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Star Trek Voy - Season 6 - Episode 20

Star Trek Voy - 6x20 - Good Shepherd

Originally Aired: 2000-3-15

Synopsis:
Underperforming crewmembers go on a mission. [DVD]

My Rating - 6

Fan Rating Average - 5

Rate episode?

Rating: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
# Votes: 20 0 14 5 7 8 11 18 11 11 7

Problems
- There's some kind of Windows or Mac error dialog box message on the computer screen on the bio bed in this episode. But I couldn't make out the details.

Factoids
- The man who directs Janeway on deck 15 is Tom Morello, guitarist of Rage Against The Machine.

Remarkable Scenes
- The teaser with the both cool and symbolic zooming effects.
- Seven of Nine complaining about the ship's lack of efficiency.
- Janeway handing out away missions to the underperforming crewmembers.
- Janeway getting a bit lost on deck 15.
- Janeway trying hard but poorly getting along with Mortimer Harren.
- Harren trying to sacrifice himself.
- The sight of a Delta Flyer escape pod.
- The Delta Flyer's escape.

My Review
TNG: Lower Decks meets Voyager. Or, Voy: Learning Curve done right. This episode lacks the profoundness of TNG: Lower Decks, but also does not make as many of the mistakes of Voy: Learning Curve. Still, this episode would have been better suited for showing in an earlier season. I enjoyed many aspects of the otherwise mediocre premise. Janeway and the three guest crewmen all gave marvelous performances. They are all characters I would enjoy seeing again. The actual alien of the week plot wasn't very interesting, but I felt the character story made up for any deficiencies in that department. Finally, while the episode was perhaps belated, I am pleased to see Voyager exploiting its premise. None of these crewmen would have remained aboard Voyager if the ship were still in the alpha quadrant. They could have been put off the ship for their underperformance. But since Janeway doesn't have that option, she feels personally obligated to help them. As such, this episode has a certain charm to it that I enjoyed very much.

The following are comments submitted by my readers.

  • From Dstyle on 2015-07-27 at 4:05pm:
    I was worried the episode would end with Harren back on Voyager, asking if he could join some fellow crewmen at their table in the mess hall, so I'm glad to have been wrong on that. He was a truly hopeless case, and both he and Voyager are probably best served with him holed up on deck 15 with Tom Morello (also: awesome!). Harren's abruptly out-of-character gambit to save the Delta Flyer in the final act notwithstanding, I think this was a solid character driven episode.

    Also: Billy standing in the middle of Sickbay in his underwear is a good reminder that in the future we won't need any sort of privacy when receiving medical attention.
  • From joe on 2016-06-16 at 10:19pm:
    Why would any of the carrying of the specs in the opening sequence need to take place? They have ship-wide communications and interconnected databases...it's obviously a plot device, but it's damned annoying and wholly insulting to any avid Trek watcher.

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