A shuttle carrying Chakotay and Seven glances off a protective barrier and crashes. Finding a way through the barrier, the pair discover a civilization of non-speaking natives and try to get their help to reach Voyager.

What a dreadful premise, and it doesn't work on any level. There's no morality story or deeper meaning to this as far as I can see, and it's the dullest thing to watch. Chakotay's efforts to teach them English, or at least to be understood, are painful, especially when he starts off with utterly useless concepts as 'mountain' and 'stream', when he should be concentrating on things like 'ship' and 'help'. His fascination with the culture is annoying and smacks of padding, and how come every world where two species don't understand contains plenty of dirt or sand to draw in? Darmok this isn't.

Seven fares little better, getting a chance to get friendly with a little girl, who is then electrocuted, but gets better. You'd think the locals would do something, especially when this happens, but they watch in blissful ignorance of what has happened. Her loss of a guiding tricorder is pathetic and pointless, making a long story even longer, and the two lost Voyager crew members have little problem contacting their ship.

Of course, we then get a surprise last-minute twist where an observation team arrives from the nearby planet to study the life-forms they haven't been able to reach in some time. Now, if I were Janeway I'd close the shield again and trap them inside, as that would be following the Prime Directive to the letter. She should also be aware that a ship is heading for the planet before they beam down, and with some thought would be able to find a solution. The deflector dish from the shuttle is causing the shield to stay down, so why not destroy it?

Sadly this course doesn't occur to the dear captain or Tuvok, preferring to send Paris, out on a driving lesson in a dreadful and painfully unfunny sub-plot, to sort the problem out. So he destroys the dish. There's no need for him to even get involved, but evidently someone felt it would be more exciting this way.

It's all just a series of bad ideas very badly executed.

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