3-13. Fair Trade.

Neelix is manipulated by an old "friend."

THE PLOT

Voyager has reached the Nekrit Expanse, a region of space characterized by ominous-looking gas clouds. Neelix advises plotting a course around the expanse, but doing so would add a prohibitive amount of time to the ship's already lengthy journey.

Before moving into the expanse, Voyager stops at a supply station. Here, Janeway hopes to restock vital supplies while Neelix hopes to find a map to make the trip through the expanse less dangerous. The situation is complicated when Neelix runs into an old friend: Wixiban (James Nardini), who worked with Neelix on a smuggling operation years earlier. Wix was caught and served prison time for his crimes, but he managed to save Neelix from the same fate.

Neelix's old friendship and his debt to Wix allow the other Talaxian to draw him into a "fair trade," a deal that will secure many of the supplies Voyager needs. It's a simple exchange of medical supplies, Wix assures him. But the "medical supplies" are actually drugs, part of an operation overseen by Kolaati criminals. When Wix's contact attempts to kill the two Talaxians, Wix fires first. This leaves Neelix at the center of a mess - one that becomes even messier when Janeway promises Bahrat (Carlos Carrasco), the station's commander, that she will assist in the investigation of this "murder."


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: She deals fairly with Bahrat, agreeing to his terms for doing business on the station and offering full cooperation to him in the investigation of the crime. When Bahrat's investigation threatens crew members, however, she draws her line in the sand, stating that she will not allow members of her crew to be imprisoned without proof. She doesn't actually threaten force, but the implication hangs unmistakably over the confrontation.

Neelix: With the ship having reached the edge of the region of space he knows well, Neelix fears that he's reached the end of his usefulness to Voyager. This makes him easy prey for Wix's manipulations. Once the murder occurs, Wix pushes every button he can: The debt Neelix owes him, Neelix's fears of being put off the ship. Ethan Phillips does a fine job of showing Neelix's torn loyalties and his insecurities. We never doubt for an instant that he'll end up doing the right thing in the end: But Neelix's emotional torment is made into something we feel along with him, making this episode significantly more involving than it might have been.

Tom Paris: Gets a good scene in which he recalls the incident that led him astray - you remember, the one that is in no way near-identical to what happened to Nicholas Locarno in The First Duty. With the benefit of hindsight and the security provided by Janeway's trust, Tom now recognizes that it was very much his fault, and what he says resonates with Neelix's current situation: "I made a mistake, which happens to people. If I'd admitted that mistake, it would have been a lot better. But I lied about it, and it nearly ruined my life."


THOUGHTS

I need to give Voyager credit here: The writers did finally acknowledge that there's a limit to the area of space with which Neelix is familiar. It happened later than should have been the case (I'd have thought we'd have reached this point by mid-Season Two), but at least this wasn't simply forgotten. From this point on, Voyager's journeys will be as new to Neelix as to everyone else on the ship.

Fair Trade promises to mark a point of departure for the show. They are entering a new region of space, one that it's hinted will be far more dangerous than the one they are leaving, and one that they will know far less about. If this promise is delivered on, it may give the show new energy that it badly needs. Season Three has been more enjoyable than most of Season Two, I will say, but the overall tone has remained too safe and too comfortable. Perhaps the Nekrit Expanse represents the writers realizing this and taking steps to correct it... Or perhaps I'm just being wildly optimistic with little cause.

Taken on its own, this is a solid episode, but a very predictable one. It's clear from the instant that he appears that Wix is going to cause problems for Neelix. It's equally obvious that his "fair trade" is going to be shady, and that Neelix will end up making things right in the end. One could watch the first third and predict the other two-thirds with a great deal of accuracy.

Ethan Phillips' performance goes a long way toward keeping the proceedings involving. His nonverbal reactions to Wix and the desperation that creeps into his voice early in the episode and builds throughout make it impossible not to feel for his dilemma. Even Phillips' best efforts can't quite sell Neelix's "tough guy" resolve at the climax, however, and the ending seems far too easy.

An adequate bit of filler with some elements that seem promising for the future. Phillips' performance holds it together, but the by-the-numbers plot keeps this episode very much in the "average" range.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

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1-15. Jetrel.

Kes comforts a tormented Neelix.

THE PLOT

Voyager is hailed by an Haakonian ship, whose occupant insists on speaking to Neelix on a matter of life and death. Neelix is confused, telling Janeway that his people had been at war with the Haakonians long ago. Confusion gives way to anger, however, when he comes face to face with this particular Haakoian: Dr. Jetrel (James Sloyan), the scientist responsible for a weapon that devastated the Talaxian colony on Rinax, killing Neelix's family and prompting an unconditional surrender by Neelix's people.

Jetrel tells Janeway that he has been tracking down Talaxians who were involved in rescue operations on Rinax. Many of the rescue workers have developed a fatal illness from the radiation. He needs to test Neelix, to confirm that Neelix has the disease. But Neelix, bitter over the horrors he saw when he went back to Rinax after the bombing, flatly refuses to even speak with him!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Comes across as staggeringly gullible in this episode. She never once questions Jetrel's motives. Even though there's no indication of evil intent by the scientist, there should at least be some discussion among Janeway and her command staff about the possibility of him having a less philanthropic agenda, particularly when they make a substantial detour at Jetrel's behest. The episode attempts to bring out Janeway's scientific background by having her bounce off a truly brilliant scientist... but with Janeway seemingly instantly believing every word out of Jetrel's mouth the second it is spoken, she mainly just comes across as naive.

Neelix: Yes, it's a Neelix episode. But hey, if Chakotay and Harry Kim can get character-centric episodes, why not Neelix? At least he isn't boring. In fact, Neelix comes across very well in this episode. The writers don't forget all the things that make him annoying most of the time. He's still self-absorbed, he still has a very free relationship with the truth, and he still is very quick to judge others based solely on what is good for him. But those qualities lead to some very convincing reactions when he is brought face-to-face with Jetrel. He isn't fair to Jetrel - but he is convincingly human, in a way that idealized Trek characters all too frequently are not. Ethan Phillips gives an excellent performance, proving that he is capable of being far more than the comedy relief the series usually relegates him to. Phillips' scenes opposite James Sloyan crackle with emotion, and the give and take between the two actors is outstanding.

Kes: Empathy remains the consistent key to her character. She is supportive of Neelix, while at the same time being firm in making him go to Jetrel for the sake of his own health. She remains available to listen to him, and doesn't take offense when Neelix states that he never told her about Rinax because this was one thing that he couldn't share with someone who hadn't actually been there. I'm not sure I actually buy Kes and Neelix as a couple - truthfully, Jennifer Lien is stronger opposite both Robert Picardo and Kate Mulgrew than she is opposite Ethan Phillips - but the character's strength and compassion keeps her one of the series' more consistently impressive creations.

Jetrel: Jetrel (James Sloyan) is obviously directly based on J. Robert Oppenheimer, the scientist who spearheaded the Manhattan Project. He is an obviously brilliant man, and his scientific brilliance instantly impresses Janeway. At the same time, he comes across as cold and aloof - but in scenes with Neelix, deeper feelings emerge, revealing genuine torment at what he had done. When he tells Neelix that he realized what he had become only when looking at the Cascade as it detonated, he essentially echoes Oppenheimer's own words after watching a test of the atomic bomb, and quoting a Hindu script: "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."


THOUGHTS

Jetrel is to Voyager what to Duet was to Deep Space 9. It's a serious episode, dealing with serious subjects. It tightly focuses on two characters: one of the regulars (Neelix), and a guest character (James Sloyan's Jetrel) who was responsible for the most painful event in Neelix's past. There is a lot of intelligent dialogue, with both Ethan Phillips and James Sloyan giving their all. The script is layered. Neelix has secrets he's not sharing; Jetrel isn't as unaffected emotionally as he would like to let on. In its handling of this material, even with much of it being a clear allegory for the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II, the episode flirts very seriously with earning Voyager its first "10."

But unfortunately, Voyager is to Jetrel what Deep Space 9 was to Duet. Deep Space 9, a show that quickly developed the confidence to spend full episodes dealing strictly with character and theme, was willing to simply focus on a series of discussions between Nana Visitor's Kira and Harris Yulin's Marritza. It trusted the actors, their characters, and their dialogue to carry the hour, and it trusted the audience to stay with it. As a result, the series delivered a searingly powerful hour of television.

Voyager simply doesn't have the same faith: not in its actors, not in its characters, and - most tellingly of all - not in its audience. Therefore, after 35 minutes of mostly excellent character drama, we get... a climax in which a character pulls an apparent double-cross, followed by a stream of meaningless technobabble.

WHY!?!

I would love to sit the Voyager writing staff of the first season down and ask them what the hell they were thinking of when they decided to veer into melodrama and pseudoscience in the last ten minutes. Any viewer prone to tune out because the show was too "talky" would have already tuned out long before the final Act. Meanwhile, for the rest of us... After being genuinely gripped by the character interactions of Neelix and Jetrel and, to a lesser extent, Neelix and Kes and Janeway and Jetrel, a Voyager episode that comes so close to transcending this series' limitations comes crashing back down to Earth with a reminder that this is Voyager, and that no episode can pass without at least some stupidity.

A part of me almost wants to give a bad score simply because of the badly misjudged climax. But the truth is that the offending scenes occupy less than ten minutes, and that those ten minutes are surrounded by some of the best writing and acting that Voyager has yet provided. Given the strength of what comes before the inanity sets in, I feel I have to award a good score. It's just so frustrating how close this episode came to being so much more than simply an above-average episode of Star Trek: Voyager.


Overall Rating: 7/10.

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