geoffstrickler

Solid performances, and parts of the script are predictable, but it is a decent treatment of several ethical dilemmas. Yes, they've been addressed elsewhere, numerous times, and some of the issues are handled with all the subtlety of of a framing hammer. But the acting is good, the script is solid, and the end isn't nearly as preachy as others have suggested. All in all, it's a better than average episode, and worth watching.

This is the second episode in which they make the same error in time dilation. I forget the name of the prior one, but Tuvok and Tom or Harry end up stranded on a high gravity planet for a few months with a woman who falls for Tuvok. Anyway, name isn't relevant.

Higher gravity slows time, yet in both these episodes they have time running much faster on the planet than on the ship, exactly the opposite what would occur in reality. The planet has a very high rotation rate, enough to cause addition time dilation, slowing time on the planet further.

That time dilation inversion is essential to both stories as it allows much more to occur on the surface than could otherwise be addressed in one or two episodes if time were "real time" for Voyager.

That aside, as others have mentioned it's a good story, not the usual space conflict. It explores the development of a society over many centuries, while Voyager watches.

Lots of negative reviews, from people who failed to grasp the message of the episode. Science, for all its value, does not hold all the answers. Science is perhaps the most useful tool we've even found, but there are questions science can't answer, because they don't fit he model of repeatability and objective analysis. For some things, you must choose whether or not science is the only path, or whether another method is the appropriate path for certain things.