Exasperated Calculator: Star Trek & Economics

Voyager orbits a planet where life moves a lot quicker. Almost pure science fiction, of the Asimov and Clarke type, in a way that works well within the structure of Voyager. While I didn’t check everything with a stopwatch, the time passing on the planet always seemed to make sense, never slowing conveniently for the…

Janeway has her first holo-crush. I spent most of this episode dreading the inevitable ‘holodeck malfunction’, where the storm makes the character self aware, or they leave the Holodeck, or something like that. But it didn’t happen. Instead this is an adult science fiction show about the implications of holo-technology, and the ethics of having…

Reg Barclay is obsessed with communicating with Voyager. I loved Troi’s reaction to ‘it all started in the Holodeck. Exactly right, And Reg’s return to his old bad habits after leaving Enterprise also makes sense – he has trouble making human connections, and in a world where you can create friends in a holodeck the…

Seven of Nine downloads too many X-Files episodes and goes on a conspiracy spree. It appears that the Borg in the 24th century haven’t fully worked out the dangers of data mining. Too much data means you can prove almost any pattern, so long as you’re willing to accept a special enough case. Seven proves…

Voyager finds a link to the early exploration of Mars in the Delta quadrant. This could have been a magical episode. The component parts were all right – dipping back into the earliest days of (future) space flight, reminding us of the exploring mission that has always been at the core of Star Trek. But…

Seven awakes an alien civilisation from sleep. The title of this episode is pretty much a spoiler – if you know the legend of the dragon’s teeth, you also know they aren’t going to be fighting on the side of the good guys. So from the start you can be pretty sure that the aliens…

Tuvok loses his memory. “The Vulcan Brain. A puzzle wrapped inside an enigma, housed inside a cranium.”. No. Bad writer. No biscuit. Tuvok subconsciously prefers Neelix to Janeway? I’m not sure that makes any sense. And while we’re talking about not making sense, the obsessive alien trying to prove that this mysterious species exists quickly…

Tom’s new find goes all ‘Single White Starship’ Mysterious alien technology takes over Tom. It’s an old plot for Trek, but it’s not entirely stupid – after all, if there really was a spaceship wandering around alien races, it would be a realistic concern. Of course, in that case there would be careful security checks,…

The Doctor’s day-dreaming gets out of hand. The Doctor really needs to stop editing his own program. Indeed, [last time he did this](http://www.exasperatedcalculator.com/archives/2012/08/trekathon-461-the-darkling-voy/) her promised to not do it on his own again. Oh well, short memories and all. We get more of an insight into the Doctor this time around, with his literal need…

B’Elanna hallucinates Klingon Hell. So, here’s pretty much the summary of what goes on here – B’Elanna gets into an accident. After the accident she has a dream that’s largely due to her non-acceptance of her Klingon half. And then decides to have another dream, so she can ‘resolve’ her relationship with her mother. Doesn’t…