Thoughts on Season Two.

Janeway takes the idea of confronting herself literally.

Much to my surprise, Voyager's first season was actually promising. Not brilliant, to be sure - fully half the cast still didn't work very well by the end of the year, and there was a distinct lack of ambition in the storytelling. Still, the best episodes of Season One, notably and Faces showed just how good Voyager could be. At the very least, barring a few bad episodes, Season One was generally fun to watch.

Season Two takes that potential and... squanders it. Most of Season One's flaws are magnified. The first year's storytelling was unadventurous; the second year's is outright hackneye. But though I come largely to bury Voyager and not to praise it, I will be fair enough to first discuss the one area in which the series actually improved.

Episodes like Meld help make Tim Russ's Tuvok
the season's most improved character.

CHARACTERIZATION: THE GOOD

The regular characters were better-served in Season Two than in Season One.  This is particularly evident among the male cast, who except for the holographic doctor seemed fairly weak in the first season.  Robert Duncan McNeill's Tom Paris, intermittently promising last year, is consistently good this year.  Critical to this is that the writers are now tuning their scripts to McNeill's strengths and away from his weaknesses.  Gone are the ill-conceived attempts to turn Tom into an edgy anti-hero.  Instead, he is shown to be flawed but sincere in his desire to do right by his post, his ship, and his captain.

Tim Russ' Tuvok is even better, so much so that I'd rate him as the season's most improved character. In Season One, Russ too often fell on the wrong side of the line between "reserved" and "robot." This year, he nails the characterization, capably showing a man who keeps his emotions in reserve but who still genuinely reacts to situations. It helps that he gets some of the season's best writing.  Meld particularly allows him to show his range, presenting an episode that not only shows Tuvok's darkest side, but also his inherent sense of honor. Even in lesser episodes, such as the enjoyable yet flawed Resolutions or the entirely expendable Innocence, Russ manages to impress.

If they had written Tuvok out after Season One, I don't think I would have cared at all.  After Season Two, his character is one of the ones I'm actively looking forward to seeing more of.

Seska tortures Chakotay. Which is only fair
given how much Chakotay tortures the audience.

CHARACTERIZATION: THE BAD

Kes was a character who worked. In fact, she was one of two characters (the other being the doctor) who worked right away. In Season One, the writers made good use of her. She was a supporting character, but she was visible and important throughout. This is no longer the case in Season Two.

Kes still gets good episodes here and there. But outside of a handful of shows, she is almost perpetually sidelined. Her relationship with the doctor, one of her defining ones, is diminished in importance, as is her friendship with Tom. Jennifer Lien is still good, and retains her knack for making the most of the scraps she's given. But those scraps have grown a lot leaner, and it seems evident that the writers have lost interest in her.

Lien's spark at least keeps the character engaging during her limited screentime. The same cannot be said of either Harry Kim or Chakotay. These characters (and actors) did not work in Season One, and they still don't work in Season Two.

At least Harry gets The Thaw, an episode which shows that the character could have worked. It's not that there are any traits here that don't exist in other episodes. He's still the technobabble expert, he still has absolute faith in Janeway, and he's still so rigidly moral that it actually becomes a fault. However, he is examined in greater depth, made human by revelations of his greatest fears, and this allows Garrett Wang a thus-far unique opportunity to show that he actually can act... if only the other 25 scripts per season would be kind enough to allow him to.

Chakotay doesn't even get that much. Even in good episodes, nothing is done to make him stand out. We either are reminded that he is Native American and therefore mystical, or we see him responding to the manipulations of others (mostly Seska). As a character unto himself, all that's there is a facial tattoo in a uniform. Making mattes worse, actor Robert Beltran is wooden even in good episodes. He's downright oak-like in bad ones.

And the worst part of this? While Harry at least is only spotlighted occasionally, the Seska arc means that Chakotay gets a lot of screentime this season... almost all of it dull.

Neelix is jealous of Tom's friendship with Kes.
Amazingly, this isn't him at his worst.

CHARACTERIZATION: THE UGLY

Which brings me to Neelix. In my overview of Season One, I stated that I was undecided about him. Well, Season Two has me off the fence. I can now state with some confidence that I do not like him, not one little bit.

Ethan Phillips is a capable actor.  He does well with the few good moments he gets, notably in Alliances and Investigations, two episodes in which Neelix actually gets to be competent and useful.  But he and his character are utterly sabotaged by the scripts. It's as if, upon discovering that many were irritated by Neelix, the writers passive-aggressively decided to show the audience the true meaning of "annoying."

Neelix's jealousy of Tom's friendship with Kes is irritating enough. But I really hate his constant needling of Tuvok. It may be an attempt to create a Spock/McCoy dynamic. But it suffers from the same problem that plagued the early interactions of Dr. Pulaski and Data in Season Two of TNG: Namely, when one party stoically accepts the needling of the other rather than fighting back, it just becomes bullying. Bullying done with cheerfulness and a smile isn't any more endearing than when it's done with a scowl. TNG figured this out quickly and moved to a friendlier Pulaski/Data dynamic. Voyager doesn't even seem to realize that there's a problem.

Threshold really isn't the worst episode of Star Trek
 - but it just might be the strangest.

"WHO CARES WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?"

Despite the continuing weakness of Chakotay and Harry Kim and the aggravation of Neelix, characterization in Season Two is mostly an improvement. The rest of the cast now works, offering several characters who are at least enjoyable to follow.

But one other component is needed for success: I have to be interested in seeing what these characters do and/or what happens to them. This is the area in which Voyager's second season not only stumbles, but most of the time falls smack onto its face.

It's not so much an issue of quality control. There are some bad episodes, sure, including one hilariously bad one.  But most of the individual episodes are at least watchable, and several are quite good. Death Wish and The Thaw provide the series with its first truly great episodes, ones that I think rival the best of other Trek shows.

It's all fine enough episode by episode. It's only when you string the episodes together that the problem becomes clear: Namely, that there is nothing hooking me into wanting to see what happens next. This isn't specifically an appeal for arc-based television. In fact, there is an arc that runs through the second half of the season, involving the Kazon and Seska, which comes complete with a subsidiary arc involving a turncoat member of the crew. That's more multi-episode storytelling than you'll find within most TNG seasons.

Butthere's no sense that events actually matter. Things happen to the characters, but mostly they don't have any impact. Even Seska shoving a stolen son at Chakotay doesn't change his character (pity), save for in the first half of Basics. The external threats appear and are vanquished, with little sense of any impact on the crew.

Suder (Brad Dourif) goes out in a blaze of glory. Because
keeping him around might be messy, and we can't have that.

BACK TO BASICS

It's fitting that the season cliffhanger is titled Basics, given that the 2-parter's wrap-up basically ejects any elements that might create interesting complications for Season Three. Chakotay's half-Cardassian son? Turns out the other half is Kazon, and Chakotay has no connection with the child at all. Recurring villain Seska, with her personal connection to Chakotay? Unceremoniously killed off... which will hopefully at least reduce Chakotay's screen time, though it deprives the series of its only effective recurring villain in the process.

As for the unstable Suder, so wonderfully played by veteran actor Brad Dourif? He's exactly the kind of character Voyager needs. He's a man who has fierce demons he's trying to control. He's a potential wild card, someone who could help or harm the crew at any given turn. He's not someone you want to see as a regular, which would inevitably lead to toning down the very elements which make him interesting in the first place. But he's a worthy recurring character, someone to check in on maybe 3 - 4 times per season.

So of course, he gets to die in a blaze of glory. The net result is that we are left with only the Starfleet faithful. Well, and the Maquis, but since they all behave exactly like Starfleet faithful (another missed opportunity), that hardly registers as a difference.

The series goes back to basics in the most depressing way possible: By removing anything that might create mess in a situation that by all rights should be extremely, even inherently, messy.


GOODBYE, MR. PILLER

Season Two of Voyager marks the end of Michael Piller's regular association with Star Trek.  Part Two of Basics is his final Voyager script, with his only writing credit for the franchise after this being the movie, Star Trek: Insurrection.

Given how good Piller's work was for TNG and DS9, I wish I could feel sorry that his contribution ends here. But I can't... because his Voyager work isn't of the same standard. The only Piller script of Season Two that has the resonance of his best scripts is Death Wish - a story that is all about Q, with this series' regulars little more than plot devices.

I retain enormous respect for Piller's role in making TNG into a genuinely good series. But I think he had already given Star Trek everything he had, and I doubt that Voyager will be much the poorer for his exit. Honestly, if it gets much poorer, I'm unlikely to still be watching come the end of the journey.

Michael McKean as an evil clown in The Thaw,
one of several episodes showing Voyager's potential.

SEASON THREE WISHLIST

That the show gets better? All right, I'll be more specific...

First and foremost... NO MORE KAZON!!! Seska's an interesting character, well-played by Martha Hackett. But she spends the entire season shackled to this troupe of dullards, who are about as menacing as a group of renegade Smurfs. The latter half of Season Two is heavily occupied with the machinations of the Kazon (a phrase I simply can't type with a straight face), and every episode just reinforces how tediously inept they are.

And why has so much time been spent on the Kazon when the series has already introduced a far more effective recurring villain? The Vidiians are everything the Kazon aren't: Creepy to the point of being genuinely terrifying, multidimensional with a backstory that makes them victims as well as villains, and possessing technology that makes them the equals of our regulars, meaning that they actually pose a threat!  There are very few good Kazon episodes and no great ones. There have been no bad Vidiian episodes to date, and shows such as Faces hint at the potential for greatness.

It may be that the very things that make the Vidiians so menacing also doom them to only occasional appearances. They are extremely disturbing. Moments such as the Vidiians casually marching into sickbay and extracting organs from helpless victims, or a Vidiian scientist turning to camera to reveal that he's wearing the face of a dead crewman... These are the stuff of nightmares. It may be that a show like Voyager, a series that plays it safe at every turn, was uncomfortable exploring them too thoroughly. Any serious exploration of the Vidiians would get messy... and Voyager can't abide a mess.

Which brings me to my biggest wish for the future: MAKE IT MESSY!!! The characters are in a desperate situation. They are far from home, with no realistic hope of ever seeing it again. The crew is (theoretically) made up of two groups that were in conflict not long ago, and many of these crew members should have minimal loyalty to Janeway and none at all to Starfleet. They're now taking some casualties, while resources are steadily depleted.

But it never feels like this is the situation. We see no sign of dwindling resources and little sign of emotional strain or tension among the crew. Most episodes might as well be set in the Alpha Quadrant, with a Starbase in hailing distance, for all the difference it would make to the tone or the storytelling.

If the situation could be allowed to seem as desperate as it should be, this would be a far more interesting series. Unfortunately, Voyager doesn't want to do anything other than pay occasional lip-service to that situation.

After all, to do otherwise might be messy.

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2-26, 3-1. Basics.

Suder (Brad Dourif)'s moment of glory.

THE PLOT

Voyager receives an urgent, hurried message from Seska: a plea for help. Her child has been born - revealing to Culluh (Anthony De Longis) that he is Chakotay's child and not his. Janeway and Chakotay realize that there's a good chance this is a trap - but they can't take the chance of Chakotay's son being sold into a life of slavery, and so they prepare a rescue mission right into Kazon-Nistrim space.

They haven't gone very far into Kazon space when they intercept a badly damaged shuttle with a sole occupant: Tierna (John Gegenhuber), one of Seska's aides. Tierna tells them that Seska is dead, murdered by Culluh. He helps them plot a course into Nistrim space, one that will allow them to avoid the worst of the Kazon defenses. 

On this course, the ship becomes subject to repeated attacks. All of them are minor attacks by ships that can pose no serious threat, but each is focused on the same area of the ship. "It feels like we're being pecked to death by ducks," Janeway reflects. They have taken precautions against attack, however, ones that should secure them against all anticipated obstacles. 

But they haven't anticipated everything...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Her compassion for Chakotay overrides her judgment, in my opinion. An obvious trap set for one crewman, even the ship's First Officer, should not one that a captain walks straight into. She may strive to take every precaution, but she admits that she knows Seska would be prepared for their wariness. It's pure, reckless sentiment, and all casualties are her fault for willingly tripping Seska's trap. That said, the Trek universe has rarely seen ruthlessness from its captains. Kate Mulgrew does give a commanding performance, particularly when coordinating Voyager's response to the Kazon battle in Part One.

Chakotay: His first impulse is to ignore Seska's message. He never volunteered for fatherhood, after all - Seska stole his DNA. But as the vision of his father (Henry Darrow) points out, the child is himself innocent of the mother's crimes. The boy is Chakotay's child and "a child of our people," his father points out, making the message impossible for him to ignore. Even so, he remains particularly suspicious of Tierna, ordering him confined to secure quarters at the first sign of trouble. A shame he didn't think to have a watch put on him as well... 

Tuvok: Though that's more Tuvok's failing, given that the Vulcan is chief of security. You would think that keeping a likely spy/saboteur under constant surveillance, even when confined, would be basic stuff. But that would interfere with the plot, so Tuvok is rendered incompetent in this area. Better is the development of Tuvok's mentoring of Suder (Brad Dourif), with Tuvok taking obvious pride in Suder's botanical studies and equally obvious concern at his occasional lapses.

The Doctor: "One hologram and one sociopath may not be much of a match for the Kazon, but we'll have to do."Some very good material for Robert Picardo here. The first half sees the Doctor contributing to the ship's tactics, coming up with a suggestion to use a hologram in battle to distract the enemy. The suggestion is effective, even if its implementation leaves the Doctor briefly in the midst of a space battle, and hints that the Doctor's contribution to the ship could easily extend beyond medicine if the series wants to explore that option. The Doctor also does well with Suder in Part Two, having to effectively act as the troubled man's commanding officer to re-take the ship from the Kazon.

Seska: It's not much of a spoiler to reveal that no, Seska isn't dead. Recurring villains don't get offscreen deaths unless something happened with the actor, and it's fairly obvious from the start that this is all a trap. The tension between Seska and Culluh remains apparent, however, with Culluh aware that Seska is essentially giving the orders but uncertain what to do about it.  It's a shame that this dynamic is all but ignored in Part Two, with the resolution of the Seska storyline coming in the easiest and least complicated of ways.

Suder: Even though the meld with Tuvok has granted Suder self-discipline, his old violence is churning just below the surface. When he asks Tuvok and Janeway to allow him to contribute to the ship, the urgency of his request is off-putting, and his response to Janeway's hesitation is almost threatening. These very traits make him into a hero in Part Two, however, as his capacity for violence comes in handy once the Kazon take control ofVoyager. Brad Dourif is again excellent, and his return for this two-parter is one of this episode's most welcome elements. 


THOUGHTS

Basics provides Voyager with its first season cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is no "Locutus of Borg," but it's still a pretty good one: The Kazon in control of Voyager, the crew exiled to a seismically unstable world, and the Doctor and the murderous Suder the only Starfleet presence remaining on the Kazon-controlled starship. As he ends Part One, writer Michael Piller leaves the show in a situation where it could pursue a number of options.

This being Voyager, Part Two pursues the safest course. All loose ends are tied off neatly, leaving ship and show to continue on its near continuity-free way. But at least it's mostly fun getting there, with Part One particularly good as the crew fly into a trap knowing full well that is what they're doing, only to find themselves unable to anticipate the full extent of Seska's deception.

Part Two remains entertaining, with the Doctor/Suder double-act making for some strong scenes. But the second part is made much less compelling because of the intrusion of Saturday Matinee serial fodder, in the form of the adventures of the marooned crew on the One-Shot Volcanic Planet. None of these scenes connect to the main plot at all, and none of the material involving alien cave men and reptilian monsters in tunnels is anywhere near as interesting as the Kazon story. But I suppose Michael Piller felt that he needed to give the regulars something to do, even if it meant distracting from the meat of the story.

In the end, Basics is a miscrocosm of Voyager as a series: It's very entertaining and extremely well-made. But it doesn't miss a chance to play things safe, and it spends entirely too much time focusing on the wrong elements. As an adventure story, it largely works, even if the second half fails to deliver on the promise of the first. But much like the series it belongs to, it feels like this could have and should have been more.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: Resolutions
Next Episode: Flashback 

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2-14. Alliances.

Janeway deals with a Kazon attack.

THE PLOT

Kazon attacks on Voyager have increased, to the point that the ship has been attacked four times within the past two weeks! The ship has only barely fought off the most recent raid, and sustained heavy damage in the process. After this latest attack, Chakotay proposes that Janeway consider bending the rules of Starfleet for the sake of survival. After much consideration, Janeway agrees to explore the idea of making an alliance with one or two Kazon sects.

The effort seems doomed from the start. An attempt to deal with Seska (Martha Hackett) and Culluh (Anthony De Longis) falls apart before the negotiations have hardly begun, with Culluh's refusal to deal on an equal basis with a woman making discussion impossible. Neelix's attempt to contact a Kazon acquaintance gets him imprisoned with the Trabe, sworn enemies of the Kazon. Neelix manages to escape with the Trabe, whose friendly and reasonable manner seem to offer another hope for an alliance. But will an alliance with the enemy of all Kazon make Voyager even more a target than it is already?


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: As with Prototype, this episode is designed to make Janeway's initial stance the correct one. But even the details of the episode don't fully support that. After taking a hard-line position that she would rather destroy Voyager than share anything with the Kazon, she modifies her stance and agrees to explore an alliance. But it takes less than two minutes for her to go from that to deciding to contact Seska - overruling Chakotay's worries that this is a bad idea by saying, "If you want to get in the mud with the Kazon, you can't start complaining that you might get dirty." As if making an alliance with one or two Kazon sects is automatically equivalent to trying to deal with someone they all know to be untrustworthy.

Any attempt to form alliances within an unstable region will, by necessity, be a process marked by at least as many failures as successes. Yet Janeway makes two (simultaneous) efforts to form alliances for Voyager's benefit. These fail, so she naturally decides that a good next step would be to call a council to create peace through the quadrant. Because that's likely to work, when she can't even make a successful alliance with one sect. After that falls apart, she (and the episode) present the failure as proof that such efforts were misguided to start with. Frankly, Culluh is right when he calls her a hypocrite, and Mabus (Charles O. Lucia) is right when he calls her naive. And if the show would recognize this, then it would instantly become a much more interesting series.

Chakotay: Does what a First Officer should do. He sees that the ship is in an untenable situation, and goes to the captain to make a proposal to fix this. He doesn't argue with her in front of the crew, saving his arguments for when they are in private. He also presents his case calmly and rationally.

Neelix: Attempts to create an alliance with a Kazon sect familiar to him. But (surprise!) Neelix managed to burn his bridges with his Kazon contact, and he is soon taken prisoner and marked for death. Neelix does manage to escape by allying himself with the Trabe, and he is genuinely useful in providing both Janeway and the viewers with some backstory that makes the Trabe/Kazon relationship halfway plausible. It's a pretty strong Neelix episode all-around, actually, and an example of how well this character can work when he's not being written as ham-handed comic relief.

Seska: Continues to guide and manipulate Culluh, but she's clearly becoming weary of his obstinance. She knows that there is real potential in forming an alliance with Voyager, and is frustrated when she can only watch as Culluh destroys this potential advantage. I suspect it won't be long before Culluh becomes too much of a liability to remain breathing.


THOUGHTS

Alliances presents a situation that should have been explored quite some time ago. Voyager is on its own, in unfamiliar territory, in a desperate situation. It shouldn't have taken this long for it to occur to somebody that it might be a good idea to seek allies. I do have issues with several aspects of the episode, but I applaud the series both for finally tackling such an obvious course of action and for making the results of the crew's efforts so messy.

Jeri Taylor wouldn't be my go-to writer for fast-paced or densely packed scripts. Both of these descriptors apply, however. The episode is packed with incident. The first Act is dominated by the argument between making an alliance or sticking rigidly to Starfleet regulations. Then we see two failed attempts at forming an alliance, one of which leads to the crew meeting a new race with its own backstory and its own relationship with the Kazon.

The Trabe have potential in themselves, and I hope we see them again. Their backstory also lends an extra dimension to the Kazon, who have been badly in need of some trait other than just "poor man's Klingons." Now we know that the Kazon are victims in their own way, with their tribal nature and their aggression both the result of their past circumstances. It doesn't quite make them interesting - but it makes them a lot less one-note than they were before.

Alliances is very good, but not quite great. The script is a bit too eager to make Janeway entirely right. What we actually see is Janeway making a token effort, then declaring its failure as proof that she's right to stick to rigid principles... and the script insists on agreeing with her.

Mind you, part of the reason for it coming across that way is that Alliances should not be just one episode. This material should be a 2-parter at a minimum, and ideally should be a 3 - 4 episode arc. That would allow some proper build, with a couple of failures (and Neelix's encounter and escape with the Trabe an episode in itself). Then maybe a success with one sect, leading to the attempted council as an episode entirely in itself. That would make the efforts feel a lot more committed, and would make the final failure that much more of a blow for both Janeway and the viewers. But Voyager's aversion to arc storytelling restricts this entire narrative to a single show. I'm frankly surprised that it works as well as it does, given that limitation.

It does work as a good piece of Star Trek, and in fact is probably the best of the season to date. Even better, the episode plants some seeds for the future. Voyager is not simply left back where it started; the ship is left in a worse position, having made more enemies. At least one member of the crew is acting against orders, leaving the ship more vulnerable to Seska and Culluh than it was before. Voyager is now on the run, something Janeway is obviously aware of as the episode ends. I'm hopeful this will lead to something interesting in the near future.

But first: Threshold. The infamous "Worst Star Trek Episode Ever!" I have to admit, I'm quite looking forward to it


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Prototype

Next Episode: Threshold

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2-11. Maneuvers.

Chakotay is interrogated by Seska (Martha Hackett).

THE PLOT

A Federation signal lures Voyager into a Kazon ambush. The attack has been meticulously planned. Voyager's shields are pierced to allow a Kazon boarding party to steal transporter technology before using the Starfleet ship's own transporter to escape. The plan was the brainchild of Seska (Martha Hackett), the former Voyager crew member who was revealed to be a Cardassian double-agent, and whose knowledge of Voyager's systems and security has helped to win her a place of influence alongside Culluh (Anthony de Longis), the leader of this Kazon sect.

Janeway cannot allow the transporter technology to remain with the Kazon. Even as Chakotay points out that Seska is leading Voyager into a trap, Janeway resolves to pursue as soon as the damage from the attack is repaired. So Chakotay takes matters into his own hands - stealing a shuttlecraft and pursuing Seska on his own. But Chakotay may not be as good at manipulating Seska as she is at manipulating him...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Feels personally hurt by Chakotay's disregard for her authority. Torres manages to ease her anger, but she still expresses her disappointment to Chakotay in surprisingly emotional terms. Her hands remain tied with regard to discipline - as she observes, putting someone on report means little this far from home. But Chakotay assures her that it means something to him, apologizing for letting her down.

Chakotay: Another good episode for Chakotay. A few more like this, and I might stop thinking of him as one of the show's weak links. Chakotay's previous relationship with Seska clouds his judgment, as he makes personal issues that impact the entire ship. He does at least hatch a solid strategy to get the technology away from Seska and the Kazon, but he makes himself their prisoner in the bargain. His scenes opposite Seska show more to Chakotay than we've seen in most previous episodes - and do so with no Native American cliches thrown into the mix, a nice bonus.

Torres: Remains steadfast in her loyalty to Chakotay. In the early parts of the episode, she urges him to remain calm, reminding him that his inner turmoil is exactly what Seska wants. After he steals the shuttlecraft and leaves the ship, Torres pleads his case to Janeway. Her passionate defense does much to quell the captain's anger, without which Janeway might have leaned toward Tuvok's argument to leave Chakotay in Kazon hands.

Tuvok: A group of Kazon are in the midst of a violent, thus far all-too-successful raid on the ship. The Voyager crew not only are armed, but have weapons that will stun a person instead of just killing him. So exactly why does Tuvok warn the Kazon not to move, when he and his team could simply stun them where they stand and then interrogate them later? Oh, right. If Tuvok doesn't behave like an idiot, then he might actually stop the Kazon intrusion. If that happens, then there won't be an episode. That's not even mentioning Tuvok's failure to change any of the ship's security systems after Seska's betrayal was revealed roughly half a season ago! This is a good episode - but I still hate idiot plotting.

Seska: This episode marks the return of Martha Hackett's Seska. One of the most interesting characters from Season One, her previous episode represented one of the few genuine surprises the show has yet thrown our way. She then went all but unmentioned for a very long stretch of time. It is very good to see her back. Maneuvers raises the ante by presenting her off the Voyager leash. With her true identity revealed, she is free to taunt Chakotay and openly manipulate him, even as she manipulates Culluh. Hackett is marvelous, and I hope it's not too long before she appears again.


THOUGHTS

Maneuvers is another good episode, which at this point probably means that the early Season Two slump can be officially declared over. More importantly, it's the first episode in a while to strongly follow up on events of previous episodes. The return of Seska means the return of a lot of backstory that Season Two has mostly ignored up to this point. We get mentions of the Maquis, including an intriguing note by Torres that members of the Maquis often performed operations that would not be acceptable in Starfleet. That's an area this series should feel free to explore.

We also revisit the Kazon. Seska's influence is turning Culluh's Kazon tribe into an effective enemy. Culluh is himself a character with potential. It is clear that Seska is in control in their relationship - but it is clear to him, too, and he doesn't particularly like it. There are a few scenes indicating that Seska isn't entirely safe with him, notably the one in which she picks up on his ire and suddenly becomes very kittenish and submissive. Chakotay tells him flat-out that Seska will eventually kill him. I hope that's followed up on, and I even hope it's followed up in a way that's not entirely predictable.

The episode's effectiveness is blunted by a weak final Act in which Torres Technobabbles something with the transporter and a dampening field. Everything is resolved by transporting through raised shields - something that's been established as impossible in previous Trek series, which seems to have been forgotten here. As compensation, we have Seska's ending message to Chakotay, one which promises another return in which things will be even more personal.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Cold Fire

Next Episode: Resistance

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2-03. Projections.

Barclay (Dwight Schultz) urges the doctor to destroy Voyager!

THE PLOT

The holographic doctor is activated, only to find himself apparently alone on the ship. The computer informs him that the ship came under attack by the Kazon. With a warp core breach imminent, Capt. Janeway ordered a complete evacuation.

As the doctor prepares to shut down his program, convinced that with the ship abandoned there is no further need for him, B'Elanna comes into the sickbay. She tells him that the ship's sensors were damaged, which is why the computer isn't detecting any life signs. She, Janeway, and a handful of others remained on board to contain the warp core breach. Now Janeway is injured, and her only hope lies with some experimental technology that will allow the doctor to project himself to other parts of the ship.

The projection technology works. The doctor is able to help Janeway, then is able to project himself to the mess hall to save Neelix from a Kazon warrior. But then something strange happens. The doctor, a hologram... bleeds. And feels pain. Then a stranger appears in the sickbay. Reginald Barclay (Dwight Schultz), an engineer formerly attached to Picard's Enterprise, informs the doctor that he is not a hologram at all. He is actually Lewis Zimmerman, running an experiment on a space station's holodeck. Radiation has caused the program to go wrong, and scrambled the doctor's memories in the process. He must shut down the program in order to save his own life. And there's only one way to do that: Destroy Voyager!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Present, but largely inconsequential. Still, Kate Mulgrew's facial and body language when the doctor orders the computer to "Delete Janeway" are hilarious.

The Doctor: Any episode centered around the holographic doctor gets an instant boost from Robert Picardo's effortlessly assured performance. Picardo is terrific, whether he's reacting with smug satisfaction to the newfound ability to deactivate certain annoying programs (Tom Paris, Harry Kim), or whether he's struggling with pain in his head to determine which of two possible realities is the real one. Thankfully, Brannon Braga's script is at least sensible enough to make the doctor very skeptical of Barclay's claims, with it taking a lot of genuinely persuasive evidence for him to even begin to believe in it.

Kes: It's revealing that in the doctor's hallucination, Kes is his wife - the hallucination's last temptation for him, and its strongest. After all, Kes was the first person on Voyager to actually treat him with respect and friendship. He mentions within the hallucination that he has always found Kes very beautiful, though he does not repeat that to the real Kes. In the tag, Kes seems both amused and flattered at her role in the hallucination... though she asks the doctor not to mention it to Neelix, lest it trigger jealousy.

Neelix: Though only in the episode briefly, he still manages to annoy. When he duels with a Kazon, he dodges a gun-blast and then smirks, "Missed me." I really wanted a follow-up blast to literally wipe the smirk off his face, before wiping away his face for good. Kes' concern about Neelix's jealousy recalls what we saw in Phage, when he became paranoid about Tom Paris. It would seem that Neelix can add "possessive jealousy" to his long list of bad qualities. In fairness, he's probably self-aware enough to realize that Kes is far, far, far, far, far too good for him. A hologram would frankly be an enormous step up for Kes from her current boyfriend.

Barclay: Dwight Schultz reprises his TNG role as engineer Reg Barclay. His performance gives the episode a considerable boost. Not only does he have terrific screen chemistry with Robert Picardo, he is an actor who has the ability to go from funny to threatening very quickly, with little apparent change in behavior on screen. For most of the episode, Schultz and Picardo essentially make a comedy duo, with re-enactments of some bits from Caretaker particularly amusing. But when Barclay gets serious about convincing the doctor that he must either destroy the ship or die, Schultz is really quite sinister, particularly when he grills the doctor on who he would rather be - Dr. Zimmerman, a real person with a real career and a beautiful wife who loves him; or a hologram confined to sickbay and the holodeck, and nothing more?


THOUGHTS

Coming off the tedious mess that was the last episode, Projections is a bit of a relief. It's not a great episode, or even as good an episode as it honestly should be. But it's solid and enjoyable, with a workmanlike script and typically confident direction from Jonathan Frakes.

It's obvious fairly early on that none of what we're seeing is real, and the script tips its hand too quickly by having the medical tricorder unable to detect B'Elanna's life signs. But as a look into the doctor's character, with his fondest wish to be a real person with a family and a career to call his own, it has merit. Plus, a lot of it is fun to watch, particularly when the episode starts replaying bits from Caretaker, with the doctor and Barclay effectively providing color commentary ("Was Mr. Paris always this annoying?" "This is the work of an entity you will come to know as the Caretaker - or Banjo Man").

It isn't all it could be, however, simply because the episode never makes it seems as though there is any other possible outcome. An obvious comparison would be with Buffy the Vampire Slayer's episode, Normal Again. That saw a similar scenario, with the main character being made to think that her life within the television series was a delusion... but it did it in such a way that the "delusion" had credibility, to the point that it was hotly debated within fandom. Here, there's never any question what the truth is, nor is there anything within the episode to give us even a tug of doubt. Nor are there any real layers to the delusion, an attempted "sting" ending aside. As such, Projections plays well on its surface level, and that's fine. But it doesn't do anything more, leaving it an entertaining but shallow piece.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: Initiations
Next Episode: Elogium

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2-02. Initiations.

Chakotay and Kar (Aron Eisenberg) escape from the Kazon.

THE PLOT

Chakotay secures the use of a shuttlecraft to perform a Native American Ritual (TM) which, for whatever reason, cannot be performed on the ship by simply shutting himself away in his quarters or engaging the use of the holodeck. Nevermind. Chakotay's shuttle draws the attention of the Kazon, who send an eager boy named Kar (Aron Eisenberg) to earn his name by destroying the shuttle.

Chakotay easily outmaneuvers the Kazon and disables his ship. But discovering that his opponent is little more than a child, he beams the boy to safety. When the Kazon catch up with him, Chakotay and Kar are both made prisoners: Chakotay for violating Kazon space, the boy for failing to either kill or die in battle. When Chakotay is told he must kill the boy to win his release, he instead turns the tables on the Kazon, escaping with Kar in his shuttlecraft, with the Kazon in pursuit!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: After repeatedly failing to leave Harry Kim to his death, Janeway now gets a chance to leave Chakotay behind. Sadly, she doesn't take it. She also is stupidly hasty about going down to the surface of the moon to search for Chakotay. When B'Elanna tells her that communications are unavailable due to interference, but she should be able to break through that interference within a few hours, Janeway replies, "I don't want to wait that long." Why? The Kazon ship hasn't arrived yet, so there hardly seems to be a great rush. Going down with no communications seems a stupid choice, given the situation at that moment. All it does is create a tiny bit of third act tension when the Kazon arrive with no prior warning for the Away Team (something that could have been prevented, had Janeway simply waited).

Chakotay: Is it me, or has Robert Beltran's performance actually gotten worse? In the first season, it seemed like the problem with Chakotay was bland character writing. In this episode, the character writing is still bland. It's a Chakotay-centric episode that basically tells us that Chakotay is fundamentally nonviolent and, oh yes, Native American. But Beltran makes weak characterization worse by being wooden on top of it all. Since the episode cuts between Chakotay and Voyager, it's very easy to contrast Beltran's stiff acting with Kate Mulgrew's more dynamic performance, and the difference between the two is palpable.

Neelix: I think the moment in which Neelix faces down the Kazon commander is meant to be a moment of competence for Neelix. Unfortunately, as scripted, Neelix gives away vital information that it's at least possible the Kazon didn't already have, and gains no new information in the process. When he smugs that, "At least we bought (Janeway) some time," I wanted to smack him through the screen. If that's all you got out of that, while giving away so very much, then Tom Paris was probably doing a better job of delaying the Kazon by simply playing dumb. To the credit of actor Robert Duncan McNeill, Tom looks just as unimpressed by Neelix as I was.


THOUGHTS

A dull filler episode that makes the Kazon seem even more ridiculous than they did before. The Kazon culture is basically "like Klingons, only weaker, shallower, and stupider." Given that one of this episode's goals was clearly to give them more depth, it backfires spectacularly. We have more information about them than we did before... and all that does is make them even less interesting. And this was after Michael Piller pushed Ken Biller to completely rewrite his script because the Kazon were too much "like warmed-over Klingons." I can only imagine how tedious they were in the first draft!

Initiations begins with Chakotay performing his Generic Native American Ritual alone on a shuttlecraft. As I noted above - Why? The episode ends with him performing it in his quarters on Voyager. Which means there was no special reason for him to be doing it alone on a shuttlecraft in the first place, other than to serve the needs of the plot. In the process, Chakotay manages to get one of Voyager's shuttlecraft destroyed. Not that I expect the series will make any special note of the ship being down one shuttlecraft, not after completely ignoring it being low on energy. Oh, and it's a Chakotay-centric episode that also stresses how important his Starfleet uniform is to him. Um, do the writers even remember at this point that Chakotay is Maquis?

A bright spot is the casting of Aron Eisenberg - Nog on Deep Space 9 - who invests a lot more credibility in Kar than the character actually deserves. Kar is proud and stubborn. He's annoying as hell, but unlike Neelix, he's annoying for reasons that are culturally clear as the episode goes along. Eisenberg balances the character's nature against a growing bond with Chakotay that is thankfully not overplayed, and his work goes a long way toward keeping this watchable.

Watchable, but far from good. Predictable and dull, the best thing I can say about Initiations is that at least we've had our Chakotay-centric episode for the next third of a season or so. Can he go back to being part of the furniture now?


Overall Rating: 3/10.

Previous Episode: The 37's
Next Episode: Projections

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1-11. State of Flux.

THE PLOT

While collecting edible roots on an uninhabited planet, Voyager detects a Kazon ship in orbit. They retrieve the landing party and escape. But shortly after, they receive a distress call from the same ship.

The distress call is genuine. An explosion devastated the ship. The Kazon closest to the explosion are found fused with the surrounding metal, while the sole survivor has undergone a cellular mutation. Most disturbing is the source of the explosion - a power source that appears to be Federation technology. This leaves three possibilities: a previous Starfleet vessel was drawn to the Delta Quadrant; the power source just happens to be similar to Federation tech; or - most disturbing of all, and most likely - someone aboard Voyager has been secretly dealing with the Kazon!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Largely in a reactive role this week, responding to situations as they emerge. She does get an excellent scene when speaking with an aggressive Kazon captain over the viewscreen. When he tries to intimidate her, she gives a response worthy of Sisko: "I don't like bullies, and I don't like threats, and I don't like you... You can try and stop us from getting at the truth, but I promise you that if you do, I will respond with all the 'unique technologies' at my command." Kate Mulgrew seems to relish this "tough guy" moment, though I hope such scenes are not overused in the future. Part of the reason it works so well here is that it's a slightly different note for the character, which makes it more effective than if this were her default way of dealing with things.

Chakotay: Some time prior to the events of Caretaker, he had a relationship with Seska. It ended when they mutually agreed it could never work out... but now, far from home and with limited options, Seska is openly interested in rekindling their old relationship, and Chakotay is at least considering that offer. He is protective of Seska when she falls under suspicion, and tries to read her every action after that in her favor. There is also some lingering feeling of divide in him between himself and Janeway. Speaking to Tuvok of his time in the Maquis, he wonders: If Tuvok was working for Janeway, and if Seska had her own agenda, then "who was working for (him)?" Given some decent material for a change, Robert Beltran actually does a good job. Now if only that could happen more often...

Tuvok: Bluntly lays out the possibilities to Janeway, emphasizing the likelihood of a traitor on board. He carries out his investigation dispassionately and thoroughly, giving both Seska and Carey (who was passed over for promotion in favor of Torres) an equal level of suspicion. When Chakotay asks him about how he reconciles Vulcan honesty with his necessary deceptions - both against Chakotay when pretending to be a member of the Maquis and against the suspects in his investigations - he gives an answer worthy of an attorney, and admits that however composed he may be when executing these deceptions, he does find them difficult.

Seska: As much as this is Chakotay's episode, this is also her episode. Martha Hackett's Seska has been visible in the background of multiple episodes this season. She was the Maquis officer who made a thinly-veiled offer to side with Chakotay in any shipwide rebellion against Janeway, and she was the driving force behind Torres' decision to defy Janeway's orders in Prime Factors. She has never been satisfied with Janeway as captain, and openly refers to Janeway as a fool at one point in this episode. When Chakotay pulls her from Engineering while she's under suspicion in order to protect her, she lashes out at him for it. She insists she is loyal to Chakotay, but she does believe that Voyager would be best served dealing with some of the more powerful aliens they encounter to make alliances - and, to be honest, it's hard to argue the basic point.


THOUGHTS

What's this? Two good episodes in a row? And an episode in which Chakotay is something other than a Native American cliche or a walking mannequin? Am I watching the right show?

State of Flux is only marginally successful as a mystery. After all, there are really only two suspects, only one of whom has ever really been given any interesting characterization, so it's not too hard to guess who's going to be guilty. But as a character piece, it works very well. It's also a nicely risky piece in a first season that mostly has avoided real risk. Both of the suspects are recurring characters. Whichever of the two ends up being guilty, the only barely-established dynamic of the series will be shifted somewhat. That's inherently interesting, and not the sort of thing I tend to expect from Voyager. It's more the sort of thing you normally see in Deep Space 9.

Character work remains strong, with the characterizations of the normally-bland Chakotay and the always-interesting Seska particularly sharp. The return of the Kazon, and the defection of one of the Voyager crew, are strong signs of continuity in a show that frankly needs a lot more of that sort of thing. There's also a real sense that the events of this episode will receive some follow-up (they demand follow-up), which is encouraging for the series' future.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Prime Factors
Next Episode: Heroes and Demons

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1-01, 1-02. Caretaker.

THE PLOT

When a Maquis ship disappears inside a plasma storm in the Badlands, Capt. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) takes the new, Intrepid-class Federation starship Voyager to search for them. It isn't long before Voyager is caught by the same phenomenon that caught the Maquis ship, bringing them to the other side of the galaxy.

The crew barely has time to assess damage and casualties before they are all whisked away to a nearby array, a structure in space that somehow brought them here. There is an intelligence behind the array, and it's looking for something. When it sends most of the crew back, but holds onto a single young ensign (Garrett Wang), as well as a half-Klingon member of the Maquis crew. Janeway is thrust into an uneasy alliance with the Maquis captain, Chakotay (Robert Beltran), to try to recover the missing crew members before starting the long journey home.


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: It's fairly well-known that Kate Mulgrew was cast in a hurry after the first choice, Genevieve Bujold, quit during filming of the pilot. In my opinion, the show caught a lucky break. Mulgrew is a reliable actress, who holds the screen and conveys a certain steely quality that I don't think Bujold would have managed. A potentially interesting character detail is that Janeway comes from a science background. As a former science officer, she observes how unusual the atmosphere of the planet near the array is.

Chakotay: Robert Beltran apparently quickly wanted out of his contract. From the evidence of this pilot, it's not hard to see why. Much is made of Chakotay in the first half. But once he meets up with the Voyager crew, he recedes almost instantly into the background. The idea of having a Maquis captain as second lead, someone with a very different outlook than Janeway, has potential. Based on this pilot, though, Chakotay is effectively an empty suit with an attached facial tattoo. I'd hope for more interesting layers to emerge as the show goes on... but given how quickly Beltran lost interest in the show, I'm guessing the show never did develop any interest in his character.

Paris: Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) gets a fairly strong amount of focus in this pilot movie, and honestly emerges more as the "second lead" than Chakotay does. Paris certainly has the most interesting backstory. McNeill's performance isn't bad, though I would personally prefer an actor with more of an edge to convey Paris' mercenary side.

Tuvok: Doesn't really get very much to do here, though he is established as a confidante for Janeway. The most amusing character beat he receives is in his immediate, highly evident dislike of Neelix. Tim Russ is quite funny in his nonverbal reactions to Neelix, greatly lifting the amusement value of the show's second half.

Neelix: The comedy relief character. Capably played by Ethan Phillips, Neelix works well enough here. He is fairly shrewd, able to think and act quickly to rescue Kes. Also, he is funny not in his own behavior - which isn't particularly amusing - but rather in Tuvok's reactions to him. If Neelix is allowed to maintain a degree of intelligence, and if it is remembered that the humor of Neelix lies in the reactions of those around him, then he might even work. I'm... not optimistic, but will at least give credit to Phillips, a good character actor, for helping Neelix's debut to be fairly strong.

Kes: One of the Ocampa, the citizens of the planet protected by the array, which is known as "The Caretaker." Kes rebelled against the Caretaker's edicts, as interpreted by the Ocampa.  She left their underground city and went to the surface - where she was promptly captured by a vicious tribal group. Kes shows the strong moral compass that Neelix lacks, insisting on helping the Voyager crew recover their missing people after they helped Neelix rescue her.

Harry Kim: In his very first scene, Harry Kim (Garrett Wang), an ensign fresh out of the Academy, is on the verge of allowing Quark (an amusing cameo by Armin Shimerman) to bully him into buying some worthless stones. All because he doesn't have the stones to just look Quark in the eye and say, "No." He forms a friendship with Paris, seeming determined to see decency in the disgraced pilot even after he is told about his past. This elicits similar loyalty from Paris. He also shows both judgment and restraint in his scenes with Torres.

Torres: Is half-Klingon, and prone to losing her temper. Pairs with Harry Kim for the second half of the show but gets little of interest to do, leaving Kim to be both the strategist and the voice of reason in their partnership. Roxann Biggs-Dawson gives an adequate performance, though it will take an episode that actually gives her some material for me to able to judge her work to any reasonable degree.


THOUGHTS

Much like when I started reviewing Enterprise a couple years ago, Voyager marks a live-action Star Trek series that I never truly saw. There is a difference, mind you. I watched Enterprise without having previously seen any of it, and with no prior knowledge beyond its reputation as Trek's "franchise killer." Even so, by the time I started viewing it, that show's reputation seemed to have recovered to a point at which it's often regarded as no worse than Voyager, and in many quarters is regarded as a slight improvement. That and an appealing cast gave me some room for optimism as I approached it, particularly after a quite decent pilot.

With Voyager, my negative impressions are actually based on experience. I attempted to watch it when it first premiered, and was quickly chased away by what I found to be cliched stories, cardboard characters, and wooden actors.  That handful of Voyager episodes played no small part in driving me away from Trek for years. So while I'll approach the series with an open mind in these reviews, I feel it only fair to give warning that my limited memories are not good ones.

Caretaker isn't bad, though. It's not great. My memories of cardboard characters and wooden acting are too often proved true. There's also just about enough plot here for 70 or so minutes, which means that at more than 90 minutes it feels overstretched. Still, it does its job as a pilot.  It establishes all the characters' roles, even if some of the characterization is anemic. It's also a good-looking show, with special effects worthy of the big screen. As the highest-budget Star Trek television episode ever - costing more than The Wrath of Khan did - it's not hard to see why it's so visually arresting. But at the very least, the money shows.

It opens well. The teaser provides an effective hook, efficiently introducing Chakotay, Tuvok, and Torres, and re-introducing the Maquis. I'm very glad I took the advice of one reader of these reviews, and waited until after watching The Maquis 2-parter on Deep Space 9 before beginning this series. The teaser, with the Maquis ship battling the Cardassians, is a near-perfect pickup from that episode.

From there, we cut to a splendid title sequence. The orchestral score is glorious, better than Deep Space 9's - which, though moody, is far too slow and one I usually fast forward through. The visuals are startling, with advances in CGI technology since the early days of TNG really showing as we follow the Voyager through the solar system and even through the rings of Saturn.

I know there's some criticism of Janeway's final decision. I actually think her choice is justified even on pragmatic grounds. After all, Tuvok explicitly says it will take hours to isolate and initiate the program on the array that would send them home. Already coming under heavy fire from the Kazon, and with more Kazon ships on the way, Voyager probably wouldn't survive those hours. That justification is not used by Janeway to justify her decisions - instead, she has to Display Superior Morality (TM) - but it is there, which greatly alleviates problems I may have had with the ending otherwise.

Overall, while I wasn't sorry to see this feature-length premiere come to a close, I did enjoy watching this.  Enough threads are there to provide potential for the writers to exploit, and it manages to hold attention for at least most of its run. It may not rank up there with Emissary or The Cage as Trek premieres go... but it's a solid piece overall, and a better introduction than I truly had expected.


Overall Rating: 7/10.


Next Episode: Parallax


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