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| The Doctor is cut down to size. |
THE PLOT
Voyager is about to enter an area of space controlled by the Botha, extremely xenophobic aliens whom Neelix warns should be approached with caution. With this and other matters occupying her thoughts, the stress is wearing particularly heavily on Janeway. When she begins snapping almost randomly at crew members, the Doctor insists that she take some time for recreation.
She returns to her holonovel, which becomes particularly distracting when one of the characters makes romantic overtures. But after she leaves the holodeck, characters and images from her program continue to haunt her in the corridors. At first, she suspects an engineering glitch. Then she worries that the stress of her command has finally caught up with her. But when she finds that Kes also sees her hallucinations, it becomes apparent that something more is happening here - something that will soon affect the starship's entire crew!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: To her credit, she does not attempt to dismiss the possibility that her hallucinations are caused by stress. When the experiments in Engineering fail to explain them away, she immediately goes to sickbay. On the other hand, it's hardly surprising that Janeway has become overwhelmed by her workload: She is micromanaging to a ridiculous extent. She has a first officer, who despite his blandness appears generally competent. Can't Chakotay witness the attempt at transferring the Doctor to different stations and report back? Can't Chakotay listen to Neelix's briefing to at least determine if he has genuinely useful information or is just wasting Janeway's time (again)? When she is finally forced to delegate these responsibilities, she gives him a painstaking breakdown of what's going on - Shouldn't he already know all this? If not, then Janeway appears to be treating her first officer like a junior lieutenant. Though I'm assuming it's an accident of sloppy writing, this should be mined for further use down the road. If a script were to make a point of Janeway's lack of trust and communication with Chakotay, then that would transform some bad writing here into good drama later. I'm not betting on that happening, though.
Kes: Has been doing mental exercises with Tuvok to develop her telepathic abilities. A shame they didn't think to show any of this, as it would have allowed two characters who rarely interact some screen time together. Kes is able to see Janeway's hallucinations, and she is able to reflect them back "like a mirror." She has strong determination, to the point that she is able to shake off the hallucinations even when they begin targeting her.
The Doctor: When the hallucinations spread to the entire ship, he and Kes are the only two left unaffected - Kes, protected (to an extent) by her own telepathic abilities, the Doctor by being a hologram. The last part of the episode sees them acting very well as a team, the Doctor directing Kes as they save the ship together. Robert Picardo's comic timing comes into play at several points, particularly when he reflects on the Engineering operation necessary to halt the hallucinations shipwide. Kes asks if he knows how, and he nervously replies, "How hard can it be?"
THOUGHTS
At long last, a good episode! There hasn't been a flat-out good Voyager episode since the season premiere (though Projections came close), and readers of my reviews are likely aware that I was starting to despair. While not perfect, Persistence of Vision is well-made and entertaining. Jeri Taylor's script quickly sets up both plot and character strands within the teaser. We are told about the upcoming contact with the alien of the week, and we are shown that Janeway is overtaxed and overstressed. These strands are rapidly linked as the episode progresses. It's all rather well-structured, the character elements feeding the plot which in turn feeds the characters, and it has a steadily increasing pace.
It's also a solid ensemble piece. Janeway is squarely the lead. She is the first to suffer the hallucinations, and her overwork is the focus of the episode's characterization. But the Doctor and Kes are also critical to the story, with their resistance to the hallucinations allowing a somewhat plausible resolution to the threat. There are also good moments for Chakotay, Tom, Torres, Tuvok, and Neelix. Even Harry Kim gets a halfway decent scene!
There are a few debits. I've already mentioned that it strains credibility that Janeway isn't already delegating several of her tasks to Chakotay. Kes' expanding telepathic powers have also developed, but done so offscreen. There have been several uneventful episodes prior to this. Surely they could have shot a quick Kes/Tuvok scene showing some of her mental training to insert into one of those shows? There's also a moment near the climax in which Janeway calls Kes to the bridge. A few minutes later, Kes is still in sickbay. Unless Kes' reply was meant to be a hallucination, this is another sloppy moment.
But these are all relatively minor. Enough to keep this from being a first-rate show, but hardly enough to harm its entertainment value. Well-structured, with good bits for pretty much all the characters and several strong scenes, this is the most entertaining episode of Season Two thus far. Hopefully, it's a sign that the show's starting to emerge from its doldrums.
Overall Rating: 7/10.
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