I do so love a well-done surreal episode of Star Trek. Or of most tv shows, for that matter. But sometimes I wonder whether they're worth it, seeing as a sizeable portion of the viewers apparently start writing angry, scathing reviews without giving a moment's thought to what actually happened. People acting out-of-character during a surreal vision/dream? Not a goof. If everything went normally and characters behaved exactly how you'd expect a character to behave, there would be no point to the sequence being a dream or vision. A dream or vision that is indistinguishable for what passes for reality on a show...*that* would be baffling and odd. If Chakotay acts different from normal, or if the Doc can be harmed by physical weapons, it's actually consistent with the very premise.
As for the episode itself, I enjoyed the themes it tried to explore, and, for the most part, did so successfully. The main flaw in this episode is built into the format -- there wasn't enough time to give said themes full shrift, so we ultimately ended up with a conclusion that's less open to interpretation as somewhat incomplete. We can interpret what the episode is trying to drive at, but there simply wasn't enough connection between the behavior/dialogue and the resultant actions to have any particularly solid reason for our interpretations. Which is a pity, because it was a fascinating episode that developed a solid foundation for a character study, not only of B'Ellana but of the general Klingon psyche of the entire race, and the religious beliefs therefrom. I still rate it a solid 7 because it was worth watching; it just never quite closed the deal before the 40-some odd minutes ran out. It would have made a great 2-parter, but the topic itself, being so focused on one character in the ensemble, probably wasn't epic enough for the writers to sell it to the show-runners as worthy of having 2 episodes dedicated to it. Pity, because I can think of several episodes we could have done without if it meant this one got a continuation into the following week.
