Just watched “Random Thoughts” (and the accompanying Delta Flyers episode of course), and let me just say, I do not like some of the dialogue chosen for Tom Paris in this episode.
First of all, his interaction with Neelix and the whole “are you trying to depress me” bit because he’s no longer available to go hit up some alien women.
I get that Tom has only recently started dating B’Elanna so it might be strange to not be a “bachelor” anymore, but as soon as he showed interest in B’Elanna at all, we never saw any more of him “being a ladies man”. No mention of Delaney sister double-dates, no trying to get with other women. Hell, the closest we got was Tom being a bit of a third-wheel in “Favorite Son” and honestly he mostly talked to the One Guy on the whole planet. It just seemed unnecessary to be like “oh how sad that he can’t go fuck around anymore” as a means of pointing out that Neelix is trying to put himself into the romance scene again after Kes. It reminds me of the writers once again using Tom to Make A Point rather than having a genuine character interaction. It’s also just stinks of bad Straight White Man writing honestly.
Second, I love Tom’s very gung-ho and slightly rebellious nature in wanting to break B’Elanna out of custody if necessary (after all, he would know more about having his brain engrams scrambled by aliens than anyone because of the Baneans). However his whole “They're a bunch of pacifists. They're no match for us” comment to Chakotay felt way out of line. Like what is he saying, they’re going to go in, phasers blazing? Tom Paris is sometimes rebellious and is obviously very worried about B’Elanna, but I refuse to believe he would just blatantly start attacking a bunch of unarmed, innocent people to get what he wants.
Again, I get the idea that it wouldn’t be hard to break B’Elanna out because these people aren’t exactly the army, but something in the wording just gave Very Bad Vibes. There’s a difference between saying “it wouldn’t be hard to break her out” and “they’re no match for us”. The whole thing just felt very out of character and it bothers me.
