I should probably begin all this by stating up front what I've thought of Voyager over it's first two years. In short, I've been quite disapointed -- sometimes far more than that. This wasn't always true -- I liked the 2-hour pilot. It was fun and action packed, if not as thoughtful or ambitious as "the Cage", "Where No Man Has Gone Before" or "The Emmissary". It was, however, in every respect superior to the train wreck that is "Encounter at Farpoint." And, I reasoned, not EVERY pilot needs to be an exploration of what it means to be human, does it?
From that point on, tho, it was swiftly downhill -- retreads of ideas either done much better on previous Trek shows or already pounded into the ground on TNG. While the actors are all first-rate, the characters are only potentially interesting -- the writing has yet to make them come to life. The writing also failed to follow through on the premise of the show and show us truly wild, new stuff and wild, new worlds. Instead, we got endless fights with the Kazon, with Voyager miraculously being repaired at by the beginning of each episode. Even worse was the science on the show, which often swerved straight into the "insulting" lane and plowed ahead at warp 9. (maybe that should be Warp 10, since we can now go that fast, any time we want to -- it's only the writers who have forgotten this.) Tom "evolving" into a newt? A 400-year-old truck floating in space starting up? Truly, beyond belief. The show has such great potential, and yet so rarely follows through on it.
But, it was with great optimism that I awaited "Flashbacks". An episode encorporating some of my beloved TOS characters? Great! More adventures of Capt. Sulu? Great! Tuvok served with him? Sure! Why not! He's a Vulcan! I figured that the writers would spend far too much time setting up the flashbacks, but at least the story in the past would be good fun.
As it turns out, I was both right and wrong. The writers went far too long in setting up the flashbacks, but there was no actual story in the past. In fact, when we get to the end of the episode, we find out that it's all been a ruse on many different levels.
My initial disappointment was in the fact that we didn't actually get to see a NEW Sulu adventure that we didn't know about before. Instead, we saw a replay of the only thing we DO know about his voyages. I must say, tho, that they did a spectacular job of merging new and old footage, and of re-shooting scenes we were already familiar with. But why do this? Why not show us a new story, something we don't already know? The only things that are added to the past -- the aborted rescue mission, the death of the crewman -- are events which clearly never took place. Having coincidentally just re-watched STVI just days before I saw this episode, it was clear to me that these events simply didn't happen. So, that too detracts from the enjoyment of the episode.
In the end, tho, these complaints aren't all that important, for the following reason: the flashbacks to the past don't actually tell a story. They don't try to -- the flashbacks are just minor segments, not a whole story. Some people won't see this as a problem, and I can understand that point of view; however, it seems quite wrong to me somehow to encorporate Sulu into an episode just to have him be, essentially, moving, talking wallpaper. He plays no actual role in the plot of the story, he's just something moving around the background. Both Sulu and George Takei deserve better (as do Rand and Grace Lee Whitney).
This brings me, albeit in a roundabout fashion, to the actual main plotline of the episode, Tuvok's potentially lethal flashbacks. The main problem here, as I see it, is that the entire plot is a ruse, a red herring. For 55 minutes, we are lead to believe that we are going to learn about some crucial, traumatic event in Tuvaok's life. We expect to learn something new about this character, something which ought to substantially change the way we see him, if it was an event traumatic enough for a Vulcan to supress it. The whole structure of the episode is built around digging into his past, into his psyche, to reveal this crucial event from the past. But when we get there, we find out there's no "there" there. There IS no memory -- it's all just a virus, masking itself as a memory. It seems to me that this is a monumental copout.
Yes, it is possible to have a major plot twist at the end, which reveals that the events you've just seen are not what you thought they were, and this can add to the dramatic impact of a story. This twist, however, fails to do this. In part, this is because the plot twist simply makes no sense, and is simply quite silly. A virus, masquerading as a memory engram? It simply doesn't bear thinking about. Again, the science is apalling. Further, this revelation doesn't cast light on th events we've seen; instead, we suddenly realize that everything we've seen is pointless. The only thing that was important was the death of the crewman, the rest was irrelevant.
I also want to talk briefly about Janeway's speech about the difference between Starfleet of old & of the present. There's a lot I could say about it, but the main point is that, in fact, I agreed with a lot of what she said. The most telling line, I think, was when she said "space seemed a lot bigger back then." Exactly right! And it was much more interesting for it! When space is big, unknown, and dangerous, it's also exciting and fun. It's that spirit, I think, which TOS captured -- or at least captured often enough. And its that same spirit of risk and adventure which Voyager hasn't capitalized on enough. The potential is still there, but the Delta quadrant still seems awfully small at this point. Will it get bigger? I hope so!
Were there good things about the episode? Certainly. It gave us a chance to see just how deep the friendship is between Janeway and Tuvok. We did learn a bit more about Tuvok's past, and his reasons for being in Starfleet. Anytime we learn more things about the characters, it's good! We also got to see a couple nice Kes/Tuvok moments. And, of course, it made my heart glad to see Capt. Sulu, and George Takei was great in his few, very brief scenes. Made me pine for at least some TV movies about Sulu's adventures. (come on, guys! You've got the sets, the actors, the costumes! What would it hurt?) The performances by just about everone involved were fine.
And it's this potential for quality which made me so disappointed. All they needed to do to have a flashback episode was to have Tuvok tell everone a story over dinner or in the briefing room, and the bulk of the episode could have been about a complete story in the past. Instead, we get an elaborate, deceptive story, with some flashbacks coming in very late, and lasting shorter than I'd have liked. Ah, well. As with so much of Voyager, great potential, weak execution.
"The Chute" is definitely a mixed bag of an episode -- there are some interesting ideas and great sets and direction, but there are enough flaws, plot holes, and bad ideas that, on the whole, it's not really very good.
The episode throws us into the action right away -- literally. Harry is tossed down a chute, emerging in some sort of dank, dark, high-tech prison, where everyone proceeds to beat the snot out of him -- including Tom. That's a pretty good teaser, I must say, even if I never believed that Tom was hitting him for any reason other than to help. Via Tom, we get filled in quickly about the basic situation: Tom and Harry have been jailed for a terrorist attack that, of course, they didn't commit. The prison has no guards, and no possibility for escape. Even worse, the food supply is survival of the fittest, every man for himself, and everyone is fitted with "the Clamp", an electronic device which seems to make everyone act all the time like they've made one too many trips to Starbuck's. Harry and Tom's mission: survive, and maybe find a way out. Things get more complicated when Tom ends up on the business end of a knife, and Harry must figure out how to keep Tom alive in a place with no mercy.
It's here that things start to go wrong in terms of the dialogue. Specifically, the cliche-o-meter zooms deep, deep into the red, as Harry and Tom exchange banal, trite, awful "Promise me if you have a chance you'll leave me behind" "I'm not going to do that" dialogue, which seems to be lifted straight out of.... well, every war movie or danger-themed TV episode since film was invented. Worse, the writers don't seem aware of how fast the cliches are flying -- or if they are, they don't seem to care -- so there's no fresh spin put on this dialogue at all. (At least on DS9, when Quark and Odo had a similar exchange in "The Ascent", Quark had a truly original punchline to make it all go down smoothly) Here, though, the cliches are awfully hard to take -- and worse, they add nothing dramatically to the story. We know that Harry's not going to leave Tom -- or at least, that his best instincts are not to leave him. And we know that Tom would prefer for Harry not to get bogged down by him. But the writers don't seem to trust that they've established the characters well enough for us to understand this, and so we have what seem like endless scenes of really leaden dialogue. I understand that one of the goals for this episode was to show the deepening friendship between the two characters, but this predictable, stale dialogue doesn't help that.
Back on the Voyager, Janeway learns of Harry and Tom's imprisonment, and is further shocked when the Akritirian government wants to board the ship to finish the investigation into the bombing. (The bomb used trilithium, and since the Voyager uses dilithium, they seem a likely source.) Janeway, however, won't have her ship boarded, especially not without proper legal proceedings, and takes the Voyager off to find the ship of the true culprits. So, the Voyager searches for any ships that use paralithium, which is easily converted into trilithium. All this xx-lithium technobabble is just very, very annoying.
However, Janeway's search for the true bombers raises many for more troubling questions. Remember -- Janeway is appalled, infuriated, by the local government's attempt to search Janeway's ship on the basis of scant evidence at best. Her response? To go subdue and search a ship on the basis of scant evidence at best. What's even more bizarre, though, is that no one, apart from a brief quip from Chakotay, raises any questions about Janeway's bizarre, inexplicable, neo-fascistic behavior. Janeway then interrogates the crew of the ship -- a young brother and sister - - who are rebel terrorists, trying to overthrow what they argue is an evil, totalitarian state. From what we've seen, and from what Janeway has heard, it sounds like they have a good case. However, Janeway decides that the best thing to do is to turn the two over to the government whose legal procedures she finds (or doesn't, depending on her mood) to be morally reprehensible. Janeway's moral ground has gone from being shaky to downright quicksand-like. In the end, the only reason she doesn't turn the kids over to the Gestapo is that she finds out there's nothing in it for her -- it wouldn't free Tom & Harry anyway. These astounding command decisions by Janeway again go unchallenged, and get almost no screen time at all. It all just whizzes by at warp speed -- perhaps so that we won't have the time to think about it. Janeway's solution to the problem, finally, is simply to go in guns-a-blazing and get Harry and Tom out -- but leave all the other prisoners there. Even though she knows by now that many of them are probably innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted, even though she knows the government is corrupt - - she leaves all those men there to die. Again, no one questions her decision for a moment -- not even Harry and Tom, who can imagine what a lifetime in that prison would be like.
It's possible that the Prime Directive is meant to explain some of this bizarre behavior -- but it clearly can't. It's possible that the reason Janeway didn't bust everyone out of prison is because the Prime Directive forbids her too. That won't wash, tho, because Janeway spends all her screen time in the episode violating the Prime Directive. In TNG's "Justice", it was established that the Prime Directive mandated compliance with local law enforcement. If the law says Wesley's gotta die, the PD says Wesley's gotta die. (Sadly, Picard decided to skate around this, and we had three more seasons of Wesley.) So, logically, in "The Chute", the PD would say that Tom and Harry have to stay in prison. But for Janeway, this isn't even a consideration -- she never considers any path other than getting Tom and Harry out. Now, as it happens, I probably agree with her -- but the point needs some debating by someone. The same arguments apply to tracking down the terrorists and returning them to the planet for prosecution -- that would seem to be a violation of the PD. (Picard refused, at first, to get involved in the legalities in "Symbiosis" because of the Prime Directive.) But again, no one raises the question -- especially odd, given that Janeway is trying to turn adolescents over to a government which intends to stick them into a deep, dark hole for the rest of their short lives. And, again, given that it was, in part, Janeway's allegiance to the Prime Directive which helped get them stuck in the wilderness in the first place, her total disregard for it in other situations is puzzling. More than that, really.
Back in prison, Tom continues to weaken physically and mentally. Harry is likewise getting increasingly edgy emotionally, but is able to come up with a fancy tube with which he hopes to escape. The tube allows him to short out the force field protecting the chute, and so he and Zio proceed to climb up the chute -- only to find out that the prison isn't deep underground, as everyone believes, but is floating in space. This makes escape a much dimmer hope. All the while, Harry has to fight Zio, Tom, himself, and just about everyone else, to try to stay in control and stay alive -- and stay himself. At one point, it becomes almost too much, and in a fight with Tom, Harry almost bashes his head in -- but stops himself. Harry refuses to listen to Zio's theories about the purpose of the Clamp (more on that later), and eventually has a falling out with him, after refusing to kill Tom. At another point, Harry tries to convince all his fellow prisoners that, if they all work together, they can escape, with the help of his tube. However, he is laughed at and abused. This is meant to be an emotionally wrenching scene, it's obviously meant to be the crux of the show -- that the prisoners could escape if they worked together, but because they won't (later "revealed" to be because of the Clamp), they must stay imprisoned. The problem is, I don't buy it for a second. We've seen the docking port -- there isn't room for any more than two people to sit there waiting for a ship to dock, and by the very nature of the Chute, it's impossible for reinforcements to come up any faster than one at a time. Given that, there's no way they could overwhelm any docking ship -- and thus, the question of working together is irrelevant. So while Harry's speech is meant to be a powerful moment, for me, it fails utterly.
So, all of this is resolved when Janeway comes in and rescues the two from prison. the Doc gives them a thorough checkup and takes out the Clamp, and off Tom and Harry go for a good dinner. Harry is still troubled by his near braining of Tom, but Tom assures him that all he remembers is how loyal Harry was to him. That's actually a very nice, very effective moment.
In the same scene, though, there's a jaw-droppingly unsuccessful moment. This occurs when the Doc explains how the Clamp functions -- basically, buy increasing the inmates' levels of hostility and aggression. Harry says, in surprise, "Zio was right!" In surprise!! Surely, Harry is the only sentient being within sensor range who is actually surprised by this fact! Of course that's what the Clamp does! Were we really not supposed to have figured this out? I suspect most viewers were clued in to how the Clamp worked about 5 minutes in, when Tom complained about how twitchy the Clamp made him. It's beyond astounding to think that Harry could experience the effects of the clamp, observe it at work on Tom, and have it explained to him by Zio, and still not realize what was going on! And they trust this guy on the bridge of a Starship? It's just an astounding moment -- how could be possibly be surprised? I'm repeating myself, I know, but it's just flabbergasting.
The other problem with the Clamp is that it lets Tom and Harry off the hook for all their behavior. All the tension, the anger, the sniping that went on between them -- it can all be explained away by the Clamp, so there's no need to dwell on it. That's a shame, because the episode would have been far more interesting if everyone had acted in pretty much the same way, but without the Clamp to fall back on. Then Harry and Tom would have had to do some hard thinking about who they were. But here, they don't have to. DS9's "The Ship" is a good example of how a tense situation can bring out some ugly confrontations that grow out of people's characters. "The Chute" ducks that with a technological gizmo. Now, to some extent, I realize that this is a slightly unfair criticism -- I'm sure that the idea that generated this episode was the idea of a prison without guards, where jumped-up hostility does the job instead. But still, I think this plot device keeps more interesting questions from being asked -- like would feeding time at the Chute be any different without the Clamp? That'd be an interesting question. But we won't find out the answer here.
Anyway, I said there were good things about the show, too, so I should at least spend some time being nice. First, the episode was clearly designed to give some depth and weight to Tom and Harry's friendship, and it did that very well. Some of the dialogue, as I've said, was awful, but the overall effect still works. Plus, it gives Harry a chance to be a bit of an action hero and to show off his dark side, and that's all good. And the look of the show is a nice departure for Voyager -- seriously dark and grungy. In fact, sometimes it's a bit too dark, and it's hard to see -- but taking risks is always good, so I won't hold that against the show -- in general, the design and direction were great. Also, there's a beautifully framed moment when Zio is speaking, and the red ring of the Chute forms a halo around his head -- a very nice touch.
But, in the end, the problems far outweigh the nice moments. Particularly, Janeway's behavior is so extraordinary, so capricious, that for me, it's hard to even think about the rest. I suspect that the reason for this is that the writers really didn't care about that part of the show -- what was interesting to them was the prison stuff, and they more or less threw in the Janeway stuff as a plot necessity to get Tom and Harry out. The problem is, the Janeway stuff *is* there -- and it doesn't make a lick of sense, and it's handled so badly that it overshadows, for me, the rest of the show. Combine that with some truly cheesy dialogue and Harry's inability to comprehend the Clamp, and you get an episode that really just doesn't work. It takes some chances with the characters, but it also pulls some punches (via the Clamp excuse), and the bizarre implausibility of Janeway's behavior is just too much to take.
I went into this episode again with high hopes -- a new alien menace for Voyager to deal with, no more Kazon -- sounds like good clean fun. Then the episode began, and my optimism quickly dwindled.
The first stumbling block we hit is the new alien race, the Swarm. In the first scene, in the shuttlecraft (never mind for now why Belanna and Tom were in the shuttlecraft, a lazy excuse for getting stories going left over from the TNG cliche book), the Swarm immediately reveal themselves to be -- Borg Lite. If you go back and look at the first scene with the Borg aboard the Enterprise in the second season of TNG ("Q Who", was that the title? I was never good at TNG titles), you'll notice a great similarity between the behavior of the Borg and the Swarm redshirts we see on the shuttle. But that's just the beginning...
The very concept of the Swarm is is many ways a re-visiting of the Borg. After all, what were the Borg if not a big, biomechanical anthill? The primary characteristics of the Borg were decentralized control, as near-infinite redundancy as possible, unitary thinking & action through constant communication among all members, and total lack of individuation. If asked to characterize the Swarm from this episode, I would have to list the exact same qualities. The redundancy is achieved through a swarm of ships rather than immense redundancy within huge ships, but the effect is the same. The Swarm, as the Borg, are in constant contact, and in their behavior (again, from what little we can tell) seem to have little individual identity. Their costumes, their speech patterns, the way they appear & disappear when shot on an enemy ship -- all seem awfully familiar.
More on the Swarm later -- on to the rest of the show. Of course, the other basic problem with this episode is the rather odd balance between the A & B story. Or, perhaps it's a good balance, only the B story is the Swarm. The story that takes up most of the running time of the show is the story concerning the Doctor, and the breakdown of his program. I'm somewhat conflicted in my views about this story. There are really good things about it -- most notably, it gives Kes a chance to shine, and to take a more active, agressive role in trying to resolve a story. Jennifer Lien is, of course, very talented, and turns in a great performance. Robert Picardo likewise does an excellent job in his dual role as both the annoyingly-unnamed holodoc and the holo-Dr. Zimmerman. His performance during all the scenes involving his breakdown were top-notch.
Unfortunately, this story also hit on two of my least-favorite elements in TNG & Voyager writing. I'll begin with the more minor -- the minor subplot about the Doc learning how to sing opera. What's wrong with that? Well, I simply can't stand the fact that the Trek writers seem to think that the only culture worth bothering with is European "high culture", preferably pre-20th century. The only music that anyone still enjoys & plays is classical music; in literature, preferably Shakespeare. Yes, Picard liked his mystery novels, but that was obviously simply an indulgence, a literary chocolate. For REAL reading, he had his Shakespeare volume. And yes, Riker played jazz, but that's Riker -- his tatse in all things leisure we are led to believe is somewhat decadent and seedy (think Risa). (plus, I mean -- it's Riker! sorry, I just never liked the lout.) Everyone else, on their leisure time, enjoyed only classical music. No rock, no jazz, (except Riker), nothing non-European, heck, nothing non-Terran. All too often, the Enterprise seemed to be about nothing so much as a society for the preservation of the culture of rich, white arisocracy.
Now, there's nothing wrong with keeping alive all these cultural artifacts -- I hoep that in 400 years, people WILL be reading Shakeseare and listening to Beethoven's 9th, etc. But I hope they will also be listening to The Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Sex Pistols, etc. etc. etc. I hope they'll be reading Alice Walker and Umberto Eco and Douglas Adams etc etc etc. But we never see that. So far as we know, none of the crew jams with Hendrix in the holodeck -- and that's just a waste of technology. Anyway, the point is, there's a definite cultural elitism about later-day Trek, which, I think, undercuts Trek's basic message of inclusion. (At least Spock jammed with the space-hippies!) (DS9, btw, to a large extent avoids this -- Sisko loves his baseball, there's more of an emphasis on Bajoran, and to some extent Cardassian, music and literature -- while at the same time, it's clear everyone knows all the "high culture" stuff as well. But still, no one has a passion for indie bands of the 1960's, or Chicago Blues, etc etc etc. But at least no one pursues their love interest by analyzing chord structures in piano concerti.)
The second theme that the Doc's (he really needs a name) story hits on which grates on my nerves is the question of whther or not this artficial person is, in fact, a person; whether or not he feels, etc. In part, this annoys me because it seems self-evident -- he's a program. In the words of a famous Trek judge, "he's a toaster." One of the worst TNG episodes ever filmed was the one where the Enterprise suddenly becomes sentient, gives birth, and goes back to normal. Having the Doc "come to life" is essentially the same story, and I still don't buy it. I realize a lot of people disagree with me on this point, and that's fine; all I'm saying is, that aspect of the story really annoys me. The other problem is that most of this ground has already been covered in all the stories about Data, and re-telling the same themes with the Doc isn't likely to shed a whole lot of new light on the subject. (especially as the Doc has a less compelling reason to be considered setnient -- Data was designed from the ground-up to be sentient; for the Doc to be sentient, it would have to be another one of those "mistakes", like the Enterprise waking up.) (The scene with the Doctor [have I mentioned that he really needs a name?] and the opera singer in the holodeck was also rather similar to scenes with Data learning the violin, or taking Shakespearean acting lessons from Picard [see complaint #1 above, re: elitism]).
But, if you're not me and those things don't play like fingernails on a blackboard, the Doctor story is just fine. There are no major inconsistencies, the technobabble is kept quite contained and on-track, and there's a believeable sense of tension. That brings us to the conclusion of the story. The solution actually seems to make sense, and I liked the fact that Kes was instrumental in it. However, I'm still not sure how I feel about the ending, with the Doctor having, apparently, lost all of his memory of the past 2 years. On the one had, it's a good sign if the writers are willing to actually take some chances and actually make actions have consequences. On the other hand, this would seem to be a big step backward in character development -- namely, 2 years backwards. Given the glacial pace of character development on the show, that might not be a good idea. So, I'm still torn by the resolution.
The biggest problem with the Doctor story is, of course, that it takes up most of the show. Perhaps it should have been a stand-alone show on it's own -- but then there wouldn't be as good a reason for Belanna not to be able to help. At any rate, this B-story is quite long, and really doesn't fit in any noticeable way with the putative A story, which I'll count as a problem.
Following the structure of the episode, I'll now return, after a lengthy interruption, to the Swarm. First, a couple of nits about Swarm space. One -- if Neelix knows so much about Swarm space (as far as I can tell, they must have gotten the maps of Swarm space from Neelix, and he certainly knew approximately where they were, if not), why didn't he ever mention the Swarm to Janeway until now? That's a bit like knowing that there's a bridge out on the road ahead, but not bothering to mention it to the driver until they've already plunged off. Several demerits to Neelix as a tour guide. Second -- does it actually make a lick of sense that Swarm space would take (at maximum warp) 15 months to get around, but is skinny enough in the middle (conveniently, right where Voyager is) to travel accross in 4 days? Again, this smacks of blatant plot manipulation with no believable justification.
The Swarm attack -- this started out quite well, and was even exciting. There was quite a nice "oh, ^$%*!!" feeling when the Swarm started chasing the Voyager, and when they started attaching to the hull. Sadly, it all fell apart there. Janeway and Harry cook up some technobabble nonsense on the spur of the moment which lets them neatly get out of the situation, and seems to comletely eliminate the Swarm as a threat. This doesn't seem at all credible -- if it were that easy, surely someone else would have thought of it by now; also, the Voyager seemed to still be surrounded by little ships, as far as I could tell -- even if communication between the ships was disrupted, wouldn't it still be dangerous to be sitting there in the middle of thousands of them? Not to mention being in the middle of their space? The resolution was simply too quick, to easy, too final. It felt as if a narrator had simply come along and said "and then Voyager beat back the nasty Swarm people and lived happily ever after the end."
An interesting note was the way in which Janeway made her decision to go through Swarm space-- playing loose with the regulations and all. I think this is realistic and a potentially interesting development. It's also interesting because Tuvok seemed to object rather strongly to the decision -- tho most of that objection was simply implied in some rather disgruntled looks. I wonder of there was more to that conflict that ended up on the floor, due to time constraints.
In sum: the A story's tension was badly undercut by the length of the B story, and then completely shattered by a startlingly abrupt & unsatisfying ending. The B story was well-acted & constructed, but was somewhat familiar, and hit some notes which simply get on my nerves. Not a winner.
This is an episode that long-time TNG watchers had been waiting for pretty much since Voyager began. We all knew that those two Ferengi had been lost in the Delta Quadrant, so there has long been great speculation that the Voyager would run into them. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing -- Ferengi episodes have come a long way since the bad old TNG days. On DS9, the Ferengi are no longer one-note jokes, and there was hope that perhaps this would carry over to Voyager as well. However, such development is nowhere to be seen, and this episode ends up being a retread on many fronts.
It appears that the writers wanted to create an episode along the lines of TOS' "A Piece of the Action" -- trying to create a light romp out of external contamination of a developing culture. However, they failed, for two principle reasons: first, Ferengi culture is not, in fact, inherently funny, and requires skillful writing to actually make it a comedy -- writing this episode lacks; and second, this episode badly muffs some moral issues that "A Piece of the Action" didn't have to deal with. Instead, what we have here is something like TNG's excellent "Who Watches the Watchers", only played as a comedy and ignoring the central moral premise.
[For those who aren't familiar with TOS, "A Piece of the Action" tells the story of the Enterprise travelling to the planet Iotia which had first been contacted before the Prime Directive had been written; thus, the starship which had first visited the Iotians made no effort not to contaminate the culture. The Enterprise was sent, many years after this initial contact, to determine the extent of the contamination. As it turned out, the original ship had left behind a book about Chicago gangs of the 1920's, and the Iotians had modelled their society after this book. Kirk helped the Iotians develop a more centralized, less violence-based government, a promised that the Federation would be back to collect it's piece of the action.]
In "False Profits", the two Ferengi have set themselves up as, essentially, gods on this developing planet. Making use of local myths and their technology, they are successfully exploiting the local population for all they are worth, and spreading the word of Benjamin Franklin -- er, the Rules of Acquisition -- among the people. When the Voyager discovers this, they must decide what to do about it. And here's where things start to go badly wrong.
First, it seems perfectly clear to me that the Voyager does have a right, even a responsibility, to get the Ferengi out of there. Yes, it's true that the Ferengi never signed the Prime Directive and aren't bound by it. But the Prime Directive shouldn't be just a rule, a technicality to glibly dealt with. It is the moral code of the Federation -- that cultures ought to develop unmolested by outside interference, as such interference will only muck them up. This is a tremendously important concept, and shouldn't get trivialized. Yes, every incarnation of Trek has violated it from time to time (or even more than that), but it's still an important guiding principle. (I still think TNG often got it just plain wrong, especially when they argued that letting an entire planet be destroyed was mandated by the Prime Directive, but that's getting off on an awfully long tangent.) Anyway, I don't think that there really needed to be any particularly fancy rationale for kidnapping the Ferengi -- there's already ample justification. But, if inventing a rationale was necessary, I suppose Janeway's would do. (And, btw, it seemed an awful lot like the kind of Kirkian logic she was deriding in "Flashback".)
So, they beam the two Ferengi up to the ship. Here's the first massive mistake: they beam them up when there is a native of the planet in the room with them. This is ill-advised first because it lacks a certain subtlety, and secondly because it furthers the idea that the Ferengi are supernatural. More on this later. Then, once Janeway has the Ferengi on board the Voyager and under her control, she is inexplicably persuaded by the Ferengi's pathetic and self-serving argument to send them back to the planet -- not in a while, not after she's had time to fully develop a plan, but right away, thus letting the Ferengi do whatever they want to. This is absurd. Even if you accept the Ferengi's logic, and you believe that there has to be some sort of farewell appearance by the "gods", it simply doesn't follow that you give up control of the Ferengi and let them build a jamming device. The "gods" need to say goodbye? Fine. Lock up the Ferengi, make a holosuite program of them saying goodbye to the masses, and use a holo- projector to make it seem to the populace that the "gods" are right there saying goodbye. End of story. But, of course, this doesn't happen.
Instead, Janeway says that they have to "out-Ferengi the Ferengi" and make it more profitable for them to leave. Apparently, during the commercial break, she decides to just force them to leave, but in a different way. So, Neelix is sent down in disguise to convince the Ferengi to leave. Why is Neelix chosen? As near as I can figure, because he's short. After all, every other crewmember must know more about the Ferengi than Neelix, with the exception of Kes. Anyone else on board also has more training in undercover missions. But yet, Neelix gets to go. This just doesn't make any sense. Sure, he makes a fine Ferengi, but that's because Ethan Phillips is a good actor, not because this decision is logical. Further, the Ferengi's reaction to this emissary from the Grand Nagus reverts to TNG-era characterization of Ferengi as mere sneering, greedy, evil stereotypes. They simply make up some rules of Acquisition, which justify them in trying to kill Neelix. After all the development of Ferengi culture on DS9, this just doesn't fly.
But, there's a deeper problem here. Janeway accepts the notion that the Ferengi's departure has to fit in with the mythology of the local culture, just as their arrival did. This is, of course, utter nonsense. Yet, everything the Voyager crew does -- creating the three lights in the sky, etc. -- reenforces to the locals that, in fact, these guys ARE the gods that their myths talked about, and they really did come down just as the story said, they really did ascend on wings of fire, etc. Thus, what was previously a myth, a legend, perhaps one of many competing myths and legends, is suddenly cemented as FACT. It's no longer a story, it's history. Thus, whatever other myths & ideology goes along with that story is set in stone. Moreover, the lessons the *Ferengi* taught them are given the weight of the word of God! How could the Rules of Acquisition not become a kind of bible? After all, it was the words of wisdom passed down by the visiting gods! Instead of fixing or reducing the cultural contamination, Janeway actually finds a way to make it worse, and likely permanent! This is, quite probably, the worst solution to the problem conceivable.
For a far superior take on this theme, look no further than TNG's "Who Watches the Watchers." [It's rare that I turn to TNG as an example of how to do things right, but that truly was a very well done episode.] In "WWtW", some of the natives of a developing planet become convinced that Picard is a god. Picard is disgusted at the notion, disgusted that he might be responsible for causing the population to turn back to myths they had been turning away from, disgusted that he might be responsible for giving one set of beliefs a sense of validity greater than any other set of beliefs. To make sure that none of this happens, he allows himself to be shot in the chest with an arrow to prove he's not a god. The point is that Picard was willing to die to make sure that he & his ship didn't alter the belief system of a culture, and didn't convince them of the existence of any particular god.
Janeway, on the other hand, apparently decides it's a pretty good idea to start up a religion on a planet and never look back, for some reason believing that because the Ferengi are physically absent from the planet, their influence is ended as well. Apparently, Janeway has never actually read any history, human or otherwise. Well, perhaps she was merely distracted by the wormhole....
What of the wormhole part of the story... Well, of course, as with all "we're gonna go home!" plots, we know the outcome at the beginning. This time, tho, it seems that everyone of the ship knows the outcome too -- I never once believed anyone thought they were going home -- or that they were all that broken up when the wormhole conveniently disappears. However, the method by which their defeat comes about is simply ludicrous. Somehow, the pathetic Ferengi manage to overwhelm their security escort (there was only ONE guard guarding them?!?!), make their way to the shuttle bay (conveniently, someone went out of their way to tell them their shuttle had been beamed aboard), make their way through whatever security there is to keep people out of the shuttle bays (apparently, there's not much), get into their shuttle, which, apparently, was in perfect repair (or at least its thrusters, phasers, and graviton emitters were), blast their way through Voyager's shields with just their shuttle's phasers, (either mighty fine shuttle phasers or mighty weak Voyager shields) and race away, only to fall into the Wormhole, just before it disappeared for good. The writers may have realized how ludicrous all this was, and they decided not to show us any of it. Probably the best decision of the whole episode.
There is one last problem with the wormhole story... After the Ferengi shuttle goes through, Harry says the wormhole has now become unstable at both ends. This begs the question, how does he know this? First, how can he possibly tell, within seconds, that it has become randomly unstable at the Delta Quad end? And more importantly, how does he know it's unstable at the other end? In the TNG episode this is the sequel to, the only way anyone was able to determine whether or not the wormhole was stable at the other end was by travelling through it -- that's *why* the Ferengi were in the Delta Quad to begin with! But now, Harry knows that the wormhole is randomly unstable on both ends. The reason this matters is that without knowing that the wormhole has become unstuck in the Alpha quadrant, the Voyager should, logically, stay in the area and investigate for a good long while -- this is exactly the sort of thing they have been looking for for two years. But instead, Janeway orders them out of the area within seconds, which may make for a dramatic ending, but makes no sense.
Summary: an attempt at a witty & humorous Ferengi episode, which fails to be either. The humor is forced at best. Further, it badly botches the central moral issue. The reset-button conclusion relies on completely absurd plot points, and is far from satisfying. However, many bonus points for actually visiting a planet, and for impeccable set design and art direction. Still, an early candidate for worst of the season.
If I wrote quick, snappy, sarcastic, and useless reviews, my one-line review of "Remember" would be "Must I?"
But I don't write reviews like that.
"Remember" isn't actually a bad episode. It's just not particularly good, either. I think the main problem is that all of the themes are over-familiar. The high-concept description would be "'Violations' meets 'The Inner Light'". That's not an entirely accurate description of the episode, of course, but it's close enough. This episode just feels like it's covering ground we've been over before -- a few times.
In the beginning, all we really know is that Belanna is having unusually realistic dreams -- the "sensual dreams" that the previews panted over so much, in a truly craven display. But why is she having such potent dreams? Could it have to do with the aliens on board she's dreaming about? (as we've seen with visiting aliens before in "Sarek", "Violations", etc.) Oddly, yes! Then the dreams take an ugly turn, as Belanna sees her dream lover horribly burned (a truly unpleasant image). Apparently, there is more to the dreams than meets the... er... mind.
Eventually, the dreams tell the story of a young Enaran couple in love, but the lovers are star-crossed. Dathan, Belanna's dream-lover, holds regressive, anti-technology beliefs, which means he is part of a persecuted minority. Belanna's father is a powerful man, trying to move society forward -- and away from the regressives. It is revealed that the regressives are being hunted down and killed. In the end, dream-Belanna's father convinces her to betray Dathan, and he is killed most unpleasantly in the public square, and dream-Belanna joins in the cheers. Belanna also finds out that these dreams are being fed to her by an Enaran woman on board, who wants to tell someone about what happened when she was young. The other Enarans, however, deny that any such events ever took place, and doubt the authenticity of the dreams.
Again, as I said, the ideas about telepathic races mucking around, uninvited, in Starfleeter's heads, and about re-living someone else's life, are ones we've run across before. So there's not much of a "wow!" factor. There's really no new spin put on this execution to make it unique, nothing that made me say, "hey! I've never seen *that* before!!" But presumably, one could still make a compelling episode, even if some of the SF ideas have been done before. "Remember," though, doesn't do this.
I think the main problem with this episode is a structural one. There is essentially no story being told in the present tense. That is, nothing really takes place aboard the Voyager. Yes, Belanna tries to find out about her dreams, the Enarans deny them, and she passes them on to the young Enaran woman. But that's all quite brief. The heart of the episode is the flashback in the dream. And, of course, it concerns characters we've never met before and know nothing about. It's unclear (or is supposed to be unclear) whether or not these characters even existed. We're never given much of a reason to care about these people, apart from the fact that one of them looks like Belanna. Other than that, why do we care? I mean, yes, in a general sense, we care about all people, etc etc. -- but why do we want to watch the story? The writers never really answered that one for me. There are 9 regular characters on the series; this story is about none of them. Now, that doesn't automatically condemn an episode. But to establish new characters who we really care about in that limited an amount of time requires really good, sharp, concise writing. This episode didn't have it. Think about DS9's "The Ship" -- we come to care about Munez within a couple of minutes - - and it's because of good writing. The writing here is rather run-of-the-mill. I never really got a sense of Belanna's alter- ego and Dathan, apart from being young lovers, and Dathan holding politically dangerous views.
It seemed to me that the writers tried to force us to care by making the story about a near-genocidal episode in Enaran history. "Come on! It's genocide! You've gotta care about that! Unfeeling lout!" Well, not really -- it's a fictional genocide, and you've still got to sell me on it. I also didn't particularly buy the reason for the mass murder. There's a group of people who don't like advanced technology -- why is that dangerous enough to those in power to warrant killing the regressives? I realize that history demonstrates that people don't need great reasons to go around slaughtering eachother, but this one seemed awfully flimsy -- at least as it was spelled out in the story. Again, there just wasn't enough meat in the story to make me really get involved.
The episode also begins to raise the question about whether or not this story ever took place -- are the dreams one person's memories, being sent to Belanna, or just an amalgamation of lost psychic bits from all the Enarans? However, I don't think that there's ever any doubt that these dreams are real memories, and that the leader of the Enaran group is making up the other possibility to hush up the whole affair. Thus, the part of the story that acts like it's a mystery just really isn't convincing as a mystery. That's not a critical flaw tho -- if the dream story had been involving, I don't think I would have cared about this aspect at all.
Janeway takes yet another trip through the moral ambiguities of the Prime Directive and ends up.... somewhere in between her interpretation of it in "The Swarm" and "The Chute" (ie, "screw it!") and her interpretation in "False Profits" (ie, "extend its reach even further!"). Here, she settles for "we can't interfere in their politics; if they want to cover over genocide, hey, that's their call. But if you want to go and interfere now without telling me, go ahead." It's an interesting position. Which doesn't mean it can't be defended - but the whole issue is passed over so quickly that you don't get the sense anyone concerned is all that interested. Considering how Janeway beat up on Kirk for playing fast and loose with regulations in "Flashback," her actions since them seem a bit contradictory.
I don't have many more substantial criticisms -- again, it wasn't an awful episode, I just never got involved in it. A few random notes, then... Why didn't Belanna have an Enaran headband in her dream? She wore Enaran clothes, but was the only person in the dreams with a naked forehead. In addition to being a silly inconsistency, it robbed Roxanne Dawson of a few days without Klingon makeup! When the young Enaran woman re-lived the same dreams, SHE was wearing a headband.... Did anyone else notice that Harry is having fewer and fewer qualms about spending time with other women while he's apart from his girlfriend on Earth? .... And who knew that Yanni's music would make it to the Enaran Top 40?
On the plus side.... All the acting was very good, as always. All the production values were up to the usual high standards. (and Neelix sure did one heck of a job re-decorating the mess hall.) And you certainly can't argue with the moral of the story -- killing off people is bad, and shouldn't be swept under the rug. (it's just not particularly novel.)
In sum: familiar territory, an uninvolving central story and a non-mysterious mystery. Not awful, but not must-see TV.
Sacred Ground
I knew as I was watching this episode that people's reactions to it would be pretty strong -- this is definitely a love-it-or-hate-it kind of episode. Me? I'm in the "hate it" camp. This is one of those episodes that not only did I not like, but it made me really angry as I watched it. And that's just not good for my blood pressure!
Unfortunately, the really bad stuff begins right away. For some reason, Janeway has once again let her crew take shore leave on a planet they know nothing at all about. Shockingly, this turns out not to be a good idea! Kes quickly sticks her finger in the electrical outlet of the spirits, and nearly kills herself. Neelix responds by being annoying and calling her "sweetie." You'd think that at some point, Janeway would decide to stop sending people down for shore leave until she knows something about where they're going. Otherwise, the Voyager is going to run out of crew members before the season is out.
Anyway, this critical injury to Kes leads to a conflict between Janeway & company and the planet's religion. The crew can't scan the chamber to find out about the energy field (which could help them treat Kes) because it would violate religious custom. But, Janeway finds a precedent which allows her to go through a ritual that the clergy of the planet go through, which allows them to survive the energy of the temple.
This is where, for me, things start to get intolerably bad. When exactly? Well, the scene in which Janeway discusses "ritualistic cultures" with Chakotay. First, using that phrase "ritualistic cultures" to describe certain cultures really annoys me (as it did when Picard used the phrase in the abominable "Masks" -- oh, if only I could purge the memory of that from my mind....). ALL cultures are ritualistic, standard Starfleet culture, western European culture, whatever, no less than any other. What is a marriage ceremony, if not a ritual? Funerals? What about the ceremony of turning over command of a Starfleet vessel? How about duty shift transitions? There are lots of rituals in everyday life -- but, of course, Janeway and Picard don't consider them rituals. Why? Because, their comments betray a condescending attitude towards other cultures. "Ritualistic" is used as a euphemism for "less advanced."
Now, in this episode, one could make an argument that the writers were actually aware of that, as the rest of the conversation displays Janeway's stunning condescension towards the culture of this planet, and hundreds of others, as well. Janeway does some quick reading about "ritualistic cultures", and blithely assumes she knows pretty much exactly what this ritual is going to be like. The problem in this scene is that I just don't really buy the premise that you can be as stupid and arrogant as Janeway is in that scene and get to become a Starfleet captain. At some point, other crewmembers would notice that you don't pay the slightest bit of attention to the actual alien cultures in front of you, or some alien would kill you for being a massive schmuck. In any event, you wouldn't get to be captain if you were this clueless.
From this point on, the whole episode is really based around this conflict of science vs. blind faith, with Janeway and the Voyager crew playing the role of "science." The problem is that Janeway is so consistently thick-headed, blind, and obtuse, that she simply doesn't make a decent proxy for the "science" camp. This episode is guilty of making a classic rhetorical blunder -- knocking down a straw man. For the episode to have any weight at all, the arguments for the "science" side have to be compellingly drawn, and then compellingly refuted. But in the episode, Janeway clearly blows every opportunity, clearly fails every intellectual challenge, and simply isn't a convincing or compelling embodiment of the scientific perspective. Her impatience through the whole ceremony, her unwillingness to listen to anyone on the planet who speaks to her, her unwillingness to even begin to try to understand the ritual as it actually is -- none of those are representative of the scientific perspective. They are simply characteristics of a foolish, dimwitted, closed-minded perspective. And I would argue that those two perspectives are NOT synonymous. As this episode stands, one might very well think that the producers think the two *are* synonymous -- and that's death to a science fiction show.
But, some might argue, that clearly isn't the case -- after all, this IS a science fiction show, and the producers clearly can't want to say that science is bad. The problem is, "Voyager" has consistently punished its audience for knowing anything at all about science. It has repeatedly shown contempt for science, and thus this more open critique of science becomes more troubling. Examples? I'll use three big ones. First, there was "Paris the Newt" in "Threshold". In that episode, Tom was supposed to "evolve" into a Newt because of his Warp-10 travel. Except, of course, that *individuals cannot evolve*. Evolution is a process which involves random mutations in a *population* interacting with the environmental conditions that population exists in. One individual cannot evolve, nor can you predict from an individual's DNA what the species might evolve into in the future. But, it seems, the producers either don't know this basic fact, or don't care that *we* know it.
A second example, of a very different sort, is from the "37's". In that episode, the Voyager found a 400-year old 1930's -era pickup truck floating in the cold, hard vacuum of deep space, beamed it aboard, and started it right up on the first try. Yes, after 400 years at temperatures hundreds of degrees below zero, it started right up. Funny, 1990's-era cars have trouble starting up in the much warmer conditions of a Wisconsin winter. Does this really matter? Yes. When I was watching that episode, I figured, "wait -- that must be a clue. Any dolt knows a truck couldn't start up after 400 years in space. Therefore, it can't have been there that long! It must have just been dumped there! This is a clue!" But no, it was supposed to have been there for 400 years. And if you were silly enough to have thought about it, well, tough on you. You get no points for thinking here.
A third and final example: in the episode "Phage", the Voyager escaped doom by zipping out through a crack in the event horizon of a black hole. Except, of course, that the event horizon isn't a thing, it's simply the distance from a singularity at which nothing, including light, can escape it's gravitational field. Thus, you can't have a crack in it. (see "The Physics of Star Trek" for a more thorough [and knowledgeable] lambasting of this particular bit of nonsense)
Why have I wasted all this space on this rant? For this reason: "Voyager" has repeatedly shown contempt for science, and contempt for their audience if they happened to know anything at all about science (and I mean anything -- I'm not a scientist here, so its not as if these is advanced, highly technical goofs). This, it seems to me, is a serious problem for a SF show. And in terms of this episode, it makes it more troubling that they are challenging the scientific perspective in this way, and makes it less clear that there is any need for a corrective for the "over-reliance" on science in the series in general.
I should probably also state that one of the things that I always liked about Trek was that it is pretty clearly anti- religious. I realize that there are people who dislike that aspect of Trek, but it is one of the things that always appealed to me about the Trek universe. When Kirk & co. started talking to "god" in STV, I almost walked out of the theater -- happily, it was a false god. I think it was stated best by Kirk in "Who Mourns for Adonais?", when asked by Apollo if it was so much to ask to simply worship him with blind devotion. Kirk replied, "what you ask, we can no longer give." Unlike Janeway, he didn't say it smugly, or arrogantly; in fact, he said it even regretfully -- but he said it as a matter of fact. I've always liked that episode. (and anyone who can watch that episode without crying, btw, surely has a heart of stone.)
How's that for a rant? Anyway, back to the plot, such as it is. Janeway blithely goes through the ritual once, thinking only about her pre-conceived notions, and blows it. The scientific data gained doesn't help treat Kes. Chastened, Janeway tries it again, and this time actually pays attention to what the people on the planet are telling her. So, she has a conversation with George Costanza's mom, and is told that she has to just carry Kes back into the field. No explanations given, she must do this on faith alone. This Janeway does, and she survives, and Kes is cured. The Doctor gives a technobabble explanation that may account for why this happened, which Janeway doesn't seem to buy, cue the closing music.
The problem with all this is that the whole episode just feels incredibly manipulative. There is a conflict between Janeway & the aliens mostly because Janeway is written as being unreasonably dense. They can't directly scan the field because of yet more plot manipulations (the culture's religion, plus it is too far underground for sensors to reach -- but not too far underground for transporters or communicators to work -- huh?). In the end, Janeway must go through on blind faith, and it turns out fine -- which is easy to do when you control reality, as the writers do. Every element of the plot just feels forced and manipulative -- I felt as if we, the audience, were being set up.
I couldn't help thinking about this: what if the aliens had told Janeway to walk through, and when she did so, both Janeway and Kes had died? There's nothing inherent in the structure of the episode which makes this any less plausible -- we don't know the spirits well enough to know that they're not malevolent, have different values, etc. But, then the series would be over. So it doesn't happen. I know I'm not expressing myself very well here, but I'm trying. The reason everything works out OK in the end is because the writers have control over both the choices Janeway faces and the outcome. But what if we apply this to a real-life situation?
In the episode, Janeway is rewarded for acting on blind faith. In the real world, people are confronted with such choices every day: some religions forbid their followers from seeking scientific medical treatment. When someone becomes ill, or their child becomes ill, they face a choice: proceed on faith, or let science try to treat the illness, and deny their religion. In the real world, tho, faith isn't often rewarded as Janeway is: often, people who refuse treatment die. This is a terribly tough choice, and I'm not going to even begin to argue about what's right or wrong. The point is, it's a serious dilemma with serious consequences. But this episode fails to really deal with the powerful emotions and issues here. There's never any real sense of danger here -- we all know Kes is going to be fine. We all know Janeway is going to be fine. Janeway is manipulated into her decision by plot devices, and the writers have fixed the ending - - her decision is right, and all is well with the world. But again, none of that is because of the inherent logic of the story -- it's simply a series of more-or-less arbitrary decisions by the writers. Therefore, it doesn't build up any emotional impact. (I don't want to get into a which-show-is-better debate, but this issue was handled much more effectively in an early episode of Babylon 5, in which Dr. Franklin had to deal with a sick child whose parents refused medical treatment for the child on religious ground -- the outcome of that story had real impact, and everything that happened made sense within the logic of the story).
Yikes! This is turning into my longest review yet, and the point is basically that I thought it was bad. Perhaps I need to work on concision. In any event, I think the episode also missed a major opportunity to explore the differences between Chakotay's perspective on faith & Janeway's. But Chakotay mostly adheres strictly to the scientific perspective, advising Janeway not to act on faith. This seems to be inconsistent in terms of his character, and is a missed opportunity for some interesting discussions.
In sum: a poorly written episode, with an unconvincing showdown between science and faith. Not good at all.
Hey! Now that's more like it! After a truly hideous outing last week, Voyager rebounds with a quite fun, enjoyable time- travel story. Obviously, no final conclusions can be drawn until next week, when the second part airs, but so far, it's quite a fun little episode. (Tho I'm slightly worried, given post-TOS Trek's tendency to muff the second part of two parters. But I think they should be able to avoid that in this episode, as it's not as weighty as most of the other two-parters.)
The story moves into gear quite quickly, with the Voyager confronted by a 29th century ship accusing the Voyager of blowing up the solar system. To try to prevent this, the intrepid time- traveler has decided to come back in time and blow up the Voyager. (btw, in case anyone was worried, this means that the Voyager WILL get home some day -- otherwise, how could Starfleet have known where it was 500 years ago/400 years from now? So, you can quit holding your breath now!) Voyager resists, and is drawn through the time portal back to... 20th century Earth!
It's worth pointing out that at this point, one of the most pointless and ill-conceived lines in the history of recorded media is uttered. After Harry announces that the year is 1996, Chakotay inexplicably exclaims "The late 20th Century!" Way to go, Chakotay! From simply the exact year, he is able to deduce which century they are in! That Federation schooling hasn't gone to waste....
Anyway, Janeway and Company quickly make their way down to Earth, incognito, to try to track down some decidedly un-20th century-like signals. This gives everyone a chance to interact with & react to 1996-era Los Angeles. All of these scenes are done quite nicely. It's a real blast to see the crew walking around present-day LA, soaking in the sights and, except for Tuvok, the sun. And it's perfectly in keeping with Tom's character to be the most excited of all about this opportunity.
We also meet the Villain of the piece -- oddly, it's Ed Begley Jr. Even more oddly, he is perfect for the role! He was utterly convincing as a former dropout turned technology thief and corporate shark. At a lab funded by Begley's company, a young scientist detects Voyager in orbit, and against her boss' orders, tries to make contact. This draws her to the attention both of the Voyager crew and the villain's thug, who race eachother to get to her and her information. Paris and Tuvok get there first, and those scenes work very well, with Paris simultaneously pumping her for information, trying to pass for a 20th century human, and flirting with her. Meanwhile, Tuvok gets all the information from her computer and ruthlessly crashes her hard drive. (did anyone else notice that tricorders gained a whole host of new functions in this episode? Ah, well, no matter.) But then, the thug shows up, and tries to blast Tuvok, Paris and the irate scientist with a 29th century phaser. The trio escapes, but it is no longer possible for Tuvok and Paris to avoid messing with the young woman's life -- she's stuck with them in this mess.
Meanwhile, Janeway and Chakotay find the captain of the ship that brought them to this time -- living as a homeless man. From him, they find out what's really going on -- that it is his meddling in time which ultimately leads to the temporal explosion in the first place (echoing O'Brien's sentiments from a couple years ago, they realize the headache-producing quality of such a paradox), and not only that, it allows Begley's character to get his hands on 29th century technology, which he has used to make himself a fortune. These scenes work nicely-- the future captain is played with a believable blend of desperation, clarity, and madness, and the shared looks between Janeway and the policeman worked quite well.
Janeway and Chakotay make their way to the office of the technology thief, and soon meet him as well. Again, these scenes work very well, with nice moments as they try to make sense of Windows 95, or whatever it was. True to her scientist roots, Janeway is a quick study. Begley's character has finished a working time ship to use himself -- and it is likely *his* use of the ship which will cause the annihilation of the solar system. Of course, he doesn't believe them, and tries to do away with them -- but a resourceful and assertive Harry Kim in command of the Voyager saves them. However, his maneuver causes Voyager to be spotted by the locals -- and plastered all over Hard Copy.
Again, most everything in this episode works well. It's not a tremendously important or hard-hitting episode, but is just a fun adventure. And on that level it works. There are a lot of little moments which work wonderfully -- for example, Neelix and former soap star Kes getting caught up in soap operas. I also enjoyed the references to past Trek time travel stories -- Janeway' use of Spock's phrase "stone knives and bearskins" from "City on the Edge of Forever", for one. Another was Tuvok's line "what does it mean -- groovy?", echoing Spock's "what does it mean -- exact change?" from ST IV. All the scenes around LA worked especially well -- shooting on location really makes the episode feel real. And it was a nice move to work into this story Harry's first turn at commanding the Voyager.
This isn't to say that the episode is totally without flaws. One fairly significant plot hole is the premise itself -- that a 20th century man could take advantage of finding 29th century technology & could replicate it. (I think a similar point is made in the Nitpicker's Guide to TNG, about that episode with Matt Frewer) This simply doesn't really make sense. If a 10th century human found a modern-day computer -- say, a laptop, so it didn't need to be plugged in -- there's simply no way he could reverse- engineer it do discover it's secrets. How can you understand microchips if you don't even know about basic circuits? The same logic applies to 20th/29th century. The technology ought to be so different that there would simply be no way to make sense of it. So, in fact, this couldn't happen. But I'm willing to go with the premise this time, since it gives us a fun episode. I also thought that Janeway and Chakotay were excessively stunned by seeing humans with -- gasp! -- mohawks. Kazons, Klingons, and T'laxians, they can handle, but a human with funky hair weirds them out? I don't buy it, and it was a rare false moment in an otherwise solid show.
In sum: So far, a fun, light episode. A decent premise and solid performances by the guest stars, along with nice location shooting, make it really spark. So far, the best of the season.
Well, the conclusion to Voyager's time-travel story continues in the great post-TOS Trek tradition of disappointing "part two's". The first hour was good fun, but in this second hour, some plot problems finally catch up with the story, and other strange, unnecessary plot points take up valuable time, while some threads are simply dismissed. While the episode isn't a disaster by any means, but it is a let down from part one.
The plot device that gets most of the stories in this episode moving is the plot to beam Starling up the Voyager, to get him away from the time ship, and find out why he's so hell- bent on getting to the 29th century anyway. To get Starling in a place where they can get at him, the Voyager crew implement a rather silly, transparent plan that wouldn't have even worked for the A-Team. In fact, I'd bet that, minus the transporter action, this exact scam was used several times in the second act of A- Team episodes. In short, Rain sets up a bogus meeting with Starling, which the crew intend to use as a convenient place to beam up Starling. Starling, having watched the A-Team, sees through this cunning ploy, and expects the ambush. Thus, he brings along the newly mobile Doc (more on that later), not to mention his pocket transporter scrambler, and tries to put one over on the Voyager crew. What's most surprising about all this is that in the end, it actually works -- they do get Starling up to the Voyager. After, of course, his attempt to jam the transporter, causing Chakotay and Torres' shuttle to lose power and crash out in the desert. (did it seem to anyone else that there is *very* poor system isolation in the shuttles? a transporter overload blows out every system?)
Once Starling is safely secured in Voyager's sick bay, Janeway can finally question him at her leisure. This scene is really executed very well. The acting by both Begley and Mulgrew is excellent, the directing is sharp, and the scene is believably tense. It falls on its face, however, in content. Starling's reason for wanting to zip on to the 29th century is simply ludicrous. He says that he has already mined all the profitable technology on the ship, and needs to get some more goodies from the future. Utter nonsense! To begin with, we saw computers of this 20th century -- and they are nowhere near 29th century technology. Therefore, there's oodles more computer technology to be used. Also, Starling has a massively sophisticated holo-setup. Gosh, no, no commercial viability to that product! Who would want a fully immersive artificial environment? Oh, wait, I forgot -- we already know the answer to that question, given the popularity of holosuites -- *everybody* would want it! Starling could sell even very watered down (technologically) versions, so that he could make everyone upgrade many times in the future (a la the ever-ravenous Bill Gates), and still hold the technological advantage. And no, the military wouldn't be interested in any of the weapons and propulsion technology, no! Why would they want a phaser, or an impulse drive? The point is, assuming Starling can actually reverse-engineer this technology (and I still remain skeptical on that point), he has twenty lifetimes worth of technology to siphon profits from yet. So there is simply no believable rationale given for his reckless use of the time ship.
Starling is then beamed back to earth by his ever-present assistant -- that 29th century technology is good stuff. This sets in motion a chase to stop Starling before he can destroy the future. This is an aspect of the story which works well, I think, and even the car chase is fun. However, at the same time, we find that Chakotay and Torres have crash-landed into another episode. They are, inexplicably, being held by some sort of militia group, or something. This whole storylet just seems completely unnecessary and out of place. It certainly doesn't match the light tone of the first hour of the story, and it doesn't do anything to move along the plot of the second part. It also doesn't do anything to help us understand the culture of 20th century earth. All this bit of the story seems to do is provide an excuse for the doctor and Tuvok to team up and save the day. It also lets the shuttle zoom in and save the day for Rain and Tom. This is a bit unconvincing, too -- the shuttles systems were completely shorted out, then the shuttle crashed, but within minutes it is space-worthy again?
At any rate, with Tom and Rain saved, and the Voyager crew duped by Starling and unable to prevent his launch, Janeway must now stop Starling in space. Voyager's systems are, apparently, much less resilient than the shuttlecraft's, and the weapons are still off-line, so when negotiations fall apart, Janeway must manually launch a torpedo to stop Starling. So, in the end, the whole 2-hour story is resolved by one torpedo. I'm still not quite sure if I think that's a letdown or not... I'm pretty sure I don't think it's a great ending. At this point, the Voyager's troubles are over, but the plot's are not.
In swoops a ship from the 29th century again -- and it's captain Braxton again. But a different Capt. Braxton -- one for whom the temporal explosion loop never happened. He tells Voyager that in the 29th century, they can watch over time, with super- cool sensors, and they noticed that Voyager was out of it's timeline, so he's come to take them back to where they belong -- the Delta quadrant, 24th century.
Where to start with the problems with this solution? Well, first, a simple problem: if they have these time sensors, couldn't they see that Braxton's ship crashed back in the 60's, and couldn't they have done something about that? Well, maybe that's not so simple, as the mechanics of when timelines appear and disappear is a bit vague. Ok, here's another problem: Why does the Voyager need to be removed from that time? They are already done screwing around with Earth's timeline -- why do they need to be removed? Braxton says it is to preserve history -- but why protect 20th century history at the expense of 24th century history? If Braxton didn't take them back to the future, Voyager could slingshot around the sun and zip back to the 24th century, back home. (the entire timeline in which Starling messed around with 29th century technology should have disappeared when he was prevented from using the time ship -- man, temporal mechanics really do give you headaches...) Instead, Braxton takes Voyager back to the future, *meddling in their timeline*! Obviously, this is functionally required for the series, but doesn't make sense.
There is, of course, another problem with Braxton's story about those 29th century time-sensors: we know they don't exist. If these guys were really out there, making sure no one messed around with history, we should have met them before -- but we didn't. The Enterprise travelled back to the past in "Tomorrow is Yesterday" and "Assignment: Earth", and the Enterprise crew travelled to the past in a Klingon ship in ST IV. In none of these cases did anyone from the 29th century come back in time and take them away -- even tho the Enterprise crew meddled in history each time. (remember all those temporal violations the investigators mentioned in "Trials and Tribble-ations"?)
Now, we all knew, when we first heard about this upcoming time-travel story, that the Voyager would end up back in the 24th century, in the Delta quadrant. The question was, at least for me, would the explanation be believable? Would there be a convincing reason that the Voyager couldn't get home? The answer is, sadly, no. Braxton's reappearance is the textbook definition of deux ex machina. Braxton shows up, takes them home, no plausible explanation, no justification in terms of the story up to that point. It's not at all satisfying, and it's also not convincing that the Voyager crew would take the news so well. Jeri Taylor obviously wants this not to be a Gilligan's Island story, with them almost getting home and getting depressed about it -- but still, that's what it is, even if the characters don't admit it.
One other plot problem is a dropped plot thread -- Voyager being caught on tape and plastered all over the news (reminiscent, in fact, of "Tomorrow is Yesterday," which was built almost entirely around retrieving film footage of the Enterprise). This is dismissed in about 2 lines of dialogue and never mentioned again. Given that it was the cliff-hanging image of part one, and how much trouble it should have been, this is a disappointing way to wrap up this thread. And considering that time was wasted with the whole militia group story, this remains a big missed opportunity.
I also had a couple of problems with the episode in terms of Treknology. There were two pieces of technology that the writers played awfully fast and loose with -- the transporter and the holodeck. Now, to be fair, these problems are not limited to this episode -- writers have been inconsistent with these ideas all through TNG and Voyager. But problems arise here.. first, with regard to the transporter: can one move, and electronics operate, during transport? Logic would dictate that the answer is no -- you're just a mess of particles during transport, thus you can't do anything, and electronics shouldn't work -- and certainly nothing should be able to send out signals during transport. But logic went out the window in TNG's "Realm of Fear", where Barclay had adventures while in mid-beam. And logic continues to take a blow here, as Starling is able to try to interfere with the transporter, while he is in the beam.
With regard to holo-technology... the debate continues to rage in Trek writing over just what holo-people are. Are they just light, as the prefix "holo" seems to imply, and has sometimes been stated in the episodes, or are they real matter? In this episode, (as my brother pointed out to me), we get both interpretations. In many scenes, the Doctor is solid -- he can be punched, and punching him seems to hurt your hand. You can pin something on him (his communicator, the mobile holo-emitter). He can carry things. But, at other times, he is just light -- when he is shot at, the pellets go right through him. This at the same time that he is holding a phaser -- so bits of him are solid, bits light. Yet if he can turn bits of himself into light, why let the goon hit him? And if physical injuries don't harm him, why not let the shotgun blasts hit him? What, in short, is he? The writers sure don't seem to want to make any decision.
Having said that, the new holo-emitter should expand the horizons for the doctor's character, which is good news. I'm not sure I'll ever be happy with the explanation of the technology, tho. I was also glad that the writers worked in a mention of the doctor's memory problems -- tho the subject warrants far more attention than this.
One last plot note: I can't help but wonder about all the time travel going on these days in the Trek universe. "Trials.." over on DS9, "Future's End", and, by all accounts, "First Contact." Perhaps the production staffs ought to get together and discuss what sort of stories they're doing, to avoid duplication. All this time travel also seems to me to be bitterly ironic, given that the misguided "nexus" in "Generations" was a crude fix dreamed up by the writers to avoid doing a time travel story, which they had ruled out. The entire sorry mess that the movie was is due to the fact that they wanted to avoid time travel stories -- now, they just can't seem to get enough. It's enough to give a TOS fan a fit....
Looking back over this review, it's all quite negative. That's a shame. It really wasn't a bad episode -- it was, mostly, fast-paced, mostly enjoyable, with good characterizations and acting. The guest stars -- Rain and Starling -- were great, some of the best guest stars of the series. There was even growth in Paris' character, and a reasonably believable romance. But still, there are numerous plot holes and technological glitches which prevent this from being a purely enjoyable story. Miles better than "False Profits", tho.
[I'm sorry, this review has been interrupted twice by my computer's hardware failures, and so will get pretty vague pretty quickly]
This is one of the best Voyager episodes so far, and its success is due in large part to one person: Jennifer Lien. She really has to carry this episode, and it demands a lot of her -- she has to convincingly portray both the sweet and demure Kes as well as the bloodthirsty warlord of the title. And she does so, in truly dazzling style. Happily, the writing of the episode is also tight and effective, with no gaping plot holes, allowing us to truly enjoy the fun.
Before I discuss all that good stuff, I want to talk about the opening scene of the episode and the other scene set in Neelix's new holodeck program. Some people were concerned that DS9's "Let He Who Is Without Sin..." represented the Baywatch-ing of Trek. I think "Warlord" actually ushers in the BayTrek (StarWatch?) era -- it's a safe bet DS9 won't be going back to Risa very much. There's a very real possibility, tho, that this holodeck program will become a recurring part of Voyager's universe, allowing the cast (and various extras) to strut their stuff in bathing suits. Is this really necessary? It's certainly gratuitous. Now, I'm all in favor of getting rid of that lame pub set they used to hang out in, but this isn't really an improvement. And, really, I don't see the need for a holodeck meeting place.
But on to the story... and it's a good one. the Voyager rescues three passengers from a critically damaged ship, beaming them directly to sickbay. Kes and the Doctor look after them, but one dies, under Kes' care. But, we later learn, he's not quite as dead as he might seem. That body was actually possessed by the intellect of a powerful warlord, and he has taken control of Kes' body. The manner in which we discover this possession is quite dramatic -- Kes kills a visiting dignitary from the aliens' planet and a Voyager crewmember, then steals a shuttle with the two other visitors. Before this, there had been some indications that something was different with Kes -- ie, her argument with Neelix -- but the true nature of what was going on was nicely held in check until the transporter scene. (Unless, of course, like anyone who watches Trek, you'd seen the trailer for the episode, in which case you knew what was going to happen a week ago.)
[Vagueness begins here]
At this point, we learn that Kes has been taken over by the alien warlord, and is planning on re-taking his homeworld. This will require a military attack and the murder of the sitting ruler. Nevertheless, "Kes" carries out his plan, and seizes control of the planet, his only rival luckily out of harm's way on Voyager. The rest of the episode is concerned with "Kes"'s attempts to maintain power and Janeway's attempts to rescue Kes. All of this is not, I will freely admit, particularly deep material, nor is it very thought provoking or complex. It is quite a lot of fun, however. Again, this is mostly due to Jennifer Lien and her impressive performance. She is quite believable as the warlord, all raging id and psychoses. She creates a quite believable character, and an interesting one at that -- even if he is quite evil. The writers even stretch a bit here, having "Kes" come on to characters of both sexes for a variety of reasons. As Voyager goes, that's fairly daring stuff, and, again, it's certainly fun to watch. (although why the writers feel comfortable with those scenes but not with revealing just how intimate Kes and Neelix are is something of a conundrum)
This episode is also a good one for Kes, as she is also the person who, in the end, saves the day. Kes never gives in to the person invading her mind, and her personality fights ever more successfully for control. This gives us more of a glimpse into Kes' inner strength and determination than we've seen before -- and we are given another glimpse at how powerful her mental abilities can be. There are also some nice Kes/Tuvok moments, adding some weight (and a bit of sexual tension?) to that relationship. (although I still don't know why the mind-zapping device didn't work the first time Tuvok put it on Kes' face.)
The episode ends with a bit of an action finale, much of which occurs off-screen, but which ends with a battle in the sort of throne-room. Here the last of the rebel troops ore overwhelmed and the warlord's personality is destroyed. Not all of this is really believable, though, and it's not particularly well written. Still, Kes gets another chance to show her inner strength during the finale, and at least that's something.
So, in sum: not a profound or important episode, but a very fun one, and a tour-de-force for Jennifer Lien. Some minor plot flaws, but nothing critical. A good, fun outing.
In this episode, Q makes yet another appearance in the Trek universe, stirring up trouble for the Voyager. As I see it, there are two main problems with this episode: First, it's not very interesting. Second, it doesn't make any sense.
The episode opens with the crew gazing awe-struck at a nearby supernova, which isn't a bad way to start an episode. Starting with a bang and all. Janeway then retires to her quarters, where Q appears, asking Janeway to have his baby. This scene, and several Q scenes which follow, are far to enamored of their own self-conscious cuteness to actually be interesting. It's strictly Q-by-numbers, as he and Janeway exchange "witty" banter as Q tries to get her to bear his child and Janeway refuses. Since we know she's not going to say "yes", there's no drama to these scenes (Q is in non-malevolent mode, so there's no suggestion of him forcing her), and thus the only source of potential interest is in enjoying the banter for its own sake. While it's clear Mulgrew and DeLancey are enjoying themselves, there's not really much for the rest of us to hold onto -- just Q trying to be cute, and Janeway not buying it.
During these opening sequences, there's also a scene with Q, Harry and Tom in the misbegotten holodeck beach set. If only they would stop using this set.... but I suspect there's precious little chance of that. At least the scene is fairly brief. It's also pointless, as Q tries to engage Tom and Harry in banter, this time trying to get their advice on how to pursue Janeway. Of course, they refuse. Q then tries to get information out of Neelix, who tries to come to the captain's defense. Neelix taking on Q -- now there's a fight I'd like to see!
At any rate, after Q tries to ply Janeway with a puppy (?!), another Q shows up -- Q's longtime girlfriend, played by Suzie Plakson. The casting, at least, is great -- Plakson is a very able actress, who was fabulous as K'Ehleyr (and was the only good thing about the not-at-all-missed sitcom "Love and War"). I always wished that the writers hadn't killed off K'Ehleyr -- she was far too interesting a character. But, she's dead -- and now Plakson is Q. If they feel the need to do more Q episodes, I hope they use Plakson in them -- she could make a very fine Q. In this episode, however, she has precious little to do -- and in these opening scenes, her job is to be jealous. But, as I've said, this whole opening gambit of Q trying, without explanation, to get Janeway to mate with him really doesn't work, and even the new Q can't make it go.
Soon, the Voyager is endangered by a series of supernovas, and Q spirits Janeway off to the continuum, now looking not like a dusty backroad, but rather like a Civil War-era southern mansion. Q explains that this is simply a representation, an illusion to allow Janeway to make some sense of her surroundings. The Continuum, it seems, is itself in the midst of a civil war, caused by the death of the Q we met in the last Voyager Q episode. Some, including Q, are fighting for greater individualism, more freedom, pushing for change, etc. Others argue for the status quo. I must say, I didn't find the Civil War trappings to be in the least bit interesting. To fight the war, the members of the Continuum have developed weapons which can harm eachother, even though they are all omnipotent and immortal (perhaps this is Voyager's answer to the old question, "if God is omnipotent, can he make a rock so big that he himself can't move it?" Or, perhaps the writers haven't thought much about what it means to be omnipotent.) Janeway expresses dismay that the Continuum haven't been able to get beyond using violence to solve problems, believing that the Q ought to be more advanced than that (apparently, Janeway has forgotten everything she ever knew about Q, which is that he, and the continuum, are petty and capricious).
Janeway and Q soon come under heavy fire, and, (offscreen), Janeway manages to get a wounded Q through the battle to a rebel camp. (amazing what you can accomplish offscreen!) There, Janeway continues to try to convince Q that the Continuum ought to work out their problems non-violently, that that is the only appropriate solution. (Just like Janeway worked out her problems with the Kazon nonviolently, or Starfleet and the Maquis....) Q explains his reasons for wanting to impregnate Janeway -- his belief that by reproducing, especially with a non-Q, he can somehow show all the continuum that change is possible, and the child can lead to a new day of hope, or something.
There are two problems with these developments. First, Q's motives: I never understood them. I still don't know why a child would so anything to help he situation, or how it would convince anyone to lay down arms, or resolve any of the conflicts that lead to the war, etc. It may be that I just missed something, but this reasoning simple eludes me. Q's reasoning is flawed, I believe, in another way. A Q child is, in fact, nothing new. We've met one before. In TNG's "True-Q", we met Amanda Rogers, the daughter of Q's, living as humans on Earth. In fact, at this point in time, Amanda ought to be in the Continuum, where Q took her at the end of that episode. Again, I don't understand why Q having a child would change anything. Thus, there's no convincing rationale for the story to take place at all.
There is also the problem of how Janeway deals with the Q civil war -- by making speeches and giving lectures about the evils of violence. The problem isn't that she's wrong -- of course, it's better to seek non-violent resolutions. The problem is her stunning lack of subtlety. This is Trek speechifying at it's very worst, with Janeway tut-tutting at every Q she talks to. Add to the problem of deeply uninspired dialogue the fact that Janeway is lecturing hyperdimensional beings millions of years older than herself and infinitely more knowledgeable and powerful, and you have a real weak point in the script. There's simply nothing clever or convincing or interesting about Janeway's speeches.
Meanwhile, back on the Voyager, Chakotay wants to find Janeway -- which means going to the Continuum. For reasons never adequately explained, the female Q has lost her powers, so she explains, via lengthy technobabble, how the Voyager can get to the continuum. (a side note about the technobabble -- I know, really, it's pointless to analyze it or even think about it, as it's simply there to make the journey to the continuum sound plausible. But here goes anyhow: part of the process involves emitting ant-protons from the ship. Now, we KNOW what this would so -- make a very big "boom!", as those anti-protons would hit matter and annihilate eachother. This seems awfully dangerous, and it's not clear why that would do anything other than hurt the ship... but anyway.) Chakotay and crew execute Q's orders, and, apparently, make their way to the Continuum.
Back in the Continuum, Janeway and Q are taken hostage, and sentenced to death. Q makes a (possibly) noble attempt to save Janeway's life, but the opposing forces will have none of it, and prepare to execute the pair. Here's where things start to really fall apart. Q2 and the Voyager crew arrive, all outfitted with the Continuum's Q-killing weapons. They attack the camp and rescue Q and Janeway. Yes, after all of Janeway's speeches about the beauty of non-violence, the episode has a big action, guns- blazing finale. But, either the writer or the director find a clumsy solution to this problem: while they show us plenty of scenes of Tom and the others firing their weapons, they *never show us if they hit anyone*. It may be that Tom and Tuvok wiped out half of the Union army; on the other hand, in best A-Team style, they may not have actually hurt anyone at all. We don't really see. But, with the tactical battle won, Janeway now convinces Q that he doesn't need her, and Q and Q mate, ET-style, and Q2 becomes pregnant. Again, I don't understand why this should effect the political situation in the continuum, but apparently it does. The Voyager is able to continue on its way, and Q now has a cute little baby boy Q.
Another fairly gaping plot hole in all this is the almost total absence of any reference to the fact that Q could send the Voyager home. At one point, Q does hold out that possibility to Janeway, but she dismisses it out of hand, saying that she and her crew "don't want any easy answers", that they want to earn their way home, or something. I could actually hear the 200-plus voices of her crew screaming at the top of their lungs, "Speak for yourself, Cap'n! I'll take the easy way home!!" If the crew ever finds out about what she said, by all rights, there ought to be a mutiny. But, of course, there won't be. After that, the issue isn't raised again. Even tho, at any point, any Q with their powers could send Voyager home in a millisecond. Now, I know that Jeri Taylor doesn't want to keep on doing Gilligan's Island stories, where the crew almost gets home. But it doesn't help any to have the crew ignore obvious opportunities to try to get home. If the situation presents a chance for the Voyager to get home, the script ought to seriously address that -- but both in "Future's End" and this episode, the script dances around the issue. I think, in the long run, that's at least as destructive as annoying Gilligan's Island stories, and perhaps moreso.
There's another fundamental problem with the episode, and that is the characterization of Q. When Q was first introduced, he was almost entirely malevolent -- dangerous, deceitful, destructive, and omnipotent. In subsequent appearances, he became more puckish, more playful. But in the best Q episodes -- such as the frightening "Q Who?" -- Q retained that sense of danger, of menace, of unpredictability. All of those qualities are completely lacking in Q in this story. Q is, in fact, basically a good guy. He has lost all of his edge, and thus simply isn't very interesting. When Q is viewed by the crew as simply an annoyance, and not a threat, there's something wrong with the writing.
Finally, a word about the Civil War setting. As I've already said, I don't think it added anything to the episode, it just ran up the costume budget. I think part of the problem is that it makes the continuum look awfully pedestrian. It's just not very interesting to see the Continuum represented as a realistic version of the old South. Realism doesn't help convey the alienness of the Continuum. The back-road version of the Continuum was more successful, I think, because, even though it was realistic, it was still somehow surreal. There's nothing surreal about this Civil War setting. Perhaps something like the setting of TOS' "Spectre of the Gun" would have been more effective -- a fascinating scene of facades and half-finished buildings. (Yes, I know they did it back then because of budget constraints, but it was still admirably spooky and surreal.) I just don't think it adds to the story to have the Continuum look so run-of-the-mill.
So, wrapping up: a not-particularly-engaging Q story, beginning with excessive mugging and moving on to arduous speech- making. The story never really makes any sense, and thus the resolution falls flat. Perhaps its time to put Q on hiatus for a while -- or to return him to his old, nasty self.
This is, in short, another Brannon Braga weird-space-anomaly special, full of horrible science, bad writing, and precious little drama -- but cliches aplenty.
The episode begins, ala Braga's "Timescape" and "Genesis" on TNG, with the Captain returning to the ship from an away mission, only to find that something is terribly wrong. The Voyager is not where it should be, and is not responding. Janeway finds the Voyager on senors, and warps to it, finding it listing in space. She and Neelix board her to find out what's wrong.
Upon boarding the ship, Janeway and Neelix find it eerily quiet, with no signs of normal shipboard activity, and hints of strange creatures on board (ala "Genesis.") The crew is nowhere to be found, and Janeway & Neelix fear they may be dead. (Of course, we know they are not.) The two then chase one of the shadows, but it escapes them, leaving behind a hole in the deck and a lot of icky goo. (Federation Tricorders also demonstrate their astounding versatility, telling Janeway in less than a second that the goo contains fragments of non-humanoid DNA. Amazing analytical powers those little things have.) Our remaining heroes try to head for the bridge, having detected lifesigns aboard the Voyager. Halfway there, though, Neelix is mercifully kidnapped by an unknown, goo-bearing baddie. (Shades of "Ghostbusters"!)
Janeway now decides it's time to get tough, and heads to engineering to gear up. Someone obviously saw both "Aliens" and "Terminator 2", and decided that Voyager could use a scene just like those movies had. Thus, Janeway gears up just like Linda Hamilton, stripping down to a sleeveless t-shirt (trivia note: we now know that Starfleet women wear a total of *4* layers of clothing. Perhaps they could just turn up the heat instead...) and starts piling on the weapons. On goes the knife, on goes the badass phaser rifle, on goes the extra equipment in the backpack. Now Janeway is ready to be sweaty, sleeveless, and mean, and to wave her rifle through doorways, as she hunts down the Terminator... er... acid-blooded aliens... er... the whatevers.
On the bridge, Janeway gets stalked by a sound effect, and eventually bitten by an alien being, infecting her, but she is able to determine where the crew is. Thus, she heads on down to the mess hall, where many of the crew are lying in a messy jumble, feverish and unconscious. Finally, we get a good look at what has taken over the Voyager -- a big three-armed blobish computer-generated effect on loan from "Hercules". Janeway blows one to bits, in a quite badly executed CGI effect, and stumbles down the hallway into the Sickbay, where she is greeted by a still-functional HoloDoc.
Up until this point, the episode has a fairly consistent tone of attempted creepiness and isolation -- only one or two characters wandering around a dark, empty, ship. That atmosphere is now shattered, as we are treated to a lengthy flashback explaining what happened before we got to this point. This also marks the end of the episode as a mystery -- rather that trying to piece together what has happened, Janeway now gets to simply sit back and listen -- as do we. This is, of course, not as interesting as a mystery, and as I said, it destroys the mood that had be created up till now.
The other problem that now arises is the explanation for the catastrophe -- a "macrovirus". Apparently, a virus on an alien planet incorporated a species' growth hormone into it's DNA, and got real big. At this point, I can only assume all biologists and doctors out there switched off their sets, and I was sorely tempted to as well. The upshot is, this little bit of technobabble ignores everything there is to know about viruses, hormones, and quite probably everything else about biology. It's an atrocious, awful, ill-conceived idea, again demonstrating Voyager's contempt for science. (Or perhaps its only Brannon Braga's.) After this, the only way to continue watching is to turn off the brain, I suppose, as it can't possibly make the slightest bit of sense.
At any rate, as the story goes, the HoloDoc went on an away mission to try to cure this plague, and accidentally brought it back with him. (The explanation for how the virus escapes the transporter's biofilter is also nonsensical and seems to violate what we know about transporters, but at this point, I guess, who's counting.) Soon, the virus infected most of the crew, and grew real, REAL big, too.
After this, the episode is a simple, action-oriented bughunt, with Janeway and the Doc trying to cure the crew & wipe out the macroviruses with a synthetic antigen. Using the holodeck (the awful Baywatch program) and a hastily thrown-together bomb, Janeway is able to wipe out the viruses, and the crew is soon cured as well. And that's pretty much all there is.
To analyze the episode in any greater depth would be pointless, as it has no greater depth. It seems to have been created to show Janeway as a kick-ass, tough, action-hero type Captain, but does so with such monumentally obvious cliches that it ends up being laughable. We want to see Janeway being a strong Captain Janeway, not a strong Sarah Connor or Ripley. In addition, Janeway's character was fatally undercut in the first scene, in which she tells Neelix (Neelix!!) that he's better at dealing with new alien races than she is -- a rather fatal flaw in a Starfleet Captain. The rest of the episode is tedious action/suspense/sci-fi cliches, which you can see executed just as well on any number of cheesy "Aliens" rip-offs available on cable or at your video store. Even worse, Braga is mining his own previous work for ideas, themes, and entire scenes. This is a problem first because it shows a dearth of new ideas, and secondly because many of his old episodes were very, very bad ("Genesis" ranks as one of the worst Treks ever, right up there with "Threshold").
So: A bad concept, a cliche-ridden script, and unexceptional directing. Even the CGI effects were surprisingly bad. Bonus points, though, for showing Janeway listening to jazz during the coda.