Coda

 *** (3 stars out of 5)

Following Janeway's hit Dance of the Dying Swan on talent night, she suggests Chakotay take his turn. "Maybe I could stand with an apple on my head and you could phaser it off!"

"Sounds great," he laughs. "If I miss, I get to be Captain."

When shuttle Sacajewea is brought down by ion lightning, Janeway DOES die. Oh, sorry. SPOILERS.

I'm starting to think the crew of Voyager's most practiced skill is surviving shuttle crashes. What is this, like the fifth time Chakotay's been in a crash in under 3 years?

Anyway, if it feels like a repeating time loop, looks like a repeating time loop, and generates anti-protons like a repeating time loop maybe it IS a repeating time loop. Janeway repeats and relives her death in various exciting ways: strangled to death by a Vidiian, shuttle explosion, catches the phage and is euthanized by the EMH. Didn't he get the memo? We did all that LAST season!

A bright light is following the Ghosty Captain, and her dead dad comes out of it. He drowned years ago under the ice cap of Tau Ceti Prime. If that isn't enough reason to doubt him, there's the fact that her Blue Blood father might be Broadway's demon barber of Fleet Street!

Or perhaps she's suspicious that a man who died in 2358 is wearing a badge not introduced until 2371. Then again, maybe Starfleet recycles the designs every second decade: the oval might make a comeback in 2381!

"Coda" keeps you guessing, right through. A good Janeway story, even if in retrospect all the tearful eulogies must have been written about her, by her, in her own head. Best way to get the results you want, I say. 'She's the mother-figure I always wanted,' sounds a lot better than 'Damn fool ruined all our lives'.