'Alice'

Stardate: Unkown
Written By: Juliann DeLayne
Directed By: David Livingston
Rating: **1/2 (out of 5)

"Alice" was better than I expected, believe it or not.� The large amount of negative reviews on the Internet (which don't influence my opinions, by the way!) left me not looking forward to viewing it. But I am still not too enthusiastic after watching it.

Finding a junk-dealer was a nice plot device, and I found the dealer himself to be amusing.� But his calm and friendly attitude changes too suddenly into a nasty "Delta Quadrant race" for my liking and he than goes back to being friendly again which left me a bit annoyed by the character.� The makeup, though, was nice, it reminded me a bit of the Son'a from "Insurrection."

Alice herself is not acted too well, but she has a very nice voice! Robert Duncan McNeil did a nice, if overacted job as the "rebel Paris," as he has done quite often in the past.� Of course all his actions are forgiven because he was under an alien influence. The neural interface is something Starfleet should invest in designing.

I have a lot of questions about the Alice.� Firstly why did she want to get inside the Particle Fountain, which by the way was a beautiful CGI rendition?� I know Alice said to get home, but why does she want/need to get home?� She isn't a sentient being; it's said in the episode that it is a computer program.

Also, why would anyone build this kind of ship?� A ship that needs a compatible host, a ship that has to return to where it belongs?� A ship with the capability to capture someone like this should be able to fly itself home!

I'm a little confused about the timing and travelling here too.� After Voyager leaves the junkyard it seems to be quite a few days before Paris leaves and Voyager returns to ask about Alice.� Than Voyager proceeds to catch Alice and Paris (I'm a poet and I don't know it!) just in the nick of time?� Either Alice is very slow, Voyager is using Slipstream technology, or the writers aren't thinking! Which one do you think? ;)

In the end B'Elanna projects herself into Paris's mind with a Medical wonder, that takes no time at all for the Doc to create and manufacture, to distract him and Voyager manages to beam him out of Alice.

Certainly nothing much in terms of characterization, or story, Paris hasn't had many episodes about him and it's a pity that he gets such poor stories. Like I said, it was better than I expected, but that's not saying much.