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| Kes is possessed by a ruthless warlord. |
THE PLOT
Voyager comes across a badly-damaged alien vessel. The crew barely manage to beam the ship's injured passengers to sickbay before it explodes. Two of the passengers, Nori (Galyn Gorg) and Adin (Anthony Crivello), have only minor wounds. The third is Nori's husband, Tieran (Leigh J. McCoskey), who dies even as Kes attempts treatement.
Janeway expresses her condolences and agrees to divert Voyager's course to drop the survivors off on their home plant, Ilari. During the journey, Kes spends a lot of time with the Ilari, so it's natural that she would come to the transporter room to wish them goodbye.
Then she pulls out a phaser, shoots a Voyager crew member and the Ilari representative who's come to greet them, and beams herself, Nori, and Adin down the planet's surface!
Kes has been possessed by Tieran, who was once the leader of the Ilari, ousted after a long and oppressive reign. Tieran had been obsessed with his own mortality, and had perfected a means of transferring his consciousness into host bodies. Now he has control of Kes - and a stronger mastery of her mental powers than she has yet approached. Advantages he intends to use to reclaim control of his planet - with the still-aware Kes fighting him from inside her mind every step of the way!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: Largely just the usual from her here. She refuses to give up on Kes, and insists on exhausting any approach that might recover her lost crew member before she will join in a direct assault.
Tuvok: Volunteers to infiltrate Tieran's stronghold to attempt to rescue Kes. The warlord's control of Kes' telepathic powers results in his rapid capture, resulting in a genuinely interesting scene between Tuvok and Teiran/Kes. Tieran uses Kes' telepathy to try to break through the Vulcan's mental control. She is able to sense the anger just below the surface, observing that - as we saw in Meld - it is the emotion most likely to cost him his self-control. Tuvok manages to resist the warlord's baiting, and briefly breaks through to Kes to urge her to "make (Tieran's) strengths your strengths."
Neelix: She may be possessed by the Villain of the Week, but there is not a thing Kes says to Neelix in the "break-up scene" that isn't true. From almost the very beginning, Neelix has been possessive of Kes and jealous of any time she spends with others. Just a season ago, he was attacking Tom in the mess hall for being overfriendly with Kes, and here he throws a passive-aggressive snit over Kes spending time with the Ilari instead of with him. Tieran might be in control, but the sentiment rings true.
Kes: Jennifer Lien pulls double-duty as both Kes and Tieran. Her Tieran performance can be diplomatically described as, ah, enthusiastic. She shouts and spits her way through her line deliveries, wheeling around in circles and launching herself from one side of the set to another with abandon. She snaps at her allies, threatens to kill them (one memorable scene sees her making good on the threat). Then she gets kittenish and attempts to seduce Nori and the former ruler's son into a threesome... adding in a thinly-veiled death threat when Nori seems hesitant. I'm honestly not sure whether Lien's performance is brilliant in matching the episode's campy tone or awful in its hammy silliness. Whichever side you may pick, one thing it isn't: It isn't boring.
THOUGHTS
What is it with the crappy teasers? Future's End opened with a teaser that was basically about nothing. Warlord's precredit scene is about even less, offering up a bland holodeck sketch that does nothing at all to set a tone or to grab your attention to make you watch. Perhaps these opening sketches are meant to make the crew feel more like people by showing them in moments of down time, but bland boredom is the only real result.
On the plus side, the teaser is about the only thing in Warlord that could be considered bland. This isn't actually agood episode, with its tired body snatcher plot and generic alien society consisting of six people in one set. It is a lot of fun, though, dressing up its silly story with a campy energy that Lien's performance taps into with giddy insanity. Director David Livingston deserves special praise for keeping that energy at a sustained peak through the run of the episode, which has a dynamic look and pace that I wish more Voyager episodes would emulate.
In the midst of this ridiculousness, three moments stand out as genuinely interesting. The Kes/Neelix break up is notable both for its quiet tone, which makes it convincing, and for just how dead-on Kes' complaints seem. Given that we know Tieran has access to Kes' thoughts and feelings, I wouldn't be surprised if he was simply voicing doubts she already had about her relationship. I do hope this is followed up on, and that we don't just simply see Kes and Neelix being the happy couple in the next episode.
The second interesting scene is the one between Tieran/Kes and Tuvok, which I've already covered. The last of the three scenes is the episode's best, however: Kes' direct confrontation with Tieran. As he (back in his original form for this scene) attempts to growl, threaten, cajole, and dismiss her, we see that she is the strong one here. She circles him, predatory, brushing aside his threats and bravado. She sees him for the monster he is, telling him, "I have no compassion for you." Given that compassion is probably Kes' signature quality, that's a very meaningful statement in itself.
The exchange climaxes with Kes hammering home just how hard she intends to fight for her mind, will, and body:
"I won't stop until you're broken and helpless. There's nowhere you can go to get away from me. I'll be relentless and merciless just like you!"
A great scene, almost certainly the best Lien or Kes has had since the series began.
In the end, Warlord is silly but fun. It's a little too campy and goofy for me to actually call it "good," but it is extremely entertaining, and it manages to fit a few genuinely interesting moments into the "B" movie silliness.
Overall Rating: 6/10.
Previous Episode: Future's End
Next Episode: The Q and the Grey
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