4-11. Concerning Flight.

Janeway prepares to fly on Leonardo da Vinci's glider!

THE PLOT

Janeway's holodeck relaxation, which involves assisting Leonardo da Vinci (John Rhys-Davies) with his glider, is interrupted when Voyager comes under attack. The unidentified aliens beam away several key pieces of technology - including the Doctor's mobile emitter and, even more critically, the ship's main computer processor.

The crew is able to track the stolen parts to a nearby planet, in a region controlled by Tau (John Vargas), a ruthless pirate who sells the items he steals at exorbitant prices. For his own amusement, Tau has given the mobile emitter to the Leonardo hologram, which was still running when the computer was beamed away. This holographic Leonardo believes he has been spirited away to America, and is dazzled at the wonders of the New World.

Janeway cannot resist the opportunity to work with one of her heroes in completing this mission. But as the situation grows more dangerous, she finds herself having to rely once more on Leonardo's glider - a machine whose design the real da Vinci was never able to actually test!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: When she and Tuvok discover the holographic Leonardo walking around the pirates' planet, Tuvok's reaction is the pragmatic one: deactivate Leonardo, retrieve the emitter, and get on with the task of recovering the computer processor. But Janeway is instantly enchanted at the idea of sharing an adventure with Leonardo da Vinci, and the scientist in her is likely interested in the ways in which he rationalizes all he sees as wonders from the Americas. While I could wish for sharper dialogue in Janeway's interactions with her Renaissance-era hero, Kate Mulgrew is terrific throughout and her screen rapport with John Rhys-Davies is almost enough to keep bits of this episode afloat.

Chakotay: Left in command while Janeway has her planetside adventure. The episode's climax sees him coordinating the ship's efforts to rescue Janeway, pushing Torres to install the recovered processor as quickly as possible while giving Tom a nudge to do some fancy flying to avoid Tau's ships while getting close enough to the surface to beam back their captain.

Tuvok: Though he disagrees with Janeway's decision to indulge the Leonardo hologram, he plays his part once the decision is made. When Janeway tells him to distract Leonardo at a reception hosted by Tau, he attempts to make "small talk." He's not good at this, by his own admission, but he flatters Leonardo sufficiently to keep the man's attention.

The Doctor: He isn't really any worse off than he had been for most of the time since he was activated, given that the mobile emitter was only a fairly recent addition... but having had full freedom of the ship for long enough to start taking it for granted, he feels that loss keenly. This manifests itself most evidently in a scene in which he pushes Seven for every last detail of a minor argument in the mess hall, clearly savoring each morsel of gossip like a condemned man might do with his last meal.

Leonardo da Vinci: John Rhys-Davies' holographic Leonardo, introduced in Scorpion, gets a more central role here. The actor is terrific, throwing himself into the gleeful ham needed to make DaVinci fun, but not going so far over-the-top that he can't sell the more serious moments. It's just a shame that he and Mulgrew aren't allowed more freedom to simply interact, without the plot getting in the way.


THOUGHTS

Plot is what ends up bringing this episode crashing down to Earth. The episode is clearly intended to be a bit of whimsy, with Janeway having a light-hearted adventure with Leonardo da Vinci. But writer Joe Menosky was pressured into giving more and more focus to what he dubbed a "tortured tech story," with Janeway and DaVinci mostly just reacting to Tau's tedious machinations.

I can't even really track the logic of the "tech plot." We hear the characters talk about how important the computer processor is, but we don't really see it. Without the critical computer processor, Voyager is nevertheless able to locate the pirate planet so that Janeway and Tuvok can infiltrate it (and meet up with DaVinci). They are able to track Janeway's movements and beam the processor up when she finds it. It's only the usual Technobabble that keeps them from being able to beam her up to end the episode then and there. Once the processor is re-installed... The ship still has to zigzag through enemy ships to get ridiculously close to the planet's surface before it can beam Janeway up. From the viewer's standpoint, there's no visible and visceral difference in what the ship can do.

With all the screen time devoted to recovering it from Tau, himself a painfully generic villain, there is precious little time for what's meant to be the episode's center: The Janeway/DaVinci material. The great pity of the episode is that both Mulgrew and Rhys-Davies are very good. They're given precious little opportunity to do much with their thin material, but in the few scenes in which the plot stops long enough for them to talk, they are both terrific.

The end result is a tedious bit of filler that isn't even much liked by its own writer. The concept cries out for rich dialogue, a flow of ideas and debate between two scientists from two radically different ages. Instead, it gets blandly functional dialogue that spends too much time moving along a dull plot and too little time on a pair of characters and actors who deserved much, much better than this.


Overall Rating: 2/10.