Prophecy

DVD, Voyager S7 (Prophecy)

It was only two episodes ago that we found out B'Elanna was pregnant and already we've got a story from it. You'd think a ship full of Klingons would be more fun, but a lot of the episode falls a bit flat. These Klingons are neither the worthy allies of 'DS9' or the wily villains of the Original Series and films, but a little-developed strain of Klingon-alikes who are here and then gone by the end of the episode. Wouldn't the last half of the season have been more dramatic with a whole society of these aliens aboard? We could have had the majority settling on a planet, and maybe some could join up with other aliens over the episodes, but to have a contingent of the warriors aboard, to get to know them and see Voyager through new eyes unfamiliar with the 23rd Century alliance or 24th Century advancements, like travellers out of time was an opportunity missed, I feel.

The writers probably wanted the chance to write an episode about Klingons because they're a staple of all Treks and Voyager so rarely gets the chance to use them, but they do fall into the trap of making them look a bit one-note. More thought could have gone into the sub-plots too - Harry Kim doing his duties round the ship by crawling through Jeffries tubes, and Paris training for the fight with T'Greth could have been much bigger, and if the Klingons had stayed aboard, would have worked as significant B-plots for subsequent episodes. As it stands they're amusing, but rushed. Tuvok forced to share quarters with Neelix was another unexplored gem that was very reminiscent of the kinds of stories between the two in the early seasons. I imagine after a while he would have voluntarily given his quarters to the Talaxian and moved into a cargo bay or some niche at the bottom of the ship.

The cargo bay shot of all those Klingons established the large number visually and I'm not sure if they were all real or whether CGI was used, but all other scenes with numbers of Klingons continued the impression that there were a lot. For the excitement when some of the Klingons attempt a take over (I'm sure Chakotay would have taken more than a single blow to be decked on the transporter pad, and as for the bridge crew... Janeway and Paris were the only two fighting back - I hope the other Starfleet people were severely reprimanded for being cowards!), and for the realisation at the end as the scales fall away and we see that B'Elanna's unborn child has proved to be a saviour to the Klingon group after all, allows the episode to hold up as a good watch. It was also a wonderful opportunity to see an old D7 cruiser, and I liked the baby mobile with tiny models of Voyager, a Klingon cruiser and a Bird of Prey. I would still, however, hold with my original statement that a ship full of Klingons should have been more fun.

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