Season 4, 20 / 21 "Vis a Vis" / "The Omega Directive"
Oct 15, 2015 12:06:24 GMT -5
Jean Luc de Lemur likes this
Post by Prole Hole on Oct 15, 2015 12:06:24 GMT -5
Season Four, Episode 20 – “Vis a Vis”
The ears have it
The nature of a guest star is one that can fundamentally shape how an installment of Star Trek is perceived. It’s well known, for example, that the original choice to play Zephram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (redemptive review right here folks!) was in fact Tom Hanks – just how differently would we view the character if it had been played by a multi-Oscar winning performer rather than one of the best-known hey-it’s-that-guy actors James Cromwell? It’s hard to imagine the character would have gone quite so far down the barely-functioning-alcoholic route if it had been Hanks staggering about in Montana instead of Cromwell, and it seems likely, given Hanks’s track record, that a warmer but more melancholy character would have resulted. In this, the key scene where Cochrane admits he built the warp drive for money and women rather than science and progress, would probably have played very differently, likely full of loss and regret at a chance lost rather than anger and resentment. But this is speculation – maybe Hanks would have brought a keening edge to the role. Or a full-on Oscar-baiting screen-filling performance. Who knows? What we do have – a magnificent turn from Cromwell – works incredibly well, but it’s defined by the fact that it’s Cromwell who’s delivering the sort of performance he’s best known for. Or let’s take an example from Voyager itself. Depending on how old you are, you likely know Kurtwood Smith as the bad guy from Robocop or the dad from long-running sitcom That 70’s Show. Nothing about either of those two performances – corporate bad guy and hard ass Dad – come close to suggesting the distracted, distant performance that so anchors Annorax in “Year Of Hell” and takes what is, on paper, a comparatively broad character and really breathes life into the specifics of it. It’s a terrific guest turn – obviously – but it’s one that’s very dependent on Smith. As with Cochrane there are multiple ways the character could have been read – resentment, anger, Napoleon Complex, and bitter depression all suggest themselves – but the choice Smith makes the character much more interesting than just another ranting nutter or little man out of his depth.
In “Vis a Vis” we have an absolutely bravura guest performance from Dan Butler. He’s probably best known for playing the sexist sports reporter Bulldog in Frasier, a broad caricature that Butler is able to breathe life into and make, if not sympathetic, then at the very least relatable – no mean feat given the number of come-ons, crude innuendos and clumsy passes as women he has to deliver. Here he pulls off a similar trick – Steth is required to “be” about five different characters and, with very little screen time, Butler is able to draw distinct characters without them overlapping or seeming too broad, but is also able to make them relatable (he’s especially good at doing Tom). That might not sound like much on paper, but watching it on screen gives a good idea of how complex a task this is, especially when contrasted with both McNeill and Mulgrew, who do decent work being someone else but don’t really come close to Butler’s skill at it. That’s not really an insult towards them – neither are bad at it – but when contrasted with someone noticeably better the gap becomes obvious. For an episode like “Vis a Vis”, then, the casting of This Week’s Guest Star is incredibly important because had someone less gifted than Butler been cast in the role then the whole this would have collapsed. With Butler in place, the whole thing stands.
Just. Because, Butler aside, there’s not a whole lot to get worked up about here. “Vis a Vis” is another in a long line of Star Trek episodes which takes an already-over-familiar concept (body swapping, in this case) and lets it play out over the course of forty-five minutes without really doing anything especially compelling with it. Body-swapping is one of the laziest clichés in all of science fiction (even Bugs Bunny has been through this…) so if you’re going to use this as the core of your episode you really need to either have something to say about it, or use it to inform what’s going on with the characters who are going to be affected by it. It’s the second of these that “Vis a Vis” shoots for and, sadly, misses. Because Tom acting out of character and a bit rebellious is a perfectly fine direction to push his character in, and for all the plotted flaws of doing this back in Season Two’s “Tom’s a bad boy” thread, none of the issues with that storyline were down to McNeill, who was fine at playing up Tom’s defensive, rebellious side. The problem here is that this comes from absolutely nowhere – OK the last two episodes we didn’t get to see much of the real Tom, what with him being a mind-controlled storybook character and all, but there hasn’t been anything approaching a hint that Tom’s unsatisfied, so the fact he’s acting out of character at the beginning of the episode just so he can be taken over by a visiting alien, the act of which then requires him to act out of character – well it’s just a contrivance for this episode, and it smacks of B-leads-to-A writing. Tom needs to already be out of character for the story to work in order to prevent the crew getting too suspicious, so just drop it in at the beginning and hope nobody notices. Well, sorry, but we did. A hint or two in an earlier episode – which Voyager is actually much better at than its reputation – would have gone a long way to making this work, but… actually no, I don’t think there was really a way to make this work with Tom. We’ve already had this covered in Season Two and it just feels like its covering familiar ground. You could maybe have gotten away with using Seven for this, since she’s always pulling at the reins of Janeway’s authority and it was only a few episode’s ago she had systems access revoked for disobeying orders, so for her to act resentful of her position or to find a new way to kick back against authority might have worked. With Tom? Na.
This is also a very laxly paced episode. There’s no tension here at all – some unusually lethargic direction from Jesus Salvador Trevino drains almost all of the potential for tension out of the story, and there’s some genuinely clumsy moments that stand out simply because they’re so unusual. Most obviously, when “Janeway”’s shuttle is about to make the coaxial warp jump we see the beginning of the special effect on the shuttle, then cut back to Tom and the real Steth having a loooong debate about how to stop it, then they take action, then the shuttle is stopped. It really looks silly on screen, because the shuttle should have been long gone by the time they decide to take action, yet there it is, stopped in the nick of time by the director as much as by the actions of the characters. That’s just one example – I’m not going to reel them all off – but it’s symptomatic of an episode where (again, other than Butler) nobody really seems to be trying all that hard. There’s nothing toe-curlingly embarrassing here, but neither is there anything that really engages or demands that you hang around to consider the episode once the credits have rolled. The body swapping doesn’t give us any insights into Tom or Janeway, it’s just a plot device that does exactly what it says on the tin. Neither Steth nor “Steth” give us any real insight into the regular crew or their interactions. Despite the fitting of coaxial warp drive to a shuttle (and it looks for all the world in this episode that it might actually work!) nobody seems remotely exited that this might provide the crew with a faster way home… You get the idea. There’s just something very literal about this episode and it goes not one millimetre further than it needs to in order to get to the forty-five minute count.
But it’s also not a complete disaster either. Because Butler really saves the day here (as you might well have gathered by now). Steth might not be much in the way of a hero, but Butler certainly is, swooping in and rescuing what is otherwise a lethargic episode which didn’t demand a great guest turn but massively benefits from having one nonetheless. The regular cast are perfectly fine, but there’s nothing in this script to remotely stretch anyone other than McNeill, who fares decently given the not-exactly-original material he has to work with, but who’s also just a little outclassed. At least his car hobby is consistent (and previously seen) with the character, and fine, yes, it provides the inspiration to fix the coaxial warp drive, so that’s nice but… eh, yea. It’s there. It’s a thing. I’m struggling not to just say, “but so what”, because, like everything else, the car hobby works but it doesn’t inform anything, it’s just there. Really, all there is to say about “Vis a Vis” is that it is most certainly the episode that comes between “The Killing Game” and “The Omega Directive”, and it’s not awful. And I’ve done that now, so I’m just going to stop.
Any Other Business:
• The effect of the coaxial space folding is really nice, with space folding and unfolding almost like a piece of paper, and it makes a refreshing change from the usual jump-to-streaking-stars effect.
• Nice scene of Tom coming to the bridge in his boiler suit, and “someone call for a driver?” And he gets to show off some actual knowledge!
• There’s a good sense of scale to the space Voyager is travelling through, and we get to traverse a bit of distance and get to meet a third alien species as well as the Steth, which gives a sense of depth to the episode and things actually occurring even when Our Heroes aren’t about, one thing it definitely gets right.
• The Doctor is in this episode. I thought I’d mention it. As with everything else here his appearance is both unremarkable and to-the-letter what we’d expect from him, though (very minor) points for Steth using the Doctor’s ego against him by claiming that Tom was intimidated by his brilliance.
• Harry is also in this episode. Briefly. Neelix too. And Seven.
• Given fairly limited material to work with Dawson once again proves her benefit to the cast, getting defensive, annoyed and understanding all perfectly and B’Elanna get stood up, rejected, then finally accepted into Tom’s Grease Monkey program.
• Also silly, but a nice touch, is having B’Elanna pronounce “Camaro” incorrectly, and Tom gently putting her right.
Season Four, Episode 21 – “The Omega Directive”
Doing The Things That A Particle Can
Well, it’s terrific. OK, not much of a spoiler there, but it’s worth pondering for a second why. After all, “The Omega Directive” actually shared a surprising amount with “Vis a Vis”. No, it doesn’t have flashy guest-star spot, and neither does it have the same, ahem, relaxed vibe, but what it does share is a driven sense of purpose. “Vis a Vis” fumbles this badly, “The Omega Directive” delivers on it in spades. So what differences lie between them that result in such a different outcome?
Well the direction seems like an obvious place to start, because it’s terrific here. Everything feels taught, tight and tense, and probably some other alliterative words as well (terrific?). Even one episode on, the flabby mis-cues of the last episode are but a distant memory, yet what’s striking about the direction here is that it’s actually not substantively different from the previous episode, just done much better. The camera isn’t shooting about the place or roaming. In fact for such a tense episode it’s remarkably still but it’s very much a case of still waters run deep. Look at the shot in front of the test chamber, with Janeway lit in stark, cyan blue light, delivering her speech about how the final frontier has some boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. The camera doesn’t move one inch, yet the stark, almost monochromatic lighting throws Kate Mulgrew’s face into sharp relief, Janeway at the front, filling the frame with Tuvok lurking over her shoulder, the angel reminding her of the Prime Directive and her other responsibilities. It’s a perfectly directed (and acted) scene, and it gets at the very heart of what “The Omega Directive” is really about. Because there’s a kind of fury on display here, really, yet it’s a focused, still fury that doesn’t lash out or throw a tantrum but instead delivers its verdict in a calculating, damning way that’s all the more powerful for the fact that it remains perfectly in control.
Because, obviously, what “The Omega Directive” is really about is scientific arrogance and the unwillingness to learn from past mistakes. That the Omega molecule has the power to devastate is clear from the moment we learn what it is, but the most significant aspect of it isn’t derived from what it can do but rather the effect it has on the two principal characters here, Seven and Janeway. Both are following what amount to capital-C Commandments – Janeway following her Starfleet orders, and Seven her own brush with spirituality, led on but the compulsions given to her by the Borg. Both get Big Speeches here, and both are equally effective, Seven arguing for progress and Janeway arguing for controlled responsibility. Indeed there’s something of an irony here in the control-bound former Borg is the one left arguing for progress while the more typically progressive Janeway is left defending the position of closing down even the suggestion of further investigation. Yet the real point here is, ultimately, Janeway’s. Even given the severity of her orders (and lest we forget this is a threat regarded as serious enough to formally suspect the Prime Directive, just in case we were in any doubt as to how significant this is), Janeway’s position seems motivated by more than just following orders – but it’s important that it’s not just fear she’s arguing for as a substitute for ignorance. Her Big Speech is, for all Seven’s pleas for understanding, the real key – she is unwilling to sacrifice lives and progress for the sake of scientific curiosity. Or, to put it in more familiar terms, with great power comes great responsibility, and it is that responsibility, rather than fear, which drives everything Janeway does in this episode. It’s a powerful statement from a show (that is to say, Star Trek in general, not Voyager in particular) that almost always equates scientific progress with social and political progress, and it’s a refreshingly bold understanding of the concepts that lie behind what progress is and represents. Back in “Jetrel” we saw, as a A-bomb allegory, where a blind following of science can lead. Here, we have a counterpoint – Janeway follows science, and is described as a “woman of science” by Seven, but she is not blinded by what she follows. Given Seven’s epiphany here, and the stirrings of her spiritual side, this is also significant. Religion, or spirituality, requires the blind following in faith – because, naturally, proof denies faith – but science does not. In this, “The Omega Directive” is a profoundly secular work. It doesn’t deny the significance of faith, but it understands that faith, whether religious, spiritual, or scientific, is not something that should go unchecked. That way madness lies.
Or destruction. After all we see the results of unchecked scientific progress with a colony destroyed and people killed. We have first-hand, physical evidence of exactly what it is that Janeway is trying to avoid. Seven's religious experiences – and it’s an undeniably terrific use of Seven to give her these experiences in the heart of an episode arguing for scientific responsibility – are never held in contempt, but they are also shown against a very real threat. There’s lots of religious paralleling going on here – apart from the visit to da Vinci’s study at the episode’s conclusion (and we’ve already covered the clash of the scientific and the spiritual that da Vinci symbolizes in the show), we also have more subtle, sly approaches as well, in that it’s Seven (as in deadly sins) that has the religious experience here, her Borg-ranking intriguingly revolves around people being something of ten (as in Commandments), and so on. That Omega is described as the Borg’s “holy grail” is, perhaps, just a little on the nose, but nevertheless it continues the layering of religious signifiers both understated and clear throughout the story. This all concludes with the revelation that something happens in those 3.2 seconds (three being the Trinity, if you want to really go for it) where Omega spontaneously stabilises. This is really the moment that lets “The Omega Directive” have its cake and eat it, because, once again, we get a beautiful moment that proves Janeway and Seven right. Janeway is 100% completely accurate that Omega represents a threat to the entire sector and it would be the very height of selfish arrogance to pursues that at the expense of others, and Seven is right that there is so much more going on here than they comprehend, and those three point two seconds prove it. Janeway’s scientific approach is validated, Seven’s spiritual approach is validated. Both approaches are inclusive, and both are shown to have value. In a season filled with intelligent, well-written scripts, this can hold its head up with the very best of them.
Oh, but again we’re taking all of this terribly seriously, and the other triumph of “The Omega Directive” is just how damned entertaining it manages to be while playing its way through all these explorations of science and religious. And it is. The jarring opening, when the ship crashes out of warp without explanation but with a whacking great symbol covering every console is an absolute masterclass of how to start an episode with nothing more than a standing set and a letter of the Greek alphabet. Those little pre-credits minutes are actually one aspect of Star Trek that tends to go relatively unremarked on, but that’s a bit of a shame because when they are done right they really help to demonstrate what a good writer can bring. They don’t have to be long – “Scorpion” has one of the best of all, and it’s scarcely ten seconds – but they do have to be effective, and this one most certainly is. The pacing here is perfect in fact, not just in the pre-credits scene but it remains the case throughout the episode, which is no mean feat when you need to stop every five minutes to catch up on the evolving philosophy of what’s being discussed. And the episode, while clearly dealing with Big Subjects, is also light enough on its feet to allow some humour to slip through, so Harry’s feeble protests at Seven “pulling rank”, or Harry trying to draw gossip out of Tuvok, stop things from becoming too self-important or ponderous but never undercut the seriousness of the episode. Actually Harry is really rather good here as the comic relief, suggesting another worthwhile vein that could be exploited for his character, and Wang (as usual well paired with Russ) is on good form here, given fairly limited screen time. But this is Ryan and Mulgrew’s episode, and they fill each scene, both together and separately, and show just how dynamic the relationship between Seven and Janeway can be, and how much more there is to it than just a recovery from trauma, or a mother/daughter bonding. In this relationship, “The Omega Directive” finds its emotional centre. In its scientific/religious debate it finds its purpose. In its execution it finds fulfillment. “The Omega Directive” is absolutely, completely bloody marvellous.
Any Other Business:
• This might not be “crazy Janeway”, which, as I’ve previously mentioned, is my favourite Janeway, but Kate Mulgrew really is at her best here, bathed in blue light and utterly implacable. Stunning.
• Some praise, too, for Tim Russ. His role is relatively unflashy here but he still delivers the goods as ever.
• Not for the first time, Ryan perfectly captures the resolute and fragile sides of Seven in one, entirely believable, performance. It’s not one of her most hailed performances but it absolutely deserves to be.
• Nice call-back to “Alter Ego”, with Harry and Tuvok playing Kal-To together, and even nicer that they don’t refer back to that episode, it’s just left to stand as something that’s between the two characters now. Very good indeed.
• And I can’t help it, I just find it funny when Harry tries to get Tuvok in on his gossip.
• The use of da Vinic’s study at the end really is a terrific way of drawing a line between the spiritual and scientific in an understated way, and even better for not featuring the maestro himself but rather having him implied.
The ears have it
The nature of a guest star is one that can fundamentally shape how an installment of Star Trek is perceived. It’s well known, for example, that the original choice to play Zephram Cochrane in Star Trek: First Contact (redemptive review right here folks!) was in fact Tom Hanks – just how differently would we view the character if it had been played by a multi-Oscar winning performer rather than one of the best-known hey-it’s-that-guy actors James Cromwell? It’s hard to imagine the character would have gone quite so far down the barely-functioning-alcoholic route if it had been Hanks staggering about in Montana instead of Cromwell, and it seems likely, given Hanks’s track record, that a warmer but more melancholy character would have resulted. In this, the key scene where Cochrane admits he built the warp drive for money and women rather than science and progress, would probably have played very differently, likely full of loss and regret at a chance lost rather than anger and resentment. But this is speculation – maybe Hanks would have brought a keening edge to the role. Or a full-on Oscar-baiting screen-filling performance. Who knows? What we do have – a magnificent turn from Cromwell – works incredibly well, but it’s defined by the fact that it’s Cromwell who’s delivering the sort of performance he’s best known for. Or let’s take an example from Voyager itself. Depending on how old you are, you likely know Kurtwood Smith as the bad guy from Robocop or the dad from long-running sitcom That 70’s Show. Nothing about either of those two performances – corporate bad guy and hard ass Dad – come close to suggesting the distracted, distant performance that so anchors Annorax in “Year Of Hell” and takes what is, on paper, a comparatively broad character and really breathes life into the specifics of it. It’s a terrific guest turn – obviously – but it’s one that’s very dependent on Smith. As with Cochrane there are multiple ways the character could have been read – resentment, anger, Napoleon Complex, and bitter depression all suggest themselves – but the choice Smith makes the character much more interesting than just another ranting nutter or little man out of his depth.
In “Vis a Vis” we have an absolutely bravura guest performance from Dan Butler. He’s probably best known for playing the sexist sports reporter Bulldog in Frasier, a broad caricature that Butler is able to breathe life into and make, if not sympathetic, then at the very least relatable – no mean feat given the number of come-ons, crude innuendos and clumsy passes as women he has to deliver. Here he pulls off a similar trick – Steth is required to “be” about five different characters and, with very little screen time, Butler is able to draw distinct characters without them overlapping or seeming too broad, but is also able to make them relatable (he’s especially good at doing Tom). That might not sound like much on paper, but watching it on screen gives a good idea of how complex a task this is, especially when contrasted with both McNeill and Mulgrew, who do decent work being someone else but don’t really come close to Butler’s skill at it. That’s not really an insult towards them – neither are bad at it – but when contrasted with someone noticeably better the gap becomes obvious. For an episode like “Vis a Vis”, then, the casting of This Week’s Guest Star is incredibly important because had someone less gifted than Butler been cast in the role then the whole this would have collapsed. With Butler in place, the whole thing stands.
Just. Because, Butler aside, there’s not a whole lot to get worked up about here. “Vis a Vis” is another in a long line of Star Trek episodes which takes an already-over-familiar concept (body swapping, in this case) and lets it play out over the course of forty-five minutes without really doing anything especially compelling with it. Body-swapping is one of the laziest clichés in all of science fiction (even Bugs Bunny has been through this…) so if you’re going to use this as the core of your episode you really need to either have something to say about it, or use it to inform what’s going on with the characters who are going to be affected by it. It’s the second of these that “Vis a Vis” shoots for and, sadly, misses. Because Tom acting out of character and a bit rebellious is a perfectly fine direction to push his character in, and for all the plotted flaws of doing this back in Season Two’s “Tom’s a bad boy” thread, none of the issues with that storyline were down to McNeill, who was fine at playing up Tom’s defensive, rebellious side. The problem here is that this comes from absolutely nowhere – OK the last two episodes we didn’t get to see much of the real Tom, what with him being a mind-controlled storybook character and all, but there hasn’t been anything approaching a hint that Tom’s unsatisfied, so the fact he’s acting out of character at the beginning of the episode just so he can be taken over by a visiting alien, the act of which then requires him to act out of character – well it’s just a contrivance for this episode, and it smacks of B-leads-to-A writing. Tom needs to already be out of character for the story to work in order to prevent the crew getting too suspicious, so just drop it in at the beginning and hope nobody notices. Well, sorry, but we did. A hint or two in an earlier episode – which Voyager is actually much better at than its reputation – would have gone a long way to making this work, but… actually no, I don’t think there was really a way to make this work with Tom. We’ve already had this covered in Season Two and it just feels like its covering familiar ground. You could maybe have gotten away with using Seven for this, since she’s always pulling at the reins of Janeway’s authority and it was only a few episode’s ago she had systems access revoked for disobeying orders, so for her to act resentful of her position or to find a new way to kick back against authority might have worked. With Tom? Na.
This is also a very laxly paced episode. There’s no tension here at all – some unusually lethargic direction from Jesus Salvador Trevino drains almost all of the potential for tension out of the story, and there’s some genuinely clumsy moments that stand out simply because they’re so unusual. Most obviously, when “Janeway”’s shuttle is about to make the coaxial warp jump we see the beginning of the special effect on the shuttle, then cut back to Tom and the real Steth having a loooong debate about how to stop it, then they take action, then the shuttle is stopped. It really looks silly on screen, because the shuttle should have been long gone by the time they decide to take action, yet there it is, stopped in the nick of time by the director as much as by the actions of the characters. That’s just one example – I’m not going to reel them all off – but it’s symptomatic of an episode where (again, other than Butler) nobody really seems to be trying all that hard. There’s nothing toe-curlingly embarrassing here, but neither is there anything that really engages or demands that you hang around to consider the episode once the credits have rolled. The body swapping doesn’t give us any insights into Tom or Janeway, it’s just a plot device that does exactly what it says on the tin. Neither Steth nor “Steth” give us any real insight into the regular crew or their interactions. Despite the fitting of coaxial warp drive to a shuttle (and it looks for all the world in this episode that it might actually work!) nobody seems remotely exited that this might provide the crew with a faster way home… You get the idea. There’s just something very literal about this episode and it goes not one millimetre further than it needs to in order to get to the forty-five minute count.
But it’s also not a complete disaster either. Because Butler really saves the day here (as you might well have gathered by now). Steth might not be much in the way of a hero, but Butler certainly is, swooping in and rescuing what is otherwise a lethargic episode which didn’t demand a great guest turn but massively benefits from having one nonetheless. The regular cast are perfectly fine, but there’s nothing in this script to remotely stretch anyone other than McNeill, who fares decently given the not-exactly-original material he has to work with, but who’s also just a little outclassed. At least his car hobby is consistent (and previously seen) with the character, and fine, yes, it provides the inspiration to fix the coaxial warp drive, so that’s nice but… eh, yea. It’s there. It’s a thing. I’m struggling not to just say, “but so what”, because, like everything else, the car hobby works but it doesn’t inform anything, it’s just there. Really, all there is to say about “Vis a Vis” is that it is most certainly the episode that comes between “The Killing Game” and “The Omega Directive”, and it’s not awful. And I’ve done that now, so I’m just going to stop.
Any Other Business:
• The effect of the coaxial space folding is really nice, with space folding and unfolding almost like a piece of paper, and it makes a refreshing change from the usual jump-to-streaking-stars effect.
• Nice scene of Tom coming to the bridge in his boiler suit, and “someone call for a driver?” And he gets to show off some actual knowledge!
• There’s a good sense of scale to the space Voyager is travelling through, and we get to traverse a bit of distance and get to meet a third alien species as well as the Steth, which gives a sense of depth to the episode and things actually occurring even when Our Heroes aren’t about, one thing it definitely gets right.
• The Doctor is in this episode. I thought I’d mention it. As with everything else here his appearance is both unremarkable and to-the-letter what we’d expect from him, though (very minor) points for Steth using the Doctor’s ego against him by claiming that Tom was intimidated by his brilliance.
• Harry is also in this episode. Briefly. Neelix too. And Seven.
• Given fairly limited material to work with Dawson once again proves her benefit to the cast, getting defensive, annoyed and understanding all perfectly and B’Elanna get stood up, rejected, then finally accepted into Tom’s Grease Monkey program.
• Also silly, but a nice touch, is having B’Elanna pronounce “Camaro” incorrectly, and Tom gently putting her right.
Season Four, Episode 21 – “The Omega Directive”
Doing The Things That A Particle Can
Well, it’s terrific. OK, not much of a spoiler there, but it’s worth pondering for a second why. After all, “The Omega Directive” actually shared a surprising amount with “Vis a Vis”. No, it doesn’t have flashy guest-star spot, and neither does it have the same, ahem, relaxed vibe, but what it does share is a driven sense of purpose. “Vis a Vis” fumbles this badly, “The Omega Directive” delivers on it in spades. So what differences lie between them that result in such a different outcome?
Well the direction seems like an obvious place to start, because it’s terrific here. Everything feels taught, tight and tense, and probably some other alliterative words as well (terrific?). Even one episode on, the flabby mis-cues of the last episode are but a distant memory, yet what’s striking about the direction here is that it’s actually not substantively different from the previous episode, just done much better. The camera isn’t shooting about the place or roaming. In fact for such a tense episode it’s remarkably still but it’s very much a case of still waters run deep. Look at the shot in front of the test chamber, with Janeway lit in stark, cyan blue light, delivering her speech about how the final frontier has some boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed. The camera doesn’t move one inch, yet the stark, almost monochromatic lighting throws Kate Mulgrew’s face into sharp relief, Janeway at the front, filling the frame with Tuvok lurking over her shoulder, the angel reminding her of the Prime Directive and her other responsibilities. It’s a perfectly directed (and acted) scene, and it gets at the very heart of what “The Omega Directive” is really about. Because there’s a kind of fury on display here, really, yet it’s a focused, still fury that doesn’t lash out or throw a tantrum but instead delivers its verdict in a calculating, damning way that’s all the more powerful for the fact that it remains perfectly in control.
Because, obviously, what “The Omega Directive” is really about is scientific arrogance and the unwillingness to learn from past mistakes. That the Omega molecule has the power to devastate is clear from the moment we learn what it is, but the most significant aspect of it isn’t derived from what it can do but rather the effect it has on the two principal characters here, Seven and Janeway. Both are following what amount to capital-C Commandments – Janeway following her Starfleet orders, and Seven her own brush with spirituality, led on but the compulsions given to her by the Borg. Both get Big Speeches here, and both are equally effective, Seven arguing for progress and Janeway arguing for controlled responsibility. Indeed there’s something of an irony here in the control-bound former Borg is the one left arguing for progress while the more typically progressive Janeway is left defending the position of closing down even the suggestion of further investigation. Yet the real point here is, ultimately, Janeway’s. Even given the severity of her orders (and lest we forget this is a threat regarded as serious enough to formally suspect the Prime Directive, just in case we were in any doubt as to how significant this is), Janeway’s position seems motivated by more than just following orders – but it’s important that it’s not just fear she’s arguing for as a substitute for ignorance. Her Big Speech is, for all Seven’s pleas for understanding, the real key – she is unwilling to sacrifice lives and progress for the sake of scientific curiosity. Or, to put it in more familiar terms, with great power comes great responsibility, and it is that responsibility, rather than fear, which drives everything Janeway does in this episode. It’s a powerful statement from a show (that is to say, Star Trek in general, not Voyager in particular) that almost always equates scientific progress with social and political progress, and it’s a refreshingly bold understanding of the concepts that lie behind what progress is and represents. Back in “Jetrel” we saw, as a A-bomb allegory, where a blind following of science can lead. Here, we have a counterpoint – Janeway follows science, and is described as a “woman of science” by Seven, but she is not blinded by what she follows. Given Seven’s epiphany here, and the stirrings of her spiritual side, this is also significant. Religion, or spirituality, requires the blind following in faith – because, naturally, proof denies faith – but science does not. In this, “The Omega Directive” is a profoundly secular work. It doesn’t deny the significance of faith, but it understands that faith, whether religious, spiritual, or scientific, is not something that should go unchecked. That way madness lies.
Or destruction. After all we see the results of unchecked scientific progress with a colony destroyed and people killed. We have first-hand, physical evidence of exactly what it is that Janeway is trying to avoid. Seven's religious experiences – and it’s an undeniably terrific use of Seven to give her these experiences in the heart of an episode arguing for scientific responsibility – are never held in contempt, but they are also shown against a very real threat. There’s lots of religious paralleling going on here – apart from the visit to da Vinci’s study at the episode’s conclusion (and we’ve already covered the clash of the scientific and the spiritual that da Vinci symbolizes in the show), we also have more subtle, sly approaches as well, in that it’s Seven (as in deadly sins) that has the religious experience here, her Borg-ranking intriguingly revolves around people being something of ten (as in Commandments), and so on. That Omega is described as the Borg’s “holy grail” is, perhaps, just a little on the nose, but nevertheless it continues the layering of religious signifiers both understated and clear throughout the story. This all concludes with the revelation that something happens in those 3.2 seconds (three being the Trinity, if you want to really go for it) where Omega spontaneously stabilises. This is really the moment that lets “The Omega Directive” have its cake and eat it, because, once again, we get a beautiful moment that proves Janeway and Seven right. Janeway is 100% completely accurate that Omega represents a threat to the entire sector and it would be the very height of selfish arrogance to pursues that at the expense of others, and Seven is right that there is so much more going on here than they comprehend, and those three point two seconds prove it. Janeway’s scientific approach is validated, Seven’s spiritual approach is validated. Both approaches are inclusive, and both are shown to have value. In a season filled with intelligent, well-written scripts, this can hold its head up with the very best of them.
Oh, but again we’re taking all of this terribly seriously, and the other triumph of “The Omega Directive” is just how damned entertaining it manages to be while playing its way through all these explorations of science and religious. And it is. The jarring opening, when the ship crashes out of warp without explanation but with a whacking great symbol covering every console is an absolute masterclass of how to start an episode with nothing more than a standing set and a letter of the Greek alphabet. Those little pre-credits minutes are actually one aspect of Star Trek that tends to go relatively unremarked on, but that’s a bit of a shame because when they are done right they really help to demonstrate what a good writer can bring. They don’t have to be long – “Scorpion” has one of the best of all, and it’s scarcely ten seconds – but they do have to be effective, and this one most certainly is. The pacing here is perfect in fact, not just in the pre-credits scene but it remains the case throughout the episode, which is no mean feat when you need to stop every five minutes to catch up on the evolving philosophy of what’s being discussed. And the episode, while clearly dealing with Big Subjects, is also light enough on its feet to allow some humour to slip through, so Harry’s feeble protests at Seven “pulling rank”, or Harry trying to draw gossip out of Tuvok, stop things from becoming too self-important or ponderous but never undercut the seriousness of the episode. Actually Harry is really rather good here as the comic relief, suggesting another worthwhile vein that could be exploited for his character, and Wang (as usual well paired with Russ) is on good form here, given fairly limited screen time. But this is Ryan and Mulgrew’s episode, and they fill each scene, both together and separately, and show just how dynamic the relationship between Seven and Janeway can be, and how much more there is to it than just a recovery from trauma, or a mother/daughter bonding. In this relationship, “The Omega Directive” finds its emotional centre. In its scientific/religious debate it finds its purpose. In its execution it finds fulfillment. “The Omega Directive” is absolutely, completely bloody marvellous.
Any Other Business:
• This might not be “crazy Janeway”, which, as I’ve previously mentioned, is my favourite Janeway, but Kate Mulgrew really is at her best here, bathed in blue light and utterly implacable. Stunning.
• Some praise, too, for Tim Russ. His role is relatively unflashy here but he still delivers the goods as ever.
• Not for the first time, Ryan perfectly captures the resolute and fragile sides of Seven in one, entirely believable, performance. It’s not one of her most hailed performances but it absolutely deserves to be.
• Nice call-back to “Alter Ego”, with Harry and Tuvok playing Kal-To together, and even nicer that they don’t refer back to that episode, it’s just left to stand as something that’s between the two characters now. Very good indeed.
• And I can’t help it, I just find it funny when Harry tries to get Tuvok in on his gossip.
• The use of da Vinic’s study at the end really is a terrific way of drawing a line between the spiritual and scientific in an understated way, and even better for not featuring the maestro himself but rather having him implied.
