Collective: poor Harry and Tom getting beat up on lately. But I love these away missions with them and Chakotay and Neelix. Harry is going to have a nasty concussion.

I really like the parallel between the little borgs and Seven. It gives us a good way to see how far she’s come. She was a mature drone but not mature human.

“There’s always an alternative!” - FINALLY! Janeway is acting like she did in season one! Does Seven get to keep her little ducklings? She gave them all their designations at the end and it was adorable.

Poor Harry this is the second time the Borg have almost assimilated him. Or was it 8472 the first time and we had to treat it with nanoprobes? In general Harry tends to have a pretty rough go of things.

Spirit Folk: oh no you guys warned me about this one.

“Can’t one day go by without you making an ass of yourself?” I could see the doctor saying that to Tom. Man this holoprogram is really going places on its own.

I just love seeing Janeway be happy. The scene in the mess hall with Harry making fun of Tom for crashing the car and Tom making fun of Harry for dating yet another hologram just made me so happy. It was funny and light. And B’Elanna’s angry about how Tom keeps blowing out the holoemitters! His prank was pretty funny.

I recognize that the doctor’s religious part was probably offensive and I should be mad but it was a little funny... that said I would love for someone to talk about the intricacies going on here because religion is not my strong suit. It’s easy to laugh at something we don’t understand because the doctor is big and kind of goofy but that doesn’t make it okay. And I think that’s what they were counting on here, that people would laugh about it and move on. Same thing when they make jokes about women. I forgot to comment about it in the episode where Seven fights the Rock but at the beginning Tom was watching her pack and kept saying, “Oh yeah, B’Elanna’s just like that. She does the exact same thing.” And I was NOT thrilled. I get the sense that the same thing is happening in the scene where the doctor gives his sermon but I don’t know enough to recognize it.

Oh what I CAN recognize as offensive is them playing off of the specific Irish spirituality to make the rest of this plot.

Has anybody else noticed the two finger point that Harry does when he points at a system? I just noticed but he does it a lot.

I should be angrier about this episode and I acknowledge that but I love seeing Janeway happy and in love. And there were some solid funny moments, like Tom swearing he’ll never turn Maggie into a cow again. That doesn’t make it okay, though.

Child’s Play: I know this kid is going to go back to live with his parents and I’m going to he upset but it is the right thing for him. He just reminds me of Wesley and I don’t want to see him go.

From an ethical standpoint, the kid is clearly old enough to make this decision. Seven should have nothing to do with it. They should do their best to gently introduce him to the family and the parents and then he can decide for himself.

I’m glad we finally addressed how awful Seven’s parents were because GOD. Who takes a child on a mission to study the Borg? I talked about that before so I’m glad they finally addressed it.

Boy was I not expected the parents to give him back to the Borg. And man was he lucky that the little girl Borg said something since she had the records in her head. But hey we got to keep him!!

You guys might hate me after this but Wesley is my favourite Star Trek character ever. Just old enough not to be annoying, refreshingly optimistic and creative. Brilliant but that’s why nobody ELSE likes him... so I love having a character on here that reminds me of him.

Good Shepherd: I love this style of episode, it’s reminiscent of learning curve. It doesn’t ALWAYS have to be about the main characters. There are 100 some people on this ship and their lives matter. They also must have a lot of interesting stories about day to day life on the ship. The scene where Janeway didn’t know how to get to one of the workstations was very revealing.

This episode needed a B story. I felt trapped as an audience member watching the whole thing on the delta flyer.

I’m glad they started having the conversation about people who only signed up for a year or so, or who may have washed out after their first mission. Some people don’t move up the ranks. Some people don’t stick with it. Some people use service to achieve another goal. And what do you do with them when they get locked into service by accident?

Can we talk about how they essentially bullied the theoretical physicist until he decided to sacrifice himself? Holy crap. All they talked about with him was how lonely and miserable he must be. And what an assumption to make! Honestly I was sitting there going how dare they talk to him like that every time someone said something like that. Torres was right when she said that he likes his assignment so she keeps him there. The doctor was doing the right thing by not sending someone who is mentally unstable on away missions. Everyone can’t be perfect. 50% of people are below average. They have them doing things that they are good at or happy with. And there’s nothing wrong with a second set of eyes on the sensor readings.

Also, Janeway’s ideas of success or efficient the same as everyone else’s. Theoretical physicist dude wouldn’t define success as fitting into a star ship community, or even doing his duties to the best of his ability. Janeway treated him like crap.

Live Fast and Prosper: There’s that uncanny valley effect again.

Tuvok trying to improvise was glorious.

Uh why did Neelix go in the brig armed when there was an armed security guard outside. Why didn’t he have the conversation through the forcefield? I’m sorry this was dumb.

Oh, it was one of them there plots. Oh it was a double plot. That or the doctor is dressed as fake Janeway.

This episode was just okay. Compared to the past couple, it just wasn’t impactful. There was no moral or lesson, there was no buildup to the plot to sneak onto the enemy ship, it just wasn’t meaningful or even that interesting.