'Good Shephard'

Stardate: 53753.2
Written By: Dianna Gittd
Directed By: Winrich Kolbe
Rating: ****1/2 (out of 5)

"Good Shepherd" continues the trend in "Child's Play" making good use of what Voyager has to offer as a television series. This is the kind of thing we need more of. Actually, this is the kind of thing we should've got a long time ago. For a long time I've believed that this series should be paying more attention to the crew and not just the senior staff. Imagine how many great episodes could be pulled from the variety of characters on board. Voyager didn't need to turn out the way it has and I'm proud to say that not only does "Good Shepherd" use Voyager's great assets, but it succeeds.

"Good Shepherd" begins with Seven performing a crew efficiency report. She stumbles upon three of the crew who have never been on away missions and never really become part of the 'Voyager Team.' They've managed to "slip through the cracks" and Janeway feels she is responsible.

One of the best things about "Good Shepherd" is the characters and their interaction. There's Billy who is an hypochondriac, Tal Seles who is a beautiful, but unreliable, Bajoran women; and Mortimer Herrin who is an unsociable, lonely, grumpy guy who's been stuck down on Deck 15, the bottom of Voyager, for their entire voyage, and enjoying it! Tal and Billy are very good friends (their scenes together are wonderful) and Mortimer has no friends. By the way, forget Ensign Jetal, Tal Seles is the new Voyager babe!

So to give these three some experience Janeway takes them out on a mission in the Delta Flyer to investigate a nebula. But things don't go as planned, they are hit by something, which turns out to be a Dark Matter creature, and are left with minimal power. We soon see Janeway trying her best to get to know her crew in this time of urgency.

The rest of the story is about coping with the situation while Janeway tries to get her crew to work as a team. It doesn't quite work out as she planned, mainly because Mortimer isn't willing to participate as a team member.

We than have Billy being abducted by these aliens, who place a creature inside his body and take control of his actions. We have Mortimer killing the life-form against Janeway's orders and than an exciting chase through the rings of a Gas Giant!

"Good Shepherd" does a good job of character interaction, but tries to hard to add action and CGI. There's nothing wrong with that, but because of the limit of time, the episode doesn't end properly. The ending is good, but not satisfying for an episode that delves so far into each of the character's feelings. It feels a little like Star Trek's version of "Space Cowboys!"

After all that's happened we don't get any conclusion to the misfits. If we see them next episode it would be better, but somehow I doubt that's going to happen.

"Good Shepherd" is a wonderful episode and what's here is fantastic. But if we got a better ending than this could have been a classic. Doesn't matter, I'm still generally satisfied. Now for the next trick; will Voyager be able to continue this good trend of episodes? We can only hope so .