“Observer's Paradox”

Review Text

Following an investigation into the incident that allowed a bunch of kids to fly the Infinity through the wormhole and alter the timeline, Janeway puts all the pre-cadets on restricted access (you'd think that would've been the case from the outset, but then I guess we'd have no story) and confines them to quarters. (Doc becomes the exceptionally polite prison warden, and even name-drops the Cerritos.)

Inevitably, the kids sneak their way out of their quarters so they can attempt to piece together the mysterious pieces they have into some semblance of order. There's a spiral pattern that also matches an artifact that was important to Chakotay and which Janeway still has in her possession. And there's the warning that the kids "must stay together." And Murf knows something, because he's actually seen the mysterious figure and has a message from it ... but no one knows how to communicate with Murf (which begs the questions of why Starfleet didn't attempt to translate his language months ago, and how he could possibly serve on the ship when he can't communicate with the crew).

Considering the kids have more information than most everyone else, and that they managed to retrieve Gwen through time, it would seem to make sense to allow them to at least aid in the investigation, but I guess security protocols are either absurdly lax (allowing the Infinity to be launched by anyone and by accident), or too restrictive (the show acts like the kids are breaking rules just to be talking to each other to find answers), but never simply reasonable.

Janeway also conducts an investigation into the mysterious entity, and she and the kids separately come to the same hypothesis that the entity may in fact be Chakotay trying to communicate after being lost in the wormhole. But then Jellico does the typical Starfleet admiral move and orders Janeway to collapse the wormhole because of the risks, etc., and, much to my surprise, Janeway actually goes through with collapsing it even though it could mean the end of retrieving her friend.

"Observer's Paradox" is more modest in its scope and displays a curiosity in puzzle-solving and mystery-inquiring, which makes it feel like a fairly solid hour of Star Trek. The kids eventually end up in the ship's aquarium, where Rok uses the water and a whale to help translate Murf's language. The aquarium is vividly realized as a visual space, although I have to wonder if the ship could possibly have room for a tank so large. The message they decipher says "find me," along with some numbers that Gwyn deduces may be time/space coordinates that can be set by the gizmo on her armband that's keeping her anchored in the timeline. When she punches the numbers in ... whoa! That strange and amazing trip alone is worth the price of admission. The entity tells Gwyn, "Find me before they do." They deduce that the spiral is a map. I'm not sure where this is going, and the strategy of these episodes seems to be to provide a steady trickle of information that may or may not run out of steam in short order, but I like that the writers are offering up some bold images in the process.

Previous episode: Temporal Mechanics 101
Next episode: Imposter Syndrome

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