Star Trek: Voyager — 6x21 — Live Fast and Prosper

Aired 2000-03-19

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:4.8

Factoids

Kaitlin Hopkins, who played Dala in this episode, played the Vorta captain in DS9: The Ship.

Problems

It is said that Voyager has 30,342.4 light years to go. This would seem inconsistent with my calculations that they in fact have about 24,000 light years to go. According to my calculations, Voyager has traveled the equivalent of about 51 years since it began its journey. (10 years [Voy: The Gift] + 5 years [Voy: Year of Hell] + 2 years [Voy: Night, rounded down] + 1 year [Voy: Hope and Fear, rounded up] + 10 years [Voy: Timeless] + 15 years [Voy: Dark Frontier] + 3 years [Voy: The Voyager Conspiracy] + 5 seasons of conventional warp = 51 years.) If you factor out five or six seasons of conventional warp and blame it on Voyager's extensive exploration and various delays, the 30,000 figure seems to make more sense though. At least they didn't over estimate distance traveled.

Synopsis

Voyager encounters con artists.

Remarkable scenes

Janeway's sonic shower malfunction.
Tuvok complaining about Harry and Tom altering his holodeck programs.
Tom and Neelix trying and failing to fool the doctor.
Janeway confronting Dala.
Tuvok's improvisation.
The doctor posing as Dala.
Mobar encountering Tuvok.

Review

A light hearted, funny episode. The thieves with their good, but not quite perfect impersonations and costumes reminded me of the scene of a Star Trek convention. I wonder if this was intentional. I most enjoyed Mobar's complete and utter admiration of Tuvok which, again, reminded me of a rabid Trek fan. The Voyager crew using the impostors' own tactics against them was ironic, funny, and fitting; rarely is the doctor used so well. Overall entertaining, but nothing too terribly special.

2 reader comments

I think you're right about the costumes because that was the first impression I got as well. They have this subtle cheapness to them that definitely reminds me of star trek fans' costumes.
by Pete Miller | 01/22/2007 at 9:23 pm

i'm surprised this didn't get a higher rating; in a sense it is more of voyager's non-sequiturs, but it feels like this season there's actually a bit of craft to the storylines, and as long as you don't expect too much, it's almost like Voyager's "trying" for once.
we're starting to see--6 seasons too late, in my opinion--something resembling a fulfillment of the original concept idea, interesting and non-connected adventures every week that have a unique flair and a sort of blunt, but a little bit subtle moral edge to them. this one actually felt really lovingly made to me, and is sort of a logical consequence of Voyager traipsing around the quadrant being do-gooders for so long. i liked that somebody eventually would take advantage of it, and i liked the ending deception. i only think we were 'let in' on it too early and it felt like the dilemma wasn't drawn out enough (though i really did feel bad for that telsian…).
so, not the best episode but certainly not a purely 'silly' one like the doctor's singing forays; it seemed to really be an appropriate 'monster of the week' style story--and let's be honest, this is all Voyager's going to ever be good for.
by parkbench | 03/01/2016 at 8:32 am