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!

As B'Elanna Torres deals with her anger issues Voyager cross paths with the Malon.

The theme of B'Elanna's short fuse is nothing new but is used in an entertaining albeit slightly contrived way by the writers. However, the fiery character interactions between her and others work well. Everything builds up to a good final confrontation between her and a guest character.

Visually it is one of those dark, shadowy, hazy episodes that generate a good oppressive atmosphere, but you suspect might also be covering the lack of art design at the filmmakers disposal.

Roxanne Dawson is great and the other cast members like Ron Canada support well.

It's a 6.5/10 for me but I round upwards.

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?

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.

The Malons might just be one of the stupidest races you'll ever see on the Trek shows. After all, they spread toxic waste all over the quadrant and don't seem to care in the least. So, when the ship encounters a damaged Malon freighter, you know that Voyager is going to have a difficult time. It turns out that this Malon ship is about to explode--and this will wipe out everything within several light-years. Naturally, you learn that Voyager's warp drive is inexplicably offline and so there's no other option but to stay and try to fix this ship or deflect it into a nearby sun. But there are some difficulties--most of the Malon crew are dead and there might just be a monster aboard their ship that is causes all these problems!

This is a decent episode but the ending involving Torres was supposed to be important because Torres tried so hard not to be violent. However, in this situation, she seemed really, really inept--as violence was DEFINITELY called for in this case. Still, it is worth seeing.