5-7. Infinite Regress.

Seven of Nine develops multiple personalities...

THE PLOT

Voyager detects debris that Seven of Nine identifies as the remains of a Borg cube, emitting a neural interlink frequency. Seven begins experiencing memory lapses, which are revealed to be episodes in which the personalities of Borg-assimilated individuals emerge. The Borg signal has effectively given her Borg multiple personality disorder.

The Doctor is able to fit her with an inhibitor to temporarily keep the personalities at bay, but he warns that this is only a temporary solution. The only way to restore Seven permanently is to shut down the signal at its source: The vinculum, the central processor of the destroyed cube, still intact and floating in space.

But this vinculum isn't what it appears to be. Species 6339, a race hunted by the Borg, created a virus designed to bring chaos to the Collective, a plan that hinges on the Borg recovering the device. When Janeway insists that she will only relinquish it after Seven has been cured, the aliens open fire on Voyager!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Is entirely willing to give the vinculum back to the aliens to use against the Borg. She just asks that they wait until she can help Seven - Which makes the aliens unreasonable for insisting on attacking Voyager. Though she stands up for Seven, she privately admits that she fears Chakotay may have been right that the former Borg will never fully become part of the crew.

Seven of Nine: Infinite Regress is a terrific showcase for Jeri Ryan. She gets to alternate her usual, reserved Seven with a host of entirely different personalities: a small child, a grieving mother, a violent Klingon, and a greedy Ferengi merchant. Ryan throws herself into all of these roles, and her Ferengi is particularly funny. But her best performance is as Seven herself, Ryan's performance effectively showing her terror at the loss of control of her own mind.

Tuvok: Insists on using a mind-meld to stabilize Seven's core personality, something the Doctor objects is too dangerous. The climax intercuts Voyager in yet another (largely pointless) space battle against far more effective scenes of Tuvok, inside seven's mind. For all his preparations, Tuvok is overwhelmed, barely able to hang onto himself in the midst of the chaos of the multiple Borg-assimilated personalities.

Doctor: "With all of these new personalities floating around, it's a shame we can't find one for you." His jibe at Tuvok is more than a little mean (and would have been far truer of Season One Tuvok than the current version) - But it is funny, particularly with Robert Picardo injecting just the right amount of snideness. Picardo effectively alternates between combativeness when arguing with Tuvok and genuine concern when dealing with Seven, and it's clear that his worries over Seven's deteriorating condition are making him more short-tempered than usual with Tuvok and the rest of the crew.


THOUGHTS

Can Voyager ever have a strong, high-concept episode whose momentum isn't torpedoed by an artifically-imposed "external threat?" The season premiere set up a compelling psychological drama as the crew dealt with flying through an extended void of nothingness - only to then upend all that by introducing a generic alien baddie for the ship to shoot at. Now this episode does basically the same thing, bringing Species 6339 into an otherwise enjoyable piece simply so that someone can shoot at Voyager during the climax. Because we can't be trusted to care about the ending if the camera isn't being shaken while Harry and Tom shout Technobabble now, can we?

Sigh.

Making this worse is how forced the hostility of Species 6339 seems. They have no particular gripe with Voyager. They just want to return their vinculum to the Borg wreckage. The big battle happens only because the aliens cannot wait for Janeway's crew to save Seven first... So they are willing to risk the vinculum's destruction to save a very small amount of time. That does not sound like a particularly well-judged risk, and seems even sillier given that the Voyager crew manages to save Seven even with a battle going on, all before beaming the vinculum into space so that the aliens can recover it.

It amounts to artificial conflict that doesn't even make sense in context. It's not the first time Voyager has been guilty of this, and I'm sure it won't be the last... But it's blatant, and all the more annoying because the rest of the episode is actually pretty good. The episode is well-paced and benefits from the assured direction of David Livingston. While it's mostly content to keep us hooked by the high concept of "Borg multiple personality disorder," there are some effective dramatic moments. As Seven listens to the log entries left by personalities she helped assimilate, we sense that she is having to confront for the first time how many lives she participated in destroying.

More might have been made of that... But then we wouldn't have time for a dramatically unnecessary shootout with the Alien Race of the Week. Even with that unfortunate shift near the end, this is a fun episode to watch - It just ends up being less than it could have been and should have been.


Overall Rating: 6/10.

Previous Episode: Timeless
Next Episode: Nothing Human


Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

3-2. Flashback.

Capt. Sulu (George Takei) needles the young Tuvok.

THE PLOT

Voyager has altered course to investigate a nebula with a high amount of sirillium, an energy source which can help keep the ship's systems operating during its long journey. They are just preparing to collect the sirillium when Tuvok sudenly becomes disoriented, experiencing flashbacks of himself, as a child, failing to save the life of a young girl dangling from a cliffside. Tuvok has no actual memory of the incident, leading the Doctor to suspect it is a repressed memory.

Vulcan physiology being the magical plot device that it is, repressed memories pose grave risks to Vulcans if untreated. Janeway agrees to mind-meld with Tuvok to bring out the memory and integrate it, while the Doctor and Kes monitor the procedure. But when Tuvok initiates the meld, they are not taken back to the Vulcan's childhood. Instead, they find themselves on the bridge of the U. S. S. Excelsior, under the command of Capt. Sulu (George Takei), in the midst of an unauthorized attempt to rescue Capt. Kirk from the Klingon homeworld (Star Trek VI).

What is the connection between the events on the Excelsior and Tuvok's flashbacks? If Janeway and Tuvok cannot determine the cause soon, then Tuvok's mind will literally shut down - possibly taking Janeway's right along with it!


CHARACTERS

Capt. Janeway: Janeway's bond with Tuvok is a major component of this episode. Tuvok turns to her because she is the person he most trusts on the ship. She expresses their relationship to the Doctor even more bluntly, stating that she's the closest thing to family the Vulcan has on board. Though she believes Tuvok was is right to argue against the rescue mission, she also admits her admiration for Sulu and, by extension, Kirk and his comrades. "They were a little slower to invoke the Prime Directive, and a little quicker to pull their phasers. Of course, the whole bunch of them would be booted out of Starfleet today. But I have to admit, I would have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that."

Capt. Sulu: His loyalty to Kirk and Dr. McCoy is the catalyst for the action within the flashback. When Tuvok argues against the rescue mission as a violation of Starfleet orders, Sulu shows patience in taking time to explain himself. He acknowledges that Tuvok is right about the regulations, but that there is more to serving in Starfleet than simply following orders. "There is a sense of loyalty to the men and women you serve with, a sense of family. Those two men on trial - I served with them for a long time. I owe them my life a dozen times over. And right now they're in trouble and I'm going to help them. Let the regulations be damned!" George Takei provides the episode with a solid presence, and he is a dominant enough presence within the episode to keep fans from feeling cheated, but used sparingly enough that he doesn't overshadow the regulars.

Tuvok: "Ever since I entered the academy, I've had to endure the egocentric nature of humanity. You believe that everyone in the galaxy should be like you, that we should all share your sense of humour and your human values."  Flashback is a Tuvok episode, one that fleshes out his background considerably. We learn that he joined Starfleet under pressure from his parents, only to leave at the end of his first deep space assignment. Young Tuvok is much like our version, only more rigid - a rigidity that has made his interactions with humans unpleasant for him. It was only after he returned to Vulcan and started a family of his own that he realized that he actually could learn from humans, that - as Spock observed back in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, "logic is not enough."

The Doctor: Carries the Technobabble phase of the episode, diagnosing Tuvok and monitoring his vitals through the mind meld. He breaks the meld at one trouble spot to provide us with a fadeout to commercial. At the critical point in the episode, he is unable to break the meld, providing us with our crisis for the Final Act. Though largely a plot device in this episode, Robert Picardo continues to excel in making him distinct even as he spouts reams of near-meaningless jargon at us.

Kang: Only in for a cameo appearance, but Michael Ansara is always a welcome presence. He is largely the typical "Klingon heavy" in this episode, though the thin veneer of politeness he shows to Sulu is well-portrayed, as is the threat beneath that veneer.


THOUGHTS

Flashback is two types of episodes, very effectively bound up in one. It is a nice nostalgia episode for TOS fans, who get to revisit not only Sulu, but also Kang and Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney), in a story that runs parallel to the events of Star Trek VI. With some well-judged re-use of footage from that movie, and some re-staging of scenes from the film to make them match with the surrounding episode, it blends into a very satisfying bit of fan fulfillment.

But it doesn't forget to filter this through the regulars. George Takei may be the big guest star, but this isn't Sulu's episode. Sulu is complete as an individual by the time he is captain of the Excelsior. It's not his role to learn, but to (try to) teach. Tuvok is the episode's focus, and our view of Sulu and the other TOS holdovers is filtered through his point of view. 

This is where Flashback's greatest success lies: As a character episode. Not what you'd normally expect from writer Brannon Braga, but he does very well at fleshing out Tuvok's backstory and in contrasting his attitudes as a young man with his current ones. There is a lot of "our" Tuvok in the 29-year-old in the flashbacks, but the older Tuvok has apparently taken the advice of Sulu to heart. He has a distinct sense of humor, albeit a dry one, and he is able to interact with others, both traits which elude his younger self. He is able to recognize when his behavior toward Kes or Chakotay may come across as rude, and readily apologizes for it, something again which his younger self wouldn't bother doing. In one episode, by showing both Tuvok now and Tuvok as "the boy (he) was," we can see just how far he has come.

The episode is paced very quickly, with several clever moments. Sulu and Tuvok evading Kang by igniting the gas inside a nebula is a particularly nice sequence, wonderfully directed by stalwart David Livingston. Though the medical Technobabble invoked to explain "the memory" is the usual Trek non-science, the visual sequence of the same memory being traced from one person to another is memorable. 

A well-directed, quickly-paced episode which satisfies both as a strong character piece and as a nice nostalgic nod to the original incarnation of Star Trek. An episode worthy of not only a positive review, but probably a re-watch or two sometime down the road.


Overall Rating: 8/10.

Previous Episode: Basics
Next Episode: The Chute 

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On Twitter:

Follow @RandomMusings09

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads

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

Search Amazon.com for Star Trek: Voyager

Review Index

To receive new review updates, follow me:

On BlueSky:

Follow @RandomMusings09 on BlueSky

On Threads:

Follow@randommusings09 on Threads