Star Trek: Voyager — 2x11 — Maneuvers

Aired 1995-11-20

SpaceOpera.com rating:7

Average reader rating:6.43

Synopsis

Chakotay faces his traitorous former love.

Remarkable scenes

The Kazon ship smashing into Voyager's hull.
Chakotay stealing a shuttle.
Torres sticking up for Chakotay to Janeway.
Chakotay's stealth approach to the Kazon ship and beaming aboard undetected.
Chakotay taunting Culluh about Seska's traitorous nature during his interrogation.
Chakotay: "You know one thing I especially liked? That little mole on her stomach." Culluh hits Chakotay hard. Chakotay: "I guess you've seen it."
Voyager beaming aboard all the Kazon leaders.
Seska's message to Voyager. Seska impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA!

Review

This episode is an interesting story of deception and betrayal. True to its name, it also features several interesting maneuvers. The Kazon put a knife in Voyager's belly, steal a transporter, Chakotay steals a shuttle, Chakotay approaches the Kazon ship under stealth, and Voyager beams aboard all the Kazon leaders. There are some remarkable inconsistencies, noted in the problems section, but overall I'm pleased with this episode. In the end, the contention between Janeway and Chakotay is appropriate. It seems there's not one member of Voyager's crew Janeway won't have to chew out, which is humorous and amusing as well as a bit annoying all at the same time. The ending of this episode is the best part, Seska is such a twisted, sadistic, evil person that she impregnated herself with Chakotay's DNA just to further infuriate him. A nice if slightly flawed episode.

2 reader comments

There were a few seriously problematic things that really needed to be addressed.
1) What ever happened to that stolen transporter module that started the whole thing? We see Chakotay in the shuttle, trying to target it with the anti-proton generator, then in the next moment we hear that the generator's been disabled. Chakotay is flustered, sends out his "I've succeeded, I'm dead, don't come here" message anyway, and there's no further mention of it! So… what's up here? Did the Voyager just accept defeat on this one? It would've been nice if that was mentioned…
Janeway later calls Chakotay's mission "commendable," which suggests that maybe he actually succeeded… if so, it would've been nice if it was mentioned or explained on screen. Kind of a weird "what the" moment, if you're paying attention.
2) How did the transporter render the Kazon weapons inoperable? I just don't really follow, and there's no explanation for it at all. I mean, I'm not saying it's totally unbelievable, but it would've been nice if it was explained on screen.
3) Speaking of transporting, why didn't they go after Seska? If they somehow got a lock on the 4 highest ranking Kazon amidst all the other Kazon (?), it seems like small potatoes to target the only Cardassian on board. The motivation was certainly there, or should've been. She's responsible for the whole mess, and is incredibly dangerous. I can't believe they didn't try to get her…
If she blocked Chakotay's signal with some kind of dampening field, maybe she blocked her own as well, but Torres explicitly states the dampening field's localized to 2 meters around Chakotay…
None of this is addressed at all… somehow they just totally blank and forget that they can transport Seska…
4) Speaking of Seska… How the heck did she impregnate herself with a sample of DNA from Chakotay's neck? Can you imagine the kind of advanced medical equipment it would require to create an embryo from a mixture of two different DNA sources? (And then successfully implant it?) On a Kazon ship? That doesn't even have a food replicator?
It would've been a little more believable if she used simpler methods and stuck that needle somewhere else - of course, in that case much of the audience would've simultaneously winced and reached for the remote.
5) Finally, all that beaming around with the shields up, as the review mentioned… I didn't even think of that…
So, this episode has a few remarkable scenes for sure, and it was interesting to see the Voyager so vulnerable… A "knife stuck in its belly," Janeway having to chew out Tuvak about the security protocols, etc… Other types of good scenes as already mentioned, especially Torres defending Chakotay.
But there are numerous annoying problems that stretch credibility, and are entirely skipped over, relying on the viewer to fill in the pieces.
It could've been a 7, but it was more like a 5/6 b/c of problems.
by Jal Viewer | 08/23/2011 at 1:17 am

About problem number one - didn't Chakotay destroy it with his phaser when he was on board the Kazon ship, right before he was detained?
by Inga | 07/30/2013 at 10:32 am