Season 6 Ep 4 / 5 "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" / "Alice"

Season Six, Episode 4 - "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy"


Better red than dead


Comedy is all about timing. Comedy is tragedy plus time. Et cetera. There are a lot of clichés about comedy and there are a lot of comedy episodes in Star Trek's storied history. These can be wildly successful ("Bride Of Chaotica!", "Trials And Tribble-ations") and abject failures (anything starring Lwaxana Troi). There's a long thread of comedy that runs throughout the show, and at its very best these episodes delivery endlessly-rewatchable slices of straightforward fun, and at their worst become toe-curling, buttock-clenching exercises in excruciating endurance. But when we talk about comedy episodes, what do we mean exactly? What is it that actually makes an episode a comedy, as opposed to a normal episode with a few jokes thrown in? In other words, how do we define what particular genre an episode is a part of? After all Voyager embraces a wide range of different styles and genres, while having its action-adventure aesthetic as the primary guiding style of the series.

In essence, what this boils down to is narrative domination. Which is to say, whatever style the episode adopts as its principal engine tends to be the one that defines what the episode is. "Relativity", to take one recent, random example, has some properly funny moments in it, but it's not a comedy episode per se, because the action-adventure core of the script is what makes the episode function – Seven has some good comedic moments (and jokes!) but it's really all about the time travel shenanigans, not getting to the next one-liner. It is an action-adventure story with some comedy content. "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" is the exact opposite. It's almost entirely about the comedy, with a bit of fairly loose action-adventure thrown in just because... well you need some kind of plot to get things moving. Robert Picardo has proved himself to be a gifted comedian before, so giving him a straight-up comedy episode sounds like it should be a recipe for immediate success, and thus it proves to be. This episode is properly, genuinely, hilarious, in a way so many comedy episodes often fail to be, and by giving Picardo the chance to show off his comedy chops the whole thing simply sings (as indeed does he). It also helps that this week's aliens, the Hierarchy, are In fact conceived as a race with just enough threat that they can drive the story without seeming ludicrous, but are still engaging enough in their own right to join in the fun of what’s going on. Indeed, "Bride Of Chaotica!" aside, this is probably the single funniest episode in the entire seven-season run of Voyager, and having a successful enemy for the crew to bounce off proves important in providing just enough balance that things don't become too silly. Everyone is in on the joke, of course, and as is often the way in a comedy episode everyone's on form, but Picardo takes centre stage here and never gives it up to anyone. And indeed neither he should, for this is his chance to shine and he doesn't waste it. The comedy here is broad, and his performance matches this, but they both match together as required, so scenes of him singing alternative lyrics to "La donna e mobile" while daydreaming ought to be ridiculous but they just work (and indeed that scene ends up being one of the highlights of the episode).

The other reason the comedy is successful here is because everything that happens to the Doctor is actually in line with his character development up to this point. We know that he's strived to expand his programming, and what's more we've seen him do it before to less that successful results ("Darkling"). And while the results here are silly rather than dangerous the fact that this is in line with what we know of the Doctor makes it work, and what's more it means that the developments here come from an emotionally honest place. That makes the episode feel like it's more than just a light piece of frippery (though it's that as well) because the pained embarrassment that the Doctor feels at having his fantasies revealed still manage to reflect a very real desire, which is to be more than what he is. It's also worth mentioning that the way the Doctor tries to expand himself is different to, say, Data, with the Doctor going for a more "bolt-on" approach. This is significant because it also means that this doesn't just feel like a re-tread – there's lots of characters in Star Trek who try to become more than what or who they are, so if something like "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" is to avoid repetition it has to have that angle, which it does. And what's more, it actually works! In "Darkling" it's a bust – the Doctor tampers with his programming but the results are disastrous (in oh so many ways...) and are done away with for good, but that's not what happens here. For all his fantasies of being in command and taking on the bad guys might seem optimistic at best at the start of the episode (a slight step above Captain Proton, in fact), that really is what he winds up doing by the end of the episode. It might have been a circuitous route for him to get there, but here the Doctor genuinely does expand what he's capable of, and changes attitudes towards him in the process. Janeway, after all, basically gives him the brush-off at his first attempts to become an Emergency Command Hologram, but that's not what she feels by the end (and we'll be revisiting this later in the series, so there are actual consequences to what happens here). It's also important that, when Janeway objects to the Doctor, it also comes from an honest place rather than her putting up straw man arguments which run the risk of making her look petty. Yet her initial arguments hold water – what the Doctor's proposing is untested, he doesn't have the experience, there's no precedent, and the ship shouldn't risk danger because of it. But by the end, the Doctor has proved himself. Ok he has an entertainingly daft bluff with the Photonic Cannon (heh) but it’s his actions and quick thinking in the heat of the moment that save the day. That's one of the signatures of a good commander so it's logical that the Doctor can then be considered for command, having proven himself in the field. Again, even though this is a light, fun episode, the fact that there's a core of proper character work is what gives everything here the extra dimension it really needs to elevate the episode to something special.

And something special it really is, because there's just so many delightful moments here that it's hard to know where to begin, but that's a good sign because there's just so much to choose from. Obviously there's the whole "La donna e mobile" scene (which benefits greatly from it clearly being Picardo who's singing, not a stand-in doing an impression of him), but that's been and gone before the opening titles have even run! There's the whole briefing rooms scene, where the Doctor's mind wanders and he imagines all the female characters fighting over him (Seven texting his PADD with the word "RESIST!" Is especially excellent), complete with cheesy late-night Cinemax saxophone music that sounds like it's been lifted straight from a softcore porno. Or the Doctor painting a remarkably compliant Seven in the nude. Or the four pips magically appearing on his collar while his uniform flushes red at the activation of the Emergency Command Hologram. Or... well, you get the idea. Even the silly aliens feel like they're worth spending a little time with, and we don't linger on them long enough for them to get in the way of anything. There's just so many terrific scenes here that, even if the episode were devoid of its emotional resonance, it would still be an absolute joy to behold. But with that added depth... I must be honest this was always an episode I was looking forward to revisiting because I knew how great it was. But having not actually seen it in some years I had forgotten just how great it was. There's not a single bad thing about this episode, and I absolutely love it to bits. In fact, I'm going to stop writing about it now and go watch it all over again. You should do the same thing too. You can thank me later.



Any Other Business:

• Gosh, what an absolute pleasure "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy" is. It's definitely Voyager's second funniest episode, and a real treasure.

• Obviously, all the praise to Robert Picardo, but special mention must also go to Jeri Ryan, who gets to play Seven both as herself and as the Doctor's fantasy of her. And it all pays off in the final line, when she gives him a little peck on the cheek (obviously a sign of forgiveness), and she gets the last work, "that was a platonic gesture. Do not expect me to pose for you".
• Still this is an episode where even the computer gets in on the fun: "warning: warp core breach, a lot sooner than you think!"

• Oh and Janeway looking at the Doctor's naked sketches of Seven: "He does the hands very well..."

• Welcome to the rotating cast of occasional bad guys, The Hierarchy. Actually, that name's a bit misleading – though they communicate with a "hierarchy" on-screen, their species isn't specifically named as such on screen. Still they're a fairly amusing bunch to spend a little bit of time with, and as always it's nice to see a make-up job which goes beyond a few cranial ridges.

• But I do think that it helps that they represent a genuine threat. The Doctor's activities have a chance of really doing some damage here. It's also interesting that they basically never meet the main cast, which is unusual.

• Tuvok's "yes... [looooong pause] sir" when the Doctor orders him to activate the Photonic Cannon is another great addition to his put-downs. At this stage he's basically this guy... imgur.com/BbgL7x3



Season Six, Episode 5 - "Alice"


Alice In Chains


That was a bit odd. By no stretch of the imagination bad, exactly, and faintly reminiscent of "Vis a Vis", "Alice" is a strange little episode about an apparently sentient shuttlecraft who takes over random people until finding someone "compatible" to take her "home" to a "particle fountain". Now, normally I go out of my way to avoid starting a review with a basic description of the plot, and you'll also observe quite a lot of quotation marks in the previous sentence. The plot description is because this needs to laid out because, although that doesn't sound like an especially outrageous Star Trek story, it does raise a lot of questions, and the quotation marks should give you some idea of how many of those questions actually get answered (hint: not a lot). This episode also gives us... well, not really a character study of Tom, because he's increasingly under the influence of Alice (or should that be "Alice"? Or Alice? Or something else?) but certainly it gives Robert Duncan McNeill a chance to strut his stuff.

But let's take a look at some of the questions that are immediately raised by the script. Firstly, where does Alice (and look, I'm just going to use Alice as a proper noun here OK? You can debate the merits of this choice on your own time if you feel it necessary) come from? Obviously not the scrap dealer that Voyager acquires her from - a role played nicely by John Fleck, who deserves some credit for breathing life into a fairly one-dimensional character and making him seem really rather appealing. But yes, sorry, that's a bit of a diversion, and it doesn't help us answer the question of who built Alice. We don't get more than the tiniest hint of anything regarding her background, and that's a shame because the rare moment when we do have glancing references to the past of the ship (mostly to do with design priorities and someone trying to wipe the ship's computer) it sounds like there could have been an interesting... something to explore. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the "eh?" category, why is the ship trying to get back to the particle fountain? It's a somewhat intriguing idea – but it doesn't make any sense in context, because we're never actually given any context for it. A couple of stray lines might have helped here – maybe the fountain generates some energy that the craft needs for fuel? Or maybe some entity became trapped in the ship and increasingly desperate to get home, resorting to "kidnapping" hosts (there's those quotation marks again...). But we don't have any motivation for Alice at all, just the vague statement that it's home and nothing else. That's incredibly frustrating for an episode which, elsewhere, has a fair amount going for it.

Because as I said at the start, this isn't bad, and there are some moments which are properly terrific. Like the scene where Tom screams at B'Elanna halfway through the episode. We've never see Tom (or McNeill) go this far and it turns out he's really good at doing this kind of cold fury. This is another in the semi-regular episodes which drop in on Tom and B'Elanna and their unfolding relationship, and on the whole they're well used here – it's great to see B'Elanna behaving in a properly mature fashion, firstly sounding out Tom herself, then eventually going to the captain over his behaviour and so forth, rather than petulantly sulking. The character has grown so far, and this script really gets that she doesn't need to throw a tantrum, even while she's perfectly justified in having a bit of a hissy when Tom decides to stop drinking champagne and start working on the ship again. It's a good bit of character work for her. And earlier I mentioned "Vis a Vis", but "Alice" benefits from the fact that it keeps a singular focus on Tom rather than roping in other crewmembers to be "possessed" by the ship, as they were by Steth in that episode. That means McNeill has a chance to very gradually change his performance, starting with his interest in the ship, mounting through another boyish project, and eventually growing into full-blown obsession. McNeill's done this kind of performance before (in "Threshold", of all episodes) and he's good at it, and delivers just what's needed here to keep things moving as they should. Even his gentle pushing away of B'Elanna works well, since we've seen this reaction before while he gets lost in yet another preoccupation and his attention drifts off, so it seems fittingly in character, right up until the moment when it clearly isn't. It's all good groundwork, and even the playful phrasing the two of them use for Alice, as if she's "the other woman" Tom's having an affair with, strikes all the right notes.

"Alice" also continues the trend of painting the Delta Quadrant on a larger, more involved scale, so it feels like it's following up on the work done over the course of Season Five. It's not the first episode of the season to really do this - that would be "Survival Instinct" - but it feels more naturally integrated here. Scrap dealers and "commerce" (which is somewhat pleasingly treated by the Voyager crew as a slightly odd word to say as if they're a bit unsure of its exact meaning, a very subtle nod to the economy of plenty) make the region seem more alive than if they'd just strayed across the ship on an away mission or whatever. We don't get to spend all that much time with Abaddon, the scrappie, but what we do gives us just enough little details (like how easily he can spot a fellow wheeler-dealer in Neelix, even when Neelix is playing ambassador) that he feels like a real person. And the slightly camp, slightly effusive performance really adds something too – sometimes it really is good to come across someone who's just a normal person doing a normal job, not another bad guy with a thousand cloaked layers of duplicity, and not someone who takes everything deadly seriously. The quadrant isn’t all good people and it isn't all bad people, and the fact that we get to check in from time to time with people who are in that middle ground again makes everything seem more real than if everyone was only ever out to get Our Heroes. There's also a moment when it looks like Abaddon is going to be killed in order to up the dramatic stakes but for once he isn't, which makes a refreshing change as well – at the point Alice attacks him it's just the right moment in the script for the quick, easy death of a one-shot character to inflate the drama, so the fact that he survives makes the script seem just that little bit more considered.

Still, back to those unanswered questions. Was that flight suit built to help interface with Alice, or did the sentient ship modify it to that purpose? She can clearly make changes to it – even Seven observes the garment has been modified, and she's not normally one for sartorial observations. And was the neural interface really designed to help the pilot react quicker, or was it always meant to help Alice get inside her pilot's head? Or is it two things? Who knows? There's a sense of momentum to the script, a rising tide that ramps up the drama of what's happening to Tom pretty effectively, especially when it's clear just how much control he's lost. This is helped by McNeill of course, but B'Elanna's increasing desperation, coupled with Voyager's (slightly odd) inability to do anything about what's happening, really makes things feel tense. That's just as well, because while this remains entertaining while watching it, even the slightest pause for thought derails the whole thing. Yes it's quite fun, and yes a couple of performances make this worth sticking with, but there's just no getting round how badly the lack of explanation damages everything as a whole. This isn't some thoughtful question or two left hanging as something to ponder as the credits roll, this is just a basic bit of "explain what's actually going on in your story, or what the point of it was". Because without that point, "Alice" is just left stranded in space without any great reason to be. There's just no there there.



Any Other Business:

• Alice the ship ought to be a little bit creepier as well. Joyce Lasley isn't bad as the physical manifestation of what's going on in Tom's head, but she's not helped by a script that either needs to commit to the full Fatal Attraction (which it sort-of, maybe, eventually does) or go completely the other way and be the whispering voice of temptation. Just having her stand there declaiming, "she doesn't understand you the way I do!"-type lines isn't very helpful.

• Unusual, but extremely appreciated, to see Tuvok sitting in the captain's chair this week.

• It's an obvious, but nevertheless lovely, touch that when Abaddon sees Alice he sees someone of his own species berating him in the briefing room. All of that is well handled.

• As indeed are the scenes of rotating cameras when Alice drifts in and out of shot depending on whether Tom's aware of her or present.

• Not that she gets many lines, but Seven gets a few nice moments, and she's becoming quite the expert in incredulity.

• Yea, I don't want to be too down on this episode, because it is fairly entertaining, but it just doesn't amount to anything and it's all very surface. According to Memory Alpha, this is written by Juliaan deLayne and it's her only writing credit anywhere, ever. That feels like a bit of a shame, because although this badly needs another draft to explain what on Earth the point of any of this is, there's still a lot of potential, a good grasp of character, and some pretty great individual moments.

• The flight suit, with the green and red "bendy drinking straw" attachments near the end, looks unforgivably cheap.

• And then Alice explodes and they all just bugger off back to the Alpha Quadrant. Still, pretty nice final scene between Tom and B'Elanna, when Tom tells her that he and the Delta Flyer will only ever be just good friends, and great work from McNeill and Dawson.