B’Elanna is arrested for violent thoughts.
The thing Voyager has been doing best lately is returning to the well of ‘imaginative science fiction’ – thinking up a concept, and telling a story that revolves around the complexities and consequences of that concept. It’s the core of what’s best in Star Trek, and sometimes the shows can become a bit too bogged down with action and character, overwhelming it.
This is a good imaginative SF concept, but its execution is missing something. We’re never given a good enough reason to worry about B’Elanna’s sentence, Tuvok’s investigation lacks momentum, and the alien society is given short shrift. I think the problem is that the writers couldn’t decide if this was going to be a ‘conflict between two law enforcement officers’ story or an ‘investigation’ story – so we get both, and as a result neither works.
498 down, 239 to go.