3-4. The Swarm.

The Doctor frets over his deterioration.

THE PLOT

Voyager enters a new area of space, one which Neelix warns is the domain of fiercely territorial aliens who destroy anyone who dares to breach their borders. Starfleet regulations insist that no vessel can intrude on alien borders without permission... but just this once, Janeway decides that the immediate situation justified breaking orders, and she commands the crew to pilot the ship through the narrowest patch of the aliens' space there is.

Naturally, they attract the aliens' attention. Soon, a swarm of tiny ships are pursuing Voyager. They have no weapons - but when Voyager fires at them, the blast is reflected back at Voyager. They are able to disableVoyager's shields, in preparation for boarding!

Meanwhile, the Doctor's program begins to break down, as he finds himself unable to remember basic elements of medical procedures...


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: After 2+ seasons invoking Starfleet regulations every time her crew so much as wish to go to the bathroom out of turn, she pulls a sudden about-face and disregards regs to avoid adding 15 months to the trip home. Not that I disagree with her decision, which seems a fairly simple calculation of risk vs. benefit, but it does fly in the face of her decision-making in previous episodes. 

The Doctor: Robert Picardo pulls double-duty as both the holographic doctor and as the EMH's creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. He has particular fun as Zimmerman, doubling down on the doctor's normal belligerance to amusing effect. Meanwhile, he basically plays an Alzheimer's patient as the Doctor regresses to something like childhood, playing with the medical instruments in sickbay as if they were mere toys. 

Kes: I'm still finding it hard to wrap my head around the notion that in a show that features Harry Kim, Chakotay, and Neelix, Kes was the character chosen to get the boot after this season's end. Character and actress remain very strong when given anything to do, as this episode demonstrates. Kes' medical competence has grown to the point that she can successfully direct a complex surgery when the Doctor's memory fails. Her confidence has also grown. She is able to argue for diagnosing the Doctor's deterioration rather than just rebooting him, appealing to both emotion and reason to sway Janeway to her point of view. Her emotional pain as she watches her mentor deteriorate is effective, and her determination to help the Doctor at the end is genuinely stirring.


THOUGHTS

The Swarm is the first solo script written by Mike Sussman, who previously collaborated on Season Two's excellent Meld. Sussman would go on to co-write several Voyager episodes before becoming arguably the best writer on Enterprise, so it was with some pleasure that I saw his name come up on the credits.

I won't say that The Swarm really disappointed me. This isn't a bad episode by any means. It has some good scenes, some good effects, and even some good character work for Kes. It is, however, a flawed show, with many of its problems coming from Sussman's script. Specifically, from an area that would later be Sussman's greatest strength as a writer: The structure.

The "A" and "B" plots do not go together at all. There is no connection, either in plot or in theme, between the alien plot and the Doctor plot. As a result, the strands are unable to feed each other or build upon each other in any way. Each plot simply interrupts the other, blunting the emotion of the Doctor storyline and the momentum of the alien one.

The alien plot doesn't fail disastrously, but it doesn't work very well either. A big problem for me is that this strand is driven entirely by Technobabble. Harry and B'Elanna do some Technobabble to the shields to hideVoyager from the mysterious aliens. When they are discovered, more Technobabble makes the situation dire, before yet some more Technobabble allows Harry and Janeway to save the day. Not exactly stirring stuff.

The Doctor plot works better, thanks to the ever-reliable performances of Robert Picardo and Jennifer Lien and to the inherent emotion of what is effectively an Alzheimer's plot. Technobabble both solves and resolves the problem here, too, but here both the problem and solution are easy to follow. The Doctor's program was always intended to be temporary, and so a breakdown after being left to run for so long perfectly fits the internal logic of the show. In fact, it's welcome to see one of the inherent problems of Voyager's situation actually addressed instead of ignored!

Kes' solution seems to be based more on the workings of medicine than on those of computer programs, which makes sense given that her professional background is entirely medical. It's also refreshing to see Kes behaving as temporary chief medical officer during the doctor's illness, giving some rare development to an often overlooked character. The ending leaves the ultimate fate of the Doctor's memories in doubt, even as it restores his program... Though this being Voyager, I strongly suspect that will be forgotten by the next episode.


Overall Rating: 5/10.

Previous Episode: The Chute
Next Episode: False Profits 

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2-16. Meld.

Tuvok mind-melds with a killer (Brad Dourif)

THE PLOT

Tuvok is called to Engineering to look at a rather startling source for a malfunction in an EPS conduit: the remains of Crewman Frank Darwin. The security chief's first theory is that the crewman was performing maintenance in the conduit and fell victim to an accident. But the Doctor's examination leads to a different finding: Darwin was murdered!

DNA on the corpse is linked to Creman Suder (Brad Dourif), a Betazoid and former Maquis who was the only other crew member in Engineering at that time. Suder readily confesses to the crime, but can give no reason for it other than a look from Crewman Darwin that he "didn't like." Tuvok is not satisfied, and pushes for a better answer. When Suder admits that he doesn't know exactly why he killed Darwin, Tuvok proposes a drastic solution to find the answers he seeks - a mind meld with the killer!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: We once again see her closeness with Tuvok. She insists on being the one to go into his quarters to convince him to go to sick bay, rather than simply shutting himself away for the rest of the voyage. Her personal concern for him is clear on her face even as he rants at her. His violence, as he lunges at her only to be stopped by the force field, is as shocking to her as his insults. Kate Mulgrew's nonverbal performance as she absorbs his rage is extremely good, and I enjoyed the quiet scene between Janeway and Tuvok that ends the episode. I'll emphasize yet again: Though I often have problems with the writing for Janeway, Mulgrew's performance is rarely less than good, and often exceptional.

Tuvok: Insists on believing that his own rigid logic must apply to all situations. It is logical that there must be a proper motive for Suder's crimes, both now and in the past, and he simply will not accept that motives and reason don't always apply. His near-religious belief in logic and order is his greatest vulnerability. It is that which pushes him to try the meld in the first place. Even in his violent rage near the end, he falls back on needing a logical reason to let it out. He goes to kill Suder because the crewman must be killed to satisfy justice - the most logical reason he could use to excuse violence.

The Doctor: Gets a terrific scene in the first half, as he tries to explain to Tuvok that sometimes crimes happen with no real motivation. "We are all descended from predators," he tells the Vulcan. "All of us have violent instincts." The Doctor initiates treatment for Tuvok after the complications of the mind meld, but not without some carping that tells us that such complications aren't nearly as uncommon as Vulcans would like everyone to believe.

Tom Paris: A flash of the old Tom, here, as he runs a lottery for replicator rations in the holodeck. Chakotay ends up putting a stop to it, but I'd argue that he shouldn't. The lottery isn't a half-bad idea for crew morale, and it seems quite harmless. Still, Tom is obviously bothered by Chakotay's words about his behavior disappointing the captain, who genuinely has put a lot of trust in him.

Kes: Though her part is quite small, we again see her defined by compassion, even in a stressful situation. Tuvok, who has been instructing her in controlling her telepathic abilities, is in front of her in pain. He tries to use their teacher/student relationship to convince her to let him out. She is quite kind as she expresses her concern for him and tries to reassure him that his pain will be over soon - but she not only refuses his transparent attempt at manipulation, but is a step ahead of his efforts to use his own telepathy. "I had them disable your telepathic abilities," she tells him - again, with a surprising amount of kindness even as she denies his efforts to gain freedom.

Neelix: Gets strangled!  OK, it's a holodeck simulation.  But still, Neelix gets strangled!  It is telling that the behavior of "holo-Neelix" is only marginally less inappropriate and obnoxious than that of the real thing.  That writer/co-executive producer Michael Piller obviously recognizes Neelix's obnoxiousness has me wondering why the show's creative team wasn't trying to do something to address it.  Deep Space 9's Dr. Bashir was insufferable when that series started, and became a very strong character by fairly early in Season Two, thanks to some attention by the writers.  A similar effort would probably work with Neelix, if only such an effort was forthcoming.


THOUGHTS

What's this? A sharp, well-paced script with some complex questions at its core? An episode which addresses the notion of senseless violence without handwaving away all the complexities of the issue by settling on some pat childhood trauma? Could this really be an episode of Voyager?

When asked if he feels any remorse for his basically motiveless murder, Suder replies that he doesn't feel anything at all. "Most Betazoids can sense other people's emotions," he tells Tuvok. "I can't even sense my own." Brad Dourif, an actor who has played many a disturbed individual, is ideal for the role. The script gets the most out of his presence by keeping him subdued. Suder is calm. Resentful, perhaps - both of Starfleet and of his own lack of self control. But he doesn't do any "psycho killer" frothing at the mouth. His quiet reaction to his own violence makes him all the more disturbing.

He remains a disturbing presence even after the meld. Granted a certain Vulcan reserve, he is able to study his own violence from a distance. As such, he is able to give voice to that which Tuvok resists: That the violence is attractive, that the simple fact of its illogic makes it all the moreso. Though it is probably not Suder's intent to push Tuvok over the edge, his voice is the honeyed voice of a devil, tempting Tuvok to embrace the worst angels of his savage Vulcan heritage.

The episode is a particularly fine showcase for Tim Russ. In the past, Russ has sometimes fallen on the wrong side of "robotic" in his attempts to convey Vulcan reserve. Here, he strikes the balance just right. The character's obsession with understanding Suder's actions gives just the right note of humanity (for lack of a better word) to bring Tuvok to life in the episode's first half. The second half lets him cut loose. The scene in sickbay is particularly good. Tuvok laughs menacingly, threatens the Doctor, and unleashes his rage on Janeway, all within a few minutes. Russ is terrific here, embracing the material without going too far with it.

It's little surprise that Meld is a Michael Piller script. While Piller's Voyager work hasn't quite been at the level of his TNG and DS9 work, he is a writer who has generally embraced the idea of multilayered character work, someone who has the ability to grapple with complex issues without breaking them down into simplistic pap. This script also marks the Trek debut of another writer: Mike Sussman, who would go on to write several more Voyager episodes before becoming (by far) the best writer on Enterprise. Effectively, one of the best writers of 1990's Trek is paired with the best writer of the following decades Trek. When looked at that way, it becomes less surprising that the result is a very good episode.

And depsite a Tom Paris subplot that never fully clicks with the larger episode, this is an extremely fine piece. Easily the best episode of Season Two thus far, and one of the best episodes of Voyager to date. If the writing was at this level more often, I would have a far higher opinion of this show than the one I currently hold.


Overall Rating: 9/10.

Previous Episode: Threshold
Next Episode: Dreadnought

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