VOY - Juggernaut

Juggernaut builds a completely original Star Trek episode by using a plot device that has been used over and over and over again in Star Trek Voyager: B’lana is having trouble controlling her temper. (Well, tell me something I don’t know!) But this episode takes that device in a whole different direction, by taking B’lana to her wits end and then putting her in command of an away team. Once on the Malon garbage scow, the plot gets a little repetitive, involving a scunged-up crew making their way through irradiated corridors, and trying to figure out what the hell is going on, without much success until the Vahar literally has belted 3 people across the face. Despite that fact, this part of the episode is also quite suspenseful. Some of the dialogue in Juggernaut, provides us with deeper insight into the Malon culture, including, that while economically motivated, like the Ferengi, they are also motivated by some emotions other than greed. The solutions finally proposed by Captain Janeway to solve the problem of the rogue garbage scow are similar to that used by used by the crew of the Enterprise-D in order to dispose of a similar craft in the TNG episode The Final Mission. This Voyager episode is interesting not only because of its suspenseful qualities, but also because of the new direction in which it took many previously used (or overused) Star Trek plot devices.