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| Janeway takes the idea of confronting herself literally. |
Much to my surprise, Voyager's first season was actually promising. Not brilliant, to be sure - fully half the cast still didn't work very well by the end of the year, and there was a distinct lack of ambition in the storytelling. Still, the best episodes of Season One, notably and Faces showed just how good Voyager could be. At the very least, barring a few bad episodes, Season One was generally fun to watch.
Season Two takes that potential and... squanders it. Most of Season One's flaws are magnified. The first year's storytelling was unadventurous; the second year's is outright hackneye. But though I come largely to bury Voyager and not to praise it, I will be fair enough to first discuss the one area in which the series actually improved.
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| Episodes like Meld help make Tim Russ's Tuvok the season's most improved character. |
CHARACTERIZATION: THE GOOD
The regular characters were better-served in Season Two than in Season One. This is particularly evident among the male cast, who except for the holographic doctor seemed fairly weak in the first season. Robert Duncan McNeill's Tom Paris, intermittently promising last year, is consistently good this year. Critical to this is that the writers are now tuning their scripts to McNeill's strengths and away from his weaknesses. Gone are the ill-conceived attempts to turn Tom into an edgy anti-hero. Instead, he is shown to be flawed but sincere in his desire to do right by his post, his ship, and his captain.
Tim Russ' Tuvok is even better, so much so that I'd rate him as the season's most improved character. In Season One, Russ too often fell on the wrong side of the line between "reserved" and "robot." This year, he nails the characterization, capably showing a man who keeps his emotions in reserve but who still genuinely reacts to situations. It helps that he gets some of the season's best writing. Meld particularly allows him to show his range, presenting an episode that not only shows Tuvok's darkest side, but also his inherent sense of honor. Even in lesser episodes, such as the enjoyable yet flawed Resolutions or the entirely expendable Innocence, Russ manages to impress.
If they had written Tuvok out after Season One, I don't think I would have cared at all. After Season Two, his character is one of the ones I'm actively looking forward to seeing more of.
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| Seska tortures Chakotay. Which is only fair given how much Chakotay tortures the audience. |
CHARACTERIZATION: THE BAD
Kes was a character who worked. In fact, she was one of two characters (the other being the doctor) who worked right away. In Season One, the writers made good use of her. She was a supporting character, but she was visible and important throughout. This is no longer the case in Season Two.
Kes still gets good episodes here and there. But outside of a handful of shows, she is almost perpetually sidelined. Her relationship with the doctor, one of her defining ones, is diminished in importance, as is her friendship with Tom. Jennifer Lien is still good, and retains her knack for making the most of the scraps she's given. But those scraps have grown a lot leaner, and it seems evident that the writers have lost interest in her.
Lien's spark at least keeps the character engaging during her limited screentime. The same cannot be said of either Harry Kim or Chakotay. These characters (and actors) did not work in Season One, and they still don't work in Season Two.
At least Harry gets The Thaw, an episode which shows that the character could have worked. It's not that there are any traits here that don't exist in other episodes. He's still the technobabble expert, he still has absolute faith in Janeway, and he's still so rigidly moral that it actually becomes a fault. However, he is examined in greater depth, made human by revelations of his greatest fears, and this allows Garrett Wang a thus-far unique opportunity to show that he actually can act... if only the other 25 scripts per season would be kind enough to allow him to.
Chakotay doesn't even get that much. Even in good episodes, nothing is done to make him stand out. We either are reminded that he is Native American and therefore mystical, or we see him responding to the manipulations of others (mostly Seska). As a character unto himself, all that's there is a facial tattoo in a uniform. Making mattes worse, actor Robert Beltran is wooden even in good episodes. He's downright oak-like in bad ones.
And the worst part of this? While Harry at least is only spotlighted occasionally, the Seska arc means that Chakotay gets a lot of screentime this season... almost all of it dull.
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| Neelix is jealous of Tom's friendship with Kes. Amazingly, this isn't him at his worst. |
CHARACTERIZATION: THE UGLY
Which brings me to Neelix. In my overview of Season One, I stated that I was undecided about him. Well, Season Two has me off the fence. I can now state with some confidence that I do not like him, not one little bit.
Ethan Phillips is a capable actor. He does well with the few good moments he gets, notably in Alliances and Investigations, two episodes in which Neelix actually gets to be competent and useful. But he and his character are utterly sabotaged by the scripts. It's as if, upon discovering that many were irritated by Neelix, the writers passive-aggressively decided to show the audience the true meaning of "annoying."
Neelix's jealousy of Tom's friendship with Kes is irritating enough. But I really hate his constant needling of Tuvok. It may be an attempt to create a Spock/McCoy dynamic. But it suffers from the same problem that plagued the early interactions of Dr. Pulaski and Data in Season Two of TNG: Namely, when one party stoically accepts the needling of the other rather than fighting back, it just becomes bullying. Bullying done with cheerfulness and a smile isn't any more endearing than when it's done with a scowl. TNG figured this out quickly and moved to a friendlier Pulaski/Data dynamic. Voyager doesn't even seem to realize that there's a problem.
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| Threshold really isn't the worst episode of Star Trek - but it just might be the strangest. |
"WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?"
Despite the continuing weakness of Chakotay and Harry Kim and the aggravation of Neelix, characterization in Season Two is mostly an improvement. The rest of the cast now works, offering several characters who are at least enjoyable to follow.
But one other component is needed for success: I have to be interested in seeing what these characters do and/or what happens to them. This is the area in which Voyager's second season not only stumbles, but most of the time falls smack onto its face.
It's not so much an issue of quality control. There are some bad episodes, sure, including one hilariously bad one. But most of the individual episodes are at least watchable, and several are quite good. Death Wish and The Thaw provide the series with its first truly great episodes, ones that I think rival the best of other Trek shows.
It's all fine enough episode by episode. It's only when you string the episodes together that the problem becomes clear: Namely, that there is nothing hooking me into wanting to see what happens next. This isn't specifically an appeal for arc-based television. In fact, there is an arc that runs through the second half of the season, involving the Kazon and Seska, which comes complete with a subsidiary arc involving a turncoat member of the crew. That's more multi-episode storytelling than you'll find within most TNG seasons.
Butthere's no sense that events actually matter. Things happen to the characters, but mostly they don't have any impact. Even Seska shoving a stolen son at Chakotay doesn't change his character (pity), save for in the first half of Basics. The external threats appear and are vanquished, with little sense of any impact on the crew.
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| Suder (Brad Dourif) goes out in a blaze of glory. Because keeping him around might be messy, and we can't have that. |
BACK TO BASICS
It's fitting that the season cliffhanger is titled Basics, given that the 2-parter's wrap-up basically ejects any elements that might create interesting complications for Season Three. Chakotay's half-Cardassian son? Turns out the other half is Kazon, and Chakotay has no connection with the child at all. Recurring villain Seska, with her personal connection to Chakotay? Unceremoniously killed off... which will hopefully at least reduce Chakotay's screen time, though it deprives the series of its only effective recurring villain in the process.
As for the unstable Suder, so wonderfully played by veteran actor Brad Dourif? He's exactly the kind of character Voyager needs. He's a man who has fierce demons he's trying to control. He's a potential wild card, someone who could help or harm the crew at any given turn. He's not someone you want to see as a regular, which would inevitably lead to toning down the very elements which make him interesting in the first place. But he's a worthy recurring character, someone to check in on maybe 3 - 4 times per season.
So of course, he gets to die in a blaze of glory. The net result is that we are left with only the Starfleet faithful. Well, and the Maquis, but since they all behave exactly like Starfleet faithful (another missed opportunity), that hardly registers as a difference.
The series goes back to basics in the most depressing way possible: By removing anything that might create mess in a situation that by all rights should be extremely, even inherently, messy.
GOODBYE, MR. PILLER
Season Two of Voyager marks the end of Michael Piller's regular association with Star Trek. Part Two of Basics is his final Voyager script, with his only writing credit for the franchise after this being the movie, Star Trek: Insurrection.
Given how good Piller's work was for TNG and DS9, I wish I could feel sorry that his contribution ends here. But I can't... because his Voyager work isn't of the same standard. The only Piller script of Season Two that has the resonance of his best scripts is Death Wish - a story that is all about Q, with this series' regulars little more than plot devices.
I retain enormous respect for Piller's role in making TNG into a genuinely good series. But I think he had already given Star Trek everything he had, and I doubt that Voyager will be much the poorer for his exit. Honestly, if it gets much poorer, I'm unlikely to still be watching come the end of the journey.
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| Michael McKean as an evil clown in The Thaw, one of several episodes showing Voyager's potential. |
SEASON THREE WISHLIST
That the show gets better? All right, I'll be more specific...
First and foremost... NO MORE KAZON!!! Seska's an interesting character, well-played by Martha Hackett. But she spends the entire season shackled to this troupe of dullards, who are about as menacing as a group of renegade Smurfs. The latter half of Season Two is heavily occupied with the machinations of the Kazon (a phrase I simply can't type with a straight face), and every episode just reinforces how tediously inept they are.
And why has so much time been spent on the Kazon when the series has already introduced a far more effective recurring villain? The Vidiians are everything the Kazon aren't: Creepy to the point of being genuinely terrifying, multidimensional with a backstory that makes them victims as well as villains, and possessing technology that makes them the equals of our regulars, meaning that they actually pose a threat! There are very few good Kazon episodes and no great ones. There have been no bad Vidiian episodes to date, and shows such as Faces hint at the potential for greatness.
It may be that the very things that make the Vidiians so menacing also doom them to only occasional appearances. They are extremely disturbing. Moments such as the Vidiians casually marching into sickbay and extracting organs from helpless victims, or a Vidiian scientist turning to camera to reveal that he's wearing the face of a dead crewman... These are the stuff of nightmares. It may be that a show like Voyager, a series that plays it safe at every turn, was uncomfortable exploring them too thoroughly. Any serious exploration of the Vidiians would get messy... and Voyager can't abide a mess.
Which brings me to my biggest wish for the future: MAKE IT MESSY!!! The characters are in a desperate situation. They are far from home, with no realistic hope of ever seeing it again. The crew is (theoretically) made up of two groups that were in conflict not long ago, and many of these crew members should have minimal loyalty to Janeway and none at all to Starfleet. They're now taking some casualties, while resources are steadily depleted.
But it never feels like this is the situation. We see no sign of dwindling resources and little sign of emotional strain or tension among the crew. Most episodes might as well be set in the Alpha Quadrant, with a Starbase in hailing distance, for all the difference it would make to the tone or the storytelling.
If the situation could be allowed to seem as desperate as it should be, this would be a far more interesting series. Unfortunately, Voyager doesn't want to do anything other than pay occasional lip-service to that situation.
After all, to do otherwise might be messy.
Previous: Season One
Next: Season Three
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