2-20. Investigations.

Neelix gets too close to the truth.

THE PLOT

Capt. Janeway has approved A Briefing with Neelix, a morning show for the Talaxian morale officer to extoll the day's good news for the benefit of the crew. The show's debut coincides with the beginning of a run of bad news - starting with the departure of Tom Paris. The discontented Paris has responded to being relieved of duty by asking to leave the ship entirely, and arrangements have been made for him to join a Talaxian convoy.

Not long after, Voyager learns that the Talaxians were attacked by the Kazon. No supplies were stolen. The Kazon were after only one thing: Tom. That's when Neelix discovers that transmissions have been sent from Voyager, transmissions that have been expertly deleted. The ship has been home to a traitor - and all the evidence points to Tom Paris...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Remains compassionate toward her crew, but practical at the same time. She appreciates Neelix's "tribute to Tom" broadcast after Tom leaves the ship, but she doesn't hesitate to ask about replacements for him. When Neelix's investigations implicate Tom, she takes him into her confidence regarding the deception. It's only then that she tells Chakotay the truth, as well. When Chakotay bristles, she responds that she needed "a good performance," but it does raise a question that I would love to see more fully addressed in future scripts: Does Janeway really fully trust her ex-Maquis First Officer?

Tom Paris: He tells Neelix and, later, Seska that he has genuinely tried his best to fit in on Voyager, but that he just can't make himself be a proper Starfleet officer. He has always regarded himself as a drifter, and he muses about having self-sabotaged every opportunity that has come his way. It's no surprise that his behavior is an act... but it would be good character work to build on those elements anyway, as there's a feeling of truth to it when he talks about these feelings.

Neelix: Season One's Jetrel showed how good Ethan Phillips can be when Neelix is written as a proper character, rather than a sketch comedy creation. Though I had issues with the episode itself, Phillips was superb in showing a thoughtful and 3-dimensional version of Neelix who nevertheless still possessed all the character flaws so evident in the rest of the series. We see some of that again here. This episode's Neelix is intelligent and dogged. He can see that something about the communication logs is off, and he is determined to figure out what. We also see his much-touted but rarely-glimpsed survival skills, as he handles himself quite well in the ending fight with Jonas and is able to quickly and confidently shut down Jonas's sabotage afterwards.

Doctor: What do you do for annoying comedy relief in a Neelix-centric episode in which Neelix is mostly pretty well-written? Apparently, you take one of the characters who's normally among the show's most reliable and regress him into irritating comedy relief. The writers of this episode have taken the Doctor's vanity and turned it into his defining trait. The result is a rarity: a Voyager episode in which I cringed any time the Doctor came on-camera.

Michael Jonas: The end of the Michael Jonas plot. Which is a surprise, as I honestly thought this thread would run until the season finale. Jonas is a villain, but not an unambiguous one. He thinks about killing Neelix to stop the investigation, but he hesitates for quite a long time before the opportunity finally passes. He sets up Tom to take the blame... but then, Tom has already left the ship at this point. Even at the finale, he clearly doesn't want to hurt Neelix, practically begging him to just stay out of the way. He only finally grapples with Neelix after the Talaxian has initiated the fight.


THOUGHTS

"A Neelix episode. Oh, joy."

This was my first thought as the teaser unfolded. I figured we were in for a bad comedy episode, in which the writers would double-down on making Neelix as insufferable as possible.

Instead, the Voyager creative team have done something quite clever: They've hidden the payoff to a multi-episode arc inside a Neelix-centered script. Not unlike when DS9 tucked its first references to the Dominion within a Ferengi episode. The result is a pretty decent suspense/adventure episode. And for the first sustained occasion since Jetrel, we see how good Ethan Phillips can be when he's not being forced to do bad comedy.

One thing Jeri Taylor's script does very well is to keep others' reactions to Neelix consistent with the rest of the series. Neelix is on the right track with his investigation, he follows it up seriously, and the discrepancies he's found are genuine. But the crew instinctively react to his efforts as a trivial annoyance. Torres doesn't even bother to hide her impatience with him. This has the effect of putting us more on Neelix's side, when in most episodes we would agree with Torres that the best thing the Talaxian could do would be to just keep out of the way.

Though the Jonas plot is wrapped up, it's clear that Seska isn't about to stop trying to take control of Voyager. As she said last episode, she's not about to let her child be born on a Kazon ship. With the season finale only a handful of episodes away now, I'm guessing that's going to come to a head very soon.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

Previous Episode: Lifesigns
Next Episode: Deadlock

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2-19. Lifesigns.

The Doctor enjoys an unlikely romance.

THE PLOT

A distress signal leads Voyager to a one-man ship. They receive no response to hails, but detect a single life sign aboard - a Vidiian female who is obviously dying. Janeway orders the woman beamed to sickbay. Discovering a brain implant that stores the woman's higher functions to supplement their interaction with her desperately ill body, the Doctor puts her into stasis and transfers her consciousness into a healthy holographic version of her.

"Cured" of the Phage in holographic form, the Vidiian introduces herself as Denara Pel (Susan Diol). Denara is a hematologist who had been helping to treat a Phage outbreak when her own condition suddenly worsened. She and the Doctor are drawn to each other. But when the Doctor's treatment reaches the point at which he is ready to transfer her consciousness back to her body, she is faced with the prospect of a return to a life of illness and resists - even if that resistance leads to her own death!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Though she has been protective of Tom Paris in the past, when Chakotay comes to her with Tom's increasingly erratic behavior, she gives him discretion to handle the problem as he sees fit. She backs that up, too, refusing to intercede on Tom's behalf when Chakotay disciplines him, then ordering him taken to the brig when he strikes Chakotay.

Doctor: Though a "Doctor in love" episode could have been painful, this turns out surprisingly well. Robert Picardo is terrific. I love the multitude of tiny half-expressions that cross his face as he looks toward Denara, then away from her and back again, even in the midst of talking about medical matters or pointing out features of the Mars sky in the holodeck. Kenneth Biller's script is well-judged, too, structuring the Doctor's emotional awakening. He at first tries to focus on his role as Denara's doctor, rerouting every conversational tangent to her treatment. He doesn't know how to approach the idea of a relationship. When Kes finally prods him to do so, he just blurts it out while in the midst of treatment, asking if she feels the same in the exact same tone of voice he would use to ask a patient to describe symptoms. Good writing and good acting, working in concert - You can hardly ask better than that!

Kes: Her medical competence continues to progress.  She acts in concert with the Doctor in the teaser and makes several correct diagnostic calls, for which he compliments her. She remains a good friend and support to the Doctor. When she realizes that he's attracted to Denara, she urges him to tell her. After Denara's initial rejection of the Doctor, Kes recognizes that she actually does have feelings for him. She prods Denara much the way she prodded the Doctor and, with a little help from Tom Paris, is able to make something happen between the two of them.

Tom Paris: Continues to make a big show of displaying a bad attitude. I retain my certainty that this is an act. We again see in the teaser that he draws as much attention to himself as possible when arriving late to the bridge. But once a situation presents itself, he is totally focused on his job. Even if the overall disposition is a put-on, I wonder if some of his resentment toward Chakotay isn't genuine. When he complains about Chakotay not letting him truly do his job, and adds that he is far from the only person complaining about the ex-Maquis First Officer, there's a ring of truth to his accusations. That would be interesting to see followed up, once this particular subplot gets wrapped up at least.

Michael Jonas: Has reached the point of no return as a double-agent for Seska. Asked to go beyond simply passing along information and to actually sabotage the ship, he balks. Then he finally gets what he's been pushing for - direct communication with Seska. She plays him as skillfully as she's been playing the Kazon.  By the end of her scene, she seems to have convinced Jonas to assist her in taking over Voyager!


THOUGHTS

Another strong episode, though putting the spotlight onto Robert Picardo is usually a safe bet for good results. Picardo and guest star Susan Diol turn in top-notch performances. They work well together, too, making for a convincing screen couple. Wisely, Kenneth Biller doesn't impose any outside alien threat on the situation. Beyond the developing Michael Jonas subplot, the story is allowed to exist on its own pleasantly low-key terms.

Good character beats are not restricted to just the Doctor and Denara. There's a particularly good scene involving Torres, who endured a nightmarish experience at the hands of the Vidiians. In a series where internal continuity has not been a strength, it's encouraging to see this addressed. Torres retains resentment against her previous captivity, and refuses to allow the Doctor to use her Phage-resistant Klingon DNA to assist Denara. Only when Denara comes in, apologizing for Torres' treatment at the hands of her people and letting her know that she accepts whatever decision the engineer chooses to make, does Torres change her mind and agree to the procedure.

Denara is the only Vidiian seen here, but the episode does actually expand what we know of them. By showing us Denara as she would be without the Phage, we put a human face on a race that has previously existed only as a horror. We also learn that not all Vidiians are infected, and that the healthy shun the sick out of fear for contracting the disease. Vidiian culture has evolved around the illness, with laws restricting public gatherings as a health hazard. We see Denara flinching away from touches by Neelix and a holographic gigolo - though I suppose one could find reasons other than fear of disease for not wanting to be touched by either of them. In any case, all of this makes the Vidiians more sympathetic than they were before, particularly after Faces.

Hopefully, we see more of the Vidiians - a race I find a lot more interesting than the Kazon, both as villains and as victims. In any event, this is a solid outing, a nice change of pace and an all-around good episode.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Death Wish
Next Episode: Investigations

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2-17. Dreadnought.

B'Elanna tries to de-activate the Dreadnought.

THE PLOT

Voyager encounters debris from an unmanned ship. Analysis shows that the ship was destroyed by Cardassian weaponry. When Janeway orders further investigation, Torres is shocked to recognize the weapons signature. It belongs to Dreadnought, a Cardassian weapon that she personally reprogrammed two years earlier. She had sent Dreadnought to attack a Cardassian base, but the weapon disappeared. It's now clear that it was caught by the Caretaker before it could reach its destination.

It is on course to an inhabited world, which it has mistaken for its target. Torres beams over to disarm the device. The Dreadnought, however, decides that Torres is acting under Cardassian influence, and takes off at Warp 9. If Voyager can't find a way to stop the weapon from reaching its target, then the cost will be millions of innocent lives, all on Torres' conscience!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: As soon as it's clear Dreadnought has targeted an inhabited world, Janeway works tirelessly to stop it. She doesn't hesitate to contact the planet to give them time to prepare a defense and an evacuation. Finally, when all options appear exhausted, she determines to destroy Voyager to prevent the weapon from reaching its destination - though she makes sure her crew are evacuated from the ship first.

Torres: Roxann Biggs-Dawson continues to impress, and this time she gets a much better script than was the case in Prototype. From the moment she recognizes Dreadnought, B'Elanna feels immense guilt. She considers that anything that happens from here is here fault, because she made the choice to reprogram the weapon. This lends a note of desperation to her actions, particularly as the episode approaches its climax. There's some genuine tension and cleverness to the scripting as Torres and the Dreadnought computer attempt to outwit each other, and the episode's final minutes are some of the most suspenseful this series has seen to date.

Tom Paris: What I had assumed was simply a minor subplot in Meld actually gets some follow up, as Tom continues to behave in a way that more closely resembles his reputation rather than his normal behavior. At this point, I'm guessing he and Chakotay are collaborating on some kind of undercover scheme. Tom's misbehavior is a little too rapid for me to really put it down to anything else. Besides, every instance we have seen has been minor: a betting pool, arriving a few minutes late and disheveled to a meeting, showing a bad attitude. It's behavior designed to draw attention.  In terms of actually doing his job, he continues to perform with his usual competence. A trap for Seska's spy, perhaps? I'm guessing we'll have to wait until the season's end to find out.


THOUGHTS

OK, I think at this point that Voyager's second season is finally recovering from its dismal start. This makes three of the last four episodes that have been substantially above the series' average. After a long period of finding Voyager wanting, I'm starting to feel optimistic again.

I appreciate the recurring threads that appear in this script. Michael Jonas (Raphael Sbarge) continues to surreptitiously work with the Kazon, though he is clearly growing frustrated at being blocked from direct communication with Seska. Voyager's poor reputation in the Delta Quadrant is raised again, with the people of the planet Dreadnought has targeted initially convinced this is an attack by the Federation ship. And, of course, the Tom subplot is emerging as a running element. All of these create a more unified show. The second season has suffered from a feeling that none of the episodes are building to anything, that the series isn't actually going anywhere. These running plots, however, have the potential to fix that problem. As the season nears its end, the show is again starting to seem like it might actually build to something - which is starting to make me interested again, instead of just watching an episode every so often out of sense of duty.

Dreadnought is principally a suspense/action episode. A good one, with a driving pace and an increasing sense of urgency. The script makes sure to let us know how high the stakes are, while Janeway's communications with First Minister Kellan (Dan Kern) on the planet put a likable face to the potential victims of the Dreadnought. It's directed with polish by Levar Burton, who uses varied lighting and close-ups to heighten the most suspenseful dramatic moments.

I do think the episode misses a trick in the ending - Imagine how much of a gut punch it would be to the characters if they had failed. B'Elanna would have suffered devastating guilt, as would Janeway, while Voyager's reputation in the Delta Quadrant would have been dealt an unrecoverable blow. Still, asking Voyager to go to such places is not realistic. This is a very strong episode. I just hope the series is able to continue in this vein, rather than returning to the bland formula that has made up far too much of this season.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Meld
Next Episode: Death Wish

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2-15. Threshold.

Tom Paris and Capt. Janeway.  Yes, really.

THE PLOT

Tom Paris has been working with Torres and Harry Kim on a new engine design, in hopes of breaking the transwarp barrier. By reaching the impossible Warp 10, they hope to go to Infinite Warp, occupying every place in the universe simulatenously. If it succeeds, returning home would be achieved "in the time it takes to press a button."

After solving a structural problem involving the warp nacelles, Tom is finally able to make his test flight. It's a success, prompting much celebration. Until Tom suddenly collapses when drinking Neelix's coffee (no, it wasn't Neelix's cooking that did for him, though the doctor can certainly be forgiven making a wry remark to that effect). Tom is mutating, to the point that his lungs can no longer process oxygen. And this is only the beginning...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Continues to be emotionally supportive of her crew. The doctor has advised not allowing Tom to make the flight, due to a tiny but extant possibility of brain hemmorhage. Janeway is inclined to allow Harry to make the flight instead, but Tom argues passionately, making it clear how important it is for him to be the one to fly the shuttle. Janeway allows it, wishing him luck.

Tom Paris: Despite his strong service aboard Voyager, he has not been able to shake his old feelings of worthlessness. He seizes on the idea of breaking the warp treshold as a way to prove his value to himself as much as anyone else. When his mind wanders into a semi-delusional state, he accuses Janeway of "lying" when she expresses concern for him, describing himself as "the Maquis traitor who sits on the bridge" and insisting that whatever he is changing into has to be better than who he is. While the character material (easily summed up as "inferiority complex") is hardly revolutionary, Robert Duncan McNeill gives a terrific performance. The show needs to do more with Tom Paris - I just hope that next time, it spotlights him in a better episode!

The Doctor: There's a wonderful little character beat when Tom dies and Kes grieves. The doctor clearly wants to comfort Kes. But he is not comfortable expressing emotions. He reaches out to lay a hand on Kes' shoulder, then stops himself and pulls back. Robert Picardo is terrific as ever. I love the way he doesn't quite know how to speak while telling Kes that an autopsy will be necessary in the morning before leaving her with Tom's body.

Kes: She clearly does have affection for Tom, worrying at his bedside as he dies. After his apparent death, she is quick to grant his body the kiss he had asked for, and all of her reactions indicate that his attraction for her is probably reciprocated. Honestly, the show could do worse than to play with that - She and Tom would make an infinitely more plausible couple than she and Neelix do.


THOUGHTS

The infamous "Worst Star Trek Episode Ever!" An episode its own writer described as a "royal, steaming stinker." Does it live down to its reputation?

Well... In fairness, the episode actually gets off to a fairly decent start. Despite some stilted dialogue, I was passably absorbed in Tom's personal quest to break the barrier. The script does its job of laying the groundwork for the personal importance of this to Tom, and even connects back to Tom's personal insecurities later in the episode. As the first Act ended, I found myself scratching my head as to how this mild but competent episode could be on anyone's "worst" list.

Then Tom "dies," and the whole thing goes badly off the rails. The first half of the episode isn't quite good, but it's a reasonable enough bit of filler. The second half, however, veers way out into a territory best referred to as Looney Land. Tom comes back to life for no readily apparent reason, and his skin begins flaking off. His behavior becomes erratic, full of paranoia and hostility. Then he rips his own tongue out and grins at the camera, in a bit that would be more at home in a horror movie than in a Star Trek episode.

It all ends as only an episode like this could: By crossing the threshold into Infinite Insanity. Tom breaks free of a treatment involving "anti-protons" (which, along with some guff about DNA and evolution, helps fill the Techno- and Medi-Babble quotas for the episode). He then kidnaps Janeway and takes her through the transwarp barrier, thus subjecting her to the same mutations he's going through.

A few days later, the crew discovers both of them on an alien world. As lizards. With a litter of lizard children, after apparently had lizard sex. Even Tuvok can't quite keep a straight face, deadpanning that he looks forward to reading Chakotay's write-up of this incident.

Of course, this is Voyager, where nothing is unable to be handwaved away with a reset. The Doctor zaps them with anti-protons, and they are reset to their old selves. Offscreen, because doing this is not very important after all. Neither of them remembers much of anything, nor does either of them have much of a reaction to having mated and had children of an entirely different species. To some people, that might be a topic of conversation, but Janeway dismisses it with a wry one-liner.


TOM'S ENGINE

So what about this incredible engine? Well, it's barely even mentioned after the halfway mark. Which is a shame, since it should be a source of genuine aid. Sure, breaking the transwarp barrier is obviously Not Good (even if the doctor has a "cure," it's unlikely to be effective if the entire crew are too busy embracing their inner lizard to help him administer it). Still, the engine does appear to stabilize travel at warp speeds just under the barrier. Which means the ship could adapt his engine to cruise home at Warp 9.9 with no ill effects. OK, it's not a magic wand that gets the whole crew home tomorrow. But it would still shave several years off their total journey - nothing to sneeze at, surely? Not to mention the benefits of getting out of Kazon space that little bit faster.

This being Voyager, of course, that possibility isn't even mentioned by anyone, and I'm sure won't ever be employed in future episodes.


FINAL VERDICT

Okay, I admit it: Threshold is bad. It's like watching a train derailment. The vehicle starts off chugging along well enough, albeit with a few creaks here and there. Then it hits a plot curve at a particularly bad angle and jumps the tracks, plummeting to its death. The spectacle of that plummet, however, is so dizzying that it avoids the cardinal television sin: It's never boring. It's the Spock's Brain of Voyager. Dreadful by any objective standard, but so completely crazy in its badness that it becomes a spectacle in itself.

Which is enough to avoid a rock-bottom rating, though not enough to get it anywhere near a good one.


Overall Rating: 2/10.

Previous Episode: Alliances

Next Episode: Meld

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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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