Star Trek: Voyager — 4x20 — Vis a Vis
Synopsis
An alien switches bodies with Paris.
Remarkable scenes
- The doctor complaining about Tom's delinquency.
- Steth becoming Tom and Tom becoming Steth.
- Steth as Paris trying to fit in.
- Tom as Steth confused about his new life.
- Seven: "I would like to know why you were reading the captain's personal logs." Steth and Paris: "I wasn't." Seven: "I saw the PADD. It was unmistakably the captain's logs." Steth as Paris: "You're wrong. You're confused. You couldn't possibly have seen anything." Seven: "You know I possess an eidetic memory. I require only seconds to commit what I see to memory. Would you like me to quote the passage you were reading?"
Review
Body switch madness in an episode that is amusing but fails largely to convince. the alien's motivations are not made clear, nor does the "coaxial" warp drive play any kind of important role. All that's left, is the body switches which give the actors a chance to play different roles, which they do well, but it seemed like the plot hinged far too much on exploiting this plot device. A radical new engine technology was completely unnecessary; instead, a discussion regarding the alien's motivations would have been more suited to the plot. But we don't get it. And the episode suffers. Further annoying is the modification of one of Voyager's shuttles, they built a coaxial warp drive. All I can say to this is have the writers not learned from Voy: Threshold? Finally, Janeway must have been in Tom's body for a short time, seeing as how the alien in Tom switched with Janeway. It would have been nice to see her reaction to being in Tom's body...