“Sacred Ground”
Written by Geo Cameron and Lisa Klink
Directed by Robert Duncan McNeill
Season 3, Episode 7
Production episode 143
Original air date: October 30, 1996
Stardate: 50063.2
Captain’s log. Voyager has been invited by the Nechani to take shore leave on their world. The Magistrate gives Torres, Kim, Neelix, and Kes a tour of the caves that serve as religious shrines. Kes and Neelix peel off to check out an altar, but it turns out that it’s forbidden to go there unless you’re a monk, and Kes accidentally crashes into an energy field that puts her in a coma.
The EMH has no idea what it is that hit her and can’t even begin the possibility of treatment. Attempts to scan the altar fail, as the monks won’t allow tricorders in the cavern and it’s too far underground for Voyager to scan it from orbit. The Magistrate says that, as far as the Nechani are concerned, Kes is dead. There’s no cure for being hit with that force field. Only the monks can survive it. The Magistrate is abject in his regret and apologies, as he feels responsible, as he let Kes and Neelix wander off.
Neelix is going binky bonkers, so Janeway gives him a task, as much to get him out of the EMH’s hair as anything: go through Nechani history and stories and see if there’s some way to deal with this. Sure enough, Neelix finds an old story of a king whose son did the same thing Kes did. The king underwent the same ritual the monks undergo to be able to enter the chamber and petition the Spirits directly. Janeway petitions the Magistrate to do the same thing as that old king.
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The Magistrate is impressed with her ingenuity and puts it to the monks, who accept it. The EMH puts a subcutaneous monitoring device in Janeway to make sure she stays safe during this ritual.
She goes down to the planet and meets a guide. Her uniform is removed and markings are painted on her face and body, and then she’s given a simple one-piece outfit to wear. The guide—who takes Janeway’s tricorder and also says that she has no idea what the ritual will actually entail—then sends her into a waiting room. Sitting there are three older folks, who are also waiting to go into the ritual. They say they’ve been waiting for as long as they can remember.
Not willing to sit around for years waiting to cure Kes (plus, y’know, she’s got a ship to get back to), she goes through a door and finds the guide, who puts her through a whole bunch of tests and rituals and tasks—though from the very beginning, she says it’s meaningless. Janeway does all of it, from holding up a rock for hours on end to rock-climbing to putting her hand in a bag that contains a poisonous animal. The guide eventually puts her in what looks like a coffin for a bit, and she comes out no longer poisoned.
Back on Voyager, Chakotay is concerned about Janeway’s safety, but the EMH assures him that she’s healthy enough, plus he’s getting data that may be useful in curing Kes.
Janeway finally is able to petition the spirits, but they say that her request is inconsequential, because Janeway has all the information she needs to cure Kes. The guide gives her back her uniform, and she beams back up to Voyager.
The EMH thinks the animal bite is the key, and he uses the biological data from Janeway’s bloodstream to re-create it and inject it into Kes. But it doesn’t cure her—it makes her worse, in fact—and the EMH is forced to conclude that Janeway’s entire ordeal was meaningless.
Having heard that word also from the mouth of the guide, Janeway returns to the planet. It turns out that she wasn’t just being vague and metaphorical when she said that the rituals were meaningless. She just underwent them because she believed that that was what she was supposed to do. When Janeway admits that she has no idea what to expect, then the guide sends her back to the waiting room with the three crotchety old farts. They tell her that she needs to not rely on science so much and to take a leap of faith, to take Kes through the force field and believe that she will be cured.
Janeway has Kes beamed down and carries her into the altar. She wakes up and both of them are unharmed by the force field.
Returning to the ship, the EMH explains how Kes must have been cured with a bunch of technobabble, which Janeway tunes out.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Janeway is told that she has to let go of her faith in science in order to cure Kes which comes about through means that are totally scientific. Sure.
There’s coffee in that nebula! So conditioned is Janeway to the clichés of television that she has to go through various mental and physical regimens in order to be worthy of petitioning the spirits that that’s what she goes through, but it’s solely due to her expectations, not because that stuff actually helps.
Half and half. Torres and Kim are seriously pissed off when the Nechani’s response to Kes falling into a coma is to give her up for dead.
Mr. Vulcan. When Janeway first beams down to start the ritual, Tuvok gives her a phaser, which she declines. I get where Tuvok’s coming from, but Janeway’s refusal was 100% the right attitude for someone asking a favor from a newly contacted alien species.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix uses his mad research skillz (I didn’t know he had them, either) to dig up the old story of the king who begged the spirits to save his son.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH is a calming presence both with Neelix stressing over Kes’s health and Chakotay stressing over Janeway’s.
Do it.
“Mr. Neelix, you’re wallowing.”
“I’m wallowing?”
“In useless remorse. I’ll have to ask you to stop. It’s bad for the patient.”
–The EMH speaking for an entire audience to Neelix while he’s hovering over Kes in sickbay.
Welcome aboard. Becky Ann Baker is delightful as Janeway’s guide, and Estelle Harris, Keene Curtis, and Parley Baer are equally delightful as the old farts in the waiting room.
But the big guest is the brilliant Harry Groener in his second of three Trek roles as the Magistrate, having already been brilliant as Tam Elbrun in TNG’s “Tin Man,” and who will be brilliant again in the Enterprise two-parter “Demons”/”Terra Prime” as Nathan Samuels.
Trivial matters: Just as TNG and DS9 was supportive of actors taking their turn in the director’s chair, so too did Voyager, starting with Robert Duncan McNeill this episode. Like Jonathan Frakes before him (and Roxann Dawson after him), McNeill will parlay this directing opportunity on the Trek show he starred on to become a very in-demand TV director, which will supersede his acting career. McNeill will go on to direct three more Voyager episodes (“Unity,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “Body and Soul”) as well as four episodes of Enterprise.
Ironically, he only had the opportunity because Frakes had to pull out of directing it because he was tapped to helm the movie First Contact.
This is the last of the four episodes that were produced during the second season for budgetary reasons but intended to be aired in the third (along with “Basics, Part II,” “Flashback,” and “False Profits“). It is, therefore, the last episode that lists Michael Piller as one of the executive producers. Though it is the last of the four aired, it was the first of the four that was produced.
Set a course for home. “You do realize that all of this is meaningless.” It’s been a while since an episode of a TV show made me actively angry, but this episode managed it. My anger at least partly stems from our current nightmare dealing with COVID-19, but in general this script’s embracing of tossing aside science is revolting.
One of the hallmarks of Star Trek is its rationalism, though rarely as a substitute for faith. Worf and Kira (to give two examples) could still be very spiritual, could still have faith in their particular beliefs, but it didn’t make them idiots who rejected science, and it didn’t put them at odds with characters who were not spiritual.
In “Sacred Ground,” though, the entire episode is built toward getting Janeway to cast aside her “belief” in science, to take a leap of faith instead.
Here’s the thing: science isn’t a belief. The stupid and dangerous notion that science is a matter of belief and faith is why there are idiots walking around right now not wearing masks even though there’s a virulent pandemic floating around in the air.
Faith is about believing in something regardless of the evidence, and that faith is generally unchanging. Science is about examining evidence and about adjusting as new evidence comes in. The two have nothing to do with each other, and also aren’t mutually exclusive. (Plenty of scientists have been deeply religious. Hell, I learned biology in high school from a nun, and the intricacies of biology and evolution just made her believe more in a supreme deity.)
Watching this episode, I was reminded of the words of Tim Minchin from his spoken-word song/poem “Storm“: “Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic.”
Supposedly, this episode is about Janeway casting off her preconceived notions and embracing the unknown, but while the first part of that works—I love that she goes through all sorts of clichéd hardships because that’s what she expects from this sort of thing—the second part really doesn’t. Janeway embraces the unknown all the time, it’s the mission statement of the organization she’s dedicated her life to. And she’s also a scientist, someone who gains immense pleasure and satisfaction from learning how things work and how to fix problems and all that.
So to have her just throw that all away because three cranky old farts told her to makes no sense. What makes even less sense is that in the end, the EMH provides an actual scientific explanation for how Kes was cured—and Janeway dismisses it as if it’s unimportant and not sufficiently poetic, and I’m sorry, but no. For Janeway, that’s the cool part!
By providing that explanation, whatever message the episode is trying to haphazardly give is diluted and made, to use a word this script loves, meaningless.
Lisa Klink has been Voyager’s best scripter up to this point, but this one just falls completely apart. It doesn’t even take advantage of Chakotay’s presence, as someone who is spiritual, beyond one brief exchange between the two of them on the subject that doesn’t really go anywhere. This was an opportunity to use Chakotay’s background to good effect for once, and they blew it.
It’s too bad, as there are individual bits that are great. Kate Mulgrew is magnificent as ever, the three old farts are hilarious (though their constant dismissal of Janeway’s rationalism comes across mostly as Luddite nonsense), Becky Ann Baker’s guide is sweet and joyful, and Harry Groener is never not wonderful.
Warp factor rating: 1
Keith R.A. DeCandido’s next Star Trek project was announced last week: he’s one of the contributors to the Star Trek Adventures Klingon Empire Core Rulebook, now available for preorder (print) and download (PDF) from Modiphius. See Keith talk about the new rulebook alongside fellow scribes Derek Tyler Attico and Kelli Fitzpatrick, as well as Jim Johnson, Chris Birch, Nathan Dowdell, and Sam Webb from Modiphius, and special guest, award-winning Trek illustrator Rick Sternbach from the “Day of Honor” event.
Isn’t the Tom Paris actor’s/director’s name spelled McNeill?
I think I always saw this as more expecting Janeway to understand that, as awesome as science is, there are aspects of life where science won’t actually help you. Even if you 100% understand how the forces in your life behave and the chemicals and electrical signals in your body produce these things called emotions, that knowledge won’t always help you navigate every circumsance.
I *hate* the “science is a belief just like any other” nonsense. I don’t *have* to believe in science, because it is true regardless of it I believe it or not, that’s the difference between science and Santa Claus; one exists because it reflects the physical facts of our universe, and one exists as a concept because people invented it and imparted it with cultural and religious meaning.
I *also* hate the implication that knowing about something takes away from it’s wonder. I know that the beauty of the sunrise is caused by the rotation of the earth, by the composition of our atmosphere, by our ability to perceive light on certain wavelengths. That doesn’t make it *less* beautiful for me, it makes it more so. Watching birds fly became more fun for me after I took an ornithology class, and was able to see up close their hollow bones- precariously balanced between being strong enough to flap their wings and light enough to lift. I was able to see their agility and movement in a whole knew way because I now knew which muscles were pulling, what feathers moving, to make their flight possible. The mechanics of things can be just as awe-inspiring as the results themselves. Knowledge adds to wonder, it doesn’t detract from it. And having Janeway, of all people, act like it does is just downright disappointing.
1: I don’t want to appear overly pedantic and I know the meaning of words shift with use, but since you used the capital, I’ll go ahead and point out that the historical Luddites weren’t opposed to technological or scientific advancement in a general sense, but were protesting the adoption of specific industrial technologies that shifted the role of textile workers from skilled craftsman to cheap unskilled labor. There’s a tendency to group resistance or skepticism to specific technologies together with the sort of fuzzy-minded anti-scientific think you’re describing, and I think that’s a hair worth splitting.
2: I have a sibling who’s worked as a tour guides at a couple of historic monuments and homes, and is always willing to rant about people’s tendencies to wander off from tours and assume that the entire building is open to them. “Why would you think you can go through doors?” Still, even if Neelix and Kes shouldn’t have assumed it was safe or okay to wander around a sacred monastery on their own, there’s something to be said for warning signs if you’re going to leave catatonia inducing forcefields running.
“Here’s the thing: science isn’t a belief. The stupid and dangerous notion that science is a matter of belief and faith is why there are idiots walking around right now not wearing masks even though there’s a virulent pandemic floating around in the air.”
Yes, yes, 100% THIS. This is exactly what I was thinking while reading your recap. I hated this episode when it first aired and have hated it ever since, and now I hate it even more, which I didn’t think was possible. And you’re right, the actors, cast and guests, are fantastic and there are some great moments, so it’s quite disappointing that the episode’s premise is terrible and downright dangerous in the current anti-science climate.
Me, personally, I loved this episode until the very end. I know that some may disagree, and understandably — science is an integral part of Star Trek. (And, given that they did throw that ending in, I agree that Janeway’s reaction shouldn’t have been one of dismissal.)
But I quote the writer of the teleplay for this episode: “The point of the episode is that you can’t explain everything. That’s really what faith is about.” Okay, if that’s true, I’m upset that they backed out with the Doctor’s analysis. (“Actually, if you have the right equipment, everything you can imagine can be explained by science.”)
Okay, maybe they wanted the ending to be thought-provoking, or maybe they were worried about offending their viewers. But for only this one episode — just this once — I would have rather they had gone all the way.
EMH: I’ve done a complete scan of both of you, and I’m pleased to say, you’re both perfectly healthy.
KES: What’s wrong, Doctor?
EMH: Nothing, Kes…It’s just…The tricorder readings Commander Chakotay took at the shrine didn’t reveal anything new. In spite of all our scans and all the data we’ve received up to this point… I have no idea what caused you to recover.
JANEWAY: Maybe there is no…’scientific’ explanation, Doctor.
EMH: Captain?
JANEWAY:… I’ve spent my whole life believing that everything can be explained with a tricorder and mathematical equations. I would search for explanations, and then pat myself on the back for finding the answers. But is it possible, doctor, that there are some things…like these Ancestral Spirits and Kes’s miraculous recovery…that we will never find answers to? I thought that faith had absolutely no place in my life. But, this one time… perhaps I was wrong.
@erikm
““The point of the episode is that you can’t explain everything. That’s really what faith is about.””
You can’t explain everything is… well, it’s not an answer that I’m ever much pleased with personally, but I can see it’s applicability to say, metaphysical questions. I find I don’t much care for it as a principle of medical treatment, though.
Yep, everything you said here. Disappointing and eye-rolly
One of the reasons why the prophets in DS9 were so interesting was that they had a scientific explanation. The celestial temple was just a wormhole and the “gods” that resided in it were wormhole aliens who existed outside of normal time. One could see both a spiritual (Bajorans) explanation and a scientific one (Starfleet), a case could be made for either view.
This episode is just like, “nah, fam, SPIRITSSSSSS” and ignores its OWN SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION RIGHT IN THE EPISODE.
Great review. I already disliked this episode, but you might have made me dislike it more.
The other thing that gets me before is that this exact same accident has happened before, hence the precedent of the ancient king. At some point, they should put up a safety barrier when not in use along with signage. Or, if they can’t do that for whatever religious reason, they should consider starting the tour with, “By the way, there’s an arch that will KILL YOU, do not touch.” The Minister is right to blame himself, because this problem was easily avoidable.
I will say the one thing I really liked about this episode was the continuation (from Elogium) of the suggestion of a parent-child type relationship between Janeway and Kes. As the legend of the king and his son, so the modern interpretation goes for the captain and the person it seems like she feels most “motherly” to. I always thought that was very sweet and I wish we had gotten more of tha
I don’t recall seeing this episode during the original run, so I came into it basically fresh. I was rather enjoying the episode until the end. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing when those 3 old farts started an anti-science rant. What utter bullshit. It was rage-inducing, to be honest. Gah. What a bad taste this episode left in my mouth.
I’m as much a secular humanist as anyone, but I actually rather like this episode. I usually hate TV episodes that pit science against faith like this, but I feel this one is an exception, more nuanced than most.
Yes, science is about being open to new ideas, but even the best scientist can get into habits of thought that close their mind to new possibilities. And if faith is part of another culture’s belief system, then part of being open is being willing to try to see things from their point of view — not to embrace their beliefs yourself, but just to try to understand how they see things. That doesn’t mean replacing science with faith. It’s a fundamental misunderstanding of religion (one that far too many allegedly religious people make) to see it as a replacement or alternative for science. That’s like saying dancing is a replacement for architecture. It’s a non sequitur, because they’re not about the same thing at all.
After all, social sciences are sciences too, and a culture’s spiritual beliefs are important to its way of thinking and doing things. Okay, so maybe there is an objective scientific explanation for how things work in the temple, but it’s just egotism to go to the Nechani and tell them “You’re wrong, this is how it actually works.” There’s nothing to be gained by that beyond pride, because that’s not the level of meaning that matters to them. Sometimes you just have to set aside your pride, your need to show that you’re right, and allow others the dignity of their beliefs, try to understand their meaning from their perspective rather than judging them. I’ve learned that in life, both as a student of history and sociology opening my mind to other cultures’ worldviews, and as a friend coming to respect the emotional and psychological importance that my friends’ religious beliefs had to them even though I don’t consider them objectively true.
To me, that’s what this episode was really about — not Janeway giving up science, but Janeway giving up pride. And that’s why I’m okay with it, at least to an extent. A little humility is good for rational, scientific thought, because it’s when we start assuming we have all the answers that we stop asking questions.
I see Sacred Ground as Michael Piller’s very last attempt at shaking things up with the franchise. He was already on his way out. Thus, it makes sense if you analyze the episode as his final thesis on Kathryn Janeway. From the outset, Janeway was the scientist, the rational and analytical one. It makes sense for the head writer who co-created the character to try and deconstruct that premise as he moves away from the franchise.
Not that the end result is remotely satisfying or worthy of the premise. I think this suffers from the same problem as False Profits in that they seemingly shot a first draft rather than a well-developed script. That final act screams rushed effort. It’s ironic that this aired a week after Klink’s much superior Remember. This has all the footprints of a late season 2 episode, produced in a hurry to fill the 26 episode order.
It’s too bad because this could have a great one. As it is, we get a very broad and generalized take on the concept of faith at the expense of the scientific method, which really comes down to passing through a mystical portal. It should be more dramatic than it really is. It’s not unlike Voyager’s Tattoo. High goals, but very shallow end results.
If they had taken the time to revise this script more thoroughly, they would have caught on to the folly of associating science and faith in such broad parameters. Which is why I think it was rushed to begin with. And this was supposed to be a Frakes-directed episode, which means this had to have been filmed early in 1996, when First Contact was still in pre-production (there’s definitely an alternate timeline where Frakes directed this and James L. Conway took the helm for the big screen production).
Still, it’s not a complete loss for me. Sacred Ground benefits from great performances from both Mulgrew and the guest cast. Right from the start, it’s easy to tell that McNeill is better suited as a director than as an actor. This was a decent first effort for him, despite the story problems.
Christopher: What does any of that have to do with the fact that Kes was dying and Janeway was trying to save her? Or any of the nonsense that the three old farts were spouting about her “belief” in science and how science had “failed”?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@13/krad: I don’t think that’s what they were really saying. If anything, they pointed out that she was approaching science as an article of faith, and closing her mind to new possibilities, which is doing science wrong. They were getting her to question herself, which is the first step to doing good science.
The real problem, after all, with the fanatics and anti-intellectual types today is not just that they’re against science. That’s the symptom; the root cause is that they’re against questioning themselves. The only thing they really have faith in is their own infallibility. So if you show them any idea outside their existing worldview, they reject it out of hand. Science should be about giving any new idea a fair hearing, assuming nothing in advance and testing things to see if they work or not.
What the three old character actors were really talking about was not a black-and-white conflict between faith and science; what they were talking about was ambiguity, the possibility that the same thing can be looked at both ways and that both ways can have complementary meaning. If Janeway can have faith in her science, then she can apply science to faith, test whether it works rather than rejecting it out of personal belief. Of course, it turned out that it did have a scientific explanation, but that couldn’t be learned until she opened her mind enough to try a new option despite her preconceptions.
@14 – It’s like we watched different scenes. Those old people were laying on the anti-science rhetoric pretty damn thick. They were outright lambasting Janeway for her reliance on science instead of faith. Looking back at the episode, I also see an undercurrent of contempt regarding science. Janeway’s spiritual guide pretty much scoffed at her attempt to measure her experience with the sensor. There was that condescending quality of “Aren’t you precious?” in regards to the sensor.
I’m with Austin — both The Guide and the Three Codgers (totally the name of my next band) were out-and-out contemptuous of science. I’m frankly boggled, Christopher, given what I know of you, that you see this in any kind of favorable light.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@15/Austin: Yes, I see how you can take it that way. I just think there’s another, more nuanced way of looking at it once you move past the first impression. Like I said, the important thing is to question our own certainties and be willing to consider that there could be another perspective on things.
As I said, I usually agree with opinions like yours and Keith’s. I hate most stories that paint science as “just another belief” or claim it’s a blind spot that keeps people from seeing a spiritual truth. So my natural predisposition is to be hostile to the ideas expressed here. But when I look more closely, I see something different there, something I can reconcile with. I just don’t think it’s as simplistic as most stories along similar lines.
After all, it didn’t show that science was wrong. On the contrary, it affirmed that there was a scientific explanation. So the story wasn’t really about that. It was about Janeway’s personality, about someone who’d become a bit too set in her certainties remembering that self-doubt is valuable. Which is something we could all stand to remember in these contentious times.
As ever, I think my thoughts on this episode are best summed up Chuck Sonnenburg’s SF Debris review:
“So [Janeway] is given some challenges; like holding a rock and staring at it. A task not too dissimilar from watching Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Yeah, I went there!
“Janeway dismisses it as if it’s unimportant and not sufficiently poetic”
What part of that scene made you think she was being dismissive?
“In “Sacred Ground,” though, the entire episode is built toward getting Janeway to cast aside her “belief” in science, to take a leap of faith instead.”
Janeway just spent the whole episode gaining a belief in the supernatural and fully expected to hear that Kes was healed because of Janeway’s leap of faith. She didn’t seem dismissive AT ALL. When the Doctor pulls the rug out from under her beliefs with a matter-of-fact technobabble explanation for the “miraculous” healing, she KNOWS he is correct and feels like a gut punch because she realizes her belief was misplaced.
The takeaway here is that belief in the Supernatural is all fine and good…UNTIL you have the facts, then that belief is completely unnecessary.
The part where she, a trained scientist, stopped listening to them and turned away did it for me.
@20 – “The part where she, a trained scientist, stopped listening to them and turned away did it for me.”
Ok, but did you see the part where she acknowledged that the explanation was scientific?
Like I said, it’s a mistake to see faith and science as competing for the same niche. They address different things altogether. I don’t believe religious metaphors are objectively true, but I recognize that they can have psychological, emotional significance for individuals and cultures — can be “real” in terms of the way they shape people’s worldviews, values, and behavior. Worrying about whether they’re objectively true is missing the point, because that’s not the layer where their meaning lies. They’re metaphors for things that can be true and meaningful in a society’s worldview and actions and interactions, and understanding how they shape a society can help you understand and navigate that society better.
Here, there was a solution that worked, and the Nechani were aware of it. The fact that they chose to filter it through spiritual metaphors didn’t mean it wasn’t valid. It was just a different, more figurative way of expressing something that could also be explained scientifically and technically. Janeway just had to learn to trust that they understood their own world and how it worked, even if she didn’t interpret it the same way they did. That’s part of the Prime Directive — trusting other cultures to understand their own worlds better than you do, and to have valid reasons for doing things differently than you do.
Well thanks to all the disagreements here, I decided to watch this episode. This was on my do not watch list for many years. I was pleasantly surprised with this episode from start to finish. Starts off nicely when the Magistrate tells Janeway about the separation of Religion and State. Oh, if we only had that in America. Not sure if anyone ever practiced Zen Buddhism but those 3 characters were testing Janeway with Koans. Pure and simple. They were very popular in San Francisco back in the 60’s to the path towards “enlightenment.” The tests the woman gave Janeway was to have her focus. I do that sometimes when I meditate with 2 bricks in hand. And the hallucinations were so Timothy Leary. Searching your inner being. It had zero to do with denouncing Science. It was just that we can’t always solve problems with Science. If that was the case, we would be servants to the robots by now.
I was never a fan of Star Wars but wasn’t episode one all about the “force?” Gee, I don’t remember people complaining about that. Janeway, may the force be with you. At the end, the Doctor tied it up nicely by talking about the Science of what happened. So that should have made the hard core Science people happy. And it was quite obvious Janeway was strongly affected by that experience and had nothing to do with “God.” Loved that last shot of her. I think some people get freaked out when they hear the word Spiritualism.
Kudos to Estelle Harris from Seinfeld. I was waiting for her to start hollering at Janeway.
My only regret was I usually have pizza and wine when I watch a Star Trek episode. Since I had that last night, I had to go cold turkey.
I suppose a relevant question is- would Janeway passing through the archway with Kes have worked if she hadn’t been making a leap of faith? If, essentially, the local had immediately just said “Oh, walk through the arch with her again and that’ll clear things right up.”
If so, then it kind of seems like the religious viewpoint has at the very least caused everyone a lot of worry and trouble, and at the worst seriously endangered Kes’s life by delaying that point and jerking Janeway around.
If not (and within the world of Star Trek science, it’s entirely possible that there’s a reason it wouldn’t- the archway could have telepathic circuitry, or the Spirits could be the kind of ascended energy being you don’t seem to be able to swing Schrödinger’s Cat without clobbering) then everything Janeway goes through is perfectly understandable as social technologies designed to achieve a specific outcome.
Of course that raises the question of why the archway has that properties in the first place.
@24 – The EMH explained at the end that Janeway and Kes survived as a result of what transpired (the venom & the treatment the EMH tried to give Kes). So no, the “leap of faith” wouldn’t have worked if Janeway tried it immediately.
Only in the leap from the lion’s head will you prove your worth. ;-)
I was never a fan of Star Wars but wasn’t episode one all about the “force?” Gee, I don’t remember people complaining about that.
@23: Phantom Menace was a very good example of mixing both the scientific and religious aspects of the Force, including the different viewpoints between the Jedi Masters who don’t always agree.
But even the slightest mention of the Midi-Chlorians was enough to drive a number of old-school fans into full blown critical mode, even though they don’t invalidate the spiritual aspects of the Force at all.
@23- You don’t remember people complaining about The Phantom Menace?
Ironically, the main complaint there (or at least as it touches on the issues at play here) was the introduction of a vaguely scientific explanation for the force, in the midichlorians. But then, the original Star Wars films weren’t ever really concerned with science- they were more or less fantasy/adventure stories that happened to be set in space.
@23
The issue there is Star Wars isn’t science fiction. The scientific aspects of the Force were never really in question. Once you have zen space wizards talking about how it binds the universe together, yadda yadda, you don’t need further explanation.
@28
Right, Star Wars is a big old slice of fantasy cake with science fiction frosting on top.
When Liam Neeson pulled out the tricorder, it was as silly as when DS9 went all fantasy towards the end with prophecies and Dukat being space Satan or whatever. Bleh, pick a lane, guys.
I…must have blocked this one from my mind, because I only vaguely remembered it. I watched this and thought, “Okay, what just happened?” I remembered Janeway carrying Kes across a threshold, and that was it. I didn’t remember all the anti-science b.s. the old geezers were spouting.
CLB, I keep a constant open mind to differing ideas and experiences, yet keep myself firmly grounded in, as Spock put it, “the concrete, the graspable, the provable.” My wife is a woman of faith; she constantly points out to me how things that occur can be seen as an act from a higher power. I respect that, but I know rationally that there are logical explanations for things happening or not happening. No part of me ever goes, “Oh yeah, it totally could have been that.” This episode wants you to think that sometimes it totally could have been that, and it’s never that! This episode angered me as well, because it seemed to say (I’m not really sure what the episode was trying to say, honestly) that sometimes you have to throw out logical, fact-based things and leap before you look. And…no.
So the episode wanted Janeway to question…what?
You know, the more I pick apart the episode, the more I hate it.
I’m fond of this one but it pretty much defies analysis and I usually find myself gaping in bewilderment at any attempt to try. One reference book claimed the “real” ritual was just having paint applied. Memory Alpha actually refers to the old people as the Spirits in at least one place to which I can only quote their comment on the subject: “That would be nice and quantifiable for you, wouldn’t it? If the spirits were something you could see and touch and scan with your little devices.” There’s a suggestion that the ritual is defined by the person undergoing it. The meeting with the elderly people seems significant, but so does Janeway’s apparent hallucination. In the end, the episode can be summed up by Janeway glazing over at the Doctor’s technobabble explanation: Trying to explain it takes the magic out of it. Sometimes you don’t need to know exactly how something works, sometimes you just need to know that it does. Ultimately, Kes isn’t saved by the technobabble but by Janeway having the faith to do what she’s asked against all scientific reason and trust that it will be all right.
Even though Janeway seems to be several steps behind at times (she’s read up on this type of ritual but doesn’t realise the apparently innocuous person is her guide?), I do admire her determination to help Kes. Mind you, it’s ironic that this one treats her as so indispensable when she’ll be gone and virtually forgotten in a season’s time. And with that in mind, and relatively few chances for a Kes-focus episode left, it’s a shame that one which is ostensibly about her involves her being in a coma for most of the run-time.
So…I’m not as angry at the comments on here as the people making the comments were on the episode, but I suspect I will make people as angry as the episode was. “Faith is believing something regardless of the evidence” seems just as big a misunderstanding of the human condition as “science is a belief”. Faith isn’t about ignoring evidence, it’s about believing without evidence. Perhaps that’s why faith in science is still faith, and perhaps that’s why people go around treating face-masks like magic talismans to protect them from a virus without having a clue what they actually do and without being able to find any two scientists who agree on what the reason for wearing them is and how effective it is. People trust that science will find an answer, even if it hasn’t done so yet. But that’s not perhaps a reason to reject an answer just because there’s no science to back it up, or to accept an answer just because a cursory scientific analysis seems to prove it to be correct.
Now if you excuse me, I’ll be hiding under the table.
Robert Duncan McNeill’s direction probably explains why Paris only appears briefly without dialogue. (Then again, he was barely in “Flashback” as well.) Neelix’s annoying behaviour about Kes’ injury is possibly the last sign of his possessive streak. (He won’t get many more opportunities to play the controlling boyfriend!) Harry Groener, the unnamed magistrate here, previously in TNG and later in the penultimate Enterprise story, is one of those actors who seemed to be in every telefantasy show of this period, perhaps most notably being the Big Bad of Buffy’s third season.
@30/Dante Hopkins: As I’ve been trying to explain, I don’t see this as a story about Janeway changing her mind about the factual nature of the universe. I see it more as a story about her learning more empathy for the points of view of people who interpret the universe differently. You can disagree with someone about the facts and still open your mind enough to relate to how they see things.
I guess I relate the episode to my own experiences. I used to have a lot of condescension and scorn toward religious beliefs, and I still do when it comes to blind fundamentalism or the hypocritical pretense of religion to justify intolerance or injustice. But in college, I became dear friends with a couple of people of devout Christian faith, and I came to understand that they weren’t just blind followers, but were intelligent women with carefully considered, personal reasons for finding their faith meaningful to their lives. They accepted my lack of belief without judgment, so that made me more open to accepting their points of view. I came to understand that to them, religion wasn’t about the physical nature of the universe, but about their personal relationship with it — about their view of themselves and their connection and responsibilities to the world and people around them. We could have in-depth discussions about our differences in worldview, and there were aspects of each other’s experience that we couldn’t understand, but we listened and accepted and didn’t try to change each other, and we could find enough common ground despite the parts we couldn’t agree on.
So I guess I see Janeway going through something similar to my own journey — initially feeling kneejerk condescension toward the Nechani, paying lip service to respect for their beliefs but not really taking them seriously, and learning to set aside her pride in her rightness and accept a different point of view without judgment. It doesn’t matter if it’s objectively right or not. What matters is the change in what she feels about it.
There’s a Peter Watts story about a theocracy based on machines that induce religious experiences. Before any child has the machine used on them, their teachers dismantle it and explain how it works. It can be hard for children to understand, but the teachers go to great effort to convince them that it’s all electromagnetism and neurology, absolutely nothing supernatural. Then they turn the machine on, and the children still see God.
@6 CuttlefishBenjamin Yes, I see what you mean. I don’t disagree with that. However, with stories galore (in general, not Star Trek necessarily) about miracles and miracle cures, I would have liked a Star Trek story that challenged Janeway from start to finish…on this one and only planet, there are ancestral spirits who cured Kes because Janeway had to take a leap of faith and trust the spirits. On this one and only planet, it was a miracle, and not something people could find answers to, like iridium ions or altered biochemistry.
@34/erikm: I still say it’s missing the point to think it’s about what’s objectively, physically real. That’s not it at all. It’s about Janeway learning to set aside her pride and make peace with not knowing everything.
I’ve never taken the ending as Janeway rejecting the Doctor’s scientific explanation or wishing the religious interpretation had been the correct one. To me, it’s just that she’d finally started to appreciate having a sense of mystery, the humbling sensation of not having all the answers and not necessarily needing to, and was a little disappointed to have such a pat, clear answer just handed to her.
I mean, if there actually were provably real “spirits” on the planet, they’d be no different from the Prophets or the Edo god or any other incorporeal superbeings that were interpreted religiously. They’d have a clear, concrete existence and could be classified scientifically as just another race of highly evolved entities. So there would be a straightforward, definite answer, and that just wouldn’t fit the theme of the story. It’s not a story about religion proving science wrong, it’s a story about Janeway learning to let go of her need for control. (It’s similar to the theme they attempted to explore in “Twisted,” where the solution was just to stop trying to solve the problem and accept that some answers are beyond us, but less hamfistedly executed.)
@35. ChristopherLBennett Yes, good point. I’d agree with that. But the reason I’m still disappointed goes back to what the writer of the teleplay said.
I have belatedly corrected the misspelling of Robert Duncan McNeill’s last name. Herp derp.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, who would seem so much stupider without the edit function
@33: “A Word for Heathens” is the Watts story.
P.S. And it’s on his webpage https://rifters.com/real/shorts/PeterWatts_Heathens.pdf
@18, love the SF debris quote but it would have to be a pretty rock, because STM is very pretty. Static but pretty.
I haven’t re-watched but I remember being dissatisfied with the science-ignoring ending, so, yeah.
However, a lot of the section can be interpreted as Ancestor Spirits, or what looks like them, being real and cranky and running the story as entertainment for themselves while making fun of Captain Janeway. Separately, or as part of that, I seem to remember that the time consuming rituals, explicitly and repeatedly stated to be meaningless, are not Nechani Ancestor Spirit etiquette but drawn from her own expectations of a spiritual vision and journey, maybe informed by what Chakotay’s shared of his own experiences of that kind, and visits to the underworld to negotiate for a prisoner. And the waiting room and the door… probably from high school and the principal’s office. Oh, there’s probably some of the Wizard of Oz, too. And also, throughout, an Ancestor Spirit Prime Directive to not let aliens see that the “magic” is just super-science. Also, the Ancestor Spirits don’t like these kids running all over their house, so they want to send a message about that. But much of this is my headcanon and not shown.
It’s reasonable, of course, for the Doctor to have minimal interest in the mysticism; it’s something he isn’t programmed for at all. Telepathy is scientific, of course, but unreliable, dangerous. But objectively real. (In Star Trek.)
I didn’t think Janeway was dismissive of the scientific explanation at the end, either. She seemed rueful, and humbled that she had not seen that there was another way to understand the aliens’ culture. The monks knew there was a cure, but they couldn’t explain it scientifically because that’s not how they understand things, but they know it works. Therefore, how could they be sure that Janeway and her crew would figure it out with technology, if they don’t understand it that way themselves? So the best way is to get Janeway to do what they know works, and not waste time (or possibly getting it wrong) with questioning it.
If this were truly an episode about faith superseding science, the technobabble explanation wouldn’t have been there at all.
@42 I’d say that from erikm’s quote of the writer in @5 it was about faith superseding science, they just completely screwed up the ending. Or, more charitably, tried to pivot towards something like ChristopherLBennett is saying and, given all the criticism, didn’t quite stick the landing.
@43: I don’t think there was a pivot, it’s just that there are different ways of defining “faith.” Sometimes it just means faith that other people know things you don’t, that your own understanding is finite and there can be value in putting your fate in the hands of people or forces beyond yourself even if you don’t understand why. That’s not incompatible with science, because science requires admitting that we don’t already know everything and that our own assumptions and expectations just get in the way of understanding the pure data.
The problem is that too many people in our society today have embraced a definition of religious faith that really just boils down to faith in their own infallible correctness. They assume that everything they think is right and everyone who thinks differently is evil, and so they’ll never question themselves or admit any mistakes, and thus can never learn or grow or improve. They claim their faith is in God, but it’s purely in their own egos. This episode was about the exact opposite of that — the faith that there are things beyond your own understanding and certainties, the ability to let go of pride and ego and accept that sometimes it’s okay not to have an answer for everything, not to be in control of everything. That kind of humility is the only way to open yourself to real learning about anything, whether science, religion, sociology, other people’s worldviews, or anything else.
I’ve been reading the comments and have to agree with CLB, especially that last post There seems to be this militant unyielding unbending my way or the highway insistence that faith in anything unproven, or impossible to prove, is not to be tolerated, and so Janeway was just a rube here.
Completely agree that any system of belief, whether religious or otherwise, that does not allow for questioning one’s own faith is inherently flawed. It’s called a leap of faith for a reason, because it’s not supposed to be easy. But that process involves self-examination, reason, and something else. Something not quite tangible. I think that’s what Einstein was talking about when he said:
“The most beautiful emotion we can experience is the mystical. It is the power of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I belong to the rank of devoutly religious men.”
Einstein had a complicated relationship with faith, but it’s pretty well documented he did not believe in a personal God. But he did revel in the mystery of the unknown and unknowable. As CLB suggested, this episode seem to be about the need to apply a dose of humility to the mathematical certainty that so many seem to have, that there can be no value in faith in something unknowable, or doubt in something that seems certain.
@44 If I understand correctly the writer’s quote in @5 for me it’s a mismatch between what they intended to tell — which was about faith being all about the unknowable…and on execution looking a lot like blind faith superseding science — and what they ended up telling which indeed went more towards faith that other people know things than you don’t. Which is indeed a pivot but one I certainly don’t blame them for taking and — for me Star Trek as a franchise is much more comfortable with the unknown than the unknowable — which was always going to make sticking the landing more difficult.
@45 For me it would have been interesting if they did an episode about the unknowable — even if Star Trek as a franchise isn’t much at home with that concept on mundane scales — but if they intended that, they screwed it up badly in the ending.
I had to fast forward in parts to get to the end of this episode for I felt it was a slog. And yeah, that ending was totally unbelievable. Janeway wouldn’t just toss aside a plausible scientific explanation for Kes’ cure. It would have made for a more dramatic ending if the Doctor couldn’t come up with how Kes recovered. Ugh. I feel like season 3 of Voyager doesn’t really pick-up in quality until the second half so I’ll have to trudge along on this rewatch until then!
This is the episode where RDM’s long directing career started so at least one notable and lasting thing came out of it!
@46/Loic A: “and on execution looking a lot like blind faith superseding science”
I don’t think it looked like that, because there was a scientific explanation at the end. As I said, I saw it more as a personal story about Janeway herself learning more respect for a different cultural viewpoint, one that she only paid lip service to at first and had to broaden her mind to really understand. It wasn’t about whether it was objectively right, it was about her willingness to give it a fair hearing.
One way of looking at it is that it’s a story about a control freak learning that it can be okay not to be in control, not to have all the answers. That’s what faith really means — letting go of control, entrusting it to someone or something outside yourself. There was an answer, and it was an answer that could be interpreted scientifically by the Doctor and spiritually by the Nechani at the same time. But Janeway wasn’t willing to listen to the Nechani’s answer because they interpreted in a way she didn’t personally like or relate to, and that was what she had to let go of.
It’s like the Buddhist principle of letting go of attachments and illusions to gain enlightenment. You have to overcome personal ego and assumptions, empty your mind of what you want or expect and just let the universe itself tell you its truths. Which is not so different from the scientific method and its protocols for cancelling out experimenter bias by requiring every result to be replicated independently. In both cases, the goal is to let go of the personal need to be right and have one’s preconceptions nurtured.
Is it just me that thought it was waldorf and statler that janeway was stuck with in the waiting room?
Faith is never an answer, it’s an excuse.
The review of this episode brings a strong context and many emotions to the table. But I think that these and some other aspects should be emphasized and praised more. The mere fact that the story here incites a debate on the subject is worth considering. Furthermore, I liked the acting performances and the directing throughout. (Janeway’s look at the end speaks volumes, Mulgrew was rarely as intense as here). This is not one of your usual throwaway episodes. It just takes a very strong standpoint.
To avoid misunderstandings, I agree that science is not a matter of faith. But does the episode really contradict that so strongly? Aren’t the “three wise people” merely claiming that Janeway still holds to her perspective on problem solving, even when it hasn’t brought her any solution at all? This is a kind of conviction that is quite comparable to that of religious followers – it is not science that is compared to religion, but the way we use it. That is a big difference!
In that regard, the Storm quote from the review makes perfect sense: Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be not magic. – Yes, sure! But what happens if the mystery is not yet solved? The solution in this episode is that the scientific solution was not known, but there is never a doubt that it exists: the techno-bubble of the doctor at the end explains it. It was just a matter of admitting that some explanations are NOT YET known. And still one has to act, to make a decision. Even without the explanation.
About Chakotay’s role: The review criticized that he was pushed aside. But that’s exactly why he was in the episode. I thought he was strong in his role as Commander. And this one moment at the portal, he made a conscious decision to trust Janeway. He might as well have called the whole thing off. He had the influence and determination. But he and Janeway had to switch roles. This was a great story that left me very moved.
Maybe I’m completely on the wrong track here, but this time I can’t agree with the review. The other episodes of the screenwriter prove me right.
I had erased this episode from my mind. Thank you for bringing it back, krad. NOT!
@18 – Mr. Magic: BWA-HA-HA!
@49 – Steven Mcgregor: Waldorf and Statler and their third friend.
“Neelix is going binky-bonkers, so Janeway gives him a task, as much to get him out of the EMH’s hair as anything” (such as it is). Are the three old people waiting to go through with the ritual or are they just waiting? Janeway is bitten by some sort of snake, not an animal. Neelix has researched other cultures before, like those of the Voyager crew. Robert Duncan McNeill also got to direct episodes of The Orville, along with Jonathan Frakes. Could Covid-19 mutate into an airborne virus eventually? With the departure of Michael Piller, so too would some of Chakotay’s loopier beliefs depart.
2: No Santa, but there was a St Nicholas. 3: In both Remember and Sacred Ground, the Regressives and the Nechani are Luddites. 4: Are we living in an anti-science climate? I hadn’t noticed. 9: And in both Elogium and Sacred Ground, Neelix annoys the Doctor while he’s trying to treat Kes. 12: And in both False Profits and Sacred Ground, we have Arridor and Kol playing gods and Janeway trying to seek an audience with the Nechani’s gods. 13: I do like that line though, “Even when her science fails right before her eyes she still has full confidence in it. Now there’s a leap of faith.”
14: In Concerning Flight, DaVinci has to learn to see things beyond his horizons because he’s as much a scientist as an artist. 31: Ned Flanders: “Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends!” 41: Ancestral Spirits. 45: It’s my way or the Janeway. 47: To me, a lot of VGR’s third season is a pallid rehash of DS9’s much superior fifth season – in this case Rapture (Becky Ann Baker even resembles Louise Fletcher). 49: The perfect Waldorf and Statler were Bill Erwin and John Houseman.
So I gave up on Voyager early in Season 2 in its initial run, and decided recently to give it another chance. The rest of S2 pretty much confirmed that I’d never have stuck with it, and was hoping the show got better later on. So far S3 has not been giving me much faith. We’ll see how far I make it. Obviously I plan to get through it all, but I also planned on watching all of the original Lost in Space, and that didn’t exactly work out.
Thanks for the important comments on a story which perpetuates the dangerous myth that science is a “Belief” – a myth currently being used as a pretext to deny Climate Catastrophe, Covid and so many more facts.
But – quick correction – The Ludditrs of the early C19th weren’t ignorant people who were ‘afraid of progress’, they were the machine loom operators who protested against the use of those looms to impoverish the workers to destitution levels. In the end, the Luddites used their technical skills to sabotage the machines as a bargaining tool.
The ‘Ignorant people afraid if machinery’ story was put about by the Masters,,, And still used to demonise any workers who point out that using technology to take away jobs and pay people less is NOT benefitting anyone but that tiny minority rich enough to own the machinery.
That’s VERY different to ignorant people denying science.
Cheers!
@57/Smuzz: The episode wasn’t dismissing science. On the contrary, it was saying that a scientist should keep an open mind and not pre-emptively write off new possibilities. The essence of scientific thought is the ability to question one’s certainties, to put them to the test rather than assuming one is right, and the idea was that Janeway had gotten too rigid in her thinking and had forgotten that. And it did turn out that there was a scientific explanation after all, a solution Janeway almost hadn’t accepted because she was too quick to dismiss it as superstition due to its outward religious trappings.
Thanks for the background on Luddites, though. The more things change…
Smuzz: while everything you say is true, the term “Luddite” has come to mean “person who hates technological advances,” in much the same way “Samaritan” has come to mean “person who is friendly and helpful,” when the whole point of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is that Samaritans were viewed as unfriendly and unhelpful.
Language is a fickle beast.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I do remember this episode, which is more than I can say for most Voyager stories, so that’s something in its favor. Personally I would have had a hard time not losing my temper with the “guide” during the ritual. I don’t think I am fit for such things.
I got to know Geo Cameron in 2020. The story of Sacred Ground is based on her idea.She went on to become a Shamanic priest and she has had a profound effect on me spiritually.
Sadly she developed fronto-temporal lobe dementia and is now in long term hospital care.
The world should have known more of Geo’s writing
just rewatched this episode, and leaving aside the very dead horse of science vs faith, my biggest disappointment was how the most the most spiritual member of the crew, Chakotay, was the biggest detractor of Janeway’s ‘quest’..
This episode wasn’t an expression of faith vs science.
It was about the nature of faith believing without/before understanding. Great episode.