Well, well, well. I’ve returned from a five-year mission that called me away from both this blog and my over-ambitious Voyager viewing plans. Whether I revive this blog and project or not, we’ll have to see; but I was moved rather randomly the other day to watch some Star Trek with my kids—and I couldn’t resist checking back in on Voyager.
I watched this episode with my 5-year-old son, who was a few weeks old back in the heady days when it seemed like I’d actually be able to pull off this Voyager blog project. It was fun to cuddle up on the couch with my son and daughter and repeatedly explain that a) no, this wasn’t the Star Trek with LeVar Burton in it (my daughter’s question), and b) no, the aliens aren’t real (I actually saw the light in my son’s eyes dim when I told him this).
Plot synposis: While on an away team mission scouting for fuel, Neelix is attacked by an organ-harvesting alien that steals his lungs. Voyager’s medical facilities can’t replace his lungs, and can only keep him alive if he remains permanently immobilized in sickbay for the rest of his life. While Neelix and his friends try to process this, the rest of the Voyager crew tries to track down the alien in the hopes of retrieving the aforementioned lungs.
When Voyager finally catches up to the organ thieves, we learn that the aliens are afflicted by a destructive medical condition (the “phage”) that requires them to scavenge internal organs from others to keep their own decaying bodies alive. Neelix’s lungs can’t be restored to him, but in exchange for mercy, the medically-advanced aliens help transplant a donor lung (from Kes) into Neelix’s body, restoring him to health.
This goofy plot just barely manages to hold together long enough to reach the end credits. However, the real purpose this episode serves is to further establish roles and personalities for Voyager‘s minor characters: Neelix and Kes.
Neelix, ship’s cook.
Neelix is going to be the ship’s cook—a role that sounds minor, but which I suspect will wind up being a central part of the show going forward. Eateries are a key location in Star Trek and other science fiction shows—Quark’s bar in Deep Space Nine and the Zocalo in Babylon 5 both provided space for critical off-the-record interaction and deal-making; and Quark’s role as bartender and information-trafficker became one of Deep Space Nine‘s most memorable elements. Whether Neelix and Voyager’s well-lit mess hall can fill similar narrative spaces remains to be seen. I’m skeptical. But then, I wouldn’t have guessed at the beginning of Deep Space Nine that Quark would wind up being one of the show’s best characters.
Kes, meanwhile, is going to be Voyager‘s new medical assistant, perhaps replacing Tom Paris. This is a pretty nebulous role. On the plus side, it’s vague enough that Kes could be plausibly incorporated into a wide range of future episodes and plotlines. However, I can’t shake the feeling that Voyager’s writers just don’t know what else to do with her.
He’s going to be fine: Much of “Phage” is spent watching Neelix come to terms with the possibility of being paralyzed for life. Unfortunately, there’s no real suspense here, because 1995 (when this episode first aired) was not a year in which serial TV shows brutally incapacitated their protagonists. This is, on paper, heavy (and uncomfortable) stuff: this is somebody trying to figure out if they want to go on living in circumstances that have seemingly stripped all joy and opportunity from life. But here’s the thing: we’re only a few episodes into a show that’s supposed to be about brave space explorers finding their way home. I’m not yet ready for a hospital-room drama episode about minor characters—let’s save that for season three or something.
There but for the grace of God: this episode’s most compelling moments take place in the final act, when Voyager finally captures the two organ-thief aliens and learns their tragic backstory: they’re the remnants of a once-great civilization that, when afflicted by the devastating “phage” plague, set aside all their humanitarian virtues and achievements in order to simply survive. This is familiar moral preaching of the It Could Happen Here! variety, warning Voyager‘s first-world viewers that deeply-held values can start looking like wasteful luxuries when real societal stress strikes.
In the context of Voyager’s situation, this is a particularly pointed and unsubtle warning. Voyager is far from home and at risk of food and supply shortages. How long will it be before the need to survive causes Janeway and her crew to start jettisoning their high-falutin’ Federation values? As viewers, we all know that’s not going to happen, because this is Star Trek. But it’s a moral dilemma that everyone on Voyager should expect they’ll eventually face. If Voyager can make me feel that tension in the seasons to come, I’ll be a happy viewer.
Janeway’s dilemma: Janeway has a very strong character moment while confronting the captured aliens. Torn between her Federation values (no capital punishment or vindictive retribution), Voyager’s practical circumstances (they can’t haul prisoners all the way back to Earth for a fair trial), and Janeway’s own desire for justice (the aliens just attacked her crew and will likely victimize others in the future), she chooses mercy—but not before literally pacing around the room, trying to find a solution. It’s an unsatisfying compromise, as it should be—the first of many that she can anticipate making, no doubt. This is somewhat (but not entirely) undercut when the aliens, grateful to be spared, agree to heal Neelix, neatly wrapping up the episode.
Final verdict: This is not only a very forgettable episode; it’s also a very strange one to place so early in Voyager’s first season. The pace is slow and it’s just generally uninspired. But what keeps me going is the occasional glimpse of the kind of show Voyager could be down the road: full of well-developed characters facing interesting choices and challenges. Please, Voyager—be that show. Don’t let me down.