I noticed something that I would have never picked up on if it weren't for me listening to all of these Star Trek reactions as audio only. That, and I actually listen different types of Star Trek ship's ambient noise as background while I do dishes. Anyway, the background ambient noise aboard Dreadnaught is the same ambient noise used on DS9. And this is appropriate because they are both Cardassian technology. Love the attention to detail that they made sure that every race's technology has its own ambient noise, and they made sure to use them appropriately.

This is an A- for me. The aliens in this one are pathetic. I like how she jail-breaks the AI

On rewatch - Yeah! I'll suspend disbelief for this!! "Doctor, I forgot about you" LMAO - Guarantee you that was a self reflection on an earlier script draft and a 'wait a minute' moment in the writer's room.

Could we have a way of skipping past the gift unwrapping? They're not presents for me, so I'm less interested in this part.

Flooding the room with methane gas is what I do after a Taco Bell run. As far as the actual episode, I forgot how tense this whole thing was. You're right, a very TOS-feeling outing where the whole thing is the A-story and the circumstances just keep getting worse. The Doomsday Machine was a great comparison, except this added the layer of B'Elanna's guilt for essentially morphing this thing into its final form. I respect it more than I enjoy it, but of its type, this is a solid episode.

Surprised how few comments there are on this one. Yeah, I'm a little more generous than you guys. This is a solid B+. I was much more impressed by it when I was younger, but it's still good. I think it was fitting Tom had that conversation with B'Elanna. I would say she's the other member of the crew (aside from Kes and Neelix who chose to be there, and the Doctor who never existed anywhere else) who has been unfazed by being stranded in the Delta Quadrant. Sure, she was pretty vocal in her objection to blowing up the array, but like Paris, she didn't really have much waiting for her back in the Alpha Quadrant. Janeway not only gave her a chance to be part of the crew, but one of her most important officers. Both of them are doing better on Voyager than they have anywhere else. Curious that Tom can't seem to help but self sabotage. As others have said, I also have a hard time reconciling how the cardassians can simultaneously be so weak that a full on warship can be manhandled by the Enterprise or Defiant in seconds with minimal effort, but a disposable missile has a fleet's worth of firepower. Still, it's a well made episode, and it's fun to watch Torres fighting with sort of an AI version of herself. I agree that Torres episodes rarely miss. Faces is still my favourite thus far of her eps. Hopefully Janeway's willingness to sacrifice her own life and ship to stop the missile will earn the Voyager crew some good will in the quadrant. The Kazon have been orchestrating one hell of a smear campaign.

Fully agreed Josh, that this has vibes of interacting / battling against a tough LLM. Even has voice cloning too. Amazing how ahead of its time Trek has been. Solid B+ for me. Janeway still being a total badass, willing to sacrifice her life to save millions. And B'ELanna doing the same, but with the added pressure and guilt knowing her own thirst for vengeance / justice against the Cardassians came full circle to target innocent people.

This story reminds me of a plot thread in the 1974 movie Dark Star (an early John Carpenter film, written by Dan O'Bannon, who would go on to write Alien), where one of the characters is desperately trying to talk a smart bomb into not exploding and destroying the ship. (I'm not sure I would recommend it to Target Audience, even though I loved it. But maybe?)

Beam a torpedo over with B'Elanna, detenate and end of story.

I enjoy this one, but my favourite part is on the bridge when Janeway orders everyone to leave. You can see in Tom's hesitation how much he's come to respect Janeway and the chances she's given him since coming aboard, and of course, Tuvok would never even think of leaving Janeway there. I love the moments when we get to see the crew being loyal to the captain.

Meld was a great episode but I was kinda bored with this ep. It’s not terrible just kinda eh. I remember they put out a model kit of the dreadnought and I always thought that was kinda odd

Dreadnought looked like a dildo

you gotta step away from the "mostly episodic" mindset. definitively not a thing in voyager. there are a lot of story lines and overarching plot/char. dev. :)

I don't say this often, but this episode really needed a B-plot. There just wasn't enough material in the A-plot to carry an entire episode.

The definition of a B-ranked episode. Better than average, nothing bad, but never quite reaching the "A" category.

I've been wondering where y'all currently stand as far as favorite Voyager characters! I have my biases but really I love all of them so much that any good ep will have me like "Gosh, B'Elanna is so good...maybe B'Elanna is my favorite after all...🤔" lol

I really like this one, there are definitely better episodes in this season. But it's weird, whenever I think about early voyager episodes, this is usually one of the first I can think of

Having a decent showcase episode for the Chief Engineer and isn't about creepy relationships, then giving it to Voyager instead of TNG and having Levar Burton direct it is a diabolical production decision. They acting cucked him!

Tuvok literally a ride-or-die for Janeway

Did you guys forget about the whole replicator ration gambling ring Paris had going on and skimming off the top that Chakotay put him on report for? ;)

I can't tell if you're serious or joking about the alien only asking about Voyager's casualties so that he can then be a one-upper and make it about him. I honestly thought he was just asking to be considerate.

The dreadnought is a cool concept, but it sort of doesn't sit right with me that a space missile would be this super powered in terms of engines, weapons, shields, A.I. to where it seems more powerful than any other individual Cardassian vessel we've ever seen. And all this so they can blow up a Maquis base or whatever? Just seems odd IMO. I like the episode, but from a lore perspective it feels off.

If the actress had been leaving the show, this would have been a pretty good way to write off her character by having B'Elanna die blowing that thing up.

I suppose they would have let Brad Dourif get in one of the escape pods, right? Hmm...

Boy, I am REALLY teetering between B+ and A- with this one. I like it! I almost really like it. A little Arsenal of Freedom, but also a little Civil Defense over on DS9 (an episode that I think does it better). This episode is show breaking. What I mean by that is I could see this exact same episode (change the characters and the Delta Quadrant stuff of course and the specifics), and this could be TOS, TNG, DS9 etc. I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, just an observation. I don't have any negatives to say. I just can't go higher than an A- because there actually are quite a few Voyager episodes I like way better, so this one just doesn't hit the same plateau for me. And yeah, I was on the edge of my seat on my first watch, but this one has massive diminishing returns upon rewatch. It's not its fault. Its the nature of these types of stories. I think I'll go with a B+. A solid above par banger but not top tier.

Good call on "Voyager does the Doomsday Machine", Alex. I was thinking the exact same thing.

“Doctor, I forgot about you.” 😳 oh shit so did I!

When dealing with an extremely advanced artificial intelligence, always have a manual override system that is completely mechanical and not connected to the computer system

I also love this one. I would love if the episodes would be this level on average. I only need a few to be S tier, but if the rest would be this level I would love it. It is a perfect example of how you sometimes commit to a cause that later makes you regret your decisions. This is an awesome B'lanna episode that just makes we want to binge the next 20 episodes.

I really like this episode, probably a high B from me. They do a really good job of creating a sense of tension here, even though you know it'll all be fine and back to normal next week. Damn Levar's directing is superb, despite that control room being tiny, every single shot was unique. I love his use of lighting too.

I think this was the very first voyager episode I ever saw. I like this one and it got me attached to the whole series

Everything that goes into the badlands and is brought to the Delta Quadrant is being brought there by the Caretaker. The storms of the Badlands are natural occurrences. The ships being pulled away aren't.

I love this episode. Great way to bring some of B’Elanna’s Maquis history into Voyager and dealing with those consequences. B+

Have the videos on here gotten quieter lately, in terms of volume?

In relation to the name discussion with Ken and the Doctor. We named our eldest daughter Cameron and when I read the description I chuckled; however, when our daughter was born her nose was squashed to the side due to how she'd been positioned before birth. I thought, well, that was an apt choice. Don't worry, folks, it straightened out. Always quite liked this episode, for the most part, although I now wonder how the dreadnought got to the Delta Quadrant, are we supposed to infer that the Caretaker took it? I guess so. "Can you disable it, Belana?" "Super easy, barely an inconvenience... oh no!" I like that the dreadnaught creates its own conspiracy theories, very on brand for 2026 :) Also, doesn't Voyager require a secondary senior officer to confirm self-destruct? Overall, not perfect but some good ideas.

You guys bringing up the Arsenal of freedom I had an interesting thought what if the Borg attacked and they set the Arsenal freedom against them the Borg adapt and the Arsenal of freedom adapts so maybe they would be a good match for the Borg.

The one thing I dislike about this episode is that the Dreadnaught is now canon Cardassian technology. It's not experimental or one of a kind. At least nothing like that is mentioned, yet these ships are near unstoppable fully automated weapons. Is Dukat going to show up to DS9 with a fleet of them? In-universe consistency is usually a big deal for Trek writers. This time it just went out of the window.

FINE! I won't go to bed then!

I would have told it the Federation treaty had ended

Oh no! Its Chat all over again!

So, I love this one, another in the batch of my first episodes, love Belanna and Janeway in it

Let's fucking go!