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