Divergence

**** (4 stars out of 5)
How do you manage to risk 160 lives and two top-of-the-line starships just to fix a broken brake line? Just like this... and it's awesome! This is also how mommy space-ships and daddy space-ships make baby space-ships. The mommy space-ship sidles up alongside daddy at 5 times the speed of light and they press real close in a special hug... then they exchange a tiny space-ship building man on a string. Go Trip!

Marab, the Klingon Augment who snuck quietly in and sabotaged the Enterprise, is disdainful of Reed for sneaky-peeky spying! Speaking of hypocrisy, Augment Laneth reports to Marab's father that his son died without honour... because she thinks mere HUMANS killed him. The smooth-foreheads are feeling ashamed because they may have lost some bravado along with their crunchy heads. Although some of the fear may be due to the genocide descending upon them for being infectious mutants. Plus the Klingon Admiral trying to murder all the infected is in bed with Section 31, who (last time I checked) are humans! Sometimes I think Klingons are making up the honourable/dishonourable rules as they go along.

Medicine is just as arbitrary as engineering and honour: Phlox does something with computers and centrifuges, then incubates the result in Captain Archer's veins, which temporarily gives Archer a Klingon forehead somehow. So nobody dies, but the virus is going to create several generations of miserable Klingons who look like humans. (Worse yet, millions of them also caught a cold once that made their hair look like bad curly wigs!)

"Divergence" also explains Saavik and Ziyal- their faces must have caught the Augment Flu!

Natural Law

* (1 star out of 5)

It's an typical day for Voyager: procrastinating the journey home in order to attend some symposium, closely followed by their 100th shuttle crash in 100 days.

Chakotay and Seven wind up Under The Dome on CBS. (CBS stands for Cuddle Bear Stand-By.)

The local Ventu tribe are isolated from the warp-capable Ledosians by a barrier put up long ago by some meddling alien jerktopus or other. The Ventu seem perfectly nice, and they are eager for new fads from their sky-visitors. The guys all get face tattoos and the gals all start stapling on some silicon!

Meanwhile, Tom Paris gets a speeding ticket and must go back to boring old driving school with a boring old instructor. This is mainly so we can discover something new about Janeway: she's a stickler for rules only as long as it's funny, and not personally inconvenient. (The moment she needs Paris back, she breaks local law to get him out of it.) So add "Breaks Laws When It Suits Her" to what we learned yesterday: that she suddenly feels exploration is not worth ONE LOST LIFE. These brand-new character traits from famed law-abiding explorer Captain Janeway will become clear in the finale, I just thought I'd point it out while we're here.

"Natural Law" raises questions about developing cultures, and what more advanced cultures might owe them, and what-not, but since Star Trek does this a lot (and better elsewhere), wouldn't a better Chakotay and Seven episode have been some kind of hearing? On Earth? Having made it back earlier in the season? Where their actions as Borg tactician and Maquis terrorist are discussed and compared against the people they have become? Because this was our last chance to find out what THEIR culture is about lately. Still, we get to see Seven trip and fall down. Surely that's a series highlight.

Birthright Part II

**** (4 stars out of 5)

After the flashback, in which Ba'el the Kling-ette flashes back (and side-boob) Worf's dilemma continues on the galaxy's most relaxed prison world.

Uncharacteristically kind Romulan Commander Tokath kept a hundred Khitomerian Klingons alive for prisoner exchange. However, their families and government would rather they didn't exist. Tokath was going to let them go anyway, but to preserve their families' honour they stayed in hiding with their lenient captors. Worf's dad was never among them.

"There is no room in my heart for shame," Worf declares. It's not a popular Klingon opinion: the oldsters wish their kids would come to visit them... knife first. The youngsters are farmers, contented and/or bored. Peacenik Ba'el has no desire to visit the dangerous Klingon home world. Worf says Qo'noS is dangerous "no longer". Skewed perspective from the guy who nearly bought it there a year ago.

Romulan Jailer Tokath tells Worf he married a Klingon woman, and you can see Worf throwing up a little, in his mouth.

Worf teaches Klingon combat moves and stories to the ignorant youths. He is about to teach the mating bite to Ba'el- when he discovers she has pointed ears. She's Tokath's daughter.

Tokath asks Worf to stop pouring vinegar into his melting pot. Not bloody likely! Many Klingons move into the line of fire at Worf's half-hearted execution. Finally, Tokath's Klingon ladies stay his hand.

Several Klingon lads returned with Worf. They claim to be "crash survivors" from "planet Elaborate Lie".

"Birthright Part II" is fine Kling-sploitation fare, if that's what you're into. Mendak's identical cousin Tokath is a very compelling villain as far as I'm concerned, having abandoned massacres and warmongering for Ridged Forehead Jungle Fever. And yet... face to face with the man whose orders killed his parents, Worf merely spurns his daughter's advances and slightly disturbs his weekend? Does that sound like Worf to you? Or does it seem more likely he'd take a sick day, come back, and burn this hippy commune to the ground?