The Gift
Like "Scorpion, Pt. II", this episode exists simply to resolve plot points: here, the episode needs to get a couple of things done to move the series forward into the new season: it has to get rid of Kes, and it has to establish why 7 of 9 is going to stay on the Voyager. If it happens to be entertaining, so be it, but it seems clear that the real point is simply to get these plot points established and move on as quickly as possible.
So, how'd it do? Starting with Seven of Nine... There's an obvious dilemma here for the Voyager writers. They need to have Seven stay on Voyager, but the character, as drawn, doesn't want to. So how to establish her presence in board? The solution they settled on is to have Janeway force her to stay -- which is a very problematic solution. Previously, Janeway, like other Trek figures, has stressed the importance of people's right to choose their own destinies. This is a guiding principle of the Federation. But here, Janeway says that Seven *must* stay on Voyager, even though she doesn't want to -- because, Janeway argues, it's really in Seven's best interest to stay, and besides, she was a Borg, and what does she know about decisions.
Now, actually, the scenes between Janeway and Seven as they hashed out these issues were pretty interesting, and the dialogue was good. Seven forcefully and persuasively presented her arguments, and Janeway did her best to refute them. The problem is, I agreed with everything Seven said, and with not a word that Janeway said. If the value of self-determination is to mean anything, Seven must be allowed to choose her own life -- after all, she is free of the (Borg) implants, so the Borg are no longer directly controlling her thoughts. If she wants to return to the strength of the collective, who is Janeway to stand in her way? Janeaway's position is much less clear -- she just thinks it would be bad for Seven to go back, and so won't let her. She thinks that Seven really really wants to be a human, even if she doesn't know it -- or, at least, that she can be made to want it. That's a diabolical attitude, and not at all defensible. It's possible that the writers actually intend this, and that we're meant to see something of a ruthless, totalitarian streak in Janeway -- but somehow I doubt it.
If the writers had simply not addressed the moral implications of forcing Seven to stay on board, I probably could have just accepted it -- dramatic license and all. Some things we just have to buy, like transporters and universal translators. But the writers didn't ignore the moral issue; they lay it bare for all to see, and then went ahead and ignored it -- and that I can't accept. "This is completely wrong, for all these reasons... and we're doing it anyway." I don't understand it at all.
Even stranger, at the end of the episode, Seven has pretty much come around, and is far more sanguine about staying on board -- even though there is no explanation given for her change of mind. In one scene, she is dead set against staying -- and in the next, she's choosing hairstyles. There's no transition, and no indication as to what might have changed her thinking. As to the Doc's costume he designed for her... well, it's been well said by everyone by now, but that is just a ludicrous costume. It's simply impossible not to stare at Seven's breasts when she's on screen in that thing -- and this is true, from what I can tell, for men and women, regardless of sexual orientation. It's just that her breasts are so *there*, so blatantly thrown in our faces, that it's impossible to ignore them. This is a problem if the writers expect us to pay attention to the story. On the other hand, maybe that's the point. Maybe the writers have taken a cue from Baywatch, that as long as enormous breasts are on screen, it doesn't matter how stupid the plot and dialog is. For viewers who want plots, this seems to be a troubling development. And why she needs a special lycra outfit instead of, say, a uniform, is beyond me. All the Maquis got uniforms...
Another non-uniformed crewmember is our dear friend Kes, who is given an unceremonious heave-ho in this episode. Kes has always been my favorite character in the show -- in part because I was already a fan of Jennifer Lien from her work on "Another World." But the character was interesting too -- intelligent, caring, and with all that untapped psychic power left to explore. (Plus, of course, that voice...) So, her departure should have been at least somewhat emotional for me -- I should have cared that she was leaving, it should have been sad. But as the episode played out, I just didn't care. And neither did anyone else on the show.
Part of the problem is that the explanation for Kes' departure is preposterous, and quite poorly set-up. Her psychic abilities spontaneously go nuts, making her a danger to the ship, and perhaps leading her to evolving beyond corporeal form. For something like that, we need an explanation -- something, anything, to tell us why this might happen. This episode steadfastly refuses. It's just happening; that's it. Don't ask any questions; just accept it. Well, it's an awful lot to buy. If it had been slowly set up in previous episodes, perhaps that would have helped sell it -- but to go from perfectly normal to star-child, spontaneously, in the space of one episode, is just too much to ask the viewer to buy.
There's also not much emotion attached to Kes' departure. Yes, she has the little farewell dinner with Neelix, where they actually talk about the fact that they've broken up (but not why). But this scene makes no sense. At the point in the episode at which it occurs, there is no sense that Kes' problem is going to force her to leave the ship -- and yet they break out the champagne, talk over all times, etc. This is clearly a farewell dinner -- but they shouldn't be having one yet. Of course, we know it's goodbye, since we saw the ads for this week's show -- but the characters shouldn't know. Kes has a more plausible goodbye scene with Janeway, but it just fell flat for me. I guess the problem is that the mother/daughter relationship between Janeway and Kes juts really wasn't fleshed out during the past three years, so the scene lacked resonance.
We are robbed of having anyone else say goodbye to Kes, as the plot turns into a silly race against the clock as Kes tries to leave the ship before she, er, does whatever she's going to do. So, she has no goodbye with Tuvok, or Tom, or the Doctor -- she simply leaves. Worse, we never get any reaction from other characters to Kes' departure (apart from one brief look over the shoulder from Tom.) No one ever seems to care that she was ever on board, that she left, or that she may have died. And since no one on screen cares, it's hard for the viewer to. It's also left perhaps *too* unclear what happened to her -- in interviews I've seen, Braga has referred to this as Kes' death -- but it certainly wasn't clear from the episode that we were supposed to think she was going to die. I guess it's because we've just seen too many Trek characters transform into hyperdimenional energy beings.
The meaning of the title -- "The Gift" -- is made clear at the end, as we find out Kes has moved them ten years closer to home. Questions abound -- why only 10 years closer? Why not all the way? They say they are now out of Borg territory -- but wasn't that only going to take weeks anyway? And why doesn't anyone seem to care that much about this leap, either in this episode or in the subsequent ones?
Summing up: "The Gift" is a very goal-oriented episode, just trying to get some plot points covered. This it does in a slipshod manner, making Seven's introduction implausible and even immoral, and draining Kes' departure of all emotional impact.