Voyager 3x1 "Basics, Part 2"

rating: ****

the story: The crew survives being marooned long enough for Paris, the Doctor, and Suder to retake the ship from Seska and the Kazon.

what it's all about: The big shift in storytelling from the second to third seasons is evident in how little Chakotay is involved in events.  This was literally the culmination of an arc that directly involved him, even as late as the first part of the story, which was also the second season finale, where Seska tries fooling him into thinking she's having his baby.  That's how the crisis began.  How it ends is almost a letdown, but it's also still one of the biggest stories the series ever attempted, and the closest the crew ever came to actually losing the ship. 

So the irony is that the dramatic heft of "Part 2" falls to Suder, the character who debuted in "Meld" and whose struggle to get control of himself while being asked to do everything that would otherwise make him lose it...basically it's the closest Voyager ever came to doing a Deep Space Nine story, focusing on a guest character at the expense of the main cast.  In "Meld" Suder at least had a strong counterpoint in Tuvok.  Here he's working alongside the Doctor, who's constantly at risk of being deactivated the invaders, which of course happens, which means Suder really is all alone this time. 

Watching the crew survive various manufactured crises on the planet is actually a huge drawback for the episode.  It's completely unnecessary, one of those times the producers wrongly assumed the first problem (being marooned) wasn't big enough (another would be Enterprise's "The Catwalk," where the crew being holed up in one of the nacelles to survive a storm wasn't somehow enough; Star Trek can really be scared of just letting human drama play out), so they piled on plot points that could just as easily have been entirely unrelated episodes, and should have. 

Anyway, aside from Suder there's of course Seska, because that's really what the story was about, finally concluding her arc.  Predictably, her Kazon lover feels no real qualms of moving on without her once everything blows up in their faces.  It's a shame we never saw him or Seska's baby again.  Would've at least given Chakotay another fantastic character moment.  But "Part 2" feels like it's deliberately moving on from prior storytelling because it is, much like Enterprise would hastily conclude its long-running Temporal Cold War arc, bowing to the pressure of apathetic (or maybe just pathetic) fan complaints about how things had been going.  Those same fans would nonsensically complain that serialization vanished from Voyager, or seriously claim it was never there.  Yeah.  Okay.

The good news is that when it counts, the episode feels epic, in ways later two-part event episodes frequently struggled to match.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Concludes one of the longest arcs in Star Trek history.
• series - So by necessity is a defining Voyager moment.
• character - Suder and Seska drive this episode.
• essential - The first big climax of the series.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Brad Dourif (Suder)
Anthony De Longis (Culluh)
Nancy Hower (Samantha Wildman)
Simon Billig (Hogan)

Voyager 2x26 "Basics, Part 1"

****

The season and the first two seasons come to their epic conclusion in "Basics, Part 1," and darned if that's not a tall order.

Having cut off most of what had been developing for the Seska-Kazon alliance earlier, our favorite Cardassian traitor instead unwittingly gets it back on track by stumbling into her own crisis, her bastard child finally being born, and she suddenly grows maternal and protective, contacting Chakotay, whom they both believe to be the father, asking for help, and of course he agrees, forcing Janeway (hey! this is the one time Chakotay really forces the action!) to enter a final confrontation with the Kazon, a situation that proves too chaotic for the ship to handle.

Seska uses the ensuing opportunity to once again align with the Kazon, who steal the ship and exile the crew to a desolate world, sort of putting everyone in the reverse of how the series pilot ended.  It's quite a dramatic event, even if you were one of the fans who never cared for the Kazon.  They were seen as the poor man's Klingons from the start, and many fans wanted to have seen the last of them after their first appearance, but they kept coming back, and eventually found a strong ally in Seska, and like it or not became a huge part of the series.

Now, many, many times hostile aliens have taken over the ship/station in Star Trek, sometimes so easily that it ends up seeming like a joke.  I confess to having sometimes thought of "Basics" as one of the more forgettable instances of this trend, but it's incredibly important in how it galvanizes the crew in unexpected ways.  For one thing, it forces the recurring Lon Suder into becoming a key character in the series in ways he's hadn't already been, and also places the Doctor into harm's way and forced to fend for himself for the first time (but that's really for the second part; it does, however, in its implication from this half of the story reveal him to be in a most unique position for Star Trek), and not to mention Tom Paris once again being the odd man out, something he routinely becomes, even after finally joining a lasting family, when he's left on his own to come up with a plan of rescue (more on that next season!).

Anyway, the stakes can seem a little silly when all you're talking about is a single ship and the only thing the good guys really lose is the ability to get home, but they still alive, right?  That may be the whole point of the series, but there were still possibilities, right?  Except you want those bad guys to finally get it, and there's no better opportunity for that to happen than when it seems like they've finally gotten everything they wanted.  How often does that happen in Star Trek?  Really, only during the Dominion War.  That's the power of keeping a story going for a while.  That's what benefits the series from keeping around unpopular villains, because they force one major character into action, and then everyone else into jeopardy, and finally everything into a place where they either move forward or truly get left behind.

Well, hey, that sounds like a winner to me.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Brad Dourif
Martha Hackett
Anthony De Longis

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x16 "Meld"

****

"Meld" is the definitive Tuvok episode, and it's a rival of "Amok Time" as a definitive Vulcan episode.  In fact, it's Tuvok's "Amok Time.

"Amok Time," as any Star Trek fan ought to know, is the original series episode where Spock is suffering from the Vulcan blood fever, pon farr, and begins acting irrationally until he's allowed to go home and mate.  Except it doesn't prove that easy.  He's got a challenger to his intended bride, and has to fight for it.  And it's not even that easy!  He ends up having to fight Kirk, and actually "kill" him.

"Meld" is like that, but thoroughly Tuvok instead of thoroughly Spock.  "Amok Time" happened because Spock served in Starfleet.  "Meld" happens because Tuvok is lost in the Delta Quadrant.  Tuvok was Voyager's tactical officer, but also served as the local sheriff, and as such when a murderer is discovered among the crew, it falls to him to discover the culprit.  Like an episode of Law & Order: SVU, this does not actually solve the problem, because Lon Suder cannot control himself.  So Tuvok offers to control Suder for him.  He does this by melding with him and taking on his murderous impulses, like Picard agreeing to assume Sarek's emotions, and it doesn't quite work out as planned.

Tuvok has Vulcan control, but not enough.  "Meld" is about the limits of self-restraint, of responsibility, and accountability.  It's about Suder as much as it about Tuvok, but mostly, it's Tuvok's finest hour.  It's another episode that challenges the perceptions of those who claimed it was unnecessary and fruitless to pursue Voyager as conceived, perhaps one of the best examples as to how the series lived up to its potential, in many and unexpected ways.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Brad Dourif
Simon Billig

Memory Alpha summary.