While I thought this episode was fun, it is a logic and plot hole nightmare. It just doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, but if somehow you can roll with it, there's some entertainment value. It throws a ton of trek-y jargon regarding space scission (a type of rift that causes duplicate Voyagers and duplicate crews), shared anti-matter, photon bursts, and space/time rift to compensate for the trippy idea of seeing Captain Janeway talking with Captain Janeway about saving their respective ships and crews. You get a chance to see Harry Kim perishing during a repairs job through a hull breach on one Voyager, and his counterpart replacing him from one ship to another. And there's the death of one infant and its counterpart being carried by Kim through a passable rift from one Voyager to another. The significance of the infant is that she is the first to be born on Voyager. Seeing one Voyager under serious system catastrophe, as all the machinations coming under siege by photon bursts resulting in severe damage and injury/death to crew, while another is unaffected, and Janeways coordinating efforts to either merge or preserve their ships; this has a lot of creative and outre ideas. Is this episode successful? Well, it certainly isn't boring!
Whether you want to tear apart phase discriminator use and non-use during key moments or just the quantum duplicate story logic itself (not to mention the umbilical cord of the use of antimatter for both Voyagers severed by auto destruct which might have resulted in both ships destroyed), a Voyager in tatters, with the Bridge burning and operations continuing in Engineering, including bizarre subplot involving organ-harvest Vidiians taking advantage of the alternate less-affected Voyager unable to defend itself against a boarding and subsequent attack, just gives us a lot to consume over such a quick forty-five minutes block...this is actually a cinematic story in desperate need of fleshing out and further time to develop. At the most, this is a two-parter which could have benefited from a strong cliffhanger.
Not only does it finish all nice and neat, the plot plays so loosely with versions of people meeting each other and passing through rifts into duplicate ships, I agree with others that balk about its share of problems. Still, seeing multiple Janeways, one a little more worse for wear than the other, conversing and even arguing about end results, is quite incredible. Sacrifice, gallantry, and valor all integral parts of Janeway...In both of the Captains.
Whether you want to tear apart phase discriminator use and non-use during key moments or just the quantum duplicate story logic itself (not to mention the umbilical cord of the use of antimatter for both Voyagers severed by auto destruct which might have resulted in both ships destroyed), a Voyager in tatters, with the Bridge burning and operations continuing in Engineering, including bizarre subplot involving organ-harvest Vidiians taking advantage of the alternate less-affected Voyager unable to defend itself against a boarding and subsequent attack, just gives us a lot to consume over such a quick forty-five minutes block...this is actually a cinematic story in desperate need of fleshing out and further time to develop. At the most, this is a two-parter which could have benefited from a strong cliffhanger.
Not only does it finish all nice and neat, the plot plays so loosely with versions of people meeting each other and passing through rifts into duplicate ships, I agree with others that balk about its share of problems. Still, seeing multiple Janeways, one a little more worse for wear than the other, conversing and even arguing about end results, is quite incredible. Sacrifice, gallantry, and valor all integral parts of Janeway...In both of the Captains.