Voyager 5x5 "Once Upon a Time"

rating: ***

the story: Neelix keeps Naomi company while the crew awaits word on the fate of her mother.

what it's all about: Like Next Generation's Alexander before her, Naomi Wildman made a few appearances before her most recognizable and longest-running portrayer, Scarlet Pomers, debuted in the role.  This, then, is sort of the unofficial official debut of the character. 

After a series of heavy episodes that kicked off the season, "Once Upon a Time" is lightweight material, and it knows it, and doesn't try to be anything more than lightweight material, sort of like how Deep Space Nine followed its initial round of Dominion War episodes with a definite change of pace.  Where this might have been the slot for an episode that slipped through the cracks, merely undeveloped in comparison to its predecessors, "Once" was deliberately crafted for its role in the early season.

Young actors, and in conjunction young characters, in the franchise have a spotty record.  Next Generation found its Wesley Crusher experiment to be one of the defining elements of its uneven early seasons.  Later, Alexander was purposefully downplayed, appearing sporadically even after he'd come to live with his father, Worf.  In Deep Space Nine, Jake and Nog spent their early appearances depicted as pranksters until they'd reached maturity, at which point they moved on to mature material.  Age-wise Naomi was most similar to Alexander, and yet she was approached differently, not as a source of conflict but as the embodiment of what the crew around her might have to accept as its future: children who would be raised to replace them.  In a lot of ways, it's an idea that finally made sense of Next Generation's ship that inexplicably allowed family aboard despite the possible dangers its crew faced on a routine basis.

And you can see that play out in "Once," as it's literally about Naomi handling her mother's possible death.  It's also an episode that allows Neelix to spend time with someone who doesn't think he's as annoying as, well, the audience, who accepts him for who and what he is, including a guy who brings a lot of baggage with him.  At one point, he talks about the loss of his own family, an element of the character that seems rudely overlooked by fans. 

And yeah, it's kind of a holodeck episode, too, but the entire premise is explained well enough that this isn't really the point of the episode, for a change.

criteria analysis:

• franchise - A holodeck episode that's not really about the holodeck, but about the cost of having family in the crew, a resonant topic in Star Trek.
• series - It may not impact the course of Voyager's future, but it still has plenty going for it.
• character - It's a Neelix spotlight, but it also explains the character of Naomi Wildman nicely.
• essential - It's a nice reminder that this really is a series that cares about its characters.

notable guest-stars:
Scarlet Pomers (Naomi Wildman)
Nancy Hower (Samantha Wildman)
Wallace Langham

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 2x21 "Deadlock"

*

"Deadlock" has that rare distinction of being a fairly generic episode that slips in a fairly huge impact on the series.

It's another of those crisis episodes with spacial paradoxes that leave everyone scrambling to survive.  There're plenty of episodes like that.  You can watch it to enjoy how it does that.  And while you do that, you can see Naomi Wildman born.  And then die.  And then come back because there's another one on the other ship.  Harry Kim does, too, and is replaced by his doppelganger.

Hey, it happened to Miles O'Brien, too.

Otherwise, move along.

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Simon Billig
Nancy Hower

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x17 "Dreadnought"

**

"Dreadnought" is remarkably similar to "Prototype" as a vehicle for B'Elanna Torres, but succeeds where its predecessor failed by making the story relevant enough to the character where its fairly generic plot actually fails her.

Episodes like this were easy to do with B'Elanna, because she is fantastic no matter what (to put it bluntly), and putting her in peril was one solid way to bring out the best of her.  Oh, and the particular peril is a Cardassian weapon she modified that has also landed in the Delta Quadrant, and she must now disarm.

The fact that it ties into her past, which for the Maquis members of the crew can sometimes be a little vague (who seriously wouldn't have preferred to see Chakotay in his prime rather than his contentment?), adds that extra element that makes it more a success than a relative failure.  Sure, most of that past is glossed over in favor of the increasing peril B'Elanna faces trying to deprogram the weapon (the Deep Space Nine episode "Civil Defenses" is the version of this episode done absolutely right, by the way), but it has just enough significance for a shot at redemption.

"Dreadnought" is not an episode that I would recommend to skeptics, but it's easily one that existing fans can revisit at their leisure, to see whether it truly fails or succeeds.  It's one of those episodes.

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Raphael Sbarge
Nancy Hower

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x4 "Elogium"

*

Surprisingly, "Amok Time" did not set a franchise precedent for weird biological quirks from heavily featured alien races (there was that one time, in "The Jem-Hadar," that we discovered that the Vorta had these awesome tekekinetic blasts, but they never used those again).  So on the one hand, "Elogium" is kind of part of an aborted tradition.  Or you don't have to think of Vulcans getting all sweaty at all to enjoy Kes getting ready to become pregnant.

The Ocampa seem ready-made for all kinds of biological quirks, almost the sole reason for their existence, and to have Kes as the romantic companion of Talaxian drifter Neelix, and for both of them to be the first passengers Janeway accepts aboard Voyager.  Not surprisingly, most of the time when a Kes episode comes around, these biological quirks are at the center of the resulting story, and Neelix, who's madly in love with her but barely seems to understand any of it, is usually highly concerned about it, and much to his chagrin, so is love-sick Tom Paris.  This was a a recurring theme throughout the three seasons Kes served at the botanical post and nurse for The Doctor (if it'd been McCoy or Phlox, both posts would actually been connected).

Anyway, the long and short of it I've already expressed, so depending on whether you care about this particular moment where Kes was freaking out (despite being a fairly calm individual most of the time, she did a lot of this), you may or may not consider "Elogium" worth watching to see how it illustrates these character traits.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Nancy Hower

Memory Alpha summary.