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Star Trek Voy - Season 5 - Episode 14

Star Trek Voy - 5x14 - Bliss

Originally Aired: 1999-2-10

Synopsis:
All the crew's dreams seem to come true. [DVD]

My Rating - 8

Fan Rating Average - 6.87

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 7 1 2 4 1 2 7 13 33 13 8

Problems
None

Factoids
- We get to see Tuvok's wife in this episode.
- The ship eating creature is over 2,000 kilometers in diameter. The largest Seven of Nine has ever seen. The doctor estimates that the life form is at least 200,000 years old.

Remarkable Scenes
- Naomi, bored with her away mission on the Delta Flyer: "Can't we make first contact with somebody or get in a space battle?" Tom, playing along: "Yeah, can't we?" Seven: "Another time, perhaps."
- Seven regarding the supposed wormhole: "The odds of finding such an anomaly are infinitesimal."
- Seven of Nine's very quick hackjob allowing her access to Janeway's personal logs.
- Seven of Nine enlisting Naomi's support in her little insurrection.
- Seven of Nine beaming into Engineering and shooting everybody.
- Naomi walking into a forcefield.
- Seven of Nine's initial discussion with Qatai after they entered the creature.
- The doctor: "Please state the nature of the medical emergency." Qatai: "Your ship is being devoured. I'd say that's an emergency."
- The doctor: "This is a sickbay, not an arsenal." Not exact, but I'll count it. Count 30 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- The doctor: "I'm a doctor, not a dragonslayer." Count 31 for "I'm a doctor, not a (blah)" style lines, which McCoy was famous for.
- The final scene depicting Qatai flying back into the creature again. Go captain Ahab go!

My Review
A rehash of TNG: The Game. No, really, a complete rehash. Replace Wesley with Seven of Nine, Robin with Naomi, and Data with the doctor and there you go! Except that this version is greatly improved. We do have an additional good guy to add to the plot, the local "dragonslayer." He was a cool character, I liked most the doctor's interactions with him. It's definitely appropriate that a man may become obsessed with hunting Moby Dick style this enormous space "monster", as Naomi put it. Also different from TNG: The Game is instead of brainwashing through pleasure and addiction, the "space monster" uses elaborate telepathy to make the crew of a ship "see exactly what they want to see" thereby making them let down their guard. Ultimately the ending is pretty predictable, obviously they were going to find a way out of the creature. But I liked the way Seven of Nine, Naomi, the doctor, and Qatai went about doing it. The four characters had nice chemistry. Naomi was especially useful, which is rare, and her child's perspective added quite a bit to the plot. I also liked the subtle twist at the end. The teaser depicted Qatai entering the space creature, intent on killing it when in fact it was deceiving him. The final scene depicted the very same thing. The space creature was probably tricking him again...

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From McCoy on 2017-09-18 at 11:13am:
    Qatai was indeed a great character. I would like to see him joining the crew. But that would be a bit out of character for him. Ahab must hunt the whale... I really liked the last scene with him.
  • From J B on 2021-06-03 at 7:18pm:
    Finally, a good episode after a run of many in a row that I found unpalatable. I think the framing of this episode, bookended with those scenes of Qatai-as-Ahab, is what makes it land so solidly.

    Early on, I also noted similarities to TNG: The Game, but for me the similarities ended when the crew became incapacitated. From there it became its own episode. Best of S5 so far.

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