Classics: Voyager 3:25/4:1 - Scorpion

Overall Rating: 8.0

I know there are fans out there who think this episode is among the best things Voyager ever accomplished, but...to be honest, I don't think it holds up to repeated viewings.  It's got a lot to like, but when I viewed it again, I saw many...many flaws, some of which were forced by management, some were caused by hasty plot construction.

Plot Summary:

Here are the links from Memory Alpha:

Scorpion - Part I
Scorpion - Part II

The introduction of a bad-ass alien with awesome technological supremacy over even the Borg should probably have been done with more fanfare than it was after Scorpion, but that isn't the fault of Scorpion.  This episode did a lot to re-awaken the fans and launch a new phase of the franchise.

The Skinny:

"We are the Borg.  You will be assimilated.  Resistance is futile.  We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own."  And then bolts of energy from an unseen force appear from behind the imagined camera and obliterate three cubs like a hot knife obliterating butter!  Holy shit!!!  BEST TEASER EVER!!!!!

*ehem*  Sorry...I can never help myself when I view Scorpion...I always have to comment on that teaser, because that is what a good teaser should do.  It establishes (a) that Voyager is about to enter Borg space and (b) that there exists something so much more powerful than the Borg that it doesn't even need to slow down for a second to annihilate those cubes.  And it does so in about 19 seconds!  No wasted time...no filler...just "here is what we're about to face, so buckle up, kiddies!"  I wish more Trek episodes employed tight, effective teasers like that.

Alright Mr. Braga, Mr. Menosky, you have my attention!  Aaaand then you cut to a scene of Janeway talking to Leonardo De Vinci.  Why?  Why do Trek writers always feel the compulsive need to insert pointless down time into the story before delivering the goods of the plot?  I never see this kind of time-wasting in good cinema or even in other televised science fiction.  On Stargate, they insert the filler character stuff at appropriate moments most of the time...usually when a scene calls for reflection on a theme.  But we never open a Stargate episode, following an exciting teaser, with a tangential scene involving Teal'c learning how to throw a yo-yo.  Seriously...WTF?  What does Leonardo De Vinci and his flying machine have to do with the fable of the scorpion and the fox, the flight Voyager faces getting through Borg space or the looming threat of Species 8472?  What does it tell us about Janeway that is relevant to how she solves problems like the one she's about to face?  This two part story mercifully only has three scenes in this holographic workshop, but all three could easily have been replaced with more relevant material and none of the three add any texture to Janeway's character.  Compare the lunacy of De Vinci's workshop to Picard's contemplative stroll around the ship in The Best of Both Worlds - a sequence which ended in a thought provoking look into the mind of a Captain whose ship was about to be overthrown (Guinen was good at such things).  So right about two minutes into Janeway's desperate plea for space in De Vinci's workshop, I'm thinking that doing my taxes would be more fun than hunkering down for something this slowly paced.  How is that even POSSIBLE to think after I just saw three Borg cubes blown up before the (admittedly gorgeous) Voyager theme music played?

Anyway, that gripe about De Vinci is complaint number one.  And there are several others.  But let's talk about what they got right first.  The most obvious is the relationship between Chakotay and Janeway.  Even in the first episode following the pilot (the hilariously bad Parallax), Chakotay was awfully quick to be named a loyal officer under Janeway - someone unlikely to countermand her orders or stage a mutiny.  They got along so well, so fast, that the reason for Chakotay to even exist was lost.  It's nice to see the man grow a sack and even a pair of balls to put in the sack and to DISAGREE with the Captain.  Forcefully!  And make his case resoundingly!  It's nice to hear SOMEONE question Janeway's competence to make this kind of decision (whether to take spectacular risks to get the crew home) and even suggest that she has something to feel guilty about (stranding her crew needlessly on a forlorn voyage home).  This was the dynamic Voyager needed from day one.

Voyager also needed a dose of real peril from the real unknown.  For some reason, their worst enemies before now have been intellectually inferior cave people and a race of aliens so sick with a plague that they might soon die off (they did use the Vidians well on a few occasions).  What were they THINKING with that cast of boring-ass villains??  You're in a new part of space, and all you can do for jeopardy is space anomalies and cave people from the planet moronica?  Come on!  You're somewhere new - use your imagination!  Who owns this part of space?  Are they friendly, evil, powerful, poverty-stricken and desperate?  This is your chance to do new types of stories in new environments and you come up with stupider versions of Klingons and sicklier versions of Cardassians.  Thankfully, they finally got creative here, and their bad guy more powerful than the Borg is a telepathic alien insect-like species from a different dimension that is filled with biologically active fluid, rather than a void of matter as in our universe.  That...is pretty creative.  Scientifically questionable (how would that universe have ever evolved life - gravity is uniform in a fluid-filled universe, because if there were any differences in gravity, the heavy things would immediately start collecting the light things and you'd end up with space and stars, just like in our universe, so how could you ever develop solid life forms?  What would pull them together?), but creative.  Also somewhat creative is pitting a species bent on technological and intellectual purity (the Borg's quest for perfection) against a species bent on biological purity (Species 8472).  They even make the jeopardy personal for a time, infecting Harry with a gene-altering disease that threatens to kill him and keep him conscious while he's being eaten alive from the inside.  Yeesh!

But this is where I start to lose my good mood.  Why are the Borg, with all of their technology and adaptive thinking, not able to reprogram their own nanoprobes but our EMH takes one look at them and devises a strategy based on those same nanoprobes?  Our individuality gives us the chance to think outside the box, granted, but this is simple engineering - outside the box thinking isn't required.  The mere mention of weaponizing nanoprobes should have caused the collective (which, until meeting us, may have been stupidly focused on assimilating 8472, rather than killing them - groupthink does sometimes lean to bad priorities) to go, "Oohhhh!  Quick, send a million drones to work devising a reprogrammed set of nanoprobes that kill instead of assimilate this species!"  This episode marks the beginning of the end of the Borg as the ultimate villain.  Voyager does to the Borg what TNG did to the Klingons.  That is to say...took their initial concept and overexposed it so badly through various story-telling mechanics that the flaws in that concept became obvious.  The Borg - once a mysterious and legitimately threatening supervillain - are reduced to being habitually unable to outsmart Janeway and Voyager.  At least on Stargate, the Goa'uld (who were also habitually outsmarted after beginning the series with a spectacular arms and technological advantage) were consistently played as stupidly arrogant.  That we can buy into.  But the Borg are emotionless - they operate on pure, cold logic matched with pure greed and the will to dominate.  The problem is that using the Borg a lot will require us to win a lot...and if we win a lot, they look weaker.  Voyager's staff overexposed the Borg in a desperate attempt to keep the fans excited, and in so doing, was forced to weaken them so badly that they lost their luster.  I now view our possessing the magical nanoprobe touch as the first step in that inevitable walk to mediocrity for the Borg.

Now, for a few other problems:

• Harry recovered too quickly, and thus neutered the personal threat posed by 8472.  This was the fault of the Voyager bigwigs.  Harry was originally supposed to die near the end of the second part of this two-part story, but, seeing that he wound up on a sexiest people list for some unknown reason, the producers couldn't bare to part with Garrett Wang, so they decided to take out Kes instead.  Forcing a quick rewrite in which Harry was miraculously just fine.
• 8472 gave up WAY too easily.  We fired one atomic bomb and they did the equivalent of surrendering unconditionally.  The fuck?  They can blow up a Borg cube in one or two shots!  They can't tolerate a few of their guys dying in the battle?  At this stage, Voyager has only taught a few Borg and themselves how to arm against 8472...shouldn't they have been trying to exterminate Voyager with every available bioship?  Of course, Seven of Nine was connected to the Hive, so perhaps the Borg should have shown up just as it looked like we were about to get our asses kicked with their own nanoprobes and chased 8472 back into fluidic space to finish the fight.  That would have made more sense.  Instead we got a big boom followed by the sound of a yippy mini-poodle scampering away from a cat after getting scratched..."arrr arr arr arr..."  Pathetic.
• Why on Earth did they choose not to SHOW the resolution between Chakotay and Janeway.  The way the story is worded, Chakotay wakes up, Janeway is pissed at him for abandoning the plan and wants to go back to working with Seven of Nine, Chakotay expresses frustration, Janeway says "this isn't working...we have to work together!" and then TADA!!! they're working in perfect harmony again.  Sorry...that just ain't gonna cut it with me.

In short, the whole thing was resolved in two hours...it probably should have been a multi-part sequence like the six-part war arc on DS9, but Paramount didn't like the idea of doing long plot arcs at this time and thus, the whole thing had to get done in 90 minutes.  It feels very unsatisfying to me despite all of its potential.

Let's Go With It!

Given the lack of interest in doing long-running plot arcs, I will constrain myself to four episodes with a more fleshed out plot development.  You just watch me!

EPISODE ONE: The Northwest Passage

I won't quibble over the scientific veracity of the plot - this is science fiction and the strangeness of "fluidic space" (a term that makes no sense at all) is a minor issue compared with the uniqueness of the story of Species 8472.  In episode one, the dilemma would need to be established, but not resolved.  I picture this episode involving Voyager spotting Borg patrol spheres and realizing they're about to enter Borg space, the crew preparing for battle - talk of how screwed they are surfacing and people like Kes and Neelix trying to keep everyone's spirits up etc.  And then I picture Voyager discovering the Northwest Passage - perhaps Harry Kim can be the one to spot it, since he's good at finding things that seem awesome and are actually doom on a stick.  Voyager charts a course through the corridor with the spatial distortions, discovers that they are actually singularities and encounters an enemy ship flying out of one, zipping past them to shoot at a Borg cube that's been following them.  They think "yay! powerful allies!" and then it comes back around and shoots at Voyager, very badly damaging it on the way back into the singularity.

With the ship almost completely disabled, they limp back to a safe hiding spot to make repairs, and Janeway and Chakotay argue about the proper course of action.  Chakotay wants to turn around and go back to unoccupied territory, Janeway wants to head deeper into the Northwest Passage.  For a time, she can convince Chakotay to press on, and they can head carefully further in, discovering another singularity, hiding from bioships and investigating a Borg cube that's been badly damaged.  At this point, Harry can be attacked by 8472 and brought back to the ship as in the real episode and the Doctor can devise a treatment using something OTHER than Borg technology.  Something they've never encountered before - perhaps the Vidian medical technology they encountered that stopped Janeway's parasitic infection in "Resolutions."  But there's a catch - for the treatment to work, Harry will need to go into stasis, and the odds of him surviving even with 8472 DNA neutralized are slim.

Janeway takes the attack on Harry personally and wants to go on the warpath, but Chakotay still wants to get the hell out of dodge before they get caught between two warring superpowers who would destroy them without even slowing down.  At this point, she proposes giving the Borg the upper hand on Species 8472 in exchange for safe passage (this can be your dramatic To Be Continued moment).

EPISODE TWO: The Devil You Know

Janeway goes ahead with her plan over Chakotay's strenuous objections, allowing herself to be taken captive by the Borg.  She makes her proposal and the Borg reluctantly accept in much the same way as already depicted in the existing episode.  However, the ace up our sleeve is that we need Borg technology to rapidly develop warheads, but they've never seen our 8472-busting biological agent and they need our cooperation or we'll delete all records of what we did with Kim.  She wants to see their tactical situation and the Borg show her enough information to see that there are hundreds of bioships in our space and the Borg are taking heavy losses.  Meanwhile, Chakotay, on Voyager, has the crew preparing for battle - he intends to steal Janeway back and put her under guard, now that the proposal has been made (this is not what Janeway ordered, but he thinks her plan is too risky).  However, before he can put his plan into motion a la TBoBW, the cube is annihilated by a fleet of bioships and sacrifices itself to defend Voyager, forcing a few Borg drones an Janeway back onto Voyager.  Chakotay orders the Borg contained and Janeway needs emergency surgery, but her last orders are to make her plan work, no matter what.  As soon as she's out, Chakotay attends to the Borg, refusing their demands for more access to the ship and their ideas about heading into a singularity and taking the battle to their home turf.  He decides to order the Borg off the ship and Seven gives her famous speech about their small, individualistic perspectives being their undoing.  She then proceeds to begin assimilating the ship and Chakotay's efforts to stop her are futile.  With her limited resources, she can only go so far, but she manages to force Voyager into a singularity and take over a whole deck.  As they enter fluidic space...TO BE CONTINUED!

ERPISODE THREE/FOUR: Scorpion (two hours)

Janeway wakes up after surgery and the ship is at red alert.  The EMH calls Chakotay down and she reads him the riot act (after the situation is explained).  THIS is when Chakotay ought to tell the Scorpion fable.  As a way of explaining why he countermanded her orders.  The Borg demands were too dangerous and even if everything went right with their objective, there was no upside.  He thought he could control just those few drones, but they got out of hand.  Janeway throws him in the Brig (for real!) and re-assumes command.  She walks right into Borg occupied territory on the ship and encounters Seven of Nine, explaining that she is back in command and that they intend to cooperate, so the Borg can either stop their attack on the ship or our 8472-busting cure will be deleted.  With their momentary cooperation, Janeway orders her crew to begin work weaponizing the EMH's cure by designing Borg-inspired weapons of limited mass destruction (not the planet-killers Seven wants...but something big enough to take out a small moon perhaps).  They work on their arsenal until 8472 bioships arrive and begin a pitched battle.  We're getting our asses kicked again, but manage to disable all of the first wave with our torpedoes (the small weapons).  We then exit fluidic space, but once on the other side, we realize more bioships are converging on our position, forcing us to deploy one of our big bombs.  That repels the second wave, but more are on the way and Voyager has precious little time to stop them.

Seven taps into Voyager's systems and calls for assistance from the collective.  A dozen cubes swoop in just in time to sacrifice themselves to stop the next wave while Seven is communicating the weapon specs to the collective.  But here's the kicker...Voyager still has not told Seven what was in those weapons.  She can't claim victory until the technology is in Borg hands.  Voyager can defend itself against bioships, but the Borg are still defenseless.  The collective orders her to quietly hack Voyager's medical database.  Meanwhile, Chakotay calls Janeway down to the Brig and announces that he has a plan that both of them will be happy with.  "Remember that Scorpion?" he asks.  "Well I've got some antivenom you might like."  Shortly thereafter, the EMH calls Janeway down to Sickbay to report unauthorized access into the medical database.  He's prepared to delete all relevant data, including his program, but Janeway says she doesn't want to lose him just yet.  She advises him to sit tight - they're almost through the heart of Borg space and just need to buy a little time.  As they plow through the Northwest Passage, Seven helps them elude detection by bioships since they need to conserve ammo, but they eventually get spotted and a fleet begins moving to intercept.  Seven steps up her efforts to get control of the medical database to pass the info along to the Borg, but, spotting this, Janeway orders Chakotay to begin Project Scorpion.  He distracts Seven as seen in the real episode, they disable her link to the collective, and escape Borg space.  Once tracking speedily away from the battlefield, they fire a message buoy back into Borg space with the weapon specs as promised and hope they never encounter either Borg or 8472 again - but neither race has been halted and it's up in the air as to whether the Borg will come after them or at least attempt to recover Seven of Nine.

That's how to get Voyager through a scrape like that without making the Borg look weak or needlessly wasting a cool villain or giving a pat, Hollywood end to a conflict that seems rushed an unfulfilled.

Writing: 7.5

The plot is a bit on the unfinished side, but there are many very enjoyable scenes with tense, well-written dialogue and I did enjoy many of the basic ideas that went into this episode.  The conflict between Janeway and Chakotay is mature and well-balanced, which is a nice change of pace for Voyager.

Acting: 9.0

Beltran and Mulgrew did a nice job in their dialogue scenes and Jeri Ryan's arrival is a welcome one - she is a talented actress in this reviewer's opinion.

Message: 7.5

This episode is very heavy on the action front and has good pacing and entertainment value, but, as messages go, the notion that our individuality is a strength, and not "our undoing" is undermined by the fact that Janeway's authority is what saves the day, rather than Chakotay's ingenuity.  I like my version better.

Classics: Voyager 3:24 - Worst Case Scenario

Overall Rating: 8.8

Holy CRAP!  A GOOD Kenneth Biller script!  Actually...if you pay attention, this one suffers all the same flaws as other Biller scripts, but the unique nature of the plot renders those flaws non-critical and Biller finds his sense of humor...so...good on him!

Plot Synopsis:

Memory Alpha has the details.  Tuvok manages to do something that the entire ship enjoys, not to mention display some genuine emotion (namely pride and frustration...LOL), and Seska returns from the grave to f*** it all up. :)

The Skinny:

There's about a ten-minute part of this episode that is among the funniest things Star Trek has ever done (how Biller managed this feat is beyond me...his command of characters is usually so poor that attempts at character-driven humor are intolerable).  I definitely laughed out loud and heartily several times in a row after the holonovel became public knowledge and the senior staff was forced to discuss it and before Seska's booby-trap program started.  Tom Paris blithering on about wanting some totally implausible action, Tuvok quoting the dictates of Vulcan poetics, Torres and Neelix wanting to insert Mary-Sue characters, quibbling about their role in the simulation, etc, and funniest of all, the EMH showing up when you least expect it to offer his BRILLIANT suggestions for altering the program and Tuvok flatly transferring his program off the holodeck...comedy gold.  I kid you not.

Here's the thing...this episode is riddled with all of the usual cheap gimmicky "gotcha games" that fill Biller scripts and usually annoy the crap out of me.  Red Herring teaser?  CHECK (you think it's a real insurrection, but it's on the holodeck)  Inane technobabble-driven late plot twist solved by technobabble resolution?  CHECK.  Cheesy semi-romantic banter?  CHECK-O-RAMA.  But you don't actually mind it this week because the pacing is appropriate, the tension is believable (even the red-herring is semi-plausible as all characters appear to be acting consistently in the general, if not in the specifics of their actions), the humor is earned and genuinely funny, and the gimmicky technobabble is not overly explained.  They give you an answer you can accept and then they hang a lantern on their deus ex machina stuff, rather than trying to pretend everything isn't perfectly convenient like usual.

In short...This Kenneth Biller script works because he's making fun of his usual patterns instead of taking himself too seriously.  It's a bit like Stargate SG-1 writers making fun of the tropes and crackier elements that they usually take for granted in episodes like Wormhole X-treme and Citizen Joe.  Whether he INTENDED to make fun of himself is an open question...but it works for me, so it gets a good score. :)

Writing: 7.5

I can't ignore the large helpings of cheese and bull-droppings in the script...it's just as fluffy and nonsensical as any Biller script.  But I don't find the flaws annoying this time because of the light-hearted tone and the real humor...so I can't get too testy over them either.

Acting: 9.5

Even Martha Hackett - with whom I was never impressed - does a nice job here, I think because instead of trying to play a complex real person, she's playing a purely evil avatar.  The EMH as Dr. Evil was also fabulous - the flat, calm, rational delivery of the nasty nitric acid injection and "proverbial salt in the wound" lines were actually chilling!  And for once...FOR ONCE...they gave Tim Russ something to do besides deliver wooden, emotionless tactical updates...he got to show a more Nemoy-esque balance of calm rational demeanor and thinly buried emotion.  And he proved he could do it too!

 Message: 9.5

Captain Janeway said it best.  "With all due respect, Mr. Tuvok...lighten up."  The same goes for the fans from time to time.  This episode sets out to be fun and enjoyable and the writer made a real attempt to entertain the fans, rather than just spit out the usual dreck and collect a paycheck.  Bravo.

Classics: Voyager 3:23 - Displaced

Overall Rating: 6.7

There's nothing really glaring wrong with this episode - the B'Elanna/Tom stuff is even...OK...but it certainly won't knock your socks off, and there are some minor problems with the plot and visualization that I notice.

Plot Synopsis:

Memory Alpha has the details - it's a derivative plot with elements drawn from various prior Trek episodes and science fiction novels, but it's OK to watch.

The Skinny:

First...a few of my favorite niggling plot problems from this episode just to amuse myself:

• They say that the Nyrians need a temperature of 45 degrees centigrade to feel comfortable.  So...when we see Voyager crew members exposed to that temperature in the halls of the Nyrian vessel or in Sickbay or the cargo bays on Voyager...why aren't they POURING sweat from every side?  45 C is 113 F...or about the temperature of Death Valley on a typical summer day.  That kind of temperature can be FATAL to humans after prolonged exposure.
• They say that the Nyrian vessel has data on 94 different slave habitats, and they establish that each habitat is fully 10 km sq in size.  That means that the vessel must have enough floor space to accommodate about 1000 km sq of floor space and draw enough power to create artificial weather and support a whole biosphere full of life forms.  1000 km sq is roughly the size of Rhode Island.  Voyager is roughly the size of a luxury cruise ship.  You could fit hundreds of Voyagers in Rhode Island.  Even if you want to be generous and assume that the slave ship had two dozen decks, each with only 50 sq km of floor space in habitats and an additional 10 for corridors, machinery and crew quarters, that would still be a vessel the size of Manhattan.  Cruise ship vs. Manhattan.  Yet we see Voyager fly next to the prison ship and the two appear to have sizes within the same order of magnitude.  Go figure.  It's a tardis!  Bigger on the inside than the outside!
• How have the Nyrians never been attacked before?  I'm pretty sure that is the Russians suddenly forcibly switched places with our US Navy in a base in Iceland, the entire US would go to war to get those troupes back.  The Nyrians have very advanced technology...so why would they gain from stealing from lesser species who lack the means to defend themselves?  No...they'd steal from species with technology that rivals theirs...but that would mean they would be begging for interstellar war.  The method does not make a lot of sense.
• The show never establishes how the Nyrians were able to access Voyager's computer remotely and get info to make their habitat, steal their weapons, decrypt their access codes, learn how to use all of that alien technology etc.  That's kind of important, because without some sort of explanation, we can only conclude that they have god-like powers...in which case, Janeway's subsequent ability to commandeer their displacement technology and get the upper hand makes no sense.
• What would be the point of having portals that connect adjacent habitats?  Why introduce pathetic alien man at all?  Except that they needed someone to show up who had knowledge of how to find the exit.  *sigh*

I was able to notice all of that because, frankly, this plot has been done before, and better in other science fiction media.  The added personal twist with B'Elanna and Tom is subtraction by addition.  I mean, the way they interact in this episode is less annoying than several others from the third season, but it's still very hokey. I especially love the attempt at subtle *wink wink* reconciliation in the tag scene.  "It got a little chilly for a while there." "Yes, I suppose it did." "Feels good to be warm again." (and both gradually flash shit-eating grins...UGH)  So very...very bad.  I just have to wonder if any of the Trek writers have ever been in love...because none of them seem to know how to write it with the possible exception of character-master Renee Echevarria from DS9.

All in all, this is a filler episode that feels very much like a way to kill time.  It's nothing to write home about, but at the same time, it does have a ring of basic competence about it.  It's rather like a number of filler action episodes you'd find between the gems on DS9.  I'm not going to recommend ways to fix this one...I think they maxed out the potential of this idea for doing it in 45 minutes and it's not epic enough to want a two-parter to do more with it.  Any suggestions I make for improving it would be rather like polishing a canon ball for hours while the enemy is charging your fort with ten thousand men.

Writing: 6.5

There are a few plot holes, but it's a solidly par Trek script.

Acting: 7.5

The basic performances are actually more than average...especially Kate Mulgrew, who handled the plot conclusion very nicely.  McNeil and Dawson did what they could with their cheese-filled lines...so...no complaints here.

Message: 6.0

Not much of a message to be had here...it's a standard filler.

Classics: Voyager 3:22 - Distant Origin

Overall Rating: 8.3

I know what you're doing there, Braga...oh I know.  This is supposed to be a shellacking of the Galileo case and of religion in general...I didn't miss that.  BUT...I also don't care.  Lucky for you, it's a really well done episode.

Plot Synopsis:

The details are here, but let's just get down to brass tacks.  This is one of Braga's usual "what if (insert cool sounding ridiculous idea)" pitches that just happened to actually work.  What if dinosaurs had evolved, fled Earth, traveled to the Delta Quadrant, and then forgotten how they got there?  Sounds like a neat idea...plays like one too despite being completely impossible.  The rule of cool applies here, so STFU you nerds that insist on ruining my fun by pointing out when something is completely impossible! :)

The Skinny:

In all seriousness, I am the first one, usually, to blast away at story ideas that make no sense internally if the story is not engaging or the execution of the idea is obviously sloppy and bizarre.  But here's the thing...this one may be based on an idea that simply is not possible, but it has an internal logic and consistency that you rarely find on Voyager and that smacks of (gasp) research and careful plot blocking before the script was penned!  Braga?  Write like a pro??  Vot next, Voyager doing an episode where Janeway is wrong?

The initial idea may be impossible in the world of facts, but this is science fiction and the goofy first idea evolves into an intriguing, compelling story that is well written, beautifully acted and impressively shot.  I'm almost speechless!  I said almost...the post isn't over! :)

Let's start with the artist rendering of the evolved Genus Hadrosaur.  Face it, folks, they did one hell of a job with that.  The Voth really do look like what I'd picture if I dreamed of a dinosaur that grew a large brain and developed the body parts necessary to build technology.  They even picked the most plausible base to the Voth family tree - the Hadrosaur (commonly, velociraptor) was in fact a highly evolved, very intelligent, and a ruthless killer when his genetic line was crushed by the K/T extinction.  This being a Braga script, I would have expected him to mistake an alligator for a dinosaur and suggest that tourists in Florida were getting eaten by the Voth as recently as the 20th century.  But no...he actually comes up with the most plausible explanation for how the velociraptor could ahve evolved and left no trace on Earth.  The K/T extinction event could have spared a few critters on an island continent which was subsequently subducted beneath Eurasia or India and lost forever.  Look, it's a HUGE stretch, but if you're going to do a virtually impossible story, you have to TRY to give us a ledge to climb out on with you or we're just going to get annoyed.  They did that here.

And then...they created a nice parable to the time of Galileo and the dangers of letting doctrine and demagoguery get in the way of truth (and progress) and virtue of speaking truth to power.  And better still, the made the adversary a legitimate threat (instant Voyager ass-kickage, right down to us coming up with a genius plan and having them effortlessly thwart it without even moving...that was pretty cool!) and gave their spokeswoman a believable and almost understandable reason for being so ruthlessly adherent to doctrine and so willing to be unethical to uphold it.  That's right - the bad guy is given a chance to speak, and what they say makes a sort of sick sense!  How many bad guys on Voyager have a motivation deeper than "we like to kill stuff for sport?"

But I think what I like most about this episode beyond the gorgeous make-up and set/lighting/camerawork is the dialogue during Gegen's trial.  Particularly Chakotay's speech.

ODALA: We are not immigrants!  I will not deny twenty million years of history and doctrine just because one insignificant saurian has a theory.  One last time...could you be mistaken.
CHAKOTAY: It's you who's mistaken, Minister.
ODALA: What?
CHAKOTAY: You accuse Professor Gegen of allowing his desires to cloud his objectivity, but aren't you guilty of the same charge?
ODALA: I am not on trial here.
CHAKOTAY: I understand that, but in a way, some of your beliefs are.  How you see yourselves, how you look at your place in the universe.  Those beliefs are very much on trial here.  And this isn't the first time.
ODALA: What are you saying?
CHAKOTAY: I've had some opportunity over the past few days to learn something about your culture.  Your greatest accomplishments.  Consider the breakthrough into transwarp.  In incredible achievement.  But your ancient doctrine predicted enormous disaster if it were even attempting.  That held your people back for millennia, until one brave scientist took a chance.  They succeeded.  And your society entered a new age of exploration.  And your doctrine was changed accordingly.   I know from the history of my own planet that change is difficult.  New ideas are often greeted with skepticism, even fear.  But when those ideas are explored, progress is made.  Eyes are opened.
ODALA: When I open my eyes to this...theory...what I see appalls me.  I see my race fleeing your wretched planet, a group of pathetic refugees crawling and scratching their way across the galaxy, stumbling their way into this domain.  I see a race with no birthright, no legacy.  That is unacceptable!
CHAKOTAY: I see something very different, Minister.  An ancient race of saurians - probably the first intelligent life on Earth - surrounded by some of the most fearsome creatures imaginable.  And yet they thrived!  And when their planet was threatened with disaster, they boldly launched themselves into space!  Crossing distances that must have seemed overwhelming, facing the unknown every single day.  But somehow, they stayed together.  They kept going...until they found their way to this quadrant, where they laid the foundation for what was to become the great Voth culture.  Deny that past...and you deny the struggle and achievement of your ancestors.  Deny your true origins on Earth...and you deny your true heritage.

OK...I'd just like to point out two awesome things about this.  One - they gave Chakotay some good lines for once and put his Native American status to good use (holy crap!!  It wasn't even racist!!).  Two - a scene that well written came from the computer of Brannon Braga.  No...friggin...WAY!  OK, I know Joe Menosky helped, and some of his scripts have been solid, but everything Braga touches usually turns into a mind-fuck, whether intentionally or otherwise, and this entire episode made perfect sense, flowed beauituflly, and offered challenging, well-crafted dialogue to stimulate the mind and provoke real discussion among the fans.  How is that even possible??

The only things I didn't like about this episode (other than the sideswipe at religion implied within that I'm just going to ignore for my own sanity) were moments involving Tom and B'Elanna flirting.  Voyager is no different than other Trek series...romances never work well within.

Writing: 9.0

Well-written, well-directed, and just generally awesome all around - what else can I say that has not already been said.

Acting: 9.0

Henry Woronicz (Gegen) and Concetta Tomei (Odala) were particularly good from the guest cast, and Robert Beltran did a credible job with his rare big moment in the son - he was, once again, a tad more low key than I'd have liked in such an intense courtroom sequence, but not offputtingly wooden.  Side note - I enjoyed Kate Mulgrew's handling of her battles with Haluk aboard Voyager.

Message: 7.0

I don't disagree, in practice, with the message that truth is more important than doctrine and blind belief...but I can't get too excited about it because I don't see the inherent conflict between faith and science that is constantly implied on Star Trek.  Nonetheless, I won't penalize them for doing this one because it wasn't a blunt 2X4 bitch-slap like it can be on Trek.

Classics: Voyager 3:21 - Real Life

Overall Rating: 8.5

I have a MAJOR disagreement with fandom on this episode, but it missed the feature cut-off due to some really REALLY bad acting by guest cast.

Plot Synopsis:

Read all about the EMH's one-time foray into real life here.  It is a good try, and once again, it's Jeri Taylor proving that she's the only member of Voyager's writing staff who has any interest in humanist storytelling.

The Skinny:

I've seen three different strains of complaint regarding this episode.  They're all wrong (sorry guys...you're all missing the boat here).  I'll explain why, one at a time.

First, there is the argument that this episode does not depict "real life" as the title implies - either during the Stepford Family opening, or in the family Torres helps to create.  Some fans have called this a contrast between a 50s sitcom and a 90s sitcom, claiming that in the first scenario, the Doc's family is too perfect, and in the second scenario, each member of his revised family is a cardboard stereotype character cleaved too perfectly from the backdrop of 90s shock comedy.  The wife goes from Stepford Wife to the mom from Married with Children, the son goes from Leave it to Beaver to older Dillon from Rosanne or Cody from Step by Step (all that's missing in either case is the cool shades).  The daughter goes from the youngest Brady kid to the Olsen twins (basically the same but with a bit more sass thrown in).

My response?

Well I think you are mostly picking up the laughably bad acting of Wendy Schaal (wife Charlene) and Glenn Harris (son Jeffrey) if you feel that Torres' altered family is too wooden.  Add Stephen Ralston (Larg) and Chad Heywood (K'Kath) to the party when they appear and you have the perfect storm of just AWFUL acting in a few places.  It doesn't quite hit Tommy Wiseau levels on the suck-o-meter (which is too bad, because when you suck that badly, you become funny), but man oh man did these guest actors whiff on appearing believable as human beings.  Actually, though, what I like about the second family is that the "random behavior elements" added by B'Elanna did not fundamentally change who each family member was - all of the things the EMH wanted in his family were still there.  Stepford Mom was too reliable to be real, but the new version is still smart, confident, physically solid and supportive...all the things the EMH said he wanted.  She just had a mind of her own.  The daughter Belle was still brilliant with math and a promising young athlete - she just took a few too many risks in the pursuit of athletic greatness (like most talented athletes tend to do).  And the son was still brilliant, confident and articulate - he just decided that he liked the Klingon concept of honor (perhaps because he knew his father didn't, as many brilliant, confident young men tend to rebel in much the same way for a time, just to carve out their own identity).  I betcha B'Elanna put the Klingon thing in there intentionally just to teach the EMH a lesson so he'd stop being so damned cocky. :)  "He thinks he has all the answers to parenting...let him handle a Klingon child...mwahaahahahahahaaaa!"

I don't think this is 50s sitcom vs. 90s sitcom, but even if you want to stick with your argument there, so what?  You know why we watch sitcoms?  Because they're enough like real life that they let us relate.  You're not going to perfectly capture real life in 45 minutes of television, guys.  A sitcom...or an hour-long sci fi experience...is not about perfectly emulating reality.  It's about allowing us to relate our real-world problems to more entertaining imaginary scenarios.  No one-time character on a TV show is going to be exactly like the real us.  I think the characters in the second version of the Doc's family are perfectly legitimate TV characters designed to let us experience the reality of our own families through an unreal (more entertaining) alternative.  In any case, the characters make solid foils for exploring the VERY REAL life lesson that not everything can be perfect (and that if it were, we wouldn't get the same joy or wisdom from our experiences as we do from the travails of our imperfect real lives).  So...yeah...argument #1 is a pointless non sequitor and is also incorrect factually IMHO.

Second, there are those in Voyager fandom who think this episode constitutes a melodrama.  The EMH creates a family out of whole cloth, they say, and within a few days, he is so emotionally attached to them that he starts taking his frustrations out on the crew.  Why would the EMH feel so strongly about this fantasy?  In real life, familial bonds are lifelong works in progress forged through years of hard work, love and sacrifice.  It's not something you can invent in two days.

My response?

The rule of cool applies.  Trek fans have been willing to forgive writers for cramming entire romances into one single episode taking place over at most two weeks or real time in the past if the story being told is one worth telling.  One of the strongest TNG episodes of the fifth season revolves around Data having an experimental relationship with a human female.  The whole thing takes place over a period of perhaps a week, we see the relationship move from cute and awkward flirting to experimental physical romance to cohabitation to heart-breaking conclusion in forty-five minutes, and the episode is well-received by fans.  Why?  Because it is yet another of TNG's great explorations into the nature of humanity.  Data learns that relationships are not only difficult to predict, but life affirming even when they fail and even when he feels a sense of loss at the end and reluctantly deletes his relationship subroutines.  And that is a great story well worth telling.  We have to forgive the writers...they can't always tell realistically timed stories about human relationships, familial or romantic, in the restrictive 45-minute format.  Give them a break...there's only so much they can do.

This is a story about the enduring strength of familial bonds and the need to embrace those bonds, even when they result in tragedy and anguish.  And it's actually pretty well told despite the bad guest actors.  So...the timing issue is a non-starter with me.  I'm willing to go with it because it's worth getting invested in...because I like seeing characters learn and grow as the EMH is doing.

Complaint #3 comes to us from SFDebris.  I respect his honesty, and I would never wish hardship on anyone if it could reasonably be avoided.  His review of this episode includes one of the most gut-wrenching personal admissions he's ever made.  In it, he explains that one of his children once nearly died and that the experience had been so crushingly painful that it had put an almost intolerable strain on his entire family.  His child recovered, but he hesitates to imagine what would have happened if they had not survived.  And further, he argues that, if he had the ability to make the entire trauma go away and never feel the pain of it, and never remember what that was like...he would, and he believes anyone would in his place.

Essentially, he is arguing that, while the unpredictable and often troublesome nature of life is important, pain is not good in and of itself - pain is what you have to accept in order to have any freedom at all.  He's willing to make that trade, but that doesn't mean he considers pain salient to his enjoyment of life or worthy of experiencing if he had another choice.  I can respect this argument...and I can see how a man who experienced the near-death of his own offspring would feel that the ending of this episode is pat and saccharine.  Belle dies and the EMH receives the love and support of his family in those final moments and we get the sweet music and fade out.  It all seems very neat and orderly, doesn't it?

I would agree that the FORMAT of the final moments is rushed and rather...erm...Hollywood.  But...this IS a Hollywood show and they do only have so long to tell a story.  I would argue that the EMH should have been dealing with the aftermath for several more episodes...we should have seen this family again and seen some realistic fallout...we should have seen him get overly emotional at the death of a patient.  A nice family hug shouldn't make everything OK after someone he loved died.

But you know what does?  Faith.  That is the missing element.  For both SFDebris and Jeri Taylor.  SFDebris is a self-avowed atheist and libertarian.  I'm not criticizing him for his beliefs, but it is a common trait among those who do not believe in an afterlife to take pain rather badly because, if you don't believe in a greater force for good, then all painful stimuli are both horrible to experience AND pointless.  Taylor obviously can't go around writing Christian-messaged science fiction - her audience is broad and with many tastes.  But the story begs for some appeal to having faith in AT LEAST your fellow men.  And the EMH should have been getting love and support from his family on Voyager too.  So no...it's not completely perfect even for me - a person more likely to be receptive to its message - but I don't agree with SFDebris here that if you could remove pain from your life...if there was another way to be free other than the way we know...it would be silly not to.

A personal story to make my point - the first time I really fell in love, I was an undergrad in college.  The person for whom I had those deep feelings was involved in a bad relationship and had many personal hurdles to leap before she was really ready to be in a relationship, but that didn't change the way I felt.  After two years of being her friend (an experience that was sometimes painful), I finally admitted to her how I felt.  She turned me down, though she was very moved at my words and felt bad for not feeling the way I did.  When the dust settled, though, all of that frustration and the unhappy ending to the story still left me with a vast set of new experiences from which to learn, improved self-confidence with women, and that certainty that I was truly living.  Strong feelings, even painful ones, remind us of how precious our lives truly are - at least if we have some fundamental belief that life is good, infinitely valuable, and worth the struggle.

It isn't a near-death experience, but the principle is the same.

I will also freely admit that I may be overrating this episode simply because I wish more Voyager episodes centered on the human element and fewer centered on some boring space amoeba of the week or annoying alien warrior race.  But I have to rate how I feel...and I believe that this episode is well worth the viewing.

Writing: 9.5

While imperfect, the writing is more than suitable to the task of conveying the message.

Acting: 6.0

Ouchies.  Picardo was his usual brilliant self, but the guest cast was laughably bad...sorry.

Message: 10.0

See above comments...the triumph of life and love over our darkest hours is worth seeing no matter how many times it is shown.

Classics: Voyager 3:20 - Before and After

Overall Rating: 4.3

This episode has a fatal flaw that ruins an otherwise interesting (albeit fluffy and high concept) idea.  IT MAKES NO FRACKIN' SENSE!!!! :)  Curse you, Kenneth Biller!

Plot Synopsis:

Memory Alpha has the details.  Let's just say that if you can figure out what actually happens in this episode and make it fit together even a tiny bit, I'll buy you a drink.  You'll need it after all of that work.

The Skinny:

Let's do this "blow by blow" again like I did with Rise, because my reactions were, I believe, hilarious, if you would have been there to observe.  I am not tech-savvy enough to do video reviews, or I'd start with this episode and become science fiction's answer to the Angry Video Game Nerd (youtube search that moniker if you are curious).  This episode, frankly, pisses me off like very few others.  It is representative of everything that is great about science fiction's big ideas and the unique freedom you have when you aren't bound to Earthly realities...but everything that's oh so wrong with Voyager's particular approach to telling imaginative stories.

The episode begins with 9-year-old Kes in a bio-temporal chamber (I really hate it how, when Voyager writers want to sound smart, they just invent a new portmanteau of two sciency words and expect us to be wowed).  The EMH zaps her wiht it to "force her cells into an earlier state of decay."  Holy crap!  That makes ZERO sense!  Cells decay because the genome begins deviating as the protective layer of cholesterol at each end of our chromosomes wears away and exposes the DNA to free radicals.  I can envision a treatment that would restore those protective caps and forestall FURTHER aging, but what degradation that has already occurred would not be undone.  If the EMH wants to extend Kes's life, he'll need to fix the damage that has already been done - she's already one foot in the grave at her current level of damage, you idiots!

And then...as this treatment begins, Kes's consciousness begins to jump backwards in time.  And here's where it REALLY starts to get wacky.  At her first jump point, she claims to remember nothing of her life.  If she has no experiential memories due to whatever this bio-temporal bullshit did to her body, then how does she know how to talk?  Why isn't she basically a baby in an old woman's body like we see with dementia sufferers in the real world?  The EMH even says that she's lost over 99% of her memory engrams.  Though it's never explained how the heck that is possible and when we figure out why she's going backwards in time, it makes even less sense that her memory would be erased and then rebuilt.

She jumps a couple more times, and we learn what her life has become.  Tom Paris is her husband because B'Elanna died during "the year of hell."  Ooooh...that sounds NEAT!  Neelix became a security officer (he'd better have matured some before that day).  Harry Kim wound up marrying Kes's daughter with Tom and having his own kid (umm...ew?).  The stuff that gets revealed here is absolutely fascinating and very creative. No doubt about that.

But...then the EMH decides to try to keep Kes in temporal sync with the rest of the ship by erecting a force-field in Sickbay.  And in this scene, Biller blows up his only escape route away from criticisms that the plot makes no sense.  Fans defend the concept by claiming that Kes's consciousness is going backwards disconnected from her body, and that, therefore, the lack of memories is a result of that disconnect and not whatever is occurring to her body physically.  But in this scene, her temporal disconnect is MANIFESTLY PHYSICAL.  They try to keep her grounded but her body begins to vanish after very physical symptoms like a drop in body temperature and the sensation of losing consciousness.  So no...this is not just her ethereal self that's making the journey...it's her physical body.  At which point, the entire episode collapses into a pool of WTF juice.

The whole story revolves around Kes having chronoton radiation in her body from exposure to a Crenim missile leaking chronotons during the year of hell.  These chronotons somehow "reactivate" when 9-year-old Kes is hit with the technobabble machine, causing her to lose her temporal tether and start jumping backwards in time.  But why would temporal displacement cost her her memories?  And why would her 9-year-old body grow down to younger and younger forms?  And why would the backwards journey include having her physical body replace the physical body of the Kes that existed in each time step?  And why would those jumps continue into an era BEFORE her radiation exposure during the year of hell if she's jumping into a body that has no chronotons in it?  No matter how yoiu try to put these puzzle pieces together, they make ZERO sense and it is only going to get worse.

But...damnit if they didn't also put in interesting character moments - Tom reacting to B'Elanna's death and Kes being there for him despite her current problem, Kes re-learning to love Tom so we can see how it would be plausible, the impact of the year of hell on Voyager's crew.  This is just the problem though!  Voyager's staff was FILLED with great ideas but they never brought these ideas to full flower, either because management was too timid and too afraid to take risks, or because the staff writers weren't up to the challenge of writing something worthy of the idea, or because the staff was overworked and not given adequate support from Paramount.  Whatever the case may be, this story...and all of the character snippets and interesting revelations about the various time periods...is both interesting and depressing.  It doesn't wind up mattering in the long run, the lesson Kes learns is frivolously tacked on at the end, the plot engine is TOTALLY ILLOGICAL and the script itself is really...really sloppy.  Kenneth Biller is just not a good writer...I have no idea how he made a career of it.

So Kes continues jumping back...through the year of hell and to a point where she can figure out the chronoton signature she needs and the EMH can devise a treatment.  While she's on the operating table, the treatment seems to be working but she jumps back before it can fully work...and then rapidly jumps all the way back to the moment of her own conception.  They show her birth, then her in the womb, then her disappearing completely.  And then it starts rolling forward again.  WTF?  And you know what?  This change in direction is NEVER EXPLAINED!!  She jumps back to the bio-bed and the EMH reports that the treatment worked.  So...now her body DIDN'T vanish?  It was there the whole time being treated while she went backwards in spirit only??  THEN WHY SHOW HER DISAPPEARING IN PREVIOUS SCENES????  Seriously...what the hell were you THINKING, Kenny?!?!

Oh...and then we get a cutesy end scene in which Kes, now back in the present, somehow has all of her normal-sync memories back along with the snippets she picked up while she was going backward in time from her 9-year-old dying self.  Um...how???  If backward-traveling Kes has no memories except the ones she picked up while actually experiencing the world on her trip back through time, then how the flying crap did she get her experiential memories up to the moment of her being cured back while still keeping all of those backward-traveling memories??  EXPLAIN, KENNETH!  EXPLAIN!!!!

I remember liking this episode the first time I watched it, just because it was refreshing to see the authors thinking about what lies in store for Voyager in the future and proposing that maybe everything won't be hunky-dory.  But...it does NOT hold up to repeated viewings.  The more you try to understand what you're watching, the more you realize you're watching absolute SHIT on a stick...dripping from the stick and into your eyes.  I wanted to have something positive to say...but all I can really do is get pissed off because once again, most of Voyager fandom just nodded along and whistled a happy tune.  They say things like "oh you just have to not think so much and enjoy the creative ideas."  Um...no.  I like using my brain and I hold my entertainment media to a higher standard.  You Trekkies are supposed to be intelligent geeks.  Why do you let them ram a shit sandwich down your throat every week and pretend it's ice cream?

/rant

Let's Go With It!

It would have taken all of two hours of pondering for even Corky Biller - the special savant of the Voyager short bus - to think of a better way to do a story like this.  You want to see Voyager's future, have Kes at mortal peril (or at least leave us thinking she's in danger) and give her a reason to learn that she must seize the moment and make every day count?  Don't go backward, then forward...go forward and then backward, dummies!  Wouldn't it have been cool if present-day Kes got a treatment from the EMH that was designed to slow her aging process and let her live longer than 9 years and the procedure had an unintended side effect of throwing her conscious mind out of temporal sync and sending her hurtling forward through time toward the moment of her death?  Rather than showing us at the very beginning that, 6 years from now, Voyager will be humming along just swimmingly and then revealing that there were bad moments along the way, maybe you should show Voyager progressively getting its ass more and more kicked by various horrible bad guys and her friends and crew-mates dying one by one.  As she goes forward, she picks up new experiences in that forward-moving timeline and we get intermittent cuts back to the present where the EMH explains what he's trying to do to save her and bring her back into temporal sync.  But we, the viewers, still get to see that there is the looming threat of "the year of hell," that Voyager barely escapes this but then gets its ass kicked by the Hirogen, and then the Borg, and then whatever else you want to invent.  That many along the way die.  And that they are eventually forced to abandon Voyager and trade for alternative transportation...whatever cool hardships you want to propose!  This is your chance to make us revel in how dangerous this journey could theoretically be and get us to appreciate how the crew will only form tighter bonds of family through any ordeal.

Then the EMH in the present can pull her back just as she's about to get lost completely (say if she jumps beyond a point where her body is alive, her consciousness will be lost in the ether of time forever!) and, having just lived a scary life in fast-forward, she can return to the present eager to warn the crew about potential future threats, seize every moment to its fullest, work on her mental abilities with that much more fervor, etc.  That story practically writes itself, Kenny!  WTF were you DOING with your piece of crap version?  You can accomplish everything you want by going forward in spirit, rather than going backward in whole body.  You know the funny thing?  If they wanted to send Kes backward so we could learn about her past...why didn't we spend more than 1 minute in her childhood past??  What the hell was the point of doing it the convoluted way if you don't even take advantage of Kes's past?

Move her FORWARD.  Let her keep her memories and add new ones.  Let us see a possible future for Voyager that we may not like.  And let us speculate with avid excitement as to how Kes's warning will affect the future timeline.  Doing it the reverse way takes all of the suspense out of the story and makes it VERY difficult to give it logically coherent form.

Writing: 0.0

I'll give whatever credit this deserves for its creative idea to the message score...I want to absolutely PILLORY Mr. Biller in the town square for treating his fans like utter morons and for the fans accepting it and begging for more.  This episode is among the stupidest things Biller ever wrote...its promise is completely wasted by such lackluster execution.

Acting: 7.5

I wanted to be happier about the acting - there were lots of nice moments, but we don't linger in any moment in time long enough for the events to sink in, have a significant impact on the viewer or on Kes, and thus, there's not much the actors can really do to get this story to work.

Message: 4.5

Normally, I'd start with six points and move up or down based on my alignment with the message of the episode and my decision as to how well that message was executed.  Here, there really isn't a message other than the tacked on BS in the final scene, so it moved down from 6 to 2 just for pissing me off.  And then moved back up to 4.5 for some of the nicer character moments they did take the time to show - particularly Kes's value to the crew.  The show did try to humanize our heroes a bit and that's the only think stopping me from giving this a much worse score.

Classics: Voyager 3:19 - Favorite Son

Overall Rating: 4.7

Some fans think of this as one of the all-time worst attempts at high-concept Trek...I think it was actually a good idea, but not explored from the right angles and with the cheeze factor (as opposed to cheesiness, this episode was so cheesy it jumped into artificial cheez-whiz territory) at intolerable levels.

Plot Synopsis:

This link will spoil all of your fun and reveal the shocking conclusion to the episode.

The Skinny:

The original idea was not indefensibly bad.  (ducks shower of paper cups and D&D miniatures)  WHOA, my fellow nerds...chill and let me explain. :)  Let me put you into the shoes of young Ensign Kim.  From his own words, he describes a set of parents who, during his childhood, held him up as something truly miraculous and beatific.  "The miracle child" who would one day restore balance to the shields, young Mr. Kim realizes, at an early age, that he's shy, intelligent, but not in a spectacular way, and not remarkably gifted in any marketable skills other than loyalty and eagerness.  He's a good guy, but not smooth with the ladies and hardly command material - not ambitious enough for that.  He takes his first posting after the academy, where, by all accounts, he was an excellent, hard working student who achieved nothing significant other than perfect attendance and the world record for longest consecutive brown-nosing.  That posting is as a run of the mill tactical officer aboard the USS Voyager, Captained by Catherine Janeway - a domineering, uncompromising authority figure who notices you only when you piss her off.  You think, "Well it's a two year tour of duty and then I'll put in for a transfer to someplace where I might have a chance at advancing through the engineering ranks."  And then Voyager is thrown 70,000 light years from San Francisco, meaning you're going to be a boot-licking Ensign until enough people ahead of you DIE.  That's right...you're only hope for a future career with any significance is to see your best friends die until you're the last man standing.  I have a thought.  Might not this Harry Kim, whose life is limited to alien dalliances that end badly every. single. time!...and a dead end job under a Captain with no interpersonal skills and a bad temper, yearn for something to come along and define his life as having special significance as his parents said so often in his formative years?

It is worth exploring, at the very least, how Kim feels about his place on Voyager and what he would give up to have a place with more distinction and power.  There's just one problem.  Although snippets of the show's dialogue pay lip service to this core character study, the bulk of the story skips past this entirely and devotes needless excess energy to the over-the-top antics on the planet, the pointless space warfare, and the lewd sexual innuendo.  It plays more like a bad Roddenbury story from the days of TNG season 1 or TOS - it's more about the cheap, giddy little thrills than about the deep psychological needs Harry might have that Turisians could attempt to "fill" in order to ensnare him.  In a bit, I'm going to explain exactly how I'd have done this story, but first, I'd like to point out the inconsistencies in the story-telling that reveal how ill-conceived it was.

• I mentioned before that the dialogue does hint at reasons why Kim might initially be suckered in by the Turisians.  He's not just in it for the hot babes...he wants to be adored the way he was as a child and be made to feel important - and let's face it...the crew of Voyager has not done a good job of making him feel needed - especially not his Captain.  Although this is touched on, and although Kim appears lured into their web, as soon as they try to get physical with him, he becomes the heroic underdog, immediately sensing foul play and desperately attempting escape before being pulled out by Voyager.  Why would the same Kim who might get lured into their trap so immediately foil that trap?  SFDebris humorously observes that every time Harry gets near sex, he panics and heads for the exit.  He is certain that Kim is sexually depraved and confused about his orientation only because Voyager writers, in trying to give Kim virtues, always seem to make him behave in ways that aren't terribly natural when it comes to sex.  This is one of the examples he chooses.  I don't think it's depraved to run away from female sexual aggressors if you're not into playing the submissive role, but the incongruity remains.  One minute, Kim is loving the high life on Turisia, the next minute, he's fleeing the advances of women who seem to be offering him even HIGHER life.
• The Turisians' story is so ill-conceived that there's no way in hell that anyone should believe it - not even if there seems to be evidence corroborating that story.  Really?  They have the technology to send people 70,000 light years away and they expected the men that came back to be of child-bearing age?  And Harry just happened to get transported to the right quadrant of space and on the right vector that he would pass by their system on the way home - you know...that place he's been desperate to get back to until now?  Sorry...but if this is a story about Harry getting snookered by a bad con game due to psychological needs that are unmet on Voyager...then why does the entire rest of the crew fall for it until they talk with the Turisians' mortal enemies?
• What kind of species would need to "nucleate a large number of cells" to achieve conception?  And why would this species survive the evolutionary process at all?  I'm calling bullshitsky on that theory.  Our science has determined that a population sees subzero growth rates when the male/female balance is off by as little as 10%.  That's why we are so alarmed by the feminization of fish in our coastal waters (the possible result of artificial estrogen being pumped into the oceans from our sewer systems after women take massive doses of birth control pills).
• Here again we see a bad use of the concept of "genetic memory."  While we do find that babies have the capacity to instinctively know how to swim  and the like, there is no evidence that genes control the formation of detailed experiential memories.  Kim could not be made aware of Turisia through a retrovirus.  Again...I call bullshit.

But this could have been a much more effective story without changing the core elements, and here's how.

Let's Go With It!

I am going to keep the themes - women using sex appeal to lure men into a Venus Fly Trap, the exploitation of psychological needs to get us to accept things that a rational person would not, and the exploration of Harry Kim's Napoleon complex.  This is how you do all of that without introducing improbable biology, inconsistent plot devices that leave people with whiplash and corny, over-the-top antics that don't belong in a high school screenplay.

• The episode begins with Harry Kim feeling a sense of deja vu, as occurred in the real thing.  Kim can't explain it, but he's having disturbing dreams about his parents, only this time they look alien and so does he.  After a series of strangely familiar star systems, he forcibly alters Voyager's course and locks out the command codes with an encryption that will take hours to break.  Janeway confines to Sickbay and he goes willingly, and while there, they discover the same pattern of alien skin markings as in his dreams.
• Voyager then arrives at Turisia and Kim, as if driven by instinct, beams himself to the surface.  As soon as he goes down there, a shield goes up around the settlement and Voyager is cut off.  None of them have any idea what is happening below, but they begin investigating the symptoms the EMH discovered, including evidence that his memory was altered and those mysterious skin lesions.
• On Turisia, Kim comes out of his trance and tries to contact Voyager...no answer.  He is met by a welcoming committee and they explain that he is finally home.  They sell that hilariously bad cover story and Kim doesn't buy it at first, but they seem harmless, so he decides that the best bet would be to talk to more of these people and try to get more information.
• On Voyager, the EMH has poured over records from recent away missions and determines that the only time Kim was unaccounted for was on one particular planet.  He now believes Kim's skin lesions were the cosmetic affects from a crafty retrovirus that eluded the ship's biofilter and seemed to only attack skin, producing a specific pattern of coloration changes.  If they're going to get answers, they need to go back there and poke around.
• Back on Turisia, Kim begins a very skeptical interrogation of some of the natives - especially the men, who seem few and far between.  The elder women invite him to a celebration in his honor and he obliges so as not to get in trouble with the locals.  They treat him like a king and he admits that if their story were true, in some ways it would be a hell of a lot better than what he had on Voyager.
• Voyager returns to the scene of the crime and discovers evidence of energy signatures identical to those found on the planet where Kim is now trapped.  They go further into a planet-hell style labyrinth and find a lab with sophisticated neural scanning equipment and genetic samples, including some from Mr. Kim.  Convinced that Kim is under attack, they speed back to Turisia - Janeway having ordered Torres to work on a way of bringing down their shield.
• On Turisia, Kim explains his familial history to a curious native woman with whom he has hit it off.  They spend the night talking and she very sweetly convinces him that he is important to their people and that he owes it to himself to explore their culture further.  He even gets to observe a marriage ceremony (most of which we do not need to see) between three Turisian women and one recently arrived man.  She explains that Turisia suffered a genetic calamity some years back that destroyed most of their male gene pool and now male chromosomes are rare.  Kim and others like him returning from afar are needed for the survival of their species.
• Meanwhile, Voyager returns, ready to come in guns blazing and is met by a very toothy Turisian ship - the jig is up and a fight ensues.
• On the surface, with no clue what's going on above, Kim starts to fall for this Turisian woman and the two get a bit physical.  She invites two other women with whom she is close to join them for a marriage ceremony - Kim balks, saying he isn't ready to go that far.  Then the party is over and he realizes that this is a trap.  He can't believe he's been played by this woman who seemed so sincere, but they come after him.  It turns out that Turisian society was crippled by a costly war those many years ago and the women blamed the men for the violence.  They killed most, kept a few for breeding purposes, but needed a wider gene pool to continue propagating the species.  So they built a few outposts to scan alien vessels for viable genetic matches.  Kim was one of the "lucky" ones.  They gave him a cosmetic condition to make him believe he might be Turisian, altered his memory with a trigger program conditioned to bring him to Turisia and sent him back to Voyager unnoticed.  And now, they'll have their way with him, conduct the ritual mating and kill him for his trouble, since men are a mortal threat to their perfect society.
• Just when it looks like he's about to get clubbed to death, Voyager breaks through the shield and beams him away.
• After they escape, Kim explains what happened to Tom and Paris calls him an idiot.  It's not the job that makes you important - it's not being worshiped as a God or handed a pack of women or given a feast in your honor that makes a man fulfilled.  It's the company you keep and the friendships you cultivate.  They head off to the mess hall to celebrate his safe return and Kim learns something from the experience.

THAT...is how you do this kind of story.  I'll let the readers decide if they agree.

Writing: 1.0

HORRIBLE, sloppy writing is what really dooms this episode to the D pile.  It's not insulting or entirely inane, but it's way over the top, filled with contradictions, bad science and bad characterization, and it doesn't do what it set out to do.

Acting: 7.5

On the other hand, Garrett Wang doesn't do a bad job with the role he's given and the leading Turisian guest stars are at least somewhat believable despite the bad plot.

Message: 5.5

They had an opportunity to send a message about the real measure of a man and about the dangers of giving in to sensual pleasures over a life of substance...but they whiffed on both counts, and I have to ding them a little for this total failure.