I saw Harold and Kumar on a hang glider last night. I wonder what Janeway would have looked like riding a cheetah?
Mortal Coil: This episode shows us religion and faith from the perspective of Neelix. While I am an atheist, I really felt bad for Neelix. His faith obviously played an important role in his life, and to see him lose that faith and almost commit suicide over it was difficult to watch. Overall, a very moving story that developed Neelix (and to a lesser degree Seven of Nine). 7/10
Seven is given the spotlight because Neelix is not a dead drone and Chakotay is more of a person because Neelix didn't explode into outer space at the atomic level.
I really enjoy "Mortail Coil", I relate to it because I also had a bit of an existential crisis when I realized religion/afterlife was all false and ridiculous. I also really enjoyed the performance of the actress who played Neelix's sister.
Waking Moments: Interesting dream episode with lots of twists and turns and cool aliens-of-the-week. I'm also happy Robert Beltran was given the lead role. He's a great actor and it's always nice to see his talents put to good use. 7/10
Message in a Bottle: This was a fun episode, but I can't help but feel disappointed. For a DS9 crossover episode I didn't feel like there was enough connection to DS9. Why couldn't the Defiant have been one of the ships that came to save the day? We could have seen Sisko and the crew taking on the Romulans. Hell, why couldn't the Jem-Hedar have been involved somehow? Maybe I'm just too much of a DS9 fanboy, but it bothers me that they had the opportunity to do something REALLY special and they sort of it blew it in favor of just an above-average Voyager episode. Don't get me wrong, I did like this episode. I liked the Romulans involvement, seeing the two EMHs take control of the ship, and the scenes with 7 of 9 were interesting too. But I just wish that they had gone the extra mile with this one. 6/10
I'd think the episode deserves a point just for being one of the few times Andy Dick isn't totally obnoxious, heh.
Yea -too bad. Also a subject matter that comes into focus in this episode is domain. Voyager must be just straight. Voyager excepts an occasional appearance of the Romulans, Klingons and Ferengi(thats all of them) except the Vulcans. Suppose it would fabulous if Capt. Janeway was giving an update- on one of Picards deep space receptions.
Um...I think the problem is that you're thinking of it as a DS9 crossover episode. It's not. Aside from Andy Dick randomly mentioning the Dominion, this episode has absolutely nothing to do with DS9.
Whoah, what? Where on earth did you get the impression this was a DS9 crossover episode? You said it yourself that no one or nothing from DS9 was in it, that makes it kind of obvious it was not remotely trying to be a crossover with DS9. What made you think it was?
It was pointless for the episode. The whole episodes revolved around the Doctor interacting with a snooty EMH Mk 2 to save a ship from Romulans. It was a lot of fun and comedy. It didn't need DS9 at all. I'm kinda baffled by Admiralscreed marking it down just because its an episode set partially back in the alpha/beta quadrant and it doesn't feature anyone from DS9. Besides, DS9 was a long way away from where the Prometheus was being tested.
^To be fair though, that last point is more of a plot contrivance than anything else. I can see ways that DS9 could perhaps have been integrated into the show...maybe one of the Defiant-class ships actually is the Defiant, and Prometheus gets boarded by some DS9 folks? But any kind of substantial interaction would to my mind also generally involve a substantial rewriting of the episode. So, barring the possibilities I mention above, I don't think this was intended to involve any DS9 folks. It might have been nice, or might have felt token.
Even if they did have DSN characters in the episode. And it would be a cameo at best, it would have been having them there for the sake of it. Rather than to drive the story.