Live Fast and Prosper

A group of space grifters look to sting everyone they encounter whilst posing as members of Voyager.

This episode has a fairly simple plot with themes about the mentality of the scammers and the scammed. It isn't deep enough to really make you think about anything other than whether or not it is trying to be Voyager's answer to the Harry Mudd episodes of the original series.

There are some enjoyable moments with the Voyager crew dealing with what feels like a pretty harmless antagonist, but Janeway's dialogue makes her sound pretty arrogant at times which unfortunately is my standout memory.

When the episode begins, two folks who look a bit like Janeway and Tuvok land on a planet and cheat some people badly. Not surprisingly, these people are furious and think that the real Janeway and Tuvok have done this! So, when these same people approach the real Janeway and demand satisfaction. Fortunately, the crew is able to put together the pieces and find these jerks posing as Starfleet officers! It seems that in addition to posing as Starfleet, these same jerk-faces posed as holy people some time ago and apparently ALSO cheated Neelix. During this encounter, they learned all about Voyager--and this set the evil plan to impersonate them in motion. However, the faux Federation crew doesn't stop here. They then offer various races the opportunity to join the Federation and receive protection from them...for a price!

This is a very funny episode and a nice change of pace. It seems that a couple times a year they made a humorous episode as a change of pace and most of them worked very well. This one is especially good.

Three con artist use the identities of Janeway, Tuvok, and Chakotay to pull scams on various planetary creatures. Of course, Voyager is blamed and comes under assault. There is some cleverness as a sting is perpetrated, but once again, Season Six is a bit of a disappointment. The trip home seems to be of secondary importance.