[VOY] Season 4, Episode 14: Message in a Bottle
Rating: 4
The pleasures of “Message In A Bottle” might be simple, but there are a lot of them. If it was just the Doctor and Andy Dick being silly it would be entertaining enough, and The Doctor having to take back a ship being run by enemies would be cool, but then throwing in that the ship is a prototype Federation ship, and the bad guys are Romulans makes this episode a 4. Plus it establishes Voyager’s contact with the Federation, which begins a significant and lasting shift in the status quo of the series.
Read more at Memory Alpha
Notes:
Seven discovers an alien network that reaches to the alpha quadrant.
They try to send a message to a Federation ship they can see at the edge of the alien system’s view, but it doesn’t work.
But they can send the Doctor because he’s a stronger signal or something
He is sent to a prototype federation ship, the Prometheus
This guy was on the verge of death right up until the Doctor came, and he managed to tell him about the Romulans that took over the ship, and then he died
The Romulans are taking the ship back to their space
When a Federation ship attacks, they test out the Prometheus’ splitting function
One of the Romulans gets hurt and the Doctor plays it cool
Then he activates the ship’s EMH, and it’s Andy Dick
For an irrelevant sub-plot, Paris takes over for the Doctor on Voyager and he doesn’t really like it
Andy Dick is pretty funny
The Doctor pretends to do some scans, but get’s caught
B’Elanna has her coat again
The network belongs to the Hirogen. They aren’t happy
Andy Dick gases all the Romulans and saves the Doctor
They have to fight off some Romulans and return the ship to the Federation. I wasn’t a huge fan of these scenes. A lot of hitting the right buttons on accident kind of stuff
In the end the Federation saves them anyway
The EMH makes it back to Voyager and he relayed the message that Voyager is still out in the Delta Quadrant, and not a bunch of dead people.
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