Seeking a new ally, the Voyager crew revives an army of aliens who have been in stasis for centuries.

Written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky

Robert Knepper - Gaul

An alien city is under attack. Fiery bombs rain down upon skyscrapers. An alien woman -- slightly scaly skin, attractive blue dress -- runs into a building to meet her husband. They enter a pair of stasis chambers, in which they hope to survive the crisis by going into a five-year sleep. She is nervous. "What if there's nothing left?" she asks. He is confident: "Then we'll start again. Five years."

In "Dragon's Teeth," the Voyager crew encounter an intriguing adversary, the Vodwar, who may have a recurrent presence in the remaining episodes of the series. This is for the best -- the series has long been constrained by villains of uneven quality, although few have lived up to the first season's long-haired Kazon for sheer lack of dramatic interest.

This episode is marked by a healthy realism. Good intentions (Seven's, in this case) can have bad consequences, and alliances sometimes must be struck with unsavory collaborators (the Tiree).

Such an outlook is a welcome departure from the fuzzy-minded idealism sometimes propounded in the series. Even better, this realism is manifested partly in the behavior of the often-underappreciated Neelix, who follows up his justified suspicions toward the Vodwar with thorough research.

The Vodwar lined their hibernation chambers with "kritonium," a currently unknown substance.

The Tiree, despite their considerable technological adeptness, show an incongruous fear of radiation.

What's the current status of Voyager's relations with the Tiree? Are the latter willing to forego that computer purge they were hoping for?