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If you’ve been trying to map out the schematics of the USS Voyager over the past twenty or so episodes, “Twisted” might make you pull your hair out. The ship and crew encounter a GREEN space cloud thingie and this one makes everything all topsy turvy. With the crew lost inside their own ship, the only salvation can be found in Tom Paris’ Chez Fuque.
The Wikipedia plot summary for “Twisted”:
Voyager encounters a strange energy field during a surprise party on the holodeck for Kes‘s second birthday. Many members of the crew are at the party, including Captain Janeway and The Doctor. Eventually the ship becomes stuck in the field, causing the internal communications system on board Voyager to fail. Unable to communicate with Tuvok, who is acting captain during the party, the crew attempt to return to their posts. However, the ship’s layout has mysteriously changed and they are unable to find their way. The crew eventually become separated and hopelessly lost within the labyrinthine corridors. Meanwhile, The Doctor becomes unable to return himself to sickbay and finds himself amorously pursued by the hologram Sandrine, while Neelix once more becomes jealous of Tom Paris‘s relationship with Kes.
The crew, including Tuvok, who has left the bridge and become similarly lost, all find themselves back at the holodeck. They organize themselves in an attempt to reach crucial areas of the ship such as engineering and the bridge; B’Elanna and Paris are successful in reaching engineering, but when they try to transport to the bridge they find themselves back at the holodeck. Meanwhile, Janeway becomes delirious after coming into direct contact with the energy field, which is penetrating further into the ship, and is brought to the holodeck by Harry Kim in the hope that The Doctor can help her.
B’Elanna returns to Engineering and makes an attempt to stop the field with a ship-wide energy burst, but this only makes the field envelop the ship at an accelerated rate. With the holodeck as the last refuge, the crew gathers there, and Tuvok suggests that the most logical course of action is to simply do nothing, as any attempt to stop it has only made the situation worse, and they so far have no evidence that being engulfed by the field is fatal. They do as Tuvok suggests and neither the crew nor the ship is harmed by passing through the field. Janeway is returned to health and surmises that the energy field was somehow sentient and trying to communicate with them – her theory is backed by the fact that the ship’s entire memory has been downloaded and that 20 million gigaquads of data have been uploaded to Voyager‘s computer.
In this episode of the podcast, Wes and Clay discuss “Twisted” and getting bent out of shape about Star Trek. Plus! The guys chat about getting lost, sci-fi stories in later Star Trek series, and giving Chakotay some edge.