When Voyager is struck by a bolt from a spatial anomaly, the ship is 'shattered' into different time zones, from seven years in the past to far in the future. Only Chakotay can reunite the ship.
Unusually, it's Chakotay who gets the time paradox episode, and it's the first one Voyager has done for a while. Now, I've always loved these, as I enjoy the concept of playing around with a fluidic timestream. This is no exception. Early on, there is an insane amount of technobabble, I'll admit, but that doesn't stop the whole story being a fast-paced and entertaining romp through Voyager's past history, playing like a Greatest Hits of the show. Particularly telling, though, is the lack of inclusion of any period setting during the last two years of the show, the latest part shown being the Dr Chaotica holoprogram.
This alone is worth tuning in for, as Janeway is even more irritated with it than she was the first (second?) time round and it's great to see the expression on Kate Mulgrew's face. Chaotica is as arch as ever, and the music brilliantly plays into the whole feel of the scene.
Although the premise is sketchy at best, what time travel story isn't? Naturally the crew don't remember anything in the end, although this leads to one of the biggest problems of the whole story: after Chakotay has told Janeway enough to get by, he then proceeds to stop answering questions because of the temporal prime directive. Why? If she's not going to remember a thing, he can tell her what he likes. He's the only one who'll remember it.
Shattered is, to be honest, quite lazy story-wise. But it's certainly enjoyable and holds the interest, something that many episodes would do well to learn, as they're more likely to make people drop off to sleep. Robert Beltran is not a great choice to lead the story, as he doesn't lend much enthusiasm to proceedings, but at least Chakotay is getting some screen time, even if it is to belt out the next swathe of incomprehensible technobabble gibberish.
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