Friday, February 22, 2013

Extreme Risk


*** (3 stars out of 5)
Tom Paris presents his design for a bigger, badder shuttle called the Delta Flyer. Everyone leaps on this like it wasn't a pointless make-work project to give a nation's Ship Nerds little hard-ons.

Well, except B'Elanna. Not getting her jollies from spaceships, she's turning off the holodeck safeties and risking her life for thrills. Pshh. Girls!

Why does she do this? Oh, in a not-terribly-organic character development, she has survivor's guilt or clinical depression or something vague which wasn't a problem for her before or since. Sort of the death wish equivalent of Sulu suddenly getting a new hobby.

Because Voyager insists on spreading Borg technology on everything (even their breakfast bagels), a modified probe attracts the attention of the Malon. Those Dumpster Divers follow it head-first into the empty swimming pool that is a gas giant's gravity well.

A Suicide Season Late Entry! Can Torres survive where the Malon became runny radioactive smears? Well, they didn't have Ship's Counsellor Chakotay!

"Extreme Risk" casts Tom in a pretty bad light. I mean, his girlfriend is amping up the self-harm and he hasn't noticed because he's giving his warp-speed mistress bigger tail fins? Makes the EMH look pretty ineffective, too. Guy cures DEATH but suddenly he can't handle a chemical imbalance? Complaining out of the way, the performances outshine the writing, so it's not all bad.

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