Voyager 7x11 "Shattered"

rating: ****

the story: Chakotay finds the ship shattered into different time periods.

what it's all about: Sure, "Shattered" is a bit like Next Generation's final episode, "All Good Things...," where Q has Picard hopping between the past, present and future, but it stands uniquely on its own as a clever and fun episode, revisiting various signposts from throughout Voyager's seven seasons.  We do see a future, where Icheb and Naomi have grown up and have become the second generation to run the ship, and we see Seven when she was still a Borg drone, and we see Janeway from just before "Caretaker" (first episode, dude). 

But my favorite part?  One last reprise of Seska.  Seska was the signature arc of the first two seasons, the Cardassian who posed as a Bajoran in order to infiltrate the Maquis, and thus betraying in her defection to the Kazon not only the crew as a whole, but Chakotay, with whom she'd been close.  She technically met her end in the third season premiere, "Basics, Part 2," but returned via a holodeck program she'd booby-trapped in "Worst Case Scenario" at the end that season.

For a second time, she gets another chance to finish the job, and really, it's just confirmation that Seska remains a signature villain of the series, in case anyone had forgotten or simply roped her in with her Kazon allies, whom many fans didn't really care for.

That it's a Chakotay episode is awesome, since he had nothing much to do with "Worst Case," nor "Basics, Part 2," despite being so important to the arc and character previously.  This was a point when he'd receded far into the background, and hadn't been particularly relevant except in his spotlight episodes since...basically the second season.  But Chakotay was king of spotlight episodes.  He could sell any concept, and seemed to get a good share of the truly interesting ones, like this one.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Shades of a classic final episode here.
• series - Reflects back on the journey without being a clip show, which is itself clever.
• character - Chakotay, and Seska, are well-served.
• essential - Seeing Seska again is a great reminder of how important she was to the show.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Manu Intiraymi (Icheb)
Scarlett Pomers (Naomi)
Martin Rayner (Chaotica)

Voyager 3x25 "Worst Case Scenario"

rating: ****

the story: Seska's final revenge against the crew is a booby-trapped holodeck program concerning a Maquis insurrection.

what it's all about: This is one of my favorite Voyager episodes, one of the ones I wish fans who never got what the series was all about would maybe pay more attention to.  Some fans never understood why the Maquis were able to integrate so completely into the Starfleet crew around them; this is one of the episodes that addresses this directly, and as about as cleverly as you can get.  Tuvok created a holodeck program in the early days, as the title suggests, in which the integration didn't go as well as it did in reality, to put it mildly.  Only, to make matters worse, the Maquis who did mutiny against the crew, Seska, who spent two seasons collaborating with the Kazon against it, found the program and rewrote it as a Trojan horse.  Seska in reality met her fate in the season premiere, "Basics, Part 2," but "Worst Case Scenario" is almost a better goodbye.

Seska not only embodied what the Maquis were "supposed" to do, but she was also an excellent model for why things didn't actually turn out the way fans expected.  Star Trek by definition is a hopeful concept.  It expects that the best in everyone will have a chance to surface (unless you're the villain).  The series did a pretty good job of explaining why all the key Maquis (Chakotay,B'Elanna, even Tuvok, who was quickly revealed to be a Starfleet infiltrator) were not irredeemable rebels but rather people with something that defined them other than their fight against the Cardassians.  Chakotay had dropped out of Starfleet, as had B'Elanna (in her case before completing the Academy), and both had long struggled with personal demons and alienation.  They weren't just people spoiling for a fight.  Seska, meanwhile, wasn't even the Bajoran she'd initially appeared to be, but rather a Cardassian infiltrator.

Another misfit who found his place in the crew, Tom Paris, is key to the episode working, too; the one-time Starfleet exile joins Tuvok in revisiting the program, in a turn that helped redefine the character, his interest in writing these things (later immortalized in Captain Proton's intrepid adventures) giving Paris new depth.  It gives two characters who normally didn't have much in common something to work on together.  In doing so, it pivots Seska away from Chakotay, with whom she'd been closely associated since her defection, and back to the crew at large, which is where her focus lies in the program anyway (since at the point she contrived all this, Seska was no doubt still convinced she could patch things over with Chakotay). 

It's a heck of a lot of fun to watch all this develop and play out, besides, which is one of the biggest things you need for a classic episode, which of course this one is.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - One of the all-time great holodeck episodes.
• series - A perfect third season episode, capturing something that had made Voyager work previously and recontextualizing it.
• character - Works extremely well for Tuvok, Paris, and Seska.
• essential - A great way to explain the appeal of the whole series.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)

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 1x11 "State of Flux"

rating: ****

the story: Seska defects from the crew, betraying Chakotay and joining the Kazon.

what it's all about: Inarguably, "State of Flux" is the most important early episode of Voyager after the pilot ("Caretaker") and once and for all settles whether the Maquis proved to be a wasted opportunity or in fact the most fruitful storytelling opportunity of the series.

You can probably guess that I throw my vote in with the latter (incredibly tiny) lot, because "Flux" begins a story that continues throughout the second season and isn't resolved until "Basics, Part 2" at the start of the third season (and then reprised at the end of that season in "Worst Case Scenario").  All that in finally deciding if the Maquis were a bunch of irredeemable bad apples (as fans inexplicably had determined them to be) or good people with at least one really bad apple (Seska) among them. 

And what a bad apple!  Not only was Seska willing to betray the crew, she betrayed Chakotay, with whom she had her closest relationship, the remaining Maquis allegiance that went beyond the new Starfleet code everyone else (including belligerent B'Elanna Torres) went along with (well, aside from the folks featured in "Learning Curve").  And she wasn't even Bajoran, as she'd appeared throughout the season to this point, but Cardassian!  What a twist! 

All of it plays like a knowing nod toward Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which Valeris is revealed to be a Klingon stooge, down to a trick played on Seska to get her to expose herself.  (See "Flashback" in the third season for another Undiscovered Country callback, and also Enterprise's "Judgment.")

And again, it's a huge, huge moment, both for the season and continuity of the series itself, an unprecedented one that wouldn't be duplicated until Eddington is revealed to be a member of the Maquis in Deep Space Nine (he's the only character, actually, who plays the Maquis off as the bad guys, across three series). 

Anyone still trying to figure out whether or not Chakotay was a wasted opportunity needs to watch "Flux" and the second season (particularly "Maneuvers") over again, because they spell out exactly what happened to him and feature his biggest moments, bigger than any first officer, arguably, aside from Spock, in franchise history.  How do you follow something like that up?  Especially when fans great the material with apathy?  (It wasn't the series that rejected the character, but the fans.)

criteria analysis:

• franchise - If you're one of the fans who thinks Voyager wasted the potential of the Maquis, this episode is required viewing.
• series - As stated above, after "Caretaker" this is the most important episode of the first season.
• character - Begins the epic showdown between Chakotay and Seska.
• essential - Entirely must-see.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Anthony De Longis (Culluh)
Josh Clark (Carey)

Voyager 1x10 "Prime Factors"

rating: ****

the story: The crew discovers a culture seemingly capable of giving them a good boost home, but which refuses to help.

what it's all about: Let's just get out of the way that any complaints about "Prime Factors" usually involve the alien culture.  For supposedly enlightened people, I often have cause to remark that Star Trek fans can be surprisingly bigoted and petty.  Enough of that.

This is the first of an incredibly strong end run for the first season, where the supposedly neglected premise of the series was handled with remarkable finesse.  While "Factors" shares with the earlier "Eye of the Needle" a kind of fake-out ending and tease, it also demonstrates that the crew will have to work extremely hard to find a solution to the problem of getting home in a reasonable length of time (read: soon).

And it gives a lot of good material to a lot of characters.  Harry has an excellent spotlight, in stark contrast to the previous episode ("Emanations"), where you get to see his remarkable, eager young mind at work, how in any other circumstances his career would've advanced rapidly (that he never gets promoted during the course of seven seasons is likely a symptom of a lack of upward mobility, considering no officers above him have anywhere else to go, either; only Tuvok and Tom Paris advance in rank). 

Besides Harry, B'Elanna Torres remarkably collaborates with Lt. Carey, with whom she'd fought over the role of chief engineer in "Parallax," as well as Seska, for whom this foreshadows developments in the next episode ("State of Flux").  Everyone else who rebels against Janeway's and Starfleet expectations does it for the good of the crew; it's Seska who proves the bad apple.

Tuvok has perhaps his most notable moment of the whole series when he elects to join the conspiracy.  His relationship with Janeway would end up being one of the most neglected aspects of the series, but they have a powerful moment as Janeway expresses disappointment in the Vulcan who somehow managed to out-stoic even the famously stoic Spock, rarely breaking discipline except when confronting Neelix.  This makes "Factors" kind of the final episode necessary to understand how the crew functions the rest of the series, why Tuvok never questions Janeway again.  The weakness, if there truly is one in the episode, is the absence of Chakotay offering any significant contributions to the proceedings.  But like Seska he'll be in "Flux" to a greater degree.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Casual fans will want to take note on how the episode reflects the premise of the series.
• series - See the above.
• character - Harry, Torres, Tuvok, Janeway...a lot of characters make a positive impact on the proceedings.
• essential - In a lot of ways this could've functioned as a season finale, so strong is its statement on both the series and the characters who populate it.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Josh Clark (Carey)

Voyager 1x9 "Emanations"

rating: *

the story: Harry gets mixed up in an alien culture's rituals concerning the afterlife.

what it's all about: "Emanations" is a perfectly serviceable episode for fans just looking for a cool sci-fi concept and/or examination of existential matters.  Where it fails is exploring its nominal lead, Harry Kim.

So this is probably why fans began to think Harry was basically worthless.  His first spotlight barely has anything to do with him, or say anything about him.  Already we've seen B'Elanna Torres ("Parallax"), Neelix ("Phage"), and Tom Paris ("Ex Post Facto") command spotlight episodes, so it's not as if the series has proven deficient in that regard at this early stage of the game.  It's certainly true that fans didn't end up caring all that much for just about any character in Voyager, but it wasn't for lack of effort.  Somehow, however, Harry ended up being pigeon-holed as the most meaningless of the bunch, and I have little doubt that it stems from "Emanations."  It's a shame, too, as he turns out much, much better in the second season episode "Non Sequitur."

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A casual fan's kind of episode.
• series - Nothing much to do with Voyager, alas.
• character - A poor spotlight for Harry Kim.
• essential - Not hardly.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Jerry Hardin

Voyager 1x5 "Phage"

rating: ***

the story: The crew meet the Vidiians, and Neelix faces his first existential crisis.

what it's all about: In hindsight, "Phage" becomes infinitely more important than it might have seemed when it first aired.  Later in the first season the Vidiians appear again in "Faces," which is a better episode and in fact a classic, and the aliens make a few more appearances after that, too, and become one of the signature aliens of the whole series.  That they happen to embody the scavenger, desperate nature of the whole Delta Quadrant is probably icing on the cake.

(In case you don't remember, the Vidiians are the ones who harvest without remorse organs from unwitting donors.)

But perhaps more importantly, "Phage" also suggests the hidden depth of Neelix.  Neelix kind of became the poster child for everything that irritated fans about Voyager, the Jar Jar Binks of the series.  He was found to be too lively.  Or something.  I never really understood it, so don't ask me to explain.  Go find some irrational observer.  You'll find plenty.  Anyway, this was a character who was perhaps one of the most interesting characters of the series, right from the start, the Delta Quadrant native who volunteered to join Janeway's crew and help them navigate (and there would be plenty of material about how Neelix's feelings on this decision evolved, mirroring Janeway's to try and reach home, or blowing up the original solution).  And yeah, he always seemed a little too chipper, but as it turns out this was always a case of the clown crying on the inside.  This was a guy who was capable of going as dark as anyone ever did in Star Trek.  "Phage" was the first time we see this side of him.

In the original series Uhura could lose her memory and "have it reprogrammed" and no one ever really bothered to think twice about it ("The Changeling").  Neelix agonizes over the loss of his lungs and the Doctor's terrible solutions (no offense to the Doctor) to keep him alive, and it makes for tough viewing, far more difficult than Worf wishing he were dead (Next Generation's "Ethics"), the first sign that this was going to be a first season totally unafraid of pushing traditional franchise storytelling limits ("Faces," again, proves that all over again).  Somehow fans totally overlook that.  Again, don't ask me to explain.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - I don't want to say casual fans can't appreciate it, but it becomes much more significant later.
• series - Introduces a key alien species in the Vidiians.
• character - The first hint at the true depth of Neelix.
• essential - For Voyager fans it's a can't-miss.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)

Voyager 1x3 "Parallax"

rating: ***

the story: Torres proves herself qualified to fill the role of chief engineer.

what it's all about: Now, here's where the pilot continues, and in some respects it's the episode every fan who argues Voyager never figured out its premise really needs to see.  As sketched above, it's the one where B'Elanna Torres earns her way into the command crew position of chief engineer.  Torres was one of the Maquis stranded along with Chakotay in the Delta Quadrant, and arguably the one who most exemplified the group's inability to conform to Starfleet standards of conduct.  In fact she'd struggle with her temper and general discontent (mostly with herself) for the duration of the series.  But in "Parallax," Janeway is able to see past the surface and accept her valuable contribution to the combined crew, a brilliant mind not afraid to challenge even the captain herself.

Honestly, I have no idea why Torres isn't more embraced by fans.  In a lot of respects she, along with Deep Space Nine's Kira, was patterned after Next Generation's Ro Laren, a popular character who addressed frequent concerns about everyone being too chummy chummy in Star Trek.  But like Kira, Torres branched off in unique directions; it wasn't so much her background as an internal conflict with her mixed race identity that set Torres apart from nearly everyone around her, and yet the result was one of the most endearing characters in franchise history, capable of great depth and therefore the "humanity" Star Trek was always about.  And wasn't that the point of Voyager's premise, to discover that quest for identity all over again?

She embodies everything that set the Maquis apart, and why they were set apart, a continuation in some respects of Ro's story, where it might have picked up again if we'd ever seen her past "Preemptive Strike."  The first time we saw her ("Ensign Ro"), she'd already been struggling with much the same issues as the ones that drove her to the Maquis.  Torres would struggle, too, as I've already said, but it was finding not just one or two helpful individuals (Guinan, Picard) but a whole crew, united in unique circumstances, less able to ignore the problems that would usually have divided them, that saw her find a positive way forward.

Of course, "Parallax" is also the first appearance of Seska, the very embodiment, eventually, of fan expectations for the Maquis, and she was never really embraced for what she represented, either.  So go figure.

"Parallax" also makes it clear that the producers were always going to be interested in embracing a part of the franchise legacy Deep Space Nine neglected, for the most part, which was to be a vehicle for cool sci-fi storytelling, where just about anything is possible.  Though thinly sketched, the subplot of the episode involves the crew having to figure out how to handle an echo of the ship, and eventually Janeway and Torres being forced to decide which is the real one.  It's fascinating that Janeway decides Torres is fit to assume the post of chief engineer even after they violently disagree over it.  Clearly Janeway values someone whose passion, though not always contained, is capable of the bold thinking required of leaders. 

criteria analysis:

• franchise - For skeptical fans who still don't understand what Voyager was all about, this is pretty much the poster episode.
• series - Features the mechanics of how the Starfleet and Maquis crews learn to integrate.
• character - The first spotlight episode for B'Elanna Torres, arguably the series MVP.
• essential - As "merely" a character episode, it proves that everything fans like to claim Voyager wasn't...probably was, all along.

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett (Seska)
Josh Clark (Carey)

Deep Space Nine 3x2 "The Search, Part 2"

rating: ****

the story: Odo learns who and what his people the Founders really are, while Sisko experiences what a Federation/Dominion alliance would look like.

what it's all about: "The Search, Part 2" is part deconstruction (the station crew and mission are dissected piece by piece) and character study (Odo discovers for the first time the true joy of being a shapeshifter), and it works brilliantly. 

As a continuation of its predecessor, the episode is a lot like "The Best of Both Worlds," the iconic Next Generation two-part thriller involving the showdown with the Borg: the second half of the story explores an unexpected way to conclude something sensational.  Part of it might be easy to dismiss in hindsight as a "reset button," because the Federation/Dominion alliance doesn't really happen in anything other than the minds of Sisko and his command crew, but evokes real emotion, the most emotion Sisko has exhibited all series.  It's downright spine-tingling when he unloads on Admiral Nechayev on his feelings about what's been happening, a stark contrast to the vaguely unsettling tension he showed toward Picard in the first episode of the series, "Emissary." 

It's worth noting that for as many appearances as she made across Deep Space Nine and Next Generation, Nechayev never has a better showing than in "The Search, Part 2."  She was always a proud member of the Bad Admirals club, which Deep Space Nine would finally break with Admiral Ross later in the series, but this whole scenario is a perfect representation of the compromised, almost political nature of the rank, and why it so often produced this type of character.  It doesn't hurt that Natalija Nogulich always seemed so deliciously pleased with herself playing Nechayev, which itself kind of informs the later recurring character of Weyoun, and not to mention Dukat.

But the biggest news of the episode is that not only has Odo finally found home, but his people are the bad guys!  He and Kira (and as of this episode they're officially on their way to becoming a romantic couple) have a hard time reconciling his elation with the realities of the situation, but in the end, it is what it is, and the Founders are in fact the leaders of the Dominion, which will put Odo in a lot of compromising situations as the series progresses.

It's almost easy to overlook how important this development is, because it's by far the less sensational, and in fact almost numbingly mundane, half of the episode, but for those keeping score, it's ultimately hard to ignore. 

The whole thing is what the remainder of the series looks like in a nutshell.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - This is what it looks like when a story comes together in Star Trek.
• series - This is what the Dominion in its totality looks like.
• character - Whether Odo, Kira, Sisko, or even Nechayev, this episode's got them all covered.
• essential - Do you really need to ask?

notable guest-stars:
Salome Jens (Female Shapeshifter)
Andrew Robinson (Garak)
Ken Marshall (Eddington)
Natalija Nogulich (Nechayev)
Martha Hackett

Deep Space Nine 3x1 "The Search, Part 1"

rating: ****

the story: Sisko introduces everyone to the Defiant, a powerful new Starfleet warship he's taking into the Gamma Quadrant to confront the Dominion.

what it's all about: What always set Deep Space Nine apart was that it was, well, set aboard a space station.  Did that really change in the third season with the introduction of the Defiant?  Well, no.  Occasionally it would be used to tell more traditional Star Trek stories, but for the most part it remained an extension of the station dynamic.  But it was by its very nature a clear signal that this was a series that wouldn't outright condemn war so much as explore its many facets. 

It was also a kind of redefining of Sisko himself, who proudly announces his role in its development, and that he'll be its commanding officer (he wouldn't gain the rank of captain until the end of the season).  This whole episode begins the third season's strong characterization of Sisko, which was the series' best characterization of him to that point, and arguably from its whole run.  Sisko first appeared as a broken, lost man, and while accepting the space station assignment gave him new purpose, it didn't really fix him.  He and son Jake acknowledge that they've now found themselves a home, in the episode.  Sisko had purpose before, but now he has a reason to live.

But others are less happy about what's been happening.  Odo, for instance.  "The Search, Part 1" is also the first appearance of Michael Eddington, a seemingly minor and yet increasingly significant character in the middle portion of the series.  At first he's important because to Odo it's Starfleet's ultimate rebuke of his role as the lawman of the station.  This was something that bubbled up in the previous two seasons, but comes to a dramatic head with Eddington.  Odo doesn't particularly care about Eddington himself (he ends up working alongside him just fine) so much as the fact that once again he's being forced to confront his status as the unwanted "other."  Which leads him, unexpectedly, not only to resign but show up to take part in the expedition, because he once and for all is convinced that his origins, another long-teased development, really do lie in the Gamma Quadrant.

By the end of the episode, the mission has turned into a disaster, but Odo has discovered exactly what he sought: the Founders, and the forever-unnamed Female Shapeshifter who is destined to change the course of his life forever...

Unlike how the previous season began, with that historic three-part episode that ran out of steam and authentic developments well before its conclusion, "The Search" packs a strong one-two punch, with a strong beginning (here) and conclusion (next episode).  Both halves are distinct in and of themselves, although of course inextricably linked.  They both focus on Sisko and Odo, besides, setting them up one moment and knocking them down the next, to remarkable effect.  What was previously reserved for strong episodes was now beginning to settle on strong characterization.

Given how big the Dominion story ultimately became, it might be tempting to dismiss how it began and increasingly irrelevant.  But that would be a mistake.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - Seldom has storytelling been this forceful and assured in Star Trek.
• series - Iconic elements are falling into place at last.
• character - Sisko and Odo are front and center.
• essential - And having some of their best-ever material.

notable guest-stars:
Salome Jens (Female Shapeshifter)
Ken Marshall (Eddington)
John Fleck
Martha Hackett

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 2x20 "Investigations"

***

The Kazon arc of the season has one of its essential elements play out this episode, in a number of intriguing ways.

For several episodes, we've known that Jonas has been conversing with the Kazon, feeding them information.  He's a traitor, and he plays into Seska's hands.  But he doesn't get away with it scott free.  Tom Paris makes a big show of becoming disgruntled and actually leaves the ship this episode, another minor recurring arc coming to fruition this episode.  Anyone watching the series from the beginning might assume that he's finally falling back on the character traits that defined him in "Caretaker."

Then we have Neelix of all people trying to figure out how the Tom Paris he's come to know has reached this point, and in the process uncovering Jonas' treachery.  The whole affair is like a status marker.  Some fans were still complaining (and still do) that the Maquis as a storytelling device were a lost opportunity, and yet they gave us Seska, Jonas, and Suder, all characters who would never have existed in any other Starfleet crew, doing things no other Starfleet officer would have ever done, and each of them brought their drama into the second season of the series, and forced the rest of the crew to reveal their greatest strengths.  Earlier in the season Chakotay benefited from it, and now in "Investigations" Paris and Neelix do.

Paris struggled hard to prove he wasn't just the callow outcast he first appeared to be, just as Neelix tried and continued to try well after this that his outsider status had unexpected benefits.  Neelix was never going to be a character who exposed the human condition like Spock or Data, because he was, for the most part, extremely happy to be himself.  But every now and again, he saw something just differently enough to question things that needed to be questioned, and caught the crew in their complacency.  That's how he figured out what was really going on.  That's why he made such a good match for Tuvok.  Because they really weren't so different.

"Investigations" is one of the most important episodes of the season, and yet it's long stood as one of the most forgotten.  Hopefully that's something that can change, too.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Raphael Sbarge
Martha Hackett
Simon Billig

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x19 "Lifesigns"

***

The last Vidiian episode closes the Phage-ridden species on a hopeful note, and if that's not enough to celebrate, then how about a pretty significant development for The Doctor?

The Vidiians were alien menaces who preyed on our crew for body parts and potential cures, and they were always fun, always providing series highlights, but they were also fairly one-dimensional, perhaps understandably so, because according to their timeline, they'd been suffering the Phage plague for an incredibly long time.  "Lifesigns" is an indication that they aren't all that bad, so chances are they used to be pretty good, actually.  We meet a Vidiian who longs to be seen for something other than her disease, and thanks to the Holodeck, we actually do see what a Vidiian would look like without all the degeneration.

The Doctor, meanwhile, gains her as a love interest, and it forces him to be something other than acerbic for the first time, and it's a huge breakthrough.  It's because she sees him for something other than a program, much as he sees her for something other than her scarred appearance.  Sure, Kes has always been supportive, but there was always a distance, like a quasi-academic relationship exists between them.  Kes is a project for Tuvok, and The Doctor is a project for Kes.  (There's a lot to say about Kes, but this is not really an appropriate moment.)

Later, of course, the Vidiians are revealed to have been cured by the Think Tank, so it's anyone guess where their story goes from there, or what might have been possible if Voyager had been able to stick around any one region of space for more than a few seasons.  The fact that the writers seemed to push it with some regions gave us a lot more than some fans sometimes appreciate.  This is definitely one of those moments.

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Raphael Sbarge
Martha Hackett

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x14 "Alliances"

**

"Alliances" is basically the secret origin of the Kazon.  It's the episode where we discover how they became an intergalactic band of rival gangs, opportunistic thugs trying to survive by any means necessary, up to and excluding working together, even though this is an episode where Janeway tries to work with leaders from most of the sects, along with representatives of the Trabe.

Who're the Trabe?  They're some persecuted aliens secretly manipulating Janeway in order to gain vengeance on the Kazon, even though they used to subjugate them and deserved the hard uprising that put them in that predicament in the first place.  Suffice it to say, but if there had been a lot more Trabe in Kazon episodes, fans probably would've liked them better.  But, as this is the only episode to feature them, it's an easy one to overlook.

The whole thing's really relevant because the season is about to plunge more heavily into its Kazon arc.  "Maneuvers" was a good preview, but it doesn't really explain what's to come, other than that it'll involve Seska.  "Alliances" is the beginning of the end of the Kazon in the series, and starts it off with a bang.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Raphael Sbarge
Martha Hackett
Anthony De Longis
Simon Billig

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x11 "Maneuvers"

****

"Maneuvers" is the essential episode of the first two seasons of Voyager.  And it stars Chakotay.

There are dozens of misconceptions about Voyager, one being that it made every mistake possible.  The reverse couldn't be more true.  In its first episode the series outlined everything that it was going to be, and very wisely the producers set about exploiting that first episode for two seasons, including a perennial foe the crew could butt heads with on a repeated basis, semi-savages aliens known as the Kazon whom fans mistakenly identified as unworthy of their attention.

How were they relevant?  They provided an outlet for those members of the combined crew who didn't trust it, led by Seska, the Cardassian spy planted within Chakotay's Maquis cell who posed as a Bajoran and was quickly exposed in the first season and officially defected to the Kazon, who were splintered into the very factions Janeway had successfully eliminated in her own crew.

So "Maneuvers" is the episode where Seska and Chakotay finally have their reckoning.  It's not the beginning or end of the arc that only really concludes in the third season premiere (with a wicked reverberation in the later "Worst Case Scenario"), but speaks to the power of everything that comes before and after it, not only the dramatic worth of the Kazon, but how significant a character Chakotay really was when written in that way.

For most of the series, he defers to the judgment of Captain Janeway, but on the rare occasions where he finds himself in control, he is a capable and confident individual, who nonetheless struggles to keep his emotions out of it (this instinct got him in trouble in his youth, and he's spent the rest of his life keeping it under control, like a human illustration of Vulcan history; no wonder he ends up with Seven, and it's assumed that anyone who actually paid attention would understand).  He has no control when it comes to Seska.  Hers was the betrayal he couldn't ignore.

And so "Maneuvers" happens.  This is the epic story that lies in one significant corner of the whole series.  And really, where else could Chakotay go after it?

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Martha Hackett
Anthony De Longis

Memory Alpha summary.