Star Trek Arcs XIII: Seska

The two biggest lies in all of Star Trek fandom are that Voyager didn’t do story arcs and that it wasted the potential for drama from the Maquis crew.

In fact both ended up bundled together and the results are still among my favorite arcs ever in the franchise.

Seska’s arc began in “State of Flux” in the first season, in which Chakotay learns the horrible secret of his old friend, that she’s not only not even a Bajoran but Cardassian, and has just made a deal with a faction of the Kazon, the marauding aliens who had caused Voyager hassles since the first episode. Seska betrays everyone and defects, the picture of the nefarious image fans had built up for themselves of the Maquis. 

The best episode of the arc comes next, “Maneuvers” in the second season, which is a straight sequel, in which Seska manipulates Chakotay into a trap. Chakotay himself is never better than in this episode, too, full of dramatic purpose he otherwise tended to lack, being more of a quiet type (which itself is not a problem and in fact, if anything, a welcome change of pace).

The season then weaves a more deliberate arc, sometimes as a subplot or even a single scene, as Seska continues to plot against Chakotay and the rest of the crew, including a conspirator. “Alliances” might loosely be included in this, as it features the secret origin of the Kazon’s troubles, and an attempt to solve them.

“Investigations,” however, reveals the identity of the conspirator (which itself involves a number of recurring characters the series likewise never gets credit for having in the early seasons), and features as its unlikely hero Neelix, with Tom Paris getting one of his periodic shots at playing the uncontrollable rogue fans also always expected.

The arc rounds out the season and opens the next one with “Basics, Parts 1 & 2,” in which Seska and her allies take control of the ship, until finally being defeated.

All of this was received poorly by fans mostly because the Kazon themselves were greeted poorly, considered to be “dirty Delta Quadrant Klingon rip-offs.” Me, I never had a problem with them. So much of Star Trek alien design is similar as it is, a layer or two or three of prosthetics, all variations on a humanoid look…It cost the producers the confidence to pursue further extended arcs (though there were attempts here and there), and arguably led to the minimizing of Chakotay, who was the face of this most ambitious of efforts.

Anyway, Seska was a great character, and the series itself knew that well enough. She had a brilliant reprise late in the third season, “Worst Case Scenario,” arguably the mother of all holodeck malfunction episodes, and then one more time in the seventh with “Shattered,” in which Chakotay (of course) travels the ship when it’s been splintered into different time periods.

Star Trek Arcs VIII: The Maquis

Arguably the most ambitious arc of the franchise was envisioned to help launch Voyager, and yet it continued down fascinating roads even from that point: the creation of the Federation rebels the Maquis.

The Maquis were Federation citizens who lived on worlds affected by treaty stipulations with the Cardassians, most famous for their Occupation of Bajor, a concept introduced in The Next Generation but played out most dramatically in Deep Space Nine. Eventually it wasn’t just those directly affected, colonists living on those worlds, but Starfleet officers who renounced their commissions to stand up for what they believed in.

The first appearance of the Maquis was in the eponymous two-part episode during the second season of Deep Space Nine. In it, Sisko and an old Starfleet friend confront the problem together until Sisko realizes his friend has actually already defected.

The same basic premise plays out in “Preemptive Strike,” Next Generation, airing about little more than a week later (if you were watching at the time, it was nearly three straight weeks of Maquis intrigue across Star Trek programming, with a few weeks’ gap; if it had happened later no doubt there would have been an actual crossover, which still has yet to happen in the franchise, and probably even the debuts of some of the actual Voyager characters). 

“Preemptive Strike” resonates more with fans than “The Maquis, Parts 1 & 2” thanks to pivoting around a known character rather than someone introduced in the story. That character of course is Ro Laren, the Bajoran who had been a recurring character in Next Generation for years, who was even originally considered to continue on in Deep Space Nine (and subsequently replaced by the new character Major Kira).

By the end of the episode, Ro feels conflicted by her decision to join the Maquis because she feels she’s betraying Picard directly. In that way, we end the initial experiences with the Maquis with the ability to view them in a positive manner.

When Voyager begins, “Caretaker” of course sees Starfleet and Maquis ships stranded in the Delta Quadrant and deciding to function as a single crew to find their way home again. A lot of fans expected the series to be an endless sequence of the competing ideologies in conflict, and never really forgave it for making a different creative choice. Though, to be fair, the Maquis were former Federation and in most cases even former Starfleet; the biggest hurdle was reintegrating into rigid Starfleet procedures (played out in the episode “Learning Curve”).

The Maquis story instead picks back up in Deep Space Nine, third season, “Defiant,” in which Riker’s transporter duplicate Thomas (“Second Chances”) is the third major defector we see play out, although the fourth and final one, in the fourth season’s “For the Cause,” ends up being by far the most dramatic one. 

At first Sisko believes it’s his girlfriend Kasidy Yates, which would certainly be bad enough, but it turns out to be straight arrow security officer Michael Eddington, a reliable recurring presence since the previous season.

We find out how powerfully Sisko feels this betrayal in the fifth season. “For the Uniform” is arguably the pinnacle of the pre-Dominion War period for the series. Sisko swears to bring Eddington in, but this proves incredibly difficult.

However, once accomplished it becomes a definitive turning point for the Maquis. When the Cardassians join the Dominion, they enact a scorched earth policy against the Maquis, and Eddington finds himself imagining a heroic last stand in “Blaze of Glory.”

The fate of the Maquis is transmitted to Janeway’s crew in Voyager, and in “Extreme Risk” we see how powerfully it affects B’Elanna Torres, the hotheaded half Klingon, half human engineer.

Finally, in “Repression,” a sleeper suggestion is awakened among the former Maquis members of the crew, implanted by a zealous Bajoran years earlier, thereby somewhat bringing the whole arc full circle.

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 2x25 "Resolutions"

**

Fans of Voyager wanted Janeway and Chakotay to get together.  Maybe that's part of the thing that helped tank interest in the series, because that's a romance that resolutely never happened, even more certainly thank Picard and Crusher.

"Resolutions" is the closest the series ever came to explaining why.  Contaminated and left to fend for themselves on an alien planet and likely to remain there the rest of their lives, Janeway and Chakotay get a close-up look at everything that stood in their way, and why their relationship quickly evolved to the state it remained in from the very beginning.  Simply put, they work well together, and they each have necessary skills the other needs to survive, but they mean nothing more to each other than that ability to survive.

At first, neither knows what to make of the situation.  Both of them thinks they know what needs to be done, and so they get at it, quite separately.  Then they begin to notice how they can provide additional comforts to one another, and that it's not so bad being close to each other.  They develop a kinship and a bond and mutual contentment, but the name of the episode is "Resolutions," and resolve is the necessary ingredient that makes the whole thing work.  If they weren't stuck in this situation, they'd be exactly the same on the ship.  Chakotay had more passion with Seska, at many points during this very season.

For that reason, because it's exactly the same relationship they always have and they don't really address what all the fans wanted to badly, Janeway and Chakotay don't really reveal anything different in "Resolutions," so in many regards it doesn't really stand out.  I could make the argument that it's essential for all the things and reasons I've already outlined, that it explains everything about them without having to come out and say it, but I guess you don't have to worry about it if you don't want to.  The writers already made that call, several times over.  In fact, they avoid their problems more than they try to solve them, that's what really happens here.  Every time there's a big decision to be made any other time, they butt heads.  Without having to say so, Chakotay is really saying he's fine with this and he'll make good and try and help Janeway make good, too, because the roles are really reversed, and he's too polite to say so.  But the funny thing is, even in the dominant position, he's submissive, because he doesn't like a big fuss anymore, especially when it isn't necessary.  So it looks like the episode says less about him than it does Janeway.  It's like the opposite of "Tattoo."

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Simon Billig

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x24 "Tuvix"

****

For some reason Voyager had a knack for getting a lot of its best concepts out of the way early on, and "Tuvix" is another example of that.  Simply put, this is the episode where Neelix and Tuvok are merged into one body thanks to a transporter accident.

Like some of those old original series adventures where Kirk was seemingly subject to just about every conceivable transporter accident (except for creating a permanent clone of himself, which instead happened to his Next Generation surrogate Will Riker), one of Star Trek's signature elements takes center stage, with its own brand of ethical dilemma, something the franchise is known for but rarely actually gets credit for, and all anyone cares about is whether Tuvix should be allowed to continue his own life rather than split back to his component personalities.

The real trouble is that combined, Neelix and Tuvok seem to be better than they ever were apart.  Hell, they've even made peace with themselves!  It's Janeway who makes the decision, ultimately, to undo the accident, and it's another in a series of controversial moves on her part that's liable to make those who already hate her think that she and Voyager as a whole is one vast mistake that only serves to bastardize the franchise.

But as I've said, ethical dilemmas are old hat for Star Trek.  Most of them involved weird alien cultures, originally, and rarely involved personal consequences for main characters, but that's the way it was done in that TV era.  If Voyager hadn't done an episode like this, not only would it be impossible to respect it at the time, but there'd be no defending it now.  But "Tuvix" exists, and it doesn't pull any of its punches, either on a first or fourteenth viewing.  It defines the show's legacy as much as any episode, and it's an early example that the series wasn't afraid either of its own potential or of what anyone would think about it in relation to the decades of interest fans had already invested in other characters.  So many fans still try to claim that Voyager played it safe.  "Tuvix" makes a joke out of that, and the contention that something like BattleStar Galactica, just because it was grim and gritty, war more daring.  It's more daring to challenge characters in multiple ways, rather than the same one, repeatedly, folks.  "Tuvix" does that in a single episode.  That's the strength of the Star Trek formula, which some fans would have you believe as being a dirty word.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Tom Wright
Simon Billig

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x23 "The Thaw"

*

I loved "The Thaw."  In my version of the future trajectory of the series, the Clown made many further appearances.  He would've been Voyager's Q (except Q had already begun his journey to becoming Voyager's Q), someone who messed with the crew whenever the opportunity presented itself, like the Demon of Fear in Charmed.

Other than that unfulfilled potential, "The Thaw" is a fairly generic episode, akin to any number of experiences Kirk had in the original series, being trapped by a being who thought it could do whatever it wanted with him.  Janeway eventually beats him (with one of the better endings to any episode), but it's fun seeing the crew walks into this one (wouldn't be the last time) by visiting an alien world and basically opening Pandora's Box.  This is another one where if the show had lasted only a few seasons, it would have been one of Voyager's standout episodes (because then the Clown could always have reappeared and there's no telling that it wouldn't have happened).

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Michael McKean

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x22 "Innocence"

*

I've always liked "Innocence."  It's a Tuvok episode that like many Tuvok episodes, tries to take him out of his element, but in the process shows us that there are a lot of elements to the character.

If you ever wanted to see a Vulcan's idea of rearing children, this is the episode for you.  Stuck on an alien world, Tuvok finds himself caring for a bunch of kids inexplicably left here.  They're all scared and they don't understand what's going on, and they've all heard stories about what happens to kids left here.  Tuvok attempts to use logic on them.  It eventually works.  Pretty much.

Of course, there's a great twist to what's actually going on, but that's just icing on the cake.  What other character would seem more out of place in this situation, but which one would actually handle it better?  After watching "Innocence," I'll bet you'd be hard-pressed for an answer, too.  Suffice it to say, he handles it better than Picard did.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.

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 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 2x18 "Death Wish"

****

Arguably among the best Q episodes of any series, "Death Wish" is also one of the episodes where even Voyager skeptics begrudgingly admit to being exceptional.

Q, of course, is most famous for his Next Generation appearances, including in the first and last episodes, and a wonderfully complicated relationship with Picard.  "Death Wish" might simply have been another "Q-less," the episode of Deep Space Nine that tried to explain just how different Sisko really was from Picard.  Instead, it's much more than that.  In fact, it's the first of three appearances for Q in the series, something that would've been unthinkable had "Death Wish" not succeeded as wildly as it did.

It made a new context of the character.  Q is the same Q he always was, but he's thrust into an entirely new context.  He'd been existential before, but only for himself.  "Death Wish" forces him to confront the nature of the entire Q Continuum's existence.  Because Janeway doesn't hesitate in helping him on that journey, he takes a certain liking to her.  Unlike Picard, for whom he was trying to do exactly the same with humanity, the tables have been turned.  His shenanigans can't save him now.  "Death Wish" is the only time where a Q episode is completely serious.  That's got to say something.

Sure, it's about suicide, and that's what most people pay attention to, but it also helps show exactly what it really intended to, which is the particular character of Voyager.  Q in Next Generation was pretty cosmic.  Q in Deep Space Nine was meddlesome.  Q in Voyager was introspective.  That ought to tell you something right there.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
John De Lancie
Jonathan Frakes

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 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.

Voyager 2x15 "Threshold"

****

"Threshold" is that episode that proves that even Star Trek fans can be bigots.

There's no other way to put it.  It's the one where Paris and Janeway cross the warp barrier and eventually turn into lizards.  Apparently this was horribly offensive, especially because most sci-fi (including, famously, the final episode of Babylon 5) likes to believe that the only way to go is a being of unlimited ability.  Q suggested that this was the fate of humanity in "All Good Things," and the franchise littered the stars with beings of exactly that description.  Of course, it also went out of its way many times to explain that "absolute power corrupts absolutely" (as Riker explains when he gets himself a taste of it).

So who's to say where evolution really leads?  Isn't it a little bit vain to say that we know?

It's hubris and ego, then, that've defined the reaction to "Threshold" for almost twenty years, and it's about time to turn that around.  This is a great episode.  For one thing, it's far more about Tom Paris than evolution and lizards.  It's about him worrying about his legacy, one of the few characters at any moment in the series to express concern that what he does halfway across the universe can still somehow matter to people he may never see again.  He's trying to get everyone home, sure, but he's also trying to make history.  He's desperate.  In any other Star Trek series, this would have been the actions of the guest star.  In Voyager, it was a main character.

It's a defining episode for Paris, and that's something that's been obscured by fans reacting against something they can't possibly understand, and besides, it's science fiction.  If a little errant speculation isn't possible, then what's the point?  Seldom does Star Trek even bother to do this sort of thing.  If anything, "Threshold" should be a milestone, not a cautionary tale.  In fact, that's exactly what it was supposed to be, but for Paris, not the series.  Funny how things can sometimes turn out.

Far from one of the worst episodes ever, it's one of the best.  And it's high time people know that.

franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Raphael Sbarge

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 2x13 "Prototype"

*

The gift of Roxanne Dawson was a tremendous one for Voyager.  She was the series' best actor, and could turn any of her material into gold.  Far too frequently, she had to do just that with episodes that centered on B'Elanna Torres.

This time it was a fairly generic episode in which the crew stumble on an artificial life-form, which B'Elanna must first repair, before learning what a horrible mistake that was, because this robot is the product of a war that wiped out all organic participants long ago, and now this robot can continue that fight.

Anyway, most of the episode is B'Elanna trying to cope with the horrible mistake, because she's taken hostage.  It's not the last time this season something like this happens to her, which is the really perverse part of it.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Rick Worthy (voice)

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x12 "Resistance"

***

"Resistance" was a treasure that even those who were already turning against the series when it aired had to admit was a treasure.  It could easily have been an episode of the original series, if Kirk could ever give anyone but himself, much less a pathetic local with gigantic delusions about reality, any credit.

Substituting for Kirk is Janeway, who finds herself stuck on a planet after an away mission gone awry, and to survive she must trust said local, who mistakes her for his long-lost daughter, and recruits her in the mission to retrieve his wife from the town strongman.  Of course, we learn by the end of the episode that there are any number of flaws in this plan, but the guy is so ridiculously sympathetic, not just Janeway but anyone watching the episode will want to hug him.

It's a must-see episode, another one from the season, and a fairly random one at that, and anyone who ever said that Voyager shouldn't have been doing episodes like this would thus have lost one of the best episodes of the series, and arguably of the franchise.  And because so many fans said stuff like that throughout the run of the series, "Resistance" has all but been forgotten.  Well, let's let go of that particular delusion, shall we?

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Joel Grey

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.

Voyager 2x10 "Cold Fire"

**

Remember "Caretaker"?  This was its sequel.  That's another reason why the second season was such an integral one for the series, because it did a ton of mythology episodes, rushing through a lot of serialized storytelling the network and producers would subsequently veto for the regular format of later seasons.

Here we finally meet the mate of the Caretaker who originally brought our crew into the Delta Quadrant, and typically, the easy answers everyone might have expected are subverted, so that this Caretaker is anything but, an embittered and vengeful being who wants nothing to do with the ship who technically helped solved the problems she left behind.

Oh, and this is the last time we see a significant grouping of Ocampa.  This Caretaker has continued doing what the other one did, but far less benevolently, with a different philosophy entirely.  In fact, "Cold Fire" suggests that the first Caretaker actually did the Ocampa a favor by rebooting their society, because all those skills Kes has been developing can and will be used for evil, very easily, suggesting that the Ocampa are inherently, at least in their social leanings, to villainy (with the same ironic fate as the Kazon, also in the continued spotlight this season).  They would have been more Romulan than Vulcan, if you need a more conventional franchise analogy.

Anyway, of all the potential tickets home, this one may be one of the more depressing failures, especially for any fans who might have been holding out for some simple comfort, some predictable Star Trek happy ending (and that's probably another reason fans started to rebel against the Borg, because that was another Voyager subversion).  The same fans who hated the series for not being depressing enough were the same fans who watched Star Trek for its hopeful message.  (Well, one would hope, anyway.)

"Cold Fire" is a model of contradiction.

franchise * series * essential * character

Notable guest-stars:
Gary Graham

Memory Alpha summary.

Voyager 2x9 "Tattoo"

***

There's two different versions of Chakotay in Voyager.  The first and more interesting one was not only an active participant in his own life, but was one of the most interesting elements of the first few seasons.  The second version was the opposite of that.

"Tattoo" is an ideal episode to see the first version.  This is basically an origin story, allowing us to glimpse the young Chakotay and his much-vaunted Native American heritage, the one he embraced as an adult but struggled against as a youth.  He struggled with his father, to be more precise.  The title of the episode is the real trick, though, how Chakotay actually has a deeper connection to the Delta Quadrant than anyone, except maybe Neelix.

The trick is that the tattoo he famously sports on his face is the product of a fortuitous encounter he and his father had, the event that finally bonded them (making it less cultural than most fans would probably assume, though more deeply personal and significant than they would be willing to credit the series with, too, and that in a nutshell is the difference between the reality of the show and the image fans tend to give it).

A group of aliens visited the Alpha Quadrant years ago, not in the way aliens usually traverse great distances of space, but in the purely ideal mode Starfleet has always yearned for, and which Chakotay is now in a position to do himself, free from all the politics that caused him so much hassle previously.  Coming across them again makes him come full circle.

Anyway, what this episode really does is illustrate Voyager's central conceit, that Starfleet has strayed from its ideals because it's become too difficult with all the politics and conflicts that obscure its original scientific mission (in a way, Q and Insurrection try to make the same point).  I guess it's appropriate that Chakotay finds peace aboard this ship, with a scientist as his captain, and that this peace is exhibited by total eclipse of an ego that once threatened to tear his family apart.  It's ironic that he's the one member of the crew that didn't need to return home to find it.  Maybe that's what ultimately reconciles the two versions of Chakotay.  Maybe "Tattoo" was a way of illustrating that.

franchise * series * essential * character

Memory Alpha summary.