Vis a Vis and Why it Sucked.

The episode where an alien named Steth swaps DNA with Tom Paris.

It had potential, and the premise was decent, but it was just so clumsily implemented. There were also numerous plot holes.

First, Steth had to figure out if he/she/it was compatible with human DNA. Steth confirmed this by taking Tom's box wrench. The problem is, Tom's tools were most likely part of Tom's grease-monkey garage holodeck program. Which means, as soon as Steth stepped outside the holodeck, the box wrench would disappear. When Tom went looking for it and couldn't find it, he would simply tell the computer to produce another one.

The next thing that stood out is why Steth bothered to keep the wrench. Wouldn't hiding it or discarding it be more logical. It isn't like it was needed after scanning for compatibility.

And why did Tom just let Steth walk up on him like that? He got backed into the corner rather passively.

I also don't understand why Steth would want to try and replace Tom on Voyager anyway. It isn't like Steth could have lasted that long before the crew suspected something was wrong. And why would you want to take the life of someone who serves in a command structure? It isn't like Steth was slipping into the life of someone who had absolute freedom or power.

It also doesn't make sense to spare Tom after switching DNA. Would have made more sense to just take off in the coaxial drive ship and leave Voyager guessing.

Also, Tom became Steth and vice versa. The clothing did not change. Yet we see Steth as Tom wearing the Starfleet uniform, and Tom as Steth wearing those clothes. So did Steth have to undress Tom off screen and change clothes? And if so, why would Steth bother to dress Tom in the old clothes?

After being onboard for a while, Steth is informed of Tom's regular duties in sickbay. Steth is caught by Harry who brings up golfing with... Ensign Kaplan? But... Ensign Kaplan is said to have died in the episode "Unity". So did she not actually die, and if not, when did they get her back? More than likely, this was just a goof by the writers.

Steth's behavior was pretty bad for someone trying to blend in. If it became clear that it wasn't working out, Steth should have been more discrete until another DNA swap could occur. I assume this is why Steth was reading Janeway's personal logs.

This of course raises another question. How is the captain's personal logs accessible to someone who is essentially a complete stranger on the ship?

It's also odd that Seven didn't report Steth when found accessing Tom Paris' profile in the cargo bay, yet she did report who she thought was Tom when accessing personal logs. Why would she let an alien off the hook but not Tom? Granted, Steth made it worse by grabbing her arm, but then again, why wouldn't Steth try to come up with some excuse rather than suggest Seven was mistaken? You're not going to convince Seven that her eyes are lying to her. Or better yet, why wasn't Steth more cautious around Seven in the first place knowing how intelligent she was?

So then Steth is confronted by Janeway who suggests a medical examination. Steth knows the jig is up, so Steth does the DNA swap with Janeway. Here's where the story disregards itself. When Steth swapped with Tom, we saw Tom morph into Steth's appearance and Steth morph into Tom's appearance. The clothing didn't change. So if Steth did this to Janeway, then shouldn't Steth (as Janeway) still be wearing Tom's uniform? And shouldn't Janeway (as Tom) be in Janeway's uniform, which would then be too small for that body?

But the episode seems to suggest that Steth swapped minds with Janeway, and what's more strange is that when Tuvok enters the captain's ready room it looks like Tom is choking Janeway. If the transfer already occurred, then that would have actually been Janeway in Tom's body choking Steth in her own body. So Janeway was choking herself?

Next, Steth (as Janeway) tells Tuvok to take Tom to sickbay. Why? Isn't that going to allow The Doctor to discover what has been happening? The more logical choice would be to have Tuvok throw "Tom" in the brig.

But in any case, Steth heads down to the shuttle bay and zaps Seven, which I found kind of funny actually. Steth takes off in the shuttle, which had already been fitted with a coaxial drive somehow.

The part with Tom convincing Chakotay to trust him was alright. Chakotay was actually okay in this episode, ironically.

So Tom catches up to Steth and disables the coaxial drive. The concept with the carburetor was actually pretty good. Then all of a sudden we're in sickbay and everyone is back to normal. I think this was too quick. There should have been some kind of catch to where they couldn't force Steth to switch back, or that switching back to a previous target was impossible. I don't know if it would work, but they might have been able to solve it by adding more people to the mix and having Steth jump through each one until all people were back to normal. Perhaps have a scene where the actors are acting as the other character.

I think this might be one of Voyager's worst episodes. But every Star Trek series has them, so I won't hold it against the show too much. Still, at least it had potential to be interesting, and at least it isn't as bad as every DS9 episode ever.