Review Text
Faced with an uprising on Solum against her, an angry and desperate Asencia uses her time weapons to open dozens of wormholes to other space-time realities in an effort to destroy the Federation. This doesn't seem like a very smart plan — kind of like detonating a nuclear bomb on your own block to take out your annoying neighbors — but Wesley sees the rifts opening in space-time and exclaims, "This is what we've been hoping for!" Because Wes is nuts.
He's nuts, but he's not wrong. Of course, the only reason he's not wrong is because we're in the endgame of the season now, and that endgame is titled "Ouroboros," and there are mountains of (mostly meaningless) technobabble to back him up. So Wes, Rok, Maj'el, and Zero tech the tech and math the math to figure out what needs to be done to set reality right before even worse things happen — namely the attraction of the Loom to all these temporal anomalies in our universe. Meanwhile, Dal, Murf, and Jankom beam back down to Solum to get to the conveniently accessible control panel on the time weapon, and Gwyn faces off against Asencia in the equivalent of a final boss fight in a video game or Marvel or Star Wars movie.
Let it be said that this episode is pretty epic (if unoriginal) as an action outing, with big, high-stake battles and big, beautiful VFX. There's also a rousing score and sound design (like the rest of this series, but deserving of a special call-out) that's as top-shelf as anything in modern live-action Star Trek. Gwyn's battle with Asencia starts with swords and staves but ends with telekinesis, as Gwyn pools the powers from her fellow Vau N'Akat, who all end up standing with her to defeat Asencia. Meanwhile, Dal has to climb to the top of the tower to activate the time device to open the One Wormhole to Rule Them All, which will converge all the time anomalies into a single portal which the Protostar can be sent back through to the past. Dal, Murf, and Jankom are met with resistance from a determined Drednok.
Is any of this anything we haven't seen in a million Marvel movies and other space operas? Nope. But it's executed with urgency, energy, and conviction. As for the timeline machinations, the episode doesn't scrimp on the technical jargon. It goes all-in on the Trekkiness. But I'm not sure I can abide Wesley's latest revelation from Temporal Mechanics 101: "Small changes to time don't matter as long as we make sure the big stuff still occurs." Well, then; that's news to me. But who, might I ask, gets to decide what the "big stuff" is?
When the wormhole is opened, Wes realizes it may have been opened "too late," because the Loom come streaming out of it like the Jem'Hadar ships at the end of "In Purgatory's Shadow." One last crisis to solve — a full-fledged Loom invasion.
Previous episode: Touch of Grey
Next episode: Ouroboros, Part II
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3 comments on this post
Karl Zimmerman
So here we are, at the beginning of the end. Acensia has a plan to invade the Federation, and the gang must hatch a complicated, multi-part plan to defeat her, which includes a "brain team" (Zero, Maj'el, Rokk-Takk, and Wesely) on the ship to do calculation, and a "body team" (Dal, Gwyn, Jankom Pog, and Murf) on the surface, to input the data. While this is all happening, Chakotay captains the Protostar with Holo-Janeway's help, while real Janeway relies upon her crew on Voyager. The episode ends with Acensia defeated and the season seemingly solved - only to have the Loom appear en masse, threatening to unwind all of reality.
It's all great, save for one issue: Acensia has been a caricature - a one-note villain who never shows any hint of deeper motivation other than pure evil. Clearly she's not just that, given her younger version isn't like her. Yet we never get a hint of nuance here. Fine for a kids show, I guess, but The Diviner was so, so much more in Season 1 than she is here.
Also, it was a nice moment near the end when all the other Vau N'Akat gave their strength (or whatever it was) to help her defeat Acensia, but I was left wondering how it happened. Like, they all just appeared out of nowhere. Made emotional sense, but not really logical sense within the plot.
Still, a great episode, with a great climax to an entire season of plot arc. Only wait, there's one more!
Sebastien Andre Roblin
I agree, they have leaned more into Acensia's sheer villainy and less into what informed it--would not be hard to wrench some pathos from being a version of herself that has seen her civilization utterly destroyed and become a fanatic as a result. The telepathic-strengthening thing at the end felt like a new thing to me, they really should have established it before they were going to have it save the day here. But also, the scene's logic made no sense: why would those many individuals that suddenly arrive at that platform not simply rush forward to push Acensia away rather than very slowly channel psychic energy? Without knowing ahead of time of plot armor, the failure to just dash forward and help her seems insane. But these complaints aside, I did enjoy the episode and its complex multi-layered battled.
Black Oatmeal
I agree with Karl and Sebastian. I wish they had devoted an episode to fleshing out Acensia (both versions) and doing some world-building for the Vau N'Akat.
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