Star Trek: Voyager

It’s our first trip to the Delta Quadrant, and we have questions that need answering. Is B’Elanna’s father a massive racist or just a regular-sized racist? Which is more convincing: Tom and B’Elanna’s baby or an 8472 in a well-lit room? And can we maintain focus all the way through a 45-minute episode of Voyager without a single space anomaly?

This week we drop into a parallel universe where Voyager’s situation is desperate, resources are constrained, and the crew has no alternative but to live by its principles — helping, making friends, reaching out, forming alliances, working together to solve problems, seeking out new life and new civilisations, that sort of thing. Turns out, it would have made quite a good premise for a Star Trek series.

A difference of opinion on Untitled Star Trek Project this week: Joe is cross and disappointed that things ended this way, and Nathan is enjoying the satisfaction that only low expectations can provide. Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Voyager enjoy a long-delayed reunion (in latex), re-examine a costly command decision, and experience an upsetting new heterosexual romance. And then, finally, after all these years, they find their way home.