It’s business as usual on Star Trek this week, as the crew of Voyager find themselves in an episode of Secret Army which has been cast, written and directed by latex-headed aliens in Nazi uniforms. Will Voyager’s extensive back catalogue of holodeck programs persuade the Hirogen that there’s more to life than festooning your bulkheads with human skulls? Or will the Captain be forced (reluctantly) to kill Seven of Nine first?
This week: a clever script, a complete absence of banter, a frog alien that scores zero on the B’omar Scale, astonishingly good incidental music by Mahler and Tchaikovsky, and two outstanding performances from Mark Harelik and Kate Mulgrew — all working together perfectly to create one of Voyager’s Best Episodes Ever. Enjoy. (You will.)
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. (Ecclesiastes 9:5)
This week, like every week, we continue to experience our gradual, humiliating dissolution, to dread our own inevitable deaths, and to consider with dismay the deaths of everyone we have ever known or loved. And so, to cheer ourselves up, we decide to watch an episode of Star Trek: Voyager.
Moral dilemmas abound in this week’s season finale of Star Trek: Voyager. Is it permissible to kill a bunch of people if you miss your bus home? Is it permissible to shoot Slimer from Ghostbusters in the face if he’s intent on drinking all of your precious bodily fluids? Is it permissible to torture Rick Worthy if you’re having a really bad day? And it is obligatory to endow the characters in your Star Trek show with clear and consistent motivations?
This week a mediocre script fails to be enhanced in any way by mediocre direction and some mediocre performances. But there’s an upside: a Voyager episode with real consequences that will open up unimaginable new vistas of storytelling and character development. Or not, probably.
These stories will continue for as long as we have the breath to tell them. And as long as our patrons remain wise and compassionate. And Voyager will continue on her journey to the gleaming cities of Earth, where peace reigns and hatred has no home.
Enjoyable. And unexpectedly beautiful at times. Much like Star Trek, really.
It’s our first trip to the Delta Quadrant, and we have questions that need answering. Is B’Elanna’s father a massive racist or just a regular-sized racist? Which is more convincing: Tom and B’Elanna’s baby or an 8472 in a well-lit room? And can we maintain focus all the way through a 45-minute episode of Voyager without a single space anomaly?
A difference of opinion on Untitled Star Trek Project this week: Joe is cross and disappointed that things ended this way, and Nathan is enjoying the satisfaction that only low expectations can provide. Meanwhile, the crew of the USS Voyager enjoy a long-delayed reunion (in latex), re-examine a costly command decision, and experience an upsetting new heterosexual romance. And then, finally, after all these years, they find their way home.
