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| Shannon O'Donnel (Kate Mulgrew) meets bookseller Henry Janeway (Kevin Tighe). |
Original Air Date: May 5, 1999. Teleplay by: Joe Menosky. Story by: Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky. Directed by: David Livingston.
THE PLOT:
Voyager is enjoying a moment of peace, an uneventful trip through a calm area of space. This leads the crew to reflect on their cultures and ancestors, prompting Janeway to reminisce about the ancestor who most inspired her: Shannon O'Donnel, who helped to create the Millennium Gate.
In December 2000, Shannon (also Kate Mulgrew) was just an unemployed engineer, driving across the country with no real goals in mind. Her car breaks down in the small town of Portage Creek, Indiana. When she takes refuge from the cold in the bookstore of Henry Janeway (Kevin Tighe), he takes pity on her, offering her a job while she waits for the repairs to be finished.
Henry is the town's sole holdout, refusing to sell his shop to allow the construction of the Millennium Gate - something which has not made him popular with the locals. He insists that it would destroy the town's heritage to bulldoze it for what he sees as a "glorified shopping mall." Shannon grows close to both him and his son, Jason - close enough to be noticed by Gerald Moss (John Carroll Lynch), the spokesman for the company that wants to build the gate.
Moss has a deal for Shannon, an escape from her dead-end life. She has the qualifications to work as an engineering consultant. She just has to convince Henry Janeway to sell!
CHARACTERS:
Capt. Janeway: Though most of the episode takes place in the past, with Kate Mulgrew mostly playing Janeway's ancestor, Joe Menosky's script still gives Janeway a decent arc. She idolizes Shannon, even stating that she joined Starfleet in part to live up to her legacy. Within the series, though, it's been centuries since these events, and direct information is scarce. When Neelix is able to find a photograph of Shannon, it pushes Janeway to want to find more - but inevitably, she doesn't like everything that she discovers.
Shannon O'Donnel: Kate Mulgrew gives her normal Janeway performance in the present story, but she also plays Shannon in the bulk of the episode. It's very much to the credit of both Mulgrew and the script that Shannon is a distinct character from Janeway. Life hasn't been kind to Shannon, and there's an undercurrent of desperation in Mulgrew's when she all but begs Henry for a job. In the scene in which Moss makes his offer, we can feel the conflict, eagerness vs. loyalty to Henry. Finally, when she and Henry argue, Shannon's first instinct is to run away and leave the town behind - something very unlike Janeway. Throughout, Mulgrew injects a hint of something tentative in Shannon, helping to create a full sense of a woman who has never quite managed to commit to anything.
Henry Janeway: Kevin Tighe, best known for sleazy politicians and white-collar bad guys, seems to enjoy playing an actual likable person. There's energy and enthusiasm in his voice as he talks about the past, and he's charming when he sets up a "Paris date" with Shannon, propping up books about Paris in his shop as they eat. Henry is a good man, but he's also deeply stubborn. He dismisses the worthy elements of the Millennium Gate project purely because it will also include shop space and is designed to turn a profit. When Jason and Shannon try to point out the useful aspects, he lashes out instantly. His crusade against the company is sincere, but there is a note of self-aggrandizement, with him repeatedly comparing himself to historical and mythological heroes throughout the episode.
Gerald Moss: Decades of movies and television programs have coded us to see him as the bad guy. It becomes clear, however, that he's anything but. The project he represents is beneficial (and since it's seen that way centuries later, I'm going to take that as read). He doesn't attempt to cheat the townspeople, offering to buy well above market value. He never tries to strong-arm Henry into selling. The most morally suspect thing he does, offering Shannon a job if she can persuade Henry, is offset when he eventually offers her a job regardless of the bookseller's decision: "If we didn't think you had something to add to this project, we never would have made the offer in the first place."
Neelix: His interest in Earth's past is sparked by a competition with Tom Paris, as the two attempt to stump each other regarding their respective cultures. Janeway's talk about her ancestor leads him to search for more information, and he shows an understanding of how to investigate the past that outstrips Seven's when he expands her initial search beyond Starfleet databases. Neelix is relaxed and likable throughout, and Ethan Phillips is particularly good opposite Kate Mulgrew. Note to the writers: This Neelix is a joy to watch. Ditch the stupid comedy relief version and write him this way from now on.
THOUGHTS:
"I've gone through dozens of histories written about twenty-first century Earth, all of them biased in one way or another... so I go back to the raw material. Birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, census surveys, voter registration forms, housing records, medical, employment, court records. It's all fragmented and incomplete."
-Janeway discovers the frustrations of historical research.
I love the quote above. It is one of the most accurate descriptions of any historical research that I've encountered in fiction. The past itself may be set. But unless you happen to have Doctor Who's Time Space Visualizer, then your access to the past is limited to historical records and accounts, all of which are filtered through interpretation and bias.
Those records that even survive through time. Across centuries, official documents are lost, while a stray item may survive simply because the right person finds it - such as the Ferengi who retained the photo of Shannon simply because it was marketable "as a nostalgic gift item." I suspect someone who worked on this episode has done some level of historical research to slip in observations like that.
I thoroughly enjoyed 11:59. The Shannon/Henry story that occupies the bulk of the episode is lightweight but charming, and it's enjoyable to see the Voyager crew relaxed and engaging in leisure activities. The relationship between Shannon and Henry is, by necessity, quickly sketched, but it basically works. Shannon is an explorer by nature, but she also needs a place to call home; Henry has a love of the past, at least as it exists in books, but he also tends to hide from the present in it. They are different enough for there to be moments of conflict, but each offers something that the other needs - and Mulgrew and Tighe are good enough both individually and together to sell the mutual attraction.
I also appreciated that the present day story wasn't a throwaway. Shannon's story does impact Janeway, as she learns that her ancestor wasn't a perfect match with the woman in her imagination. The script doesn't go over-the-top with her reaction. Janeway is disappointed and frustrated, but no more than that. Still, the full importance of the past is made clear in a well-written ending scene.
Though Janeway and Neelix are the only regulars to get significant attention, the script does a good job of giving everyone a moment. Seven attempts to investigate Janeway's ancestor, but her thinking is too regimented to make much progress. When Janeway is disappointed by what she uncovers, Chakotay points out to her that Shannon was living her own life, not trying to "live up to (Janeway's) expectations." Tom and Neelix have their culture competition. Other crew members talk about their ancestors, including the Doctor, who describes a prize-winning chess program as his "cousin."
Surprisingly, it's Harry Kim of all people who gets the best of the side bits, as he describes an uncle's deep space mission, involving six months of absolute isolation. The descriptions are enough to create an image in the viewer's head as Harry describes them, and Garrett Wang delivers the speech well.
OVERALL:
At first glance, 11:59 seems like a pleasant but inconsequential change of pace. It is a low-stakes story. In the present, Janeway deals with the mild disappointment of an ancestor failing to live up to her imagination. In the past, that same ancestor deals with a nascent romance and a town that desperately wants to sell out to a corporation for a genuinely worthy project. Neither story has any particularly big twists, there is no violence beyond an occasional harsh word, and no lives hang in the balance.
I think it's also going to down as a personal favorite of mine. I enjoyed the story in the past, which was buoyed by fine performances by Mulgrew and Kevin Tighe. I was even more impressed by the present day strand. Many times (see Enterprise's Carbon Creek, which I also enjoyed), these types of episodes throw away the series' present. Here, writer Joe Menosky crafts a full arc for Janeway, while also giving some nice little moments to the supporting cast.
On the whole, I would rate this as a minor triumph - and an episode that left me smiling at the end.
Overall Rating: 9/10.
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