a nice touch 3) The inside of the academy enrollment process made for a compelling side-plot 4) The unannounced tests were interesting 5) There was an almost kafka-esque scene with Wesley in a dram room with a single chair, supposedly undergoing some mysterious examination he knows nothing about... and for a little while nothing else happening. Just him, the chair, an empty room, and undefined anxieties. 6) The music was excellently dramatic throughout (including during the aforementioned scene).
  
  Problem number 1: Mullet.
  
  Jake's mullet.
  
  Mullets will apparently be back in style in the distant future. This is not very likely (and not really a proper problem either).
  
  Good episode.
• From Quando on 2014-10-01 at 1:13am:
  This approach to administering the Starfleet Academy entrance exam is idiotic. There are four people taking the exam at this particular starbase, and they have decided in advance that they will accept exactly one candidate - the highest score of the four - regardless of how well or how poorly any of the candidates end up doing. Talk about grading on a curve! What if two of them are geniuses, but one of them scores higher by a single point? Tough luck for the second place genius; it's off to the dilithium mines for you. Likewise, what if all four of them are idiots? Will they go ahead and take the smartest of the four idiots? Why are these four candidates not being compared against all of the other candidates who are applying to Starfleet Academy? This method is like Harvard saying it will admit exactly one candidate each from Galveston, Tampa, Billings, Chicago, etc. I also think it is ridiculous that not only is there only one Starfleet Academy on the whole earth, there is only one in the whole galaxy! So you have highly qualified candidates (probably millions) from the populations of dozens of Federation worlds all competing for one of only a few hundred slots in the next Starfleet Academy freshman class in San Francisco? Given all that, I have a sneaking suspicion that Mordok was deemed the "winner" here because of affirmative action (in a choice between the first ever Benzite in Starfleet and just another white human male, who do you think they are going to take?). I guess it's a good thing that Wesley can just try again at the next starbase and hope for weaker competition.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-07-22 at 2:22pm:
  The defector orders a glass of water from the food dispenser. He specifies "twelve ahgians." The computer replies that it is calibrated for the Celsius metric system. The Enterprise plays host to hundreds of races. What happened to the Universal Translator?
• From JRPoole on 2008-04-06 at 9:31pm:
  This is, in my opinion, one of the finest episodes to this point in the series. The Romulans are a much more interesting, well-written and developed race than the Ferengi, and the episodes that focus on them are generally better as a result.  The defector character is nuanced and well-acted, and his plight is endearing.  My only quibble with this episode is the way the Klingon aid is handled.  I realize that it was meant to build suspense, but the effect is rather cheap and the climax suffers a little as a result. Still, this is top-notch trek.
• From paidmailer on 2009-09-26 at 9:36pm:
  Another great neutral zone episode. Two things I can add:
  
  -In the beginning , the character on the right of Data is played by Patrick Stewart.
  -Problem: Why did nobody search the romulan defector?
  
  
• From thaibites on 2010-12-20 at 12:39pm:
  Finally, a good episode! This one has it all - action, intrigue, suspense, wits, Romulans. It shows what TNG was capable of doing, but up until this point, rarely delivered. I especially liked how the Klingon situation was handled. They throw you one little hint that makes you scratch your head and say, "Whatever..." And then it all falls into place at the end. I really enjoyed this one!
• From CAlexander on 2011-04-19 at 1:44am:
  A superb episode. It really catches the tension involved in Jarok being a defector. And this episode shows the Romulans at their finest. I think the ending is well done.
• From EvanT on 2011-06-24 at 10:12pm:
  "twelve ahgians."
  I can see two explanations for this:
  1) The computer really had no idea the Celsius equivalence of the anghian (lack of information about Romulan culture)
  2)This signifies that the defector is all alone on an alien ship (he can't even have a glass of water) He's truly alienated (isn't this the same scene where he thoughtfully studies his suicide pill?)
• From Inga on 2012-01-15 at 4:06pm:
  I really liked to see Klingon ships and the Enterprise lined up against the Romulans
• From Ggen on 2012-03-13 at 10:39pm:
  A rather excellent episode revolving around an excellent guest character (the defector). Through him, we get an inside look into Romulan culture and sensibilities - which, at least in this case, prove to be more rational and sophisticated than previously depicted - and even a sneak peek at Romulus itself (or its holographic recreation). There is of course also the issue of loyalty and betrayal, and the odd matter of betraying out of one's personal interpretation of patriotism (planeterism?).
  
  Lots of great lines strewn along the way, as the defecting Admiral has a rather lyrical bent.
  
  Question: Riker suggests the defection is a ploy to draw the Federation into the neutral zone, and Picard finishes his sentence, "Then they will have a legitimate excuse to respond with force." *Why* would the Romulans need "an excuse?" In front of what interstellar authority? The implication, perhaps, is that Romulan internal affairs are quite a bit more complex and less monolithic, and their society less thoroughly militarized than it appears... (This, of course, is reinforced by the defecting Admiral's personal beliefs and actions.)
  
• From Matt N on 2013-06-01 at 3:32pm:
  I loved the use of the Klingon music from the old Star Trek films when their ships appear.
• From Lloyd on 2016-07-12 at 7:20pm:
  I found it unlikely that the Holodeck would have exact specifications for an area of Romulus, yet the computer cannot convert Celsius to the Romulan unit of measure for temperature.
• From tigertooth on 2016-09-29 at 1:26am:
  It's curious how many 0 votes this episode got. Yesterday's Enterprise and Deja Q also got a surprisingly high 0-vote total despite being well-liked episodes otherwise. Hmm.
  
  Anyway, one aspect that they didn't explicitly touch upon was the fact that Jarok clearly viewed this as a suicide mission. He surely intended to kill himself regardless of the outcome. And it seems likely he was driven to that partially by his demotions. I feel like as much as he loved his daughter, he was so dispirited and humiliated by being pushed to the side that he was trying one last gasp at being important. Sad that his ego overtook his love for his family and his home.
• From Mike on 2016-11-26 at 6:37pm:
  I'm also surprised by the number of low ratings this episode got from so many fans. I tend more toward the webmaster review and other comments here about the excitement of the plot and the character of Admiral Jarok.
  
  I like the hesitation he shows in revealing too much about Romulan technology and tactics to the Enterprise. A lifetime of loyalties would be hard to overcome, even if he's defecting in order to prevent the war he believes is coming. It's also a nice touch having him miss Romulus and Data taking him to the holosuite to see it. In hindsight, his statement "I have sacrificed everything...it must not be in vain" has even greater meaning. It's not just his career, and never seeing his home and family again. He is preparing to sacrifice his life.
  
  Re: Ggen, I would think interstellar opinion in the ST universe still counts for something, and the great powers would need to legitimize or gain sympathy for actions that would otherwise be naked aggression. An unjustified Romulan move against the Federation might cause other neutral worlds to sympathize with or even support the Federation. And within the Romulan Empire, the civilian government would no doubt need reasons to support this move, as their internal politics and civil-military relations are shown in several episodes to be complex. It's definitely not a military dictatorship.
• From Keefaz on 2016-12-22 at 11:50pm:
  The voting for this episode has clearly been hacked for some pathetic reason. Probably best ep to this point.
• From Charles Gervasi on 2017-03-19 at 10:34pm:
  It's seemed odd to me that relations between the Federation and the Romulans was so bad they could not even deliver a message.
• From tigertooth on 2017-04-25 at 2:18am:
  One thing I caught this time around: when Jarok blows up his ship, he expresses disgust that the Federation was eager to pick apart the Romulan craft for its technology, implying that Romulans wouldn't act that way.
  
  Then when Tomalak thinks he has the upper hand on the Enterprise, he gloats about how he's going to pick apart the starship for all its technology!
  
  Jarok's position was obvious puffery - who wouldn't want to look at an adversary's tech? But it was amusing to see the hypocrisy revealed.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From DSOmo on 2007-11-10 at 5:48pm:
  - During this episode, Data asks Crusher to define life, and Crusher sputters around for a while before finally coming up with an answer (sort of). During the first season she was a lot surer of herself. When asked a similar question in "Home Soil," she immediately answered that organic life must have the ability to assimilate, respirate, reproduce, grow and develop, move, secrete, and excrete.
  - Prior to a meeting concerning the exocomp, Picard makes a log stating that he has called a meeting of the senior staff. In the meeting, both Riker and Worf are missing.
  - The exocomps have the ability to replicate the tool attachment they need for a specific job. Normally, the exocomp dematerializes this attachment as soon as it completes the job. Very conveniently, an excomp "forgets" to dematerialize the attachment. This forgetfulness allows Data to see the tool and come to the conclusion that the exocomps are alive (which is needed to move the plot along).
  - When the bridge crew quickly runs through the options for rescuing Picard, Faralon claims that they don't have time to send a shuttle to the space station. Yet mere seconds before, Riker tells everyone they have twenty-two minutes! Twenty-two minutes isn't enough time to fly a shuttle next door to an orbiting space station? It's amazing the dance the creators go through to keep the tension up on this show. Of course, if the Enterprise sent a shuttle, the exocomps wouldn't be in danger, and Data couldn't save them, and so on, and so on.
• From djb on 2008-05-29 at 7:55am:
  - I wonder why Riker, who outranks Data, wasn't able to override the transporter lockout. Of course, Data has been shown to be able to lock everyone out, even the captain (see "Brothers") but it didn't seem to indicate he imitated anyone's voice like he did before.
  
  - There's obvious continuity between this episode and "The Measure of a Man" but there's also a subtle reference to "The Offspring," in which Picard encourages Data to disobey the Admiral who wants to take Lal away, saying, "There are times when men of conscience cannot blindly follow orders." It seems Data has taken that to heart.
  
  - I find it weird that there isn't much of a difference made between "sentient" and "sapient" in this episode. Clearly the line has to be drawn somewhere when it comes to the importance of preserving "living" things. If, for example, I had to sacrifice my cat, who is sentient, but not sapient, to save a human friend, there wouldn't be much of a question, even if it were a difficult decision to make. And if it were a tree, there would be no question. The tree is alive by all definitions of the word, but it would be ludicrous to put a single plant on the same level of importance as a starship captain. Data's acting as if the AI exhibited by these devices might make him "not alone" is ridiculous, because simple self-preservation is certainly feasible without a positronic brain. Plus, even if the exocomps could be proven to be "sentient," they don't have positronic brains, and therefore would never make Data less unique no matter how smart they became.
  
  Somehow Data has come to the conclusion that the rudimentary intelligence shown by the exocomps, which is, at best, circumstantial evidence that they are anything approximating "conscious," is of equal value with two humans, one of whom saved him from being disassembled. Wouldn't Data take that into account? He seems to have jumped to conclusions, which is inconsistent with his programming. In fact, he seems very driven by emotion in this episode. It brings up a good question of where our the border between our thoughts and our emotions lies.
  
  It's true that the exocomps exhibited self-preservation behavior, but that is a far cry from sapience. Even following Crusher's loose definition of "alive," these exocomps didn't reproduce or grow. They also didn't consume food any more than a tricorder would. Neither do they obviously exhibit self-awareness. Their self-preservation tendencies could be nothing more than good AI. As indicated in the episode, they have heuristic programming, writing itself as it learns more, and for all we know, this program came to the logical conclusion that self-preservation is most conducive to the unit executing its function properly. Clearly, unlike Data's designer, their designer did not intend for them to become "alive," even in the loosest sense of the word. (This, of course, brings up the whole debate of Intelligent Design, but that's a whole different can of worms.)
  
  Indeed, I wonder why more effort wasn't made to discover to what extent these exocomps could exhibit life-like behavior, why no one bothered to try to communicate with them outside of the typical "enter command" protocol, and why no one asked exactly HOW they became "sentient." It reminds me of "Evolution", where a science project "accidentally" became intelligent, and all of a sudden has to be preserved and protected, even when it threatens the ship. One wonders, then, since the Federation is committed to seeking out new forms of life, why there isn't a comprehensive working definition of life, along with a set of tests to gauge whether or not something is alive, so this quandary doesn't come up every time some device exhibits seemingly intelligent behavior.
  
  - This is trivial, but I like the "beard" continuity between this episode and the previous one. It's true that the producers intentionally kept this series episodic, with not much overlap from episode to episode, but some more continuity on non-plot points like this one would have been nice.
• From 2 Of 14 on 2008-09-05 at 10:53am:
  This episode has some excellent aspects such as great ideas, great production values, etc. However, I just cannot get my head around Data deliberately disobeying direct orders from his commanding officer by locking the transporter. To me, this is a major problem in this episode.
  
  Data’s reasoning that the exocomps are just as valuable as two human lives is totally believable; he is an android and we understand that he sometimes arrives at conclusions many people would not understand or share, that is part of his appeal.
  
  But to directly disregard direct orders from his commanding officer in this way is just bizarre. In an organisation like Starfleet following orders would be essential, such a complex starship cannot operate without a high level of discipline. A commanding officer is supposed to be so highly trained and experienced that if they make decisions affecting the lives of their crew they should expect them to be carried out, not necessarily without question, but certainly without such blatant refusal.
  
  Data knows all this; in "Redemption II" when Lt. Cmdr. Hobson questions Data’s orders, Data threatens to relieve him of duty.
  
  If I was Picard or Riker after this incident I would feel very uncomfortable having Data in such a senior position and would not want him on board the ship in such a capacity.
  
• From JRPoole on 2008-09-11 at 3:49pm:
  Thie episode trots out a few standard Trek themes that are starting to get a little cliche by this point in TNG: the definition of life and/or sentience, Dats's humanity, moral conundrums, and scientists blinded by ambition.
  
  We don't really get anything new here, but these ideas are all handled servicably, and this episode is intriguing nonetheless.
  
  
• From Rick on 2014-03-13 at 5:24pm:
  Huge problem in this episode (which is otherwise a great one): If the scientist and Riker do not buy that the exocomps are lifeforms, then why do they need to disconnect their command pathways? They both tell Data that they arent lifeforms and Data responds by saying that because they are lifeforms they will not accept the commands that will kill them. Then Riker and scientist decide to disconnect the command pathways? Isnt this directly admitting that Data has been right all along and that they are going to kill the exocomps anyway!!!???
• From El Goopo on 2015-03-02 at 6:16am:
  People really don't like this episode, do they? Talk about being unwilling to think things through..
  
  >Very conveniently, an excomp "forgets" to dematerialize the attachment.
  
  Or perhaps it didn't forget, and was intentionally letting Data see it? Works just as well.
  
  
  >Twenty-two minutes isn't enough time to fly a shuttle next door to an orbiting space station?
  
  This is the most minor of nits, for an episode that was clearly not about shuttles. Most problems in stories could be solved far more sensibly without tacked-on conditions to rationalize how the story gets where it has to go.
  
  
  >Data's acting as if the AI exhibited by these devices might make him "not alone" is ridiculous
  
  Data was their advocate, not because he knew they were intelligent, but because a possibly sentient life form was being forced to die, put in the same position he himself was in earlier in the series. Given that the Exocomps never reappeared, he was probably wrong... but not in principle.
  
  
  >Their self-preservation tendencies could be nothing more than good AI.
  
  Rewatch Measure of a Man and revisit the "sentience" criteria - would you condemn something that might be sentient because you think it doesn't qualify? The point is to not be hasty and condemn possible life, not assume it's not life because you can't bring yourself to believe it at the time.
  
  
  >But to directly disregard direct orders from his commanding officer in this way is just bizarre.
  
  "To seek out new life" is the Enterprise's primary mission, spoken loudly right in the title sequence each week. If you saw that your CO was about to sacrifice the greater mission to save two lives, would you not want him to listen to your arguments before saying "yes sir" and pressing on?
  
  
  >If I was Picard or Riker after this incident I would feel very uncomfortable having Data in such a senior position and would not want him on board the ship in such a capacity.
  
  Kind of a ridiculous notion to not trust your subordinate simply for doing something you yourself have done more often, and possibly for lesser reasons than violating your primary mission. Heck, Data hijacked without even knowing it just to go see his father, and they still trusted him after that massive security vulnerability was exposed. Why would this be any worse?
  
  
  >If the scientist and Riker do not buy that the exocomps are lifeforms, then why do they need to disconnect their command pathways?
  
  If your computer isn't responding, do you assume it has achieved sentience, or that it has crashed? No, you reboot it. Similar principle here. Farallon was just a step further, and refusing to accept new facts that pointed at it being more than a "bug", but the story pointed that out.
• From Rick on 2015-10-26 at 3:22pm:
  El Goopo:
  
  I agree with all of your responses, as people tend to see problems where there really arent any, except for the last one in which you question the problem I brought up.
  
  The entire premise of the second half the episode is that if the Exocomps have a sense of survival then they are sentient. Or at least there is a high probability that they are sentient and they shouldnt be mistreated until that hypothesis is confirmed or refuted.
  
  Data explicitly says to Riker, "If I am correct" that the Exocomps are sentient, they will refuse this order because it is too dangerous. Then Riker orders that the command pathways to be shut down, which means that he thinks they will refuse this order too. So are you saying there is a computer bug that only makes the Exocomps refuse orders that are dangerous? That was not programmed into them so it doesnt really make sense that they would develop such a "bug". And besides my speculation, as I already stated, that survival instinct to refuse dangerous orders so heavily suggests that they are sentient that you cannot mistreat them until you find out for sure. So even if Riker thought it may be a bug, he cannot and should not shut down their command pathways until he is sure.
• From Axel on 2018-06-17 at 5:21am:
  So, these poker games the senior staff plays: you have a Betazoid who can sense emotion, LaForge whose VISOR apparently helps him tell when people are lying, and Data, who can count cards. Yet somehow Riker and Crusher are the ones that always win? Riker must be a phenomenal bluffer.
  
  Anyway, Data doesn't suggest that the exocomps are exactly like him. He suggests they are possible progenitors. When did he actually become a life form? He's not sure, which is why he's so interested in the exocomps. They might show him an earlier stage of his own existence as he was being assembled by Soong.
  
  Also, the self-preservation isn't the only reason Data suspects they might be alive, although that gets talked about the most. His evidence that it might have been deliberate self-preservation is because he sees they are rapidly forming new circuit pathways. If that's happening, it's a sign they might be developing self-awareness and a rudimentary intelligence, both signs of life. It also means they might continue to become more intelligent. The possibility of growth is too much to ignore.
  
  As far sacrificing Geordi and Picard for the exocomps, he said it wasn't an easy decision. As Picard says, it was a human decision. As with all human decisions, some people may disagree or have done it differently. The whole point though, to me, is that Data has to make this call quickly and still adhere to his ethical subroutines. It was a growth moment for him as well.
• From QuasiGiani on 2018-06-20 at 5:28am:
  "Huge problem in this episode (which is otherwise a great one): If the scientist and Riker do not buy that the exocomps are lifeforms, then why do they need to disconnect their command pathways? They both tell Data that they aren't lifeforms and Data responds by saying that because they are lifeforms they will not accept the commands that will kill them. Then Riker and scientist decide to disconnect the command pathways? Isn't this directly admitting that Data has been right all along and that they are going to kill the exocomps anyway!!!???" -From Rick on 2014-03-13 at 1:24pm
  
  Yep. Yes. Exactly.
  
  Riker... ...dis-apoint-ted (or as Data basically said: fuck you).
  
  ...
  
  Also -- on a much more serious and substantial level than these squabbles and frittatas about slavery and life-sacrifice -- Dr. Beverly Crusher never really appealed to me (so much, {I mean, who am I kidding}) but in this episode she was undeniably beautiful to my eye (and her character's character was particularly nice as well). Both of these are separate and both of these are just maybe slight improvements but enough to qualify as quantity elevating quality.
• From Chris on 2019-07-28 at 7:18pm:
  Look folks, and I realize how late to this discussion I am... This to me is a very touching episode, with twists I did not expect!
  The Scientist turning on her own creations despite her deep admiration for Data is one big one!
  
  I find in these comments, far too much disbelief that something could never happen the way they describe them, yet are perfectly comfortable with the entire premise of ships that go FTL, and Transporters, and all the other gibberish they use or talk about!
  
  My biggest technical gripe with ST from the beginning is that while a ship may send out a sensing signal at 'sub-space' speeds (whatever that means) the signal would not return at 'sub-space' speeds. Further, when you and your enemy are buzzing around at FTL trying to shoot each other out of the sky, I can't imagine any sensors working in any way, shape, or form!
  
  Let the nits go and enjoy the good stories, because they are, after all, very good stories!

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From David in California on 2007-11-09 at 6:31pm:
  This two-parter was very enjoyable. I had vague memories of it from when it was originally aired--in particular the surreal image from the end of Part I of the damage from the holo-explosion exposing parts of the ship.
  
  As a fan of "space fantasy" like Dr. Who, Farscape and the like, I especially enjoy Star Trek episodes that find a plausible "hard SF" way of achieving the same kind of general esthetic, such as the juxtapositioning of the WWII setting and the space/future setting in this episode. It struck me as similar in feel to one of the new Dr. Who episodes featuring a spaceship filled with time portals to 17th Century France, but of course using the holodeck technology established in Star Trek to make it less "fantasy".
  
  So my favorable memories of watching the episode 10 years ago were confirmed from this rewatching. Good stuff, IMO. I rated it 8/10.
• From adam on 2010-11-12 at 9:04am:
  Are you kidding me? Klingons going into battle against the Nazis was one of the all-time funniest moments in all of Trek! I thought the guns would be problematic, but I underestimated the Klingon gifts of agility, determination, and the element of surprise!
• From gategod on 2011-07-06 at 5:16am:
  Don't you think Naomi Wildman probably died 7 times during this episode... >.>
• From Bronn on 2013-08-30 at 9:49pm:
  It's nice to see Neelix actually accomplish something useful. So many times he's an active obstacle the rest of the crew has to overcome in order to achieve their missions-like when he fell down while spelunking, or when he stupidly ignored orders and had his lungs stolen. Getting the Klingons to attack the Nazis, that's amusing.
  
  I really like this episode, but I nearly have an aneurysm every time I watch Seven making that grenade. "This explosive will be harmless to organic tissue but will disrupt all holographic activity within twenty meters." WHAT!? It's a FRAGMENTATION grenade, Seven. How are you going to make that thing detonate without shooting shrapnel everywhere? I mean, I get that's she some sort of super genius with Borg technology, but fragmentation grenades are cannisters filled with TNT and black powder detonators-she's just as likely to get her shoes to emit a "photonic burst" as she is that grenade. And when we see it go of...it doesn't disrupt all holographic activity. It just makes a few holographic people disappear, but the buildings and the ground remain the same.
  
  I'm so thrilled that this thing didn't end up saving the day because it's so ridiculous. It's actually kind of a nice subversion of typical expectations for Voyager that she spends almost half the episode working on this nonsense tech solution, and it end ups backfiring on them. It's probably why this ends up being a good episode in the end-they can't just spin some magic science nonsense to fix everything, they had to suffer and fight to finally agree to a truce.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From fan ive on 2009-12-28 at 8:50pm:
  T'Pol have such a sweet small ass.
  it's observation, not a diagnosis.
• From Zorak on 2016-10-11 at 2:08am:
  Agreed. I think 2 main things made this episode a bit more bearable and entertaining then similar episodes.
  
  #1 The gratuitousness of the sexual and violent themes had context as well as a bit of charming humor. It wasn't just sex and violence for it's own sake. It was used to settle established conflicts and further characterization.
  
  #2 It takes place after a run of mostly good (and some great) episodes, as opposed to just being a continuation of mediocre and poor episodes. So it's not like "here we go again with this crap", but more "ok, not great.. but a change of pace".

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From JRPoole on 2009-05-06 at 2:30am:
  Two problems here:
  
  1) Doesn't sending Akorem back to live out his life change the time line in a very serious fashion? The cute little tie up of that question at the end is ridiculous.
  
  2) Okay, how gullible are the Bajoran people?
• From John on 2011-01-12 at 7:27pm:
  This episode proves once again that the Bajoran people are the most naive pushovers in the Alpha Quadrant.
  
  One of the things I love about DS9 is that the "Prophets" themselves seem to have little or no interest in what actually goes on on Bajor. They are completely indifferent, in part because they themselves can't even conceive of linear time as we understand it. It's fun to laugh at the Bajorans as they read so much into everything the Prophets do, while at the same time you know the Prophets don't really care one way or another.
• From MJ on 2011-02-07 at 12:45pm:
  The wormhole aliens/Prophets are to DS9 what the Traveler was to TNG: an absurd, unnecessary story arc that reduces the show's credibility. As with the Traveler, the Prophets are used to explain away inconsistencies, do things that make no sense, and kill the climax of otherwise good episodes (see DS9: Sacrifice of Angels). The difference is, we have a lot more Prophet episodes than we do Traveler episodes.
  
  This religion of the Prophets makes the Bajorans look like despicable fools. This is especially true of Kira, who in these episodes is no longer the tough, independent fighter, but a sheep who blindly devotes herself to whatever the religious authorities of her planet dictate. So, the Kira character definitely loses credibility. Then, enter this 200+ year-old Bajoran poet who wants to turn Bajoran society upside down, likely throwing the entire planet into chaos and ruin, and everyone just goes along with it because you don't question the Emissary? It doesn't really reflect well on Bajor overall.
  
  I console myself with this episode somewhat by hoping the point is to show how blind obedience to organized religion can be bad. There are hints this might be the case, such as Odo's excellent questioning of Kira (my favorite moment in the episode) on the Promenade before the new Emissary's first speech, and how the Prophets clearly have no concept of time, rendering the prophecy of who contacts them "first" a moot point. But, I realize it's not Star Trek's place to really take positions; the show simply offers competing points of view to educate the audience, which, of course, is fantastic. But the Prophet storyline takes away from Kira and Bajor in the process.
  
  I do like how the episode reflects both Sisko's being uncomfortable with the position of Emissary while also wearing the uniform, and his true concern for Bajor when the new Emissary starts enacting his agenda. Sisko has come to love this world and its people, however superstitious they may be, and is willing to serve in this role if it's in Bajor's best interests.
  
  We also have an episode that ends rather suddenly (again).
  
  I also wasn't a huge fan of the subplot. Normally I enjoy the camaraderie between O'Brien and Bashir, but this subplot was rather dull and pointless. It went from O'Brien wanting to spend more time with Keiko to missing Bashir. Not interesting.
  
  Below average episode at best.
• From Bernard on 2011-02-07 at 11:01pm:
  I find myself in agreement with MJ over the Prophets but in total disagreement over Major Kira.
  
  I think that you are confusing your personal loss of respect for her character with her credibility. The character is still perfectly credible as we see time and time again on our planet the blindness of faith. Have you never had conversations with believers who can stand there and as perfectly rational people then suddenly say that they believe that a man fed 5000 from a couple of loaves? The Kira character is consistant in this respect all the way through the series, so I think it is perfectly credible that she behaves in this manner. Just because I personally can't understand why people can have blind faith doesn't mean that a character is not credible if they do.
  
  This episode does not mark the end of the Prophets as a well thought out and written species though... just watch 'Rapture' and any episodes from that point onwards involving Prophets/Pah Wraiths or both to see not only the spoiling of a truly fascinating species but also the implication (and later more than just implication!) that they really do have a connection with the Bajorans!
  
  I enjoy this episode as it brings up interesting points and as MJ said is allows the viewer to make up their own mind. I would rate it slightly higher than 5 despite some of the problems.
• From MJ on 2011-02-13 at 1:46pm:
  Hi Bernard,
  
  You make a great point. I have, actually, known some very intelligent believers, and it has been strange to me how they reconcile their faith with some of their other views. Maybe not strange, but interesting. I can see what you mean about Kira still being who she is, and yet still steeped in the traditions of her people. We have had glimpses of how her religion was one of the things that may very well have sustained her during the Cardassian occupation.
  
  I guess it just catches me off guard when I see episodes in which Kira is fearless, answering to no one and taking on anybody who gets in her way, and yet here is willing to abandon her life simply because a spiritual leader told her to do so. The good thing, though, is that she doesn't do so unquestioningly. She voices her frustrations to that Vedek about her lack of artistic talent, which at least makes it somewhat believable.
  
  On another note, I really did enjoy the moment in this episode where Kira informs Sisko of her decision to resign, and advising him on a replacement.
• From Tallifer on 2011-03-31 at 12:23am:
  Original Star Trek was generally atheist: gods were just aliens in disguise. Deep Space 9 recognizes that for most people the universe is mysterious and mystical. The Bajoran religion seems to be a mixture of Hindoo and Moslem ideas.
  
  In this episode, it is the Hindoo caste system. The Cardassian occupation was an aberration and a traumatic experience. Naturally many Bajorans would be eager to return to the halcyon days of yore. Nowadays there is still a segment of Indian society that wants the ancient caste system legalized and enforced.
  
  As for the emissaries, all the major religions have several prophets from the gods. When Akorem assumed the mantle of emissary, many Bajorans could have easily thought of Sisko as a sort of John the Baptist preceding the actual emissary.
• From Hugo on 2012-05-11 at 8:00pm:
  Well, I gave it an 8 - a solid, interesting and engaging episode, with any major flaws - as I see it!
• From Lt. Fitz on 2012-06-27 at 5:20pm:
  Keiko has redeemed herself. I was really aggravated by her in the last episode with her in it. In this one she behaved the way I expected a woman returning home after a long absence would behave. :)
• From John on 2013-05-01 at 1:06am:
  I have to agree with Bernard that Kira is still a very credible character.
  
  Specifically, the idea that someone can be stubborn, willful and annoying, while at the same time being indecisive, ignorant, and easily swayed by religious doublespeak is perfectly credible.
• From Mike on 2016-11-03 at 6:16am:
  I'd give this a 2, mainly because it's an episode that didn't really need to be made, or should've been much better.
  
  The whole point of this episode was to show Sisko finally embracing his role as Emissary. And I could buy the premise that the Prophets had Akorem do this brief stint in the future in order to get Sisko to accept his "path". But that's not how the episode is scripted. Instead, the whole thing seems like random action by the Prophets that inadvertently almost upends Bajor, the consequences of which are completely ignored by the end of the episode.
  
  Akorem lays out a pretty good case for his being the Emissary. But apparently, he's wrong. So why exactly did he emerge from the wormhole 200+ years into the future? The vague response from the Prophets indicates that he drifted into the wormhole, they saw that he was injured, healed him, and then released him. Since they're unaware of linear time, they just so happened to drop him into the timeline at this moment. When Akorem and Sisko speak with them, they seem to think something along the lines of, "oh yeah, that's right...Sisko explained this whole linear time thingy to us...ya know, maybe we could just send this Akorem guy back to his time." In other words, as John points out, they do things in capricious ways while the Bajorans foolishly read into everything as intentional. We never find out what the Bajorans thought of why Akorem briefly appeared in this time period. Instead, they seemingly just accept that it happened and go back to their lives.
  
  So Akorem goes back to his time, almost everything returns to what it was at the start of the episode except for Akorem's poetry, the changes to which are written off as mysterious Prophet ways, and Sisko now happily performs the ceremonies that he felt uncomfortable with at the start.
  
  It's an aggravating, unsatisfying end.

No fan commentary yet.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

• From Sir Brando on 2006-05-10 at 4:59pm:
  The idea behind this episode may be flawed, but it is still very unique. It gives you a very creepy feeling. I like it.. it's not the best but I don't think it deserves a 0. just my opinion!
• From Pete Miller on 2006-11-26 at 4:37am:
  HAHAHAHA!!! I was watching this episode, and thinking that I was about to give it a zero because I didn't even consider it canon, and then I see you've already made the same conclusion. You wonder what the hell the writers were thinking. Or should I say what kind of alcoholic depression binge they were on. Besides the complete absurdity of the episode and the fact that it has absolutely no effect on anything, it also happens to be DEPRESSING as FUCK!!!! Wow. Thanks for tying up that loose end, writers. This episode really contributes a lot.
  
  Zero. Second episode of Voyager to get one.
• From Tony on 2008-09-26 at 7:13pm:
  My opinion is slightly diferent; I think that the idea of bringing back the duplicated crew from "Demon" was a good one (despite the obvious flaw of the entire ship having been duplicated), but the writer(s) did not create a story that create a story that lived up to the potential of that idea, or even come close. All we get to see is the entire duplicated crew die with hardly a storyline at all. A better idea would have been to have Voyager and duplicated Voyager discover each other and try to find out why there are two of them, then have the duplicates begin to degrade, they discover that the real Voyager is causing duplicated Voyager to degrade and they also find out what duplicated Voyager is. Now that the degradation has been started, it cannot be stopped. As a side story, hostile aliens couls have attacked the real Voyager at the beginning, and were driven off. They attack again, but because the aliens are only aware of one Voyager, duplicated Voyager sacrifices themselves to make the aliens think Voyager is destroied and the rear Voyager can continue on it's way. But no, we have to watch a dumb story of people dieing that deserves a zero.
• From Tallifer on 2011-04-25 at 11:12pm:
  10/10
  
  This story is an extremely moving tragedy. Up until the end we are given some sliver of hope that something good can still happen for this doomed crew. We come to identify fully with the plight of these "people" who are fighting for their "humanity" and "Federation values."
  
  It is a fascinating coda to an equally interesting story. Star Trek was ever brilliant for this kind of story: a once-told short story. Episodic television can be terrific: forty minutes of speculation, drama and escape. Not everything needs to be a twenty-six part epic arc like the dreary Battlestar Galactica.
• From spline on 2014-01-26 at 11:18am:
  "I think it's an episode people either love or hate," observed Nick Sagan. "The 'hate' category seems to say, 'Why do we follow a crew that isn't even our regular crew?' and they feel cheated. But it really is the story about the poignancy of Voyager's journey. There's something about trying really hard and not being quite able to achieve it, which is a reality to a lot of people [....] [The episode's] about a need to be remembered, a need to be recorded, and that's the special tragedy about making a log, a kind of capsule – we know that the 'Demon' crew dies. It's about loss and remembering, death and grief."
  
  I'm with Tallifer. I think those who give this silly ratings like 0 or 1 are being unjust and hypocritical. How many pointless episodes about Harry Kim's love life, alien of the week, shuttlecrash of the week, and reset buttons get a pass? Ninety percent of this series' episodes do not advance the overall plot *at all*. And criticizing it because it's not the "real" crew utterly misses the entire point of the story.
  
  This is a 9/10 episode easily, one of the best of the series.
• From spline on 2014-01-26 at 11:50am:
  Also, one last thing to think about:
  
  The writers also wanted to leave certain issues unresolved. "We didn't want to answer a lot of questions," Ken Biller stated, "like, how long has that ship been out there? Some of the episodes that we saw earlier in the season, was it that crew? Or was it the real crew? It's kind of intriguing to think about."
  
  (quotes from Memory Alpha)
• From janus on 2014-10-16 at 10:05am:
  An episode which tests issues of personal identity, loyalty and motivation to destruction (literally!)
  
  When Janeway says that she's determined to get them home, only to be reminded that *their* home is a demon-class planet in the Delta Quadrant, and when Harry Kim is told that, even if they did get "home" to Earth, his family would not want a duplicate of their real son, but only the original, we see a fundamental conflict which cannot be hand-waved away - and that is *true* drama.
  
  That it starts with Tom and B'Elanna's wedding, and ends with Voyager's destruction, makes clear that the writers meant to create a truly tragic episode. That the probe with the record of all of their mission-data is lost, and that the other Voyager encounters only their wreckage, adds to the tragedy, and maybe even makes us contemplate our own mortality.
  
  On a side-note, how is it "unlikely" that a fictional substance could perfectly replicate a human being (complete with past memories!) but couldn't replicate inanimate ship components, too? It seems no more unlikely than time travel, which violates our understanding of physics but happens in science fiction all the time.
  Also, it seems irrelevant to object that this isn't the real crew, since they have the same personalities and memories; what about the *backup* Doctor in Living Witness? He's also "just" a copy.
  
  Let's be honest: plot devices like these are a dramatic conceit. The real point is that, given the setup, the characters act in a consistent and believable way, so that we can relate to their feelings and choices, and be invested in the consequences.
  
  Of all the stories which show Voyager's crew trying to get home, this is the only one which explores what it would mean, to them and us, if they failed. (Voyager's destruction in Year of Hell was done knowing that it should restore the former timeline.)
  
  Just for that, this episode is exceptional.
  
  10/10
  
  PS: This one reminds me a lot of DS9 "Whispers", which I also liked. Our reviewer gave that a low score too, so at least I'm (or we're) consistent. ;)
• From thaibites on 2015-01-21 at 1:04am:
  When the story opened with Paris and Ms. Miserable getting married, I thought "Oh no, not another stupid soap opera episode!" Luckily, I hung in there and found a quirky little episode that managed to take Voyager out of its predictable rut.
  
  1) Why is it so unbelievable that the ship was copied? If you think that the holodeck is believable, then you're just being a hypocrite. How many times have we seen the holodeck defy physics and make a room into a huge outdoor scene where people walk for miles. Now that's unbelievable!
  
  2) The copy crew needed to have an enhanced warp drive so they could be ahead of the real Voyager and almost meet them on the way back. (I wonder if this causes problems in the future for the real Voyager. Maybe they'll run into aliens that the copy crew had a problem with?)
  
  3) I liked the fact that the copy crew was allowed to die at the end. They violated the crew of Voyager and were an abomination in the eyes of the Lord! Star Trek endings are too nice and orderly, and it was nice to see something different for a change. With X-Files being so popular during this time period, you would think Berman et al would emulate them more often.
  
  It's obvious this is an episode that people either love or hate. The little gayrods that act like Comicbook Guy on the Simpsons hate it because it doesn't fit into their nice, orderly Start Trek canon world. These people obviously have never had sex with another human, and their real lives are more meaningless than the copy crew's. The people who love this episode are free-thinkers and lovers of science-fiction (NOT soap operas in space). These people long for Berman and friends to push the boundaries of ST in the great tradition of Gene Roddenberry. I think this episode does that quite nicely!
• From Dstyle on 2015-07-09 at 3:06am:
  Before watching the episode I came to this site to check it's rating and almost gave it a pass as a result, but I decided to watch it because the fan rating was just a little below average. Boy, I sure am glad I watched this one: one of my favorites of the season so far.
  
  I guess it definitely is a love it or hate it kind of episode, and I can respect the opinions of those who thought it was a weak episode. Personally, I enjoy science fiction that utilizes the possibilities of a technologically advanced future to explore abstract philosophical problems in a tangible way. Remember Tuvix, and that whole episode that used transporter technology to explore the nature of identity and individuality? To me this felt like an episode in the same vein. What if you discovered that you were not really you, and that the real "you" was out there in the world somewhere living a separate existence? Is your existence any less authentic? What would it take for you to accept that you are the copy and not the other way around? (In this case, it was extreme physical degradation: evidence that you are, in fact, a lesser copy.) Do your experiences and feelings still have value? Should you be afforded the same respect that the "real" you had earned? It was fascinating, and I found the end to be rather beautiful and poignant.
  
  I'm going to resist the urge to pick apart kethinov's review line by line, with the exception of the final line. Watch this episode. Yeah, you might hate it, but it's a "you love it or you hate it" kind of episode. Don't deny yourself the opportunity of finding out which you are.
• From dominic on 2016-06-10 at 4:00am:
  It doesn't matter that they're not the "real" crew. They think they are, they react the same way the real crew would, and they are just as heartbroken when they realize they will never see Earth.
• From tigertooth on 2017-06-20 at 4:06am:
  I was okay with the premise. Some of the flaws that have been mentioned hurt it a bit, but I could deal with it.
  
  To me, the main problem was that outside of the premise, the episode was just kinda boring. It's like 45 minutes of "we're melting" and then they die. There's no dramatic arc. From the moment they learn the truth until the end, nothing really happens except slow decay and death.
  
  I wonder if they should have held off the reveal that they were all duplicates for a while longer. Like they realize it's related to the Demon planet, then they start to think that they're being infected by their duplicates. They could even given a technobabble explanation of how a duplicate Voyager could have been created. They run into the other Voyager, thinking it's the duplicate. Then they come to realize they're the duplicates. Then you go to the valiant sacrifice idea somebody mentioned earlier. At least it would have given them something to do....
• From QuasiGiani on 2017-08-25 at 8:49am:
  Excellent episode. It _is_ canon. Those that don't realize this don't understand the term (though they are so obviously just itchin' to use it; like a Vocabulary Of The Week word)... so object if you must but you really shouldn't must.
  
  Excellent episode. It is _also_ part of a (apparently preciousssss) story arc... so again, embrace this episode.
  
  Excellent episode. It is _also_ _also_ (as a few have pointed out) an episode that harkens-back to TOS as a sci-fi short-story format that needn't answer to every goddamed negative, niggling, nebbishmal, nay-saying, neurotican, nerdling, nabobbing natter... so, to those who enjoyed it: Nanu... Nanu!
• From McCoy on 2017-09-22 at 3:19pm:
  I don't understand all that low ratings. Looks like you people prefer utopian, happy space adventures. This was a great tragedy with good use of s-f elements. Certailny better than most high ranked action episodes (like i.e. Dark Frontier).
  I expected that they will somehow contact the original Voyager and send them a beacon. But the writers made bold choice and served us hard, depressing, moving end. Bravo! 9/10 from me.
• From minnie on 2017-12-01 at 2:15pm:
  I'm with Spline on this one. I found it haunting and it stayed with me afterwards. It's one of the most memorable episodes - many of them aren't. I don't think it matters whether the story arc is advanced. It is still about the crew, eg. Janeway sticking to the mission despite all evidence saying she should turn around and so forth. Very interesting, a proper sci fi story, and a sad one. A tragedy. So I gave it 9.
• From jbense on 2018-03-04 at 8:12pm:
  Gotta say: I completely disagree with those who consider this a poor episode.
  
  To me, it is one of Voyager's best.
  
  User janus above pointed out similarites with DS9's "Whispers." It also brings to mind the DS9 episode "The Visitor," another tangential side-plot episode written in the poignant style of a classic sci-fi short story.
  
  I advise strongly against skipping this episode.
• From notaduck on 2020-04-03 at 3:14pm:
  I'm on the "love it" side of the fence! Watching the whole series for the first time. This one stuck with me for all the reasons I enjoy science fiction: spectacular possibilities (cloning), centered on real human emotions (loss, home, protection), not afraid to face hard philosophical questions (identity, being remembered, the meaning of principles), wrapped in a short story. There are some slow parts, but I feel like the uncertainty of their fate and the struggles of the duplicate captain more than made up for it.
  
  A point I think can be missed is the tragedy at the end isn't just about loss of life, but loss of accomplishments, recognition, and respect for these lives. Imagine if the real Voyager had picked up the secret of the advanced warp drive! Imagine Tom and Elana reading their twins' marriage vows! It's a thoughtful, subtle statement I think can be lost in the prosthetics.
  
  Man, I'm glad I made it through the early seasons to get treats like this...
• From Ralph on 2021-10-25 at 5:26pm:
  I think this episode is the one where I am furthest away from Kethinov's opinion - with whom I'm generally quite in agreement with. I think this was a wonderful episode. A real tragedy that was well written. Up until the very end I had my hopes up for something to come out of the duplicate crew. Even at the very last scene after it was clear that the time capsule was lost, there was hope of the real Voyager finding a remnant of their counterparts.
  
  Star Trek almost never writes an episode like this. At least not this era of Star Trek. I find this easily one of the better Voyager episodes.