5-19. The Fight.

Chakotay boxes in a Vision Quest.

A Star Trek boxing episode. Yes, you read that right - and yes, it's just as stupid as it sounds.


THE PLOT

Voyager has found its way into "chaotic space" (cue dramatic musical sting), where "the laws of physics are in flux... Changes in the gravitational coefficient will cause sudden sheer forces against our hull," Seven gravely reports, adding that only a single Borg cube ever survived an encounter with chaotic space. "Voyager is surely doomed.

But all is not lost! Chakotay, who has never previously displayed any interest in boxing, was running a boxing simulation (with Boothby the Mickey to his Rocky, no less) when the ship encountered the chaotic region. The punch his holographic opponent lands somehow activates a long-dormant genetic marker for hallucinations, and Chakotay begins seeing and hearing things pointing him toward a fight. So he goes on a Vision Quest (*drink*) and realizes that the Aliens from Chaotic Space (TM) are trying to communicate with him - They just need him to step back in the ring in order to do so.

Hence - Rocky VIII: The Fight for Voyager!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: "Send him back in the ring! When Chakotay becomes reluctant to communicate with the alien voices, fearing for his sanity, Janeway coaxes him to try again. "Your sanity won't do you any good if we remain in Chaotic Space," she tells him. This turns out to be a Vision(!)Janeway, but Real Janeway is near-indistinguishable... Though I'll admit, I got a small laugh out of Janeway recongizing the alien signal from the one question she missed on a Starfleet exam, breathily intoning, "It's the reason I didn't get an A!"

Chakotay: "I need to go on a vision quest." Ugh. Anytime Chakotay utters a statement along those lines, you know you're in for it, and it becomes uninentionally comical when he says it so urgently. Still, by 20 minutes into the episode, it's already clear that this is so bad that it's not like a Chakotay "Native American, and all characterization ends there" acid trip is going to make it worse. Oh, and in addition to a previously-undisclosed interest in boxing, it turns out that Chakotay's family has a history of mental illness - also previously undisclosed. At least Robert Beltran does a decent job of trying to connect with this material... Though given how poor the material is, he honestly might as well have sleepwalked through it.

Doctor: You know things are bad when even Robert Picardo doesn't bother to give a good performance. Picardo overacts, giving the kind of performance you'd expect in a campy 1950s sci-fi/monster flick. Either he knew the script was bad and tried extra hard to compensate, or he knew it was bad and decided to play up the campier elements to have a laugh. Either way, he contributes to the awfulness of the episode, instead of salvaging bits of it as he usually does.

Boothby: Ray Walston, so good earlier this season in In the Flesh, returns... alas, as part of this episode. There's not much more to say about him here. Other than some gibberish about how a boxer is fighting himself and not his opponent, and some very poor tactical advice about how it's better to let your opponent punch you than to avoid punches, he really doesn't serve much of a purpose here. Still, Walston's always a welcome presence, even in a turd such as this.


THOUGHTS

"Doc, can't you do something? Look how much he's suffering!" Is Tom talking about Chakotay, or the audience? Becuase even as the episode opens, it's clear that this is going to be a bad one.

The teaser is so ridiculously over the top, I wasn't sure if this was maybe being played as comedy. Chakotay's writhing around on a bed in sick bay, screaming "Make them stop!" The ship is buckling due to something with the word "gravitron" in it, and B'Elanna urgently informs the captain that, "If we don't get out of chaotic space soon, we'll die." Seriously, "chaotic space?" Are they going "ludicrous speed," too? The entire scene plays like something from a Star Trek parody, rather than an actual episode.

Later, we learn that Chakotay's grandfather was mentally ill, suffering from auditory and visual hallucinations. This being a Chakotay episode, and one that reverts to the early Voyager mistake of characterizing him entirely around being Native American, we learn that his grandfather refused treatment for the hallucinations because his "spirit doesn't want that medicine," because mental illness is somehow spiritual and noble, rather than a disease that prevents you from connecting properly with the world around you. No, in an episode in which Chakotay goes on a Vision Quest, mental illness is a good thing... Presumably, because it might enable you to hallucinate a better episode than this one.

It's still not quite as bad as The Disease was. Robert Beltran is really trying here; and while I won't say he elevates this ridiculous material, he does at least provide some intermittent audience connection with Chakotay. Plus, the sheer idiocy provides a few unintended giggles that keep it from being as dead boring as the very worst of Voyager.

Still, this is bad. Very, very bad.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

Previous Episode: Course: Oblivion
Next Episode: Think Tank


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5-4. In the Flesh.

Janeway attempts diplomacy with Species 8472.

THE PLOT

Starfleet Command, San Francisco. As groundskeeper Boothby (Ray Walston) tends to his work, Admiral Bullock (Tucker Smallwood) greets a group of cadets. Not far away, Chakotay takes pictures of the area, evading questions by both Boothby and the attractive Commander Valerie Archer (Kate Vernon). While talking (and flirting) with Archer, Chakotay sees a nearby ensign clutch at his throat. The man's face begins expanding and contracting, and people nearby hustle him out of the room.

"Have you ever reverted?" Archer asks, adding that while she can hold her human form, she finds the concept of sleeping difficult. She then makes a date with Chakotay, who agrees to meet her that night - much to the surprise of Tuvok, who has just arrived to escort him back to the coordinates they will use to return to Voyager.

This is not the real Starfleet Command, of course. It's a space station, in which replication technology and holographic imagery have been used to recreate Starfleet - with, as a concerned Janeway notes, startling accuracy. When they discover that the aliens impersonating humans are none other than Species 8472, the race that fought the Borg to a standstill and threatened to "purge (the) galaxy of life," the Voyager command crew fear that this space station is preparation for an invasion that would likely end with the destruction of all life on Earth!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Once she learns that the aliens are Species 8472, she begins preparing for war. She demands Seven prepare vast numbers of the Borg nanoprobes they used the last time they came into conflict with this species, and she orders genetic testing be performed on all members of the crew to make sure there are no Species 8472 impostors on board. She still insists on trying to find a diplomatic resolution, however, and when the negotiations start to look promising she takes a risky action to show that she can be trusted, all but daring her adversaries to prove her wrong in doing so.

Chakotay: Though Janeway takes over at the climax, this is primarily a Chakotay-centered episode. Thankfully, Chakotay's improvement over the last season and a half remains in evidence. He is instantly attracted to Valerie Archer, but he never behaves stupidly while talking to her. He enjoys talking with her on their "date" - but he also continually steers the conversation in the direction needed to learn information, and he takes advantage of her departure from the room to download information from her computer terminal.

Hot Alien Space Babe of the Week: Valerie appears at first glance to be a potential ally. She has immersed herself in human culture, and expresses enthusiastic appreciation of human literature. But as she and Chakotay talk, it becomes clear that she believes humanity is a violent species that poses a direct threat to her people. Despite this, it remains clear that she and Chakotay very much like each other, and Kate Vernon and Robert Beltran play nicely off each other... All of which makes their not-quite-romance a lot easier to take than might have been the case.


THOUGHTS

I'll get this out of the way up front: Janeway effectively disarming her ship as an olive branch to Species 8472 is, plainly and simply, foolhardy. Had her instincts been wrong, Voyager would have been all but instantly destroyed and the species would have carried on with their plans to invade Earth. I would have a different opinion if a tag had indicated that she had a backup plan ready (on the mantra of "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst") - but in the absence of any backup weaponry, she basically placed humanity's head on a chopping block, armed Species 8472 with an ax, and dared them to swing.

But if the resolution is plagued by naivete, and if a Cold War allegory is far from timely in an episode made more than a decade after end of the Cold War, neither of those things keep this from being a good episode. It's not a great one - but Nick Sagan's script has some clever touches. Particularly effective is the portrayal of mutual fear on the part of the Voyager crew and the members of Species 8472. As the episode progresses, we see that neither side particularly wants open conflict - but at the same time, both Janeway and Boothby separately express the feeling that conflict is inevitable.

The moralizing at the end, and the way in which a complex situation is solved a little too quickly and easily, keep this from being all it might have been. The episode also forever destroys Species 8472 as a proper "monster" - though I think their potential as such was already pretty fully tapped out, so I find myself less than sad about that. This variant of Species 8472 has potential to be interesting, and certainly more three-dimensional than "intelligent killer insects." As such, I'm hopeful we'll see them again, either as adversaries or allies, as I see plenty of interesting ways to use them in either capacity.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Extreme Measures
Next Episode: Once Upon a Time 

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