5-6. Timeless.

The starship Voyager, in its icy grave.

THE PLOT

On a desolate, ice-covered planet, a ship has been discovered. Under a layer of ice lies a lifeless husk that had the misfortune to crash on this world 15 years earlier. The ship's designation: Voyager!

15 years earlier, the Voyager crew prepares to use the finally-ready slipstream technology to travel directly home. The crew is celebrating - save for Tom Paris, who has discovered a phase variance in the slipstream system. He and Harry test this out in the holodeck, and simulation after simulation ends with Voyager's destruction.

Harry comes up with a plan, however. If he flies ahead of Voyager in the Delta Flyer, then he can send phase corrections back, allowing the starship to compensate for the variance. Janeway authorizes the plan, with Chakotay piloting the shuttle as Harry works on the math. And so the great ship's fate is sealed...

15 years later, an older, guilt-ridden Harry and Chakotay have come up with a new plan. Salvaging Borg technology from Seven of Nine's remains, they now have the ability to send a message back in time. Harry made a mistake in his calculations, leading to the ship's destruction. If he can send the correct calculations to Voyager just before the accident, then he can save his crew - and alter the course of history!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Chakotay believes Harry's plan is too much of a risk, and Janeway admits that by the book he's correct - But the responsibility for the crew weighs heavily on her, and she decides to take the chance. This ties in with her depression in Night, in which she shut herself away and blamed herself for every day and every death that the crew had experienced in the Delta Quadrant. Chakotay's right about the risk being unwise - But Janeway so badly wants to get her crew home, that her guilt overrides her judgment.

Chakotay: Just as determined to alter history to save Voyager as Harry is - But he isn't as guilt-ridden. He's actually moved on with his life, starting a relationship with Tessa Omond (Christine Harnos), who assists him and Harry on the mission. He even voices reservations about moving forward with a plan that will erase their relationship from the timeline, though that does not stop him from going through with it.

Doctor: When Chakotay and Harry investigate the wreckage of Voyager, they discover that the Doctor's program is still working, as is his mobile emitter. This allows them to bring him along to assist their efforts. The choice to include the Doctor is an inspired one. It makes sense for him to be "alive" when the rest of the crew are dead; and since he's been out of commission for the entire 15 years between the crash and the discovery of the wreckage, all the backstory can be explained to him without it feeling like a forced infodump. Finally, it allows the Doctor to act as a foil for Harry, urging him to abandon the doomed effort to get the ship home and instead settle for simply saving it from destruction.

Capt. Geordi LaForge: Sent to stop Chakotay and Harry from changing the past. He is genuinely sympathetic to the Voyager survivors' desire to save their crew. But as he points out, his duty is to protect the last 15 years of history, a history in which Voyager was destroyed. Throughout the conflict that follows, he gives every chance for Chakotay to drop his shields and be beamed to safety, and it's clear that he takes no pleasure in targeting the Delta Flyer. At the same time, his position is absolutely justified, and he does his duty.


HARRY KIM AND TIMELESS

OK, where did this Harry come from, and can we keep him?

A handful of previous episodes have shown that Wang is more than capable of giving a good performance when the writers can be bothered to give him good material. The Chute and The Killing Game both showcased an edgier Harry, beaten down and left weary and angry. Those traits are built on with the brusque, embittered future Harry of this episode. The result is something I'd have sworn was impossible - A Harry Kim who is a genuinely compelling character.

Since it's clear Wang is at his best playing a Harry with a bit of en edge, why not make that a permanent part of his personality? The couple of earlier good Harry Kim episodes made it clear that the problem with the character was never the actor. Timeless shows that the writing staff knows how to make Harry work... Which means that, going forward, there is no longer any excuse for him to continue being a failed character. If he goes back to being wallpaper (which I unfortunately expect will be the case), then the blame belongs solely to the writers.


THOUGHTS

Timeless is a terrific episode from top to bottom. It's easily Season Five's best episode to date, and is among the highlights of the entire series. Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky have delivered an outstanding script, and director Levar Burton makes the transitions between the Voyager of the show's present and future seamless without ever being confusing.

The episode opens with the discovery of Voyager under the ice - a fantastic visual flourish that takes us to credits, eager to discover exactly what is going on. The entire first Act continues in the future, with the disaster that befell the ship imparted piece by piece as backstory. Only with the revelation that Harry and Chakotay plan to change history does the episode finally move back in time to "our" Voyager, on the eve of its fateful slipstream flight.

Act Two follows the Voyager of the series' present, with our knowledge of the ship's fate hanging over the proceedings. Harry's desperate attempts to first deny the phase variance, then to improvise a risky solution for it, explains much about Future Harry's guilt. His eagerness to get back home leads him to pushing for reckless action. But the blame isn't ultimately his. Janeway is as affected by guilt as the future Harry is, and her ongoing sense of responsibility for stranding her ship leads to her authorizing a plan that she knows she shouldn't.

The rest of the episode intercuts present and future until, at last, they fully merge. With the sending of the messages through time, Future Harry interacts with Present Voyager, with Geordi's intervention raising the stakes and the suspense for a highly effective climax.

There's a tag scene, and it's a good one. Janeway gives Harry a message from his future self, one that loops back onto an earlier scene and provides additional context for it. The final word belongs to the Harry from a future that now will never be, sending us out of the episode on a very strong note.


Overall Rating: 10/10.

Previous Episode: Once Upon a Time
Next Episode: Infinite Regress

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-5. Once Upon a Time.

Neelix uses a holo-novel to shield his goddaughter from reality.

THE PLOT

Neelix has been entrusted with the care of his goddaughter, young Naomi Wildman (Scarlett Pomers), while her mother, Samantha (Nancy Hower) is on a mission with Tom and Tuvok in the Delta Flyer. In a transmission to Neelix, Samantha reveals that the ship has been damaged by an ion storm and that another storm is approaching. When that second storm leaves the shuttle limping off course, Voyager prepares a rescue mission.

Guided by his own devastation at the deaths of his family members, Neelix decides not to mention the situation to Naomi - at least, not until they have a clearer picture on how much danger the shuttle crew is in. Janeway initially supports this, and Neelix happily distracts Naomi with a fairy tale-like holo-novel set in an enchanted forest. But as the Delta Flyer's situation grows ever more serious, Janeway starts pushing Neelix to tell the child the truth - finally stating that if Neelix doesn't tell her, then she will!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Clearly does sympathize with Neelix's feelings, both his protectiveness of Naomi and his identification with the girl's situation. That doesn't stop her from insisting Neelix reveal the truth when she decides his actions are less for the child and more for himself - But she does deal with him as gently as possible, while still making it clear that she expects him to follow her instructions.

Neelix: His relationship with the Wildmans is carried forward from last season's Mortal Coil. I give points to the show for remembering and building on that. Neelix dodges Naomi's questions about his family, but his grief is evident in both face and tone even as he pretends to the young girl that they're simply "far away." That same sense of loss, remembering how much it hurt him when his family was killed, leads to him shielding Naomi from the truth about her mother's situation, long past the point at which he should be telling her.

TuvoK: Receives one of the episode's most effective moments. When it looks all but certain that she, Tuvok, and Tom will run out of air before rescue comes, she worries about what will become of Naomi. Tuvok, the other parent in the shuttle, manages to be genuinely reassuring without in any way compromising his Vulcan reserve: "My youngest child has been without a father for four years, yet I am certain of her well-being, that I conveyed my values to her before leaving... You have been an exemplary mother to Naomi, and she is in the hands of people you trust. She will survive and prosper, no matter what becomes of us."


THOUGHTS

Glancing around the Internet, it's clear that Once Upon a Time is a badly-regarded episode. I can't argue with many of the criticisms. The holodeck fairy tale, clearly the basis for the episode's title, all but vanishes in the second half; far more interesting narrative use could have been made of continuing the fairy tale through the episode and intercutting it with the Delta Flyer plot. It also is blatantly emotionally manipulative, to the point that you can almost hear writer Michael Taylor (who penned DS9's far superior The Visitor) urging you to be affected, dammit!

All these complaints are valid, and I can't deny them in the slightest. But I have to admit, I enjoyed this episode in spite of that. The manipulations are blatant and heavy-handed... But enough of it does strike a cord. While watching, I found myself rolling my eyes at an extended recording of a deathbed message, but still being affected by the scene even as a part of me mentally mocked it. And the episode's central dilemma - Neelix's emotional turmoil wrestling with a situation that hits so close to home - is perfectly consistent with his overall characterization and is well-played by Ethan Phillips.

I will say that a big part of me wonders if it mightn't have been more interesting had Samantha Wildman died during the mission. That would leave Neelix having to act as a father to Naomi, perhaps allowing his character to develop under this new responsibility - And would also give real emotional consequences to his refusal to tell Naomi the truth. This being Voyager, however, such does not occur, nor does the viewer ever really believe there's any danger of it.

Overall, I can't argue with the episode's poor reputation, but I also can't condemn an episode that I genuinely enjoyed. For all its faults, the story kept me engrossed enough in the character drama to overlook the heavy-handedness. It's too flawed for me to label it a good episode - But I liked it too much to label it a bad one.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: In the Flesh
Next Episode: Timeless

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

5-3. Extreme Risk.

B'Elanna tries to ride out an explosion.

THE PLOT

Voyager encounters the Malon again, when a Malon ship attempts to steal a telemetry probe. Tuvok is able to do some remote Technobabble that allows the probe to escape into the atmosphere of a gas giant. Borg shielding designed by Seven allows the device to survive the atmosphere - but proves too much for the pursuing Malon ship, which is destroyed.

The next problem is retrieving the probe. Tom Paris proposes building a specialized ship, which he names the Delta Flyer, using a design of his that incorporates Borg shielding and is directly aimed at maneuvering through high pressure atmosphere. Seven, Tuvok, and Harry all respond enthusiastically, and Janeway authorizes the project.

But B'Elanna seems oddly detached from a project that should be an engineer's dream. She puts in the hours, but ducks off to the holodeck every moment she's not working. When Chakotay finds her badly injured, he and Janeway realize that she has been running high risk holodeck programs with the safeties off - and that this behavior has been going on for months!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Values life in general enough to try to warn the first Malon ship against chasing the probe into the gas giant's atmosphere. When a second Malon ship arrives while the Delta Flyer is still under construction, she attempts to settle the dispute through communication, with it being the Malon who refuse to talk. Once she realizes B'Elanna has been running dangerous holodeck programs with safeties off for months, she tries to talk to her about this behavior. When the engineer lies and denies that she has a problem, Janeway insists that she will remain off duty and under the Doctor's supervision until further notice.

Chakotay: As Torres' friend and former commanding officer, he investigates her holodeck use. When he turns up a program that simulates the massacre of their Maquis friends by the Jem'Hadar, he pushes her into viewing it, forcing her to talk about the situation even when she doesn't want to. In real life, such a confrontation would be at most a starting point for a very long recovery. This being Voyager, Chakotay's pushing and a convenient life-or-death mission magically cure her... But the episode should still get points for actually remembering these two characters' history, and for making use of it.

Torres: This episode is basically to B'Elanna what last season's Vis a Vis was to Tom: A "character" episode that manufactures an ongoing crisis we had no previous evidence of, all so that resetting to normal at the end feels like some kind of real character development. It was a cheat then and it's a cheat now - But here, it's even more aggravating because what supposedly sparked B'Elanna's crisis could have worked, had it simply been built up to over a span of episodes prior to this. But since she's behaved normally in all previous episodes, it's unconvincing when we're told that she's been withdrawn for months. Roxann Dawson gives her usual strong performance, which helps to keep this trite drama watchable.

Tom Paris: Knows something is wrong when B'Elanna shows no interest in constructing the Delta Flyer, the exact type of collaboration the two of them have previously talked about wanting to do. When she refuses to talk to him, he focuses his attention on getting the ship finished, but his concern is clear. The part of Tom that yearns for times past shows in his insistence on putting in manual controls, based on his Captain Proton holodeck program, in addition to the Starfleet touch screens. "I am tired of tapping panels. For once, I want controls that let me actually feel the ship I'm piloting!" Still, he's not impractical - The knobs and buttons may be fully functional, but there is also a touch pad for him to use, and it's the touch pad that is his primary control method on the actual mission.


THOUGHTS

More than anything else, my problem with Extreme Risk is that it's a wasted opportunity. The idea of the massacre of the Maquis creating emotional turmoil for ex-Maquis members of the Voyager crew is a good one. It makes perfect storytelling sense, it actually makes use of close to half of the ship's crew being former Maquis, and there is potential for drama and real character development. But for that to happen, one of two things needed to be done: Work the issues of a regular into the background of several episodes leading up to this one; or, if it must be a pure standalone story, have the issues affect a non-regular member of the crew, with B'Elanna and/or Chakotay helping that person to begin a recovery and reflecting on their own feelings at the same time.

As it stands, B'Elanna has shown no evidence of emotional turmoil or withdrawal during the more than half-season since learning of the deaths of the Maquis, so her behavior comes out of nowhere. This, coupled with her getting past those issues by the episode's end, leave it just feeling like a cheat. It's just filler that pretends to be character development, and as such has no real impact.

I will give credit where it's due. Kenneth Biller's script is generic, but it is fast-paced, with both the "A" and "B" plots moving quickly. Roxann Dawson, Robert Beltran, and Robert Duncan McNeill all give good performances, and it's nice to see Dawson and McNeill get a crack at the spotlight again - Something they've rarely been allowed since Seven's arrival. It's all very trite and more than a little bit silly. The emotional plot is made up of a lot of Lifetime Movie level dialogue, while the action plot is resolved by B'Elanna becoming a poor man's MacGyver. But while it's pretty bad, it isn't boring - which puts it way above, say, last season's Unforgettable.

A below-average throwaway, made more irritating because potential was here for something better. It's good to see Tom and B'Elanna get some focus again - Now let's see them get the spotlight in a good episode.


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Episode; Drone
Next Episode: In the Flesh

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager


Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads