Pathfinder

A TNG flashback with Reginald Barclay and Deanna Troi back in their doctor-patient roles while Reg tries to open communications with Voyager. It's a fun episode with Reg' neurosis battling the buttoned up culture of Starfleet.

The 'villain' in this episode is Reg' boss Commander Harkins, who for reasons unknown seems hell-bent on preventing Reg from attempting his plan to contact Voyager. There are no reasons given for his obstruction, and it's all too obvious that the only real reason is to provide plot drama.

So they set up the straw man villain and knock him down, but along the way there is a lot of fun with Troi's counseling sessions and Reg's re-creation of the Voyager crew in hologram form (and they all think Reg is a super swell guy of course), a chase scene through holo-Voyager, and ultimately a feel good ending that provides a big continuity point in this mostly episodic series.

This could have easily been a 9 or 10 rating from me, if only the writers had tried a bit harder to come up with some real reasons or, well, any reasons, for browbeating Reg into forgetting about Voyager.

Barclay from TNG is trying to contact voyager using his theory of micro singularities to form 2 way instantaneous audio. The episode gets going after the scenes with him and Troy (also from TNG) so I advise to keep going. She's acting as a councillor and friend to him to get him to open up as he recounts the main events of the episode after the fact.

Now we all who have seen TNG know what Barclay is like, a physics genius but somewhere on the spectrum and not able to maintain social relationships well. If he annoys you he annoys you, maybe skip to about half way through and you'll get all the really good stuff.

The end though.......

This one literally had me choking up at the end, lump in throat and tears in eyes. Shows don't do that to me often :') Admiral Paris is a great character I hope I see more of him but kinda doubt it lol

Barkley is a connection to TNG and is pretty much the same sad figure he always was. But he has technical competence and he knows how to get communications with Voyager. He is such a weird figure with some really dicey sexuality issues, and so when we see him sidling up to his holographic women, it gives one the creeps. I don't enjoy having characters from past series show up in newer series. I have to say it was sort of boring with a "hopeful" but predictable ending.

When this episode first aired, I imagine some viewers were checking their TV guides to check which Star Trek program they had tuned into, because you don't watch "Voyager" expecting to see Lt. Barclay open a door to greet Deanna Troi ... revisiting ST:TNG through two of that show's most annoying characters.

Surprisingly, Troi is not annoying at all ... which evidently inspired Dwight Shultz to double down on Barclay's irritating qualities. This makes for some tough going, because (like most Barclay episodes) the story focuses entirely on him and his neurotic self -- but even more so since he's telling it.

The good news is the often-overlooked Richard Herd as Admiral Paris, who yanks this episode up out of 'irritating' and thrusts it into 'genuinely moving'. We'll just have to accept his remarkable resemblance to Karl Malden -- nothing to be done about looks, and the talent is the man's own. Here's an actor who equals Patrick Stewart for serious scenes; they must have realized it on set as well, since they brought him back for a few more episodes after this.

The result is an OK first half (Barclay/Troi) and a genuinely strong second half (Paris), although I sorta feel for the regular cast -- "Voyager" is their show, but they're largely reduced to being background/support characters for Shultz. It must be said, though, that he's very good at playing the neurotic-but-brilliant Lt Barclay.

Ultimately, a definitely-recommended episode,but not where I'd start someone on watching "Voyager"

You don't have to love Barclay for this to be good. It's helpful if you've seen his TNG episodes, particularly his holodeck addiction.

This episode plays with that history and arguably depicts him relapsing into his addiction. That alone makes it compelling because it's a type of depth Trek or this era rarely reached into.

The climax is very good and I was extremely impressed with the remarkably restrained first contact. They could have very easily gone way over the top here and I bet they were heavily tempted to.