Neelix and Janeway return by shuttle from negotiations with an alien race to find Voyager adrift, maybe even deserted. They cautiously board to find a ship infested with a "macrovirus" that exists at both the microscopic and macroscopic level, infecting the crew and using them to incubate more deadly versions of itself.
According to episode writer Brannon Braga, he didn't actually set out to make "Alien" here, despite the obvious touchstones of slime, rifles, deadly creatures, and lots of crawling around in ducts. He had been writing for one Star Trek series or another for years, and felt that the show was often "too talky." He set out to build an episode with the least dialogue possible. He actually was rather critical of his own finished product, disappointed that he ultimately needed quite a lot of dialogue in the flashback sequences to explain the premise.
But even if the episode didn't quite meet Braga's goals, and even if a lot of it feels cribbed from all-time great movies, there's still plenty that's fun and effective. The idea that this threat is both a virus and a flying monster is a great concept, allowing for both gross creature explosions and "why doesn't Janeway see the monster?" fake-outs. The CG of the time is often lacking, particularly when it has to interact with actors -- but the sound design and victim makeup are really top notch, and the first half of the episode uses classic "don't show the monster" techniques to suspenseful effect.
The narrative structure is solid too. Bringing two characters into a "disaster in progress" was a move that The Next Generation used at least once, but this time we know nothing of what they're getting into at first. It makes for a great mystery. What happened to everyone? When Neelix is attacked, has he vanished? Been taken? And the next act, featuring a solo Janeway wordlessly working her way around the ship, is everything Braga hoped for in his original concept, perhaps the best visual storytelling on Voyager to date.
But there are several tiny details that collectively hold the episode back. The Tak Tak and their performative language make for one of the dopiest alien races in the whole franchise. And because they're so ridiculous, their threat in the final act to destroy Voyager is toothless. What I think is an attempt by Tom Paris to flirt with B'Elanna comes off like a grade schooler pulling on pigtails. (Thankfully, B'Elanna plays it off affably.) The writers continue to show that they have no idea how Neelix comes off to the audience; I think his talk of enduring extreme heat is meant to tell us that something is wrong when he gets stung and starts sweating, but instead it comes off as more of his bragging about skills he doesn't actually possess. Finally, it's wild to me that in the end, we aren't shown that everyone is in fact alright (when the episode makes a point of putting Kim, Paris, B'Elanna, and Neelix in specific jeopardy).
Other observations:
- The Tak Tak were reportedly conceived by the writers solely to prank Kate Mulgrew. They'd noticed how often she put her hands on her hips, and decided to create aliens who would find that insulting. I can't decide if that's fun, or weirdly passive-aggressive. (They could have just asked, "could you maybe do that less?")
- I think the hole in the transporter room floor is meant to be one of the big viruses using its stinger to bust through. But so much of this episode reads like Alien that all the slime around the hole makes it seem like "acid blood." Thus, it's especially wild when Neelix gets slimed and doesn't immediately take his shirt off. (Even if it's "just slime" and not acid, you'd probably take it off anyway if you had anything else on underneath, wouldn't you?)
- To my thinking, the way the transporter effect is used on the Doctor doesn't look right. Beaming him looks like beaming anybody else, but shouldn't it just look like the tiny mobile emitter going through the transporter, while his body just sort of "fades in" like it's on a dimmer?
- The holodeck resort has been a weird setting for the last couple of episodes, but it might be all worth it for its comedic use here as a diversion for the viruses.
- Production costs have always prevented characters from wearing spacesuits in situations where it really would make sense, but it really would make sense here. (Maybe it's the coronavirus experience that makes this look especially weird now. At least Chakotay declares a quarantine the instant he becomes aware of the problem.)
The bad CG (or, more fairly, the attempt to do something CG wasn't yet ready to do on a television budget) detracts a lot from this episode, as do a handful of other details. But overall, this is a pretty good action-mystery episode for Voyager. I give "Macrocosm" a B.
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