“Revulsion”
Written by Lisa Klink
Directed by Kenneth Biller
Season 4, Episode 5
Production episode 173
Original air date: October 1, 1997
Stardate: 51186.2
Captain’s log. On an alien ship, Dejaren drags a body with a head wound through a corridor. Then his body fizzles and fades for a second. He sends out a distress signal, saying he’s the only survivor of the ship, and he’s an isomorphic projection—a hologram.
On Voyager, Tuvok’s promotion ceremony is followed by the bridge calling, and recommending the EMH join Janeway on the bridge. They hear Dejaren’s distress call, and the EMH is champing at the bit to respond and help his fellow hologram. He practically bullies an amused Janeway into taking a shuttlecraft with Torres to answer the distress call while Voyager continues on their trading mission.
Chakotay assigns Kim to work with Seven on upgrading the astrometrics lab, using Borg knowledge and tech to enhance the lab. Kim nervously accepts the assignment.
Torres and the EMH rendezvous with Dejaren’s ship. Dejaren is thrilled to meet another hologram, and disappointed that Torres is an organic. The EMH is also excited. Torres works to repair the holoemitters on the ship.
According to Dejaren, the crew suffered from a virus. But Dejaren—whose job appears to primarily be maintenance—has no medical programming, so he just had to stand around and watch them die. When Torres asks for access to his primary holomatrix, Dejaren says it’s belowdecks in a section that is filled with deadly radiation. He directs her to a remote access point instead.
Buy the Book
Fugitive Telemetry
Seven and Kim work on the astrometrics lab. She finishes one aspect of the work faster than Kim expects, and Seven is offended when Kim checks her work. Then she’s shocked when he discovers a minor error, which she corrects. But the notion of being imperfect is new to her. Kim also has to stop her from grabbing an active power line with her left hand. Seven insists her exoskeleton would protect her, but Kim insists she follow procedure and turn the power off first.
Dejaren is fascinated by the EMH’s stories of his gaining the ability to move outside sickbay with his mobile emitter, as well as his adventures and pursuing of outside interests. Dejaren shows the EMH the holographic fish he created. He also brings Torres some food, and when she starts eating it, he goes off on a tirade about how awful organics are. Dejaren also almost touches an active power line that would destabilize his matrix.
Torres expresses concern to the EMH, both regarding Dejaren’s outburst, and also that, according to Torres’s scans, he lied about the lower decks being irradiated. She intends to check those decks out while the EMH keeps an eye on his fellow hologram.
Kim and Seven need to liberate a navigation node from a Borg array, but it’s jammed. The act of yanking it out causes a small cut on Seven’s hand. She is devastated to see that it isn’t healing instantly. Instead, she has to go to sickbay, where Paris is filling in. Paris’ smartass bedside manner goes completely over Seven’s head, but Kim takes offense on her behalf, causing Paris to comment that Kim has a crush on her. Kim’s denials are unconvincing.
Torres arrives on the lower decks to find several murdered bodies being stored down there. She starts to shut down Dejaren’s holomatrix, since she’s now certain he’s a murderer.
Dejaren tries to convince the EMH to run away with him to be awesome holograms together. Then he realizes what Torres is doing, and he transfers himself to her location and attacks her, making his hand intangible and putting it inside Torres’s chest, and then partially materializing it. Torres manages to hit the switch to turn him off before she’s killed.
Unfortunately, Torres didn’t shut down all the holoemitters, as the EMH realizes when he sees that the fish is still there. Dejaren and the EMH then have a fight that seems to be a stalemate, since they can both make themselves intangible—but the mobile emitter is still on the physical plane regardless, and Dejaren damages it.
Kim invites Seven to an empty, darkened mess hall late at night, ostensibly to work on the lab, but in reality so he can try to convince her to be his girlfriend. Seven cuts through the adolescent bullshit and orders him to take off his clothes, assuming that copulation is what he’s after. Having been called out, Kim ends the evening, and Seven goes back to her alcove in the cargo bay.
Dejaren chases a barely conscious Torres through the ship, but she activates a power line and manages to hit him with it, destabilizing his matrix. Then she repairs the mobile emitter so the EMH returns, and they head to the shuttle.
Chakotay summons Kim for a report on astrometrics. Kim says he doesn’t want to continue on the project, even though it’s kind of his baby—obviously because he’s uncomfortable around Seven, but Chakotay orders him. Chakotay feigns ignorance about the real reason for Kim’s discomfort, but his grin after Kim leaves makes it clear that he knows damn well what’s going on.
The EMH and Torres return to Voyager, and Torres is treated. The EMH complains initially about the mess Paris left sickbay in, but he decides that a little clutter is a good thing.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Kim and Seven start the major upgrades to the astrometrics lab, which will become an important location on Voyager going forward, and also will be Seven’s primary base of operations on the ship.
There’s coffee in that nebula! This episode establishes that Voyager is not Janeway’s first command, as she first met Tuvok nine years previously following a mission on her first command.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok is given a promotion to lieutenant commander. This is particularly amusing given that he had lieutenant commander’s pips as a costuming error during the first season. The promotion ceremony is a semi-dignified affair, with the crew gathered in the mess hall and telling stories about Tuvok—including embarrassing ones from Kim and Paris. Janeway also tells of her first meeting with Tuvok: he dressed her down in front of a bunch of admirals for failing to follow procedure during a review.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Janeway has officially given Neelix the ambassadorship she jokingly promised him in “Macrocosm,” and in that capacity he sets up a trading conference with the Arritheans.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH is thrilled to meet a fellow hologram. He’s less thrilled to realize he’s a psychotic mass murderer.
Forever an ensign. Kim has a crush on Seven, but his attempts at flirtation are pretty much guaranteed to fail on the very literal-minded ex-Borg.
Resistance is futile. Seven is disturbed to see the negative impact of her becoming more human: she doesn’t heal from injuries as quickly, she makes mistakes, and she doesn’t understand human social interactions at all.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Besides Kim flirting with Seven, we’ve got Paris and Torres having a proper kiss, as they finally finish the conversation they started in their EVA suits at the end of “Day of Honor.” At this point, it’s safe to say that their relationship has officially started.
Do it.
“During my three years on Voyager, I have grown to respect a great many of you. Others I have learned to tolerate.”
–Tuvok bringing the brutal honesty and the sass to his promotion ceremony.
Welcome aboard. Dejaren is the third of four roles on Trek for Leland Orser, who played Gai in DS9’s “Sanctuary” and the changeling posing as Colonel Lovok in DS9’s “The Die is Cast,” and who will play Loomis in Enterprise’s “Carpenter Street.”
Trivial matters: This is Kenneth Biller’s first time directing an episode, one of the few people who have both written and directed for Trek. Starting out as executive story editor in the first season and working his way up to executive producer in the seventh, Biller will have written or cowritten thirty-five episodes by the time it’s done, and also will direct another, “One.”
This episode was filmed back to back with “Day of Honor,” and Paris indicates that the events of the prior episode was only three days before, which barely leaves enough time for “Nemesis” to have happened.
Kim and Seven previously worked together in “The Gift,” in which she rendered him unconscious after trying to contact the Borg Collective.
Paris mentions Kim’s falling for impossible-to-attain women before, likely referring to his crush on Marayna in “Alter Ego.”
Dejaren asks the EMH what his name is, and the doctor replies that he doesn’t have one and that it’s a long story. His search for a name has been a theme in “Eye of the Needle,” “Heroes and Demons,” “Dreadnought,” “Lifesigns,” “Before and After,” and “Real Life,” among others.
Tuvok and Janeway’s first meeting is also seen in Jeri Taylor’s novel Mosaic.
Set a course for home. “They do require quite a bit of maintenance, don’t they?” In the Red Dwarf episode “Kryten” we meet the titular service droid, who has been serving the crew of the Nova 5 for centuries—the problem being that the crew is long dead. Kryten has ignored this fact, and continued to serve the, ah, skeleton crew. (Sorry.)
I mention that because this episode reminded me a lot of that Red Dwarf episode, and I’m not entirely sure that’s a good thing. Actually, I think what would have made this episode better was if it was more like that British comedy show.
The biggest problem is the opening shot, where we see Dejaren dragging around a dead body that had suffered a massive head wound. Right there in the very first scene, we’ve got evidence that Dejaren is a murderer. Now, he might just have been the guy left to clean it up, but then he lies when he tells the away team that the crew died of an illness. It takes the wind out of the plot’s sails to see that gaping head wound right off.
It might have been more interesting to do something along the lines of what happened to Kryten on the Nova 5: the crew died, and Dejaren doesn’t know why, he was just left to clean up the bodies. It might have added more tragedy to his pitiful existence.
Instead, he’s just another embittered fictional menial worker who snaps and goes on a killing spree. Leland Orser does the best he can with the role. It’s amusing to compare this to his role as Lovok on DS9, who was cold and unemotional. Here, he’s all over the place, on purpose, and it’s a good performance, one that elevates a rather pedestrian script.
Though, to be fair, the worst parts of the script involve Kim and Seven, with the former’s adolescent idiocy and the latter’s literal-minded directness giving us something that belongs more in a teen comedy than a Star Trek episode. It’s immature, it’s tiresome, and it just makes Kim out to be a moron. Is he really interested in dating her? If so, why does he think she’ll respond like a human would? Is he really just interested in sex? If so, why turn her down when she offers it? I do like that Chakotay doesn’t let Kim get away with trying to slink away from the project, as he’s supposed to be, y’know, a professional and shouldn’t let personal considerations get in the way of an important assignment.
The best parts of the episode are at the beginning of Act 1 and have nothing to do with the rest of this episode, but do matter for the show going forward: Tuvok’s promotion and Paris and Torres finally starting their romance. The former is a delightful, low-key ceremony (much better than the simply bizarre clipper-ship holodeck thing in Generations), with Tim Russ as usual nailing the Vulcan sass and dry wit. And the latter has actually been moving along nicely. I’m not the biggest Tom Paris fan, but his relationship with Torres is good for him, and makes him far more tolerable, and it doesn’t diminish Torres. This’ll be fun to watch.
Warp factor rating: 6
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at the virtual Capclave this weekend. Check his schedule here!
Not only does the Paris/Torres romance start, but the Doctor takes every opportunity to offer a running commentary on it.
Were it not for the fact that “secret romance” is a pretty tired TV cliche, it would have been fun for the two of them actually to keep the relationship quiet for a while like B’Elanna wanted, just so the Doctor could have kept making unhelpful comments and almost giving the game away (and possibly blackmailing Paris into doing more shifts in sickbay, and thus providing a reason why one of the people most likely to be busy during an emergency is the only person the Doctor seems to be giving any medical training, which otherwise makes no sense).
Tuvok and Janeway’s first meeting is also seen in Jeri Taylor’s novel Mosaic.
@krad: I haven’t read Mosaic myself, but I’m currently halfway through the Tuvok chapter on the novel Pathways. It also includes the first Tuvok/Janeway meeting. Pretty amusing the way he analyzes her career missteps and then how she responds.
I took it that Harry did actually want to date Seven, but hadn’t really thought through how that was likely to work, because he’s not terribly mature. Or to put it another way, he wanted to date an idealized romantic version of who he imagined Seven to be. If his attraction was solely physical, then he had his chance- instead, it being clear that Seven of Nine is open to copulation, but has no apparent interest in romance, he’s instantly turned off. See also later, when his affections are reciprocated by the wrong one of a pair of identical twins- Harry’s a romantic rather than a horndog, but that doesn’t rule out him being an immature doofus on occasion.
I do think Seven of Nine’s matter of fact acceptance of Harry’s come-on represents an interesting possibility for stories. Er… not that kind! Not on UPN, anyways. But the idea that, in an attempt to figure out how this whole “Being a human individual,” thing works, she would accept pretty much any invitation to engage in social or recreational activities with other crew members, even when the invitation was cursory or extended out of reflexive politness is interesting. I could see her standing in front of the ship bulletin board signing up for every activity.
But you just know that Neelix runs most of them, and we wouldn’t want to subject our dear Rewatcher to that much concentrated Neelix.
Garrett Wang actually shared a story about this episode’s filming during a session at a convention I attended.
He claimed that, immediately after they stopped rolling for the scene where Kim turns down Seven’s offer of sex, Ryan broke character and snarked “You missed out!”
I loved these stories. There was apparently quite a lot of behind-the-scenes clowning going on with the Voyager cast.
Keith,
I’m curious as to your process for welcome aboard. I rewatched the die is cast the other day and noticed Orser as Lovok. For whatever reason I associate him more with this role and was curious as to why it wasn’t mentioned in the welcome aboard section of that episode of the rewatch.
I just now clicked through to the Sancturary rewatch in which he wasn’t mentioned by you at all which adds to my curiosity. I know you had said you haven’t watched large chucks of Voyager from this point forward, so are you doing the trivial matters section based solely on your own recollection of actors appearing in episodes? If so, bravo! If not, what’s with the inconsistency?
So did Torres not expect Paris to love her back because of her self-image issues or what it just that he didn’t have time to respond to her confession? Seeing this trope on TV and not fanfic makes it more complicated.
The Doctor waving the sensor around and complaining about hormone levels was absolutely hilarious.
But the main plot would have been better with more uncertainty about Dejaren. It’s hard to empathize with a character when you know they’ve already snapped and killed a bunch of people. If they’d made the crew long dead, Dejaren could have just come to the conclusion that a dead crew was more efficiently cared for than a living one and decided to make the Doctor’s life easier by killing Torres.
A minor rewrite would probably make this episode quite stronger. Just excise that opening teaser and start the story with Tuvok’s ceremony. That would make it into a more effective twist later on. Just a matter of rearranging scenes. They could even have that initial scene played out as an encrypted camera recording that Torres uncovers.
That opening scene itself is pure Brannon Braga, going by his track record of episodes like TNG’s Schisms. I wouldn’t surprised to find out if he was the one who pitched it. But indeed, the scene kinda spoils the rest of the story. It doesn’t help that by casting Leland Orser, the viewer is instantly driven to suspicion. Orser has a similar vibe to character actors like Brad Dourif. Such a natural at playing creeps (even his character on ER, a renowed and respected surgeon, had that same vibe).
To me, this episode suffers also because it once again paints Torres as the victim. The Worf effect was ongoing by this point. When the two main engineering characters consist of Torres and Vorik, both physically strong, it’s hard to take any scenario where they get beat up too seriously.
You can tell the writers were eager to do a crewmember’s got the hots for Seven story. For what it’s worth, I think the Kim/Seven story plays off quite well, better than it has any right to. This is very fortunate, and that’s because Jeri Ryan has pitch-perfect comic timing (the way she asks “So you wish to copulate?” with a dead serious tone can’t be replicated by anyone else). Of course, the less said about Kim’s demeanor, the better. At least the show’s aware enough of how idiotic he’s being. He’s the unprofessional one, but by this point, I wasn’t remotely disappointed. Kim is who he is.
A middle of the road episode that could have been easily improved with some rewriting.
Also, part of me is glad they at least got the Kim falling for Seven out of the way this early. I’m also relieved they paired up Paris and Torres long before Seven was even brought onboard. Paris falling for Seven would not have been a pleasant thing to watch (his interactions with Seven are mostly minimal throughout these last four seasons). His involvement with Torres is a welcome one that really brings out the best in him.
@8 The idea of a Seven/Paris romance strikes me as deeply unsettling, but I think that’s largely because of a Voyager novel I read where somehow Seven and Torres became fused or psychically linked (or something?) which led to Seven believing that not only was Paris trying to assault her, but he was doing so with Janeway’s blessing (Janeway evidently having given Torres and Paris leave and suggested that Paris comfort and take care of her). All of which was meant to be disorienting and disturbing, but it left enough an impression that I can contemplate pretty much any other pairing for Seven with less distaste than that one.
I don’t understand why Dejaren sent out the distress call in the first place. He clearly didn’t expect another hologram to answer, so what was his plan? Why not just make off with the ship?
[This entire comment contains spoilers for a 7th-season episode]
This is total rough-draft “Flesh and Blood” to me. I know generally the theme is different but while “Doctor becomes sympathetic to hologram-with-a-dark-side” works so well in FaB, and as much as I love Leland Orser in, well…everything, I was very meh on this episode. The holograms in FaB at least were sympathetic, they were basically created as slaves to be tortured, Dejaren was just a creepy asshole who, yes, we figured out was the killer in the first minute. Although I will say, his experience in this episode should have led the Doc to be a bit more careful with renegade holograms later on. Dejaren sticking his hand in Torres’s chest and then making it solid was pretty gnarly I have to say. Gross but kind of cool.
And the less said about Kim skeezing on Seven the bette
I don’t recall thinking much of this episode one way or the other. A mediocre handling of its premise. Kind of creepy, if you like that sort of thing.
As for the timing, I’ll mention again that in production order and Voyager Companion order, “Nemesis” precedes “Day of Honor,” so this is the immediate next episode after DoH. I see no reason to doubt that’s the order they “really” happened in.
@10/brightbetween: Dejaren’s holomatrix was damaged and he couldn’t repair it on his own. Indeed, the episode seemed to imply that it was the damage that made him murderous, or at least made him mentally unstable enough to act murderously on his revulsion for organics.
This was a missed opportunity to do what they failed at in Darkling. (So, I guess a missed opportunity of a missed opportunity?)
Have a hologram with a malfunctioning ethical subroutine or something that doesn’t realize it, it becomes more of a spooky mystery episode, etc. The Jekyl and Hyde thing would work way better here with the jittery weirdness that Leland Orser brings to the role rather that the extreme OTTP acting of Darklin
qbe_64: I just missed Orser in the “Sanctuary” rewatch. The process is, I list folks. Sometimes I miss folks. How much other detail varies. There’s no real standard thing…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Looking at the photos, it just struck me as weird that Dejaren, a hologram, has much the same makeup design as Data, an android. He’s got much the same pale, pearlescent skin tone. Although presumably his appearance is modeled on that of his creators’ species.
I saw this episode a little while ago and moderately enjoyed it: I am, however, extremely grateful to it for confirming my vague suspicion that THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF KATHRYN JANEWAY was committing an inaccuracy by depicting USS Voyager as Cap’n Kate’s maiden command.
I actually really like the book – which starts strong and finishes strong, but which has to stuff too much STUFF from the show into it’s midsection to really work in its own right as a work of fiction (the hazards, I suppose, of striving to be completist).
“I understand the concept of humour. It may not be apparent but I am often amused by human behaviour.”
I didn’t realise until I rewatched it that this episode told us the HD-25 was a psychotic killer pretty much straightaway. It does mean there’s no twist but I guess it adds a bit more tension to the early scenes as Torres and the Doctor remain oblivious. The set-up to them being there is a bit odd: The Doctor acts as though he’s going to fix the HD-25 and Torres is just coming to keep an eye on him, but the HD-25 is technology as well so seems to come under Torres’ specialty more than his. Still, it’s understandable he’d feel an affinity for another hologram in distress and I think this is the first example of him trying to act as a mentor to a less-appreciated hologram. It’s a shame so many of them turn out to be homicidal maniacs.
(I’ve no idea where calling him “Dejaren” comes from: The script presumably but he isn’t given a name in the episode and there’s no real suggestion that he’s got one.)
Meanwhile, the B-plot is both another chance to showcase new girl Seven and the latest instalment of Kim’s Hopeless Love Life. Seven is fast starting to rival the Doctor as the biggest source of snark onboard. I’ve heard it pointed out that Paris’ attitude towards her seems to have hardened since “Day of Honour”, although that may be down to him trying to dissuade Kim from pursuing her. Apparently, someone has filled Seven in on the birds and the bees at some point. Maybe the Borg assimilated some Sex Ed tapes.
After at least a season’s build-up, Paris and Torres finally get together. First mention of the astrometrics lab, which makes it debut in “Year of Hell” and will be a staple of the show from then on. Kim’s crush on Seven will be a running joke into at least Season 5. Last appearance of Seven’s silver catsuit, replaced with a slightly-less-tight-fitting brown outfit for most of the rest of the season: Given that she wasn’t in “Nemesis”, she doesn’t really wear it for any longer than the full Borg outfit (which Jeri Ryan also went on record as finding uncomfortable). Janeway stating the contact with the Arritheans will be Neelix’s first ambassadorial assignment is a bit odd: Hasn’t he had plenty of those already?
The reformatting continues with Tuvok being promoted and Paris being assigned part-time work in Sickbay, like he did in the early episodes before Kes took over that job. (Despite this, Kes doesn’t actually get a mention.)
I feel obliged to point out that “first command” doesn’t necessarily mean Janeway was a captain nine years ago, just that she was in charge of something, eg the events of “The Galileo Seven” are referred to as Spock’s “first command”. (Indeed, I seem to recall we hear more about her “first command” in “Prey” later in the season, which makes it sound like a ground-based operation, but we’ll see when we get there if my memory’s faulty or not.)
Happy to hear your a Red dwarf fan Keith, any chance you’ll ever do a rewatch of it? im sure there’s a audience for it.
I like this one. It’s not brilliant or anything, but I’m always down for Picardo (and the EMH is adorable when he is excited about things), and I like the idea of a hologram going both sentient and insane. There are some really interesting possibilities there, although the episode doesn’t really get into them.
I think it was a bit of a mistake to make Voyager Janeway’s second command. A lot of her more…interesting decisions are only halfway forgivable if you assume that she is fairly knew to this and is both doing the best she can in a bad situation and also figuring things out as she goes. In fact, I had forgotten this factoid before re-watching this episode, and had always assumed that Voyager was her first crack at the Captains chair. If this is her second time around, she really should know better than making a lot of the decisions she does in this show.
This week’s Jeri Ryan full-body shot count: One. Just the scene where Kim tries, quite pathetically, to romance her. Actually quite plot relevant as she describes how Kim has been checking out her body.
I really enjoyed this episode. There were a lot of great moments and every storyline in the episode worked.
Loved the opening scene in the Mess Hall. Moment like this is what makes Star Trek. It shows the human aspect of our characters. And Tuvok makes a joke!
Harry/Seven was very enjoyable. That scene in the mess hall was comedy-gold! It was nice to see Seven build these relationships with the characters and this season did it very well. Seven is a great addition to the show and had a positive impact on our characters.
B’Elanna and the Doctor had a great story this week. Loved the plot and it was great seeing these two work together. Both Roxann and Robert did amazing jobs in this episode.
I’ve always been surprised that some people think Janeway was a new captain in Voyager. There was never any indication of that in the show (subjective opinions of her command decisions aside), and Mulgrew was 40 when the show began, which is certainly old enough to be an experienced Starfleet captain. I’d say it sounded sexist if it weren’t for the fact that some people forget that Picard was a captain before the Enterprise-D, even though the Stargazer was explicitly established. And I’ve seen people assume the Enterprise was Kirk’s first command despite the second pilot alluding to a previous one and The Making of Star Trek stating overtly that his first command was a smaller “destroyer-equivalent” ship. There just seems to be this odd inclination among fans to assume that every Trek captain is at the start of their captaincy when we meet them.
Anyway, as Keith pointed out, the backstory about Janeway and Tuvok’s first meeting here is taken from Mosaic, and that book showed that she was a captain at the time. So that was Jeri Taylor’s intent for the character, that she already had years of experience as a captain at the start of the series.
I often wonder at this point if the producers kept Garrett Wang in the cast to humiliate Harry Kim. Kim never gets promoted, to have a lasting relationship, and Wang never gets to direct an episode.
Poor Harry. Even an Ensign fresh out of the Academy (which by this point, Harry is not) wouldn’t be this clueless.
Although I admit it’s pretty funny to watch Harry crash and burn so spectacularly. Even Chakotay had to laugh.
I fully enjoyed the lowkey promotion ceremony. I remember being really glad there was no weird clipper ship cceremony. Just watching that sequence in Generations gave me motion sickness.
Leland Orser, like Brad Dourif, nails the creepy. The reveal is given away immediately, but watching Orser be super creepy makes up for it.
@23. Garret Wang was supposed to be kicked off the show instead of Jennifer Lien but he got on People’s Most Beautiful list right before Season 4 so Kes had to go instead. Maybe this was the show runners taking their resentment out on him
@24 Oh yeah, that makes sense. They got “stuck” with Wang, so Harry paid the price.
@22 If being a Captain in Starfleet is roughly equivalent to the same rank in the Navy, then I wouldn’t say that 40 is particularly old to being having a first command, nor would it be odd for people to make that assumption. My Brigade commander (roughly the Army equivalent) is about that age. If you are an O-6 then you’ve been in the service (real-world) for more than 20 years, and since you had to have graduated from a bachelor-degree producing program (or Starfleet, I guess) then 40-something is just about right to be taking a command. Maybe in the future every single captain is insanely young, but I don’t think it is unreasonable for people to assume that Janeway, Kirk, or Sisko would be on their first command at the start of their respective series, until it was otherwise stated. For what it is worth, I never thought that Picard was on his first command, both because he seemed older than the others (and was closer to 50 than 40 when the series started) and because the Enterprise in TNG always seemed to me to be the equivalent of commanding like, an aircraft carrier, and likely the sort of ship they would only give to someone who had proven themselves before. Whereas the original Enterprise was way out on the fringes of known space, Voyager was a science vessel, and DS9 was an outpost in the butt-end of the galaxy (prior to finding the wormhole) and seemed like more suitable first commands for younger Captains.
I watched Voyager as it was airing; this episode has stuck in my mind ever since. I figured the early reveal of Dejaren’s nature was the point, setting up tension between what the audience knew and what the protagonists didn’t (yet) know. I got an equal thrill from watching Leland Orser play Dejaren, and watching the other actors play people slowly realizing what Dejaren really was. I’m not saying it’s on the same level as The Others, but when I watched that movie, I remembered scenes from this episode.
@17/cap-mjb: I don’t think Kes was ever mentioned again after she left the series in “The Gift” with the exception of her one-time return appearance in “Fury.” I think that’s unfortunate though not just for the lack of continuity but for a seeming disregard for the impact of her character on her former shipmates and her friends.
This was a rather mediocre episode for me but it was at least memorable for Leland Orser who was excellent and I think I first became aware of with his role here. And then around the same time I saw him in “Alien: Resurrection” in the movie theater. It was a relatively small role he had in the movie but there as well he made quite the impression with his impending meltdown and final freak out scenes. So going forward I definitely knew who Orser was. I since caught him in a bunch of “E.R.” episodes where he plays a brilliant but eccentric and awkward surgeon and he was great in that role as well.
I think Harry turning down Seven’s offer for sex is more fodder for fans shipping Paris and Kim and that maybe Kim really wasn’t that into girls.
@26/wildfyre: “If being a Captain in Starfleet is roughly equivalent to the same rank in the Navy, then I wouldn’t say that 40 is particularly old to being having a first command, nor would it be odd for people to make that assumption.”
Which is why I specified Starfleet captains, given precedents like Kirk (a veteran captain on at least his second command at 34) and Riker (who was offered his first command prior to the start of TNG at about 35). Also, if you do the math, Picard would’ve been 28 when he became captain of the Stargazer.
“For what it is worth, I never thought that Picard was on his first command”
I wouldn’t expect anyone to, but I do recall people objecting to Shinzon’s backstory in Nemesis by saying “Why would the Romulans have wanted to clone Picard so long before he was captain of the Enterprise? He wasn’t famous or important back then!” Which implies they missed the point that he got the Enterprise because he was already an accomplished veteran captain. I agree with you that that seems obvious, but apparently some people just assume that he never did anything of note before we started watching him on TV.
“Whereas the original Enterprise was way out on the fringes of known space, Voyager was a science vessel, and DS9 was an outpost in the butt-end of the galaxy (prior to finding the wormhole) and seemed like more suitable first commands for younger Captains.”
I’d say just the opposite for Kirk’s Enterprise. That was a top-of-the-line capital ship, the size and equivalent of an aircraft carrier (at least by 1960s standards). There was nowhere more important or sensitive than “the fringes of known space,” since that’s where new civilizations were encountered, where new threats were faced, where numerous burgeoning Federation colonies needed defense and support, etc. So naturally that’s where the biggest, most powerful, most capable and versatile ships were assigned.
As I said, Kirk’s official bio in The Making of Star Trek established that he’d commanded at least one ship before getting the Enterprise, and that he was the youngest captain ever to command a vessel of that class (note that all the other captains/commodores we saw in command of Constitution-class ships were played by actors in their 40s). My novel The Captain’s Oath tells the story of Kirk’s first command; I wanted him to command two different ships, since TMoST’s bio doesn’t rule it out and it makes sense to give him wider experience before he earns the Enterprise, but CBS would only let me give him one.
As for Voyager, first off, what’s more important in Starfleet than a science vessel? Not only that, but Voyager was established in “Caretaker” as a cutting-edge, state-of-the-art vessel, one of Starfleet’s fastest ships with prototype bio-neural circuitry. Not to mention that its official mission was an intelligence mission in the ultra-dangerous Badlands to capture a high-value Maquis target. We’re not talking the Cerritos here.
@29 Wasn’t the Enterprise D meant to be the flagship of the fleet as well? I don’t imagine Captain of the flagship is the kind of job you’d give to a newbie. You’d want your most experienced, most celebrated guy/gal/other in command.
On the other hand, I think it’s safe to assume Deep Space Nine really was Sisko’s first command–he was first officer on the Saratoga a couple years before “Emissary,” and had worked at Utopia Planitia in between, a base of such importance that surely an Admiral would have been in command.
@28/garreth: As I recall, the first mention of Kes after her departure is by Neelix in “Random Thoughts”, and there’s one episode (no idea which, think it’s Season 5) where the Doctor mentions her when talking about his early development. There’s not many though, and there’s at least two episodes where she really should have come up and doesn’t.
The other thing to remember, of course, is that, both in the US Navy and Starfleet, you don’t have to have the rank of Captain to command a ship. So even if Kirk, for instance, is a new Captain, and I don’t know if he is or not, that doesn’t mean its his first command, especially if his first command was, as mentioned a smaller ship.
My siblings and I were extremely lucky to accidentally tune in late the first time we saw this episode, and we missed the opening scene. This gave it something of a mystery vibe that IMO makes the episode much stronger, where you only slowly come to realize that there is something nefarious about the hologram they’ve come to rescue.
Later when we finally saw the opening scene, our gut reaction was that it completely ruined the episode. Although more nuanced thought shows that Jennifer Islander’s point about the show going for a totally different feel is valid, I still think it is stronger without the first scene. To the point where we actively recommend that when showing Voyager and this episode to someone who hasn’t seen it before, you should try to remember to intentionally skip the first scene the first time you show this episode.
@26 and @29: If we’re going by Navy precedents, “captain” as being in command of a vessel is not the same as “Captain” as a substantive rank; the captain of a smaller vessel could be as lowly as a Lieutenant. So there is a difference between first command and first command as a Captain.
Of course, when Riker succeeds to command of the Enterprise in the Borg doubleheader “Best of Both Worlds”, he is field promoted to Captain. At that point, however, Picard is considered lost and Enterprise is now Riker’s command (subject to later review, I’d think), and a ship of Enterprise’s class and status demands at least a Captain in permanent command. Weird how he reverts to Commander without comment afterwards; I thought brevet ranks were more an Army thing.
@28: Harry Kim not into girls? Hoo boy, wait until we get to season 5, and “The Disease” (an episode that PROVES the point that while Kim is totally into girls, his choices seem to be perpetually doomed).
@35: Yes, but one could claim that someone who continually claims and acts like he’s into girls but perpetually fails to have sexual and/or romantic relationships with them is doing so out of self-sabotage whether conscious about it or not. However, I also say that having not seen and actively avoided a number of Harry Kim-centric episodes like the one you mentioned out of general lack of interest. However, for the purposes of this rewatch I will subject myself to watching them!
It is unfortunate that Harry doesn’t take Seven up (ha!) on her offer for sex for the real world reason that Asian males in American media are often depicted as sexless and emasculated and so the scene in question doesn’t really do the character specifically, or Asian males in the media in general any favors. One could imagine if Seven had made the same proposal to Tom Paris pre-romance to B’Elanna that he’d probably take her up on her offer and make a crack like, “Well, for the purpose of your lessons in human sexuality…”
@33/Just Me: “The other thing to remember, of course, is that, both in the US Navy and Starfleet, you don’t have to have the rank of Captain to command a ship.”
Except that Star Trek has almost always ignored that, since it would confuse viewers unfamiliar with military practice. There was one DS9 episode that acknowledged that a ship commander could be called “Captain” without actually having the rank of captain, but that hasn’t been used anywhere else in the franchise.
Besides, my point about Janeway is not that she couldn’t have been below captain’s rank on her first command, just that I don’t understand the tendency to default to the assumption that she wasn’t a captain until Voyager. There’s not a shred of onscreen evidence to suggest that.
@37/garreth: “Yes, but one could claim that someone who continually claims and acts like he’s into girls but perpetually fails to have sexual and/or romantic relationships with them is doing so out of self-sabotage whether conscious about it or not.”
But that doesn’t mean he has to be gay. Basically you’ve described my romantic life in high school and college to a tee, but I’m as hetero as they come. Yes, I sabotaged myself with women, but not because I wasn’t attracted to them — I was profoundly attracted to them and desperate for their companionship, but I was too socially inept and insecure and neurotic to make it work, and when they were attracted to me, I was too bad at reading their cues to recognize it until I’d missed my chance.
So it’s simplistic and stereotyped to assume that the only reason a man could be clumsy with women is because he’s secretly gay. That’s trying to force everyone into a single formula, and humans are more complicated than that.
One would like to note here that my surprise at Ms. Una McCormack describing Voyager as Captain Janeway’s first command/captaincy was based on the fact that NCC-74656 is explicitly one of the newest, shiniest vessels in Starfleet (and being dispatched on a mission into dangerously touchy borderland) – not the sort of ship or the sort of assignment one hands to someone new to the captain’s chair.
New drivers and newly-promoted captains both tend to get older vehicles, after all (one would expect an Excelsior– or a Miranda-class vessel to be a more usual starter command in the late 2360s/early 2370s).
huh. mark me down as someone who thought this was janeway’s first command.
actually, there’s an upcoming episode where seven is recruited by the future starfleet to go back in time, and it shows some admiral showing janeway around, and he treats her like it’s her first command…
found it…
Season 5. Relativity
PATTERSON: Just wanted to make sure all those pips haven’t made you forget you’re a scientist first.
JANEWAY: How could they? I still have nightmares about your fractal calculus final.
….
JANEWAY: As you were. It’s bigger than I expected.
PATTERSON: Schematics never fully prepare you for the real thing.
(She walks to the Captain’s chair.)
PATTERSON: Try it on. Don’t get too comfortable, I have more to show you.
Oh, and my assumption is that Starfleet officers on a ‘standard’ command track would likely be promoted to captain after between 15-20 years in the service (assuming the officer is a human and graduated at age 22, that would make them between 37 & 42 years old, which actually suggests that Captain Janeway is exactly the right age to be a relatively new – though not necessarily an untested – captain).
@41/FSS: I don’t think any of those lines suggest that Janeway is a novice captain. The first exchange only suggests that Admiral Patterson and Janeway haven’t seen each other since before she was a captain. Since they’re reminiscing about her days as his student, that implies that this is their first meeting in years. And the second exchange is only about the novelty of Voyager‘s bridge and command chair, not any command chair.
Besides, “Relativity” has plenty of logic and continuity problems. To quote Memory Alpha:
So its version of events is flawed and inaccurate and should not be considered definitive. Indeed, given that the episode is lousy with alternate timelines, we can’t assume that the version of pre-“Caretaker” events shown there is the “Prime” version at all.
The comment section can sure veer into unexpected directions :D
You think Dejaren is modeled after a race of human-like beings that doesn’t bother to put body paint past their necks? Hmm…
@38/CLB: Yes, I realize that not every guy self-sabotaging his pursuit of women is gay and often is merely socially awkward or just not practiced in getting it right so no offense is intended and I don’t mean to stereotype. I was just half-jokingly supplying a possible explanation for Kim’s behavior in particular and providing supporting fodder for all of those Kim/Paris-shippers out there.
@42/CLB: “Relativity” is an episode full of continuity and logic flaws, but not enough to pretend it never existed. I don’t like the fact that it portrays Janeway as having only just been made captain of Voyager when the show started, but it does and it is an episode of the series and any inconsistencies can be explained with very little effort without invoking alternate universes.
This episode was fairly middle-of-the-road to me. The Kim/Seven stuff was intentionally awkward; “take off your clothes” isn’t exactly brimming with foreplay, and despite Harry seeming to want a relationship, it’s not like the mood has been set, ya know. Maybe things would have been different if she had decided to kiss him instead. I’m a big fan of the Paris/Torres arc, so that was very satisfying.
The main plot about the hologram was fairly forgettable; as everyone else has said, the teaser takes most tension out of the sails. It was nice to see The Doctor so enthusiastic about meeting another hologram, but the whole thing felt a little too over-the-top to me.
Count me in the boat of assuming this was Janeway’s first command, but it’s mostly that I had never thought about it too much. On one hand, tracking the Maquis into the Badlands is an important mission, but on the other, it’s not like Voyager is expected to be the centerpiece of the Fleet either, so I think either way could be reasonable.
@46/cap-mjb: ““Relativity” is an episode full of continuity and logic flaws, but not enough to pretend it never existed.”
That’s not what I said. I merely said it had such flaws and thus its claims should not be given more weight than other episodes that offer conflicting claims.
Anyway, as I said, I don’t agree that anything in “Relativity” requires Janeway to be a new captain. I think it can reinforce that preconception if you already have it, but it absolutely does not mandate that interpretation. It only establishes that her captaincy is recent relative to her history as Patterson’s student, which could still make it years in the past, and that she’s new to Voyager‘s bridge specifically.
@48/CLB: “It only establishes that her captaincy is recent relative to her history as Patterson’s student, which could still make it years in the past, and that she’s new to Voyager‘s bridge specifically.”
And all I said was that it portrayed Janeway as having only just been made captain of Voyager when the show started, which is kind of implied by her being new to its bridge.
Anyway, Picard and Kirk were meant to be the exception rather than the rule, at least according to behind the scenes material: Becoming captain that young isn’t the norm. Tryla Scott, supposedly a high flyer who was promoted to captain quickly, was also played by an actress of 40 (although we don’t know how long she’d been a captain).
@49/cap: Yes, but “new to Voyager” does not mean “new to captaincy,” and what I’m saying is that it’s strange that people would assume it did. I don’t understand that default to the presumption that the series leads are inexperienced. Perhaps it’s an artifact of modern storytelling tropes where every series is expected to start with an origin story. But that wasn’t as much the case when Voyager was made as it is now.
I never assumed the Voyager was Janeway’s first command. Nothing in prior dialogue ever indicated that and she’s middle-aged as of the series premiere so going by the fact I knew Picard commanded the Stargazer prior to the Enterprise, I always thought it pretty reasonable that Janeway herself had a prior command.
@50/CLB:
<shrug> A lot of people assume a lot of things. Some Trek viewers are high-information types who absorb facts great or small (I myself literally took written notes during first-run eps, back in the day), because that’s how they approach everything, and other viewers evidently forget most of the details. Then what they do (so I hypothesize) is apply the simplest straight-line interpretation to the few high points they do recall. This seems to be the mental process used by many people to navigate real life, so why should onscreen fiction be any different?
Some consequences: if it’s not repeatedly on-screen, it didn’t happen; if it’s alluded to but not shown, it must look exactly like what is shown. (Consider the complaints about the “look” of DIS, from the extrapolation that the TOS Enterprise was representative of all Starfleet ships of the era.)
IMHO there’s no profit to bemoaning this behavior; rather, us high-info types just have to accept that some fellow fans approach their fandom from a very different angle, and accordingly calibrate how we interpret their arguments.
From the pilot and other early episodes, I got the impression Janeway had been in command of Voyager for some time, which “Relativity” rules out. I don’t have any firm feelings on her commanding a ship prior to that. If she’d been made Voyager’s captain in, say, her mid-30s, I’d say probably not. As she apparently wasn’t…maybe. About the only firm thing we’re told about her career prior to the series is that she served as a science officer on the USS Al-Batani under Paris’ father. Yes, there’s a reference to a “first command” in this episode but the context (“he dressed me down in front of three Starfleet admirals for failing to observe proper tactical procedures during my first command”) suggests it refers to a mission rather than a permanent position.
@53/cap-mjb: “From the pilot and other early episodes, I got the impression Janeway had been in command of Voyager for some time, which “Relativity” rules out.”
I have mixed feelings on that. On the one hand, I got the same impression you did, that she’d been in command for some period of time before getting the Badlands mission, rather than being given the command specifically for that mission. “Relativity”‘s retcon never sat right with me.
But on the other hand, if she was new to the ship, it addresses Keith’s oft-stated objection that Janeway didn’t seem to mourn the deaths of Cavit, Stadi, and the rest. I mean, it doesn’t really fix that problem, but at least it provides a partial rationalization for it, if she wasn’t close to those officers
“About the only firm thing we’re told about her career prior to the series is that she served as a science officer on the USS Al-Batani under Paris’ father. Yes, there’s a reference to a “first command” in this episode but the context (“he dressed me down in front of three Starfleet admirals for failing to observe proper tactical procedures during my first command”) suggests it refers to a mission rather than a permanent position.”
Again, Jeri Taylor’s Mosaic and Pathways make it explicit that Janeway was a captain at the time she was dressed down by Tuvok. The backstory referenced in “Revulsion” is a direct nod to Mosaic, just as the stuff about Janeway’s father in “Coda” was. At the time this episode was made, with Taylor still running the show, Mosaic was regarded as canonical. The undeniable intent of this episode’s writers was that Janeway had been a captain for nine years prior. And nothing in subsequent canon from later showrunners contradicts that. So as far as I’m concerned, the question is settled. If the new “Autobiography” claims Voyager was her first command, I agree with #16/ED that that was a mistake and a failure of research.
And it’s odd, since the Kirk autobiography (from a different author but the same publisher) did acknowledge his prior command before the Enterprise, even though there’s even less basis for that than there is for Janeway’s — an ambiguous reference in the second pilot (to Kirk requesting Mitchell on his first command) and a paragraph or two in The Making of Star Trek. I guess it’s not surprising in itself that different authors would make different decisions, but it’s odd that a book purporting to be Janeway’s autobiography would disregard the previous Janeway biography written by the character’s creator.
Am I the only one who found it kind of weirdly satisfying to see the hologram character be just plain grossed out by humanoid bodies in this one, after the parade of entities that Star Trek was constantly giving us that acted like humans were the most fascinating super special creatures in the universe? I mean, was Data’s big dream really to deal with having to shit, and having body odor, and being prone to vomiting every time you encounter a virus, and all of those other things that none of us would ever agree to put up with if we weren’t stuck with them from day one? Of course Darjeeling or whatever his name was would think bodies are gross. I mean, not that that justifies murdering the crew, but still.
@54/CLB: “But on the other hand, if she was new to the ship, it addresses Keith’s oft-stated objection that Janeway didn’t seem to mourn the deaths of Cavit, Stadi, and the rest.”
That is true and I’ve said the same thing myself in the past: It makes more sense if she’d only known them a few days rather than them being the long-standing colleagues that the episode implies they are.
“If the new “Autobiography” claims Voyager was her first command, I agree with #16/ED that that was a mistake and a failure of research.”
If you want to go with the intent of the writers as the most important factor, then fair enough, that’s your choice. But I don’t consider it a “mistake” if another writer chooses to ignore it and interpret the on screen details differently. Just because the show doesn’t explicitly state that Janeway wasn’t a captain nine years earlier doesn’t mean she definitely was. And unless Janeway was exaggerating Tuvok’s actions for effect, I find the idea of a lieutenant giving a captain he’s just met a public “dressing down” hard to believe. I’ve never read Mosaic but I’ve heard that some of the details were contradicted by later showrunners, so it’s not really a sacred text that all future writers must adhere to.
@56/cap-mjb: Yes, technically, if you split hairs, you can make a continuity case either way. But it’s facile the way so many fans today base their analysis of fiction exclusively on continuity, which is probably the least important, most superficial aspect you can analyze in a creative work.
There are deeper factors here than surface continuity. To me, resisting the idea of Janeway being an experienced captain feels problematical on a more fundamental level. She’s the first female Star Trek captain, so anything that diminishes her as a character, that implies she’s somehow less than the male captains, seems condescending. And obviously it’s not what the creators of the first female Trek lead would’ve wanted, because it would’ve played into sexist expectations. They wrote Janeway from day one as an utterly confident, seasoned leader, and that’s exactly how Kate Mulgrew played her from day one. So it bewilders me that anyone could watch her performance and think “She’s a newbie.” Maybe I could’ve believed that about Genevieve Bujold’s Janeway, but it’s anathema to Mulgrew’s portrayal.
@55: I can’t say I found that aspect satisfying but something about this episode that definitely did resonate and leave a lasting impression with me was Dejaren’s rant about how disgusting humanoids were because I actually agreed with him to a degree! I was a hormonal teenager when this episode came out and already several years prior I had become very self-aware of my changing body and in particular of how my face would get super oily as the day wore on. I definitely felt like a disgusting imperfect biological creature! So what Dejaren was saying reinforced how I was feeling and that people really do leave gross residue everywhere! How nice to be an artificial life-form and be “clean.”
@58: Haha, me too. I was 16 when this came out. It quite likely has something to do with the reaction I had to it.
Dear god, I was 12. I don’t remember seeing this one though. I’m pretty sure I did since I saw almost every episode as it was broadcast.
@57/CLB: I think I agree with you more than not. Janeway not having a command prior to Voyager isn’t a “mistake” in the sense it contradicts anything on screen. And I’m not sure it would diminish her next to the male leads that preceded her if it was true: As has been pointed out, most people assume the Enterprise was Kirk’s command and nothing on screen outright contradicts that either, while Deep Space 9 almost certainly was Sisko’s first command and he wasn’t even a captain when the show started. However, the portrayal of Janeway in the early episodes doesn’t tally with her being in her first month as a captain, so from that perspective, yes, it contradicts the spirit of her portrayal. (Thinking about it, some references in the first two seasons, notably “Eye of the Needle” and “Death Wish”, indicate Voyager is a new ship, so I guess Janeway couldn’t have been in command of it for that long.)
Janeway was already a captain when Paris had the shuttle accident that would get him disbarred from Starfleet.
I just finished the novel Pathways last night. Among other things, it establishes that a significant amount of time passed between Paris’ training shuttle accident and his eventual full confession to Admiral Brand. This is fully detailed in the Paris chapter.
Meanwhile, during the Tuvok chapter, it’s established that the vulcan’s first meeting with Janeway takes place mere hours after Paris’ shuttle crash. It also gives us the name of Janeway’s prior ship. There’s a discussion between Tuvok and Admiral Finnegan that makes it quite clear. I’m going to quote a couple of lines and descriptions, just so there’s no room for doubt. Most of these lines are still fresh for me:
FINNEGAN: This particular captain seems to be one of Owen’s pet projects. He’s been like a nervous father for the last few days.
Who is, of course, Owen Paris. We already knew Janeway had a working relationship with him dating back to the pilot.
Then there’s this description, from Tuvok’s POV, when he’s analyzing Janeway’s records:
Captain Janeway had taken her ship, the Bonestell, into the Beta Quadrant and gathered information on microsecond pulsars, and he hoped her scientific methodology was more precise than her attention to tactical matters would seem to indicate. He was somewhat amazed that a captain would dare to submit an accounting that would make her look so inept.
Tuvok began taking notes on all the transgressions, and stayed in his office long into the night in order to write as thorough a report as possible. In all, he cited forty-one violations of tactical procedures, including an absence of test firings and battle drills, with only two weapons reviews during the entire six-month mission.
Following this, Finnegan tells Tuvok they’ll have to deal with the Janeway situation the following day because of the Paris shuttle accident, the fact that three cadets were just killed, and their need to first look into his shuttle’s sensor logs before dealing with other fleet issues.
After the first fateful meeting with Janeway, Tuvok is posted on the Bonestell. They serve together for another five months, conducting multiple missions, until Janeway is finally offered Voyager’s command. And then she extends an invitation for Tuvok to join her, not accepting no for an answer.
@61/cap: What you say is true as far as facts are concerned, but it’s more a matter of impressions. There was a lot of sexist backlash to Janeway as a character back in the day, and I’m concerned about things that could be taken as reinforcing that. Such reactions often have little to do with objective fact or logic.
And I’m not sure I agree that most people assume the Enterprise was Kirk’s first command. Many do, yes, but I’m not sure it’s the majority view. Certainly I can’t think of a tie-in that’s portrayed it that way. It’s rarely addressed at all, but when it is, the usual practice is to go with what The Making of Star Trek established and give Kirk a smaller ship as his first command. DC Comics’ first annual by Mike W. Barr called it the Saladin; Vonda McIntyre’s Enterprise: The First Adventure called it the Lydia Sutherland; DC’s later “Star-Crossed” storyline by Howard Weinstein called it the Oxford; David A. Goodman’s Kirk “autobiography” called it the Hotspur; and my own The Captain’s Oath called it the Sacagawea. But we all agreed he had a former command, whatever the name. The one ambiguous exception I can think of is the bonus Kirk-bio story in Gold Key’s first Enterprise Logs collection, which jumped right from his cadet days to his assignment as Enterprise captain, though it’s ambiguous, implying he’s a new captain but not explicitly ruling out an earlier command. DC’s Who’s Who in Star Trek glosses over any previous command in its Kirk bio, though its Gary Mitchell bio references an event that happened on Kirk’s first command in McIntyre’s novel (odd that it went with that instead of the Mike Barr version).
@63/CLB: Michael Jan Friedman’s My Brother’s Keeper trilogy portrays Kirk as transferring straight from the USS Constitution, where he served under Captain Augenthaler alongside Mitchell, to captain of the Enterprise.
@64/cap-mjb: I don’t think that’s correct. The events of MBK: Constitution take place in 2257, not long after the Farragut disaster, when Lieutenant Kirk is assigned to the Constitution as its second officer. The events of MBK: Enterprise take place seven years later, early in his captaincy of the Enterprise but not at the very beginning thereof. As far as I can tell, neither book specifies that Kirk was on the Constitution for that entire 7-year period, and it seems unlikely on the face of it.
At least, a few readers have mentioned to me that they think my The Captain’s Oath, which depicts Kirk’s 4 years in command of the Sacagawea and his first mission as captain of the Enterprise, is reconcilable with My Brother’s Keeper, fitting in between its second and third volumes.
@65/CLB: It’s a long time since I read them but I flicked through the opening of MBK: Enterprise before I made that post, and I just looked at it again just to make sure I didn’t misread it, and early in the book Doctor Piper and one Nurse Hinch discuss Gary Mitchell’s history under Captain Augenthaler on the Constitution.
HINCH: I wouldn’t be surprised if Commander Mitchell ended up on the Enterprise because no-one else would have him.
PIPER: As I understand it, the captain and the commander came over from the Constitution together. You don’t think Augenthaler rejected both of them, do you?
HINCH: No, I think it’s what I said before. Captain Kirk brought Mitchell over because no-one else would have him.
You can probably reconcile it if you squint a bit, but the novel seems to imply that Kirk went straight from the Constitution to the Enterprise. Spending seven years on one ship is far from unheard of in Star Trek…
@66/cap: Well, if so, that’s the exception to the usual approach.
I remember liking this episode a lot years ago, but when I saw it again recently it kind of disappointed those expectations. Part of it is the teaser which removes any doubt about what’s going on. Part of it is that the rest of the A plot sort of goes by without anything happening until the climax, and then it just ends with the Chekov’s power cable and I was left wanting something more intense than what we got. And part of it is the B plot taking the wind out of the A plot’s sails by being, as Krad says, kind of adolescent sex romp material in PG instead of something that complements the tone of a creepy psycho murder mystery.
But it has its virtues. Leland Orser is always pitch perfect in this kind of role, he’s probably the reason I remembered the episode so fondly before. The scene between Paris and Torres is quick but necessary and well done (I was always a Tom/B’Elanna shipper, back before I knew what shipping was). The B plot isn’t bad exactly, it’s just really out of place and ends with Harry again making a total ass of himself.
Not a great episode, not a bad one, just sort of typical Voyager.
Frankly, I think people assuming it is Janeway’s first command are being generous, and attributing her failings to inexperience, rather than incompetence. Even Mulgrew’s best explanation for why the character acted the way she did was to speculate that she was suffering from some kind of mental illness. I think in their rush to make Janeway all “girl power,” the writers often just told us she was was awesome, even when the results of her actions (like stranding them almost a century away from home, making a deal with the Borg, or locking herself up in her rooms for months, and her erratic behavior in general) said otherwise. I think they were so worried about coming across as sexist that they ignored the opportunities for character development that would come from the show actually acknowledging that she wasn’t always super good at her job. Even as a young-ish girl watching Trek for the first time, it was obvious to me that I was *supposed* to relate and look up to Janeway, but I always actually felt that was about Major Kira, instead.
“I’m not the biggest Tom Paris fan”
I feel like this is one of the largest understatements of all of your rewatches… :)
I find these early Seven episodes pretty cringey to watch. Not just this one but Raven too. Seems like they hadn’t quite decided how to act out Seven’s personality yet. She’s more human, more girly at times, before they settled on what actually makes sense for her character-wise, to be kind of a robot. Though the main reason for the odd behavior here is probably because they just really wanted to get around to sexual innuendo with Seven.
Trivial Matters: This is the third episode and last time that Seven wears her (in)famous silver catsuit which I always found surprising given how it was used in all of the marketing materials for the introduction of the character. I kinda liked it since it was so flashy but I can also get how it was too campy and sex-kittenish when compared to her subsequent muted colors catsuits. Plus the fact the collar made Jeri Ryan pass out due to pressing on her neck artery meant the costume had to go.
Well the Paris / Torres Relationship really starts to get going here.. and that’s about the best thing about this episode.. the evil hologram story I was bored with and found it predictable and lazy. As for the the stuff with Kim and Seven I found that a bit uncomfortable, leaving aside the preposterous outfit for once Seven is still recovering from a huge trauma, she had basically been violated and mentally abused for twenty years, and within a few episodes they are trying to use the character in some sort of sex comedy episode… sorry very poor judgement even for twenty years ago.
I know he’s named Dejaren in the script, but why is he never called that in the episode? Was Tuvok promoted after rescuing Chakotay at the end of Nemesis? Paris must have honed his bedside manner by observing the Doctor’s. Dejaren and the Doctor’s intangibility doesn’t track with what Janeway said in Heroes and Demons, that they have to remain solid if they wish to hold onto something, but a psycho that can touch you but you can’t touch him is a scary concept. They probably weren’t sure what to do with Seven at first so they invented the job of Astrometrics officer. I was never much of a fan of the Paris/Torres relationship. It may have developed over time but never into anything more interesting.
4: “Behind the scenes clowning” – as well as frowning. 6: Would you say Dejaren is a holographic Kryten? 7: Yeah, the fact that Dejaren is played by Leland Orser, an actor who specialises in unstables and crazies, really sends up a red flag. So why did it take Torres and the Doctor so long to realise Dejaren’s a holo-Norman Bates? Torres is not the total victim since she is the one who finally kills Dejaren, no thanks to the Doctor. 9: I don’t know if a relationship between Paris and Seven was ever seriously considered but they wouldn’t make a great match. 10: He needed someone with technical expertise to repair his holomatrix. He was probably planning to kill them once he was no longer in danger and they were no longer useful to him.
11: “His experience in this episode should have led the Doc to be a bit more careful with renegade holograms later on”. An annoying thing about the Doctor’s character is that because he thinks he knows better than everyone else, he winds up making a mistake that proves him wrong and after he’s guilt-ridden, he offers to make amends by having his program restored to factory settings only for Janeway to refuse. It’s a frustrating lack of development. 12: I think it was his mistreatment by the crew that drove Dejaren insane rather than his damaged holomatrix (although I’m sure that didn’t help). 15: The Serosians have an almost Borg-like pallor, depending on the light levels, but did the crew favour the dark or Dejaren?
17: “Maybe the Borg assimilated some Sex Ed tapes?” According to Seven in the S5 episode Drone, the Borg assimilate, they do not procreate. That doesn’t quite track with the Borg nursery in Q Who so the Collective must be familiar with sexual reproduction. I’m not sure if Janeway ever made Neelix an official ambassador until (ironically) he left the ship in Homestead. The Doctor tells Paris that employing him as his new nurse would only be a temporary arrangement but he winds up filling that position til the end of the series so they must have decided they liked seeing him in that (unwilling) position. 18: Smegerrific! 19: Dejaren won’t be the last homicidal hologram the Doctor encounters – this episode laid the groundwork for Iden in S7’s Flesh and Blood.
23: I would have preferred if Worf had to cross a trial by painstiks to get that promotion (Worf too, probably!), rather than see him walk the plank. 26: Sisko probably would have been a Captain by the time of Emissary but losing his wife had soured him on career advancement. 28: Kes was mentioned sporadically throughout the series, in episodes like Random Thoughts, Mortal Coil and Prey but it surprises me how quick VGR was to forget Jennifer Lien. “Shipping Paris and Kim” – since when? The Chute? 29: I think Riker was thirtyish when he was offered command of the Drake. How old was Tryla Scott when she made Captain? Supposedly she was the youngest one in Starfleet. 30: Yep, the Enterprise-D is the flagship, so they’d never place her in the hands of a novice.
31: I always took DS9 to be Sisko’s first command, especially since he hadn’t reached the rank of Captain yet (which you have to be to be put in command of a ship). 32: I don’t know off the top of my head if Kes was ever mentioned in S5 but in regards to the Doctor’s early development, I think that was Prey and that was S4. 33: Who captains a ship in Starfleet with the rank of Commander? 36: Paris enjoys keeping score of Kim’s doomed romances. 40: “He treats it like it’s her first command” – no, just her first command of Voyager. 43: Was Paris expected to take the helm if Voyager ran into trouble in the Badlands if he was only an observer along for the ride?
53: I assumed the mission to the Badlands was they’re maiden voyage. Janeway even told Telek R’Mor in Eye of the Needle that Voyager was either new or a new class of ship and the story Janeway told the Bridge crew may have been when she was still being considered as a command officer but it was not yet a sure thing. 57: Bujold didn’t stick around for more than a couple of days because she felt she wasn’t right for the part and after seeing her performance (available on YouTube), it’s hard to disagree. 58/59: Being inorganic definitely has it’s advantages. 62: Is the Admiral Brand from Pathways the same one from The First Duty (McNeill had to confess in that too), and is everything in that book meant to be taken as canon? 69: I’m surprised how little this comments section spends talking about Revulsion and more about whether or not Voyager is Janeway’s first command (it isn’t). I guess they didn’t have much to offer on Revulsion because it blew it’s big surprise too soon.
@75: The Borg nursery in TNG’s “Q Who?” was retroactively explained in VOY’s “Collective”: the babies seen in the former episode weren’t conceived, they were assimilated and placed in maturation chambers.
@76/garreth: Which, as I’ve ranted at length elsewhere, is nonsense. Of course the Borg procreate. The idea that they don’t is idiotic. What is the point of assimilating a species’ biological distinctiveness if you lose it again in a few decades when all the drones of that species die out? Not to mention that populating the drones exclusively through assimilation would never work out numerically — it wouldn’t allow sustaining a large enough drone population, especially given how cavalierly the Collective discards individual drones. It’s like hunting-gathering vs. agriculture — foraging for what’s already out there is never going to be remotely as productive as growing your own. If the Borg are all about efficiency, then of course they procreate drones. Failing to do so would be incredibly, stupidly inefficient.
@77/CLB: I’m not sure if it’s previously been brought up to you regarding a means for the Borg to keep up their numbers without having to procreate: cloning.
@78/garreth: Cloning is limited. It produces far less genetic diversity and robustness than normal sexual reproduction. (See “Up the Long Ladder.” Its science of cloning was iffy, but it had the right idea in broad strokes.) It’s a vastly inferior method of keeping the numbers up. Life on Earth was stuck being single cells for 3 billion years when it reproduced asexually — when sex finally evolved, it was such a vastly improved system that the pace of evolution skyrocketed in just the half-billion years since. Because sexual reproduction is about diversity in combination, creating new mixtures and trying out new possibilities — which is supposed to be what the Borg are all about, combining different potentials.
Again, the Borg are supposed to be efficient. The most efficient option by far is to procreate the drones. Every female or sexually mature male drone will have millions of gametes in their reproductive organs just waiting to be harvested and used for in vitro procreation. Letting that bonanza of genetic material go to waste would be — as I already said — stupidly inefficient. There’s no sane reason not to do it.
The biggest problem I have with this episode is, if the isomorph was created to do menial cleaning tasks, why program it with the capacity to think at all? It’s an app. I don’t want my apps having their own opinions about me. Makes no sense.
Your Red Dwarf reference is particularly apposite here, as Tuvok’a quoted line instantly reminded me of Rimmer’s farewell speech from ‘Holoship’: “…over the years, I’ve come to think of you all as… people… I met”.
Smoke me a kipper.
Colin H: I’ll be back for breakfast.
—Keith R.A. “Ace” DeCandido
The most bizarre thing I found about this episode was the dismissive attitude to the multiple murders. Both Torres and the Doctor found bloodied corpses of people violently murdered, and neither seem remotely bothered by that. They even joke about it when back on Voyager, with the Doctor briefly pretending to be disgusted by organics, like Dejaren. “Hey, remember the corpses? What a riot! LOL. Anyway, see ya”. It felt very odd and jarring.
Somehow I wasn’t bothered that we know the Dejaren is a killer from get-go. It alters the tension and makes it more about: a) how he got this way, and b) when it’s all going to come apart. As to the first, I was very surprised that it was suggested that Dejaren was a victim of sexual abuse by the crew. It sets up a certain psychology and sympathy, even if it plays into a trope that survivors go into psychosis.
I was more disappointed that the climax fell into so many tropes of the killer on the loose. Beat by beat we get the resurrection, the false escape, the desperate dash to the last resort. Where I thought the episode was going to go was a debate on what to do with psychotic hologram. Yes, deactivation is the logical answer, but he’s also a creative and self-aware being who has lived a pretty horrible existence.
Contrary to our Rewatcher’s opinion, I thought Kim’s reaction to 7’s blunt offer to be pretty real (a similar comment was made bout Paris’s refusal of B’Lana too). While I could still hear the echo of a million nerds screaming “WTF, Harry!” — it happens like that. Not everyone just wants to drop trow at a come on, particularly if they’ve built it all up in their heads a certain way. I would also give a +1 to the commenter here who said it perpetuates stereotypes of Asians being sexless. That entered my mind.
Still, I thought it was a well put together episode. I enjoy watching 7’s character arc even as I’m horrified by the extreme sexualization (really, did she have to have visible nipples?).