[Nate the Great]

PARIS: I'm having trouble navigating through the energy currents. It's as thick as a Toarian ice storm out there.

Only mention of Toarians. I would think you could just say "Breen" instead.

KIM: I remember being in my mother's womb.

Well, that's just creepy, but you have to admit it's one of Voyager's immortal lines.

PARIS: Gaunt Gary, Ames Pool Hall, New York City, 1953. They say that he hustled the great Willie Mosconi himself.

Gaunt Gary is played by Larry Hankin, who I remember best as Mr. Heckles in Friends.

Willie Mosconi was a real pool player, back in the '40s and '50s he won the World Straight Pool Championships nineteen times. Straight pool is a variant where a player tries to pocket as many balls in a row as possible ignoring solids and stripes.

GAUNT GARY: The game is pool, kid. Pool. I don't suppose you'd care to wager a fin on a game or two?
...
KIM: What's a fin?
PARIS: I'm not sure. Some old kind of Scandinavian currency.

Actually a fin is just a five dollar bet.

EMH: Now there's an interesting concept. A hologram that programs himself. What would I do with that ability? Create a family? Raise an army?

I remember this line. He will of course create a family, but as for raising an army that'll have to wait until "The Killing Game".

EMH: A nebula? What were we doing in a nebula? No, wait, don't tell me. We were investigating. That's all we do around here. Why pretend we're going home at all? All we're going to do is investigate every cubic millimetre of this quadrant, aren't we?

Even early on Doc got the best lines.

CHAKOTAY: My medicine bundle. I've never showed it to anyone before. After what you said this morning, I thought it was important to let you see.

He never showed Seska? It's an interesting idea, what Bajorans and Cardassians would think of the idea of spirit guides. I refer you to Garak's pet regnar (a kind of Cardassian lizard) in the novel "A Stitch in Time".

CHAKOTAY: My ancestors used psychoactive herbs to assist their vision quests. Now they're no longer necessary. Our scientists have found more modern ways to facilitate the search for animal guides.

As SF Debris said, this lets Chakotay do Native American stuff without drugs that the viewer would disapprove of.

JANEWAY: The Commander was introducing me to my animal guide.
TORRES: I hope that you have better luck with yours than I had with mine.
CHAKOTAY: B'Elanna's the only one I know who tried to kill her animal guide.

So Chakotay showed B'Elanna the akoonah but not his medicine bundle? So why did he bother showing the rest of the stuff to Janeway?

NEELIX: I just reached my limit. So if you don't mind, Kes and I will wait on board my little vessel for you to return.
JANEWAY: All our crews are busy preparing for this mission. I'm not pulling them off their duties to prepare your ship for launch. And I'm not going drop you off on the side of the road every time we hit a bump.

A good exchange, although it should've happened earlier.

JANEWAY: For the moment, find yourself a seat with a good view, because just like Jonah and the whale, you're going in.
...
NEELIX: Jonah? Whale?

Why would Neelix have any idea what Jonah and the Whale is? What was Janeway thinking?

TORRES: The only way we can shut down all thrusters is to vent their deuterium into space. We can't afford to lose all that fuel.

Well, that's stupid.

The Fiver

Janeway: Hi boys! If I say something funny, will you laugh?
Kim: No, ma'am, we're too nervous.

Poor Harry.

Paris: See, isn't Sandrine's a loevly place?

Typo alert!

Kim: I'm saving myself for Seven.
Paris: Good luck with that....

Whatever happened there anyway? Did Harry formally give up or was the plotline just dropped?

Chakotay: Here's your animal guide.
Janeway: Ooh, a lizard! I think I'll call him...Tom.
Torres: Hey, Tom's mine!
Janeway: Not for another two seasons, he's not! J/P is such a marvelous thing....
Chakotay: Hey!
Janeway: J/C is too, of course.
Torres: Ahem.
Janeway: Fine, and P/T! Why are you here, anyway?

This is odd for a Season One joke. I thought that Janeway and Tom had more of a mother/son relationship at the start of the show. As a friend of his father she would be very intimidating to him.

Paris: Yay, we can surf out of the nebula!
All: Yay! "Eeeeeeeeverybody's gone suuuuuuuuuurfing, surfing nebulaaaaaaaaaaaas...."

Have I mentioned lately how much I like the Beach Boys?

Neelix: I hereby appoint myself morale officer.
Tuvok: No, have mercy, HAVE MERCY!

Been dipping into the Trellium D have we?

Memory Alpha

* Memory Alpha calls this a bottle show but I disagree, what with the new pool hall and spirit animal forest sets and the living nebula.
* Much conflict behind the scenes about showing a pool hall without showing alcohol or tobacco. This confuses me, as both were shown in the Dixon Hill program and it was made clear that it's not real alcohol or tobacco. They could've dropped a line about that.
* In the first season the creators were scared to show too much of Chakotay's culture lest they offend someone. I'd argue that such things should've been sorted out in the series creation stage.
* The idea of the akoonah was controversial, which Taylor liked. I think that she should've worried more, especially when this is the flagship show of a new network.

Nitcentral

* Isn't the spirit animal talk a little too personal to be having on the bridge?
* One member wonders why Janeway is so excited about having a spirit guide when elsewhere she seems uber-atheist. A good point.

Delta Blues

Jim liked the character work, but thought that the nebula plot was too unoriginal and done better in prior shows.