6-08. One Small Step.

Seven beams over to the wreckage of
a centuries-lost 21st century space module.

Original Air Date: Nov. 17, 1999. Teleplay by: Mike Wollaeger, Jessica Scott, Bryan Fuller, Michael Taylor. Story by: Mike Wollaeger, Jessica Scott. Directed by: Robert Picardo.


THE PLOT:

When Voyager encounters a graviton ellipse, a rare spatial anomaly that only occasionally enters normal space, Janeway can't resist investigating. Scans reveal wreckage of Ares IV, a command module from a 21st century mission to Mars that disappeared along with its pilot, Lt. John Kelly (Phil Morris).

Janeway authorizes modifying the Delta Flyer to search for the remains of the module inside the ellipse. Chakotay, for whom Kelly was a personal hero, volunteers to lead the mission, with Tom Paris piloting. Janeway also strongly recommends that Seven join them.

They find Ares IV almost entirely intact - but the ellipse begins experiencing dangerous surges and Janeway orders them to abort. Chakotay pauses, activating a tractor beam in an effort to tow the module out. Those precious seconds are enough to trap the Flyer inside the ellipse, with the damage sustained leaving them practically dead in space!


CHARACTERS:

Capt. Janeway: She talks to Seven about the thrill of exploration, which becomes the central theme of this episode. "If scientific knowledge was all we were after, then the Federation would have built a fleet of probes, not starships. Exploration is about seeing things with your own eyes." She urges Seven to volunteer for the mission specifically so that she can experience that for herself.

Chakotay: His hero worship of Kelly feels a bit externally imposed, something to justify his decision to ignore Janeway's orders when he would normally know better. It doesn't help that Robert Beltran is at his most wooden when he's talking about John Kelly. Far more convincing is his talk with Seven about the samples they find inside the ellipse. By contrast with his earlier stiffness, Beltran is rather good when ruminating about a rock that dates back to billions of years before Earth's existence, and I think this single, quiet little scene is my favorite of the episode.

Seven of Nine: She gets legitimately (and understandably) angry at Chakotay for his decision to try to tow the command module out of the anomaly. When she discovers Lt. Kelly's logs, however, she is moved by his demeanor. I'm afraid that I was decidedly unmoved, as Seven has run through the "discovering her own humanity" arc too often at this point, but Jeri Ryan does well with what she's given.

Tom Paris: He also states that Lt. Kelly is a hero of his. Even so, he warns Chakotay that the attempt to tow the command module during the escape is slowing them down, his tone making it clear that he thinks this is a bad idea. Unlike Seven, he does not reproach Chakotay for his actions, instead focusing on the work of making the shuttle functional again.


THOUGHTS:

One Small Step is... fine. The story is better put together than most episodes with four credited writers tend to be. There are decent character moments for Chakotay and Seven, and the scenes in which Lt. Kelly's logs play are reasonably effective. I also liked the visual effects for the ellipse, particularly when the Delta Flyer is trapped inside it.

The episode strongly oversells its message about exploration, though. The Chakotay/Seven scene with the samples works. Most of the other scenes in which Janeway, or Chakoty, or Seven, or Lt. Kelly expound upon the virtues of exploring, though, just don't land for me. The script keeps telling me that what's being discovered is exciting, but it never does anything to make me feel that excitement. If I could have shared in that, I might have found Seven's closing speech to be emotional. Instead, since I felt nothing, the speech just came across as overkill.

That ends up being the big problem with One Small Step. Everything is competent here, but it utterly fails to involve me. I think the scenes with Lt. Kelly work as far as they go, and Phil Morris is quite good in his brief screen time... but even there, he's too much the perfect astronaut. There's little sense of him ever feeling the hopelessness of his situation. As a result, even this part of the episode leaves me at a distance from the action and the characters.


OVERALL:

I don't really have anything else to say about this episode. It's a perfectly unobjectionable 45 minutes of Star Trek. It's well-made and generally well-acted, and there are a couple rather good scenes.

But it just lacks the extra spark that it needs. I never share any of the excitement of exploration that the characters keep going on about, and I never feel properly connected to Lt. Kelly's lonely fate. As a result, One Small Step never quite escapes from being "just fine."


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: Dragon's Teeth
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6-05. Alice.

B'Elanna tries to snap Tom out of his obsession with his new shuttle.

Original Air Date: Oct. 20, 1999. Teleplay by: Bryan Fuller, Michael Taylor. Story by: Juliann deLayne. Directed by: David Livingston.

Tom Paris picks up an old clunker that turns out to be "Bad to the Bone."


THE PLOT:

Voyager arrives at Abaddon's Repository of Lost Treasures - though it would be more accurate to call it a space junkyard. Abaddon (John Fleck) is happy to show off his wares, which include star charts, power regulators, and cultural artifacts. Plus one other item that caught Tom Paris's eye: a rusted old shuttle that he's certain he can restore.

Tom names the shuttle Alice and goes straight to work fixing it up. But after he tries out the shuttle's neurogenic interface, Alice moves from a project to an obsession. When B'Elanna catches him stealing backup parts from Voyager to advance his repairs, she goes to the shuttle bay to confront him - and Alice attempts to murder her!


CHARACTERS:

Capt. Janeway: Is initially inclined to avoid interfering with what she sees as a personal issue between Tom and B'Elanna. She becomes more receptive to B'Elanna's concerns when told that Seven and Harry have also noticed strange behavior - but whatever she might have done is rendered moot, as the Third Act crisis kicks in at exactly that moment.

Chakotay: Sees right through Tom's attempts to paint the shuttle as a potential asset for Voyager, but he indulges the younger man's desire for a project. He intercedes when Tom begins neglecting his duties, firmly telling him that he's expected to be in uniform and on time for his shift, but he remains understanding and tells Tom that he will get the chance to get Alice flying. It's an approach that probably would have worked... if only Tom wasn't under an outside influence.

Tom Paris: I don't have much good to say about this episode, but Robert Duncan McNeill gives it his all. He sells Tom's enthusiasm at tinkering with Alice, and he has an excellent scene in which Tom recalls his first time piloting a shuttle under his father's supervision at age 8. Another, particularly strong moment comes when Tom and B'Elanna argue. McNeill injects a note of desperation that separates this version of Tom from his normal characterization.

Torres: Like Chakotay, she initially tries to indulge Tom's new hobby. She's genuinely impressed with the initial work he's done. She teases him slightly about the shuttle's "sexy" computer voice (Claire Rankin), but she doesn't become annoyed until Tom starts ignoring her in favor of tinkering with Alice. She wonders aloud why she goes "right out the airlock" any time he finds a new hobby. But it's only after she's targeted by Alice that she realizes that something is genuinely wrong. Once that occurs, she does exactly what she should do and goes straight to Janeway.

Neelix: Worked as a trader in the past, so he's selected to negotiate with Abaddon. When Abaddon investigates Voyager's vital systems with a little too much interest, Neelix redirects him toward spare sheeting that can be modified into something similar without compromising the ship. He also manages to strike a deal for everything on the Voyager crew's wishlist. When they go back to Abaddon to search for information, Neelix is ready to present something in exchange, recognizing that the trader won't give away information any more freely than physical commodities.


THOUGHTS:

The makers of Voyager apparently saw John Carpenter's film of Stephen King's Christine and decided to make their own version. Too bad that this episode mainly made me want to switch it off and watch John Carpenter's movie again instead.

I don't have a lot to say about Alice. Despite a script credited to two of Voyager's more reliable writers, and despite being directed by David Livingston, the show's best director, it... really just sort of occupies space.

There are a few good elements. Livingston provides some effective visuals, including a shot of Alice coming to life on her own inside the shuttle bay - a near-direct visual lift from Christine. Guest actress Claire Rankin, as Alice's "mind," balances seductive and creepy to good effect. Robert Duncan McNeill gives a lot more to the mediocre script than it deserves, and as a result there are scenes that work better than they probably should.

But the good individual moments are just that - moments, with the story itself never emerging into anything interesting. The potential is there, around the edges. Alice has a goal, to fly to a spatial phenomenon that she labels "home." Why does Alice consider this phenomenon "home?" Why is she so desperate to return there? Why does she need Tom at all when she seems perfectly capable of operating her systems herself, as when she atmospherically switches on her lights in the shuttle bay or evacuates oxygen and locks the door to try to kill B'Elanna?

The answers to those questions are: There's no time to get into that, we don't know, and please shut up. Instead, we get entirely too much of Tom becoming obsessed with the shuttle and neglecting his lover, friends, and duties. This becomes repetitive, even tedious, and takes up so much of the episode that no time is left over to explore anything about the sentient shuttle. There's not even an attempt to have the crew react to all the unanswered questions. Janeway's a former science officer who should be fascinated by what's happened. Neither she nor anyone else seems to be even mildly curious.


OVERALL:

Voyager's sixth season got off to an excellent start. I liked three of the first four episodes. Even the one I didn't like had interesting ideas that I just didn't think quite landed. Alice breaks this streak, becoming the first episode to merely "exist." It fills airtime - and, aside from a couple of good moments around the edges, it doesn't do much more than that.

The show's offered up worse. But there's nothing here that engaged me - not intellectually, not emotionally, not even viscerally. Alice isn't actively unpleasant to watch. But in the end, the only thing I can really say about it is... "It's there."


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Episode: Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy
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6-03. Barge of the Dead.

B'Elanna finds herself on the "Barge of the Dead,"
the mythical Klingon transport to the Underworld.

Original Air Date: Oct. 6, 1999. Written by: Bryan Fuller. Story by: Ronald D. Moore and Bryan Fuller. Directed by: Mike Vejar.


THE PLOT:

When B'Elanna's shuttle is damaged in an ion storm, she barely makes it back to Voyager. She receives a concussion while crash landing in the shuttle bay but is otherwise unharmed... or so it seems.

Her Klingon heritage suddenly hangs over everything. A Klingon object is found wedges in the shuttle, indicating that Klingons somehow found their way to the Delta Quadrant. The crew insists on celebrating with a Klingon-themed party. Even B'Elanna's meditations with Tuvok turn Klingon, with the Vulcan suddenly brandishing a bat'leth and uncharacteristically sneering at her rejection of her mother's culture.

Then Voyager itself fades away, leaving B'Elanna on the Barge of the Dead, the mythical Klingon vessel escorting the dishonored to the afterlife. She learns that she actually died in that shuttle accident and that everything since has been an illusion. As she processes this, a new arrival appears on the barge: Her mother, Miral (Karen Austin). The source of Miral's dishonor? B'Elanna's own rejection of Klingon tradition!


CHARACTERS:

Capt. Janeway: The illusory Janeway is a figure of support, unlike most of the other Voyager crew members. Janeway upbraids her for persisting with the probe recovery that resulted in the shuttle accident, telling her: "We only have one B'Elanna Torres. I don't want to lose her." She then refers to her as "Lanna," a variation on her name used by her mother, one of multiple moments drawing parallels between Janeway and Miral, presenting her as a maternal figure.

Torres: While I have issues with this episode, I am at least happy to see a B'Elanna-centric episode that tries to truly develop her character. What was the last such one? Day of Honor? B'Elanna blames her mother for her parents' divorce, feeling that her mother's obsession with all things Klingon drove her father away. Her mother's insistence on trying to mold her into a warrior also drove her away, not only from her mother but from all things Klingon. Even so, when she sees her mother on the Barge, bound for what is essentially "Klingon hell," she commits fully to saving her from that fate.

Tom Paris: Tries to be supportive of B'Elanna as she suddenly commits to the Klingon afterlife myths. He tries to dissuade her from risking herself but offers his help in cultural pursuits, telling her that he's willing to learn Klingon and "read the scrolls" to help her. Robert Duncan McNeill does a fine job making Tom's worry tangible in these scenes.

Tuvok: We never actually see the "real" Tuvok in this episode, but Tim Russ makes a meal out of the illusory version. The meditation scene starts out fairly normal, with Tuvok speaking in his usual even tones. Even when he first pulls out the bat'leth, it seems like an exercise - until he begins swinging it with the practiced grace of a warrior while berating his student for her disdain for Klingon culture.


THOUGHTS:

This is an episode that I really wish I liked better, because it's exactly what I'd like to see more of from Voyager. My biggest complaint about this series is how content it is to play safe, and this episode tries to break away from that. The script wants to examine Klingon mythology and, in larger form, the ways in which culture and religion can impact even children who don't buy into all aspects of their heritage. The first expands the fictional universe, and the second is a theme worthy of examination.

It starts out quite well. The opening Act, on the illusory Voyager, is effective. The characters are close enough to normal to initially fool the viewers along with B'Elanna. Janeway provides concern; Chakotay, advice; Tom, support. Her interactions with them enable the script to weave in exposition regarding her relationship with her mother and her antipathy toward her Klingon side (much needed, since I think you have to go back to Day of Honor to find the last episode that deals with that).

That something is "off" becomes clear in the scene with Tuvok, in which he behaves in a manner both aggressive and demeaning. Immediately after that, the illusion drops away, revealing the Barge. And just as this mythological voyage is clearly established, B'Elanna's mother is added to the mix as a disgraced soul headed for Klingon hell. At this point, all the pieces are in place for a strong, emotional episode.

Too bad, then, that this marks the moment the episode goes astray for me. B'Elanna is suddenly revived, returning to the "real" Voyager. I understand why this choice was made, as it allows her to actively and willingly go back to the Barge, showing a new seriousness toward a belief system she'd previously scorned. But the cost to the episode is simply too high. It robs ten minutes from the story purely to end up returning her to where she'd already been - and leaving only a few rushed minutes to show any relationship between her and her mother.

I think the story would have worked better had it stayed in this Klingon underworld for the full runtime, only returning to the ship at the very end. Then there would have been an opportunity for the mother/daughter relationship to be better developed through interactions, rather than just a string of declaratives about past events. If the relationship felt real, then so would the stakes. As it stands, I might intellectually understand the importance of this to B'Elanna, but I don't end up feeling anything.

Another issue is that the episode ends rather abruptly. B'Elanna finishes her spiritual journey, and... that's it, really. We need some kind of epilogue to hint that this has had an impact on her, but we don't get that. Unless it's actually followed up in future episodes (not a traditional strength for Voyager), the lack of any tag leaves this experience more a case of "something that happened" rather than "something important that happened."


OVERALL:

I hate finding this episode to be mediocre. After two seasons of neglect, B'Elanna finally gets a story that sincerely tries to make use of her character, and Roxann Dawson delivers an excellent performance. The script has ideas with real dramatic potential, the scenes on the Barge have a decent amount of atmosphere, and the opening Act is extremely promising.

A mid-episode return to Voyager breaks the atmosphere, and it marks the moment the episode slips off the rails. Too much time is devoted to getting the character back to where she already was, which makes for a badly rushed final Act. Had this return been removed and the remainder of the episode more fully developed, I think this would be a lot stronger.

I respect that Barge of the Dead is actually trying. I have a lot more time for an episode that tries to do something and falls short than I do for one that's only attempting to fill airtime. Even so, I'm not going to pretend that it didn't end up leaving me feeling disappointed.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Survival Instinct
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5-21. Juggernaut.

Malon Controller Fesek (Ron Canada) and his crewman,
Pelk (Lee Arenberg), leave a mess for Voyager to clean up...

Original Air Date: Apr. 26, 1999.  Written by: Bryan Fuller, Nick Sagan, Kenneth Biller. Directed by: Allan Kroeker.


THE PLOT

An automated distress call leads Voyager to a ruined Malon freighter. They rescue Controller Fesek (Ron Canada), the Malon captain, and bride officer Pelk (Lee Arenberg) from nearby escape pods, only to learn that the freighter is mere hours from exploding and destroying everything within three light years. Though Fesek urges Janeway to flee to safety, she insists on sending a team onto the Malon ship to stop the explosion.

The two Malon survivors beam over with Chakotay, Torres, and Neelix. They must vent the deadly radiation on each deck in order to reach the control room to stop the explosion. But they may not be alone, as one of the Malon fears that a mythical and malevolent beast known as a Vihaar may lurk within the radiation, waiting to strike at the intruders...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Her patience for the Malon seems to be pretty much exhausted by this point. When Fesek insists that he will not risk his life returning to the irradiated, self-destructing ship, Janeway flatly tells him that he can either assist or be returned to his escape pod. Her disdain for the Malon, well-earned in previous encounters, makes her absolute scorn of Fesek palpable, and he wisely does not try to call her bluff. Though she hopes for the Away Team's success, she is realistic enough about their dangerous and difficult mission to prepare a "Plan B."

Chakotay: He does a good job as commander of the Away Team, keeping the party moving but refusing to compromise safety. When one of the Malon claims to have seen a creature in the waste, Chakotay decrees that no member of the team will work alone from that point. When Torres becomes infected with radiation, Chakotay does not allow her to refuse immediate treatment.

Torres: This is a B'Elanna-centric episode - one which insists that her anger issues have her perpetually on the edge of violent outbursts. The script is credited to no less than three writers, none of whom apparently recall that she has been able to control her emotions and deal with crises even when kidnapped by robots or stalked by a psychotic hologram. In short, Juggernaut delivers my least favorite form of "character development": reducing B'Elanna to her single, worst trait so that we can pretend that it's "progress" when she returns to her normal self.

Neelix: Since I'm spending most of this review talking about things that don't work, I'll acknowledge one thing that works very well: The use of Neelix. It's entirely consistent with what we know of his background that he's worked with similar waste disposal systems. This allows him to be a genuine asset rather than the usual buffoonish comic relief. Even his one pure comedy scene, in which he cooks up a foul-tasting brew to protect himself from radiation poisoning, is used to reinforce both his experience in this type of situation and the seriousness of it, as he recalls how this wretched recipe kept himself and his shipmates alive.


MY ORIGINAL POINT OF ABANDONMENT:

This was the last episode of Voyager that I watched in full before stopping the series back in 2017. I emphasize that it did not, on its own, make me stop viewing/reviewing Voyager.  Longtime visitors to this site likely noticed that I posted zero reviews for a 2 - 3 year period, mostly due to a combination of schedule and general burnout. If it hadn't been this episode that stalled my Voyager run, it would have been another one not far down the road.

That said, I have one and only one memory of my first viewing: Sitting down to write this review after the episode. I brought up my template and... proceeded to stare at the screen for several minutes. I genuinely could not think of even one interesting thing to say. Juggernaut is not hilariously dreadful in the manner of Favorite Son, The Fight, or The Disease. It just sort of... occupies space for 45 minutes and then ends.


THOUGHTS

Revisiting this episode now, without the burnout that plagued me at the time, I can see that Juggernaut is at least trying to take the previously one-note Malon and turn them into a society of actual individuals. In earlier episodes, they have simply been polluters and nothing more. This episode attempts to add some depth. It does not make them interesting on its own - but the cues of this script could potentially be used to create something worthwhile later.

Given that all three of the credited writers have penned good scripts, it is disappointing how much this episode relies on Idiot Plotting. The greatest immediate source of jeopardy for the Away Team is that they are working in a heavily irradiated environment. On the mission, however, they wear absolutely no protective gear, relying solely on an inoculation. We have seen crew members use gear in other Trek shows, so it's not like such things don't exist in this universe. Similarly, the transporter obviously functions, or else the crew wouldn't be able to retrieve Chakotay or contemplate sending Tuvok to replace him. So why aren't they beaming rotating overlapping shifts throughout this mission, thus limiting any one crew member's exposure?

These issues could have at least been papered over with a few lines of dialogue. The crew could have planned on using radiation suits, only for Fesek to tell them that the work was too delicate for bulky protective gear. Janeway could have intended to rotate crew, only for the transporter to be unable to penetrate the radiation (with Chakotay's emergency beam-out working, with difficulty, because of Technobabble). This script doesn't even expend that minimal amount of effort, however. There's one Away Team because there is; there's no protective gear because there isn't; and the transporters either work or don't depending on what is convenient for a given scene.

Complications are introduced in the middle, but most of them never build to anything. Each incident is just that - a bit of activity to fill airtime during the middle of the episode. There's a villain reveal at the end; save for some added gruesomeness, this scene would be perfectly at home in a Scooby-Doo episode. The entire finale is ridiculously poor. It's meant to show "character growth" that B'Elanna attempts to speechify... never mind that the urgency of the situation would actually make her (allegedly) normal aggression a more appropriate response.


OVERALL:

After a reasonably promising start, Juggernaut quickly devolves into being simultaneously tedious and stupid. It's not the worst of Voyager; it's not even the worst of the past five episodes (a group that included both The Disease and The Fight). But just because it's not rock bottom doesn't mean it isn't bad.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

Previous Episode: Think Tank
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5-18. Course: Oblivion

The wedding of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres.

THE PLOT

Things are looking up for Voyager. A recently enchanced warp drive is estimated to have the ship home in just two years, and a celebratory Tom and B'Elanna have held a wedding ceremony in the Mess Hall. Life is good... Which, of course, means disaster is about to strike.

Despite many simulations showing the enhanced drive is perfectly safe, once in use it causes severe and irreversible degradation to the ship. Then B'Elanna falls ill, and the crew realizes that the same decay is spreading to all of them as well. The Doctor confirms that every one of them is affected, and that they will all die if it cannot somehow be reversed.

Then Tuvok, Seven, and Neelix notice that items recently brought onto the ship are not degrading - Leading to a shocking revelation about the nature of this disease...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: I have to give the writers credit for a consistent character trait in Janeway this season. All season long, we have seen her making decisions that are rash, self-indulgent, even irrational, all out of guilt at not getting the crew home. Here, she insists on carrying on toward Earth even when it's revealed that doing so could doom them all. Even when it's pointed out that her obsession with getting home is now meaningless, she has to be verbally shaken out of it by Chakotay before backing down.

Chakotay: Fulfills his usual role as Voice of Reason, but this time he's doing more than just playing Devil's Advocate. In a refreshing turn from the show's normal formula, Chakotay is genuinely right to argue against Janeway, and he has the confidence of knowing he is right when pushing her to change her mind before the crew's fate becomes irrevocable. Beltran's performance has a ferocity that's been largely unseen since Scorpion, and this aggressive side manifests without compromising Chakotay's obvious respect and affection for his captain.

Tom Paris: This is also a good episode for Tom, whose early joy at marrying B'Elanna turns to ash when she is among the first crew members stricken. Robert Duncan McNeill does some good acting as Tom sits by his new wife's bedside, describing the perfect honeymoon he had prepared with a cheer that grows ever more false. The episode's second half sees him growing bitter, specifically lashing out at Janeway for what he sees as disastrous decision-making.

Harry Kim: And just to confirm that the crew is in serious trouble, by the episode's end Voyager is under the command of Harry Kim! Even Harry is well-scripted in this episode. Around the midpoint, when Tom's faith in Janeway ebbs, Harry insists that he still believes in her - showing that same faith in her that was such a strong component of episodes like The Thaw. When circumstances leave him in charge, he shows strength and competence, doing all he can to keep the ship together long enough to make sure that all of this crew's missions would mean something.


THOUGHTS

As is probably evident, I quite liked Course: Oblivion - which honestly surprised me. I had already been tipped that this episode drew heavily on last season's Demon, which I found to be a largely pathetic bit of late-season filler. So the last thing I expected was a genuinely engaging, well-paced script that makes good use of every member of the ensemble. I wouldn't go so far as to say this episode retroactively redeems Demon... But it does at least use some of that episode's ideas to deliver a good hour of television.

It's difficult to say much more and not flat-out spoil the big reveal... But I will credit writers Bryan Fuller and Nick Sagan for not trying to hold that twist for the very end. Instead, it is delivered about midway through, leaving the characters to absorb and react to it and even work it into their attempts to solve their problem.

The script excels is in its handling of the characters. Every regular gets at least one strong moment, and every character is scripted well. It's not that Harry, Chakotay, or Neelix are particularly different here than in other episodes - These are recognizably the same characters with the same traits. They are just written a little more sharply, and feel like fuller versions of themselves as a result.

The ending might seem to render the entire episode pointless... But I don't really think so. Even if Voyager and its crew are safely "reset" at the end, we get to see all of them forced to grapple with an increasingly hopeless and desperate situation. As with Year of Hell, another episode whose ending more or less "wiped out" the events of the story, there is merit just in seeing who the characters can be when their backs are against the wall.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: The Disease
Next Episode: The Fight


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5-13. Gravity.

An alien woman (Lori Petty) is drawn to Tuvok.

THE PLOT

A shuttle carrying Tuvok, Tom, and the Doctor has fallen into a "subspace sinkhole," the intense gravity of this anomaly pulling them down to a desert planet. They encounter Noss (Lori Petty), an alien woman whose ship crashed 14 years earlier, leaving her to survive by hunting spiders and scavenging the many ships that fall afoul of the anomaly. She tells them that in the years she has been here, she has seen many ships come down - but none have gone back up again.

Back on Voyager, Janeway searches for the missing crew members and discovers the anomaly. A probe is launched through it, and quickly picks up the distress beacon of the crashed shuttle. Then Supervisor Yost (Paul Eckstein), the captain of an alien ship, arrives to announce that he will seal this rift to prevent more ships from being destroyed, allowing them only a few hours to attempt a rescue. The situation becomes even more complicated when they study the data sent back by the probe and realize that the intense gravity has created a time differential. While only hours have passed on Voyager, the shuttle party has lived for months on this planet... Time enough for Noss to fall hopelessly in love with Tuvok!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Attempts to negotiate with Yost for more time to rescue her people. When he refuses to even consider, she pushes her crew to find a solution in the time that's available.

Tuvok: This is basically a Tuvok episode... But as good as the ever-reliable Tim Russ is, the best scenes belong to LeRoy D. Brazile, playing a younger version of the character in flashbacks. Brazile does a splendid job conveying Tim Russ' vocal and physical characteristics. I knew the second the episode began that I was watching Tuvok as a child, before any dialogue was spoken and before the character's name was identified. This young Tuvok is going through a crisis, caused by an attraction to a classmate, leaving him rejecting the Vulcan insistence on denying emotion. His Vulcan Master (Joseph Ruskin) gently but firmly steers him back to control. These scenes help reconcile the supposed emotionlessness of the Vulcans with the obvious flashes of emotion we've frequently seen in the adult Tuvok... And are genuinely engaging in a way that the episode's main plot is not.

Tom Paris: His role is to lend a voice to the adult Tuvok's emotional side. With Tuvok denying any interest in Noss, it falls to Tom to vocalize the obvious temptation of being stranded with an attractive and capable woman. The episode pushes this a little far, having Tom seem bizarrely eager for (married) Tuvok to start a relationship with Noss when even from their perspective it hasn't been so long to just assume [I]Voyager[/I] has given up on rescue. This destroys the potential effectiveness of having the human character give voice to Tuvok's temptation. Well, that and the lack of any sense that Tuvok actually [I]is[/I] tempted, leading to the last problem...

Noss: Lori Petty is not at all bad as Noss. The voice she puts on grows irritating across the full episode, but she does a solid job of showing the woman's evolution from wariness at these new arrivals to attraction to Tuvok. I entirely believed in Noss' attraction to Tuvok. But Tim Russ shares no screen chemistry with her, and I never believed Tuvok was particularly interested in her - Which, combined with the overwriting of the Tom scenes, just destroys any potential effectiveness.


THOUGHTS

It's been a while since Voyager has offered a bad episode. The last truly wretched outing was near the very start of the season. Since then, episodes have ranged from flawed-but-watchable to outstanding, and the last several have been consistently strong.

Gravity isn't initially awful. The opening Act is promising, with the flashback teaser featuring young Tuvok well-written and well-shot. That promise extends to the first Act, which enlivens another tedious "shuttle crash" scenario by showing events from Noss' viewpoint, so that we are introduced to the planet, to her scavenging, and to the crash of the shuttle all through her eyes. We also only meet Tom, Tuvok, and the Doctor as she does. All of this works and works well, and for the first 15 minutes, the episode had me.

But after the commercial, the viewpoint reverts to Tom and Tuvok, and everything becomes much less interesting as an all too-familiar plot plays out in an all too-familiar fashion. With Tom's writing somewhere between "off" and downright bizarre, and a lack of chemistry between Tim Russ and Lori Petty, the Second Act proves a trial to plow through, and when we finally cut to Voyager, it's a relief.

Of course, once we're safely with Janeway and Torres and Harry Kim, we get a steady parade of Voyager's Greatest Hits: Buckets of meaningless Technobabble delivered at very fast speeds; pointlessly antagonistic aliens who make things difficult for no discernible reason; and a climax that depends on an arbitrary time limit so that the writers can pretend they are creating tension.

Keeping this from the depths are the genuinely arresting first Act and the (too few) flashbacks to Tuvok's time with a Vulcan teacher. The conversations between the rebellious young Vulcan and the patient Master carry a sharpness lacking in the main story's dialogue, and the two actors are so good that I would have happily watched a full episode just about them. By the end, I was wading through the main story while waiting for the next flashback - The exact reverse of most episodes that feature flashback subplots. The strength of these scenes is enough to raise my score by a full point.

Overall, it's still pretty weak, though. A disappointing anomaly in what has been a good season.


Overall Rating: 4/10.

Previous Episode: Bride of Chaotica!
Next Episode: Bliss


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5-2. Drone.

Seven and B'Elanna observe as a Borg
drone matures on Voyager!

THE PLOT

B'Elanna, Tom, the Doctor, and Seven are in a shuttlecraft, investigating a proto-nebula, when their shuttle gets caught by a gravimetric surge. Voyager beams them back fast, but distortion from the nebula makes it a difficult transport. The team's patterns briefly merge - Not a lasting problem for the organic crew members, but a big issue for the Doctor's mobile emitter, which begins malfunctioning immediately.

The Doctor is beamed directly to sick bay before his program can fail, and B'Elanna promises to look at the mobile emitter. Before she gets the chance, it becomes clear that Seven's Borg technology has interacted with the device. Within a day, the Borg technology has created a maturation chamber in engineering - Giving birth to a new drone known as "One" (J. Paul Boehmer).

The mobile emitter has its origins in 29th century technology, resulting in "One" being a hyper-advanced Borg drone. Janeway puts Seven in charge of nurturing him, to make him an individual like Seven has herself become. But "One" begins asking questions about its origins and about the Borg Collective, causing Seven to worry about the Borg assimilating him and becoming even more of a threat than they are already!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Resists calls to kill the drone before it wakes. She doesn't want to kill unnecessarily, believing that if Seven could become an individual after a lifetime in the Collective, then this drone can surely be raised to be its own individual as well. When "One" begins asking questions about the Borg, Janeway suggests telling him - But she doesn't order Seven to do so, respecting Seven's choice to wait.

Seven of Nine: At Drone's center is a superb performance by Jeri Ryan. She has to walk a fine line in this episode, maintaining Seven's characteristic reserve while infusing an increasing amount of emotion into her scenes with "One." Ryan pulls this off splendidly, and the mother/son relationship that emerges between Seven and "One" convinces in large part because of her performance. It's worth observing that this episode is exactly one season after The Gift, in which Seven's fondest wish was to return to the Borg. Now she is the crew member most adamant about how dangerous the Borg is, and most in fear of the Collective - Having grown to treasure her individuality, she does not want to risk losing it again.

The Doctor: Is obsessively concerned about his mobile emitter when it stops functioning. This is played largely for laughs, with him badgering a sleepy Torres about the status of his emitter. But if you think about it at all, his anxiety is hardly unreasonable. Without that device, he's back to being a prisoner in sick bay and the holodeck - Effectively reduced from full crew member back to being just "the hologram." Even so, once "One" emerges, he ceases to even mention what he's lost. When the drone brings it up, asking if he's unwelcome, the Doctor insists that this is not the case:"Our primary mission is to explore new forms of life. You may have been unexpected but, given time, I am sure you'll make a fine addition to the crew."

Neelix: Though he has only a small role, his basic personality is used very well. Even as the rest of the crew responds warily to the drone's existence, Neelix is entirely open and friendly, completely welcoming. "One" responds to this openness, and when it begins researching data, Talaxian cooking is mixed in with the other, more technical material.

The Borg: It's confirmed that Borg reproduce through assimilation only, but the existence of the maturation chamber gives context to the infants the Enterprise crew found in Q Who? - As assimilated children, connected to a maturation chamber. Once matured, a drone's responses are fully automated - It must absorb data before it can interact in any way other than a pre-programmed scenario. By the episode's end, the Borg are aware of the existence of advanced future technology on Voyager - Something likely to pose a danger in coming episodes.


WOUND THE REDSHIRT!

Ensign Mulcahy (Todd E. Babcock) bears a mention for his stiff competition for a Darwin Award. On arriving at his work station and discovering it glowing green in a way that would be familiar to every Voyager crew member after Scorpion, does he run away while calling security? Or even keep a safe distance while calling security? Why, no! Ensign Imbecile walks merrily into the green glowing room. Fortunately for him, the script wants our sympathies to be with "One," so Mulcahy survives his Borg encounter with his humanity intact... But honestly, if he had died or been assimilated, it would have been his own stupid fault.

Idle question: If the Borg can become more dangerous by assimilating things more advanced, would feeding them a steady diet of idiots make them less dangerous?


THOUGHTS

If Scorpion was Voyager's The Best of Both Worlds, then this episode is its I Borg - a story focused on a single Borg drone, which emerges as a sympathetic individual over the course of the story. I Borg's complexity is replaced with more overt manipulation, and its difficult ending choice is replaced by an action set piece... But then, this is Voyager. And while Drone isn't anywhere near as strong an episode as its TNG counterpart was, it is still a highly effective installment.

The script is credited to Bryan Fuller, Brannon Braga, and Joe Menosky. The strengths of all three shine through, though. It has the fast pace of most of Fuller's scripts, with new elements and complications being built into the situation at every Act break. It also has the high concept of a Braga piece ("Borg baby") and the humanism of Menosky's best work. In short, the three styles mesh instead of clash.

Seven and the Doctor have emerged into a strong character pairing, with Seven disapproving of the Doctor's flippant attitude even as she privately takes on board his "lessons" in interacting with humans. With "One" talking to both of them about him being "born" by accident, the subtext becomes very much that of them being unexpected parents of this drone - Something that works even when the script hits it a bit too hard on the nose.

I do find myself wondering about the casual attitude toward the Doctor's mobile emitter. It's obvious by this point that B'Elanna can repair it when it breaks. Has she even tried to replicate some back-ups? Just a line of dialogue to the effect that the 29th century technology is beyond the ship's ability to reproduce would be enough - As it stands, it looks as if the crew thinks a single mobile emitter is all they need, and that they aren't even trying to provide redundancy for the only piece of technology that allows their only medical officer the ability to go down to planets or even to other parts of the ship!

Overall, and setting comparisons to I Borg to one side, this is a well-scripted, well-acted episode that does its job of creating some genuine emotional investment in a single-episode situation. It also ends with hints of things to come, leaving me actively anticipating the ship's next Borg encounter.

Definitely a good episode.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode; Night
Next Episode: Extreme Risk

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4-23. Living Witness

Captain Janeway of the Warship Voyager:
"Force must be applied without apology."

THE PLOT

Capt. Janeway of the warship Voyager listens to a proposal from Daleth (Rod Arrants). Daleth's people, the Vaskans, have been preparing to attack and pry land away from the peaceful Kyrians, and Voyager can tip the balance in their favor. He offers her a a trade: Voyager's aid in winning the war in exchange for the coordinates of a stable wormhole that can take her ship home. Janeway agrees, observing: "When diplomacy fails, there's only one alternative: Violence... It's the Starfleet way."

Voyager proceeds to assault Kyrian territory with a ruthless efficiency that shocks even Daleth. The Doctor creates a biogenic weapon, and Tuvok grins as he reports an initial death toll in the thousands, with an exponential rise soon to come. The devastation draws out the Kyrian leader, the pacifist Tedran (Brian Fitzpatrick). When Tedran refuses to surrender, Janeway brutally executes him.

Seven centuries later, Kyrian historian Quarren (Henry Woronicz) lectures to a crowd of visitors about how Voyager's assault brought the Vaskans to power. When a Vaskan protests that this version of history is unproved, Quarren smugly replies that they have unearthed a data storage device. Once unlocked, the data will lay to rest any doubts.

That device turns out to be a backup copy of the Doctor, separated from Voyager just after the Vaskan/Kyrian incident. Since he has been inactive in the intervening centuries, those events happened from his perspective only one day ago. The Doctor protests the "history" Quarren teaches, insisting that virtually none of it is true. Quarren angrily clings to the history he has been taught, and presents the Doctor with one more shock. This society regards artificial beings as individuals - And as the individual held responsible for the creation of a biogenic weapon, the Doctor may soon face the death penalty!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: From the episode's first scene, it is clear that Kate Mulgrew's Evil Janeway is going to be a joy to watch. My favorite exchange is a moment between her and Tuvok. When Tuvok reports deaths in the thousands after the initial bombardment, she reacts with disappointment. When he assures her that number will soon rise, she mock-pouts about him keeping her waiting, until he launches a new assault. The banter between the two is familiar, because even these twisted funhouse-mirror versions of the characters have the friendly relationship of the "real" characters - and the familiarity makes the distortion that much more effective.

The Doctor: In the Kyrian "history," the Doctor (a green-eyed android) is the one truly frightening crew member. He's not only emotionless, he's downright clinical as he prepares a chemical torture for a prisoner before announcing the completion of a devastating biogenic weapon.

Robert Picardo is excellent in these scenes, and even better in the main plotline, playing a backup version who is, to all intents and purposes, "our" Doctor. He is anything but calm and clinical when he sees how badly the real events have been distorted. His initial drive is to set the record straight, both to save his own life and to set right the self-serving "revisionist history" that paints the Kyrians as martyrs and their enemies as aggressors. But when he learns that his version of events has led to violence between the Kyrians and Vaskans, he insists that he should be shut down and the entire matter forgotten. "As long as I'm around, your people are going to keep on fighting... I'm a medical hologram, programmed to do no harm. But I'm doing harm on a global scale!"

Tuvok: The pointy ears create a devilish effect to "Simulation Tuvok," who grins while happily feeding Janeway's thirst for violence. Tim Russ (who also directed) is obviously having fun playing this alternative Tuvok - But makes sure to include the real Tuvok when we're shown what really happened, allowing for a stronger contrast than if Sadist Tuvok was the only version we saw.


THOUGHTS

After a run of episodes that have ranged from flawed to downright terrible, Living Witness comes as an enormous relief. Boasting an intelligent script and entertaining performances, this is the kind of thought-provoking piece that exemplifies what Star Trek can be, while not forgetting to be quite a lot of fun to watch.

The episode's first twenty minutes is about as close to a "Mirror Universe" Voyager as we'll ever see on-screen. It's enormous fun: Janeway as a fascist who glories in violence, Tuvok as a grinning sadist, Harry Kim as a brutish enforcer... All enormous fun, and you can see how much the actors enjoy the chance to put an evil spin on their usual roles.

In a clever move, writers Bryan Fuller, Brannon Braga, and Joe Menosky wait until the situation is well-established before revealing that what we are watching is a simulation, being viewed in a museum hundreds of years in the future. Once the simulation plays out, the viewpoint shifts to that of Quarren, the museum curator who both teaches and unquestioningly accepts this simulation as The Truth. When the Doctor is activated, we view him through Quarren's eyes, making his journey from denial of the real events to their champion far more credible than might have been the case.


ON HISTORY

As someone who enjoys history, I also appreciate that this episode understands something that is so often misunderstood - Namely, that history always changes. History isn't a set of objective facts, because we don't truly know objective facts from centuries or millennia ago. History is based on varied interpretations of events, with our understanding shifting based on evidence supporting one interpretation or another - or often, bits of one interpretation and bits of another.

All the evidence the Kyrians have at the start of the episode supports the history they want to be true - A history in which they were blameless victims of sadistic agressors. Then Quarren, the historian, discovers new evidence (The Doctor), and a new interpretation of events (complete with a new simulation). After wrestling with his own denial, Quarren is forced to admit that the evidence better supports the Doctor's interpretation than the Kyrian one... But even so, the challenge to established history results in serious push-back from others - something that also happens in the real world.


FINAL THOUGHTS

Living Witness's script is intelligent and meaningful, in a way Voyager scripts often aren't. And lest that sound potentially dreary or academic, it's also a lot of fun - not only the "mirror" Voyager of the first twenty minutes, but also the always-delightful performance of Robert Picardo in the bulk of the show. There's a lot of material packed into 45 minutes, which means that it moves at a lightning pace.

I do find the ending to be rushed and overly pat. Instead of that last jump forward in time that assures us that the Doctor's revelation of the genuine truth makes everything work out perfectly for all, I would have preferred the story to end in the episode's present, with the conflict still ongoing but a sense that new evidence is leading more and more of the mainstream to accept the truth - a hopeful ending, but not one that brushes the messiness of the situation under the carpet.

Even so, this is almost certainly the season's best single-part episode, and stands as one of the most intelligent and downright interesting scripts of the entire series. Highly recommended.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Unforgettable
Next Episode: Demon

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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.

Previous Episode: Concerning Flight
Next Episode: Waking Moments


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4-6. The Raven.

Seven of Nine's human side wars with her Borg side...

THE PLOT

Seven of Nine is having issues: Waking nightmares of the Borg Collective trying to re-assimilate her. She cannot understand why she feels fear of the Borg; to her, the Collective is still "home." She also cannot understand why each of her visions includes a raven. She does her duty and reports the issue, but the Doctor can find nothing wrong with her and, with Voyager negotiating with the xenophobic B'omar for rights to travel directly through their territory rather than around it, Janeway's attention is focused there.

And it is during a negotiation with B'omar officials that Seven's Borg nature suddenly reasserts itself. She assaults Neelix in the mess hall, then moves like an automaton through the corridors, brushing past every attempt to stop her on her way to the shuttle bay. She takes a shuttle, then heads directly into B'omar space.

The outraged B'omar insist that they will deal with Seven, flatly stating that she will be "found and destroyed," and that any attempt by Voyager to go after her will be considered an act of aggression. Tom and Tuvok find a way to slip a shuttle into their space to go after Seven independently. But with the Doctor reporting that her last scan shows her Borg nanoprobes regenerating, the question becomes: Are they recovering a shipmate, or preparing for a confrontation with a Borg drone?


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Shows a nurturing, almost maternal attitude toward Seven. She pushes the former Borg to develop her creative side. She spends time talking to her and listens to her perspective without showing judgment. When Seven reverts and escapes with a shuttle, Janeway refuses to believe she is lost to them. "She was responding to us," Janeway insists. "She was adapting to this environment and to this crew." This drives her to approve a risky mission for Tom and Tuvok, though she does tell them that if Seven responds violently to use whatever force may be necessary.

Seven of Nine: Has by this point accepted the idea of her humanity reasserting itself, though she still finds much of the Voyager crew's activities to be inefficient and pointless. Despite her efforts, she still inadvertently creates awkwardness when interacting with Neelix, mentioning the assimilation of various Talaxians. She does acknowledge genuine appreciation of Janeway's kindness toward her, though she still considers the Collective more as "home" than the ship.

Tuvok: After previous episodes have shown him considering Seven as a security risk, this episode... Well, basically proves him right. Yet instead of giving him an adversarial role, when he finally catches up with Seven he is patient and almost compassionate. He observes the inconsistencies in her behavior versus that of a full Borg - such as her voicing appreciation for Janeway's kindness, or her offering to let him go rather than assimilate him. The last part of the episode makes them a genuine team, and perhaps establishes a sort of working friendship that I would love to see developed in future episodes.