Equinox

This episode begins with Voyager locating another Federation vessel in the Delta Quadrant. The USS Equinox is in bad shape which is the result from battling some sort of creatures. Exactly what they are and why they were there are hidden from Voyager's crew by the wily folks from Equinox. In fact, a lot is hidden and the meeting at first seems like good news. Eventually, however, Janeway learns that the Prime Directive has been routinely ignored by Captain Ransom (John Savage) and she locks the crew in their quarters until she figures out what to do with these jerks. The Equinox crew, however, has an ace up their sleeve--their holo doctor has no moral qualms about ANYTHING and soon he's set in motion a plan to rescue his morally ambivalent crew members. By the end of the show, these folks have escaped and they've stolen Voyager's deflectors--and left them to the mercy of the creatures angered by Ransom's nasty experiments.

This is a nice episode because too often the Prime Directive and and niceness permeates the show so much, it's nice to have a breath of fresh air...or is it stale air?! Regardless, it sets them up for a nice confrontation which will occur in the second part of this two- parter.