One

Synopsis:

With the fate of the crew in her hands, Seven must face her deepest fears alone.

The Voyager crew comes across a vast new nebula, and everyone except the Doctor and Seven of Nine are severely affected by its radiation. Since it will take a year to go around it, and a month to go through it, Janeway decides the best course of action will be to put the crew in stasis chambers, which will provide independent life support as they sleep. Seven of Nine and the Doctor will check on their vital signs and take care of the ship until it reaches the other side.

After several days, the lack of social interaction and activity onboard is beginning to put a strain on the Doctor and Seven. Suddenly, the computer alerts them that the anti-matter storage tanks are failing and plasma is leaking. Seven rushes to engineering to eject the tanks, but when she gets there, everything is fine.

The computer is malfunctioning, and false readings were sent to the sensors. While he and Seven are making repairs, the Doctor's program begins degrading. He makes it back to sickbay, but his mobile emitter is no longer working, and he will have to stay there for the remainder of the trip. Now that Seven is even more isolated, she begins having disturbing dreams and visions. When an alien hails her, she beams him aboard and agrees to trade some equipment. His inappropriate comments make Seven feel threatened, and she decides to escort him off the ship. When she turns her head for an instant, he runs away down the corridor.

Although sensors show no evidence of an alien or another ship, Seven searches Voyager for him. She hears voices of the crew calling for her, and the alien begins controlling the ship's functions and playing on her fears. When the Doctor finally gets his mobile emitter to work, he rushes to Seven and discovers that she is hallucinating. The radiation is starting to degrade her Borg implants, and as the EPS conduits overload, the Doctor's program goes off-line. Seven is now truly alone with the fate of the crew entirely in her hands, and she begins to panic.

With 17 hours to go before Voyager clears the nebula, the propulsion system begins to fail. Fighting against more hallucinations, Seven struggles to find a way to reroute power. At every turn she is met by her fears -- Borg telling her that she can never survive as an individual, and the crew taunting her about her past deeds in the Collective. With minutes to go, Seven reroutes power from life support to the propulsion system and slips into unconsciousness. When she comes to in sickbay, the crew is awake, Voyager has cleared the nebula, and she has managed to save everyone on board.

Crew in stasis

Overall Rating: A great episode. I liked this episode a lot even though it made no sense that Seven's skin would not be burned as well or that Tom would be able to get out of stasis, aren't you unable to do that? I liked seeing Seven vulnerable and scared though I do wish that she could be this human sometimes with Janeway. It was also nice to see the Doctor and Seven together, they have nice chemistry. Trek has a history of doing stories like this very well, though not on Voyager, and it was also nice to see them talk about the gel packs again which have not been mentioned since the "cheese incident".

Subtext Rating: This episode has some very touching as well as some very telling moments. I loved the scene where Seven is practically begging her captain to let her do this and to trust her. It is amazing to Chakotay that Janeway has so much trust in Seven but not to us, right? My favorite part of this episode is the 'telling' moment though. Just what does it mean that Seven programmed a holographic version of Janeway is a sexy red dress? We all know that Seven's favorite colour is red....but....PLUS, as Gina says, Janeway's face is the last ting she sees before she passes out and the first when she wakes up. To me that speaks volumes whether the writers what to admit it or not. 

Tape worthy?  Yes, this episode is a MUST HAVE for any Seven or Janeway/Seven fan.