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 Prime Factors 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 hackneyed and dull. 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.
CHARACTERIZATION: THE GOOD
The regular characters were largely 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, to the point that I'd rate him as the season's single most-improved character. Russ has found the fine line between "reserved" and "robot," and stays on the right side of that line this year. Good writing helps again. Meld particularly allows him to show his range, presenting an episode that not only sees Tuvok's darkest side being allowed expression, but which also shows 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 him out between Seasons One and Two, I wouldn't have cared a whit. But now I look forward to seeing where his character goes in future seasons.
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 the season.
In Season Two, Kes gets sidelined. She still gets good episodes here and there. But outside that handful of shows, she is mostly a glorified extra. 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 very lean, and it seems evident that the writers have just 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 as a character in his own right. 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. Robert Beltran's performance doesn't help. He is wooden even in good episodes, and downright oak-like in bad ones.
Even worse? 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.
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 Neelix, 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 for a change. 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 poking and needling of Tuvok 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 simply stoically accepts the needling of the other rather than fighting back, it comes across as bullying. Cheerful bullying done with a smile, perhaps, but that doesn't make it endearing. TNG figured this out quickly, and moved to a friendlier Pulaski/Data dynamic well before the season midpoint. Voyager, by contrast, doesn't even seem to realize that there's a problem.
"WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?"
Despite the continuing weakness of Chakotay and Harry Kim and the aggravation of Neelix, I will repeat that characterization in Season Two is mostly an improvement over Season One. The majority of the cast now works, and they are characters who are at least enjoyable to follow.
But even if they're now characters I can actually enjoy watching, one other component is needed for success: I have to be interested in seeing what they do and/or what happens to them next. 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 range from solid to at least watchable, and several are quite good. Death Wish and The Thaw provide the series with its first truly great episodes, ones which rival the best episodes of other Trek shows.
No, it's only when you string them together that it gradually becomes clear:
After watching one episode, there's nothing hooking me into wanting to see the next one. 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. It even has a subsidiary arc, involving a turncoat member of the crew. That's more attempt at multi-episode narrative than you'll find within most TNG seasons.
While there may be an arc, however, there's no sense that the events of the episodes actually matter. Things happen to the characters, but mostly they don't have any real 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 that any of it has an impact on the crew.
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 have created 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 - allowing him to be safely forgotten in future episodes. 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 very well-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. Not someone you want to see as a regular - that would inevitably lead to toning down the very elements which make him interesting in the first place. But he's definitely 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 is noteworthy for marking the end of Michael Piller's regular association with Star Trek. Part Two of Basics is his final Voyager script. His only writing credit for the franchise after this was 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 simply isn't of the same standard as his work for the other shows. The only Piller script of Season Two that has the resonance of his very best work is Death Wish - a story that is all about Q, with this series' regulars little more than plot devices.
I think it's understandable, and I say this with enormous respect for his role in making TNG into a genuinely good series. But I think Piller had already given Star Trek everything he had to give, and I doubt this show will truly be the poorer for his exit. Honestly, if it gets much poorer, I'm unlikely to still be watching come the end of the journey.
SEASON THREE WISHLIST
That the show gets better? All right, I'll be more specific...
First and foremost... NO MORE KAZON!!! Has Star Trek ever had a duller recurring villain than the 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 are no bad Vidiian episodes, and shows such as Faces hint at the potential for greatness.
It may be that the very things that make the Vidiians such menacing villains also doom them to only occasional appearances. They are extremely disturbing. Moments such as the Vidiians casually marching into sickbay and extracting organs from their 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 these villains 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.
And yet, so far it never feels like this is the situation. We see no sign of a ship with few resources, no real 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, I see no sign that Voyager will ever do anything other than pay occasional lip-service to this.
After all, to do otherwise might be messy.
Next: Season Three
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