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| The Clown (Michael McKean) at play. Be afraid. |
THE PLOT
Voyager reaches a world that used to be a major trading center... until it was devastated by a major solar flare that rendered it uninhabitable. An automated message tells them that the survivors entered suspended animation to wait out the disaster. Since the planet began its recovery four years earlier, and readings show two of the five survivors have died while hooked up to the system, it's clear that something has gone wrong.
Janeway orders the life support system beamed aboard. Determining that the survivors were hooked up to an artificial environment, she decides to send B'Elanna and Harry into the simulation. They expect to talk to the survivors and then bring them out. Instead, they are confronted by the figure of a Clown (Michael McKean), who informs them that he will not let his hostages go because doing so would end his own existence.
The Clown is the manifestation of the survivors' fears about their planet and survival, brought to monstrous life by the system they created. He can read the thoughts of anyone hooked up to the system, and he has total control of the environment. Attempts to escape are punished swiftly - hence, the two dead. He keeps Harry, but lets B'Elanna go with a message for Janeway: No interference, or the hostages die - including Harry Kim!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Janeway: She first tries to reason with the Clown, but that is doomed from the start. The Clown is fear personified and, as Tuvok notes, fear is the most primitive of emotions. Then she attempts the equivalent of a frontal assault, one which almost works. Finally, she resorts to trickery. She admits to the Clown that she has a healthy respect for fear: "It's a very healthy thing most of the time. You warn us of danger, remind us of our limits, protect us from carelessness. I've learned to trust fear." But, she adds as she springs her trap, she also knows that fear is ultimately meant to be conquered.
Harry Kim: We see through the Clown just how much trust Harry has in Janeway. Harry tries to resist the Clown's games by reminding himself that none of what he's experiencing is real. His resistance is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, as the Clown rises to the challenge by making Harry re-live his greatest fear: a surgery he witnessed as a child on a young radiation victim. Given some good material for a change, Garrett Wang actually does some decent work, confirming that the usual failure of the Harry Kim character has a lot more to do with the writers than the actor.
Doctor: "Excuse me, you're not holding that properly." The Doctor's entrance is an applause moment that works brilliantly: Timed at the point of greatest tension, diffusing that tension in an instant. The Doctor gets a very strong supporting role, acting as Janeway's negotiator since his artificial mind is one the program can't tap into. This and the Doctor's smug attitude make him the ultimate mood-killer for the Clown, who doesn't quite know how to react to someone whose mind he can't read and who clearly has no fear of him.
The Clown: "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." What better to personify fear than a clown? One of the most common child phobias: A grinning figure of mischief with a painted face and garish costume. Michael McKean is wonderful, playing with his victims as a child might play with insects (it's worth mentioning that one of the Clown's games is "the insect game," which we should probably be just as glad isn't actually shown). The best villain the series has presented thus far, and one of the most memorable villains in the entire history of the franchise.
THOUGHTS
The Thaw is the best episode of Voyager to date. It edges out Death Wish, the only previous episode I gave full marks, thanks to a script that actually centers on the core cast and to the immediacy that its nightmarish concept grants it. Joe Menosky, writer of some terrific TNG and DS9 episodes, doesn't shy away from the horror of the scenario. He embraces the horror with some truly visceral scenes. Think of the moment in Faces when the Vidiian Sulan turned around to reveal that he was wearing Crewman Durst's face. Now imagine an episode with multiple scenes that effective.
My favorite such moment is the one I already mentioned when talking about Harry in this episode. The Clown punishes Harry for thinking of escape. He first turns him into an old man, then into a baby. Finally, he forces Harry to relive his worst moment, preparing to perform surgery on him while his leering, circus nightmare crowd of "Friends" watches. Another great moment centers around the killing of a hostage. We are primed to expect a rescue. B'Elanna is racing against time to deactivate circuits fueling the simulation. The Doctor is delaying the execution by getting in the way as much as possible. We are told how close B'Elanna is. Even as the man is fixed to the guillotine and the blade begins to fall, we are sure that the blade will disappear at the crucial instant.
The blade doesn't disappear. We cut from its descent to the reactions of the other hostages as we hear its impact. The man dies, another hostage is prepped for execution, and Janeway concedes defeat before the Clown kills everyone. It's as far from what you expect of Voyager as possible - which is one reason it hits home so very hard.
An excellent script is complemented by superb direction. Director Marvin V. Rush keeps things as visually interesting as possible. He doesn't just shoot people talking. He shoots people's faces through other objects. He makes sure things are happening in the background, whether it be the activity of the Clown's friends or Kes' downcast look as Neelix embarrasses himself (again) with a staggeringly useless suggestion in the conference room. In another scene, as the Doctor negotiates with the Clown, we see the negotiations through a large pipe as we pull back to show one of the hostages, listening in on the proceedings.
The Thaw is a rare episode that doesn't put a foot wrong. Putting heavy focus on arguably the weakest regular, it manages to make that character work for the space of at least one episode while telling a genuinely frightening story in a wonderfully visual manner. A great episode, plain and simple. It should have been put on continuous loop in the writers' room as an example of what this show is capable of doing when the material is willing to stop playing things safe.
Overall Rating: 10/10.
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