Star Trek Voyager: Shattered
Reviewed By: Haasim Mahanaim
Warning: This review contains spoilers
This episode begins with Chakotay entering a cargobay while Icheb and Naomi Wildman are assembling a puzzle. He picks up a bottle of ale and heads to the captain�s quarters to find her sitting on the floor next to a jumble of wires and electronics � attempting to fix a replicator that is holding a grudge against her comment�.
"Once, a long time ago, I called this replicator a glorified toaster, it never forgave me."
Unfortunately, there plans were put on hold when Voyager experienced turbulence due to a gravamentric surge that overloaded the intertial dampners and eventually lead to a spacial rift that opened in front of Voyager emitting chronotons and neurtrinos. To deal with this emergency, Chakotay
went to engineering to assist B�ellana while the captain went to the bridge.
Once Chakotay arrived in engineering, he was struck by an energy discharge from the warp care while the ship was being zapped with some sort of energy that sent him into temporal flux. B�ellana found him unconscience and had him transported to sick bay. The doctor then gave then gave him some sort of chronoton serium to bring him back into temporal sync. While the doctor was treating Chakotay, he did something we haven�t seen him do in a while � whining about recognition and being treated as a part of the crew.
When Chakotay suggested going to other decks of the ship to find injured crewmembers the doctor seemed a bit confused and stated that his program was confined to the sickbay. Chakotay then referred to the mobile emitter, but the doctor seemed to know nothing about it. It was at that point Chakotay realized that the ship was still in danger. After walking to several sections of the ship he realized that the ship had been fragmented into different parts of the timeline.
Since this seemed like a problem that he couldn�t solve on his own, he went to bridge. Unfortunately, he entered a time frame just before Voyager was lost in the delta quadrant. When Janeway saw Chakotay enter the bridge she immediately had her security team (lead by the previous security chief) take him to the brig.
Despite his attempts to explain the situation, the whole thing seemed too far-fetched for Janeway to believe. While in a turbolift, the two security guards passed through one of the time barriers and vanished while Chakotay was still free to roam the different time fragments on the ship.
Since he wasn�t able to get any help from the bridge he went back to engineering, but was surprised to find Seska apparently at the time when the Kazon tried to take control of the ship. After trying to explain the situation Seska become irritated and she obviously didn�t believe him, so Chakotay decided to play along and told her that a dozen crewman were sabotaging the ship and there was no way she could escape. Seska then decided to point a phaser at his head to persuade him to give his command codes. In a moment of complete stupidity, Seska allowed Chakotay to use one of the computers to input his codes, which gave him a chance to disable one of the Kazon troops while taking one of their weapons. He managed to escape by passing through another temporal barrier which brought him into another fragment in time.
When returning to sickbay through a Jeffrey�s Tube, the doctor panicked and assumed it was an intruder�.
"Whoever you are, I suggest you surrender." He then picked up a hypospray. "I�m armed."
Of course, The Doctor was relieved when he realized it�s was Chakotay returning to sickbay. At this point, Chakotay explains that Voyager seemed to have been fractured into different time periods. Chakotay also realized that the chronoton serum must have made him immune to the effects of this phenomenon. Since normal technology didn�t seem to pass through the temporal barriers he asked The Doctor to replicate a chronoton infused hypospray casing so that he could bring other crewmembers into temporal -sync.
Once again, he tried to enter the bridge, this time he attempted to prove his story by revealing his personal knowledge of Janeway. But she quickly dismissed the information as a result of research from intelligence reports. Chakotay then tried to reveal more personal experiences such as her love of music, and regret for not learning how to play an instrument.
Now that he had her attention, they went to her ready room while being accompanied by a security officer. Janeway still didn�t believe Chakotay and decided to run an analysis of the potentially poisonous serum before she injected herself with it.
Suddenly he grabbed the serum from her and told the security officer that Janeway was right and that he would kill her if he didn�t back off. The officer still followed the two as the walked down a corridor. Chakotay then injected Janeway and disappeared after walking through another temporal barrier.
Janeway yelled the officer�s name and couldn�t understand why he didn�t respond. She was able to see him, but she didn�t realize that he wasn�t able to see anything pass the barrier.
While holding Janeway around the neck Chakotay said, "You want more proof? It�s right down that corridor. You just have to trust me."
"It isn�t easy when you�re holding me hostage." Janeway said.
After that, Chakotay released her seeming to realize that he may have gone to far even through he achieved the desired results.
"Now that I am inoculated I can go anywhere on this ship�.I suppose I don�t need you anymore." Janeway was about to resolve this situation without Chakotay since they were enemies at this point in history and she didn�t trust him despite what he has said so far.
While trying to adjust to this situation and the hostile version of Janeway Chakotay said�..
"Without me you will be walking into a future you know nothing about."
Now it would seem that Janeway�s emotions do not entirely interfere with her reasoning because she agreed to work with Chakotay to restore the ship.
While encountering different events in Voyager�s past, Janeway started to realize that this ship would be encountering �one disaster after another". As she interacted with different crewmembers she began to realize that Chakotay would become a very close friend and colleague but she also realized that Voyager would be stranded in the delta quadrant because of her decisions. Once they found a way to restore the ship into temporal sync she decided that she would try to change the past so that none of this misery would ever occur. However, Chakotay quickly made her consider the lives of people that they have helped because of their journey such as Seven of Nine and Icheb.
Comments
Throughout this episode it seemed that Chakotay and Janeway were rebuilding their friendship and it seems that being forced to trust a person from her future forced her to re-evaluate her opinion of Chakotay when she started to realize that he is an intelligent and thoughtful person.
I enjoyed this episode very much and the writers did a great job of dealing with the different relationships and adventures this crew has experienced. However, in one scene Janeway and Chakotay meet Seven while she was Borg during the episode "Scorpion". In this scene the Borg are aware of the situation and develop a plan to restore the ship. But in another scene, Chakotay is talking to Seska and she realized that if Chakotay is from the future, which meant the Kazon�s attempt to take over the ship would fail. Seska was not very co-operative in this episode and she was always analyzing the situation, while Borg perfection was unable to realize that restoring the time line would most likely lead to their destruction. Another problem in this episode dealt with a scene on the holodeck with Tom�s Captain Proton program. Even though it was interesting eye candy, they didn�t bother to shut down the problem when accessing the controls. Once they were inside the command protocols were damaged preventing them from shutting down the program. Then again, the Voyager crew doesn�t seem to use much common sense when using the holodeck so this was hardly a surprise.
Some other problems included a Tuvok death scene, which had very little impact on the viewing audience since we know that the timeline will be restored. I also couldn�t figure how Chakotay was transported to sickbay (through the temporal barrier) if he was in temporal flux.
Other than a few problems with logic this episode was lots of fun and even made fun of itself
"Maybe this is the time aliens invaded our dreams or the telepathic picture plant�".
Some other interesting dialogue included a scene with Seska after a Kazon troop questioned Chakotay�s claims of a temporal anomaly�.
"His story is too preposterous to be a lie."
However towards the end of the episode Janeway curiously asked�.
"For two people who started off as enemies it seems we get to know each other pretty well. So I�ve been wondering, how close do we get."
Chakotay�s reply pretty much says it all�.
"Let�s just say there are some barriers we never crossed."
When this episode was over, I looked at my television and I said "wow!" which is something that I have said about Star Trek in a long time. This episode is definitely one of the most original stories seen on Voyager and it was well executed with a very creative style of directing and distinct theme music that enhanced the mood of the action sequences.
Overall this episode deserves a rating of 9.5/10
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