Written By: Clayvon C Harris
Directed By: Les Landau
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)
The Akritirian prison is a fabulously dreary setting; the idea of the prison is great too. The prison is believed to be underground and the only way to the surface is through The Chute, which is how new prisoners and food arrive. The Chute is protected by a force-field that kills immediately. The biggest surprise of the whole episode is when Harry and his friend Zio make it up the Chute only to discover its in space!
Another original inclusion to this is The Clamp which is attached the prisoners heads and it triggers aggression. This nifty little device also kills anyone who tampers with it. It�s believed to control the population of the prisoners as they kill each other over tiny arguments. The entire prison is surprisingly alien and is the perfect setting for this story.
Harry�s idea for escaping works. The basic idea, escaping through the Chute, is logical. I find it a little hard to believe that he would find all the necessary equipment available. I was going to say that this was a nit-pick but it often happens that such obvious things are ignored because they �serve another purpose,� in this case as Tom and Harry�s only hope, but I won�t because it is an annoying thing. It�s the center of their conflicts.
But the most riveting part of �The Chute� is Tom and Harry�s friendships being strained. Especially once Tom has been stabbed and starts to go crazy and Harry is ready to beat Tom to death. Robert Duncan McNeil and Garret Wang perform fantastically as each try to battle The Clamp�s effects, but it�s the directing by Les Landau that makes the drama unfold so vividly.
Zio was not a bad character but I don�t see why the others are scared of him. I�d also like to know how he got pen and paper but his theories on the Clamp were interesting anyway. He was a brutal character but different from everyone else. Because he thought he knew the truth about The Clamp he didn�t want to succumb to the same fate as everyone else.
The Voyager side of the story is unfortunate because it lacks any logic. The Akritirian�s claim that they found deposits of Trilithium on Harry and Tom�s uniforms and that it couldn�t have come from anyone but them. Surly someone else could have had Trilithium on them, but how would the Trilithium get onto their uniforms in the first place? And why would the �bombers� be stupid enough to get caught in their explosion? There are other inconsistencies here but it doesn�t matter much because it doesn�t really effect the story; the outcomes would still have been the same, just the way we see it hasn�t been done very well.
The rescue is good, I especially loved Janeway�s entry; flying down The Chute with that cool phaser rifle and looking a little like The Terminator! She can be mighty tough!
At the end Harry and Tom are, of course, looking like new and look back on what�s happened. The most touching scnene I�ve seen these two in is right at the end when Harry says that he nearly killed Tom, but Tom says all he remembers is Harry saying �This man is my friend. No one touches him.�
�The Chute� looks good, it feels good and it certainly is good! If every episode of Voyager were like this I wouldn�t be complaining much!