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Star Trek Voy - Season 3 - Episode 02

Star Trek Voy - 3x02 - Flashback

Originally Aired: 1996-9-11

Synopsis:
Tuvok experiences a repressed memory. [DVD]

My Rating - 8

Fan Rating Average - 4.92

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Problems
- Valtane dies in this episode, yet in the end of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country he is seen as alive and well aboard the Excelsior.

Factoids
- This episode was partially intended to see if an Excelsior show helmed by Sulu would be doable.

Remarkable Scenes
- Tuvok: "Mr. Neelix, I would prefer not to hear the life history of my breakfast."
- Tuvok's meditative chant: "Structure, logic, function, control. A structure cannot stand without a foundation. Logic is the foundation of function. Function is the essence of control. I am in control. I am in control."
- Tuvok's "obvious error" regarding scanning the nebula for cloaked Klingon ships.
- Janeway and Tuvok appearing on on the Excelsior. It's Captain Sulu!
- Janeway mentioning Sulu doesn't look anything like his portrait at Starfleet headquarters. Tuvok claims it's because holographic imaging resolutions weren't as good in the 23rd century. Nice way to fix the Sulu's-too-old-for-this-part-problem. ;)
- The scene where Tuvok protests Sulu's actions.
- Janeway and Kim discussing the 23rd century with envy.
- Sulu to Janeway: "Who the hell are you?"
- Janeway's and Tuvok's method of being inconspicuous.
- The doctor eliminating the memory virus.

My Review
A very cool episode. It's always fun to draw connections between episodes in the distant past. Sometimes it can be done in a silly way, but this one is very well done. The connection between this episode and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is very convincing and the events are nicely woven into a virus of the week plot on Voyager. The virus plot may have been something of a cheap excuse, or a lame plot device, but I've never seen a lame plot device exploited so nicely. Overall, this is one of Voyager's better offerings. And since Tuvok is my favorite character on Voyager, this is an episode to remember.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From captsulu on 2011-09-07 at 2:24am:
    "The virus plot may have been something of a cheap excuse, or a lame plot device..."

    You hit the nail on the head.

    This episode lost points as far as I'm concerned the moment the Doctor mentioned the word "virus." Why was it even necessary, plotwise? It wasn't explained very well at all. How is it actually transmitted? How does it "disguise itself as a memory engram?" All of this virus business is just hurried and rushed and crammed into the final few minutes of the episode.

    Quite unnecessarily so. They could've just let it go with the initial premise, let it be a genuine repressed memory that has resurfaced because of present associations (the nebula back to Excelsior, when Tuvok failed to save Dmitiri, back to childhood, when he failed to save mysterious human girl).

    That would've been quite adequate, no hurried bizarro virus plot twist required.

    Seeing Sulu in command and the old style uniforms and stuff was cool... but not cool enough to let this lame virus thing slide.
  • From packman_jon on 2012-06-16 at 12:20am:
    "Trials and Tribble-lations" for Voyager - in my mind. Well, at least in the terms of people in the TNG-era talking about the TOS era. Some fun moments, but not as strong as that famous DS9 episode.

    I really wish I had a count on how many times Star Trek 6 is referenced directly or indirectly in the TNG era since that move came out!
  • From McCoy on 2017-08-06 at 2:38pm:
    Remarkable scenes: JANICE RAND!!! How could you not mention her?

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