3-25. Worst Case Scenario.

Chakotay leads a Maquis mutiny!

THE PLOT

Chakotay and his former Maquis crew members stage a mutiny, taking control of Voyager while Janeway is off ship making contact with a friendly species. Chakotay has planned well, and within minutes has secured the ship. He imprisons the senior officers in the brig, the rest of the crew in a cargo bay, and makes his ultimatum: Join him, or be put off at the next habitable planet. They have fifteen minutes to decide...

This isn't real, of course. It's a holodeck simulation - an unfinished one, which Torres discovered while purging old files. The program was created by Tuvok back when the Maquis first came onto Voyager, when he feared a mutiny was a likely result. He abandoned it once it became clear the two crews were working well together, and believed it deleted.

Now that it's been discovered, Janeway urges him to finish the story, with help from Tom Paris. When they go to the holodeck to program an ending, however, they discover someone else has already beat them to it: Seska (Martha Hackett) programmed a trap before she left the ship, and now that trap's been activated!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Rather than being offended by the simulation, she encourages Tuvok to finish it. She observes that, cut off from the new art and literature being created at home, the people on board will need to create their own. When Tuvok objects that a simulated mutiny might cause friction among the crew, she snaps at him to "loosen up," finding the program to be really nothing more than some harmless fun (with it hinted that she's been playing the simulation herself).

Chakotay: The villain within the simulation, carefully orchestrating a Maquis overthrow of Voyager while Janeway is away from the ship. Though his disloyalty is not accurate to the "real" Chakotay, the rest of his traits are consistent. He is not needlessly cruel or violent. He stuns Starfleet officers fighting on Janeway's side, and has Janeway loyalists put off the ship on a habitable world rather than killing them. When Janeway returns to the ship, he tries to reason with her, pointing out that there is no reasonable scenario that will allow her to retake Voyager. Though the real Chakotay objects to being the villain, Robert Beltran seems to have enjoyed it - It's the most engaged performance he's given since Unity.

Tuvok: I guessed fairly early on that Tuvok had to be the writer of the program. It had to be someone who knew the senior officers well enough to capture their basic personalities, and also someone able to secure their identity too well for even Torres to break through. Honestly, that didn't leave a lot of potential suspects. I figured it had to be either Tuvok or Seska, and Seska wouldn't have written herself in such a villainous light. As a writer, Tuvok believes that a fictional scenario needs to spring from accurate representations of the characters - a view that I share wholeheartedly.

Tom Paris: Believes that good fiction is propelled by plot twists, and doesn't much care whether those twists are based in character or not (which essentially makes him Brannon Braga). When he volunteers to finish writing the program, among his ideas is to have Janeway turn into a sadistic autocrat who executes anyone who stands in her way... Which maybe shows that Tom has been paying attention to character, after all! One of the pleasures of the episode is watching Tom and Tuvok work together, Tom's instinctive actions complementing Tuvok's logic to good effect.

Torres: Her relationship with Tom is still progressing, as it's a planned date that leads Tom to discover the program Torres has stumbled across. B'Elanna's curiosity leads her to finding Tuvok's old program. She also works with Janeway in the second half to make changes to Seska's scenarios, lending aid to Tuvok and Tom as they struggle to survive.

Seska: Martha Hackett's Seska may have gotten bogged down in a bad arc in Season Two, but even then she remained a consistently enjoyable antagonist. Her return as a holographic villain is a clever way for writer Kenneth Biller to bring her back into the series while using the show's own continuity in a fun way. This is the first season Seska, before she was revealed as a Cardassian spy. She's presented as a Bajoran member of the Maquis, with no indication that she's anything other than that. She remains ruthless and manipulative, and emerges as the full villain well before the episode's end. I'm guessing this will be the last time we see her - but it's a far better final bow for the character than Basics was, showing her as a formidable villain her own right in a way that has no ties at all to the horrible Kazon arc.


THOUGHTS

Credit where it's due: This episode gets off to a fantastic start. We open with Chakotay sounding out Torres for a mutiny, a warning about being on the right side "when the shooting starts" hooking us into the titles. Said shooting starts very quickly after we come back from break. As the mutiny unfolds, it becomes obvious that what we are seeing is set during Season One (Bajoran Seska, Chakotay relatively new to the post of First Officer, Kes in her old outfit and hair style), but it's only as we go into the next break that we realize that the scenario we're witnessing isn't "real," but rather a fiction within the story.

It's a fast-paced, clever opening. It creates momentum from the start, which sustains through the second Act, as Tom plays through the scenario in an entirely different way. Then the program runs out at a climactic moment, effectively leaving the characters stuck in the midst of a cliffhanger with no resolution, itself a very amusing take on the (many) series that end on unresolved cliffhangers. It's a good plot turn, one that allows the episode to reinvent itself in its second half.

...Which, all too predictably, is when it goes downhill. The gags with Tuvok and Tom arguing over how to finish the scenario are predictable and unfunny, and the pace is already starting to flag. The plot turn involving Seska's trap promises to re-energize things, but nothing terribly interesting is done with it. In the end, neither the simulated plot involving Chakotay's mutiny nor the subplot involving Seska's trap are convincingly resolved, leaving both strands not so much wrapping up as running out.

I think Biller's script would have benefited from focusing on either one strand or the other. If this is going to be an episode about Seska wreaking havoc from beyond the grave, then introduce that idea much sooner - Maybe by planting it in a more traditional holo-novel, only for our characters to gradually discover that they're trapped in someone else's game. Alternatively, if the episode is going to be about Tuvok's unfinished scenario, just let the second half play out along those lines: With Tuvok and Tom unveiling the finished product and the characters responding to the representations of themselves. It would be smaller-scale, but it would at least feel like a single, unified episode.

Much like Coda and, to a lesser extent, Darkling, we are left with what feels like the first half of one episode stitched to the second half of another, to the detriment of both. A pity - For a good half of the running time, I was thoroughly enjoying this.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Displaced
Next Episode: Scorpion

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

2-17. Dreadnought.

B'Elanna tries to de-activate the Dreadnought.

THE PLOT

Voyager encounters debris from an unmanned ship. Analysis shows that the ship was destroyed by Cardassian weaponry. When Janeway orders further investigation, Torres is shocked to recognize the weapons signature. It belongs to Dreadnought, a Cardassian weapon that she personally reprogrammed two years earlier. She had sent Dreadnought to attack a Cardassian base, but the weapon disappeared. It's now clear that it was caught by the Caretaker before it could reach its destination.

It is on course to an inhabited world, which it has mistaken for its target. Torres beams over to disarm the device. The Dreadnought, however, decides that Torres is acting under Cardassian influence, and takes off at Warp 9. If Voyager can't find a way to stop the weapon from reaching its target, then the cost will be millions of innocent lives, all on Torres' conscience!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: As soon as it's clear Dreadnought has targeted an inhabited world, Janeway works tirelessly to stop it. She doesn't hesitate to contact the planet to give them time to prepare a defense and an evacuation. Finally, when all options appear exhausted, she determines to destroy Voyager to prevent the weapon from reaching its destination - though she makes sure her crew are evacuated from the ship first.

Torres: Roxann Biggs-Dawson continues to impress, and this time she gets a much better script than was the case in Prototype. From the moment she recognizes Dreadnought, B'Elanna feels immense guilt. She considers that anything that happens from here is here fault, because she made the choice to reprogram the weapon. This lends a note of desperation to her actions, particularly as the episode approaches its climax. There's some genuine tension and cleverness to the scripting as Torres and the Dreadnought computer attempt to outwit each other, and the episode's final minutes are some of the most suspenseful this series has seen to date.

Tom Paris: What I had assumed was simply a minor subplot in Meld actually gets some follow up, as Tom continues to behave in a way that more closely resembles his reputation rather than his normal behavior. At this point, I'm guessing he and Chakotay are collaborating on some kind of undercover scheme. Tom's misbehavior is a little too rapid for me to really put it down to anything else. Besides, every instance we have seen has been minor: a betting pool, arriving a few minutes late and disheveled to a meeting, showing a bad attitude. It's behavior designed to draw attention.  In terms of actually doing his job, he continues to perform with his usual competence. A trap for Seska's spy, perhaps? I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the season's end to find out.


THOUGHTS

OK, I think at this point that Voyager's second season is finally recovering from its dismal start. This makes three of the last four episodes that have been substantially above the series' average. After a long period of finding Voyager wanting, I'm starting to feel optimistic again.

I appreciate the recurring threads that appear in this script. Michael Jonas (Raphael Sbarge) continues to surreptitiously work with the Kazon, though he is clearly growing frustrated at being blocked from direct communication with Seska. Voyager's poor reputation in the Delta Quadrant is raised again, with the people of the planet Dreadnought has targeted initially convinced this is an attack by the Federation ship. And, of course, the Tom subplot is emerging as a running element. All of these create a more unified show. The second season has suffered from a feeling that none of the episodes are building to anything, that the series isn't actually going anywhere. These running plots, however, have the potential to fix that problem. As the season nears its end, the show is again starting to seem like it might actually build to something - which is starting to make me interested again, instead of just watching an episode every so often out of sense of duty.

Dreadnought is principally a suspense/action episode. A good one, with a driving pace and an increasing sense of urgency. The script makes sure to let us know how high the stakes are, while Janeway's communications with First Minister Kellan (Dan Kern) on the planet put a likable face to the potential victims of the Dreadnought. It's directed with polish by Levar Burton, who uses varied lighting and close-ups to heighten the most suspenseful dramatic moments.

I do think the episode misses a trick in the ending - Imagine how much of a gut punch it would be to the characters if they had failed. B'Elanna would have suffered devastating guilt, as would Janeway, while Voyager's reputation in the Delta Quadrant would have been dealt an unrecoverable blow. Still, asking Voyager to go to such places is not realistic. This is a very strong episode. I just hope the series is able to continue in this vein, rather than returning to the bland formula that has made up far too much of this season.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Meld
Next Episode: Death Wish

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

2-05. Non Sequitur.

Harry gets a surprising wake-up.

THE PLOT

Harry Kim awakens to find himself in San Francisco, with his fiancee, Libby (Jennifer Gatti), and a steadily advancing Starfleet career. It is not a dream: It's too vivid, everything is too solid. It's also not the past. It's the present. A present in which Harry Kim was not assigned to Voyager, and was therefore able to continue in his Earth-bound life. It's not some alien projection or hallucination. Reality itself has changed, and in Harry's favor.

But Harry can't help but look the gift horse in the mouth. Told that his best friend had taken his place on Voyager, Harry finds himself compelled to search the crew manifest. Finding that Tom Paris also never made it onto Voyager in this timeline, he can't help but visit Tom. The combination of accessing restricted files and visiting a Maquis convict brings Harry to the attention of Starfleet authorities, and Harry soon finds himself suspected of being a Maquis spy.

Now the only way left to secure a future that doesn't involve prison is to find a way back to his own reality - a slim hope, unless he can convince the bitter, dissipated Tom to help him!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Comes up with some Technobabble to boost the transporter's signal in order to attempt beaming Harry out of the anomaly. Otherwise largely absent, though her effect on Tom is evident when the alternate Tom tells Harry that Janeway's offer was a lot more attractive than the life he faced without the Voyager mission. We also learn that after Tom got into trouble on Deep Space 9 in this alternate timeline, Janeway did attempt to secure his release. Even at that early point, she had enough loyalty to him as a member of her crew that she didn't just fly off without him, even though doing so would have been fully justified.

Harry Kim: Writer Brannon Braga turns the spotlight on Harry... and we get to see that he really is as bland and wooden as he seems! Wang's performance is, frankly, wretched. Wooden as oak, stiff as rigor-mortis personified. If this episode centered on either Tom or Janeway, I have no doubt that it would be compelling stuff. But just by being a Harry Kim episode, it's crippled - and the fault this time lies not with writer Brannon Braga, whose script tries very hard to fill in some of the blanks of Harry's character. No, this time the fault lies squarely with Garrett Wang, who is given a real chance to shine - but who just plain isn't up to the challenge.

Tom Paris: Robert Duncan McNeill has some fun playing the disipated Tom Paris of this alternate timeline. Tom has continued on the path set for him before Janeway made her offer, and he's much farther gone than he was at the start of Caretaker. When we first see him - much too late into the episode - he's drunken and embittered, but there's still a spark of something that makes him listen to Harry's story about an alternate reality. Though he shuts down once Harry mentions taking him back to Starfleet, suspecting some sort of trap, he is intrigued enough that he obviously asks some questions of some of his remaining friends, enabling him to help Harry at the crucial moment.


THOUGHTS

A Harry-centric episode. Given Harry's general blandness, along with the quality of the last Harry episode, I couldn't help but brace for the worst.

The good news is, Non Sequitur isn't half-bad. It's well-produced and nicely helmed by director David Livingston.  It's rather a relief to get footage that is actually outside for a change! There are some good scenes and entertaining moments, and the entire first Act - in which we are just as confused as Harry as to what is going on here - is just extremely well-done.

The bad news is, the episode never really manages to build on that. Harry's character remains as flat and dull as ever. Jennifer Gatti, as Harry's fiancee, is even more wooden than Garrett Wang - which in a way makes them the perfect couple, but certainly doesn't make them a very watchable or interesting pair on screen. Their scenes together drag the episode to a screeching halt, and it takes a very long time for the story to build up any momentum at all.

The story does manage to spark some interest in the late going, once Tom Paris enters the action. Robert Duncan McNeill has shown that he can do well when given good material, and Paris' scenes provide some quite good material - yet another reason why I wish this had been Tom's episode, as Tom's alternate timeline is far more interesting than Harry's.  But Tom doesn't really enter into the episode until well past the halfway mark, meaning that there is a lot of relatively dull material to get through before things start taking off.

Passable without ever really living up to its potential, the best that I can say for Non Sequitur is that it's well-made. But with a weak central actor leaving a void at the heart of the episode, there's nothing terribly compelling on a character level. I didn't have a bad time watching this story. But I never cared about the story, or about Harry, which leaves this another weak episode of a thus-far very disappointing second season.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Elogium
Next Episode: Twisted

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-16. Learning Curve.

Tuvok encounters Maquis resistance.

THE PLOT

When Tuvok encounters insubordination from a Maquis engineer (Armand Schultz), he brings the problem to Janeway. She decides to punish the messenger by putting Tuvok in charge of training the "Worst of the Worst," in a plot ripped straight from the pages of Police Academy 9: Mission to the Moon. Tuvok gives his charges the full drill instructor routine, but finds that his class isn't responding well to usual Starfleet tactics.

Meanwhile, the biological Technobabble gel packs are malfunctioning, threatening the ship's power (again). The Doctor and Kes are able to trace the problem to a virus caused by (I'm not making this up) Neelix's cheese. But can they cure the virus before all the biological gel packs on the ship are infected?


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Recognizes that it's not reasonable to expect people who were never part of Starfleet to simply accept Starfleet procedures. She assigns Tuvok to train the most troublesome Maquis, recognizing his expertise as a former instructor at Starfleet Academy.

Tuvok: Takes Janeway's order to show the Maquis "why (Starfleet) does things the way (they) do," and decides the best way to implement that order is by acting as a drill instructor, having them run laps, and forcing the blue guy to do the equivalent of cleaning a bathroom with a toothbrush. And he's surprised when this doesn't work? At least he recognizes that his tactics are backfiring. The episode sidesteps Tuvok coming up with a way to truly connect with his charges, instead having them bond through the miracle of forced Third Act Tension.

Neelix: Using some of his plants, he shows Tuvok through metaphor what the Vulcan can't grasp on his own: That his trainees are not Starfleet cadets, and that he's not likely to be successful by treating them like cadets. Tuvok may not like Neelix, but he has the courtesy to listen without interrupting, and he recognizes good advice when it's given. Neelix makes up for his moment of usefulness by endangering the ship - though in absolute fairness, I doubt anyone would have anticipated the ship being vulnerable to the pernicious power of cheese!

The Doctor: Told to be more considerate of his patients, he decides to put that into practice here... by treating the gel pack as a patient and being elaborately polite to the inanimate packet of bio-matter. Little bits like that are why he's the best thing on the show. I do wonder, though. When the gel packs begin failing all over the ship, sending all of the ship's power haywire, why is the holographic doctor unaffected? It would be a perfectly natural plot turn for him to switch off at a critical moment here, and it would have the benefit of raising the stakes for the Final Act by leaving Kes alone to finish the diagnostic work. But I suppose creating anything resembling actual tension would be unthinkable for this episode...


THOUGHTS

No, no. This wasn't the season finale, not really. This was the bit of filler right before the season finale, like Bounty coming ahead of The Expanse, or Transfigurations ahead of Best of Both Worlds. There's still one big episode left to close out the season, with this installment pinching a few pennies in order to pay for it. Right? Right?

Oh, crap. (sigh) This actually is the first season finale for Star Trek: Voyager.

Which isn't to say that Learning Curve is a terrible episode. It's certainly better than The Cloud or Emanations, just offhand. It could also be said in the producers' defense that this show wasn't intended as a finale. It simply ended up that way after a bunch of shows were held over for Season Two.

But surely there was time, once that decision was made, to flip a couple of episodes in sequence? Either Jetrel or Faces would have been a much stronger note for the season to end on. As it stands, the first season goes out on a whimper, as Tuvok plays drill instructor to a handful of insolent Maquis officers, none of whom have even been glimpsed in previous episodes. Meanwhile, the producers pad out the running time with yet more of Janeway's holo-novel, which is even duller than the last time. Is it really Janeway's idea of fun to first be grilled by a Judith Anderson-like housekeeper, then mocked by the Children of the Damned?

A few things do bring this episode slightly to life. I enjoyed the scene between Tuvok and Dalby (Armand Schultz), in which Dalby reveals his past. It's not a particularly original past, but it fits with the backstory of the conflict with the Cardassians that led to the rise of the Maquis, and it's both darker and more detailed than one would generally expect of Trek. The episode's other Maquis are just two-dimensional constructs, though it is at least good to see a bit of culture clash for the Maquis suddenly forced to live under Starfleet rules.

But... Why is this happening now? We're a full season into the show. This script would have made a lot more sense if it had been slotted about eight episodes earlier (maybe with Seska in the Dalby role?), and might even have felt like it mattered in that slot. As it stands, Janeway and Tuvok seem to have taken a long time to come up with any plans to deal with those Maquis who don't deal well with Starfleet regulations.

Not so much a bad episode as just a minor one, this cliched installment is one of the weaker season finales. It's not horrible like Shades of Grey. But it's inconsequential, with not a single memorable feature. And so the season ends... with a whimper.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Jetrel
Next Episode: The 37's

Season One Overview

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

1-11. State of Flux.

THE PLOT

While collecting edible roots on an uninhabited planet, Voyager detects a Kazon ship in orbit. They retrieve the landing party and escape. But shortly after, they receive a distress call from the same ship.

The distress call is genuine. An explosion devastated the ship. The Kazon closest to the explosion are found fused with the surrounding metal, while the sole survivor has undergone a cellular mutation. Most disturbing is the source of the explosion - a power source that appears to be Federation technology. This leaves three possibilities: a previous Starfleet vessel was drawn to the Delta Quadrant; the power source just happens to be similar to Federation tech; or - most disturbing of all, and most likely - someone aboard Voyager has been secretly dealing with the Kazon!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Largely in a reactive role this week, responding to situations as they emerge. She does get an excellent scene when speaking with an aggressive Kazon captain over the viewscreen. When he tries to intimidate her, she gives a response worthy of Sisko: "I don't like bullies, and I don't like threats, and I don't like you... You can try and stop us from getting at the truth, but I promise you that if you do, I will respond with all the 'unique technologies' at my command." Kate Mulgrew seems to relish this "tough guy" moment, though I hope such scenes are not overused in the future. Part of the reason it works so well here is that it's a slightly different note for the character, which makes it more effective than if this were her default way of dealing with things.

Chakotay: Some time prior to the events of Caretaker, he had a relationship with Seska. It ended when they mutually agreed it could never work out... but now, far from home and with limited options, Seska is openly interested in rekindling their old relationship, and Chakotay is at least considering that offer. He is protective of Seska when she falls under suspicion, and tries to read her every action after that in her favor. There is also some lingering feeling of divide in him between himself and Janeway. Speaking to Tuvok of his time in the Maquis, he wonders: If Tuvok was working for Janeway, and if Seska had her own agenda, then "who was working for (him)?" Given some decent material for a change, Robert Beltran actually does a good job. Now if only that could happen more often...

Tuvok: Bluntly lays out the possibilities to Janeway, emphasizing the likelihood of a traitor on board. He carries out his investigation dispassionately and thoroughly, giving both Seska and Carey (who was passed over for promotion in favor of Torres) an equal level of suspicion. When Chakotay asks him about how he reconciles Vulcan honesty with his necessary deceptions - both against Chakotay when pretending to be a member of the Maquis and against the suspects in his investigations - he gives an answer worthy of an attorney, and admits that however composed he may be when executing these deceptions, he does find them difficult.

Seska: As much as this is Chakotay's episode, this is also her episode. Martha Hackett's Seska has been visible in the background of multiple episodes this season. She was the Maquis officer who made a thinly-veiled offer to side with Chakotay in any shipwide rebellion against Janeway, and she was the driving force behind Torres' decision to defy Janeway's orders in Prime Factors. She has never been satisfied with Janeway as captain, and openly refers to Janeway as a fool at one point in this episode. When Chakotay pulls her from Engineering while she's under suspicion in order to protect her, she lashes out at him for it. She insists she is loyal to Chakotay, but she does believe that Voyager would be best served dealing with some of the more powerful aliens they encounter to make alliances - and, to be honest, it's hard to argue the basic point.


THOUGHTS

What's this? Two good episodes in a row? And an episode in which Chakotay is something other than a Native American cliche or a walking mannequin? Am I watching the right show?

State of Flux is only marginally successful as a mystery. After all, there are really only two suspects, only one of whom has ever really been given any interesting characterization, so it's not too hard to guess who's going to be guilty. But as a character piece, it works very well. It's also a nicely risky piece in a first season that mostly has avoided real risk. Both of the suspects are recurring characters. Whichever of the two ends up being guilty, the only barely-established dynamic of the series will be shifted somewhat. That's inherently interesting, and not the sort of thing I tend to expect from Voyager. It's more the sort of thing you normally see in Deep Space 9.

Character work remains strong, with the characterizations of the normally-bland Chakotay and the always-interesting Seska particularly sharp. The return of the Kazon, and the defection of one of the Voyager crew, are strong signs of continuity in a show that frankly needs a lot more of that sort of thing. There's also a real sense that the events of this episode will receive some follow-up (they demand follow-up), which is encouraging for the series' future.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Prime Factors
Next Episode: Heroes and Demons

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager




Review Index

1-03. Parallax.

THE PLOT

As Voyager begins its long journey, the first major issues facing the ship become apparent. What would be routine maintenance between visits to Starbases has now become the only possible repairs. The replicators have failed, requiring an alternative food source. And the Caretaker's abduction of Voyager caused several deaths on board, leaving the ship with multiple officer vacancies. Janeway is determined to fill these positions with whomever is "next in line," meaning a Starfleet officer, while Chakotay is equally determined to see some of these positions filled by Maquis crew members, in order to integrate the two crews - which rapidly creates conflict between the captain and her new first officer, particularly when Chakotay recommends Torres as chief engineer.

The interpersonal conflicts take a back seat, however, when the ship encounters a singularity. Seeing another ship caught within the event horizon, Janeway orders an attempted rescue. When the rescue goes wrong, she decides to find a nearby settlement that Neelix recommends in order to come back with help. But attempts to move away from the black hole fail. Every time they leave it behind, they find themselves right back where they started!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Despite her good faith gesture of making Chakotay her second-in-command, she genuinely does seem biased against the Maquis crew members. She resists Chakotay's attempts to integrate the two crews by filling some officer vacancies with Maquis crew members, clinging to protocols that effectively mean that none of them will ever gain seniority sufficient to become officers, regardless of ability. Her science background shows itself as she and Torres work out the mechanics of the singularity, and that seems to break through her stubbornness regarding Torres. But there's no indication that this break in Janeway's rigidity will apply to any other Maquis crew members, so here's the question I'm left with: If being the sole "token Maquis" officer is offensive to Chakotay, is it really that much better to be one of two tokens?

Chakotay: Works very hard to balance being Janeway's first officer against protecting the interests of his old Maquis crew members. When Janeway tries to effectively block any of the Maquis from advancing to officer status, Chakotay declares that he "will not be your token Maquis!" He fights hard to secure Torres the post of Chief Engineer, a fight he wins despite Janeway's stubbornness and Torres' temper. Really, based on this episode, Chakotay seems an altogether stronger and more reasonable leader than Janeway does.

The Doctor: Though Caretaker established Robert Picardo's holographic doctor, it didn't really have time to do much of anything with him. Parallax remedies this, giving him much more to do and even some characterization. The doctor has been programmed with the sum total of modern medical knowledge, to make him able to deal with any medical crisis that might arise. In effect, he is "the embodiment of modern medicine." As such, the rather routine daily medical issues the current situation calls on him to deal with leave him feeling resentful over the waste of his skills. He visibly softens when Kes treats him compassionately, though at this point Kes is the only person on board treating him as anything other than a computer program.

Kes: When she and Neelix crash the briefing for senior officers, Kes almost instantly shows her value, coming up with a suggestion for food supplies that is both practical and workable given the ship's current situation. She also shows empathy in her dealings with the holographic doctor, and these two characters and actors show signs of making a good team in the future.

Torres: Though she has difficulty keeping her temper in check, the crisis surrounding the singularity gives her a chance to show her engineering skills. Her quick grasp of the temporal mechanics impresses Janeway, which in turn secures her promotion to chief engineer. Some of the bonding between Torres and Janeway near the end comes across a bit forced (particularly when they complete each other's sentences while puzzling out the temporal anomaly), but it's still a quite reasonable episode for a character who was developed in only the broadest terms in the pilot.


THOUGHTS

OK, so you don't have to be Stephen Hawking to pick apart the science surrounding the black hole. A crack in an event horizon that the ship can just fly through? Really? Disney's The Black Hole is practically A Brief History of Time by comparison.

And truly... So what? It's an episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Go in accepting that any "science" presented is ludicrous, and you're probably going to be a lot better off. The key question has nothing to do with plausibility, but with entertainment value. I enjoyed watching Parallax, and can just about squint my way around the unconvincing science to enjoy some pretty good character interplay.

Characterization is much stronger here than it was in Caretaker, with Brannon Braga's script giving focus to some of those the pilot left undeveloped. Chakotay benefits the most, as we see him calmly yet forcefully protecting the interests of his people, even as a working relationship with Janeway is advanced. The doctor and Torres were also largely undeveloped by the pilot, and both of them also get strong moments here.

The story is ridiculous, but it is well-paced. The threat and the character material are well-mixed, with the character interplay remaining at the episode's fore throughout, but not at the expense of the story. Overall, a good show.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Caretaker

Next Episode: Time and Again

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager




Review Index

1-01, 1-02. Caretaker.

THE PLOT

When a Maquis ship disappears inside a plasma storm in the Badlands, Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) takes the new, Intrepid-class Federation starship Voyager to search for them. It isn't long before Voyager is caught by the same phenomenon that caught the Maquis ship, bringing them to the other side of the galaxy.

The crew barely has time to assess damage and casualties before they are all whisked away to a nearby array, a structure in space that somehow brought them here. There is an intelligence behind the array, and it's looking for something. When it sends most of the crew back, but holds onto a single young ensign (Garrett Wang), as well as a half-Klingon member of the Maquis crew. Janeway is thrust into an uneasy alliance with the Maquis captain, Chakotay (Robert Beltran), to try to recover the missing crew members before starting the long journey home.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: It's fairly well-known that Kate Mulgrew was cast in a hurry after the first choice, Genevieve Bujold, quit during filming of the pilot. In my opinion, the show caught a lucky break. Mulgrew is a reliable actress, who holds the screen and conveys a certain steely quality that I don't think Bujold would have managed. A potentially interesting character detail is that Janeway comes from a science background. As a former science officer, she observes how unusual the atmosphere of the planet near the array is.

Chakotay: Robert Beltran apparently quickly wanted out of his contract. From the evidence of this pilot, it's not hard to see why. Much is made of Chakotay in the first half. But once he meets up with the Voyager crew, he recedes almost instantly into the background. The idea of having a Maquis captain as second lead, someone with a very different outlook than Janeway, has potential. Based on this pilot, though, Chakotay is effectively an empty suit with an attached facial tattoo. I'd hope for more interesting layers to emerge as the show goes on... but given how quickly Beltran lost interest in the show, I'm guessing the show never did develop any interest in his character.

Paris: Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) gets a fairly strong amount of focus in this pilot movie, and honestly emerges more as the "second lead" than Chakotay does. Paris certainly has the most interesting backstory. McNeill's performance isn't bad, though I would personally prefer an actor with more of an edge to convey Paris' mercenary side.

Tuvok: Doesn't really get very much to do here, though he is established as a confidante for Janeway. The most amusing character beat he receives is in his immediate, highly evident dislike of Neelix. Tim Russ is quite funny in his nonverbal reactions to Neelix, greatly lifting the amusement value of the show's second half.

Neelix: The comedy relief character. Capably played by Ethan Phillips, Neelix works well enough here. He is fairly shrewd, able to think and act quickly to rescue Kes. Also, he is funny not in his own behavior - which isn't particularly amusing - but rather in Tuvok's reactions to him. If Neelix is allowed to maintain a degree of intelligence, and if it is remembered that the humor of Neelix lies in the reactions of those around him, then he might even work. I'm... not optimistic, but will at least give credit to Phillips, a good character actor, for helping Neelix's debut to be fairly strong.

Kes: One of the Ocampa, the citizens of the planet protected by the array, which is known as "The Caretaker." Kes rebelled against the Caretaker's edicts, as interpreted by the Ocampa.  She left their underground city and went to the surface - where she was promptly captured by a vicious tribal group. Kes shows the strong moral compass that Neelix lacks, insisting on helping the Voyager crew recover their missing people after they helped Neelix rescue her.

Harry Kim: In his very first scene, Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), an ensign fresh out of the Academy, is on the verge of allowing Quark (an amusing cameo by Armin Shimerman) to bully him into buying some worthless stones. All because he doesn't have the stones to just look Quark in the eye and say, "No." He forms a friendship with Paris, seeming determined to see decency in the disgraced pilot even after he is told about his past. This elicits similar loyalty from Paris. He also shows both judgment and restraint in his scenes with Torres.

Torres: Is half-Klingon, and prone to losing her temper. Pairs with Harry Kim for the second half of the show but gets little of interest to do, leaving Kim to be both the strategist and the voice of reason in their partnership. Roxann Biggs-Dawson gives an adequate performance, though it will take an episode that actually gives her some material for me to able to judge her work to any reasonable degree.


THOUGHTS

Much like when I started reviewing Enterprise a couple years ago, Voyager marks a live-action Star Trek series that I never truly saw. There is a difference, mind you. I watched Enterprise without having previously seen any of it, and with no prior knowledge beyond its reputation as Trek's "franchise killer." Even so, by the time I started viewing it, that show's reputation seemed to have recovered to a point at which it's often regarded as no worse than Voyager, and in many quarters is regarded as a slight improvement. That and an appealing cast gave me some room for optimism as I approached it, particularly after a quite decent pilot.

With Voyager, my negative impressions are actually based on experience. I attempted to watch it when it first premiered, and was quickly chased away by what I found to be cliched stories, cardboard characters, and wooden actors.  That handful of Voyager episodes played no small part in driving me away from Trek for years. So while I'll approach the series with an open mind in these reviews, I feel it only fair to give warning that my limited memories are not good ones.

Caretaker isn't bad, though. It's not great. My memories of cardboard characters and wooden acting are too often proved true. There's also just about enough plot here for 70 or so minutes, which means that at more than 90 minutes it feels overstretched. Still, it does its job as a pilot.  It establishes all the characters' roles, even if some of the characterization is anemic. It's also a good-looking show, with special effects worthy of the big screen. As the highest-budget Star Trek television episode ever - costing more than The Wrath of Khan did - it's not hard to see why it's so visually arresting. But at the very least, the money shows.

It opens well. The teaser provides an effective hook, efficiently introducing Chakotay, Tuvok, and Torres, and re-introducing the Maquis. I'm very glad I took the advice of one reader of these reviews, and waited until after watching The Maquis 2-parter on Deep Space 9 before beginning this series. The teaser, with the Maquis ship battling the Cardassians, is a near-perfect pickup from that episode.

From there, we cut to a splendid title sequence. The orchestral score is glorious, better than Deep Space 9's - which, though moody, is far too slow and one I usually fast forward through. The visuals are startling, with advances in CGI technology since the early days of TNG really showing as we follow the Voyager through the solar system and even through the rings of Saturn.

I know there's some criticism of Janeway's final decision. I actually think her choice is justified even on pragmatic grounds. After all, Tuvok explicitly says it will take hours to isolate and initiate the program on the array that would send them home. Already coming under heavy fire from the Kazon, and with more Kazon ships on the way, Voyager probably wouldn't survive those hours. That justification is not used by Janeway to justify her decisions - instead, she has to Display Superior Morality (TM) - but it is there, which greatly alleviates problems I may have had with the ending otherwise.

Overall, while I wasn't sorry to see this feature-length premiere come to a close, I did enjoy watching this.  Enough threads are there to provide potential for the writers to exploit, and it manages to hold attention for at least most of its run. It may not rank up there with Emissary or The Cage as Trek premieres go... but it's a solid piece overall, and a better introduction than I truly had expected.


Overall Rating: 7/10.


Next Episode: Parallax


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager



Review Index