5-25. Warhead.

The Doctor discovers a fellow AI -
but it's a weapon of mass destruction!

Original Air Date: May 19, 1999. Teleplay by: Michael Taylor, Kenneth Biller. Story by: Brannon Braga. Directed by: John Kretchmer.


THE PLOT:

Harry Kim has bridge duty when Voyager receives an automated distress signal. Harry takes the ship to the planet and, with, Chakotay's approval, beams down with the Doctor to check it out.

They quickly find the source of the signal: a probe-like object that the Doctor ascertains is an artificial intelligence. Harry's first instinct is caution - when you're Harry Kim, you quickly learn that anything new is likely to kill you or at least humiliate you. The Doctor guilts him by pointing out that while this may be a device, it is still a lifeform that is in distress. Harry relents, recommending it be beamed to Voyager with security measures.

It turns out that his first instincts were right. The object is not a probe, but a weapon of mass destruction. When Doctor tries to separate the intelligence from the device, to save the life while nullifying the danger, the intelligence takes over the Doctor. It demands that Janeway transport it to its target to complete its mission - or else it will destroy Voyager!


CHARACTERS:

Capt. Janeway: She badly wants the weapon off her ship. Even so, when an unscrupulous trader(Steve Dennis) offers to take it off her hands, she refuses to allow him to take it fully intact. Despite his assurances, she recognizes that he'll just sell it to someone else, very possibly some kind of space terrorist. The warhead is a problem, but Janeway refuses to make it someone else's problem.

The Doctor/The Warhead: Robert Picardo pulls double duty as both the Doctor and the warhead. This is where I'd usually praise Picardo... except this time, I think he overacts. He's terrific as the Doctor, effectively conveying the kinship he feels at meeting a fellow AI. His sentient warhead, however, is more a case of Picardo "Acting Menacing" rather than being menacing, and the weapon's threat is further undercut by its apparent inability to track anything Janeway and the rest of the crew are doing, right down to somehow not noticing the alien trader beaming onto the ship.

Harry Kim: He's actually right about how to deal with the warhead: keep it on the planet until they're sure there's no threat. But the Doctor gives Harry a guilt trip about how he'd treat an organic life form. The correct response is: in the event of, say, a potential contagion, with the exact same level of caution. Harry being Harry, he naturally caves immediately. He tries to appeal to the warhead's better nature in the second half, but those scenes are among the worst of a subpar episode. Overall, I'm more than a little weary of Harry being written as the overeager, fresh-faced rookie after five years.

Torres: Taken hostage by the warhead along with Harry. Since she's the chief engineer, and they are dealing with a piece of runaway tech, you would naturally expect that she'd play a key part in the episode. But this is Season Five, and the writers have had little use for Torres since Seven joined the crew, so she's mostly just a glorified extra.


THOUGHTS:

Warhead is a mediocre episode, but it starts out promisingly. The teaser and opening Act move along nicely. The ship receives the distress call. The AI is discovered and taken aboard. The crew discover its nature as a weapon of mass destruction. After some debate, they decide to try to save the AI while eliminating the risk to the ship. All of this is well structured, there are potentially interesting concepts, and the episode moves nicely to the crisis point.

Then the warhead takes control of the Doctor, and the writers promptly run out of ideas.

From this point on, there isn't so much a structure as just a collection of scenes. The encounter with the trader takes up about ten minutes in the mid-episode... but this entire set of events doesn't actually do anything. There is no impact on the rest of the story, and if it were removed entirely there would be no sign that anything was missing.

After a lot of wheel-spinning, the final Act then feels badly rushed. All of the actual story gets stuffed into the last fifteen minutes. This leaves no chance for suspense to build, for the crew to deal with complications, or for characters to truly consider their choices. It doesn't help that Robert Picardo's performance is very far from his best - but I can't help but think that the whole episode would work better if the detour with the trader had been eliminated and the final Act expanded to take up the whole second half.


OVERALL:

Warhead is a frustrating episode. It's not just that it isn't good. It's that the opening Act is quite promising, making it all the more disappointing when the script deteriorates into a directionless mess at the twenty-minute mark.

It's watchable enough, and it's far from Voyager's worst. Heck, it's not even the worst of the last five episodes. But it feels suspiciously like something that's there less to tell a story than to fill a timeslot.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Relativity
Next Episode: Equinox

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-18. Course: Oblivion

The wedding of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres.

THE PLOT

Things are looking up for Voyager. A recently enchanced warp drive is estimated to have the ship home in just two years, and a celebratory Tom and B'Elanna have held a wedding ceremony in the Mess Hall. Life is good... Which, of course, means disaster is about to strike.

Despite many simulations showing the enhanced drive is perfectly safe, once in use it causes severe and irreversible degradation to the ship. Then B'Elanna falls ill, and the crew realizes that the same decay is spreading to all of them as well. The Doctor confirms that every one of them is affected, and that they will all die if it cannot somehow be reversed.

Then Tuvok, Seven, and Neelix notice that items recently brought onto the ship are not degrading - Leading to a shocking revelation about the nature of this disease...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: I have to give the writers credit for a consistent character trait in Janeway this season. All season long, we have seen her making decisions that are rash, self-indulgent, even irrational, all out of guilt at not getting the crew home. Here, she insists on carrying on toward Earth even when it's revealed that doing so could doom them all. Even when it's pointed out that her obsession with getting home is now meaningless, she has to be verbally shaken out of it by Chakotay before backing down.

Chakotay: Fulfills his usual role as Voice of Reason, but this time he's doing more than just playing Devil's Advocate. In a refreshing turn from the show's normal formula, Chakotay is genuinely right to argue against Janeway, and he has the confidence of knowing he is right when pushing her to change her mind before the crew's fate becomes irrevocable. Beltran's performance has a ferocity that's been largely unseen since Scorpion, and this aggressive side manifests without compromising Chakotay's obvious respect and affection for his captain.

Tom Paris: This is also a good episode for Tom, whose early joy at marrying B'Elanna turns to ash when she is among the first crew members stricken. Robert Duncan McNeill does some good acting as Tom sits by his new wife's bedside, describing the perfect honeymoon he had prepared with a cheer that grows ever more false. The episode's second half sees him growing bitter, specifically lashing out at Janeway for what he sees as disastrous decision-making.

Harry Kim: And just to confirm that the crew is in serious trouble, by the episode's end Voyager is under the command of Harry Kim! Even Harry is well-scripted in this episode. Around the midpoint, when Tom's faith in Janeway ebbs, Harry insists that he still believes in her - showing that same faith in her that was such a strong component of episodes like The Thaw. When circumstances leave him in charge, he shows strength and competence, doing all he can to keep the ship together long enough to make sure that all of this crew's missions would mean something.


THOUGHTS

As is probably evident, I quite liked Course: Oblivion - which honestly surprised me. I had already been tipped that this episode drew heavily on last season's Demon, which I found to be a largely pathetic bit of late-season filler. So the last thing I expected was a genuinely engaging, well-paced script that makes good use of every member of the ensemble. I wouldn't go so far as to say this episode retroactively redeems Demon... But it does at least use some of that episode's ideas to deliver a good hour of television.

It's difficult to say much more and not flat-out spoil the big reveal... But I will credit writers Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan for not trying to hold that twist for the very end. Instead, it is delivered about midway through, leaving the characters to absorb and react to it and even work it into their attempts to solve their problem.

The script excels is in its handling of the characters. Every regular gets at least one strong moment, and every character is scripted well. It's not that Harry, Chakotay, or Neelix are particularly different here than in other episodes - These are recognizably the same characters with the same traits. They are just written a little more sharply, and feel like fuller versions of themselves as a result.

The ending might seem to render the entire episode pointless... But I don't really think so. Even if Voyager and its crew are safely "reset" at the end, we get to see all of them forced to grapple with an increasingly hopeless and desperate situation. As with Year of Hell, another episode whose ending more or less "wiped out" the events of the story, there is merit just in seeing who the characters can be when their backs are against the wall.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Disease
Next Episode: The Fight


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-17. The Disease.

Harry Kim has sex... without permission!

Harry Kim has sex! Needless to say, disaster follows.


THE PLOT

Voyager is assisting the Varro, a xenophobic species on a generational ship that Janeway says could be a glimpse of Voyager's future (never mind that Voyager's journey has a definitive endpoint that has been accelerated on multiple occasions, and that even with no further boosts much of the current crew should be alive to see that homecoming). With the assistance of the Voyager crew, the work is progressing nicely - and Harry Kim has formed an attachment with Derran Tal (Musetta Vander), a Varro engineer.

Harry chose a bad time to have an affair with a Hot Alien Chick (TM), however - For this week, and this week only, unauthorized sex with aliens is against Starfleet regulations. So when Harry's affair comes to light, Janeway orders him to break it off and puts a career-crippling formal reprimand in his permanent file.

As if that isn't bad enough, Varro mate for life, and once they become intimate they experience olan'vora - "the shared heart" - which causes withdrawal symptoms if the two are separated - and now Harry is infected.   This couldn't come at a worse time. There is dissent among the Varro about their isolationist way of life. Many Varro want to escape, and they've found a way: Using technological parasites (another "disease," get it?), they have weakened the generational ship's hull and plan to break it into individual segments, each of which can then determine its own destiny.

And one of the leaders of the group is, inevitably, Harry's new lover...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: "I know it's a little extreme, but I wanted to leave a lasting impression." When Harry's encounter comes to light, Janeway goes, in a word, nuts. Harry Kim is guilty of having sex without permission (something that hasn't even been a crime in previous episodes), and he receives orders to break off contact with Tal and also a formal reprimand in his permanent record. This is the same captain who limited Tuvok's punishment to a verbal tongue-lashing for attempting to steal alien technology, and who gave Tom a demotion and thirty days in the brig for attempting to launch a terrorist attack! But sex? That's serious business. In this episode. And this episode only.

Tom Paris: Covers up Harry's communications with Tal and warns him that he could easily get caught if he doesn't knock it off - Showing him to be the most identifiably human person in this episode. He also elicits the only good line of the hour, when he pronounces "I give up" after trying to get Tuvok to admit the Varro's environmental systems might be nice to have. When Chakotay inquires how Tuvok got him to give up after only two minutes, Tuvok replies, "I wait until his own illogic overwhelms him." Not exactly a laugh-out-loud moment, but amusing in context and perfectly delivered by Tim Russ.

Harry Kim: Remember the angrily sarcastic Harry who was so much fun to watch in The Killing Game and proved more than up to the task of carrying an episode in Timeless? After the success of that version of Harry's characterization, you'd expect the writers to just steer him in that direction. But here, in our first Harry-centric episode since Timeless... we're back to Harry the earnest puppy dog. Scratch that - I rarely get the urge to kick a puppy, whereas it takes all of about 30 seconds for me to want to kick Harry. In theory, I think Janeway's punishment is punitive and over-the-top - But Harry's so petulant and annoying that I can't dredge up any sympathy even when I think he's being treated unfairly.

Hot Alien Space Babe of the Week: Tal (Musetta Vander) is genuinely surprised that Harry is susceptible to olan'vora - Apparently she doesn't realize that Harry is susceptible to just about everything. Her feelings for Harry appear to be genuine (somehow), and when her sabotage is discovered she emphasizes his innocence.


SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGHT...

Stupid question for a stupid episode: When did any regulations get put in place that made having sex with aliens something that had to be "authorized"? Was it in response to some incident caused by Kirk's near-weekly conquests? Well... No, because when TNG started, Riker was engaging in the exact same behavior. Indeed, Voyager has had its fair share of officers having or at least considering "unauthorized sex" with aliens, from Tom urging Tuvok to have an affair with an alien woman just a few episodes back to Chakotay actually having an affair late last season. Heck, Janeway herself enjoyed a flirtation with an alien just a little over half a dozen episodes ago!

It would have made a lot more sense if she had a standing order in place to limit personal contact with the Varro due to their xenophobic nature, maybe as a part of the agreement reached to allow the two crews to work together. But no - We're specifically told Harry is violating Starfleet regulations with this affair. So either we're meant to believe this is a rule that no one other than Janeway has ever bothered to enforce - Or Janeway just invented it to torture Harry.

(Come to think of it, that last doesn't seem entirely unlikely.)


THOUGHTS

The opening of The Disease is breathtaking, a genuinely cinematic sustained shot that sees the Varro vessel flying past camera before the camera turns and zooms seamlessly into the ship's corridors. It's the kind of opening that emotionally prepares you for Something Big, maybe even Epic...

Until, seconds later, we see Harry and Tal pawing at each other, and realize that no, this is just a crappy Harry Kim episode.

Director David Livingston, usually the series' best helmer, obviously knows he has a loser on his hands with Kenneth Biller's wretched script. So he engages in Showy Camerawork (TM), with the camera spinning around the table in Janeway's ready room during a meeting, or multiple zooms on Harry and Tuvok during the Technobabble-heavy climax. But this just tips the ridiculous over into the uninentionally funny. Given how good a director Livingston usually is, I wouldn't dismiss the possibility that he was doing this on purpose, given that there was no possible way for him to polish this turd enough for it to pass as... Well, anything.

A subplot involving sabotage does nothing to raise tension in the last Act, and the characters - regulars and guest cast alike - are so unsympathetic that both ships could have blown up without me shedding a tear.

Still, I should focus on the positive: That opening shot really is great. A shame it wasn't bolted onto a better episode.


Overall Rating: 1/10.

Previous Episode: Dark Frontier
Next Episode: Course: Oblivion


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-12. Bride of Chaotica!

Janeway forges an evil alliance with the fiendish Dr. Chaotica!

THE PLOT

Tom and Harry are enjoying another chapter of The Adventures of Captain Proton in the holodeck when the ship jolts and stalls in a layer of subspace. As Voyager struggles to escape, Tom and Harry discover distortions inside the program. They are unable to end the program, and have to rely on transporters to escape the holodeck.

The distortions are actually life-forms that are photonic in nature. They recognize the holodeck characters as real, and consider the humans to be illusory. When Dr. Chaotica (Martin Rayner), the Captain Proton villain, declares war on them, the battle threatens to destroy Voyager - Unless Tom and Janeway can play by Captain Proton's own rules to defeat Chaotica!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: The second half sees her entering the program as Arachnia, Queen of the Spider People, the object of Dr. Chaotica's romantic obsession. Kate Mulgrew is obviously having a great time hamming (and vamping) it up, gliding across the screen like a melodramatic silent movie villain. There are a few bits in which she goes overboard, getting a bit too twitchy, but most of her performance is amusing. Fittingly, the single funniest bit is played fairly low-key, when she sits on Chaotica's throne only to remark (entirely as Janeway) that it's "surprisingly comfortable."

Tom Paris: His enthusiasm for the Captain Proton program isn't all fanboy indulgence. There's actually a purpose: He's studying "how past generations viewed the future," which ties in well with previous episodes that have established his interest in Earth history. His familiarity with the Proton universe allows him to act as a guide for the other crew members (and the audience), explaining how and why the various characters act as they do throughout the program.

The Doctor: After the heavy emotional outing of the previous episode, this situation lets Robert Picardo indulge in some amusing, largely low-key comic mugging. He goes into the program to impersonate "The President of Earth," acting as an emissary to the aliens since as a hologram, he's the only member of the ship's crew they will recognize as a life form. He assists Tom (as Proton) at the episode's climax, and his reactions to instructions like, "Activate the Destructo Beam!" are very entertaining.

Harry Kim: Is lured into the holodeck program by Tom's promise that this chapter has slave girls in it... Which doesn't stop him from acidically noting that the planet is identical to that of another chapter. His role is reduced to its usual background one after the 20-minute mark, which is actually a shame - For a change, he is genuinely fun company (watch the sadistic glee he gets in zapping a bad guy multiple times), and I would have enjoyed him playing Tom's sardonic sidekick for the full episode.

Dr. Chaotica: The character is a parody, basically a send-up of Ming the Merciless, and Martin Rayner's over-the-top performance reflects that. But while he is clearly playing for laughs, he also reigns it in enough that we never get the sense that Chaotica is trying to be funny. The villain may be cheesy, but he is formidable. His forces fight the extra-dimensional aliens to a standstill, and he even gets the drop on Janeway at a critical moment, which puts just enough edge into a joke villain to keep the plot turning.


THOUGHTS

Bride of Chaotica! sits on the opposite pole from Latent Image. That episode was about serious ideas involving survivor's guilt and the nature of memory and identity. This one is... Well, really just about having a good time with a pastische of 1930s Flash Gordon serials.

When it sticks to the parody, it's terrifically entertaining. The black-and-white holodeck scenes are wonderfully cheesy, with the hilariously useless "Satan's Robot" a particular highlight. What keeps this from the level fo inspired lunacy is the shipboard scenes. Every time the action leaves the holodeck, the pace dies, and entirely too much time is spent on Technobabble explanations involving the region of space in which Voyager is trapped. Memo the writers: We don't care about the subspace gobbledygook, and every second devoted to that takes away from the addictive fun of Captain Proton.

Still, the bulk of Bride of Chaotica! stays either within or in close proximity to the holodeck adventure, and those scenes are uniformly enjoyable. The episode may not reach the level of inspired lunacy achieved by Deep Space 9's Our Man Bashir, but it remains a good ride.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Latent Image
Next Episode: Gravity


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-6. Timeless.

The starship Voyager, in its icy grave.

THE PLOT

On a desolate, ice-covered planet, a ship has been discovered. Under a layer of ice lies a lifeless husk that had the misfortune to crash on this world 15 years earlier. The ship's designation: Voyager!

15 years earlier, the Voyager crew prepares to use the finally-ready slipstream technology to travel directly home. The crew is celebrating - save for Tom Paris, who has discovered a phase variance in the slipstream system. He and Harry test this out in the holodeck, and simulation after simulation ends with Voyager's destruction.

Harry comes up with a plan, however. If he flies ahead of Voyager in the Delta Flyer, then he can send phase corrections back, allowing the starship to compensate for the variance. Janeway authorizes the plan, with Chakotay piloting the shuttle as Harry works on the math. And so the great ship's fate is sealed...

15 years later, an older, guilt-ridden Harry and Chakotay have come up with a new plan. Salvaging Borg technology from Seven of Nine's remains, they now have the ability to send a message back in time. Harry made a mistake in his calculations, leading to the ship's destruction. If he can send the correct calculations to Voyager just before the accident, then he can save his crew - and alter the course of history!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Chakotay believes Harry's plan is too much of a risk, and Janeway admits that by the book he's correct - But the responsibility for the crew weighs heavily on her, and she decides to take the chance. This ties in with her depression in Night, in which she shut herself away and blamed herself for every day and every death that the crew had experienced in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay's right about the risk being unwise - But Janeway so badly wants to get her crew home, that her guilt overrides her judgment.

Chakotay: Just as determined to alter history to save Voyager as Harry is - But he isn't as guilt-ridden. He's actually moved on with his life, starting a relationship with Tessa Omond (Christine Harnos), who assists him and Harry on the mission. He even voices reservations about moving forward with a plan that will erase their relationship from the timeline, though that does not stop him from going through with it.

Doctor: When Chakotay and Harry investigate the wreckage of Voyager, they discover that the Doctor's program is still working, as is his mobile emitter. This allows them to bring him along to assist their efforts. The choice to include the Doctor is an inspired one. It makes sense for him to be "alive" when the rest of the crew are dead; and since he's been out of commission for the entire 15 years between the crash and the discovery of the wreckage, all the backstory can be explained to him without it feeling like a forced infodump. Finally, it allows the Doctor to act as a foil for Harry, urging him to abandon the doomed effort to get the ship home and instead settle for simply saving it from destruction.

Capt. Geordi LaForge: Sent to stop Chakotay and Harry from changing the past. He is genuinely sympathetic to the Voyager survivors' desire to save their crew. But as he points out, his duty is to protect the last 15 years of history, a history in which Voyager was destroyed. Throughout the conflict that follows, he gives every chance for Chakotay to drop his shields and be beamed to safety, and it's clear that he takes no pleasure in targeting the Delta Flyer. At the same time, his position is absolutely justified, and he does his duty.


HARRY KIM AND TIMELESS

OK, where did this Harry come from, and can we keep him?

A handful of previous episodes have shown that Wang is more than capable of giving a good performance when the writers can be bothered to give him good material. The Chute and The Killing Game both showcased an edgier Harry, beaten down and left weary and angry. Those traits are built on with the brusque, embittered future Harry of this episode. The result is something I'd have sworn was impossible - A Harry Kim who is a genuinely compelling character.

Since it's clear Wang is at his best playing a Harry with a bit of en edge, why not make that a permanent part of his personality? The couple of earlier good Harry Kim episodes made it clear that the problem with the character was never the actor. Timeless shows that the writing staff knows how to make Harry work... Which means that, going forward, there is no longer any excuse for him to continue being a failed character. If he goes back to being wallpaper (which I unfortunately expect will be the case), then the blame belongs solely to the writers.


THOUGHTS

Timeless is a terrific episode from top to bottom. It's easily Season Five's best episode to date, and is among the highlights of the entire series. Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky have delivered an outstanding script, and director Levar Burton makes the transitions between the Voyager of the show's present and future seamless without ever being confusing.

The episode opens with the discovery of Voyager under the ice - a fantastic visual flourish that takes us to credits, eager to discover exactly what is going on. The entire first Act continues in the future, with the disaster that befell the ship imparted piece by piece as backstory. Only with the revelation that Harry and Chakotay plan to change history does the episode finally move back in time to "our" Voyager, on the eve of its fateful slipstream flight.

Act Two follows the Voyager of the series' present, with our knowledge of the ship's fate hanging over the proceedings. Harry's desperate attempts to first deny the phase variance, then to improvise a risky solution for it, explains much about Future Harry's guilt. His eagerness to get back home leads him to pushing for reckless action. But the blame isn't ultimately his. Janeway is as affected by guilt as the future Harry is, and her ongoing sense of responsibility for stranding her ship leads to her authorizing a plan that she knows she shouldn't.

The rest of the episode intercuts present and future until, at last, they fully merge. With the sending of the messages through time, Future Harry interacts with Present Voyager, with Geordi's intervention raising the stakes and the suspense for a highly effective climax.

There's a tag scene, and it's a good one. Janeway gives Harry a message from his future self, one that loops back onto an earlier scene and provides additional context for it. The final word belongs to the Harry from a future that now will never be, sending us out of the episode on a very strong note.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Once Upon a Time
Next Episode: Infinite Regress

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

Thoughts on Season Four.

In its fourth season, Star Trek: Voyager undergoes a major cast change, one that shifts the character dynamics considerably. But the show itself remains mostly the same beast as in its first three seasons: A series that exists mostly episode by episode, with few dramatic risks taken.

Still, for the first time in a long time, I come not to bury Voyager but to praise it. Season Four may suffer from all the same faults that have plagued the series from the beginning (a few of them actually worsen!), but the good episodes significantly outweigh the bad ones, the introduction of Seven of Nine works and works well, and the result is the most consistently enjoyable season of the show to date.


ARRIVALS: SEVEN OF NINE

This is the season that introduces Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), a Borg drone who unwillingly joins the Voyager crew and has to assimilate to their environment. There is a lot of potential in this concept, making it no surprise that most of the season's episodes feature a significant role for her. She brings in something that has been lacking: conflict with the crew.

Nothing was ever made of the Maquis background of half the crew, so we have spent three seasons with a group that all share the same core values and all basically get along. Seven comes from a very different background, has a very different set of values, and is not even particularly interested in getting along. Her very presence creates conflict. As a Borg, she was a threat to the ship, and the rest of the crew are wary of her. She brings in enormous scientific expertise, but expects her opinions to be accepted as a matter of course, which brings her into conflict with Torres, Janeway, and others.

Particularly interesting is the relationship that evolves between Seven and Janeway, who sometimes seems like a mentor to her, at other times an obstacle or even an adversary. When Seven denounces Janeway for trying to stifle her individuality, she sounds like a rebellious teen daughter - and the pain and disappointment on Janeway's face seems very much like that of a mother. The season finale reinforces that these two strong women have very different values, that Seven is never going to simply conform to Janeway's views. This is also good: They need to accept each other as they are, and find a working relationship despite their differences.


DEPARTURES AND LOITERERS: KES, HARRY KIM, AND THE REST

The other "big thing" that happens in Season Four is the departure of Kes... Something that really shouldn't have happened. Sure, it makes perfect sense that one of the supporting regulars would be let go to make room for Seven. But it makes no sense for it to have been Kes, a character whose role (as the Doctor's assistant and his humanizing influence) has not been replaced by Seven in any way, and a character whose final Season Three spotlight episode doubled as a statement of intent regarding future direction for her.

It's evident that the original plan was to let go of Harry Kim, a character so useless that writers have acknowledged deliberately avoiding giving him large roles in their scripts. Then actor Garrett Wang made a People Magazine list, which for whatever reason was seen as making him untouchable. I don't think it was a particularly good decision - Something made even more visible by how little Harry does over the course of Season Four, with a good showing in The Killing Game being the only time the entire year in which he doesn't seem like a spare part - one whose only real job (spouting Technobabble) has been made redundant by Seven.

Harry isn't the only character turned into a glorified extra by Seven's introduction. By mid-season, she has been set up in her own area of the ship - Astrometrics - and is now given the tasks that in previous seasons would have fallen under B'Elanna's purview. While Roxann Dawson's pregnancy certainly limited her participation in the mid-season, it does feel very much as if her previously prominent role has been pushed far to the back to make more room for Seven. What can be said of a season in which Neelix gets more memorable character material than B'Elanna Torres?


A CHANGE OF ALTITUDE: HINTS OF PROGRESS

But as I said at the top of this overview, I come largely to praise Season Four, which feels more alive and far less stagnant than Seasons Two and Three often did. Despite the overuse of Seven, a large part of the credit does belong to her, and to the way she shakes up the overly-comfortable cast dynamic. But there are other ways in which this season moves the series forward.

For the first three seasons, the relationship of Voyager to Starfleet is constant. Starfleet believes the ship is destroyed, and there is no way for our regulars to contact home and their families to let them know otherwise. Every so often, there would be a chance for the ship to possibly get home or possibly send a message... But this would always end in defeat so that the status-quo would be unchanged.

Message in a Bottle, right around the middle of this season, finally changes that. The discovery of the Hirogen communications relay allows the ship to contact home, and to receive messages. They now know about the Dominion War and the destruction of the Maquis, and their families now know they are alive. The problem is now being worked from two ends, with Starfleet certainly devoting at least some energy to shortening Voyager's journey.

That same episode kicks off an arc of episodes centering around the Hirogen, a predator species that at first seems a little too much like... well, Predator. Early episodes present the Hirogen as so one-dimensional, one could be forgiven for thinking the Kazon had been simply given a new design. Then Prey successfully makes them feel formidable, with Voyager clearly on the losing end of a confrontation with them. The Killing Game lends them even more dimension, as all the arguments viewers might have about how a species like this couldn't sustain itself are actually made part and parcel of the plot.

Though I suspect that two-parter will receive some follow up at some point, it does work as a resolution of the arc, which is an overall highly successful run of episodes. One hopes the series will continue to do occasional arcs of linked episodes in the future.


SEASON FIVE WISHLIST

The changes made to the status quo are a good thing - But instead of simply letting this sit as the "new normal," the show needs to build on these changes. I'd like to see occasional bursts of communication with Starfleet, perhaps seeking intelligence that might help with the Dominion War. Also, as the season finale reminds us, Janeway's actions in Scorpion have actually helped the Borg to expand and grow more powerful. It would be interested to see her forced to deal with the fallout of that - and I don't just mean in the form of some random alien out for revenge.

I also hope the hints at the end of Hope and Fear, of Janeway and Seven accepting that they have different values and working together despite that, are followed through. There's more dramatic potential in Seven working with the crew but holding a different value system than there is in simply transforming her into another Proper Starfleet Officer (ironic that the former member of the Collective has more individuality than most of the rest of the crew).

And while I do think the addition of Seven has been a benefit to the show, and I definitely would like her to remain prominent... It might be OK for there to be just a little less of her, so that she's not succeeding at the expense of the rest of the cast. For all of its problems, Voyager has a genuinely pretty strong ensemble. Pare back on "The Seven of Nine Show," please, and start remembering the rest of the cast for more than one or two episodes at a time.


IN SUMMATION

I have come to accept that Voyager will never be the show I wish it was - the show that can occasionally be glimpsed in jewels like The Thaw, Scorpion, and Living Witness. Save for the occasional story, the series is determined to play it safe inside its action/adventure bubble.

Season Four doesn't change this, but it does manage to push the edges of that bubble, making Voyager much better as the show that it is. I'm still not wildly enthusiastic about it as a series - But for the first time since Season One, I'm looking back on a year of Voyager with a lot more good feelings than bad.

Here's hoping it can further improve on that next season!


Previous: Season Three
Next: Season Five

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

4-24. Demon.

Harry Kim looks out onto the surface
of a Demon-class planet.

THE PLOT

Voyager is running out of gas.

The ship's deuterium supply has run low. Even with the strictest rationing of energy, they have less than a week's worth of travel remaining. In desperation, they travel to a planet that is Class Y - also known as a "Demon class" planet, because it is the most inhospitable environment possible. The planet is rich in deuterium, however; the only challenge is actually getting down there to retrieve the precious substance.

Harry volunteers himself and Tom to go down in a modified shuttlecraft, with environmental suits, to locate and mine the fuel source the ship requires. However, they have only barely located a deposit before their suits are breached, leaving both men unconscious and probably dying.

Chakotay and Seven search for them, and are shocked to discover both men not only alive, but walking around without their suits in an environment that should be instantly toxic to them. They take them back to the ship for a medical examination... But as soon as they beam into Voyager's oxygen-rich atmosphere, both men collapse, gasping for breath. Somehow, in a way that no one can explain, the planet has "bio-formed" Tom and Harry so that now the only environment in which they can live is that of the Demon planet itself!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: When Tom and Harry fail to report back, she insists on landing Voyager in order to send out a search and rescue team. This means that instead of risking another shuttle, she risks the entire ship - and the jeopardy of the landing is seen in how many systems are damaged by the time they reach the surface. Janeway gets a chance to play scientist again when she and Torres study the silver fluid in Tom and Harry's blood. When the fluid touches Torres and reacts, she starts to realize what has actually happened to her crew members.

Chakotay: Characterized as someone who recognizes good ideas from subordinates and champions those ideas to the captain. He acknowledges Seven's logic in not passing up the Demon class planet's resources, and is able to sell Janeway on making the attempt. When the first attempt to simply transport the deuterium onto the ship fails, Janeway is (somewhat uncharacteristically) ready to fly away. When Harry offers an alternative, Chakotay again champions the plan to land a shuttle and make a direct effort. This is a good note for his character, one I would encourage the series to continue with.

Harry Kim: Demon is the annual Harry Kim episode. Harry observes that after four years in the Delta Quadrant he now has quite a lot of experience and no longer feels the need to be quiet and stay out of the way when the more experienced officers are speaking. This is a hint of character development I expect to last... Oh, until the next episode. Assertive Harry also fails utterly to be at all likable. Whether the fault lies in Kenneth Biller's script, Garrett Wang's performance, or a bit of both, when he volunteers Tom to help him, then smirks at Tom's objections, he isn't coming across as a friend engaging in banter - He's coming across as a jerk.

The Doctor: Robert Picardo has proven time and again that he can salvage just about anything... Except, as it turns out, an irritating sitcom subplot in which the Doctor behaves petulantly in response to crew members bunking in sickbay. When the Doctor protests, Chakotay half-jokingly says they can always save power by shutting down his program until he's needed. Which, given the circumstances, would actually seem like one of the first things they should have done, and something the Doctor would probably have volunteered as a suggestion were he not Sitcom Doctor in this episode! Picardo is better in the second half, once the Doctor is doing his job instead of griping about sharing living space, but this is among his worst showings in the entire series.


THOUGHTS

Ever since Unity, my opinion of Kenneth Biller's writing has been creeping upwards. His late Season Three and Season Four outings have been consistently interesting, and often quite good, and I've ceased to dread his name on the credits.

Demon isn't going to change my revised opinion, as every writer will deliver some duff episodes here and there; if I can forgive Ronald D. Moore for co-writing the truly dire Aquiel, I can forgive Kenneth Biller this. Still, it's a reminder of the kind of writing that had me cringing at his name on an episode: Slapdash, unfocused, and lazy.

Let's start with Janeway's reluctance to approach the Demon planet. Once there, it seems to be perfectly navigable. Some extra shielding and environmental suits, and the crew can go out into this environment with minimal problems. Sure, there's danger. But these are the choices for the crew: (1) Risk a chance of injury or death recovering the fuel from a planet easily within reach; or (2) Fly off into the infinite vastness of space and hope to encounter another fuel source within a week - Something that's basically a statistical impossibility. And yet Janeway, who should certainly be well-versed enough in basic science to know that the choice is between a risk of death and a virtual certainty of it, reacts as if even trying to get fuel from the planet is a blatantly bad idea.

Then there's the question of her allowing the ship's pilot and backup medic to go with Harry on this very dangerous mission. Doesn't this ship have a crew of 90+ people? Janeway OK'ing Harry is something I have no problem with, as both B'Elanna and Seven are more skilled in Harry's area of expertise than he is; but he should be accompanied by someone a little more expendable than Tom is, which might also allow the show to remind us that this ship has more than ten or so people on board. This might have the side benefit of allowing another recurring character to emerge, to give a face to the ordinary people on board for the first time since late Season Two.

Credit where it's due: I did not guess what had happened to Tom and Harry, even though clues were there to make it guessable. Credit also to the scene in which Janeway confronts the intelligence behind all this (the "demon," I suppose), which is a well-written scene, very well-performed by Kate Mulgrew. That scene adds a point to the overall score in and of itself.

Which leaves it still a pretty bad hour... But at least it's nowhere near the worst of the series, or even of the season.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Episode: Living Witness
Next Episode: One

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

4-18, 4-19. The Killing Game.

Janeway as a cafe owner in Nazi-occupied France.

THE PLOT:

The Hirogen have taken control of Voyager. The Hirogen Alpha, Karr (Danny Goldring), is intrigued by the possibilities of the ship's holodeck, has outfitted most of his Starfleet prisoners with neural interfaces, replacing their identities with those of characters within their holodeck programs.  Effectively, the [I]Voyager[/I] crew become different people, within deadly simulations of historical battles, with Karr studying their behavior as the situations unfold.

Janeway has been made into the owner of a cafe in the Nazi occupied French village Sainte Claire. Tuvok is her bartender, Seven a singer. They are all members of the French Resistance, secretly paving the way for American forces to liberate the village. But the Hirogen Beta, Turanj (Mark Deakins), has become impatient with his commander's game. He wants to begin the proper hunt - stalking the members of the Voyager crew and killing them all!


CHARACTERS:

Capt. Janeway: One of the pleasures of this two-parter is seeing the regulars in different roles, yet still true to their natures. Even stripped of her identity, Janeway is completely in charge. Her interactions with Tuvok and Seven are instantly familiar, with Tuvok the trusted advisor and Seven the person she wants to trust despite strain and tension. The main difference between Janeway with the neural implant and without it is that, with her identity returned, she is able to deal with the larger threat of the Hirogen. I wish there had been more interaction between her and the Hirogen Alpha in Part Two, as I enjoyed the scenes in which the two commanders reasoned with each other, two intelligent officers finding common ground in the midst of chaos.

Seven of Nine: Is the first crew member to regain her identity, thanks to her Borg plot devices, and gets the most prominent supporting role. Again. I'd complain if I actually thought any of the other regulars would be preferable, but Seven's strained interactions with Janeway inject an extra layer of tension into the first part. Within the simulation, Janeway's Resistance leader worries that Seven may be a traitor and is prepared to kill her. This leaves Seven working to return Janeway's identity to her, even as the woman she's trying to save is pulling her gun to shoot her as a traitor. Part Two gives her much less to do, allowing some strong moments for the rest of the cast, though she still gets a memorable bit in which she stands up to Turanj, showing no fear at his threat of execution.

The Doctor: Is forced to collaborate with the Hirogen Alpha. He really has no choice. With the crew thrust into violent holographic simulations with the safeties turned off, the Doctor's options are to patch up the crew so that they can continue to "play the game," or to refuse and watch his shipmates die horribly. He does remain alert for an opportunity to do more, however; and when Seven is brought to him with severe injuries, he is able to neutralize her neural implant so that she can get the rest to start fighting back.

Harry Kim: Gets his best episode of the season - probably his best episode since The Chute. He shows both cleverness and grit in his interactions with the Hirogen, aiding first the Doctor and then Janeway while convincing his captors that he is doing their bidding. Garrett Wang rises to some decent material with a genuinely strong performance. Plus, it's the only episode thus far this season in which Harry couldn't have been seamlessly replaced by a paperclip.

Hirogen: "Species that don't change die! ...We've allowed our predatory instincts to dominate us... We've spread ourselves too thin. We're no longer a culture, we have no identity. In another thousand years, no one will remember the name Hirogen!" Karr recognizes that the inability to think beyond the immediate hunt is leading his species on a slow path to extinction. His motives for subjecting the Voyager crew to a series of holographic horrors lend him a shade of gray that has been absent from previous Hirogen. At the same time, we see that the Hirogen are not just aggressors - They are also victims of their own, inflexible ideology. Appropriately, in Part Two, Turanj is talked back to the traditional Hirogen path by a holographic simulation of a Nazi in the dying days of World War II - one failed ideologue inspiring another to self-destructive aggression.


THOUGHTS:

The Killing Game is written by Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, who partnered for the superb season-bridging Scorpion. This two-parter is not of that quality, nor is it trying to be. This is a large-form example of a tendency both writers share: Playing games with the show's "reality," putting the characters into bizarre situations to see what might happen. This can result in a terrible episode (Braga's Genesis springs to mind, as does Menosky's Masks) - but when these writers are on form, the results can also be a lot of fun.

Happily, I found The Killing Game to be tremendously entertaining... albeit, only for about 70% of its running time. Like a lot of two-parters, there isn't quite enough to really fill two episodes, and the last half of Part Two starts to feel more than a little stretched out. Notably, there are at least two too many cutaways to another holodeck, in which Neelix and the Doctor have "comedy" dealings with some holographic Klingons.

But for at least an episode and a half, it is very entertaining. I particularly enjoyed seeing how the regulars' personalities kept showing through, even without their memories. It might have been more off-the-wall fun to have had them in very different roles - But it feels more "right" to see the characters paralleling their familiar roles even when given different identities and memories.

The use of the Hirogen is clever, too, developing them beyond their previous "Predator meets Star Trek" status. I find myself hoping that the events of this episode are followed up in the next Hirogen episode, and genuinely intrigued to see where they might be taken from here.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Retrospect
Next Episode: Vis a Vis 


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads