The episode begins with another confrontation between Seven and B’Elanna, where B’Elanna grumpily explains to Seven that she’s doing it wrong and then realizes she’s giving speeches given to her during her career. The exchange felt too familiar and lacked any intrigue for what later develops into a fabulous science fiction premise.
Then we get Paris skirting his duties and lying to his commanding officers to facilitate a rendezvous with B’Elanna. We understand they needed to seed this new relationship to leverage the plot point of Janeway becoming a meany-head later in the episode. But do we actually need so much of this back and forth with the kissing? And it’s not just that plotline.
The scene with Tuvok and Janeway later in the episode is also unnecessary and extraneous to the main plot because we already knew all the information exposed during the scene. It’s a frustrating habit of Star Trek writers who create scenes where the audience is forced to wait while the characters of the show are caught up on the diegesis.
Using The Next Generation as a model, seldom would there be standalone scenes of characters talking to other characters without there being new information presented and the information is relevant to the plot.
The writing style in Voyager insists on keeping these types of scenes separate, which can grind momentum to a halt.
Synopsis of “Scientific Method”
The Voyager crew is invaded by an alien race conducting dangerous experiments.
Amazon
Are Neelix’s eggs real in this episode? The implication is that all of Neelix’s produce and dead animals are real, somehow picked up along the way back to the Alpha Quadrant.
This doesn’t make a ton of sense.
It’s all but certain humans will transition from consuming animal products to plant-based diets, or at least substitute diets sans animal. In the quasi-utopianistic society of Star Trek, it’s logical the characters would be alarmed or disgusted when Neelix begins whisking a freshly cracked Darbothian egg in their face.
Perhaps the denizens of the Star Trek Federation developed substitutes indistinguishable from the real thing, but that’s never broached or even insinuated throughout the course of Star Trek.
The Next Generation also portrays characters eating animals, but there’s never anyone explicitly saying they’re real and they’re usually replicated which isn’t technically from an animal. Neelix’s dishes are obviously derived from real plants and real animals.
The plot then devolves into a No-I’m-older-than-you bit between Chakotay and Neelix. Considering the tone of the episode, this entire scene seems out of place and may be a punishment. For whom, we’re not sure.
Finally, the episode starts when the Doctor is mysteriously deactivated and hides in a holodeck program. He communicates with Seven via her implants and eventually configures her eyeballs to see the “out of phase” aliens swarming the ship.
This sequence is what Star Trek is made of. It’s pure science fiction procedural mixed with the perfect amount of disturbing images. It’s so disappointing the entire episode is composed in this way. Instead, there’s a bit too much B’Elanna and Paris and Janeway bitching moaning the entire time.
We dive deeper into our frustrations and explore how we might make the episode better. And, as always, we succeed.
