Latent Image

*** (3 stars out of 5)

It really isn't paranoia if they're all out to get you.

The EMH discovers some undeleted photos that show a young lady he doesn't remember. He tries to warn the Captain about a possible Insidious Alien Infiltration of the Pleasant, Innocuous Women. But the Captain merely pats his bald head and promises to deal with it and keeps erasing his memory.

Janeway, apparently drunk or exhausted, back-peddles fiercely in her open-mindedness and says the EMH is more like a replicator than a person. This gives SEVEN OF NINE the opportunity to demonstrate a better sense of civil rights than her Captain!? Or does Janeway just create straw man arguments so Seven can learn and grow?

Either way, the Captain erased a trauma from the Doctor's mind 18 months ago in order to prevent the holographic equivalent of an emotional breakdown.

With the spines of Ensigns Harry Kim and Ahni Jetal disintegrating from an alien weapon, the EMH only had enough time to save one... and all other things being equal he picked the patient he LIKED better. The Doctor is unable to reconcile that choice with his ethics and professionalism, and his mind forms loops of guilt and self-blame.

At some point, I have to stop claiming Star Trek is ripping off Red Dwarf  (the episode where the hologram deals with the pain of erased memories) and admit that "Latent Image" as a concept was probably ripped off from "Clues" the TNG episode that ripped off Red Dwarf. That snarked, it's really well performed and Robert Picardo can do no wrong.

Unforgettable

** (2 stars out of 5)

Please welcome back for the (second?) time: Kellin of the Ramuran Tracers Guild. No, she's not a tracer as in a comic book inker, she's a tracer like a bounty hunter. Or Braydu Runna!

Oh, I'm very much in favor of space bounty hunters (Don't believe me? I've got a Lego Boba Fett Alarm Clock, son!) but in the case of the Ramurans there's an added wrinkle: they add no wrinkles! To the brain, that is. As soon as a Ramuran is not in the same room with you, you start to forget they ever existed.

Even if, as apparently happened here with Kellin and Chakotay, things got romantic. Whoooo!

An idea swiped not (as I once believed) from Red Dwarf's "Thanks For The Memories" but from Neil Gaiman's "Neverwhere".

The First Officer and the Lady Galadriel swap stories and pudding. Ahem.

Perhaps childishly, I was not interested in this doomed romance because all I kept thinking was: 'Hey, waitaminute! I thought Chakotay was in LOVE with Captain Janeway! Isn't that how this works? Isn't that why he wears the funny pajamas and salutes and doesn't mutiny and stuff?'

Before I can bother to invest in the happiness of "Chakellin", they've parted once more. "I knoooow his journey ends never... his STAAAR trek will go on for-ev-errr...  But tell him while he wanders his staaaarry sea ... rememberrr, RE MEM BER MEEEEE!"

"Unforgettable" is, I'm not sorry to say, forgettable. How do you have Virginia Madsen in Kes ears and  keep the chemistry so tepid? A romance with no spark, no energy, no notheen! Good actors, good director (Andrew 'Garak' Robinson, no less) so I have to blame the writers or else my old, cold, shriveled heart that beats but twice per hour and quickens not for mere matters of love...

Although, maybe they had all KINDS of naughty fun! Let's just assume they did.

Retrospect

** (2 stars out of 5)
While buying the ship a new gun, Seven of Nine and the Holographic Doctor become suspicious of the suspicious weapons dealer. Seven attacks the man, Kovin, for banging into her slightly.

Voyager's Doctor quickly tries to help with his new Psychology For Dummies software. He recovers or possibly gets Seven to dream up a scenario wherein Kovin stole and weaponised her ever-ubiquitous nanoprobe-laden blood, then wiped her memory.

Is the bad guy a bad guy? Is there any recourse? Are we on a witch hunt or acting from righteous indignation? Is there a difference?

When Kovin starts to feel hounded, he runs and then shoots and then all his guns blow up and kill him. Although this makes a compelling argument against using the cannon they bought from him, it answers none of the questions previously posed. Our pair of new humans feel some ill-defined remorse and the ship flies ever onward.

In retrospect, "Retrospect" feels like a good effort and a huge waste of everyone's time. Save only for a rather useful moral: be careful how you act on what you think you remember. Or, if you prefer: save your budget for better stories.

Clues

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Finished early at Harrakis (Gurney Halleck places emphasis on the 'H' so I guess it's not the place with the sand worms), Enterprise engages in some leisure time.

Guinan as Gloria From Cleveland joins Picard in his latest Dixon Hill holo adventure. The fun of gun play and murder MIGHT be a little lost on her, as is the function of stocking clips.

While trying to take a gander at a class-M planet in the Ngame Nebula, everybody but Data is stunned by a wormhole. They awaken 30 seconds later and a day away. Playing it safe, the probe Data sends back to look at the planet shows it wasn't class-M after all. Problem solved forever, nothing to see here.

Except minor mysteries start to crop up.

Like Egon Spengler, Beverly Crusher grows molds, spores, and fungus. Weirdly, her experiments are a day old instead of 30 seconds. Almost as weird as having that hobby at all.

La Forge discovers the ship's chronometer has been reset: and only he or Data could have done it.

Worf and O'Brien are nursing healing injuries, and Troi's wigging out with deja vu.

And why is Nurse Ogawa's PVR full of shows that won't air till tomorrow?

Through it all, Data cannot offer answers, even though he is caught lying and laying a false trail in sensor information. It all leads them back to a confrontation with the xenophobic Paxans, and the discovery of what happened in the day no one remembers.

"Clues" is a good mystery, well-executed. Not for the last time, however, Red Dwarf beat them to the concept. And then they did a jigsaw...