As interesting as it was to see a relationship happen between The Doctor and Seven, the B story doesn't seems to give any support to the A story. In fact the B story is a complete waste of time.
Neelix is suffering a monk (perhaps a novice) who is outside the monastery, and is now indulging, to an excess, on everything he cannot have back home. This is treated in a very "laughing" and jovial manner, unfortunately that should not have been the case, and it only cements the series itself into being rather flippant about religion. A few lessons could be learned from Deep Space Nine. Instead of the story trying to understand why this novice is overindulging, or perhaps even trying a way to merge the two stories is never approached. What we have is 30 minutes of a fun A story while we suffer through the rest of the episode's B story.
Merging the two could have been easy. A novice who is frightened of making his final vows goes "off the deep end" into over indulgence to curb his fear. The doctor who cannot bring himself to tell Seven that he has fallen for her. Both suffering from a fear of moving forward. Neelix could have offered his experiences to the monk in order to help his decision. Then while trying to recover from intoxication the Doctor and the monk have a one on one. It is this one on one that allows both to move forward. However the monk succeeds at his decision the Doctor is still hesitant.
I understand that to a lot of fans this episodes is on their top list. It's not skippable, but if you are watching on DVD you can fast forward over the monk parts. They are irrelevant to the story.
Neelix is suffering a monk (perhaps a novice) who is outside the monastery, and is now indulging, to an excess, on everything he cannot have back home. This is treated in a very "laughing" and jovial manner, unfortunately that should not have been the case, and it only cements the series itself into being rather flippant about religion. A few lessons could be learned from Deep Space Nine. Instead of the story trying to understand why this novice is overindulging, or perhaps even trying a way to merge the two stories is never approached. What we have is 30 minutes of a fun A story while we suffer through the rest of the episode's B story.
Merging the two could have been easy. A novice who is frightened of making his final vows goes "off the deep end" into over indulgence to curb his fear. The doctor who cannot bring himself to tell Seven that he has fallen for her. Both suffering from a fear of moving forward. Neelix could have offered his experiences to the monk in order to help his decision. Then while trying to recover from intoxication the Doctor and the monk have a one on one. It is this one on one that allows both to move forward. However the monk succeeds at his decision the Doctor is still hesitant.
I understand that to a lot of fans this episodes is on their top list. It's not skippable, but if you are watching on DVD you can fast forward over the monk parts. They are irrelevant to the story.