Juggernaut

Unfortunately I can't get much out of this episode. It feels a bit like an X-Files episode: On a Malon freighter that is about to explode and scatter its toxic cargo across light years, the bogeyman seems to be up to mischief - an old legend among the Malon: A supernatural being that lives in the toxic waste and draws its life force from it. But in the end it's just a pretty irradiated crew member who survived by luck and is now out for revenge because the crew left him behind to die.

Voyager sends Torres, Neelix (coincidentally, Neelix has also worked on waste disposal ships and is naturally ideally suited for this job) and Chakotay, along with two Malon crew members who were previously rescued, onto the freighter to prevent the impending disaster. The episode then plays a bit with scary moments, darkness, green gas, strange noises, an attack out of nowhere, a dead person... and then at the end the bogeyman is unmasked and overwhelmed. Pretty lame story.

Torres is also extremely annoying in this episode. She acts like a spoiled, angry little brat who no longer has control over her emotions and snaps at everyone. Also: What about the relationship between her and Paris? You can't see any chemistry between the two anymore. There is absolutely nothing there. Break up finally!

The Malons reappear. Their enormous garbage ship, a threat to every world they encounter, has become badly damaged, most of them killed. Voyage needs to intervene because in the aftermath, a huge explosion is going to destroy whole civilizations. In the process, B'Allana goes on board the ship along with the away team and must control her temper (a secondary plot element) in order to be effectual. It is a disturbing place. It's another cliffhanger. A rather ordinary episoode.

Though not particularly inspiring or clever (whenever a character on a TV show has a lesson or experience early on, you can bet the writers will make it somehow miraculously relevant by the episode's end unless they actually try to subvert expectations) episode, it was a solid "monster of the week" (the monster being the freighter and the danger it represents, not the literal monster here) episode. So instead of spending too much time discussing it, I'd rather discuss something that has been an ongoing issue in Star Trek since the beginning but seems to be especially prominent in Voyager...the bizarre reticence of the ST powers that be to feature suits of any sort -- EVA suits, biohazard suits, radiation suits, space suits in general, etc. Occasionally we'll get a suit when the alternative is simply impossible, like Paris and Torres being stuck out free-floating in the vacuum of space, but it's rare. It almost feels like a mythos vanity, as if the Star Trek bible doesn't like to show characters who aren't immediately identifiable as being from Star Trek via either uniform or general appearance. In this case, aboard a freighter contaminated with radiation and in need of decompression, the fact that there are no radiation suits or EVA suits with magnetic grips (it would seem that 24th century technology could devise a single suit for multiple types of dangers) just seems almost egregiously silly. Granted, a lot of the drama would have to be rewritten, but at least it would make sense contextually.

This is not a problem solely found in this episode or this series, but it is one that is accentuated by this particular episode more so than usual. It just nags while watching. Incidentally, it would have also been nice to offer even a technobabble explanation for why the time frame for inoculation was an issue in the first place, seeing as they could (and did) clearly inject more later, so what did it matter unless there was a severely limited supply for some reason?

I don't know what the others who watched this saw and then gave it a good review. What I saw was grade C third rate science fiction. Dirty and gritty

• but mostly dirty. A poor Man's horror story - No where near the great science fiction that comprises most of the Voyager series. And it is, even in the imaginative world of science fiction - hard to believe.

Watch it only if you must see every episode in the series - or for the acting which was decent. I've generously given it 3 stars for the acing - Otherwise I'd give it one star.

Ron Canada has played several antagonistic characters in Star Trek - In Next Generation, he is the interpreter of the progenitor's intent in "The Masterpiece Society" - A rigid legalistic and religious Pharisee. In Deep Space Nine, he was a Klingon Arbiter prosecuting The Federation and particularly Worf.

In this Voyager offering, he is the Captain of a Malon Toxic Waste Disposal Ship which is suffering unexplained malfunctions and disasters. Of course, there is a reason why these things went wrong, but Voyager Members must needs to be sent into the middle of a Maelstrom of Theta Radiation to get to the Bottom of it.

To make Matters Worse, B'Elanna is having a Klingon Fit and is suffering the browbeating of Janeway, Chakotay and Tuvok- Tuvok tries to teach her some Vulcanian Brain-Meditation Techniques, to apparently No Avail.

Apparently, there is some kind of Malon Radiation-Monster which is attacking the Malon crew of Toxic Avengers, in fact, "it" kills off all of the Malons save Ron Canada and Lee Arenberg. Alexander Enberg steps away from his Voyager Vulcan role to play a 3rd Malon Engineer who gets melted by Radiation (You can only identify him by his Voice).

Mostly I liked this ep due to the interactions of Ron Canada and B'elanna. They want to kick each other's arses but they end up having a respect for each other, save for B'elanna giving the guy a Mouth Lashing at the end.

But the very thing which is causing B'elanna problems with the Voyager Crew is the one thing which saves her, Neelix and Ron Canada from being converted into Atomic vapour.

This episode also tells us more about the Malon culture, and that they have built a beautiful culture which can only exist by polluting the entire Delta Quadrant. But even Cultures who Irradiate their galactic Neighbors have Religious Golems. Find Out in this episode.