This Week's Episode: "Equinox II"
Summary: Janeway goes hunting for Ransom, while throwing the rules of conduct right out the window. The Doctor begins to operate on Seven of Nine to remove access codes from her neural net that will allow the Equinox crew to regain access to their new warp technology. Chakotay objects to Janeway's behavior as she places the crew and ship in jeopardy as she hunts Ransom. Chakotay gets relieved of duty. Janeway promises the attacking aliens that she will deliver the Equinox to them. Captain Ransom's guilt gets the better of him, and he decides to surrender to Janeway. Max Burke objects, and begins a mutiny against Ransom. Ransom sacrifices himself to save Voyager when Equinox's warp core breaches. Janeway returns to her senses, and realizes she became as bad as Ransom, and that Chakotay would have been right to stage his own mutiny against her.
Rating: 8
Best Scene: The Equinox's nacelle getting destroyed by Voyager. And Janeway going nutso with Noah Lessing in the Cargo Bay.
Worst Scene: None really.
Best acting award goes to: John Savage as Captain Ransom.
Best Line: "He'll break" -- Captain Janeway, with pure evil in her voice ;)
Impressions: Definately lived up to the first part of the episode, and was definately a stronger piece of work than "Equinox I".This isn't the first time Janeway has turned into Captain Ahab, and I felt that her actions were slightly out of character for the "mightier than thou" Janeway that we are all used to. Yes, I can see her chasing Ransom feeling cheated, but I just felt she was too irrational when it came to communicating with the aliens. Of course, Chakotay never does wrong and comes off looking fantastic. Isn't that what the first officer is there to do anyway?? I will say I did like Janeway when she threatened Noah Lessing by leaving him to die in the Cargo Bay...boy oh boy, does she have spine or what. "He'll break." Remind me not to piss off Janeway. Although this was fun, this was way out of character, in my opinion. But then again when you are trapped light years from home and haven't gotten any in six plus years, you'd go a little nutso too ;)
Aside from Janeway's little trip off the deep end, the episode did have it's strong points. The Doctor once again switches to Mr. Jekyll when his ethical subroutines are tampered with. Seven of Nine really didn't have that much to do in this episode, beside sing and look like Barbie in Ransom's daydreams. It was nice to see them follow up on their "poor man's holodeck" reference in part one.
Some of the inconsistencies were a little annoying, like how close those aliens that can communicate with the bad aliens are (I've forgotten the name of the good aliens...whew, too many references to the word "alien" in that sentence).The special effects were fantastic. Was it just me, or was the Equinox more detailed in this episode?? The attacking "slimer" aliens were superb as well, but I found it bizarre how the ones who were communicating with Janeway were able to stay for so long without dying...I thought it was established that they could only spend several seconds in our dimension before they died? Oh well, just another inconsistency I guess. Speaking of inconsistencies, did you see Voyager flying at warp with their nacelles down! I think we really need to get a life and stop being so picky ;)
I really enjoyed Savage's performance as a guilt-ridden Ransom in both this episode, and part one. He was fantastic. I guess we are suppose to assume that Janeway could have been him, if she threw the prime directive out the window on a few occasions. Burke was annoying, and I'm glad he got what was coming to him. I kind of wish though that his background with Torres was developed a little more, but I guess they really didn't have the time.
The final scene with Janeway and Chakotay picking up Voyager's commission plate was supposed to resemble when Ranson picked up the Equinox's plate in part one, and how Janeway became as bad as he did...oh, those writers and producers are so clever. Parallelism! I like!
Overall, an enjoyable hour with good effects and fairly good acting all around. John Savage really shined, and a wacko Janeway was enjoyable, even if it was out of character. So, I'd have to give it an eight overall.
