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| Seven meets a future version of herself who is on a mission to save Voyager! |
Original Air Date: May 12, 1999. Teleplay by: Bryan Fuller, Nick Sagan, Michael Taylor. Story by: Nick Sagan. Directed by: Allan Eastman.
THE PLOT:
The USS Voyager is undergoing its final round of maintenance at the Starfleet dry dock in Utopia Planitia before its launch. Admiral Patterson (Dakin Matthews) is giving the young Captain Janeway a tour of her new command... while Seven of Nine runs scans, searching for something while attempting to avoid Janeway's attention.
Seven is actually working with the crew of the Relativity, a Federation timeship from the distant future under the command of Captain Braxton (Bruce McGill). A time traveling saboteur has planted a device on Voyager that will result in the ship's explosion five years into its mission. The bomb is invisible to the naked eye, but it can be detected by Borg implants - which is why they have recruited Seven.
The Utopia Planitia jump has allowed them to identify where the bomb was planted. Now they need to find out when it was placed, so that they can catch the saboteur in the act and remove all disruption to the timeline. The most likely time period comes when Voyager was in the midst of a Kazon attack, with the criminal using the chaos to mask the infiltration.
This time, Seven is able to intercept the saboteur - only to be shocked by the villain's true identity!
CHARACTERS:
Capt. Janeway: We see three versions of Janeway: pre-Caretaker and fresh to her new command; in late Season Two, on edge over constant conflict with the Kazon; and the current version, the veteran captain. Fresh-faced young Janeway is eager to get out into space, to test what her new ship can do, and (unspoken) to prove herself. Season Two Janeway is adjusting to the reality of losing people during an ongoing situation that has to have her doubting her own choices and whether she'll be able to get the ship through the crisis. It's the current, more experienced Janeway who is the most relaxed. Even when she learns of time distortion affecting her ship, she seems calmer than the Kazon-era version in dealing with the situation.
Seven of Nine: I should be annoyed that this makes three Seven-centric episodes out of the past five... except I'm not, because Jeri Ryan's Seven is one of the best-written and best-acted characters on the show! She holds the focus of this very busy episode, treating the story with suitable seriousness while making the most out of her character moments: brushing off Lt Carey's awkward attempts at flirting, for instance, or pleading with Kazon-era Janeway to trust her even though doing so isn't logical. Her most prominent trait is her refusal to give up. As she tracks the saboteur across three different time streams, she is advised that each shift puts a greater physical strain on her. She curtly replies that she's aware of the risks, and she still insists on continuing even when she can barely manage to stand.
The Doctor: The middle part of the episode settles on the present-day Voyager. This portion shifts focus from Seven to the Doctor, who is the first crew member to discover that things aren't as calm as they seem. It starts small, as several crew members come down with bouts of "space sickness." As crew members continue appearing with complaints, he realizes that something is wrong - and after he's called to a medical emergency only to find that it hasn't happened yet, he realizes that time distortion is involved. This is all well executed, and Robert Picardo seems to enjoy the chance to play detective.
Capt. Braxton: Has dealt with Janeway before, and he ended up stranded on 20th century Earth as a result. After years of "rehabilitation," he's been recast as a bigger name actor and given a new command. Despite his past issues with Janeway, he seems dedicated to stopping Voyager's destruction. When his second-in-command points out how much danger he's putting Seven in, he responds that doing nothing will result in the deaths of Seven and her entire crew, and he's as crisp and efficient as Seven while administering the mission. He does let his resentment toward Janeway show when Seven asks about involving her, however. "That woman has been responsible for three major temporal incursions... She's reckless. She has no regard for the integrity of the time frame... Avoid contact!"
THOUGHTS:
I actually feel a bit sorry for the villain of the piece - or at least, the earliest version of the villain. Like Janeway and Seven, we see multiple versions from the present and the future. The thing is, it's the present version who is first arrested... and this individual has done absolutely nothing wrong and has no intention of doing anything! The arrest is made for "crimes you're going to commit" - meaning that, very likely, this person's entire life is ruined because of a timeline that hasn't happened and that, by the episode's end, has been averted. Nice that Voyager is saved; I guess it just sucks to be the entirely innocent version of the person arrested for the troubles!
Outside of that, I really enjoyed this episode. Relativity juggles multiple versions of multiple characters across multiple time frames, and it does so without getting bogged down in exposition or technobabble. It's fast, fun, and exciting - and actually rather well-structured.
It opens in the past, rapidly establishing multiple mysteries: Why is Seven present before Voyager's launch? What is she investigating, and who are the people she's communicating with? A few answers are quickly given when the Relativity and its far-future crew are introduced. Only then, close to fifteen minutes in, do we move to the present Voyager as Janeway and the Doctor grapple with the time distortion mystery.
This middle act, which is in many ways the true beginning of the story, is well placed. It's the slowest portion of the episode - but by this point, the mysteries of the first Act propel us along. It's also the one part of the episode not focused on Seven. Spotlighting Janeway and the Doctor for a ten-minute stretch keeps this from feeling like "The Seven of Nine Show," which has become an intermittent pitfall. The time distortions themselves create some engaging scenes: a ping-pong ball that hangs in midair, Chakotay phasing into three versions of himself for a second while expositing to Janeway, and the moment with the Doctor being called for an emergency before it actually happens. The action rises until the ship finally seems doomed...
At which point we return to Seven on the Relativity, with us now feeling the urgency of her mission after seeing the consequences if she fails. It's an effective structure, made more so when we return to familiar scenes at the end, and the sturdy overall construction keeps the plot on track even as individual bits happily indulge in time travel nuttiness.
OVERALL:
A part of me can't quite get past the injustice visited upon the episode's villain (well, the innocent version of the villain, at least). Outside of that, though, Relativity is good, fast-paced fun, a rare Voyager episode that didn't bore me for even one second. It's the Star Trek equivalent of a well-made summer blockbuster, and I was happy to go along for the ride.
Overall Rating: 8/10.
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