Star Trek Voy - Season 6 - Episode 08
Star Trek Voy - 6x08 - One Small Step
Originally Aired: 1999-11-17
Synopsis:
Voyager searches for a long-lost Mars spacecraft. [DVD]
Problems
- You can't inoculate somebody against gravimetric radiation. This would be like inoculating somebody against getting shot in the face. There's not much an inoculation can do to stop the bullet, nor the force of gravity and inertia likewise.
Factoids
- The Borg designated the Graviton Ellipse "Spatial Anomaly 521."
- Before Seven was assimilated, she wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up.
Remarkable Scenes
- The glitches.
- Seven of Nine debating with Tuvok the logic of exploring the Graviton Ellipse.
- Seven beaming over to the module.
- John Kelly's final log entries.
- John Kelly: "I think we're gonna need to make room on the periodic table..."
- Seven's change of heart.
My Review
A pleasing, if slow episode. I found the idea of the Graviton Ellipse fascinating and I was glad they didn't use it as some sort of plot device for yet another alien confrontation, but they were in fact genuinely interested in exploring it. The historical investigation into John Kelly's mission to Mars in 2032 fit well with the story; I liked how the A and B plots were essentially the same plot except stretched over a long period of time, kind of like Star Trek VII: Generations in a way. The episode was good for Seven of Nine's character development too, though that seems to be the trend these days. I could probably list close to a dozen episodes now directly dealing with her humanities education. But that's not necessarily a problem, as it served this episode well.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
Also, Robert Picardo, who plays the EMH of course, directed this episode... :)
Torres says that the 21st century spacecraft weighed 92 "metric tons". In this world of SI units, why would she feel the need to emphasize the metricness of those tons? :)
Also funny: a comment by Damien under this review: http://www.jammersreviews.com/st-voy/s6/onesmallstep.php
"But I cannot let a real zinger go by without comment. The anomaly zeros in on electromagnetic fields, so what do they come up with to explain the source of EM causing the anomaly to change course? Dark matter! Yep, the stuff that got its name because it doesn't interact with EM fields at all! It emits ZERO radiation - which is what makes it dark! Why on earth did they come up with that when they ran through some perfectly good sources of EM, like pulsars?"
When Seven said she had wanted to be a ballerina, I would have bet good money that the episode would end on the holodeck with her doing just that. Quite glad it didn't, the ending we got was more poignant.
Thank goodness the Delta Flyer was equipped with a form-fitting space suit for Seven, complete with molded plastic breasts! It'd be a shame if the audience didn't have constant reminders that Seven of Nine is a shapely female.
One silly error is the baseball discussion. The Yankees are in the World Series, then John Kelly states that (I can't remember the name, but a nice reference to DS9) broke DiMaggio's record. What record? The 56 game hitting streak. That's a regular season record so it can be done in the World Series. A silly error that should have been caught.