Course: Oblivion

**** (4 stars out of 5)

Here Comes the Bride! Melting away inside!

Janeway finally officiates the marriage of Tom and B'Elanna. Frabjous day! Calloo callay! But, with eerie and ominous background music, the rice thrown in celebration falls in gloops right through the floors... and for once it's not just because Neelix cooked it.

In the sage words of Goofy: 'Sumpin' wrong here!' Everything's getting a little bit runny ever since they put in the super-speedy new warp core with its super-untested radiations. And I don't just mean eggs, noses, and stockings. Everything and everyone is falling apart.

Remember that stupid story last year with the Demon-class planet and the duplicates made of Silver Blood? Yeah... well... this is THEM. The Duplicates. They were copied so well that they made their own ship out of themselves and set sail for Earth before very inconveniently forgetting that they are not human and thus cannot survive things that humans could. (You'd think not being able to breathe oxygen on away missions might have been a clue.)

Pain, however, is not unique to humans. As Copy-tain Janeway says of Copy-kotay: "Duplicate or not, he was real to me..." When B'Elanna melts away, her Tom suffers for real-real. And she's not the last.

"Course: Oblivion" is touchingly tragic. I always feel so sorry for the poor, misguided Silver Blood. That said, it raises some fascinating possibilities for the last 18 stories. It's become entirely possible that some, a few, or ALL of the stories since last year NEVER HAPPENED. At least not to OUR crew. Which do YOU think  were fakes? I vote 'The Disease', 'Gravity', and 'Infinite Regress'. That solves my problems with Harry cheating, Tom urging Tuvok to cheat, and Janeway calling at least one race by their Borg number instead of asking them their name. UNHAPPENED! So... call that a win.

Demon

* (1 cheap imitation star out of 5)

If this episode has one strength (and I'm not willing to concede that) then it's in showing Hary and Tom are still friends. Indeed, it proves that Friendship Is Magic, since nothing else is provided as an explanation for their survival.

On a Class-Y planet that is repeatedly stated to be super-duper deadly, their spacesuits are breached by aliens and they lie unconscious with no air in terminal heat and radiation for hours. Possibly days pass while the crew accepts their poison-breathing, heat-resistant doppelgangers back aboard with no questions asked.

And yet, they lived! Nobody screams "You boys musta been touched by the holy hand of God!" but they don't say "Thankfully, your suits were augmented with stasis fields!" either.

Speaking of crazy nonsense: the whole plot revolves around the ship running out of fuel. They CAN'T lift off unless they find deuterium (literally looking for snowballs in hell) and what they THINK is deuterium turns out to be people. So, they lift off.  WHAAAAT?

What is in the tank? Go home, Voyager, you're drunk.

In retrospect, it makes "Aquiel" looks like the better "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" rip-off.

Maybe the title is "Demon" because Janeway sold her soul to one (off-screen, natch) so the ship could fly with NO FRAKKING FUEL. How hard is it to add a sentence like: "Our new friends found us some deuterium in exchange for the gift of our likenesses and self-awareness. Which we gave them after much soul-searching even though they were more than a little creepy." Still wouldn't be a good story, but it wouldn't be so confoundedly stupid!

Devil's Due

*** (3 stars out of 5)

"Why, there's more of gravy than of grave about you. Humbug, I say!"

Picard is the solo audience for more of Data's acting rehearsals. Data has studied Method Acting and declares: "Since I have no emotional awareness to create a performance, I am attempting to use performance to create emotional awareness."

Dr. Howard Clark of the science station on Ventax II makes a distress call you don't get every day: the Ventaxians are convinced it's the End of The World tomorrow.

Once scientifically advanced but troubled by war, the Ventaxians sold their souls to the devil, Ardra, a millennia ago in exchange for an idyllic agrarian life. She is due back to claim her due: (deep doo-doo indeed) total enslavement of the populace.

Unlike most doomsday prophecy, Ardra actually shows. She claims to have many names, including Fek'lhr of Gre'thor, where dishonoured Klingons go when they die. He's got he legs of a Greek satyr and the teeth of an English king. Hey-oh!

Ardra's eager to tally her holdings and learn the economic forecasts. Picard belives she's using transporter, holographic, and tractor beam technology to vanish, change form, and cause tremors.

Ardra may be a fraud, but she thinks big. She claims the Enterprise, too, according to the ancient scroll contracts. She claims Picard, and appears in his room in the guise of the Gatekeeper of Gozer, Mary Poppins, and even Slutty Troi. When he rejects all of these sexy options, she beams him down to the science station in just his scanty jammies for punishment.

Data shuttles down to retrieve Picard, but before they get back the Enterprise disappears!

Ardra agrees to arbitration if Picard consents to willingly service her morning, noon, and night should he lose. Captain Kirk never got that kind of offer from Lucien of Megas-Tu, let me tell you! Although he seemed like a hugger. Data will play the unbiased judge at the trial.

La Forge pinpoints Ardra's cloaked ship. Riker's away team steals her powers for Picard's use during the trial. Her crew fold like cards and she laughs gaily as the Ventaxian authorities take her into custody.

"Devil's Due" is fun, while also raising some good points about theological manipulation of deep-seated fears. How many religious leaders throughout history have used their power to achieve financial and sexual dominance? My guess is: not a few. And they'll still hold that power as long as fear holds us in thrall.