11:59

This is a fairly boring and inconsequential episode. Overall, however, the thing it makes me wonder most is this: why does every starship seem to have nearly unlimited information about earth history?

Voyager apparently has access to 20th/21st century birth/death/marriage certificates, voter registration forms, census forms, &c. At least in TNG or DS9 that could be explained-away as them accessing the Federation network, but that's certainly not the case here, out in the Delta Quadrant. Anyhow, it is one of those silly little inconsistencies which makes this show so very weak.

This is an okay episode with some reasonably thought provoking themes about characters with very different outlooks on life, but I struggled to maintain an interest in the story as it unfolded.

I find genealogy a fascinating subject and the process of examining accepted histories to reveal the truth, but when it involves the family history of a fictional character I think it is a bit of a stretch to call it interesting.

For me the plot is not helped by the shifts back and forth between past and present, halting the momentum of the Shannon O'Donnell story. I think the writers would have been better starting the episode during the flashback time period and only revealing towards the end who the main protagonists are in relation to Captain Janeway (who is in the process of doing some genealogical research).

I think Katie Mulgrew and Kevin Tighe deserve credit as they lift the material to make the episode quite watchable, but I would not describe it as riveting.

'what does this have to do with anything?'---Henry Janeway

This episode is among the slightest and easiest to skip of all the episodes of "Star Trek: Voyager". It's not necessarily bad but it does seem irrelevant and like filler.

The episode consists of folks talking about their family histories. Janeway decides to tell everyone about her great-great-great-great- great-etc. grandmother...a woman who, oddly, looks EXACTLY like Captain Janeway. I hate when movies show distant relatives who look EXACTLY like the present individuals--it's as bad a cliché as the identical cousins cliché! The story involves the woman's romance with a grumpy old guy (Kevin Tighe) and has just about nothing to do with the show in any way!

By the way, I am a stickler for details and in the beginning of the show Mr. Neelix is trying to show off how smart he is. However, BOTH things he says are wrong!! Qin is not pronounced 'kin' and the Great Wall of China CANNOT be seen from space--that's an urban legend. Two more reasons to hate Neelix...as well as the writer who didn't do their homework when they wrote this one.

I guess this is based on the premise that Janeway and the others have to have diversion, and a look at the past fulfills this as bit. Janeway had an ancestor, going back centuries, who had some function with NASA. It then tells how, after losing her job, she winds up in a small town that is about to get big. Except for a bookseller who refuses to sell his property to developers. It now becomes a rather maudlin story that really doesn't fit well with the Star Trek thing. It was entertaining at times, but filled with cliches and precious behavior.

I'd like to start this review by saying that I have never before written a film/TV show review on IMDb, or anywhere else that I can recall. I just don't have interest in doing so. The fact I have now taken the time to write one for this episode is a testament to just how bad this episode was.

I've always enjoyed Trek, from a very young age I watched TNG, and then DS9. DS9 was by far my favourite and some years ago I re-watched them all on DVD. But I was never able to get into Voyager. After having re-watched TNG I decided it was time to give Voyager another go. And it's not half as bad as I recall - it's not great and overall seems a bit wanting at times with rather 2D characters, but there are some great stories and overall I'm enjoying it.

Series 5 has been hard work, though. It feels like the whole series is filler with (virtually) no killer. The episode before this (the Doctor falling in love with Seven) was pretty poor - character development, particularly for the Doctor and Seven is interesting, but there was no B-plot. The ambassador who is essentially monk-like who ends up completely inebriated is not a plot, it's all utterly pointless. Still, I digress. Then came 11:59.

Dear, sweet Lord - 'dull' doesn't do it justice. It's mind-numbingly boring and, worse, utterly pointless. An important part of a TV show, especially one as long-running as Voyager, is that we have to care about the characters and be invested in them. This obviously happens over time and develops over time also. And that's where the problem with this episode lies: why do we care about Janeway's almost-400-year-old relative and her frankly boring story? We don't. It has no bearing on the events of the present (within Voyager), it doesn't explain anything or add anything to Janeway's character that we didn't already know. Which makes it entirely redundant.

I honestly couldn't watch it all the way through to the end, I was too bored. I should add that I'm someone who can happily watch a 6 part 1960s Dr Who story, so it's not my impatience that's the problem here.

Thankfully, I'm now watching the next episode (Relativity) and while I can't yet say how good it is, at least something is actually happening.