Written By: Mike Sussman
Directed By: Alexander Singer
Rating: *** (out of 5)
The Doc�s malfunctioning is also quite amusing in many places as he remembers and forgets things in the blink of an eye. I enjoyed Robert Picardo�s two characters, Doc and Lewis Zimmerman; the Doc�s creator. The conversion of two Picardo�s is very well done and looks exactly like there are two Picardo�s in the scenes. The technology has certainly improved since �Deadlock.�
The resolution to the problem is very clever; grafting the Doc�s diagnostic program onto the Doc until he �heals.� The only fuzzy part of this operation is how is the Doc going to fix himself? While the graft is over the original program the original one would still be deteriorating. Either that or the example Kes used wasn�t quite how the problem will be sorted out. It isn�t explained which is a nuisance. The scene where the Doc starts singing and remembering things again is surprisingly touching and a good ending to that plot.
The second part of the story is The Swarm. Now these aliens are pretty cool and could�ve been put to some good use. But unfortunately we get a half story were things just aren�t thought through. Why didn�t the aliens kill B�Elanna and Tom like they did every other species? Why didn�t Voyager warp away once the survivor of the alien ship had been beamed aboard? If they had there would�ve been no trouble at all. And why didn�t Janeway think of her plan to disable the alien ships before the ships attached themselves to Voyager? When Janeway did think of it she sounded as if she knew what to do the entire time! Besides the solution was some annoying technobbable thing.
I really liked the idea of a Swarm of aliens, but unfortunately they are wasted here. Neelix�s explanation didn�t serve any purpose as we already knew all that he told the crew! The alien survivor gives Voyager no new information and was a waste of time, simply because there wasn�t enough time to develop on any of it.
If you ask me this should�ve been about the Swarm, a fast paced action episode where the Doc�s trouble is either devoted to an episode all by itself or is a continuing thing for the next few episodes. It as a mistake putting these two plots into one. In the Doc scenes it didn�t even look as though there was a battle going on! However if this was devoted only to The Swarm than I still would�ve liked this topic to be brought up.
�The Swarm�s� two main plots managed to be enjoyable but it wasn�t necessarily that good. These both needed more time to be successful.