Workforce

** (2 stars out of 5)

Welcome to the Factory! Kraftwerk will bring you your timecards any moment now. There's a lot of Pink Benzites around here. And pink humans, too. Like Janeway, for instance, who seems to think that spinning giant dials all day in Fritz Lang's Metropolis is a good job. Better than that overpopulated, polluted, crap-hole Earth, anyway.

Jaffen, Employee 1326, is chastized by Efficiency Monitor Annika Hansen for fraternizing with Kathryn. Kathryn doesn't mind, and soon enough she's caressing Jaffen's flesh-goatee. So meaty!

Speaking of meat, Harry mistakenly drank some meat byproduct nectar on Nar Shadda. It gave him parasites, but then what else would you expect from the moon of the Hutt homeworld? Heh. Star Wars. Speaking of Star Wars namedropping, Voyager was attacked earlier by the Quarren, who are no doubt unaware that they share a species name with the so-called Squid-Heads of Mon Calamari. They defeated Voyager with their surplus Breen ship, turned the crew over to Demented Doctor Ralph Malph from Happy Days, and with highly sophisticated mind alteration set them to work mining tylium to fuel the Battlestar Galactica. In case this seems a little heavy on the homage, it's a little bit like Dark City and The Matrix, too.

But poor Heaving Harry is better off than the rest of Voyager.  Their only hope is the re-tooled, red-clad ECH, since The Emergency Command Hologram is the only one left aboard a damaged, floundering ship. Can the not-exactly-promoted Doctor, Neelix, and Chakotay save the crew from working 9 to 5? What a way to make a living! It's all taking and no giving!

"Workforce" lost both its Emmy nominations to its own series finale. Tune in tomorrow if you care to learn why!