Star Trek: Voyager — 2x17 — Dreadnought

Aired 1996-02-12

SpaceOpera.com rating:9

Average reader rating:5.89

Synopsis

Torres tries to stop a deadly missile.

Remarkable scenes

The doctor lamenting about not being able to choose a name, then shooting down every name Ensign Wildman comes up with.
Torres and Chakotay describing their history with Dreadnought.
Janeway's communication with the planet Dreadnought was intending to destroy.
Torres' entry into Dreadnought.
Tom: "When a bomb starts talking about itself in the third person, I get worried."
Torres beaming back aboard Dreadnought, pissed off.
Dreadnought engaging the Rakosan fleet.
Torres' hypothetical game.
Dreadnought removing life support, trying to kill Torres.
Dreadnought's identity crisis.
Delinquent Tom Scenes; 1. Is late for the staff meeting. Chakotay chews him out. 2. Torres confronts Tom about his odd behavior in Engineering. Torres mentions he got in a fight with Lt. Rollins; Tom says it was because his conn. reports weren't punctuated properly.

Review

This episode is excellent. Torres has to confront one of her old demons, literally. They did a very good job with the sets on dreadnought, it looked very Cardassian. I felt like I was watching a DS9 episode during some parts of it, which is no small compliment indeed! And Torres puts up yet another spectacular performance. There are parallels between this episode and TOS: The Ultimate Computer, as well as other Star Trek episodes. The behavior of Dreadnought's computer reminds me somewhat of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some details to discuss, Voyager's reputation is once again at issue, which I liked. And Jonas does more traitorous communicating with the Kazon, which annoys me. Frankly, Jonas' scene in this episode seems almost as pointless as the one he did in Voy: Threshold. It seems obvious that it's leading up to a Kazon confrontation, and it doesn't take a genius to guess that Tom's odd behavior is somehow linked to Jonas' traitorous behavior. Jonas' activities are not particularly annoying on principle, it's the implementation I find all wrong. Why do the Kazon care about Voyager's current situation? Does it benefit them? Absolutely not. Why isn't Jonas transmitting real sensitive info instead of giving them harmless updates?

8 reader comments

I agree that this episode is excellent. I really like the fact that they start to change their reputation here. They've made another friend, one of many to come.
by Sir Brando | 05/15/2006 at 6:03 am

This is a good episode, no doubt. But it seems that every episode on this site that gets a 9 or 10 is always a high stakes tactical/action episode. I want star trek, not Tom Clancy books. Having said that, I think this one is pretty cookie cutter and predictable. I mean obviously they are going to stop the bomb and obviously voyager won't be destoyed. The ending was complete uninspired. Frankly I would have been more impressed if Torres just fried the computer using just logic ;)
by hobospice | 01/28/2007 at 5:07 am

It's an exciting episode and Belana's battle with the computer is at different points, funny and fascinating.
Two problems. How can Janeway set the self destruct on her own? Every other time it's been done it has needed at least two officers. And why does Belana start running out of breath after about 20 minutes? There's enough oxygen on something that size for one person to breathe for ages even with no regeneration.
I'll give it a 7.
by Rob Herbert | 08/19/2010 at 9:33 am

Why would a missile have a bridge and life support? Why would it leave the life support on, consuming energy, when it didn't expect to have any lifeforms on board?
Also, with the vastness of space, it's quite the coincidence that Voyager happened to come across wreckage of a ship the missile destroyed, decide to follow the trail and come across the missile merely hours before it was to reach its destination.
by GDorn | 09/29/2011 at 8:29 pm

Fairly average episode that we have seen multiple times before. No offense to our reviewer but I think if this exact same episode was on TOS it would get a 3. You never seem to like irrational computers and this one is certainly that.
by Rick Smith | 12/29/2012 at 10:41 pm

I'm really not sure what you're on about, Rick. I compared this episode favorably to TOS: The Ultimate Computer, which got a similar score.
But there are many "Kirk talks a computer to death" episodes and not all of them are as good as TOS: The Ultimate Computer. The stereotypical TOS episode with a computer as an antagonist that I slap around with a low rating would be something like TOS: The Changeling.
Because seriously, do you think Nomad is anywhere near as cool as Dreadnought? I certainly don't. Aesthetics count for a lot in my ratings. Most of the TOS "Kirk talks a computer to death" episodes are painful to watch because the computer feels like a 1960s stereotype rather than a futuristic antagonist.
Dreadnought holds up well. And so does TOS: The Ultimate Computer.
by Eric Newport | 12/30/2012 at 11:43 am

The biggest problem with episode is Torres. She's a smack-off. She's always running around bitching and complaining and angry about something. Any episode that focuses on her can never be good.
by thaibites | 11/06/2013 at 12:05 am

Not quite sure why the one reviewer felt this was more Clancy than Star Trek. This is a missile with a computer that has the power to calculate all kinds of probabilities, analyze them, interact with its users at advanced levels, make attempts at deception to preserve itself and its mission, and even "scout" its adversaries to test their motives. In other words, it's practically a sentient missile. Seems to fall well within the realm of cool Star Trek sci-fi to me.
The suspense was well developed in this one. Just when you think Torres has found a way to disable the missile, it surprises her, outsmarts or anticipates her actions, and denies her victory. Even her attempts to reason with it ultimately backfire until finally, she finds its weakness through sheer determination. We knew that she would probably disable it in the end, but we didn't really know how or whether the missile would remain a future threat.
I do agree with the original review that the Jonas scene is pointless and annoying. It seems to serve no other purpose than to tell us, "hey just in case you forgot, this guy is still secretly talking to the Kazon!" And maybe to establish that Seska's no longer the provided contact, although, again, there was really no logical reason given for them to contact Seska other than her being Cardassian and this is a Cardassian weapon….but, one that's been reappropriated by the Maquis.
As far as needing two officers to set up self-destruct, there's one key difference between Voyager and the Enterprises/other ships: Janeway's first officer is a former Maquis. She no doubt trusts him with many things to give him that position, but maybe the self-destruct sequence was one area she wanted to keep firmly under Starfleet control. Tuvok would be a good second choice, but maybe there are rank/command requirements in order to set that up.
by Mike L. Jackson | 05/26/2017 at 1:37 pm