Star Trek Voyager Feature Length Episodes: Ranked
10. Workforce
This is an episode that is best described as a solid fine. Its better than both Caretaker and the Killing Game in that the actors are clearly more relaxed in their roles, Janeway has a much better story arc, Chakotay is given something to do and The Doctor gets to strut his stuff in red. Some of his exchanges with Ensign Kim are quite funny, as the forever-Ensign is clearly ruffled that a hologram rose in rank before he did.
And that's it. The rest of the episode is ok but there is a real sense that there was no need for it to stretch over two hours. As the story begins with the crew just dropped into this situation, not at all unlike the Killing Game, there is just an inevitable feeling of 'been there, done that'. Tuvok showing a bit of humour is always appreciated but he is quickly removed from the main plot and sequestered by the doctors.
B'elanna learning who she is again drags on as its neither light enough to be amusing nor deep enough for the audience to care. There is no real sense of consequence at the end either. It comes in Voyager's seventh season when there really weren't many episodes left to spare. In what should have been Voyager's home run, this one struck out.