Revulsion

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Dejaren the HD25 isomorphic projection has killed everyone on his ship. Why? A fine question... which is not satisfactorily answered here. In the long-ago words of Klingon Ambassador Kell: "Motive? Who cares for motive? Humans, perhaps."

The Serosian crew apparently abused their projection, possibly beyond the requirements of working with caustic materials in a single room forever without being recognized as an equal. So... the fastidious holo-janitor with no rights but with consciousness may perhaps have been justified. I'd say it was a tough call, though: what with anyone who might have given the other side of the story being bashed to death with a hammer and stuffed into every available nook and cranny.

Meanwhile, Seven of Nine eliminates Harry Kim's attraction to her by coming on 79 times as strong. I had some trouble with this, because my hero Harry comes away from the encounter looking pretty bad. Too horny to remain loyal to his girlfriend back home, but too cowardly to follow through on his clumsy attempt to cheat with the New Girl. It's very human, but it's very embarrassing. It strains my understanding of his character, too.

The Isomorph graduate from the Lore Soong School of Irrational Rage tries to tear B'Elanna's eight-chambered heart out. Well, she's ORGANIC! Isn't that the same as asking for it??? Anyway, she kills him back in self-defence.

"Revulsion" lurches sickeningly between farce and half-baked thriller (only the audience can decide which is which.) But I have quite a bit of affection and/or respect for guest murderer Leland "What's Inside Me?" Orser. O.K., there's not much being said here. Don't give something intelligence if you're creating it to be abused. Or, preferably, don't abuse things. If you're not sure if something is a thing or a person, err on the side of not abusing it.

Dreadnought

*** (3 stars out of 5)

Once upon a time, B'Elanna went over Chakotay's head and re-built a Cardassian doomsday device to attack its own masters and blow up their entire planet. She only had a brief time to reconsider whether this might be overkill before the missile vanished in the Badlands.

Guess what's baaack?

Stubborn, efficient, arrogant and paranoid, the Dreadnought has mistaken inhabited Rakosa V for Cardassian fuel depot Aschelan V. It's an easy mistake to make: they both have a Five in their name.

Dreadlocks tricks B'Elanna into thinking it has respected her authority, but it has actually decided that everyone is lying about the whole "Lost in the Delta Quadrant" Deal. The arrogant AI won't shut down. After all, what are the odds a senile extragalactic cyst would kidnap a nuke to mate with? O.K., you and I know it's a fairly common occurrence, but not Dreadsy-kins.


Meanwhile, Tom is insubordinate and Jonas keeps leaving messages for Seska: 'Call me baaaack! Why'd you leeeave? Was it meeee?'

The Rakosan First Minister Kellan has decided to hurl wave after wave of his own men at the unstoppable force. Like the Mighty Hercules cartoon where Hercules always insisted on leaping headfirst at the invulnerable Mask of Vulcan (no relation) a couple of times just to see if he was still as invulnerable as last week.

With 2 million lives at stake I probably would have had those pilots evacuating people instead. Am I the only one not taking crazy pills?

As Janeway sets the ship to self-destruct in Dreadnought's path, Torres gets the missile into an argument with itself over whether it has Bieber Fever or Lady Gaga Reflux.

We just saw B'Elanna spend an entire episode arguing with machines in 'Prototype' and here she is again versus "Dreadnought", a talking missile. Like 'Dark Star' but minus an unconvincing alien made out of a beach ball. They're lucky that Roxanne Biggs-Dawson is so darn riveting. It's a very watchable episode thanks to her.

And it looks like Samantha Wildman will need a name for her baby after all. I'm in favour of Greshkrendregk, myself. It's better than Jagrafess of the Holy Hadrojassicmaxarodenfoe.

Prototype

**** (4 stars out of 5)

It's a damn shame when people be throwin' away a perfectly good white bot like that!

Voyager happens across 3947, a Pralor Automated Unit right out of Asimov's wet dreams. The robot's just drifting in space, much as that psychopath Lore once did. And Voyager picks it up. Much as a ship load of Pakleds must have done. Once.

Tuvok and Janeway have their doubts, but Torres not-quite literally nurses the robot back to health and sends him on his merry way...

What's that you say, Mr. Roboto? You wanna breed? Breed what? Orchids? That's fine, ask Tuvok if he... sorry? You say you want Torres to help you make babies? Well, that's very understandable, we've ALL been there... oh, baby ROBOTS? Not very likely.

3947 calls Torres a Builder, and when he needs someone to make new hearts for his race of tin men, Torres the Builder says "Yes, we can!"

Of course, Janeway the Wet Blanket says "No, you can't!" Giving strange robots the power of procreation is a textbook Prime Directive No-No.

The Silver-Tongued Devils won't take no for an answer, though they don't have tongues. But they are silver.

What will happen when the gold ones show up?

If Torres building a robot out of old Johnny 5 parts and flux capacitors while singing Data's praises is wrong, "Prototype" doesn't want to be right. Plus, the Robocop POV homage is pretty cool.