4-12. Mortal Coil.

Neelix ponders the afterlife, or lack thereof.

THE PLOT

Neelix is dead.

While helping to gather a sample of protomatter from a nebula, he is struck by a beam of energy that kills him instantly. However, with no underlying damage to his brain, Seven believes she can revive him using Borg nanoprobes. Janeway authorizes the procedure, and the operation proves to be a success. Neelix is revived, with minimal side effects.

But he is shaken when he learns that he was not merely unconscious, but actually dead. Per his beliefs, he should have seen all his loved ones waiting for him in The Great Forest, at the Guiding Tree. Instead, he experienced... nothing. Leaving him to wrestle with the increasing certainty that his beliefs, which have kept him going cheerfully through war and loss, are nothing but myths.

"Like a hologram, we just disappear into nothing."


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: She authorizes Seven to attempt to revive Neelix, but only after a significant hesitation as she weighs the potential harm. Beyond that, Janeway is very much in the background of this episode.

Chakotay: One has to wonder at his tactlessness in showing a recently-revived Neelix a holodeck recreation of his death! Other than that, this is another good showing for the most surprisingly improved character of this season. Chakotay, a character who has had minimal previous interaction with Neelix, acts as a surprisingly good friend. He listens as Neelix describes his crisis of faith. He accepts Neelix's request to help him take a Vision Quest, but only after exacting a promise that the Talaxian will discuss what he has seen afterwards (a promise Neelix doesn't live up to). Refreshingly, Chakotay treats the Vision Quest in psychological terms, telling Neelix that it's hardly surprising that his doubts are so strongly reflected by the experience.

Neelix: The three items he selects for his Medicine Bag are very revealing: A pendant made by his sister, killed in the war against the Haakonian Order; a flower from Kes' garden - the garden of the lover who first left him and then left the ship entirely; and a model of The Guiding Tree, a representation of the faith he no longer has. All three represent things he valued but lost. He brings nothing to his Vision Quest that is truly part of his present. We see in his relationship with Ensign Wildman's daughter Naomi that he does still have strong bonds. But he is so shaken by his crisis of faith that he cannot appreciate them. Ethan Phillips is stunningly good throughout, and Neelix's emotional pain during his final conversation with Chakotay is so raw that it's uncomfortable to watch. It continues to bewilder me that an actor capable of this level of emotion (showcased as early as Season One's Jetrel) is so often reduced to bad comedy relief.

Seven of Nine: When she states that Neelix's "function in this crew is diverse," there is the sense that she's delivered a genuine and meaningful compliment. She cannot fully grasp the crew's fear of death, in part because Borg never truly die. "When a drone is damaged beyond repair, it is discarded, but its memories continue to exist in the Collective consciousness. To use a human term, the Borg are immortal." She seems very slightly shaken, however, when Tuvok reminds her that she is no longer linked to the Borg. If she dies, all that she has experienced in the past several months will die with her - something she seems to be digesting as the conversation ends.


THOUGHTS

After finishing Mortal Coil, I scanned the Internet to see what overall audience reaction to it was. From what I can glean, it appears to be a generally respected episode, but not particularly more than that.

For me, however, this is probably my new favorite episode of Star Trek: Voyager. Bryan Fuller's script is emotional but intelligent, a meditation on faith and doubt that refreshingly doesn't attempt to provide an "answer." There's no endorsement of religion here, nor is there a denunciation. Even the Vision Quest scene isn't presented as an answer; Chakotay frames it in terms of dream therapy, a look at Neelix's subconscious, which of course reflects the doubt that dominates his thoughts.

It may seem strange that this episode was done as a Neelix story, as he's never been presented as spiritual. But it works, because it ties in perfectly with Neelix's established background. He's probably not as invested in all the trappings of his people's religion - But the Guiding Tree, the place where the people he's lost will be restored... That is something that has meaning because, as we saw in Jetrel, he lost so much so violently. His pain when that is taken away from him feels real because there is genuine emotional truth in it.

Director Allan Kroeker, usually a reliable hand, surpasses himself with striking visual direction. There's a moment in which we see Neelix watching as the crew celebrate his return to life, clearly feeling distant from them. We get a point-of-view shot of the crew, through Neelix's eyes, just distorted enough for us to really feel that separation. Kroeker also is judicious with closeups. Many of Neelix's most emotional moments are in tight close-ups, where the camera is just a bit further back when focusing on other characters or conversations, visually emphasizing that this is Neelix's story and keeping us firmly with Neelix.

I do have some reservations about the tag, which sees Neelix recovering a little too much, a little too quickly. I would think he'd be under close observation after his suicide attempt, and I would tend to believe he'd be fighting bouts of depression on and off for a while. But that's part and parcel of 1990's episodic television: No mid-'90's Star Trek series was going to willfully give a regular an ongoing psychological problem. Neelix's recovery here doesn't feel so much like a total reset as a determination to keep going, which helps it to avoid feeling insulting, and the way in which he moves on has been woven into the episode from the very beginning... and if I can blink at O'Brien suffering no lasting effects after a mental life prison sentence, then I can also accept that this personal crisis of Neelix's will almost certainly never be mentioned again without docking the episode for it.

Others' opinions may vary as they will. For me, at least, this was a genuinely great episode, a challenging and intelligent character drama in a series that has had far too few of them.


Overall Rating: 10/10.