Phage (Star Trek: Voyager)

"Phage"
Star Trek: Voyagerepisode
Episodeno.	Season 1 Episode 5
Directed by	Winrich Kolbe
Story by	Timothy De Haas
Teleplay by	Brannon Braga Skye Dent
Featured music	Dennis McCarthy
Production code	105
Original air date	February 6, 1995(1995-02-06)
Guest appearances
Cully Fredricksen - Dereth Stephen Rappaport - Motura Martha Hackett- Seska

"Phage"is the fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television seriesStar Trek: Voyager.The episode was directed byWinrich Kolbe.Set in the 24th century, the series follows the adventures of theStarfleetandMaquiscrew of the starshipUSSVoyagerafter they are stranded in theDelta Quadrantfar from the rest of theFederation.

Voyager's crew beams deep into a planet they hope is rich in fuel for their resource-deprived spacecraft, but they are thwarted when aliens steal a crew member's lungs.

This episode aired on the United Paramount Network (UPN) on February 6, 1995.

Plot

An away team is beamed into a network of caverns in aplanetoidto search fordilithiumdeposits. In the course of the search,Neelixis attacked by a previously undetected alien and left in a state of shock. He is beamed directly to the ship's sickbay where it is discovered that his lungs have been transported out of his body. TheEmergency Medical Hologramkeeps him alive by projecting a pair of holographic lungs into his torso using the sickbay's holographic emitters. As a result, Neelix must remain absolutely motionless, able only to talk, for the rest of his life or until his lungs are recovered.

Another away mission is quickly organized to find the perpetrator and retrieve Neelix's lungs. They return to the planetoid and discover an alien facility behind sophisticated cloaking technology, and conclude that the facility is being used to store organic material, particularly respiratory organs. The aliens escape the planetoid on a ship, andVoyagergoes in pursuit. EventuallyVoyagercatches up with them and captures the two alien life forms aboard the ship. An interrogation reveals that they areVidiians,an alien race that have been suffering for generations from an incurable disease called the Phage. The Vidiians harvest organs from other races to replace their own in an attempt to outpace the degeneration caused by the Phage.

It transpires that Neelix's lungs have already been transplanted into one of the aliens, and CaptainKathryn Janeway's ethical obligations force her to let them go rather than condemn the alien to death by retrieving the lungs. In response to her leniency, the aliens offer to help Neelix, and provide the expertise necessary to perform a transplant from another crew member, a procedure which the Medical Hologram originally considered impossible due toanatomical incompatibility.Neelix receives a donor lung from his partner,Kes.

Reception

ReviewersLance Parkinand Mark Jones found Neelix (played byEthan Phillips) "too irritating" to care whether he died or not, but revelled in the performance ofRobert Picardoas the holographic Doctor.The story is similar to that of "Spock's Brain",an episode from theoriginal seriesin which aliens harvestSpock's brain.

In 2004 the websiteTrek Todaycalled the episode "Voyager's first really successful issue-oriented episode," Phage "had everything going for it - terrific characterization, a frightening new alien adversary, a complex decision on the part of the captain."

In 2016,Empireranked this the 44th best out of the top 50 episodes of all 700-plusStar Trektelevision episodes.

In 2021,Nerdistsaid this was one of the top tenStar Trekepisodes with first alien contact, praising the disgusting Vidiians as the best enemy alien species of the early seasons.

Video releases

This episode was released onLaserDiscin Germany in 1996, paired with "The Cloud" for 49DEM.1st Season Vol. 3included "Phage" with the German language titleTransplantationenand "The Cloud" asDer Mysteriöse Nebelon a single double sided 12 "LaserDisc, with a German audioDolby Surroundsoundtrack.

External links

• "Phage"atIMDb
• "Phage"atMemory Alpha
• "Phage"atWayback Machine(archived from the original at StarTrek )