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Star Trek Voy - Season 7 - Episode 21

Star Trek Voy - 7x21 - Friendship One

Originally Aired: 2001-4-25

Synopsis:
Starfleet orders Voyager to locate the titular probe. [DVD]

My Rating - 2

Fan Rating Average - 4.76

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 12 6 7 2 8 10 8 18 4 4 5

Problems
None

Factoids
- Admiral Hendricks claims Janeway has made first contact with more species than anyone since James Kirk.

Remarkable Scenes
- Janeway discussing the Voth with Admiral Hendricks.
- Carey's death.

My Review
Weak. Lt. Carey appeared in season one, then was remarkably absent from future episodes. They brought him back for episodes that dealt with "Voyager's past" connoting that he was lost some time in season one. Now it's revealed that he's always been around and that he never died... only so they could kill him off here! His death was utterly pointless and Janeway's speech about how exploration at the cost of loss of life being unacceptable is just downright offensive. Every starship we've seen on Star Trek has lost life in the name of exploration. That's what makes it so "bold" when they go "where no one has gone before." It's not unrealistic that Janeway, who has just lost a friend (okay, maybe that's a stretch seeing as how he was already a ghost) might be feeling shaky about her convictions but such feelings could have been expressed better. On the other hand, the idea of having Voyager go on a mission to retrieve Friendship One was a good one. I did indeed like the premise of the episode. It's just a shame that instead of getting a discussion about this being the reason the Prime Directive exists, all we got was a dumb hostage story instead.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Hugo on 2016-04-08 at 7:26pm:
    Not too shabby - I enjoyed it quite a bit. The whole setup with the disaster and the connection to the federation was bad, but I enjoyed the rest - felt like classic trek, for a change.
  • From Rick on 2017-06-05 at 2:40am:
    Really? They bring back Carey just to be randomly killed? Somewhat similar episode to Enterprise: Terra Nova, and that episode was far better for me because the hostage takers behaved far more rationally.

    When you only have 3 hostages and you are demanding for thousands of people to be evacuated over multiple years, killing one during the first hour of negotiation is not exactly a smart ploy. Obviously there is no way Janeway would then give you control of her ship.

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