Review

A rather generic episode, other than the rather interesting time displacement part, the character of Noss, and Tuvok's flashbacks. If it were not for these things, the episode would be hideously cliched. We have yet another shuttle crash (one wonders if by now half the crew is assigned to "shuttle and photon torpedo replacement duty") resulting in yet another rescue attempt. It's rather funny how the writers don't even tell us why Tuvok, Tom, and the doctor were on a shuttle mission in the first place, as if it doesn't matter. My complaining aside, the social situation that developed between Noss and Tuvok was very well written and made the episode most watchable. It's also remarkable how Tom kept encouraging Tuvok to accept Noss' advances, to accept the inevitability of their situation, that this planet was "home" now. It reminded me a lot of Voy: Remember with Chakotay in place of Tom. I also liked how the aliens trying to seal the rift were the same aliens attacking people down on the planet. It certainly makes sense with their claim that they've lost ships to the anomaly too frequently. Even all these nice touches can't save the episode from being below average though. We've just seen too many shuttle crashes.