DRAGON'S TEETH

Part I of II: The Summary

The episode opens up in the midst of a war. A woman is hurriedly looking for someone named Gedrin. She finds him and he tells her that 37 of the biopods have been damaged and have to be disconnected. Whatever is living in them died. At Gedrin's urgings, the woman lays down in a bipod and Gedrin tells her that it's only for five years. He puts her in stasis (or what appears to be stasis) and makes preparations for his own sleep.

Voyager enters, by accident, a subspace corridor that is filled with debris, some of which is over 800 years old! Through scans, they find that there are hundreds of these corridors. A vessel hails them and Captain Janeway explains that Voyager ended up in the corridor by accident. The vessel pushes them out of the corridor and leaves the corridor behind Voyager. The alien Captain tells Janeway to lower Voyager's shields and prepare to be boarded. All of the files containing data about the corridor must be deleted - by any means. Obviously, Voyager does not comply, and the aliens fire on Voyager. Two more ships approach the scene to aid the single alien vessel.

To escape more attacks and destruction, Voyager heads toward a planet with a radiogenic atmosphere, counting on the fact that the aliens can't follow. Luckily, the gamble paid off. Voyager descends into the planet's atmosphere and land on the surface and the aliens break off the attack.

This planet, it appears, is in the midst of a nuclear winter that began 892 years ago. The crew begins the repairs on Voyager, with the three alien ships circling in orbit.

Voyager detects life signs on the planet. Kathryn, Seven (oh, joy), and Tuvok form an away team and go to the underground caverns where the life signs were detected. Tuvok notes that the cavern walls are reinforced with titanium (I have no idea why this is important. Maybe to show what comes next…)

The away team finds the stasis pods, and Seven - without asking permission from the Captain - activates the reanimation sequence. She has awakened Gedrin. He rushes over to see if his wife, Cheeza (not real sure on the actually spelling here, but I KNOW that is not right), is alive. Her status chamber has failed and she appears to have been dead for centuries. Gedrin, who doesn't actually seem to mourn too much, is taken to sick bay, where he meets the EMH.

Gedrin is a member of the Vaadwaur and as he meets several members of the crew, he knows things about their history that they do not know. He meets Neelix and calls him Talaxian in the old language. He also recognizes Seven as being Borg. In an interesting scene with Neelix, and much to the embarrassment of Captain Janeway, Neelix remembers Vaadwaur as a word in old Talaxian, meaning "foolish".

Gedrin explains that the Vaadwaur were a merchant race and the envy of all races around them. They owned and operated the subspace corridors. The Turei, the aliens attacking Voyager, are the people that took them from the Vaadwaur.

As it becomes evident that most of the stasis chambers are still active, the Vaadwaur decide to rebuild and settle on another planet somewhere in the Galaxy. Gedrin looks for acceptable planets in astrometrics with Seven. Meanwhile the Turei begin to blast the decayed Vaadwaur city. Using an old satellite, Gedrin helps Janeway target the Turei. Gedrin asks for help from Voyager -- help off of the planet. In return, he will show Voyager the corridors that would take them roughly 1,000 light years closer to home.

Among the away team helping to revive the remaining Vaadwaur, Chakotay sees the cavern containing the biopods. They remind him of an old Greek myth (thank GOD that wasn't an Indian legend) about "Dragon's Teeth". After a dragon was killed in war, it's teeth were spread across the field. The teeth took root and warriors sprang to continue the fighting.

In a completely irrelevant scene, Naomi tells Neelix that she doesn't like the Vaadwaur children because they made fun of Neelix. Yeah, who cares?

In a semi-irrelevant scene, Gedrin speaks a few words of Klingon to B'Elanna (had to work her in somehow) and shows an interest in Klingon history. I think he felt a bond with Klingon history because of the reality of the Vaadwaur culture. This is a clumsy attempt at foreshadowing, I do believe.

Neelix, disturbed that the little Vaadwaur tykes were making fun of his ears, looks up the term "Vaadwaur" in the Talaxian database. It first appears in the folk tales, "Demon with the Golden Voice", "The Tale of the Deadly Stranger", and "the Tale of the Boy Who Lost His Head", to name a few. "Vaadwaur" means "foolish, reckless, and blind" in old Talaxian.

With 16 Turei vessels in orbit, Voyager decides to leave the next morning. Voyager will attack, along with several of the Vaadwaur ships. The rest will escape and they will all meet on a distant site (good Star Wars Rebel Alliance strategy). But the Vaadwaur have a different plant. They will take Voyager!

Neelix shares his fairy tale findings with Seven in the hopes that she will cross reference those tales with Borg data from other cultures. She does and they notify the Captain of their combined effort. Confronting Gedrin, the Captain tells him what they have learned - that the Vaadwaur are NOT merchants, but, as described by these tales, "a phantom army that appears out of thin air, destroyed civilizations, and then disappeared". Gedrin admits that the truth he told her and this new truth are both accurate. It just depends on the point of view. He must work for President Clinton. (Sorry, Delta!)

Kathryn changes the attack plants a bit and these new plans are not to the liking of the Vaadwaur army. They begin to attack Voyager. Janeway changes sides and notifies the Turei what has been going on. Gedrin also switches sides and helps Janeway access the satellite again. The Turei destroy some of the Vaadwaur crafts.

Voyager makes some quick repairs and goes to warp. After two days, Seven informs the Captain that while they've not actually seen the Vaadwaur, 53 ion signatures entered the corridors and that they were all Vaadwaur. The underground chambers were all destroyed. Seven admits that she made an error when she awakened Gedrin. Kathryn tells her that she thinks those actions may prove to be catastrophic. Janeway tells Seven that she doesn't think they've seen the end of the Vaadwaur.

Part II of II: The Review

Yawn, Yawn, Yawn. What a snoozer that episode was. It had all the originality of a tuna casserole. If anyone couldn't see that the Vaadwaur were going to be the "bad guys" and that Janeway would eventually switch sides and enlist the Turei must be…well, a member of the Voyager writing staff. I kept waiting - in vain - for a twist or a slight turn in the plot line. And the plot strings were not hidden at all. I believe this whole episode was just to introduce the Vaadwaur, as Voyager desperately needs an adversary. But does it have to be them? I think I like the Kazon better. At least they were slightly colorful. These aliens are just a skill-less blend of Cardassians, Klingons, and every other generic enemy of the week. How horrid! At least their makeup was slightly original, but that too looked recycled. Paramount must be under serious financial difficulties if they can't even afford to have decent aliens.

And speaking of costumes, just what is on Janeway's head? It looks like a $20 wig! Her current hairstyle (and I use *that* term VERY loosely) shows even the slightest weight gain. To counteract that, I noticed some very nice ass shots of Seven worked in to all of her scenes. Doesn't the camera man get tired of always---wait. Camera MAN. Nevermind.

I did think that the computer generated graphic of the destroyed Vaadwaur city was very well done. A little New York City, a little Chicago. It was frighteningly real. Too real. The Vaadwaur, for all their stale alien-ness, reminded me of us. Merchants. Warriors. Whatever hat we need to wear that day. Both truths definitely real. And when other races got tired of being conquered and of not being able to access the subspace tunnels, they destroyed the Vaadwaur. Frightening metaphor.

I didn't think that the Dragon's Teeth metaphor really worked in this. It was a great stretch to make the point that was trying to be made. The Vaadwaur were really more Dragon than Warrior. Rather than them spreading the teeth of their enemy down, they spread their own teeth..? If they WERE supposed to be the warriors, then shouldn't they have spread the Turei’s dead? Really doesn't work.

I have commented about this probably a million times (and tragically…that's not really an exaggeration), but why doesn't Captain Janeway punish Seven for disobeying orders or acting in flagrant disregard for protocol and structure. Had any other officer, especially Chuckles or Tom, awakened Gedrin, they would have lived in the brig for the next six years. But when our very own Singing Boobie disobeys, she gets a very little chat at the end of the episode and even though her actions could have "catastrophic results", that is it. A chat. Nothing else. Is Janeway also mesmerized by two silicone-filled globs???

Naturally, Cilla has some issues:

1. Why did Janeway get so upset about Seven waking Gedrin? Aside from the fact that Seven disobeyed orders, wasn't Janeway going to wake them anyway???
2. Why wouldn't the Borg have records of the Vaadwaur? Fragmented records passed 800 years? That just doesn't make sense.
3. Janeway pronounced "Talax" as "Talaxia".
4. Why were all the Vaadwaur soldiers men? Way to be sexist, Mr. Berman.
5. When Voyager first scanned the Vaadwaur planet, why did they not notice the satellites?? Someone is not getting enough rest. Too much holodeck time, Harry?
6. How would Gedrin recognize Boobie as a Borg? For that matter, how does any of these races?
7. I noticed that when Seven awakened Gedrin in the beginning, he just automatically understood her language. That is one hell of a universal translator!

Rating: Overall, this episode was so boring it doesn't deserve a rating. But seeing how I'm contractually obligated to Delta to at least pretend…with no J/C, too much of Seven's butt, a pathetic and contrived plot, I give it a 3 of 9.