“Contagion” (2×11)
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This was a good one. The entire episode is devoted to one main story with a few intriguing facets. Computer viruses were still very much a novelty when this episode was made, so the story driving the episode was more science fiction than science fact. At the time, the few computer viruses that did exist were more likely to be physically transmitted via floppy disk than over a network like the vast majority of modern computer viruses.
Blaxploitation actor Thalmus Rasulala was solid as Donald Varley, the captain of the USS Yamato; I believed he was someone who shared Picard’s interest in archeology, and that he had the authority necessary to command a starship. His death and the death of his crew is not due to Varley’s incompetence; as the first ship infected, the Yamato simply didn’t have the luxury of time that the Enterprise and the Romulan vessel had.
And the geopolitical dynamics driving Varley’s decision-making were very much rooted in Cold War-era thinking, in which a strategic stalemate between the Federation and the Romulans was the best that could be hoped for, and that any technological advance that disrupted the strategic equilibrium between the two powers would intolerably unbalance the stalemate.
The backstory of the ancient Iconians and their gateway technology is very similar to the Stargate franchise, yet was made over half a decade prior to the Kurt Russell movie. I always thought it was a missed opportunity that Voyager never explored the Iconians, since their gateway technology could have cut a lot of time off Voyager’s journey home.
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