Season 4 Ep 10 / 11 "Random Thoughts" / "Concerning Flight"
Sept 10, 2015 13:21:06 GMT -5
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Post by Prole Hole on Sept 10, 2015 13:21:06 GMT -5
Season Four, Episode 10 – “Random Thoughts”
Like a Vulcan, touched for the very first time...
What is it with all the memory implants anyway? This is a well Star Trek in general, and Voyager in particular, has gone to enough times already, but we’re back at it one more time for another drink from the bucket of unreliable recollection. Was this a peculiarly 90s malaise? Certainly it was around in popular culture, with movies both good (The Matrix) and bad (Johnny Mnemonic) in mainstream cinema addressing the unreliability of memory and how memory can be manipulated. Are we to take this as a reflection of a certain type of post-Cold War fear? Freed of the idea that the KGB might brain-wash did we instead decide our technology could do it instead? Or instead of the well of unreliable memory are we instead drinking from the bar of good-enough-for-forty-five minutes and sipping the cocktail of “eh, it worked before”?
This time it’s a little bit of both, albeit shading more towards the latter than the former. Actually, make that a lot more towards the latter. This isn’t a terrible script, and, let’s be honest, anything following the series-high of “Year Of Hell” is going to have a hard time as a follow-up. But still, this would feel little a bit of a let-down wherever in the season it turned up, and it feels disappointing for the same reason that big chucks of “Ex Post Facto” felt disappointing – it seems like it’s reaching for a whole lot of discussions and never does anything with them. Specifically, we have the idea that, as a society, there is something intrinsic that leads us to enjoy imagery which is, rationally speaking, horrific, and deriving some kind of pleasure from that. Are we to take this as a condemnation of the horror genre? Is it implicitly condemning those who would enjoy the consumption of such imagery for prurient reasons? Or is it saying that such images allow the processing of dark impulses and allow a safe, controlled way of confronting the violence that lies within us? My, that’s a lot of rhetorical questions for a single paragraph but unfortunately the reason is that, even after re-viewing the episode, they’re left unanswered, and that’s at the heart of what this episode fumbles. There’s just so much material that the episode could work with, but instead it’s all very surface level. Dawson and Russ do good work. Mulgrew holds up her end of things. But given the volume of issues raised there’s only a very limited amount to really engage with here.
This is the first review I’ve written since both completing “Year Of Hell” and getting the first volume of Think Good Thoughts together (still available at the Kindle store, folks!), so perhaps this is leading me to be a bit more negative than usual, but this just felt so very average, and going back over it I just can’t shake that feeling that this should be a lot more developed than it actually is. It’s the first review since I got back into it, the first review of Volume Two, and I really wanted to be positive, but “Random Thoughts” makes it hard work. The implanted memories revolve round crewmembers who have already been given that plotline before – B’Elanna in “Remember” (barely even one season ago) and Tuvok in “Flashback”, so we don’t even get another character’s perspective on a well-established trope. This is just more of the same. We get to see Tuvok doing his barely-repressed-anger thing, and Russ is terrific at it, but again it’s nothing we didn’t see back in “Meld”. What else is there? There must be something…
Oh you know what? Unlikely though it sounds, Neelix is absolutely terrific for the, oh, four or five minutes of screen time he gets. Phillips absolutely and completely nails Neelix tentatively trying out his first post-Kes relationship and, crucially, he underplays absolutely every line and as a result comes across rather self-effacing and really rather charming. It’s an absolutely lovely use of the character and it does wonders for him. Even the whole “tug my whiskers” thing, which could so very easily have been buttock-clenchingly cringe-inducing, is handled in a way that seems more delightful than embarrassing. It’s such a minor moment in the episode (before he’s unceremoniously dropped never to be seen again before the closing credits) but it’s just great to see the character so well used and so well portrayed. So that’s a positive! See, I can find good things to say about this episode! Oh and Chakotay gets a moment with Tom when he gets to show the same skill he did in “Year Of Hell” – finding a way of keeping Tom busy and also useful. It’s a little thing but it works well. And then there’s… uh… Well of course Dawson and Russ are great, but I’ve said that already. Really, this is the old problem that Star Trek faces from time to time – explorations of what darkness is and how it affects people isn’t really something that can be done in such safe terms, or when it can (as in “Meld”), it requires a considerably more dexterous script than this. That thought that gets traded and everyone gets so worked up about? Someone being pissed off at being bumped into. It’s not exactly American Psycho is it? The “depths of violence” that lurks in the heart of Tuvok? A handful of flashbacks consisting of recycled footage which cast light on absolutely nothing. See, even some well-chosen imagery could have given us some insight into the character, but a burn-y person, an explode-y thing and a latex face don’t offer much in the way of character elucidation.
But let’s focus on the positive and try to draw out the thematic elements that bind the episode together. If nothing else the one thing the episode is comparatively successful at addressing is the idea that simply banning something isn’t the same as actually dealing with it, and in this we at least find the episode gaining some traction. A society that outlaws violence isn’t the same as a society that has actually learned to deal with the root causes of it, and Tuvok’s investigation which leads to the revealing of a black market in the Mari society is fairly adeptly handled. That we get to see Tuvok sympathise and show appreciation for this society, then explicitly admit that his initial conclusion was wrong, also lends some weight to this, since we know how fair-minded and balanced he is (the conversation immediately preceding this, when he dismisses B’Elanna’s thanks as him simply doing his job helps to underline it as well). This also works well in the context of an investigator who is entirely out of her depth and has a hard time believing that her society could ever function in the way she’s suddenly forced to realize it does. This is so very similar to people who would, for example, deny women the right to abortions and force them to seek other, markedly less safe, alternatives – Janeway’s use of the words “back alley” when discussing the trade in illicit thoughts seems to link directly to this reading (as in back alley abortions), and pushing problems too difficult or complex to deal with head-on by those unwilling to address such issues is also specifically referred to. Of course this is also very much framed in terms of the debate over censorship as well, but there’s a sense that the censorship debate here is, if anything, more of a mask to hide what the episode is really going for, and this too lends some additional depth to the final confrontation. This is all brought together in a final scene in the briefing room – it isn’t a long scene, but there’s plenty packed into it, and it - just - manages to avoid being one of those, “and now, the moral of the episode” speeches but instead allows the laying out of this part of the thesis of the episode line by line without being clumsy or overstated. That’s not always an easy balance to strike, so it’s to Kenneth Biller’s credit that he at least manages to get this right.
So, well, there we go. No disaster, no triumph, “Random Thoughts” is certainly forty-five minutes long. And it’s certainly no shambles. When I discussed “Macrocosm” I mentioned that the sequencing of episodes can be important in terms of the way the episode is perceived, and certainly “Random Thoughts” would seem to follow this logic. I’ve come back to this before, but it really is important when seen in the context of an ongoing series rather than one being dropped into. If it’s position had been swapped even one episode with “Concerning Flight” it probably would function much better, since “Concerning Flight” is a fun, light-hearted romp which, if following on from “Year Of Hell”, would act as something of a palate-cleaner before trying to deal with the heavier issues that “Random Thoughts” tries to address. But here it’s left floundering a bit, trapped between the big high of its predecessor and the genuine fun of what comes after it. Never quite a catastrophe and never quite a success, “Random Thoughts” at least has some ambition, but for all the effort that goes into it the inconsequentiality and overly-familiar nature of the material prevents it from ever becoming more than it is. Disappointing.
Any Other Business:
• Really, Neelix is the best thing in this episode by miles. No disrespect to Russ and Dawson, but we’ve seen their character beats before, whereas this rather bashful side of Neelix hasn’t really emerged and it’s just lovely to see.
• Why is Seven even in this episode? She gets exactly two scenes, the latter of which seems like the episode was under-running by a couple of minutes so they decided to have her strut in, confront Janeway about something she’s already perfectly well aware of (that the ship’s mission is also one of exploration), then flounce out. Really quite pointless.
• The Doctor doesn’t do much better either, and neither does Harry.
• Tuvok is back in full Betty Davis mode once more, dropping flippant one-liners all over the place. I do like this side of his character, even if it is a bit silly. Certainly Russ is excellent at delivering it.
• Tom’s discussion with Chakotay about putting a rescue-plan together while Tom awkwardly sits in the Captain’s chair is very well done, especially McNeill’s, “There?” when Chakotay tells him to take a seat.
• Nimira aside, not a single member of the Mari seems to be able to actually act, which doesn’t help the episode much. She does a good job of being vastly out of her depth and being desperate to cling to Tuvok’s support when addressing a situation completely outside of her realm of experience. The rest of them? Sheesh. Guill plays his attraction to violent thoughts as almost sexual – that could have proved fruitful (a discussion around pornography perhaps?) had the script in any way supported this reading, which it doesn’t.
• It takes this episode an age to actually stop. Tuvok is rescued! Then we get the script explained to us in the briefing room! Then we find out B’Elanna’s fine! Then she and Tuvok have a discussion about his investigation! Then Janeway and Seven get their pointless capper! Aaargh! Just stop already!
• Though saying that, Janeway’s amused, “dismissed!” after Seven has already left the room is a nice inversion of her previous “Dismissed. That’s Starfleet for “get out”,” and very well played by Mulgrew.
Season Four, Episode 11 – “Concerning Flight”
A dwarf star
So, if the use of da Vinci in “Scorpion” was the antithesis of the typical cutsie appearance from a historical character via the Wonders Of Modern Technology, here we have the inverse, a fun, light-hearted romp through an alien world via the perspective of a 16th century genius (or at least the holographic representation thereof). “Concerning Flight” is a trifle, let’s make no mistake about it, but it’s a trifle that at least makes some effort towards understanding its principal subject (da Vinci) and at least tries to give us a narratively different slant on otherwise-very-familiar material.
And that narrative perspective comes entirely from da Vinci and the way in which he interprets everything in the alien world though his own perspective, which expired a few hundred years earlier. It’s certainly a novel approach to the material which helps to brighten up the surroundings, and that brightening adds much to the episode, even though it often occurs at somewhat illogical junctions. While there is very little real-world logic in stopping to have a debate over the nature of perspective in the middle to trying to desperately run away from the bad guys, for example, it does at least suggest why da Vinci is held in such great regard. Here we see a man, not being driven by his own ego (of which we see plenty earlier in the episode) nor doing anything for his own benefit (of which we see plenty of earlier the episode), but instead stopping and taking a few moments to really understand the nature of the problem. Here it’s that Janeway knows more than he does, but the way in which she persuades him is crucial – using a simple analogy that someone from any period could understand (including the 20th century audience, obviously) and allowing him to work out the rest from there. It’s an important scene, as we see someone laying aside their own prejudices about a situation and figuring out (not just being told) what’s going on, and also being a big enough person to admit that he has been wrong and indeed there are things outside of his perspective which he cannot grasp. This, far more than overly-familiar images of gliders or workshops in Florence, hint at the real strength of da Vinci as a man who is not simply a genius but also smart enough to admit the limitations of his own knowledge. It’s a strong piece of characterization and one that allows us a little more insight into the character than we have thus far had.
What a shame, then, that we don’t get a bit more of that kind of characterization, because it’s immensely successful, it just shouldn’t be delivered on a hillside while running for your life. There are a lot of those kind of narrative lapses which pull the episode up short of being a complete triumph, even though it’s generally extremely good, or at least extremely enjoyable. This is the second, and final, outing for John Rhys-Davies’s da Vinci, and as with “Scorpion” he delivers his performance with gusto, stamping about, bellowing at anyone that gets in his way, and generally having a whale of a time. The part here is considerably expanded from the father-confessor side we saw in “Scorpion”, which makes sense given the setting, and Rhys-Davies misses not one moment to chew the scenery (this is not a complaint). Yet as with “Scorpion” it’s the quieter, more contemplative moments that make the character really shine. Odd moments of compassion, or his quiet admission that he would do nothing for the people of Florence but he would for “Caterina”, give the character scope and depth, and though the stamping about the place is all jolly good fun, and though the contrast between the shouting and the compassion works well, there’s a little too much of the former and not quite enough of the latter. The episode is never less than entertaining, but the depth that da Vinci brought to “Scorpion” is partly absent here, and the narrative stance of viewing the 24th century through the eyes of the 16th isn’t really taken far enough – it’s fun hearing Voyager described as “the Portuguese” but it doesn’t really explicate anything, it’s just one character seeing things in the way he’s been programmed to. That’s a shame, and it feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity.
But still, I don’t want to be too churlish here, because there is so much to enjoy. The point of this episode, really, isn’t one of marked ambition because, as I said earlier, the bulk of the material here is of an extremely familiar nature, and as we’ve seen many times before, acts principally as a loose framework to hang all the fun bits off of. And jolly good fun they are too. So why, given just how well-worn primary plot is, does it work here? After all there have been plenty of episodes I’ve openly criticized for dragging over storylines we’ve seen before (like the last one, for example). Well, one of the reasons this episode gets away with it is because we again get to see an alien culture which just is, rather than having to be laboriously explained to us. Beyond the basics of the technology theft there’s very little about this world that’s explained in infodumps or exposition (perhaps just a little at the drinks party Tuvok and Janeway attend) and it’s simply allowed to stand as self-evidently what it is. It’s amazing what a difference this can make, especially since in production terms we’re back to the two-corridors-and-a-room trying to stand in for an entire alien civilization (not, it must be admitted, entirely successfully). There’s also some effort to draw a parallel between this planet and da Vinci’s 16th century (referring to his benefactor as a “prince”, for example), which also sketches in just a very little detail but enough to at least add a bit of colour. After all, the “prince” here is duplicitous and conniving in exactly the same way as da Vinci’s 16th century patrons and archbishops, and though this isn’t over-emphasized it does at least explain why da Vinci is able to operate successfully in this environment. Hypocrites and people out only for their own benefit – this is something da Vinci is experienced in dealing with so it makes sense that, faced with a similar set-up, he can flourish. This also at least partly explains why Janeway is, to an initial extent, inclined towards trusting his judgement regarding this particular planet – nobody has had contact with these people before, but da Vinci is both wily and intelligent, and familiar with this kind of politics in a way that the Starfleet crew aren’t. Yet as the episode goes on Janeway takes charge more and more, which also makes sense, since she’s the one that understands how the 24th century functions once they have a grip on the local politics, and she also understands that the 16th century perspective can only carry them so far (hence that big speech on perspective on the hillside). And in the end it takes a combination of both 16th and 24th century thinking for Janeway and da Vinci to escape, rather gracefully bringing both approaches together in the conclusion without over-emphasising them.
That ending, though. It’s the other reason the episode isn’t ever, quite, a classic. That whole thing about the 16th and 24th century approach coming together for their escape? I totally stand by that. But on-screen it’s a bit different, tipping over from silly-but-fun to just ridiculous. OK, honestly, I can forgive the stopping to have a big speech while running away from the bad guys, at least in part because it’s a good speech, and if that had been the only lapse it would have been fine. But the time-scale of them running away from the “palace”, stopping to have their debate, running off again, launching the glider… it doesn’t remotely stand up to scrutiny. And after they do launch the glider, their two pursuers just stand there watching them, looking slightly startled rather than, say, trying to shoot them down, calling for back-up, trying to get someone to scan them… anything other than standing next to a tree and looking so wooden it’s hard to tell which is the plant and which are the actors. It’s really the direction that’s at fault here – the pacing is lax, the editing flawed, and it means that an otherwise-enjoyable episode farts out on a bit of a bum note. It’s a shame, but it’s not enough to detract from an enjoyable, silly episode that makes full use of its Big Guest Actor and by-numbers script. Perfectly, perfectly fine.
Any Other Business:
• The “mugging” of Voyager is pretty well done, and there’s something quite pleasing about how random the selection of stuff that gets stolen is.
• It takes Voyager ten days, we’re told, to track down their missing tech. Da Vinci certainly achieved a lot in those ten days… The realities of time seems to be something this episode struggles with overall, actually.
• It’s rather pleasing that da Vinci wears the holo-emitter like a pendant, rather than attached to his arm, though no explanation is ever given for this (thankfully).
• A really terrific piece of writing between Tuvok and da Vinci at the drinks party when the script plays with audience expectations of having Tuvok say he’s from Vulcan, only for him to instead say he comes from Scandinavia, then have da Vinci look extremely doubtful, then have him ask Tuvok if he’s ever been to Vulcan, “an island off Sicily” and for Tuvok to tell him no. Really well written and delivered by Rhys-Davies and Russ.
• John Vargas as Tau is crap – sorry, but he just is. It’s another thing that stops this being quite a top-tier comedy episode.
• Comparatively light episode for Seven, though the Doctor trying to drag some gossip out of her is good for a little smile.
• More Betty Davis Tuvok after Janeway orders him to fire at will and he sarcastically replies, “I have the will, but not the means.”
• Still, Chakotay gets in on the act too, when, after one of the alien thieves tells him it was a waste of his time coming to Voyager, Chakotay informs him, “Oh I don’t know. Those colours look good on you.”
• Kate Mulgrew looks genuinely thrilled as she and Rhys-Davies start to pedal the glider off the cliff.
• This is the last time we see da Vinci, and it would be interesting to speculate that Janeway’s increasing frustration with the maestro throughout the course of this episode is the reason for it, even though we get a final scene (which acts as a farewell to the character as well) where he packs up his stuff and heads off to Paris (the city, that is, not the helmsman).
Like a Vulcan, touched for the very first time...
What is it with all the memory implants anyway? This is a well Star Trek in general, and Voyager in particular, has gone to enough times already, but we’re back at it one more time for another drink from the bucket of unreliable recollection. Was this a peculiarly 90s malaise? Certainly it was around in popular culture, with movies both good (The Matrix) and bad (Johnny Mnemonic) in mainstream cinema addressing the unreliability of memory and how memory can be manipulated. Are we to take this as a reflection of a certain type of post-Cold War fear? Freed of the idea that the KGB might brain-wash did we instead decide our technology could do it instead? Or instead of the well of unreliable memory are we instead drinking from the bar of good-enough-for-forty-five minutes and sipping the cocktail of “eh, it worked before”?
This time it’s a little bit of both, albeit shading more towards the latter than the former. Actually, make that a lot more towards the latter. This isn’t a terrible script, and, let’s be honest, anything following the series-high of “Year Of Hell” is going to have a hard time as a follow-up. But still, this would feel little a bit of a let-down wherever in the season it turned up, and it feels disappointing for the same reason that big chucks of “Ex Post Facto” felt disappointing – it seems like it’s reaching for a whole lot of discussions and never does anything with them. Specifically, we have the idea that, as a society, there is something intrinsic that leads us to enjoy imagery which is, rationally speaking, horrific, and deriving some kind of pleasure from that. Are we to take this as a condemnation of the horror genre? Is it implicitly condemning those who would enjoy the consumption of such imagery for prurient reasons? Or is it saying that such images allow the processing of dark impulses and allow a safe, controlled way of confronting the violence that lies within us? My, that’s a lot of rhetorical questions for a single paragraph but unfortunately the reason is that, even after re-viewing the episode, they’re left unanswered, and that’s at the heart of what this episode fumbles. There’s just so much material that the episode could work with, but instead it’s all very surface level. Dawson and Russ do good work. Mulgrew holds up her end of things. But given the volume of issues raised there’s only a very limited amount to really engage with here.
This is the first review I’ve written since both completing “Year Of Hell” and getting the first volume of Think Good Thoughts together (still available at the Kindle store, folks!), so perhaps this is leading me to be a bit more negative than usual, but this just felt so very average, and going back over it I just can’t shake that feeling that this should be a lot more developed than it actually is. It’s the first review since I got back into it, the first review of Volume Two, and I really wanted to be positive, but “Random Thoughts” makes it hard work. The implanted memories revolve round crewmembers who have already been given that plotline before – B’Elanna in “Remember” (barely even one season ago) and Tuvok in “Flashback”, so we don’t even get another character’s perspective on a well-established trope. This is just more of the same. We get to see Tuvok doing his barely-repressed-anger thing, and Russ is terrific at it, but again it’s nothing we didn’t see back in “Meld”. What else is there? There must be something…
Oh you know what? Unlikely though it sounds, Neelix is absolutely terrific for the, oh, four or five minutes of screen time he gets. Phillips absolutely and completely nails Neelix tentatively trying out his first post-Kes relationship and, crucially, he underplays absolutely every line and as a result comes across rather self-effacing and really rather charming. It’s an absolutely lovely use of the character and it does wonders for him. Even the whole “tug my whiskers” thing, which could so very easily have been buttock-clenchingly cringe-inducing, is handled in a way that seems more delightful than embarrassing. It’s such a minor moment in the episode (before he’s unceremoniously dropped never to be seen again before the closing credits) but it’s just great to see the character so well used and so well portrayed. So that’s a positive! See, I can find good things to say about this episode! Oh and Chakotay gets a moment with Tom when he gets to show the same skill he did in “Year Of Hell” – finding a way of keeping Tom busy and also useful. It’s a little thing but it works well. And then there’s… uh… Well of course Dawson and Russ are great, but I’ve said that already. Really, this is the old problem that Star Trek faces from time to time – explorations of what darkness is and how it affects people isn’t really something that can be done in such safe terms, or when it can (as in “Meld”), it requires a considerably more dexterous script than this. That thought that gets traded and everyone gets so worked up about? Someone being pissed off at being bumped into. It’s not exactly American Psycho is it? The “depths of violence” that lurks in the heart of Tuvok? A handful of flashbacks consisting of recycled footage which cast light on absolutely nothing. See, even some well-chosen imagery could have given us some insight into the character, but a burn-y person, an explode-y thing and a latex face don’t offer much in the way of character elucidation.
But let’s focus on the positive and try to draw out the thematic elements that bind the episode together. If nothing else the one thing the episode is comparatively successful at addressing is the idea that simply banning something isn’t the same as actually dealing with it, and in this we at least find the episode gaining some traction. A society that outlaws violence isn’t the same as a society that has actually learned to deal with the root causes of it, and Tuvok’s investigation which leads to the revealing of a black market in the Mari society is fairly adeptly handled. That we get to see Tuvok sympathise and show appreciation for this society, then explicitly admit that his initial conclusion was wrong, also lends some weight to this, since we know how fair-minded and balanced he is (the conversation immediately preceding this, when he dismisses B’Elanna’s thanks as him simply doing his job helps to underline it as well). This also works well in the context of an investigator who is entirely out of her depth and has a hard time believing that her society could ever function in the way she’s suddenly forced to realize it does. This is so very similar to people who would, for example, deny women the right to abortions and force them to seek other, markedly less safe, alternatives – Janeway’s use of the words “back alley” when discussing the trade in illicit thoughts seems to link directly to this reading (as in back alley abortions), and pushing problems too difficult or complex to deal with head-on by those unwilling to address such issues is also specifically referred to. Of course this is also very much framed in terms of the debate over censorship as well, but there’s a sense that the censorship debate here is, if anything, more of a mask to hide what the episode is really going for, and this too lends some additional depth to the final confrontation. This is all brought together in a final scene in the briefing room – it isn’t a long scene, but there’s plenty packed into it, and it - just - manages to avoid being one of those, “and now, the moral of the episode” speeches but instead allows the laying out of this part of the thesis of the episode line by line without being clumsy or overstated. That’s not always an easy balance to strike, so it’s to Kenneth Biller’s credit that he at least manages to get this right.
So, well, there we go. No disaster, no triumph, “Random Thoughts” is certainly forty-five minutes long. And it’s certainly no shambles. When I discussed “Macrocosm” I mentioned that the sequencing of episodes can be important in terms of the way the episode is perceived, and certainly “Random Thoughts” would seem to follow this logic. I’ve come back to this before, but it really is important when seen in the context of an ongoing series rather than one being dropped into. If it’s position had been swapped even one episode with “Concerning Flight” it probably would function much better, since “Concerning Flight” is a fun, light-hearted romp which, if following on from “Year Of Hell”, would act as something of a palate-cleaner before trying to deal with the heavier issues that “Random Thoughts” tries to address. But here it’s left floundering a bit, trapped between the big high of its predecessor and the genuine fun of what comes after it. Never quite a catastrophe and never quite a success, “Random Thoughts” at least has some ambition, but for all the effort that goes into it the inconsequentiality and overly-familiar nature of the material prevents it from ever becoming more than it is. Disappointing.
Any Other Business:
• Really, Neelix is the best thing in this episode by miles. No disrespect to Russ and Dawson, but we’ve seen their character beats before, whereas this rather bashful side of Neelix hasn’t really emerged and it’s just lovely to see.
• Why is Seven even in this episode? She gets exactly two scenes, the latter of which seems like the episode was under-running by a couple of minutes so they decided to have her strut in, confront Janeway about something she’s already perfectly well aware of (that the ship’s mission is also one of exploration), then flounce out. Really quite pointless.
• The Doctor doesn’t do much better either, and neither does Harry.
• Tuvok is back in full Betty Davis mode once more, dropping flippant one-liners all over the place. I do like this side of his character, even if it is a bit silly. Certainly Russ is excellent at delivering it.
• Tom’s discussion with Chakotay about putting a rescue-plan together while Tom awkwardly sits in the Captain’s chair is very well done, especially McNeill’s, “There?” when Chakotay tells him to take a seat.
• Nimira aside, not a single member of the Mari seems to be able to actually act, which doesn’t help the episode much. She does a good job of being vastly out of her depth and being desperate to cling to Tuvok’s support when addressing a situation completely outside of her realm of experience. The rest of them? Sheesh. Guill plays his attraction to violent thoughts as almost sexual – that could have proved fruitful (a discussion around pornography perhaps?) had the script in any way supported this reading, which it doesn’t.
• It takes this episode an age to actually stop. Tuvok is rescued! Then we get the script explained to us in the briefing room! Then we find out B’Elanna’s fine! Then she and Tuvok have a discussion about his investigation! Then Janeway and Seven get their pointless capper! Aaargh! Just stop already!
• Though saying that, Janeway’s amused, “dismissed!” after Seven has already left the room is a nice inversion of her previous “Dismissed. That’s Starfleet for “get out”,” and very well played by Mulgrew.
Season Four, Episode 11 – “Concerning Flight”
A dwarf star
So, if the use of da Vinci in “Scorpion” was the antithesis of the typical cutsie appearance from a historical character via the Wonders Of Modern Technology, here we have the inverse, a fun, light-hearted romp through an alien world via the perspective of a 16th century genius (or at least the holographic representation thereof). “Concerning Flight” is a trifle, let’s make no mistake about it, but it’s a trifle that at least makes some effort towards understanding its principal subject (da Vinci) and at least tries to give us a narratively different slant on otherwise-very-familiar material.
And that narrative perspective comes entirely from da Vinci and the way in which he interprets everything in the alien world though his own perspective, which expired a few hundred years earlier. It’s certainly a novel approach to the material which helps to brighten up the surroundings, and that brightening adds much to the episode, even though it often occurs at somewhat illogical junctions. While there is very little real-world logic in stopping to have a debate over the nature of perspective in the middle to trying to desperately run away from the bad guys, for example, it does at least suggest why da Vinci is held in such great regard. Here we see a man, not being driven by his own ego (of which we see plenty earlier in the episode) nor doing anything for his own benefit (of which we see plenty of earlier the episode), but instead stopping and taking a few moments to really understand the nature of the problem. Here it’s that Janeway knows more than he does, but the way in which she persuades him is crucial – using a simple analogy that someone from any period could understand (including the 20th century audience, obviously) and allowing him to work out the rest from there. It’s an important scene, as we see someone laying aside their own prejudices about a situation and figuring out (not just being told) what’s going on, and also being a big enough person to admit that he has been wrong and indeed there are things outside of his perspective which he cannot grasp. This, far more than overly-familiar images of gliders or workshops in Florence, hint at the real strength of da Vinci as a man who is not simply a genius but also smart enough to admit the limitations of his own knowledge. It’s a strong piece of characterization and one that allows us a little more insight into the character than we have thus far had.
What a shame, then, that we don’t get a bit more of that kind of characterization, because it’s immensely successful, it just shouldn’t be delivered on a hillside while running for your life. There are a lot of those kind of narrative lapses which pull the episode up short of being a complete triumph, even though it’s generally extremely good, or at least extremely enjoyable. This is the second, and final, outing for John Rhys-Davies’s da Vinci, and as with “Scorpion” he delivers his performance with gusto, stamping about, bellowing at anyone that gets in his way, and generally having a whale of a time. The part here is considerably expanded from the father-confessor side we saw in “Scorpion”, which makes sense given the setting, and Rhys-Davies misses not one moment to chew the scenery (this is not a complaint). Yet as with “Scorpion” it’s the quieter, more contemplative moments that make the character really shine. Odd moments of compassion, or his quiet admission that he would do nothing for the people of Florence but he would for “Caterina”, give the character scope and depth, and though the stamping about the place is all jolly good fun, and though the contrast between the shouting and the compassion works well, there’s a little too much of the former and not quite enough of the latter. The episode is never less than entertaining, but the depth that da Vinci brought to “Scorpion” is partly absent here, and the narrative stance of viewing the 24th century through the eyes of the 16th isn’t really taken far enough – it’s fun hearing Voyager described as “the Portuguese” but it doesn’t really explicate anything, it’s just one character seeing things in the way he’s been programmed to. That’s a shame, and it feels like a little bit of a missed opportunity.
But still, I don’t want to be too churlish here, because there is so much to enjoy. The point of this episode, really, isn’t one of marked ambition because, as I said earlier, the bulk of the material here is of an extremely familiar nature, and as we’ve seen many times before, acts principally as a loose framework to hang all the fun bits off of. And jolly good fun they are too. So why, given just how well-worn primary plot is, does it work here? After all there have been plenty of episodes I’ve openly criticized for dragging over storylines we’ve seen before (like the last one, for example). Well, one of the reasons this episode gets away with it is because we again get to see an alien culture which just is, rather than having to be laboriously explained to us. Beyond the basics of the technology theft there’s very little about this world that’s explained in infodumps or exposition (perhaps just a little at the drinks party Tuvok and Janeway attend) and it’s simply allowed to stand as self-evidently what it is. It’s amazing what a difference this can make, especially since in production terms we’re back to the two-corridors-and-a-room trying to stand in for an entire alien civilization (not, it must be admitted, entirely successfully). There’s also some effort to draw a parallel between this planet and da Vinci’s 16th century (referring to his benefactor as a “prince”, for example), which also sketches in just a very little detail but enough to at least add a bit of colour. After all, the “prince” here is duplicitous and conniving in exactly the same way as da Vinci’s 16th century patrons and archbishops, and though this isn’t over-emphasized it does at least explain why da Vinci is able to operate successfully in this environment. Hypocrites and people out only for their own benefit – this is something da Vinci is experienced in dealing with so it makes sense that, faced with a similar set-up, he can flourish. This also at least partly explains why Janeway is, to an initial extent, inclined towards trusting his judgement regarding this particular planet – nobody has had contact with these people before, but da Vinci is both wily and intelligent, and familiar with this kind of politics in a way that the Starfleet crew aren’t. Yet as the episode goes on Janeway takes charge more and more, which also makes sense, since she’s the one that understands how the 24th century functions once they have a grip on the local politics, and she also understands that the 16th century perspective can only carry them so far (hence that big speech on perspective on the hillside). And in the end it takes a combination of both 16th and 24th century thinking for Janeway and da Vinci to escape, rather gracefully bringing both approaches together in the conclusion without over-emphasising them.
That ending, though. It’s the other reason the episode isn’t ever, quite, a classic. That whole thing about the 16th and 24th century approach coming together for their escape? I totally stand by that. But on-screen it’s a bit different, tipping over from silly-but-fun to just ridiculous. OK, honestly, I can forgive the stopping to have a big speech while running away from the bad guys, at least in part because it’s a good speech, and if that had been the only lapse it would have been fine. But the time-scale of them running away from the “palace”, stopping to have their debate, running off again, launching the glider… it doesn’t remotely stand up to scrutiny. And after they do launch the glider, their two pursuers just stand there watching them, looking slightly startled rather than, say, trying to shoot them down, calling for back-up, trying to get someone to scan them… anything other than standing next to a tree and looking so wooden it’s hard to tell which is the plant and which are the actors. It’s really the direction that’s at fault here – the pacing is lax, the editing flawed, and it means that an otherwise-enjoyable episode farts out on a bit of a bum note. It’s a shame, but it’s not enough to detract from an enjoyable, silly episode that makes full use of its Big Guest Actor and by-numbers script. Perfectly, perfectly fine.
Any Other Business:
• The “mugging” of Voyager is pretty well done, and there’s something quite pleasing about how random the selection of stuff that gets stolen is.
• It takes Voyager ten days, we’re told, to track down their missing tech. Da Vinci certainly achieved a lot in those ten days… The realities of time seems to be something this episode struggles with overall, actually.
• It’s rather pleasing that da Vinci wears the holo-emitter like a pendant, rather than attached to his arm, though no explanation is ever given for this (thankfully).
• A really terrific piece of writing between Tuvok and da Vinci at the drinks party when the script plays with audience expectations of having Tuvok say he’s from Vulcan, only for him to instead say he comes from Scandinavia, then have da Vinci look extremely doubtful, then have him ask Tuvok if he’s ever been to Vulcan, “an island off Sicily” and for Tuvok to tell him no. Really well written and delivered by Rhys-Davies and Russ.
• John Vargas as Tau is crap – sorry, but he just is. It’s another thing that stops this being quite a top-tier comedy episode.
• Comparatively light episode for Seven, though the Doctor trying to drag some gossip out of her is good for a little smile.
• More Betty Davis Tuvok after Janeway orders him to fire at will and he sarcastically replies, “I have the will, but not the means.”
• Still, Chakotay gets in on the act too, when, after one of the alien thieves tells him it was a waste of his time coming to Voyager, Chakotay informs him, “Oh I don’t know. Those colours look good on you.”
• Kate Mulgrew looks genuinely thrilled as she and Rhys-Davies start to pedal the glider off the cliff.
• This is the last time we see da Vinci, and it would be interesting to speculate that Janeway’s increasing frustration with the maestro throughout the course of this episode is the reason for it, even though we get a final scene (which acts as a farewell to the character as well) where he packs up his stuff and heads off to Paris (the city, that is, not the helmsman).
