Post by Prole Hole on Oct 2, 2015 6:29:21 GMT -5
Season Four, Episode 16 – “Prey”
Walking on some shine
The judge stands at his bench, long wig hanging to below his mutton-chop sideburns, red robe swishing as he rises.
Judge: Call the first witness!
Clerk Of Court: Call the first witness!
A man is brought into the court room. Tall, more than a little dishevelled, in need of a shave, and looking vaguely hung over regardless of how much alcohol he has actually consumed, the man is led to the witness box and stands, expectantly. A copy of “The Star Trek: Voyager Encyclopaedia” is brought over and the man places his hand upon
it.
Judge: Do you, sir, promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Roddenberry?
The Man: I do, your honour.
Judge: Then you may take a seat.
The man sits, and the judge and the rest of the court follows suit. Once the shuffling of feet and the odd muted cough have died down the judge continues.
Judge: Can you state your name for the record please?
A court stenographer, a pleasant-looking, blonde woman of indeterminate years, looks expectantly at the man in the witness box.
The Man: Prole Hole, your honour.
Judge: Very good. Could you please state your occupation?
The Man: Of course, your honour, I review Star Trek: Voyager for the Tolerability Index and a small cadre of readers.
The judge looks momentarily confused, a shadow falling across his face.
Judge: And people pay you for that?
The Man: Oh no, of course not. That would be ridiculous. Paying someone to review Star Trek? As if that could ever be a thing!
The judge peers over his half-moon glasses, a vaguely disapproving look on his face.
Judge: Very well, we shall proceed. You have been brought here, Mr Hole, as a witness in the case of just why the Hirogen are able to succeed where the likes of the Kazon have so badly failed. This case is important, Mr Hole, because within this particular episode lies the key to their success and what it says about both the way alien races are dealt with in Voyager and why the specifics of them matter here. You may proceed.
The Man: Thank you, your honour. Well, the Hirogen are successful here for two reasons, primarily. Firstly, the casting has been just so much better than we’ve experienced for a long time. Not all the Hirogen are played by the same actor,naturally, but even under all that latex and body armour one should never under-estimate just how important it is to have the right person peering out from behind all those prosthetics. Here, for example, we get to have a number of scenes where Janeway squares off against the Alpha Hirogen, and they are absolutely electric. This is in part because Kate Mulgrew is incredibly good at not looking intimidated by someone who’s practically double her size, but it also works because this week’s guest star, Tony Todd, underplays everything to the point where he’s practically whispering half his lines. His vast size, coupled with the way he delivers his dialogue, sets up an intentional juxtaposition which allows the character to come alive (that he has excellent rapport with Mulgrew, as well as Beltran, helps enormously in this regard too) in ways that we just don’t see all that often on Star Trek. What’s clear about the Hirogen here is that there’s obviously a lot of thought put into them as a species and…
Lawyer: Objection!
A slender, bespectacled man rises to his feet, shuffling some papers in front of him. He is wearing a charcoal-grey suit with a long blue tie that constantly floats across the papers he is nominally trying to read from.
The Man (innocently): Yes?
Lawyer: I have in my hand a piece of pap… that is to say, it says here, Mr Hole, that you previously praised the Kazon as having a culture akin to LA gangs, and furthermore found this an interesting way of avoiding them being presented as a monoculture. What do you say to that?
The judge peers down from the bench, shaking his head ever so slightly.
Judge: Explain yourself, Mr Hole.
The Man: Well, it’s quite simple really. I did indeed praise the Kazon for that, but if my learned friend had read just a little further he would also see that I pointed out that this never amounted to anything. The different sects were meant to suggest a diversity of culture yet never actually did, so there was nothing that made the Nistram any different from the Relora or any of the other sects. With the Hirogen we almost have the opposite effect, though the fact that they are both nomadic species make the contrast between them even more prominant. There’s no attempt in any of the Hirogen’s three appearances to suggest that they don’t all follow the same goal – the Hunt – but everyone who has actually played a Hirogen has been of such a calibre of actor that they all come across as distinct, unique personalities, even though they’re all basically doing the same thing, tracking their prey. Here, especially, the difference is palpable. This isn’t some cheesy scenery-chewing nonsense that can be entertaining in small doses but never compelling, this is someone presenting a very real, very dangerous threat, and one of the great successes of the Hirogen is that, even after we learn more and more about them, that sense of threat is never diminished, only given greater dimension. Even when nominally allies or working towards the same goal they always seem dangerous. That’s really hard to achieve, so all praise to Voyager for actually managing it.
Judge: This seems like an adequate explanation. Do you have any further question?
The judge raises one quizzical eyebrow at the lawyer, who sinks back into his seat, his suit seemingly swallowing him up.
Lawyer: No, your honour.
Judge: Excellent. Proceed, Mr Hole
The man runs a hand through hair that’s practically crying out for a good conditioner and comb, and draws a deep breath.
The Man: Well, that’s really the answer to your first question, your honour, of why they are successful in their own right. The sense of threat, the very real difference proper casting makes, and the reactions of the regular crew to them, define them in ways that make them an effective presence. This is given even further emphasis because we have the secondary threat here, the return of Species 8472, which adds drive and urgency to the conflict between the Starfleet crew and the Hirogen. But even given the presence of 8472, and the way that Janeway tries a different approach, the Hirogen are always positioned front and centre of the episode. Janeway, interestingly, makes the same call that lost her Voyager in “Basics” – to extend compassion towards someone she knows is her enemy - but here she’s undermined by Seven, providing a third conflict. This gives us three separate conflicts at the same time, but crucially not the same conflict served three ways, so we have an emotional conflict (with Seven), a physical conflict (with Species 8472) and a philosophical conflict (with the Hirogen). The successful layering of these different facets of conflict allow a lot of room for the script to develop ways of pushing Janeway out of her comfort zone (which Mulgrew always responds well to), and helps inform her dealings with the Hirogen themselves.
The judge looks relatively satisfied with this answer, as the man pauses and takes a sip from a glass of water.
Judge: Very well, I can accept the validity of your argument here. Now to the second point – what does this say about the way Voyager deals with alien races, and why does it matter?
The man takes another sip of water and considers his words before proceeding.
The Man: Well it matters because this serves as a workable template going forward for how alien races should be dealt with, but specifically in a show like Voyager. It demonstrates that the show has worked out how to introduce new species and make them work. To be fair, this was also true of the Viidians, but it really suggests the show learned the correct lessons from what went right with the Viidians and what went wrong with the Kazon. It’s been a startlingly long time since a completely new, ongoing, species was introduced to the show, but “Prey” demonstrates that it was worth the wait. There will be a few other races introduced to Voyager as ongoing concerns – most notably the Malon – and they basically serve to follow the same template as the Hirogen. Not in terms of the Hunt, of course, but they are well cast, diverse in terms of individual personalities, and have defining traits which don’t just define them. So for example one of the things we witnessed in the last episode was that the Hirogen are dedicated to the hunt. We this here as well but it is also expanded upon so we see, with the Alpha Hirogen, that he is not blinded by the Hunt and is prepared to negotiate Voyager’s freedom in return for the member of Species 8472. This shows cunning, politics, understanding and intelligence all in just a couple of lines, defining the Alpha Hirogen without laboured exposition.
The man pauses for breath and the judge considers his words, scribbling a few notes on a piece of paper in front of him.
The Judge: You make a compelling case for their significance indeed. Counsel, do you wish to cross examine?
The lawyer rises to his feet, suit slumping away from him as he gets up.
Lawyer: One final question, if I may. Mr Hole, you said “specifically in a show like Voyager” in relation to why this works as a template. But doesn’t DS9 achieve exactly the same with the Cardassians?
The Man: Oh yes of course it does, but the Cardassians are a necessarily different case. Even putting aside the fact that they were a known species before DS9 came along, the static nature of DS9 necessarily means that it’s possible to spend a lot more time exploring their culture, history and politics, as well as the individuals we meet along the way. The Hirogen are different because we’re only going to spend a certain amount of time with them, and they’re not going to be lurking around in the background even when they’re not a primary focus. This means that they have much less screen time so if anything need to be drawn sharper but without resorting to narrative shortcuts, exposition or cliché. The Hirogen are successful precisely because they manage to strike that balance, and for Voyager that has to count as a real triumph.
Lawyer: Thank you, Mr Hole. No further questions, your honour.
The Lawyer takes his seat again. The judge rises once more and stares intently at the man sitting in the witness box.
Judge: Mr Hole, we thank you for your time here today. Your words have given us much to think about, and we will consider them when passing sentence. However today your time in the witness box is over. You are dismissed.
The man nods once to the judge, rises, and is led out of the court. As the dark oak wooden doors swing shut, sealing him off from the world of legal wrangling one last, final sentence floats over his shoulder.
The man: I don’t suppose there’s anywhere you can get a glass of wine round here is there?
Any Other Business:
• Yes, “Prey” is quite excellent. Species 8472 aside, the Hirogen are by miles the best new species we’ve come across in simply ages, and I cannot praise Tony Todd’s performance enough, a really, really excellent piece of work from him.
• The entire pre-title sequence is entirely focused on the Hirogen, which makes for a nice chance.
• The shot of Species 8472 crawling over the outside of Voyager is quite magnificent.
• The conflict between Janeway and Seven is also excellently realized, and it really benefits from the fact that the first time we see Seven she’s starting her etiquette training from the Doctor, so a nice and light scene, and her character gets more and more intense and focussed throughout the episode until her final act of mutiny. It’s a really brilliant piece of characterization for her.
• And of course the conflict between Seven and Janeway is wonderfully handled as well. What makes it compelling, as is so often the case with the best of Voyager’s character conflicts, is that neither side is right and neither side is wrong. Seven is right that Janeway’s course of action is reckless even if it does have the potential to do good, and Janeway is right that Seven lacks the knowledge and experience to make the right call, even apart from the whole command structure debate. Mulgrew, who’s a real tour de force in this episde, and Ryan are as dependably brilliant as always.
• It makes a nice change that the moral dilemma – whether to send Species 8472 back to Fluidic Space or not – isn’t defused by a yes/no answer, but by a third way, which is both the right and wrong answer simultaneously.
• Tuvok has moved from flippant to sarcastic. “You missed,” he drolly informs Seven after she fires at a floating PADD. Yup, still seeing him in black and white…
• It seems Species 8472, at least in this episode, communicate primarily though stock footage from previous episodes…
• The final scene between Seven and Janeway is pleasingly reflective of the one in “The Gift” where Seven, while in the brig, tried to use emotional blackmail to get Janeway to send her back to the Collective. This is a really great parallel scene, as we get to see how far Seven has come and how far she still has to go. The thread of her recovery from trauma (more of which next episode) continues to feel real because it continues to avoid following a linear path.
Season Four, Episode 17 - "Retrospect"
Jeri Ryan receives the script for "Retrospect"
Well, this must go down as one of the most profoundly miscalculated episodes in Voyager’s history. And things were going so well… We’re back with the unreliability of memory again, which as everyone must be aware by now isn’t exactly my favourite topic, but at least “Retrospect” actually tries to deal with this head on, rather than through some sci-fi filter. This episode is, clearly and undeniably, about repressed memories as a result of abuse, and what the result of this can be. That directness is actually very refreshing, a far cry from yet another vaguely-defined telepathic whatever. So what went wrong here?
The answer seems to be practically everything except the cast. Honestly I didn’t even know where to begin with this one after watching the episode. But OK, fine, let’s go with the most dependable route and branch out from there - the cast here are terrific, faced what they have to work with. Picardo is dependable, given the Doctor seems to be so far out of character he seems to be practically reprogrammed, Ryan is actually amazing and does a stunningly good job of communicating Seven’s vulnerabilities, Mulgrew is redoubtably fine strutting about the place, and so is Russ when Tuvok gets to do a bit of investigating. So in conclusion, Ryan is the stand-out, everyone else is fine. This seems relatively uncontroversial. But what they have to deliver is just the biggest hot mess we’ve seen since… well I can’t even think.
Right, I’m running around in circles here so let’s try to parse this out. The basic fundamentals of the episode are this – something happens on a planet Voyager is visiting to buy weapons (a strange enough conceit to being with, but they’re still in Hirogen territory so whatever), and that something is that either a weapon overloaded and Seven sustaining minor injuries, or she is raped. Well, “violated”, but you know – it’s treated as rape. The episode positions itself, at least for a good portion of its running time, as being on Seven’s side, that she was actually abused, and that the consequences of this are going to be explored. While using rape is, at best, a blunt and crude way of exploring this with Seven, we’ve been charting the course of her recovery from trauma so there’s at least something potentially interesting to be gleaned in having her then have to confront another trauma and seeing how she reacts to it. The problem, and it’s a massive one, is that the exploration of Seven and her recovery from trauma has been thus far posited as the biggest and most significant development Seven has been given. It’s one of the things that makes her a profoundly feminist character, and one of the things that has made her compelling as an individual because this isn’t the kind of character arc we often see in Star Trek. So, if you are going to start playing around with that recovery and the way that recovery affects the character you really really have to know what you’re doing, and in absolutely every meaningful way the script completely messes this up. The idea of dealing with repressed memories, especially from a former Borg drone, is perfectly valid, and in fact makes a lot of sense, given the amount of stuff that must be rattling around in Seven’s head. But this? This is not how to handle it. Because if you spend half your episode placing your lead character as someone who has been abused and who is desperately reaching out for support, then systematically removing the evidence for her abuse one piece at a time you run the risk of coming across as someone who’s just one step short of saying, “oh yea women complain about this stuff all the time, but it’s not real.” Which is about as antithetical to Voyager’s feminist stance as it’s possible to imagine.
The real problem here is that the episode leaves it intentionally vague as to whether Seven was really abused or not. Did Korvin do something wrong? The vagueness is clearly meant to suggest all sorts of moral grey areas, but it fatally undermines the episode’s own premise. The fact that the evidence stacks up one way is never actually delivered as a convincing argument for Korvin’s innocence – while one should always assume innocence until guilt is proven, there’s enough margin for error here to make it possible that he really did abuse Seven but that the Voyager crew are simply unable to gather enough evidence to make an airtight case. Or maybe he really didn’t do it. Who knows? What this episode needs is an actual ending, not just a convenient get out as the would-be abuser conveniently blows himself up and thus prevents the episode from reaching an actual conclusion. For the weight of recovered memories to mean anything they need to be balanced against whether an actual crime was committed, or whether prejudice and desire for revenge won out. The episode gestures towards this with the final scene between Janeway and the Doctor, but this is way too little too late, and because of the uncertainty of Korvin’s guilt it’s all just whistling in the dark anyway. It’s another miscalculation – we’re supposed to be moved by the Doctor’s request to be reset to his factory defaults because his mistakes caused the death of an innocent man and him coming to appreciate that he realizes his hubris has caused so much suffering. But this isn’t really a dramatic moment at all because firstly it’s just not conclusive enough that he was innocent, and secondly there’s no chance that Janeway is actually going to do that, so instead we have Robert Picardo and Kate Mulgrew desperately trying to add weight to material that just can’t support it. The other massive issue here is – if Korvin is innocent then where do the memories that Seven “recovered” actually come from? Was it because of the Doctor’s leading questions during the recovered memories sessions? Or something she experienced as a Borg which the explosion in the lab caused to resurface? Or something else? If the writers can’t be bothered to explain what actually happened to Seven then why should we, as the audience, care? It would be perfectly fine if it was some Borg-related flashback – as I mentioned, there must be a lot of stuff rattling around in Seven’s head and in a way it almost makes sense that something would surface some time, added to which it would then really define the issue at hand. We would know one way or another what did or did not happen to Seven, and thus be able to draw conclusions from that. But no, it’s also left vague and unfinished, in the most damaging way possible to the story. And the Doctor is of no help here either.
Actually, the Doctor is a complete mystery in this episode. Picardo is fine, obviously, but the Doctor pushing Seven so hard for revenge against Korvin? Where did that come from? I can’t recall ever seeing him that aggressive. This might partly stem from the problem that the Doctor is the only one Seven spends any time with apart from Janeway, so they need to use him as her defender, but he just doesn’t normally behave like this. If it were Tom or Chakotay, say, you can see them getting emotionally riled up by this (actually especially Chakotay), but the Doctor? It’s very out of character for him, and there’s a lot of that going on here. The idea that he’s tried to improve his programming with counseling is… well fine, it’s not really something that we’ve seen before but it’s not inconsistent with his desire to improve himself as we’ve seen in the likes of “Darkling”. But this isn’t some major download and attempt to modify his programming without the knowledge of how to do it correctly (as it was in “Darkling”, and by the way if that’s your go-to episode for how to handle the Doctor you’re not doing it right), it’s just an offhanded comment made to Janeway, then we’re straight into recovered memories and Jungian technique. It’s all incredibly crass, it carries virtually no weight, yet this is meant to be the pivotal event in the story, the one that leads to Korvin being accused. Even the loooooong scene in the cargo bay where Seven “recovers” her memories is ploddingly dull when it ought to be unsettling and discombobulating. A few “breathe easy, now remember stuff” scenes is frankly patronizing both to people who do try to help abuse victims and to those victims themselves. Absolutely nothing about this approach is successful.
And yet, one again because of the skills of an extremely talented cast, this isn’t a car-crash of “Blood Fever” proportions. I mentioned Ryan earlier, but really, she can’t be praised enough in this episode. Her work in sick bay, showing flinching fear then claustrophobia as the medical bed closes over her is really excellent work and, regardless of the veracity of her memories, Ryan entirely convinces as someone who has had some kind of issue, even if it’s not the recovered memories we’re led to believe. This is as vulnerable as we have ever seen Seven – the closet thus far was “The Raven” but this is pushing her into whole new areas of experience and everything Ryan is called to deliver she does with aplomb. Which, given the complete muddle of everything else going on here, is just as well, really. But not even the strength of her performance, great though it is, can come close to saving this. Everything here is terribly miscalculated, and if nothing else “Retrospect” serves as an example of one thing – if you don’t understand the thing you are trying to discuss it’s probably better that you don’t try and discuss it at all.
Any Other Business:
• Nice opening shot of the monotanium satellite being blown open by Korvin’s weapons.
• I want to praise Ryan again because I don’t really know what else to say here. Normally when I review an episode I have loads of Any Other Business points that I then need to edit down, but here? It’s tough.
• Erm. Seven punching out Korvin in Engineering is pleasingly unexpected I suppose, and there’s nice through-episode continuity from “Prey” regarding Seven having been disciplined.
• Tuvok gets a handful of “doing the investigation” scenes, which is a nice acknowledgement of his role as security officer, but it amounts to very little.
• So Korvin’s ship blows up when he tries to fire his weapons. Aside from the crassness of this getting the episode out of having to actually confront the issues it’s raised, those are the weapons he’s trying to flog to passing aliens? He must not get a lot of repeat business…
• You know, I’ve had enough of thinking about this episode. Let’s move on.
Walking on some shine
The judge stands at his bench, long wig hanging to below his mutton-chop sideburns, red robe swishing as he rises.
Judge: Call the first witness!
Clerk Of Court: Call the first witness!
A man is brought into the court room. Tall, more than a little dishevelled, in need of a shave, and looking vaguely hung over regardless of how much alcohol he has actually consumed, the man is led to the witness box and stands, expectantly. A copy of “The Star Trek: Voyager Encyclopaedia” is brought over and the man places his hand upon
it.
Judge: Do you, sir, promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you Roddenberry?
The Man: I do, your honour.
Judge: Then you may take a seat.
The man sits, and the judge and the rest of the court follows suit. Once the shuffling of feet and the odd muted cough have died down the judge continues.
Judge: Can you state your name for the record please?
A court stenographer, a pleasant-looking, blonde woman of indeterminate years, looks expectantly at the man in the witness box.
The Man: Prole Hole, your honour.
Judge: Very good. Could you please state your occupation?
The Man: Of course, your honour, I review Star Trek: Voyager for the Tolerability Index and a small cadre of readers.
The judge looks momentarily confused, a shadow falling across his face.
Judge: And people pay you for that?
The Man: Oh no, of course not. That would be ridiculous. Paying someone to review Star Trek? As if that could ever be a thing!
The judge peers over his half-moon glasses, a vaguely disapproving look on his face.
Judge: Very well, we shall proceed. You have been brought here, Mr Hole, as a witness in the case of just why the Hirogen are able to succeed where the likes of the Kazon have so badly failed. This case is important, Mr Hole, because within this particular episode lies the key to their success and what it says about both the way alien races are dealt with in Voyager and why the specifics of them matter here. You may proceed.
The Man: Thank you, your honour. Well, the Hirogen are successful here for two reasons, primarily. Firstly, the casting has been just so much better than we’ve experienced for a long time. Not all the Hirogen are played by the same actor,naturally, but even under all that latex and body armour one should never under-estimate just how important it is to have the right person peering out from behind all those prosthetics. Here, for example, we get to have a number of scenes where Janeway squares off against the Alpha Hirogen, and they are absolutely electric. This is in part because Kate Mulgrew is incredibly good at not looking intimidated by someone who’s practically double her size, but it also works because this week’s guest star, Tony Todd, underplays everything to the point where he’s practically whispering half his lines. His vast size, coupled with the way he delivers his dialogue, sets up an intentional juxtaposition which allows the character to come alive (that he has excellent rapport with Mulgrew, as well as Beltran, helps enormously in this regard too) in ways that we just don’t see all that often on Star Trek. What’s clear about the Hirogen here is that there’s obviously a lot of thought put into them as a species and…
Lawyer: Objection!
A slender, bespectacled man rises to his feet, shuffling some papers in front of him. He is wearing a charcoal-grey suit with a long blue tie that constantly floats across the papers he is nominally trying to read from.
The Man (innocently): Yes?
Lawyer: I have in my hand a piece of pap… that is to say, it says here, Mr Hole, that you previously praised the Kazon as having a culture akin to LA gangs, and furthermore found this an interesting way of avoiding them being presented as a monoculture. What do you say to that?
The judge peers down from the bench, shaking his head ever so slightly.
Judge: Explain yourself, Mr Hole.
The Man: Well, it’s quite simple really. I did indeed praise the Kazon for that, but if my learned friend had read just a little further he would also see that I pointed out that this never amounted to anything. The different sects were meant to suggest a diversity of culture yet never actually did, so there was nothing that made the Nistram any different from the Relora or any of the other sects. With the Hirogen we almost have the opposite effect, though the fact that they are both nomadic species make the contrast between them even more prominant. There’s no attempt in any of the Hirogen’s three appearances to suggest that they don’t all follow the same goal – the Hunt – but everyone who has actually played a Hirogen has been of such a calibre of actor that they all come across as distinct, unique personalities, even though they’re all basically doing the same thing, tracking their prey. Here, especially, the difference is palpable. This isn’t some cheesy scenery-chewing nonsense that can be entertaining in small doses but never compelling, this is someone presenting a very real, very dangerous threat, and one of the great successes of the Hirogen is that, even after we learn more and more about them, that sense of threat is never diminished, only given greater dimension. Even when nominally allies or working towards the same goal they always seem dangerous. That’s really hard to achieve, so all praise to Voyager for actually managing it.
Judge: This seems like an adequate explanation. Do you have any further question?
The judge raises one quizzical eyebrow at the lawyer, who sinks back into his seat, his suit seemingly swallowing him up.
Lawyer: No, your honour.
Judge: Excellent. Proceed, Mr Hole
The man runs a hand through hair that’s practically crying out for a good conditioner and comb, and draws a deep breath.
The Man: Well, that’s really the answer to your first question, your honour, of why they are successful in their own right. The sense of threat, the very real difference proper casting makes, and the reactions of the regular crew to them, define them in ways that make them an effective presence. This is given even further emphasis because we have the secondary threat here, the return of Species 8472, which adds drive and urgency to the conflict between the Starfleet crew and the Hirogen. But even given the presence of 8472, and the way that Janeway tries a different approach, the Hirogen are always positioned front and centre of the episode. Janeway, interestingly, makes the same call that lost her Voyager in “Basics” – to extend compassion towards someone she knows is her enemy - but here she’s undermined by Seven, providing a third conflict. This gives us three separate conflicts at the same time, but crucially not the same conflict served three ways, so we have an emotional conflict (with Seven), a physical conflict (with Species 8472) and a philosophical conflict (with the Hirogen). The successful layering of these different facets of conflict allow a lot of room for the script to develop ways of pushing Janeway out of her comfort zone (which Mulgrew always responds well to), and helps inform her dealings with the Hirogen themselves.
The judge looks relatively satisfied with this answer, as the man pauses and takes a sip from a glass of water.
Judge: Very well, I can accept the validity of your argument here. Now to the second point – what does this say about the way Voyager deals with alien races, and why does it matter?
The man takes another sip of water and considers his words before proceeding.
The Man: Well it matters because this serves as a workable template going forward for how alien races should be dealt with, but specifically in a show like Voyager. It demonstrates that the show has worked out how to introduce new species and make them work. To be fair, this was also true of the Viidians, but it really suggests the show learned the correct lessons from what went right with the Viidians and what went wrong with the Kazon. It’s been a startlingly long time since a completely new, ongoing, species was introduced to the show, but “Prey” demonstrates that it was worth the wait. There will be a few other races introduced to Voyager as ongoing concerns – most notably the Malon – and they basically serve to follow the same template as the Hirogen. Not in terms of the Hunt, of course, but they are well cast, diverse in terms of individual personalities, and have defining traits which don’t just define them. So for example one of the things we witnessed in the last episode was that the Hirogen are dedicated to the hunt. We this here as well but it is also expanded upon so we see, with the Alpha Hirogen, that he is not blinded by the Hunt and is prepared to negotiate Voyager’s freedom in return for the member of Species 8472. This shows cunning, politics, understanding and intelligence all in just a couple of lines, defining the Alpha Hirogen without laboured exposition.
The man pauses for breath and the judge considers his words, scribbling a few notes on a piece of paper in front of him.
The Judge: You make a compelling case for their significance indeed. Counsel, do you wish to cross examine?
The lawyer rises to his feet, suit slumping away from him as he gets up.
Lawyer: One final question, if I may. Mr Hole, you said “specifically in a show like Voyager” in relation to why this works as a template. But doesn’t DS9 achieve exactly the same with the Cardassians?
The Man: Oh yes of course it does, but the Cardassians are a necessarily different case. Even putting aside the fact that they were a known species before DS9 came along, the static nature of DS9 necessarily means that it’s possible to spend a lot more time exploring their culture, history and politics, as well as the individuals we meet along the way. The Hirogen are different because we’re only going to spend a certain amount of time with them, and they’re not going to be lurking around in the background even when they’re not a primary focus. This means that they have much less screen time so if anything need to be drawn sharper but without resorting to narrative shortcuts, exposition or cliché. The Hirogen are successful precisely because they manage to strike that balance, and for Voyager that has to count as a real triumph.
Lawyer: Thank you, Mr Hole. No further questions, your honour.
The Lawyer takes his seat again. The judge rises once more and stares intently at the man sitting in the witness box.
Judge: Mr Hole, we thank you for your time here today. Your words have given us much to think about, and we will consider them when passing sentence. However today your time in the witness box is over. You are dismissed.
The man nods once to the judge, rises, and is led out of the court. As the dark oak wooden doors swing shut, sealing him off from the world of legal wrangling one last, final sentence floats over his shoulder.
The man: I don’t suppose there’s anywhere you can get a glass of wine round here is there?
Any Other Business:
• Yes, “Prey” is quite excellent. Species 8472 aside, the Hirogen are by miles the best new species we’ve come across in simply ages, and I cannot praise Tony Todd’s performance enough, a really, really excellent piece of work from him.
• The entire pre-title sequence is entirely focused on the Hirogen, which makes for a nice chance.
• The shot of Species 8472 crawling over the outside of Voyager is quite magnificent.
• The conflict between Janeway and Seven is also excellently realized, and it really benefits from the fact that the first time we see Seven she’s starting her etiquette training from the Doctor, so a nice and light scene, and her character gets more and more intense and focussed throughout the episode until her final act of mutiny. It’s a really brilliant piece of characterization for her.
• And of course the conflict between Seven and Janeway is wonderfully handled as well. What makes it compelling, as is so often the case with the best of Voyager’s character conflicts, is that neither side is right and neither side is wrong. Seven is right that Janeway’s course of action is reckless even if it does have the potential to do good, and Janeway is right that Seven lacks the knowledge and experience to make the right call, even apart from the whole command structure debate. Mulgrew, who’s a real tour de force in this episde, and Ryan are as dependably brilliant as always.
• It makes a nice change that the moral dilemma – whether to send Species 8472 back to Fluidic Space or not – isn’t defused by a yes/no answer, but by a third way, which is both the right and wrong answer simultaneously.
• Tuvok has moved from flippant to sarcastic. “You missed,” he drolly informs Seven after she fires at a floating PADD. Yup, still seeing him in black and white…
• It seems Species 8472, at least in this episode, communicate primarily though stock footage from previous episodes…
• The final scene between Seven and Janeway is pleasingly reflective of the one in “The Gift” where Seven, while in the brig, tried to use emotional blackmail to get Janeway to send her back to the Collective. This is a really great parallel scene, as we get to see how far Seven has come and how far she still has to go. The thread of her recovery from trauma (more of which next episode) continues to feel real because it continues to avoid following a linear path.
Season Four, Episode 17 - "Retrospect"
Jeri Ryan receives the script for "Retrospect"
Well, this must go down as one of the most profoundly miscalculated episodes in Voyager’s history. And things were going so well… We’re back with the unreliability of memory again, which as everyone must be aware by now isn’t exactly my favourite topic, but at least “Retrospect” actually tries to deal with this head on, rather than through some sci-fi filter. This episode is, clearly and undeniably, about repressed memories as a result of abuse, and what the result of this can be. That directness is actually very refreshing, a far cry from yet another vaguely-defined telepathic whatever. So what went wrong here?
The answer seems to be practically everything except the cast. Honestly I didn’t even know where to begin with this one after watching the episode. But OK, fine, let’s go with the most dependable route and branch out from there - the cast here are terrific, faced what they have to work with. Picardo is dependable, given the Doctor seems to be so far out of character he seems to be practically reprogrammed, Ryan is actually amazing and does a stunningly good job of communicating Seven’s vulnerabilities, Mulgrew is redoubtably fine strutting about the place, and so is Russ when Tuvok gets to do a bit of investigating. So in conclusion, Ryan is the stand-out, everyone else is fine. This seems relatively uncontroversial. But what they have to deliver is just the biggest hot mess we’ve seen since… well I can’t even think.
Right, I’m running around in circles here so let’s try to parse this out. The basic fundamentals of the episode are this – something happens on a planet Voyager is visiting to buy weapons (a strange enough conceit to being with, but they’re still in Hirogen territory so whatever), and that something is that either a weapon overloaded and Seven sustaining minor injuries, or she is raped. Well, “violated”, but you know – it’s treated as rape. The episode positions itself, at least for a good portion of its running time, as being on Seven’s side, that she was actually abused, and that the consequences of this are going to be explored. While using rape is, at best, a blunt and crude way of exploring this with Seven, we’ve been charting the course of her recovery from trauma so there’s at least something potentially interesting to be gleaned in having her then have to confront another trauma and seeing how she reacts to it. The problem, and it’s a massive one, is that the exploration of Seven and her recovery from trauma has been thus far posited as the biggest and most significant development Seven has been given. It’s one of the things that makes her a profoundly feminist character, and one of the things that has made her compelling as an individual because this isn’t the kind of character arc we often see in Star Trek. So, if you are going to start playing around with that recovery and the way that recovery affects the character you really really have to know what you’re doing, and in absolutely every meaningful way the script completely messes this up. The idea of dealing with repressed memories, especially from a former Borg drone, is perfectly valid, and in fact makes a lot of sense, given the amount of stuff that must be rattling around in Seven’s head. But this? This is not how to handle it. Because if you spend half your episode placing your lead character as someone who has been abused and who is desperately reaching out for support, then systematically removing the evidence for her abuse one piece at a time you run the risk of coming across as someone who’s just one step short of saying, “oh yea women complain about this stuff all the time, but it’s not real.” Which is about as antithetical to Voyager’s feminist stance as it’s possible to imagine.
The real problem here is that the episode leaves it intentionally vague as to whether Seven was really abused or not. Did Korvin do something wrong? The vagueness is clearly meant to suggest all sorts of moral grey areas, but it fatally undermines the episode’s own premise. The fact that the evidence stacks up one way is never actually delivered as a convincing argument for Korvin’s innocence – while one should always assume innocence until guilt is proven, there’s enough margin for error here to make it possible that he really did abuse Seven but that the Voyager crew are simply unable to gather enough evidence to make an airtight case. Or maybe he really didn’t do it. Who knows? What this episode needs is an actual ending, not just a convenient get out as the would-be abuser conveniently blows himself up and thus prevents the episode from reaching an actual conclusion. For the weight of recovered memories to mean anything they need to be balanced against whether an actual crime was committed, or whether prejudice and desire for revenge won out. The episode gestures towards this with the final scene between Janeway and the Doctor, but this is way too little too late, and because of the uncertainty of Korvin’s guilt it’s all just whistling in the dark anyway. It’s another miscalculation – we’re supposed to be moved by the Doctor’s request to be reset to his factory defaults because his mistakes caused the death of an innocent man and him coming to appreciate that he realizes his hubris has caused so much suffering. But this isn’t really a dramatic moment at all because firstly it’s just not conclusive enough that he was innocent, and secondly there’s no chance that Janeway is actually going to do that, so instead we have Robert Picardo and Kate Mulgrew desperately trying to add weight to material that just can’t support it. The other massive issue here is – if Korvin is innocent then where do the memories that Seven “recovered” actually come from? Was it because of the Doctor’s leading questions during the recovered memories sessions? Or something she experienced as a Borg which the explosion in the lab caused to resurface? Or something else? If the writers can’t be bothered to explain what actually happened to Seven then why should we, as the audience, care? It would be perfectly fine if it was some Borg-related flashback – as I mentioned, there must be a lot of stuff rattling around in Seven’s head and in a way it almost makes sense that something would surface some time, added to which it would then really define the issue at hand. We would know one way or another what did or did not happen to Seven, and thus be able to draw conclusions from that. But no, it’s also left vague and unfinished, in the most damaging way possible to the story. And the Doctor is of no help here either.
Actually, the Doctor is a complete mystery in this episode. Picardo is fine, obviously, but the Doctor pushing Seven so hard for revenge against Korvin? Where did that come from? I can’t recall ever seeing him that aggressive. This might partly stem from the problem that the Doctor is the only one Seven spends any time with apart from Janeway, so they need to use him as her defender, but he just doesn’t normally behave like this. If it were Tom or Chakotay, say, you can see them getting emotionally riled up by this (actually especially Chakotay), but the Doctor? It’s very out of character for him, and there’s a lot of that going on here. The idea that he’s tried to improve his programming with counseling is… well fine, it’s not really something that we’ve seen before but it’s not inconsistent with his desire to improve himself as we’ve seen in the likes of “Darkling”. But this isn’t some major download and attempt to modify his programming without the knowledge of how to do it correctly (as it was in “Darkling”, and by the way if that’s your go-to episode for how to handle the Doctor you’re not doing it right), it’s just an offhanded comment made to Janeway, then we’re straight into recovered memories and Jungian technique. It’s all incredibly crass, it carries virtually no weight, yet this is meant to be the pivotal event in the story, the one that leads to Korvin being accused. Even the loooooong scene in the cargo bay where Seven “recovers” her memories is ploddingly dull when it ought to be unsettling and discombobulating. A few “breathe easy, now remember stuff” scenes is frankly patronizing both to people who do try to help abuse victims and to those victims themselves. Absolutely nothing about this approach is successful.
And yet, one again because of the skills of an extremely talented cast, this isn’t a car-crash of “Blood Fever” proportions. I mentioned Ryan earlier, but really, she can’t be praised enough in this episode. Her work in sick bay, showing flinching fear then claustrophobia as the medical bed closes over her is really excellent work and, regardless of the veracity of her memories, Ryan entirely convinces as someone who has had some kind of issue, even if it’s not the recovered memories we’re led to believe. This is as vulnerable as we have ever seen Seven – the closet thus far was “The Raven” but this is pushing her into whole new areas of experience and everything Ryan is called to deliver she does with aplomb. Which, given the complete muddle of everything else going on here, is just as well, really. But not even the strength of her performance, great though it is, can come close to saving this. Everything here is terribly miscalculated, and if nothing else “Retrospect” serves as an example of one thing – if you don’t understand the thing you are trying to discuss it’s probably better that you don’t try and discuss it at all.
Any Other Business:
• Nice opening shot of the monotanium satellite being blown open by Korvin’s weapons.
• I want to praise Ryan again because I don’t really know what else to say here. Normally when I review an episode I have loads of Any Other Business points that I then need to edit down, but here? It’s tough.
• Erm. Seven punching out Korvin in Engineering is pleasingly unexpected I suppose, and there’s nice through-episode continuity from “Prey” regarding Seven having been disciplined.
• Tuvok gets a handful of “doing the investigation” scenes, which is a nice acknowledgement of his role as security officer, but it amounts to very little.
• So Korvin’s ship blows up when he tries to fire his weapons. Aside from the crassness of this getting the episode out of having to actually confront the issues it’s raised, those are the weapons he’s trying to flog to passing aliens? He must not get a lot of repeat business…
• You know, I’ve had enough of thinking about this episode. Let’s move on.
