“Thirty Days”
Written by Scott Miller and Kenneth Biller
Directed by Winrich Kolbe
Season 5, Episode 9
Production episode 202
Original air date: December 9, 1998
Stardate: 52179.4
Captain’s log. We open with Janeway demoting Paris to ensign and consigning him to the brig for thirty days. Security escorts him there. When they enter the turbolift, it’s Paris who says “Brig,” because the security guards are played by extras and giving them dialogue means having to pay them more.
Neelix brings Paris some food, but isn’t allowed to stay and chat beyond what’s necessary for the delivery of meals. Neelix also brought a padd so Paris can dictate a letter to his father. After several false starts, Paris finally starts to explain what happened.
It begins with a Captain Proton session on the holodeck involving Paris, Kim, and the Delaney sisters, which is interrupted by a summons to the bridge. Voyager has encountered an ocean in space. There’s no planet, it’s just a huge-ass body of water being held together by a containment field.
The locals fire on Voyager initially, but when it becomes clear that Voyager has no hostile intentions, friendly relations ensue with the Moneans, and two of them, Burkus, a politician, and Riga, a scientist, beam aboard. Paris is totally nerding out over the Moneans’ world, though it isn’t actually theirs. They were nomads, but settled in the world sphere and made it their home.
However, the water is slowly dissipating through the containment field. They think it might be because of something at the core of the ocean, but none of their vessels can handle the pressure that deep. Paris volunteers Voyager to help out a bit too enthusiastically, but Janeway agrees. The Delta Flyer can be modified for undersea travel. (I guess Voyager wasn’t equipped with aquashuttles like the Enterprise was a century previous.) Paris geebles at Janeway about how much he loves sailing and how when he was a kid, he wanted to join the Federation Naval Patrol, but Admiral Paris insisted his son go into Starfleet.
Riga joins Paris, Kim, and Seven on the Flyer. They go down deep, passing an oxygen refinery that the Moneans built. Meanwhile, Voyager has used their fancy-shmancy sensors to do a more detailed analysis of the sphere: the entire world will dissipate within five years. Janeway offers assistance with evacuation to Burkus, but Burkus is not willing to commit to that notion, as it would be political suicide.
At the center of the sphere is a structure, which shocks Riga. Kim scans it and theorizes that it’s a field generator—it’s what’s keeping the containment field going. It’s also a hundred thousand years old.
The Flyer is attacked by a huge aquatic creature, and while they manage to drive it off, it damages the Flyer.
Back in the present, Paris’ letter is interrupted by battle stations. Voyager apparently got into a firefight. Paris is injured both in person—he bumped his head during the battle—and in spirit—he thinks the ship’s best pilot should be at conn during a fight.
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Fugitive Telemetry
Paris goes back to dictating his letter. There’s a breach in the containment field, which lets out a bunch of water. Burkus is concerned, especially since they haven’t heard from the Flyer.
Meanwhile, on the Flyer, they’ve repaired some of the damage. Seven determines that the breach in the containment field wasn’t a malfunction, but done deliberately by the generator to alleviate pressure on the field. The density of the water has been increasing over the years, and this is a way for the generator to keep containment. They’re able to boost the generator’s power systems, but it’s only a temporary measure.
Downloading the generator’s database reveals that this was the ocean of a planet that was drawn off the planet’s surface for unknown reasons. Riga also determines that the reason for the dissipation of the water that they’ve detected over the years isn’t this generator—it’s the oxygen refineries that are causing it.
Halfway through Paris’ sentence, he is permitted visitors, and Kim comes by. Paris has been having nightmares, many related to his father, and he’s not sure if he’s going to finish the letter. Kim points out that one of Admiral Paris’ critiques of his son is that he never finishes what he starts.
So Paris continues to dictate the letter. The away team presents their findings to Burkus. Voyager can provide alternate ways of producing oxygen, but they need to stop using the refineries immediately. Burkus says he’ll take it under advisement and consult with the other politicians. Paris is livid and has to be reprimanded by Janeway for talking out of turn. Riga is convinced that Burkus won’t do anything about Voyager’s report due to fear from the political fallout.
Paris goes to the holodeck to brood on Captain Proton’s rocket ship. Torres joins him, and tells him that it’s good to see him so passionate about something.
Inspired, Paris goes to Riga and asks what would happen if the refinery was damaged. Riga says it will be fixed, and likely with less risk of damaging the containment field. So they steal the Flyer. Janeway is forced to fire on the Flyer and stop their sabotage, which they do, and without damaging the Flyer or hurting Paris or Riga.
Upon his return to Voyager, Paris is demoted to ensign and confined to the brig for thirty days for disobeying orders.
Paris wakes up to Tuvok telling him his thirty days are up and he’s free to go. Paris goes to his cabin for a shower and a shave, and also hears a message from Torres asking him on a date, playfully saying that she’s ordering him to have dinner with her. Paris finishes the letter to his father, saying he hopes that this helps the admiral understand his kid better. He then orders Voyager to store the letter and send it as soon as they’re within range of Earth.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Riga says early on that the hypothesis is that the water sphere was formed in much the same way as a gas giant, though that doesn’t explain where the containment field comes from. His surprise at the presence of a generator is a bit odd, since the containment field can’t possibly be natural.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway is amused by Paris’ enthusiasm at first, but that quickly modulates into exasperation when he acts like an asshole. And she’s completely willing to fire on the Flyer to stop him from being an idiot.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok is able to use a photon torpedo as a depth charge to take out the Flyer’s torpedo and stop Paris and Riga’s sabotage. Because he’s just that awesome.
Forever an ensign. Kim is the first person to visit Paris when Janeway allows him to have such.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix brings Paris his food, which is basic nutritional stuff like leola root stew. Paris’ requests for a replicated pizza are denied.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH comes to the brig to treat Paris’s head injury. Paris practically begs for a neurological scan, but the doctor insists that all he has is what Naomi Wildman would call a boo-boo.
What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. The Delaney sisters join Paris and Kim as the bad guys in the latest Captain Proton adventure, as the Twin Mistresses of Evil, Demonica and Malicia. Later, Paris retreats to the black-and-white holodeck to brood, where Torres finds him and encourages him to commit mutiny.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Kim has a crush on Megan Delaney and has no interest in Jenny Delaney, but Jenny is all over Kim and Megan is utterly uninterested.
Oddly, we never see Torres visiting Paris in the brig, but as soon as he’s out, she sets a dinner date with him.
Do it.
“Hey, Dad, long time no see. Chances are you’ll never receive this letter, but in case you do, there’s a few things I wanted to say. First of all, bad news: I’m in jail again. Wait, keep listening, don’t turn this off. I want you to know how I ended up in here because it’s not what you think.”
–The start of Paris’ letter to his old man.
Welcome aboard. Benjamin Livingston is sufficiently blandly bureaucratic as Burkus, while twins Alissa Kramer and Heidi Kramer at last give face and voice to the oft-mentioned Delaney sisters. Warren Munson also returns to lend voice to Admiral Owen Paris, having been seen in that role in “Persistence of Vision.” The character will return in “Pathfinder,” played by Richard Herd.
And then we have this week’s Robert Knepper moment! The great character actor Willie Garson plays Riga! Probably best known generally as Stanford Blatch on Sex and the City, and probably best known in genre circles for the recurring role of Martin Lloyd on Stargate SG-1 and for playing Lee Harvey Oswald on Quantum Leap, to me, he’ll always be Mozzie on White Collar.
Trivial matters: Paris is demoted to ensign in this episode. He will remain at that rank until “Unimatrix Zero” when he is re-promoted. (Hilariously, Kim will remain an ensign throughout all this.) This is the second of three times we’ve seen a main character demoted—the first was Kirk at the end of The Voyage Home, and the next will be Burnham in Discovery’s “The Battle of the Binary Stars.”
After being mentioned several times, this is the first and only appearance of the infamous Delaney sisters.
Paris’ instructions to the computer are such that, when the Pathfinder Project gets in touch with Voyager in “Pathfinder,” it would send the letter through.
Set a course for home. “The brain probe, you insolent fool!” I have complained many times in the various pieces I’ve written about Star Trek for this site about the appalling lack of consequences for main characters when they do something stupid or go against regulations or disobey orders, whether it’s Spock kidnapping a captain and assaulting fellow officers in “The Menagerie,” Data taking over the ship in “Brothers,” the Defiant going to rescue Odo and Garak in “The Die is Cast,” or Burnham buggering off to rescue Book in “Scavengers.” And I have complained many times in this particular rewatch about the outsized amount of attention Tom Paris gets.
So it will possibly surprise many of you reading this that I very much like this episode. Another comment I’ve made repeatedly is that Voyager doesn’t do episode-to-episode consequences, so it’s best when the story it tells is self-contained. By having this episode cover the entire month of Paris’s punishment, as well as the reasons for it, we do get to see the toll this takes on Paris—plus, at the very least, he will continue to be demoted.
The demotion itself doesn’t matter that much, as he’ll be doing the exact same job he was doing before, and he’ll probably still be part of the misnamed “senior staff” meetings (which can’t actually be called “people in the opening credits” meetings). And the main difference between being an ensign and being of higher rank that we’ve seen is that you don’t get your own cabin when you’re an ensign. Given the score-plus of casualties on the ship, I don’t think housing is an issue (Kes and Neelix had separate quarters for crying out loud), so even that’s not a factor.
But still, it’s good to see, because what Paris did in this episode was spectacularly stupid and idiotic and he absolutely deserved the demotion and to have to spend a month alone in a tiny room.
Yes, Burkus does appear to be a hidebound bureaucrat who is more interested in covering his own ass than in doing what’s right. But this is one guy whom the Voyager crew has known for six-and-a-half seconds. We don’t know the intricacies of Monean law, we don’t know what procedures they have to go through to effect change in their society. Look at it from Burkus’s point of view: this ship full of strangers shows up out of nowhere and tells them that their world is doomed, but it’s okay, we can help you, but you gotta get rid of one of the most important pieces of technology on your world. That sounds like the start of a miniseries about an alien invasion, doesn’t it?
But Paris decides to steal the Flyer* and commit sabotage, solely on the basis of impressions he’s gotten about a society he’s only just met from a grand total of two people. Yes, Burkus talks a lot about covering his own ass, but politicians are only effective with the support of the people they represent, and if he does something hugely unpopular without going through proper procedure, he won’t be a consul much longer. And Riga has an agenda, too, for all that it’s less self-serving. Paris has nowhere near enough information to make an informed decision.
* I want to complain about how easily Paris steals the Flyer and how Voyager is helpless to stop it because it’s out of tractor-beam range, never mind that (a) it was in tractor-beam range when it was first stolen and (b) Voyager can also move into tractor-beam range. But after “The Doomsday Machine” and “Coming of Age” and “Déjà Q” and “Maneuvers” and “Scavengers” and the eight hundred bajillion other times people have stolen shuttles without being easily stopped, I don’t have the energy to complain about it yet again.
And here’s the other thing: the Moneans don’t have enough information to make an informed decision, either—at least not yet. Voyager‘s only been there a couple of days. They’ve got, by Voyager’s own estimates, years before this is a major problem. There’s no reason to jump in right now this second to solve it. Given that this decision is critical to the Moneans’ future, it should be based on rational discourse by a plurality of their people, not the rash actions of an ex-con pilot with Daddy issues.
Best of all is that Paris’s sabotage doesn’t succeed. This is one of the better examples of why the Prime Directive is important. Voyager can help as much or as little as they’re asked to, but it’s ultimately the Moneans who have to make the decision about how to proceed. Paris stepped all over it simply because one politician annoyed him.
And when he did something stupid, he suffered the consequences. Which is as it should be.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido has two pieces coming out in March. One is a short story featuring H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha (from the novel She) in the charity anthology Turning the Tied, edited by Jean Rabe & Robert Greenberger, to be published by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers to benefit the World Literacy Organization. The other is an essay for BIFF! BAM! EEE-YOW!: The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman ’66—Season Two, edited by Jim Beard, with Rich Handley, about “Hizzoner the Penguin”/”Dizzoner the Penguin,” to be published by Crazy 8 Press.
As always, I think of Chuck Sonnenburg over at SF Debris and how he succinctly summed up this episode’s opening:
Pscyho Janeway: You have to be extra strict to enforce discipline on a starship.
Tom: Strict?! You didn’t even sentence Suder to solitary confinement!
Psycho Janeway: Well, of course. All he did was murder a man for no reason, but you! You defied me! You’re lucky I don’t have you flayed!
More seriously, yeah, this is one of my favorite VOY episodes of Season Five as well — between Paris suffering genuine consequences and the ‘Space is an Ocean’ trope taken to a logical conclusion/avenue here.
Someone on Facebook pointed out that Burnham did face consequences after “Scavengers,” but those consequences only lasted a couple of episodes, and were not only reversed, but resulted in her in an even better position than before she did what she did. So yeah.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Didn’t Mariner get busted back to ensign (after a brief promotion to junior-grade lieutenant) in Lower Decks?
@krad – one of your best posts so far this season!
I agree that Paris should suffer some consequences, but solitary confinement is considered torture by plenty of people here in our not-so-enlightened current time, and most prisoners in solitary are at least allowed an hour a day for physical activity. It is good that Paris got punished, but 30 days like this seems unnecessarily cruel to me. His prison sentence for treason and sedition wasn’t this harsh.
On the other hand, taking his rank seems utterly pointless. Ranks on Voyager are like the points on “Whose Line is it Anyway?” at this point. Random terrorists have high rank, Kim never gets promoted, Seven and Neelix are sometimes in positions of authority over people with actual rank, working in a department doesn’t actually seem to put you in the chain of command for it, and Tom is losing the rank he was given after he traded his knowledge of the Badlands for a jaunt out of prison.
So many people in the Star Trek universe have a crappy relationship with their father that it makes you wonder if there are no parenting classes in the future. If only Tom Paris and Malcom Reed could swap dads, maybe they wouldn’t have ended up with so much emotional baggage.
Ok, that one made me laugh out loud. I guess I should be happy that they bothered to show extras at all, instead of just having Tuvok escort him.
I am of the opinion that most writers have forgotten about TAS. People tend to only focus on the live-action series. We’ll see if that changes with Lower Decks (which has been doing a great job citing other canon).
A fairly good episode, but I was most intrigued by the ocean-in-space concept. At the time, I’d written an early draft of an original novel set on an ocean world, which was originally just an Earthlike planet with a bunch of islands and no continents. After seeing “Thirty Days,” I tried to work out a way that a planet-sized body consisting almost entirely of water could form naturally — since using a high-tech containment device to explain it felt like a cheat. I played around with ideas like a neutron star passing through a cometary cloud and coalescing a mass of water around it, but I could never quite make the physics work out.
Eventually, actual physicists solved the problem for me with the idea of an ocean planet — a world that still has a sizeable rocky core but consists more than 50% of water, though most of that water would be in the form of ultra-high-pressure variants of ice or slush, with only a relatively thin layer of ocean on top, though still far, far deeper than the Earth’s oceans. I eventually reworked my spec novel into Star Trek: Titan — Over a Torrent Sea, using the ocean-planet model.
As for the episode, the retcon that Tom Paris had wanted to be a sailor before becoming a pilot felt kind of clumsy to me. But it was nice to see him get passionate about something other than old cars or movies or TV, particularly a worthy cause like saving the space ocean.
Another example of Janeway committing a very literal crime against humanity. Isolation is considered legally torture for very good reasons, a month in a tiny room? No. It can start causing permanent mental health problems in those subjected to it in as little as a week. Worse, while Paris is effectively isolated he is still subject to someone from security staring right at him all the time. Permanent observation can also cause permanent mental health problems in about the same time frames. Paris ought to be needing years of counselling to help him deal with what Janeway does to him in this episode.
Please entertainment, and entertainment reviewers stop using the solitary confinement trope or saying things like:
Nobody deserves a month alone in a tiny room. It is literally, yes literally not metaphorically, a form of torture.
Sadly realistic that politicians think career suicide is worse than actual suicide. Half the problems in politics would go away if politicians stopped thinking that admitting a having made a mistake was a worse sin than actually making one.
Yes! I really enjoyed this episode. The only thing I would’ve liked to have seen is some follow-up on what happened to Riga. He’s very likeable, but basically enlisted foreign help in order to carry out an eco-terrorist attack. I wouldn’t mind reading what happened to him over the next 30 days as well.
Honestly, the string of episodes that “Thirty Days” kicks off contains some of my favorite episodes in all of Voyager.
Soooo, basically the ‘world’ this week is a glorified soap bubble? Seriously there’s got to be one hell of a story behind that-but apparently the writers couldn’t think of one.
It might be well-written, but it’s still a Tom Paris episode.
I really enjoy this episode as well. The water planet, changes in density due to oxygen extraction, it’s just a cool idea and it works pretty well visually. The perspective of Paris narrating the story to his father from the brig also works well. I’m a Tom Paris fan, but the combination of a hot-headed mistake made with (in his mind) good intentions is very in-character for him.
Regarding the demotion to Ensign, I find it a bit of a wash. I like that there were consequences for Paris’ actions, but really, there kind of weren’t consequences. His role didn’t change, he gets his rank back later, and it just serves as another stark example of inconsistency. How many times have Starfleet offices made violations of this sort with no punishments over the years? It also draws even more attention to “why was a convict ‘observer’ made a Lieutenant in the first place” since it clearly isn’t needed for his duties. Oh well; it certainly helped make this episode for more impactful.
I do admire the conceit of using the consequences of a wild maverick stunt as the framing device of the episode. Double so because it doesn’t consist entirely of some sort of oversight panel insisting this time, there will be consequences, dammit!
And I’d agree that Tom’s leap to planetary scale industrial sabotage was… precipitous, especially for Star Trek. That is, a modern day person might evaluate cynically the odds of politicians making the right choice when weighing long term ecological problems against short term economic and political convenience (this seems to be on a lot of people’s mind lately for some reason) but human civilization in Star Trek, we’re meant to believe, has moved past that problem.
I’m afraid I don’t remember this story very well, but I do remember the “Paris is demoted” moment, being surprised at how long it lasted, and then being irritated that he was re-promoted while Harry stays stuck at Ensign, without screwing anything up.
This episode and Timeless really pushed the usual amount of VFX Trek shows tended to employ at that time, and in a lot of ways served as an early proof of concept for the work the VFX artists would soon be doing on Enterprise. A watery world would have been unthinkable back in the first season.
Thirty Days works reasonably well as a moral lesson. Paris uses his gut feeling to sidestep regulations and commit an agression against another civilization and pays the price for it. Plus, Kolbe gets a good performance out of McNeill during the prison sequences as he tries to write to his father.
Between this and the Malon episodes, it’s interesting to notice how this can be seen as the environmental season of Voyager. A lot of ecological stories. The episode as a whole is another solid season 5 outing. A classic character breaks the rules story that’s been done many times before in Trek, but it’s still executed well.
As for Paris easily stealing the Delta Flyer, this is one instance I can overlook the usual shuttle escaping the tractor beam plot hole. Paris is the one who designed and built the ship. He’s the one person who would know Voyager’s targeting weaknesses, and also the DF’s strenghts. While it would be treasonous from a moral point of view, I can imagine him developing countermeasures in the Flyer, in order to prevent it from being locked by a tractor beam.
I know Tom is meant to be punished here but 30 days solitary confinement in a room with no toliet, shower, pillow,blanket, change of clothes, a sink, room to walk,a book i mean why not just create a prison on the holodeck? hell suder was allowed to live in his quaters.
@krad: Yes, Willie Garson will always be Mozzie! White Collar was a great show.
“Do the words cruel and unusual mean anything to her?”
As I think I mentioned some recaps back, this is one of two episodes that I’d deliberately avoided rewatching since first transmission. So I was surprised that for the most part I found it quite enjoyable. I know Paris isn’t many people’s favourite character around here but he’s one of mine. I liked seeing how enthusiastic he was to explore the ocean, and we finally get to see the famous Delaney sisters, who were once emblematic of Paris’ supposed womanising but now he’s in a committed relationship and still hangs out with them as friends. (Still-single Harry meanwhile is subject to another of Tom’s lists of his doomed romances.) And I liked his friendship with Riga, and yet another sign of Seven loosening up when she falls into line with the rest of the shuttle crew (“It is my nature to comply with the collective”).
But then the ending approached and I was reminded of why the episode leaves a bad taste in the mouth (for the second week running) and why it’s emblematic of everything that went wrong with Janeway’s character in the last three seasons. Perhaps it’s telling that this coincides with Jeri Taylor’s departure (even if she does have to take some of the blame for “Nothing Human”), because it feels like we’re suddenly seeing a different idea of what a strong female character is. The caring maternal leader of the first four seasons has abruptly turned into a sociopath whose word is law and whose judgement is unquestionable. We saw the first signs of it in “Night” and the awkwardly played “joking, not joking” threat to hang the senior staff…which wasn’t funny at the time and is even less funny now.
A year ago, in “The Raven”, Seven, who’d only been on board a few weeks, stole a shuttle, invaded someone else’s space and opened fire on them, and Janeway chose to fire on the natives to protect her. Here, Paris, a long-standing colleague, steals a shuttle, invades someone else’s space and opens fire on them, and Janeway’s response is to open fire on him. Yes, you can argue that Seven wasn’t acting under her own volition. And yes, Paris has crossed a line, using a pretty flimsy excuse to ignore the Prime Directive and take “direct action” (albeit designed to be without casualties). But has he really done enough to justify Janeway’s stance of him no longer deserving her protection? It feels like officers have pulled similar stunts in the past and just got a slap on the wrist, not a photon torpedo fired at them. I don’t know if it was luck or judgement that meant she hit the missile instead of the ship: There’s a very real chance she outright tried to kill him. For the second time in three episodes, a recap has called Tuvok awesome when he seemed to be anything but. (And Chakotay helps work out this attempt at homicide, so I guess that life debt from “Caretaker” has expired.)
And having failed to kill him, she hides behind adherence to Starfleet protocol while violating one of her crew’s basic rights for the second episode running by giving him a month in solitary confinement in conditions that are bordering on inhumane. Remember back in “Meld” when she said they couldn’t keep Suder in the brig long term and instead had him returned to his quarters under guard after what seemed to be a few days? So basically, she treats Paris worse than a murderer. Her “basic nutrition only” directive doesn’t seem entirely in line with the Federation laws on treatment of prisoners that Neelix will mention in “Repentance” either.
Still, I agree with Keith on one thing. It’s one of the few times that a character’s actions actually have consequences beyond the end of the episode, with Paris staying an ensign for the next season and a half, and however mistimed it is, that’s to be applauded.
Apparently, the whole Paris-in-the-brig flashback device was added late on when the episode was under-running. If so, the episode benefits: It’d be pretty grim to end on Paris being sent to the box for a month, but instead we get the more hopeful ending of him returning to duty, sentence served and spirit unbroken. Ensign Culhane is mentioned as filling in at the helm in Paris’ absence, even though “Revulsion” seemed to imply he’s one of the non-speaking crew in operations colours.
I have been waiting excitedly for this episode to come up because of how much I love the scifi premise – An ancient giant ball of water floating in space, filled with giant lifeforms and technology and who knows what else?? Yes please!! I want an entire series based around that premise, Star Trek DSV or something like that. So while I don’t disagree with the review of the episode, I find it funny that even though I remember loving it and thought of it as a favorite, I had completely forgotten the entire framing device (arguably the main plot) of Paris being locked up and writing a letter to his dad. Apparently I just loved the giant ball of water so much I ignored everything else…
This, to me, is a good example of the average, typical, decent Star Trek episode. Not one I’d be excited to watch, not one I’d skip if it came on. The themes and style are typically Trekkian, the characters are themselves, the story is straightforward. Despite the non-linear plot and one of the main characters actually making a major mistake and suffering real consequences, not something Star Trek often did, it still feels like exactly the kind of comfortable tale that I would expect from the franchise in the 90s.
I do kind of like that the episode presents the situation in a way to make it seem like Paris is not unreasonable, he’s taking a stand and doing what he believes in, while also showing that he’s wrong to do what he did and it’s a good thing that Janeway stopped him before he succeeded. It’s a fine line to walk to make both sides sympathetic which the episode manages easily.
Between the bit with the Delaney sisters and Harry’s dream with Seven in “Waking Moments,” our household’s cannon is that Harry is definitely a submissive. Either that, or like much science-fiction and fantasy works, one of the writers is channeling their preferences through their work.
So the habitat evaporates inside five years, okay five years from now they can start evacuating their world… is there something wrong with that picture? You think we should start the evacuation now, Captain Janeway? Why is that?
It’s a straightforward Prime Directive situation though – let this culture run things their way and have their fate be an awful warning to others. It’s a good thing that Voyager is not going to stay and help, being on their way home and all when this came up. If you think a starship will save you, you won’t save you.
So “mutiny” is a strong word – one of the strongest in the sea services. 30 days and RiR for a mutiny is light, if not unrealistic, regardless of the mutineers’ motives. In other circumstances, he would have been summarily executed or at least set adrift if no other maritime(Spacetime?) authority is available to take charge of him and set him for a court martial.
However, I don’t think this reaches the level of mutiny – theft, conduct unbecoming, dereliction of duty probably, but not mutiny. Given the Voyager’s situation, I can understand the lightness of sentence in this case, but I’m certain his career would be over as soon as they get back to Earth, regardless if he’s completed his sentence and done other things to “balance the scales”.
“And here’s the other thing: the Moneans don’t have enough information to make an informed decision, either—at least not yet. Voyager‘s only been there a couple of days. They’ve got, by Voyager’s own estimates, years before this is a major problem. There’s no reason to jump in right now this second to solve it. “
To this I would add: They might study the situation and decide to just deplete the ocean and move on, becoming nomads again once it becomes uninhabitable. Which would be their prerogative, the original builders are long gone and the ocean now belongs to the Moneans by some medley of salvage and adverse possession, so figuring out how to keep the ocean intact and habitable at the same time might just not be worth the hassle. Notably, Paris isn’t volunteering to be a conservator here, he just wants someone else to do it.
Paris’s punishment is definitely the highlight of the episode for me, and that he actually suffers for it (“Help me out here! Ain’t too proud to beg!”) And his face reaction when his torpedo is deflected — I wish they could have kept the camera on that “wh-what?!” face reaction of his a big longer.
Also, one of the few episodes I can remember where Voyager is clearly the superior vessel. Janeway is absolutely magnificent here, especially at the beginning… her diplomacy and her willingness to leave the planet alone in peace if they really, really don’t want any visitors.
I liked this episode and I agree that Paris acted too rashly, but I think the episode asks interesting questions that are especially relevant today: how long can we postpone decisive actions on topics concerning the future of our planet just because politicians are not ready to risk their career? I don’t think the episode tries to answer these questions one way or another, but to be honest I sympathized with Paris and I hoped he will succeed despite all.
@26 Nope, but this went up on a day American Internet is offline, so they suspended commenting on it until everyone could sober up and get back in the office. Or get back in the office, at least.
@9:
Oh, he doesn’t have a next thirty days. As soon as Voyager clears the system, someone put one behind his ear and tossed his corpse into a materials reclamation tank.
@22/Robert Carnegie: “So the habitat evaporates inside five years, okay five years from now they can start evacuating their world… is there something wrong with that picture? You think we should start the evacuation now, Captain Janeway? Why is that?”
Evacuating a whole civilization is not a fast process. It’s a bad idea to procrastinate on getting started. Just ask the Romulans. According to Picard backstory as seen in the tie-in novels and comics, they had 5-6 years of advance warning about the supernova, but they still failed to evacuate the entire population of Romulus in time, because they let political maneuvering and coverups delay the process.
@28 I heard the Federation gave the contract for the evac ferries to a company that doesn’t even own any ferries…
@29 I don’t think a star going nova is that bad for the planets in that system anyway, just the usual project fear.
@30 99.9% of the matter in the star system remains matter in some form or another, so I’m not sure what everyone is so worked up about.
I do wonder what the day-to-day duties of the Federation Naval Patrol look like. Much of what the US Coast Guard does today seems like it would be handled just as capably by some sort of dedicated shuttlecraft type vehicle as opposed to actual in-the-water shipping. There probably is a fair amount of scientific research to do, though, that would benefit from a longish term ship deployment to certain points in oceans, especially on newly colonized worlds. And hey, it’s always nice to have a reminder that there are other parts of the Federation government besides Starfleet.
@32 I would imagine that they largely take the role of various Coast Guards. There will always be people who want to be out on the water for pleasure or profit, and thus eventually need rescuing. Plus didn’t TNG talk about a research base that was under the ocean? They might run supplies and personnel back and forth between places like that, too. And yea, general scientific exploration, too.
Yeah, I’m with KRAD on the fact that it’s nice to have title characters face the consequences for their actions (and even with cases that I’m not entirely in agreement with him, like Jurati on Picard, I have to say that they were unsure how to present it — like I got the idea ‘compelled to do this act’, KRAD did not, but I think the writers were somehow in between on the subject, like ‘you need to turn yourself in’ but ‘oh yeah, you did enough to save people so just kidding’. … Hashtags LongAside and MildConfusingSpoilers). But like Sonnenberg alluded to, this much time in solitary confinement was used in The Shawshank Redemption to show how evil the warden was to Andy. This is not how I would have gone about it were I Janeway, or writing for Janeway for that matter. As noted, Suder was stuck in his quarters because they couldn’t keep him in the brig for the entire journey.
cap-mjb: You may recall that, in my rewatch of “The Raven,” I came down more or less on the side of the B’omar. I think Janeway’s behavior in “Thirty Days” makes more sense than it did in “The Raven,” because in the case of both the B’omar and the Moneans, the crew member who acted recklessly needed to be stopped before they did damage to the alien society.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Solitary confinement is one of those things that *really* gets my goat. Possibly the worst example that comes to mind for me is Barry Allen’s private prison in The Flash (2014), but media has a long tradition of people thoughtlessly just putting people in an unfurnished 8x8x8 cube 24/7 and thinking that’s just fine. Funnily — but logically enough, I suppose — stories about imprisonment are a lot more likely to avoid it.
@@@@@36 Yeah, that was pretty horrific. Of all the choices made to handle the recurring supervillain [or preventing thereof] issues for tv, a private personal prison is itself pretty supervillainy. That is why Batman has Arkham and Gotham Jail, they might be cardboard, but at least they have due process. Team Flash ought to be in gaol themselves for unlawfull imprisonment due to that.
Solitary confinement, bread and water diets [also a form of torture, since it was designed to cause constipation], and of course the old “I surrender, suckers” trope, are all things people in media seem to think are fine, but are totally crimes against humanity and for good reason. I wish Trek would quit using them.
This was a good character piece. Paris’ character has always been that he’s a young impatient hot head and this showcased that pretty effectively. Any character with any affiliation with the Maquis would have that “Uh-oh, I smell bureaucratic bull shit that’s gonna keep this problem from being solved” kind of reaction. There’s also something nice that Paris actually cares so much about this unique technological marvel that he’s willing to put his ass on the line.
The water planet I thought was well handled, it’s a fantastic setting. I’m a little sad that it seems that the Moneans didn’t seem as energized about saving it…but then again, it’s darkly realistic. The idea that they’d just expend the water world and resume being wanderers is immensely pathetic.
For a darkly funny thought, imagine the Kazon slowly following Voyager seeking revenge and coming across an entire planet made of water.
He wasn’t punished for treason, sedition, or mutiny. His actions are pure insubordination. Along with violation of Starfleet General Order One, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer, theft of Starfleet property, the UCMJ can stack up charges like Tetris blocks. But he didn’t betray his country, try to subvert the will of the Federation, or try to take over the ship.
@16/John
“I know Tom is meant to be punished here but 30 days solitary confinement in a room with no toliet, shower, pillow,blanket, change of clothes, a sink, room to walk,a book i mean why not just create a prison on the holodeck? hell suder was allowed to live in his quaters.“
Just for clarity, Starfleet Brigs have a built in toilet and sink that slide in and out of the wall as shown in Star Trek V. He’s not thrown in ‘The Hole’ nor was he in the full dark of prison solitary. He was in a normal Brig jail cell. And from my memory of doing maintenance in a Nimitz class Brig, he had much more space than today, because on my ship those cells were cramped. I’d say you could fit two and a half of those cells into the Voyager’s brig. It actually puts you more into the mind of the NX-01 Brig.
There are still questions of course. I haven’t seen a sonic shower in a Brig. Was he let out for exercise for an hour a day?We weren’t actually with him the entire time, it took him thirty days to dictate a thirty minute voicemail.
As for prison cells in the 24th century, it’s easily possible to just place holoprojectors into Brig cells. Even set for a prison yard simulation?
Suder was allowed to live in his quarters because Janeway recognized that keeping him in the brig for what was projected to be a decades long journey was unfeasible.
So when my husband and I were watching Voyager, I somehow missed this episode. I’m pretty sure I fell asleep before it started and he watched it without me. So you can imagine my absolute confusion when, in the next episode, they start calling Tom ‘Ensign’.
I went full on conspiracy mode: “this is a dream! It’s the mirror universe or something! This isn’t real; he’s not an ensign!” I was then informed that he was demoted for being a moron.
@38: So they do have toilets on starships? Okay. And, I’ve spent most of 2020 physically alone nearly all of the time, and I’ve found out that it isn’t strictly necessary to shower as often as people generally do, at all.
I don’t think anyone gets exclusive personal use of a holodeck, and certainly not for bring naughty. I expect that about half of the crew anyway would be able to adjust a prison holocell to make it into the U.S. Library of Congress, a Ferengi sex suite, or a transporter with coordinates of the nearest shuttlecraft, depending on how they wanted to spend their time, and if only they had longer than one hour with commercials to work on it. I mean, if they have the time between one episode and the next to spend on the project, as well, and if they’re not inclined to stay, then they won’t.
krad: Well, yes, I can see why, if you weren’t on board with Janeway’s decision in “The Raven”, you’d be happier with this one. But personally I found it hard to empathise with her being so quick to escalate to potentially lethal force, not to protect lives, but to protect property. (You claim in the recap that the Delta Flyer wasn’t damaged, but that’s not how it’s portrayed on screen, where the ship’s described as “disabled”.) It felt to me like Janeway’s priority was saving face and making it look like she was the one in control of the situation.
@38 The treason and sedition charges are what I am assuming he was given when he was arrested after he joined the Maquis, hence why he was in the Auckland Penal Colony in the pilot, not what he did here.
@@@@@38
That is torture apologia. Being confined in a room like that for even a week, is still mentally damaging and considered a form of torture. Just because it is not as bad as the worst version you can think of, does not make not torture. You are not blamed, but you have swallowed a lot of what media says about solitary and torture uncritically. That media version is wrong, and you need to adjust your views to account for that.
Script Torture on tumblr, a blog written by someone who has studied torture and its effects with the aim of educating readers and writers on the actual effects, has a basic catchup, along with sources for the information for further reading, on solitary confinement: https://scripttorture.tumblr.com/post/163442981666/solitary-confinement
The rest of her blog is well worth reading too, as it corrects a lot of misconceptions in the media regarding other common tortures.
cap-mjb: Janeway’s priority was to stop Paris from committing an act of terrorism on the Moneans. Let’s not sugarcoat what Paris was doing there.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Paris was serving eighteen months in New Zealand when he was recruited. I think that 30 days seems a little light for attempted terrorism.
Considering that Cyrano Jones was facing twenty years for transporting dangerous animals, it seems even lighter than Paris should have been facing.
But Paris is the lovable rogue so all is forgiven in the not too distant future. And, as krad pointed out, poor Kim never got a promotion no matter what good he did.
An interesting episode. If anything, it made me curious as to what life in the Federation prison system would be like. Would they use holodecks as therapy?
I liked this one quite a bit for all the mentions mentioned in the review, and also have to say it was truly amazing how far the special effects had come in 10 years. Obviously TNG could never have done an episode like this back in 1989 or so.
That said, did anyone else keep hearing Mr. Van Driessen from Beavis and Butthead whenever Willie Garson/Riga spoke?
krad: Janeway’s priority used to be her crew. Now it seems to be her need to be obeyed. I’m not saying what Paris did was right, but I don’t think it was deserving of death either, which Janeway apparently did.
re: Paris and the Turbolift ~ As he is a bridge officer, wouldn’t it be appropriate for Tuvok to escort him to the Brig; with another security officer? As with most of Voyager very little has stuck in my mind though; reading the reviews, more than I previously imagined. Always with this show it’s so much potential; so much wasted. Pity, as Janeway was the best of all the Captains; even Sisko (after he got promoted). Enjoying them though, kerk
I guess the Delaney sisters both being assigned to Voyager, and consequently their family assuming them both lost for four years (until Voyager was finally able to contact Starfleet through the Hirogen Internet), indicates that Starfleet doesn’t have a “Fighting Sullivans” policy when assigning family members to duty stations.
R.I.P. to guest star Willie Garson, who died today at age 57 from pancreatic cancer.
I still haven’t seen this episode but now I feel more inclined to do so tonight.
Finally watched this one all the way through: I thought it was pretty meh/average, too talky and languid paced. I actually tried watching it previously and I believe got only as far as through the first act because I had the very same initial reactions and it was a Paris episode.
The most positive thing of note to me was the excellent, realistic special effects. And it was good that the punishment of being demoted was carried through for awhile after this episode but that in itself seemed inconsequential to me as it didn’t otherwise effect the status quo of Paris’ duties or interactions with the other main characters. I think a good opportunity was missed for a story in which Kim, having been newly promoted, now outranks Paris and on some away mission has to order Paris to do something he disagrees with.
I think my main problem with this episode is that I don’t find Paris’ motivation for his insubordination and terrorism convincing. He’s been on this planet for all of two minutes, only has met two of its inhabitants, and for some reason becomes compelled to involve himself in their society in a way that will radically affect it all because he spontaneously becomes impassioned by some cause. This feels like the kind of story that if he wasn’t already involved with B’Elanna, that the writers would have given him some alien-of-the-week love interest who pleads with him to help so at least you could understand his motivation despite how clichéd that reasoning is. But as it is, to me it just seems forced how Paris gets all worked up about this ocean in space.
It was also weird how B’Elanna basically encouraged Tom’s mutiny.
Tom’s dad is really made out to be an awful awful man and father.
Getting back to Tom’s punishment – the demotion – it actually seems rather weak. You’d think with his violation of direct orders and attempted terrorism on alien society, that he’d be completely stripped of rank, drummed out of service, and made a mere crewman to just be hitching a ride home on the starship. How is Janeway ever supposed to trust him again?
I find the discussion on this thread about the enforcement of Paris’ confinement, the 30 days in the brig, to be the most fascinating topic of all. It’s been said here to be some form of torture. I think it begs the question of where the line is between legitimate punishment ends and where it crosses over into torture? I mean we don’t want to coddle criminals who commit severe crimes because there has to be appropriate repercussions and the discouragement of future repeated incidents. By all accounts, the cell that Tom is in has plenty of room for him to move around in and comfortably sleep and do exercise. It’s clean and he has access to water and a sink and toilet (I believe they just are hidden in the wall), he’s given regular meals, and he even gets visitors like Harry. Even if he wasn’t getting visited, I don’t see this as solitary confirming as there is always a guard there which Tom can see. I would think as a prisoner in a cell, it would give me some comfort to visually see that another person was always there, even if I couldn’t talk to that person (or it would just be one-way communication). So it really doesn’t seem that bad to me. What are they supposed to do, confine Paris to the creature comforts of his personal quarters, or an entire cargo bay where he gets to run around in? I don’t think so. The brig seems an appropriate punishment to me.
Everything has been said here i think…just one thing from my side – i did not believe for a minute that a random space ocean after like a day or two becomes sooo important to Paris that he goes to full terrorist mode just to protect it when it does not even seem justified to do so…this seemed to me sooo inconsistent with ST universe and Paris’s character, that i did not believe it for a second.
Thirty days of solitary confinement without being allowed to even have conversations is severe psychological torture. It would violate several present day human rights
What bugged me most about this episode is a 1-in-a-billion intercept of the missile. I know photon torpedos are guided, but there’s no mention of using to intercept the missile (and the Voyager crew doesn’t really even know that’s the mode of sabotage). So it comes off like a lucky shot and a little too convenient. Also, if the Delta Flyer was disabled, I’m surprised some of the nearby oxygen refineries weren’t also disabled as well.
What I liked best was the whole underwater world. That is wonderful and really the kind of thing one expects to see on alien worlds. Oh, and the Captain Proton stuff is always delightful to me. Speaking of, it’s funny that Voyager did the thing a lot of other TV shows don’t do with off-screen characters. It actually reveals them partway through the series, but never shows them again.
I think you could only have solitary confinement on Voyager because no one ever gets put in the brig. Still, Tom should have been allowed hollodeck exercise (no Captain Proton, buddy). Because I’m in agreement with others, it is cruel and unusual punishment.