The Sound of Her Voice

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Lovebirds Odo and Kira celebrate their one month anniversary... at Quark's sneaky suggestion. Not only so he can profit from their dinner and holosuite time, but so he can sell Denevan crystal meth or some such thing while the cops' backs are turned.  And Jake came along. (Seriously? Jake? In what dimension should Quark wish to detail all his nefarious schemes to a REPORTER? Still, I guess everyone needs someone.)

For example, Captain Lisa Cusak, who was on her way back from Beta Quadrant and pancaked in on some rain-soaked rock with the wrong kind of air.  The boys from Defiant talk to Lisa's disembodied voice on the Mexcian whoa-oh subspace radio as they race to her rescue. As you might imagine, CUSAK is the upbeat one, even as she runs out of air and air substitutes. In the wise, impatient words of Professor Farnsworth "We ALL miss our loved ones and gases!"

Six years together, and this crew still haven't found happiness. Bashir works too hard to have a girlfriend, Sisko's doing his best to drive his lady love away, and OBrien... well, O'Brien and Cusak both think very poorly of ship's counselors. Can't think why. They could both use a little couch time.

As They Might Be Giants sang "A woman's voice on the radio can convince you you're in love. A woman's voice on the telephone can remind you you're alone."

"The Sound of Her Voice" is an ironically sad and lonely story for Valentine's Day viewing. But so much the better: O'Brien is correct when he says the bleak times remind us to draw our circle of friends closer. So Happy Valentimes, all you Andorians. Keep those antennas up.

Basics, Part I

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Seska sends an SOS claiming that Cullah's steaming mad. Her baby didn't come out looking like an orange tree-headed jerk. Seska begs Chakotay to save her. And the baby. Mostly her.

The First Officer knows it's probably a trap, but he follows the guidance of his father in a vision. Some of their ancestors were raped by white conquerors, but the babies were not to blame. Chakotay chooses to accept responsibility for the child forced upon him, and Voyager's Captain and crew loyally throw themselves into the trap, too.

Neelix recuits some Talaxian allies from the colony of Prema II, Torres and Kim cook up a novel method of projecting holographic decoy ships, and Janeway rescues Seska's poor, discarded handmaiden-man, Tierna.

Each of these choices goes slightly wrong as Talaxians are no match for Kazons, one of the holoships turns out to be the Holo-Doctor wailing that he has fallen overboard, and Tierna is a plant. Not literally, even though he looks like a tree. I mean he was planted aboard in order to explode near a power conduit and disable Voyager. Celebrating the close of Suicide Season with a bang!

Before you can say "Wha hoppen?" the dumbest jocks in the Delta have stolen the ship of the nerds and stuffed them in the locker of chagrin. It's a good thing nobody in Starfleet is around to see them get thoroughly spanked.

Unceremoniously marooned on the primitive world of Hanon IV, who can come to their aid? The spear-wielding locals? The dinosaur, DINOSAUR, ancient enemy of man? The liquid hot magma?

And who will they be forced to eat in the meantime? No, the answer isn't as easy as Neelix. The man probably tastes like a giant leola root.

"Basics, Part I" did make a stunning cliffhanger. Watching the ship zoom off without them, it looked pretty bad. There's the Skipper (Janeway), there's Mary Ann (Tuvok), but I don't see Gilligan (Paris is missing). Will the Professor be able to build them a warp engine out of coconuts? And if Paris got away... who else are the Kazon overlooking?