Review

This episode repeats the mistake of Star Trek Voyager's episode The Eye of the Needle: it's way too soon for this. It didn't take very long at all in this plot for me to realize that it was just gonna be a big fat reset button and that nobody was really going to Earth. As a consequence of this, all we get is a highly entertaining tease. This episode is filled with wonderful notions that if the writing actually went there for real would be very dramatically compelling.

First is the idea that the wormhole to Earth is still there. Who knows if that's really true, but imagine the consequences for Earth if it were! Of course this episode only barely scratches the surface of such a notion. Other fun details were the attention to detail paid to the translator microbes' implications, watching Aeryn react to Earth, and the numerous character moments the episode afforded the both of them. But then, once again, the episode corrupts this too. Will anyone besides John remember any of this happened? This much is not clear. For that matter, why did Aeryn, D'Argo, and Rygel come to Earth anyway? And why didn't Zhaan and Chiana?

The aliens of the week contribute to the half-baked feel of this story as well with their exposition in earnest occurring solely in the final act which serves as little more than epilogue for the story. Once again, we have an intriguing idea: there's an alien race that can make wormholes and control them at will? Why do they not have enough power to make many more? In all the time they've been searching for a friendly ally why haven't they found one yet? Is everyone in the galaxy as petty as the humans were in this story?

Getting some answers to these highly significant questions would have made the story more satisfying. Instead, what we get seems largely meaningless, if quite touching at times. In short, the writers should never take us to Earth again unless it's for real.