Starfleet Command assigns Voyager its first mission in seven years. The ship may be near the location of an important early deep space probe, launched just four years after Zefram Cochrane broke the warp barrier... and they'd like Voyager to locate it for posterity. But when Voyager does indeed find the probe, they learn that it was responsible for the decimation of an alien society. They not only must find a way to help the aliens, they must first convince them that humans are not the callous invaders that the destructive probe has made them out to be.
Allowing Voyager daily real-time communication with home is a major development that I really wish the writers had chosen to do sooner than a half-dozen episodes from the end of the series. I just feel there's so much new story potential in it that it's a shame to leave it largely untapped. "Friendship One" does get at one of the more interesting possible angles, though. Many stories could revolve around Voyager characters getting information from home and being powerless to do anything about it; what emotional consequences does that bring? But here's a situation Voyager can do something about, which is an interesting situation of its own.
The episode is pretty standard "first contact on Star Trek" fare, our heroes trying to get skeptical aliens to trust them. But we have a bit more "skin in the game," being somewhat responsible for their skepticism and tragedy. To the extent this is a remix of a familiar formula, it's a remix I'm fine with.
A remix I'm far less interested in is the formulaic trope that sees secondary character Joe Carey returning in this episode... to be killed off. "They killed someone we know; this is serious!" So we're all supposed to think. But it just doesn't work at all. First, it's so trope-tastic that almost everyone in the audience sees the death coming. Secondly, it doesn't matter that much to kill off a character when there's just four more episodes to go after this one -- nothing is really changing in a meaningfully lasting way.
And magnifying both of these issues is the fact that they chose Lieutenant Carey as the character to be killed off. We literally have not seen him since season one; it's a stretch to even call him a "recurring character" anymore (even though he once was). To bring him back now, and have him talk so much about his children? Might as well say he's one week from retirement and show us a picture of his wife while you're at it. Plus, the fact that we have lived now for six seasons without seeing him -- and haven't really missed him at all -- undermines the notion that you're actually killing off "someone we care about." Kill Vorik, maybe. Or perhaps one of the Lower Deckers we met more recently. (Or hell, give the trope a rest.)
Killing a recurring character feels like the reason they made this episode, and that aspect of it really doesn't work. But look past that, and I do think there are quite a few other elements that do work. There's some nice banter between Tom and B'Elanna about whether her pregnancy should exclude her from away missions. Harry gets a moment of triumph when he's the one who figures out how to locate the old probe. Tuvok gets a moment of triumph when his crafty plan to rescue the hostages succeeds. Neelix gets a nice scene when he talks of the holocaust on his own planet, trying to find common cause with the aliens.
The production values are really good here too: space suits and snow storms, gnarly blistered aliens, and a creepy dead alien baby prop that's reasonably effective. Nice effects work show the restoration the alien planet's atmosphere (using more of those "limited" photon torpedoes Voyager has). It all looks pretty good.
Other observations:
- B'Elanna tells Tom that for the next baby, Tom can be the pregnant one while B'Elanna gets to go on the away missions. This is Star Trek, so... they could totally do that.
- Nanoprobes. There's really nothing they can't do.
The "Joe Carey of it all" detracts a lot from the episode. But it's still a reasonably interesting tale. I give "Friendship One" a B.
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