In the last couple months, I have gone nuts with the "Star Trek" shows. I just finished re-watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation" as well as "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" and now I am working on "Star Trek: Voyager". One huge difference I notice is that unlike the first two shows, "Voyager" does not have interesting or well written enemies other than the Vidiians in the early part of the show. Later, with the inclusion of the Borg, things improved immensely. But the Kazon just seem stupid--like Klingons...really, really, REALLY stupid ones at that. They are hyper-aggressive but never in an intelligent or calculating manner and they seem way too dumb to have ever built starships. And all they know how to do is fight and grumble--even when it makes absolutely no sense at all. Because of this, I was NOT in love with this Kazon episode.
The show begins with Chakotay out on a runabout for no clear reason. He is supposedly there to do some American-Indian mumbo-jumbo and when the Kazon show up, for some inexplicable reason Voyager doesn't notice and Chakotay doesn't alert them. However, instead of just blowing him up, they send a child in another ship to blow up the runabout. But, Chakotay is sneaky in his tactics (possibly because he's NOT a child) and blows up the Kazon attacker's ship. But, being a Federation good guy, he beams his would-be killer onto the runabout. Instead of thanking him, the little guy grumbles and demands he be killed! Later, when Chakotay's runabout is captured by the Kazon mothership, the Kazon are NOT happy that Chakotay spared the boy and give Chakotay a knife---telling him to kill the boy. Not surprisingly, Chakotay won't and...well, you should probably just see the rest yourself.
The only reason you might want to see this one is that Aron Eisenberg plays the boy, Kar. Eisenberg ALSO was playing Nog on "Star Trek: Deep Space 9" at this same time and it's interesting to see him playing a different sort of character--one far dumber and less sympathetic. Overall, this episode is a bit tiresome...as are the Kazon shows in general. The sooner the show focuses on more interesting enemies, the better.
