4-7. Scientific Method.

Chakotay becomes the victim of alien experiments.

THE PLOT

As Voyager approaches a pair of binary pulars, the crew begins suffering strange effects. Janeway is unable to relax, suffering constant headaches and sleeplessness. The Doctor puts this down to overwork. Then Chakotay is suddenly struck by rapid aging, while Neelix mutates into an entirely different species!

The Doctor is able to determine that every patient has had something in his or her biology hyper-stimulated. He and Torres examine blood samples from the patients, and find evidence of an artificial contaminant - a tag, just slightly out of phase with their reality. As they prepare to scan the ship for these contaminants, both are struck down: Torres' lungs stop being able to process oxygen, while the Doctor's program is deleted from the holo-emitter.

The Doctor is able to flee to the holodeck, where he taps into Seven of Nine's Borg implants to call for aid. He modifies her ocular implant so that she can "see" that frequency. When she steps back out into Voyager's corridors, she is able to see what the crew cannot: Alien scientists, performing invasive and debilitating experiments on crew members all over the ship!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Spends the entire episode suffering from fatigue, headaches, and stress. We discover that the aliens have been steadily raising her dopamine levels to see how far she can be pushed before breaking. That Janeway has managed to (mostly) keep it together for days of this treatment leads Alzen (Rosemary Forsyth), one of the invaders, to comment on how impressed she is by the captain's self-control. Once Janeway discovers the experiments of the aliens, she sets her command staff to work on ways to thwart them - and when a crew member finally dies as a result of the mutations, she takes desperate action to force them off her ship.

Chakotay: The first crew member visibly affected by the experiments, as he is abruptly aged until he looks like a latex mummy. Robert Beltran doesn't alter his performance, refusing to "play old." I actually think this is a good thing. The makeup tells us all we need to know; nothing would be served by having him put on a quavery voice. Chakotay deals with his situation with humor, bickering good-naturedly with Neelix over whose set of physical ailments is more debilitating. Unfortunately, he all but vanishes from the episode after this scene; given how much screen time he receives in the episode's first half, it would have been nice to have had him play a role in the resolution.

The Doctor: His investigation into the crew mutations bears rapid fruit - so rapid that the aliens have to improvise to get both him and B'Elanna out of the way lest their presence be revealed. Even incapacitated, he is able to use the ship's systems to contact Seven, and make her into his eyes and ears on Voyager.

Tuvok: When a stressed Janeway begins to talk about straightening out department heads who have become too comfortable, Tuvok defuses her with humor. His bland inquiry as to whether he should flog them makes Janeway recognize her irrationality and correct herself. He observes the tryst between Tom and Torres, but does not reveal it - though he doesn't do anything to reassure them that he won't. He remarks on the recklessness of Janeway's final gambit, though he does not actually criticize it beyond revealing the low odds of survival.

Tom/Torres: We see the result of the months of building tension. After Torres spent so long trying to deny any attraction, they are now unable to keep their hands off each other. Tom even arranges to leave a duty shift in Sickbay to have an on-duty encounter. Robert Duncan McNeill and Roxann Dawson play the relationship very well, and the characters work together so far. The result is an engaging, if inconsequential, "B" plot that the episode actually remembers to return to in the tag.

Seven of Nine: In keeping with this season's tradition that every episode must give Seven a key role in either the "A" or "B" plot, Seven basically takes over the middle of the episode. Which at least makes sense in context, as her Borg implants explain both how the Doctor is able to contact her and how he is able to alter her perceptions to make her able to see the aliens. Her best character scene is actually at the very beginning, though, when B'Elanna breaks off from chewing her out to marvel that she's giving Seven the exact speech Janeway once gave her. Seven recognizes the significance, and offers a completely unfamiliar gesture: an apology for overstepping her bounds.


ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Though this section is rarely featured outside of my TOS reviews, it applies so perfectly to the crew member death here that I can't let it pass. A random female crew member who doesn't even get a single line dies nastily, all to prompt Janeway into getting Really Pissed Off with the aliens, all as a catalyst for the episode's climax. It's such blatant redshirt writing that it actually made me laugh a little when the "dramatic" scene played out.


THOUGHTS

As can be seen from the "Characters" section, Scientific Method uses the Voyager ensemble in way very few episodes have managed. There are good bits for every member of the regular cast except Harry Kim (whose most memorable moment is getting a door closed in his face at the end)... and that's understandable, given that's he's Harry Kim. Everyone other character is used, and used well. I've heaped a fair amount of criticism onto writer Lisa Klink in the past and probably will in the future, but she deserves credit for balancing the show's large ensemble so well.

The episode itself is pure nonsense, but surprisingly engaging. The pace is fast, and there's a ghoulish curiosity to watching the maladies spread among the crew. It also keeps shifting its focus: The first ten minutes focuses mainly on Tom and B'Elanna; the next ten or so, on the Doctor's investigations; then on Seven; and finally, on Janeway and the resolution. This means that no phase of the episode ever really gets a chance to become dull.  David Livingston directs with his usual visual eye; a shot in which Tom and Torres' heated kiss is suddenly seen through the eyes of the aliens, watching their skeletons embrace, is particularly effective.

The one element of the episode that is a bit dull is the alien race. Named as the Srivani in the script (but not actually in the episode), they largely come across as inferior versions of the Vidiians. Even their motive, performing experiments on other species in order to save their own people, is similar. I genuinely don't understand why the script wasn't rewritten to make them a group of Vidiians using cloaking technology and experiments to try to cure the Phage. The Srivani themselves are generic; had they been unveiled as Vidiians, the episode would have been given an extra shot in the arm by virtue of the viewer's familiarity with them.

In the end, I would classify Scientific Method as a "guilty pleasure" episode. It's silly and its plot elements are heavily recycled. But it's fast and it's fun, and I enjoyed it considerably more than I expected to.


Overall Rating: 7/10.