'Equinox II'

Stardate: Unkown
Written By: Rick Berman, Brannon Braga & Joe Menonsky
Directed By: David Livingston
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

Janeways "I'm going to hunt him down, no matter how long it takes, no matter what the cost" sent a shiver down my spine and proves to be true words during the course of "Equinox II."

Janeway ends up torturing one of Equinox crew, sending the ship on an almost suicide run into a planet's atmosphere and going against her first officer all because she's "damned angry" at Ransom for turning his back on the Federation and the human spirit.

Janeways serious and reckless attitude is reminiscent of the exaggerated Janeway from "Living Witness" and Mulgrew plays it beautifully, but the change from the original Janeway to this reckless Janeway is very sudden, more time should have been given toward a gradual fuse loss instead of blowing up straight away as the story wanted it. But I love Janeway acting like this and i wish she would butt heads with chakotay more often.

One of my favorite scenes in this episode is when Chakotay disobeys Janeway and saves the Equinox crewman from being tortured.� Janeway's gruff walk-away is wonderful and shows how good this kind of friction is.

On the Equinox we have Seven who is going to be operated by the evil Doctor after Ransom deletes his ethical subroutines, so the access codes to the Equinox's propulsion system can be accessed.� We probably didn't need so much time on all of this throughout the episode and would have been put to better use elsewhere. The scenes were good, but not essential.

We also have Ransom who is struggling with his conscience about the actions he has taken and eventually Ransom comes to his senses and tries to work with Janeway, but it's a failed attempt because now the Equinox crew has mutinied against him! Ransoms turnaround is very sudden but understandable from the the Ransom we've seen in Part 2. The writers have noticibly changed the Ransom character from Part 1 which is a bit iffy.

When the Equinox eventually blows up it is extremely well done, Ransom having to stay on his ship, getting the last look around of the Beech with that Neural interface thing, and than BOOM!� The Equinox is gone, with music that made this an extremely saddening scene.

The only scene that was notably bad was when the Doctor deleted the Equinox Doctor.� I sat there and said "Huh?� Where did he come from?" When was the Doc's ethical subroutines engaged again?� When did he plan to get rid of the other Doc, and how the hell can he have deleted the Equinox Doc from Voyager anyway?� It seems to me that some scenes where left out here, showing how those two minutes that were being cut could've come into use. See, UPN, every minute counts.

The SFX is wonderful throughout 'Equinox II', it doesn't look 'plastic' like other effects have in the past. Although the CGI is a commendable effort for a TV show, the creature effects still needs some work, Species 8472 looked marginally better.� I loved it when we saw the Equinox than Voyager pull out of warp and the battle in orbit around that planet was very exciting!

There is only one thing letting down this episode that I have mentioned throughout this review, and it's that it should've gone for one more episode.� Plot holes and rushed scenes make this episode something that could have been a lot better.� What's here is great, but it hurts to think what more there could have been.� Such a pivotal moment as this; finding another Starfleet ship, should have had more time devoted to it.