Post by Prole Hole on May 19, 2016 10:49:15 GMT -5
Season Six, Episode 22 - "Muse"
A Muse-ing
It's been a while since I've discussed genre collisions in Voyager, at least in part because it's been a while since we've had one of note. That all changes with "Muse", which manages to collide a fairly standard crewmember-needs-to-be-rescued set-up with the classical world to, well, dramatic effect. This isn't the first time that Star Trek has brushed up against the classical world, of course, as both "Who Mourns For Adonis?" and "Requiem For Methuselah" from TOS can testify, and indeed the Roman interpretation of the original Romulans clearly point in the same direction. Yet both of those episodes take fairly standard approaches to classical material - "Adonis" is straightforward von Daniken of the "was God an astronaut" variety; "Methuselah" is basically a one-man conspiracy theory throughout history. It's not that these episodes don't engage with the classical world, and both could be said to be genre collisions, but in both those episodes Star Trek is the dominant narrative, and the classical world colouring to add dimension to the story. In "Muse" it's the other way round – this is essentially a story about the purpose and function of drama, into which a grumpy engineer (quite literally, in this case) crashes. This episode is about drama - it's about the process of writing, it's about inspiration, and it's about the ability drama has to change the minds of the audience who consumes it. It makes a concerted, eloquent effort to speak to the power of the written word, and the strength of performance.
That's all very Star Trek, and very Star Trek in a quite specific way. Towards the end of the episode, Kelis gets The Big Speech, where he implores B'Elanna to help him finish his play, because with the right words, even the mind of his patron might be shifted, and that shift might lead to peace rather than war. It's the key speech in the episode of course, and it's held up as such. What makes this noticeable is how little the episode makes any attempts to hide what it's doing with this speech – there's no allegory or metaphor here, just a direct statement of intent. We've had a few semi-meta lines earlier in the episode, with B'Elanna questioning whether Kelis is a poet or a critic when he comments her repairs aren't going well or whatever, but this speech is the core of the episode and it's laid out in simple, clear terms. It feels like a speech that could have been written two thousand years ago – away from the clutter of technology, or people, or politics, this is a simple, defining statement of why drama, and of why all art, is important. In this speech, B'Elanna is essentially representative of Star Trek itself, absorbing the lesson of what drama can be and taking it with her., until she finds her own, unique way of interpreting and using drama at the episode's climax. Star Trek has always sought to change the world around us though speeches, through metaphor, through the very essence of drama, and in that moment B'Elanna comes to believe as well. There's no cynicism here, but neither is there any elitism or superiority – this is her realizing that not only is she inspiring someone, but that inspiration can really, actually makes a difference in the here and now. She becomes drama, in a sense, and in doing so agrees to help Kelis complete his play. This all works because there is a real sincerity at the heart of the argument here – this episode really, genuinely, truly believe that drama has the power to change minds, and in that sincerity we reach to the very heart of what Star Trek is. It is drama, with a belief that all the values it holds are self-evidently true, and with them it can change the world around us.
And need I say that the sense of history here is just as pointed as the sense of drama? It's clear and obvious now just how much history and views of history have become the defining modus operandi of Season Six and here we have a specific period being invoked. Greece, clearly, and the small amphitheatre that Kelis's plays are performed in is directly and specifically designed to invoke that feeling. The flickering flames, the look of the togas of the warlord and the audience, the stone alter – everything points to specific references to classical history as well as classical drama. Other than the ruin of the Delta Flyer the amphitheater is the only major set we have here, and it successfully evokes that period of time, as indeed it really need to. We have offhand details that flesh out the background to this world, and it's not unfamiliar to anyone with a passing knowledge of history – nearby warlords, expanding states, wars at the slightest provocation, it's all there. And as with the history so with the drama - the mannered, patterned performances that we see given suggest extreme formalities of structure, which even Kelis can't yet quite break away from - "where are plot twists, the sudden reversals?" he enquires at one point, making it clear just how formal the structures he works within are, the same offhand references to the structures of drama as with the structures of local politics and history, drawing an implicit line between them. These all recall the formalities of Greek drama and are as responsible for the invocation of the age as much as stone sets and flowing robes. But of course there's a lot more going on here than simply a referencing of the past - comments about how there's no need to follow a formula and how formulas can be incredibly damaging because they lead to lazy writing and lazy audiences carry a meta-commentary on Star Trek itself (in this case somewhat ironically, given that the nature of Season Six has definitely tended towards formula, but I'll discuss that more in the Season Six overview in a couple of weeks). We've seen this before, and more explicitly, in the meta-narrative that "Worst Case Scenario" ran, but here things are more low key, and more subtle (though that's not a knock on "Worst Case Scenario", which handles its meta-commentary with aplomb), as befits this kind of setting – this is, after all, theatre, not panto. In amongst all the classical allusions this meta-narrative gives "Muse" relevancy to the show it's a part of as well, and that way it manages to weave its relevancy into the ongoing narrative gives the episode a contemporary sharpness that sits alongside the historical.
And what's more this is fun! "Much better than all that kissing," B'Elanna jokingly tells Kelis once they figure out how to end their play, and that lightness of touch means the episode is able to retain its clarity without ever becoming ponderous or overly self-serious (which a treatise on the nature of drama could very easily become). B'Elanna's is, despite the crash and the apparently dire circumstances she finds herself in, about as relaxed and naturalistic as she's ever been, a testament to how well both the script and Roxann Dawson handle the character. For B'Elanna's apotheosis into the very spirit of drama itself to be convincing she needs to be in a place where she's open to that kind of revelation, and the creativity that is required of drama is paralleled in the creativity B'Elanna requires as an engineer to get herself out of her situation. Throughout the episode B'Elanna improvises, works around, vamps, and otherwise does everything she can to help herself. Creativity, the episode tells us, isn't just about being able to put words on a page, or say lines on a stage. Creativity can be found anywhere and everywhere, and in her own way B'Elanna The Engineer is just as creative as Kelis The Poet. She just does it in another field. It takes her time to understand that there's really no difference at all. But that creativity she uses leaves her open to the ideas that Kelis feeds her – how the written word can change the world around them – and she finally becomes a convert. She says as much to Harry - "have you ever inspired anyone?" she asks him, finally realizing her role, but he has no answer. How could he? In accepting her role as the inspiration for change, B'Elanna finally learns what it is Kelis has been trying to teach her, and in that moment, as she does in the very final shot of the episode, she ascends. Back in the review for the similarly-B'Elanna focussed "Prototype" I posed a little thought experiment and asked a question – what is Star Trek for? The answer, as it turns out, is both really rather moving, and incredibly simple. It's this. This is what Star Trek is for.
Any Other Business:
• Best episode of Season Six bar none. An astonishingly intelligent, smart, well written episode. Really magnificent.
• It's a shame Harry's in this. I don't really mean that as any disrespect to the character or Wang (this time), but he fulfils no real function beyond delivering a single component, and it would have been an even more impressive episode (if that's possible) had it solely focused on B'Elanna.
• I haven't ticked off all the classical allusions, of course, but I have to at least mention the "Eternals" as being representative of the pantheon of Greek gods, all with different tribes, agendas and powers. Again, so much detail from so few words.
• There's even time for a little love triangle! It doesn't amount to a huge amount, but it gives more credence to This Week's Aliens being actual, rounded people with lives and relationships that go on outside of the four sides of a television set.
• Winter's Tears is a lovely, poetic local name for dilithium.
• The Big Speech, where Kelis explains that the theatre used to be a temple where sacrifices are made could have been really cheesy but actually it works completely.
• I rather like the ruined set of the Delta Flyer, lit by candles.
• The masks held by the actors on stage are really well designed – you can make out Seven's occular implant, and the Janeway mask really does look like Kate Mulgrew.
• Not much to say about the stuff on Voyager. Tom gets to look a bit heartbroken, Janeway stares off into the middle distance. You know.
• Well, that's the Prime Directive fucked!
• That ending, as B'Elanna ascends/is beamed away, is incredibly audacious. Full marks to everyone involved.
Season Six, Episode 23 - "Fury"
You Wouldn't Like Her When She's Angry
You know by now that Kes is a character that, throughout this re-watch, I have found to be almost entirely redeemed, so it's an interesting idea to see her return a few years after her departure to find out what's become of her. Quite apart from the obvious, wonderful return of Jennifer Lien to our screens, it gives Voyager the chance to revisit a character who, at the point of her departure, had become so much more than she had been at the beginning of the show three seasons earlier, and explore her in more depth. "Fury" fumbles this a bit, to be honest, and that represents a bit of a wasted oppertunity. There's nothing special about this point in Voyager's history which really demands the return of A Character From The Past, but since this season has been so obsessed with history it makes a certain sense that at some point personal history was going to be brought up, and right enough, here it is. But the thing about "Fury" is that it doesn't, despite surface appearances, really deal with the past of Kes at all – this, unusually for Season Six, isn't an episode about history, even though a good two thirds of the episode is set in the past. What it's really about is time travel and paradox, with some history and character stuff bolted on, when it should really be about character and history, with a bit of time travel and paradox bolted on. In other words, the emphasis here is wrong.
But the material we do get is, broadly speaking, pretty good. Kes marching down a corridor as it blows out panel after panel behind her is a terrific pre-credits scene, all the more dramatic for just how unlikely it is – gentle, caring Kes violently assaulting the very ship that gave her respite and safe haven. Or the careless, offhanded way B'Elanna is killed in Engineering as Kes comes into physical contact with the warp core, played as it should be, with her death treated just as an extension of what Kes has become, not a false way to up the drama. There's lots of really good little action-adventure moments here, and just as "Muse" gave us a long-absent genre collision (or at least, one worth talking about), so the return to the action-adventure aesthetic here does wonders for "Fury". Indeed, not only does it return to this, it actually expands upon it – when, in "Deadlock", we heard of Voyager being forcibly boarded by the Viidians this was news which was urgently delivered on the bridge as a portent of doom. Here we actually get to see the Viidian ship swing into place above Voyager and deploy boarding tubes, making their assault on the ship that much more visceral. And of course all of this cements the status of the Viidians as the most interesting and impressive threat from the early history of the show – no sign of the Kazon here, instead we have a threat that feels real and direct and, well, threatening. Not that there was any doubt about their status, really, but the Viidians have actually been mentioned a couple of times this season, and once in the same breath as the Borg and Species 8472, so it's good to see that status being capitalized on so effectively here.
But all this action-adventure comes at a cost, and the cost here is the squeezing out of time for character work. But that doesn't mean to say that there's none. There's a sharp, clear contrast between the Old Kes of now and the Young Kes of then, and Jennifer Lien is excellent at playing the just-barely-suppressed contempt the Old Kes has for the crew she's returned to, and her impatience to just be done with this already is very well delivered. These scenes make a clear, direct contrast with her younger, more idealistic self and they allow that distinction to be made without just resorting to lots of over-the-top shouting and ranting (though we do get some of that as well) but rather by being able to just see what it is she's come to so dislike about being here. These are by far the most successful scenes with Kes, and give Lien the best chance to show off her chops. Hearing her make secret contact with the Viidians or whatever doesn't carry quite the same charge, and even her big face-off with Janeway at the end isn't just quite as good. Neither her nor Mulgrew are anywhere approaching bad, of course, and Mulgrew gets one really brilliant moment when she gets to express her grief wordlessly at having to shoot down Kes, but the impermanence of these scenes does somewhat undercut them – we know this is a time-travel episode, and we know that this scene happens way before the last couple of minutes of the episode, so however strong the conflict between them is, as the audience we know there's still going to be some more to come. And right enough, we get a workaround whereby Janeway is able to use the very fact of Kes's time travel to prevent the action in the first place, "Relativity"-style. Again, it's not that this is bad – in fact on a purely scripting level this works very well, and because the solution is built into the nature of the problem, it doesn't feel like a cheat or a deus ex machina. But it is again prioritizing plot over character, and in a story where the point of the episode is the return of an old character this just cannot help but feel like the wrong call.
Despite this, though, I can't bring myself to dislike or even really strongly criticize "Fury" because there's more than enough good moments in it to justify its existence, and even justify the return of Kes regardless of whether more could or should have been done with her. Some of them more significant than others – there is, for example, exactly one line spoken in the whole of Voyager between Kes and Seven, and here it is, the episode actively placing them next to each other and inviting comparison, which it really didn’t have to do. It's a moment that lasts just a few seconds, but it's just incredibly pleasing that it's there (this is the third and final episode that contains the entirety of the regular Voyager cast across all seven seasons, the other two being "Scorpion" Pt 2 and "The Gift") - not a big thing, but a nice one all the same, and suggests that someone's paying attention. Then there's the final scene in the transporter room – it would have been lovely to have more time between Neelix and Old Kes in this episode, but the one scene they do get is absolutely note perfect, because this is the grown-up version of their characters. Neelix looks both heartbroken and proud of Kes and Kes has obvious love and affection for him, but it's all communicated in just a few words, a mature, adult relationship realized exactly as it should be. Phillips deserves special praise here for a scene that's really all about what isn't said rather than what is, and in this he delivers a minor triumph in just under one minute. In a sense, they don't really require more time than that, but it would have been wrong if there had been no time spent between them at all. And on it goes. I won't list every moment that's worth paying attention to, but an action-adventure core, and lots of little moments, give this episode a frission that goes well beyond the return of Kes, even if that is clearly the main draw. Should more have been done with the opportunity of her return? Absolutely. But what we have is still thoroughly enjoyable, and yea, it's just lovely to see how easily Jennifer Lien slides back into the role, even while delivering two separate versions of it. Watching it after the obviously superior "Muse" doesn't do "Fury" any favours, but then, flexibility has always been a hallmark of Star Trek, and that ability to shift gears one of its mainstays. Though this episode isn't really about history (and it's definitely not) it does at least have a veneer of history about it, and that stops this from feeling tonally inconsistent with the rest of the season, or indeed the episode it's next to. If "Fury" doesn't, quite, fulfil its potential, it does give us one more episode with Kes, and for that, if nothing else, I will always be grateful. Safe travels back to Ocampa.
Any Other Business:
• I do love that opening scene with Kes walking down the corridor, even though the fact that it's bluescreen is relatively obvious.
• The inside of Kes's shuttle is, yet again, the reused set of the Aeon from "Future's End", which has turned up quite a few times now. They're seriously getting their money's worth from it.
• The scene where Kes goes to the galley to get Janeway coffee and encounters Neelix is brilliant work from Lien, just just keeping a lid on her obvious desire to just yell at Neelix to get her damn coffee already.
• The nods to the early days of Voyager are all pretty well handled ("good choice for Chief Engineer"), though Chakotay doesn't have the little flecks of grey in his hair that he had during Season One (and it's a shame he got rid of them really, because the slightly older look really worked for him, in contrast to the younger crew around him).
• A couple of great moments for Chakotay here as well, using the "controlled pitch" solution to detach the Viidians and his yelling of, "then tear it apart!" when Harry's fearful of the damage it will do to the ship. Great effects work there as well.
• When Janeway guns down Kes in the Airponics bay and Kes morphs back to Old Kes, her clothes morph back with her. Just sayin', is all.
• Guess there are holoprojectors in Engineering now, so Young Kes can persuade Old Kes away from her path of destruction?
• That final transporter scene really is magical. All credit to everyone, and its just a beautiful detail that the very last thing Kes does is look at Neelix as she's transported away.
A Muse-ing
It's been a while since I've discussed genre collisions in Voyager, at least in part because it's been a while since we've had one of note. That all changes with "Muse", which manages to collide a fairly standard crewmember-needs-to-be-rescued set-up with the classical world to, well, dramatic effect. This isn't the first time that Star Trek has brushed up against the classical world, of course, as both "Who Mourns For Adonis?" and "Requiem For Methuselah" from TOS can testify, and indeed the Roman interpretation of the original Romulans clearly point in the same direction. Yet both of those episodes take fairly standard approaches to classical material - "Adonis" is straightforward von Daniken of the "was God an astronaut" variety; "Methuselah" is basically a one-man conspiracy theory throughout history. It's not that these episodes don't engage with the classical world, and both could be said to be genre collisions, but in both those episodes Star Trek is the dominant narrative, and the classical world colouring to add dimension to the story. In "Muse" it's the other way round – this is essentially a story about the purpose and function of drama, into which a grumpy engineer (quite literally, in this case) crashes. This episode is about drama - it's about the process of writing, it's about inspiration, and it's about the ability drama has to change the minds of the audience who consumes it. It makes a concerted, eloquent effort to speak to the power of the written word, and the strength of performance.
That's all very Star Trek, and very Star Trek in a quite specific way. Towards the end of the episode, Kelis gets The Big Speech, where he implores B'Elanna to help him finish his play, because with the right words, even the mind of his patron might be shifted, and that shift might lead to peace rather than war. It's the key speech in the episode of course, and it's held up as such. What makes this noticeable is how little the episode makes any attempts to hide what it's doing with this speech – there's no allegory or metaphor here, just a direct statement of intent. We've had a few semi-meta lines earlier in the episode, with B'Elanna questioning whether Kelis is a poet or a critic when he comments her repairs aren't going well or whatever, but this speech is the core of the episode and it's laid out in simple, clear terms. It feels like a speech that could have been written two thousand years ago – away from the clutter of technology, or people, or politics, this is a simple, defining statement of why drama, and of why all art, is important. In this speech, B'Elanna is essentially representative of Star Trek itself, absorbing the lesson of what drama can be and taking it with her., until she finds her own, unique way of interpreting and using drama at the episode's climax. Star Trek has always sought to change the world around us though speeches, through metaphor, through the very essence of drama, and in that moment B'Elanna comes to believe as well. There's no cynicism here, but neither is there any elitism or superiority – this is her realizing that not only is she inspiring someone, but that inspiration can really, actually makes a difference in the here and now. She becomes drama, in a sense, and in doing so agrees to help Kelis complete his play. This all works because there is a real sincerity at the heart of the argument here – this episode really, genuinely, truly believe that drama has the power to change minds, and in that sincerity we reach to the very heart of what Star Trek is. It is drama, with a belief that all the values it holds are self-evidently true, and with them it can change the world around us.
And need I say that the sense of history here is just as pointed as the sense of drama? It's clear and obvious now just how much history and views of history have become the defining modus operandi of Season Six and here we have a specific period being invoked. Greece, clearly, and the small amphitheatre that Kelis's plays are performed in is directly and specifically designed to invoke that feeling. The flickering flames, the look of the togas of the warlord and the audience, the stone alter – everything points to specific references to classical history as well as classical drama. Other than the ruin of the Delta Flyer the amphitheater is the only major set we have here, and it successfully evokes that period of time, as indeed it really need to. We have offhand details that flesh out the background to this world, and it's not unfamiliar to anyone with a passing knowledge of history – nearby warlords, expanding states, wars at the slightest provocation, it's all there. And as with the history so with the drama - the mannered, patterned performances that we see given suggest extreme formalities of structure, which even Kelis can't yet quite break away from - "where are plot twists, the sudden reversals?" he enquires at one point, making it clear just how formal the structures he works within are, the same offhand references to the structures of drama as with the structures of local politics and history, drawing an implicit line between them. These all recall the formalities of Greek drama and are as responsible for the invocation of the age as much as stone sets and flowing robes. But of course there's a lot more going on here than simply a referencing of the past - comments about how there's no need to follow a formula and how formulas can be incredibly damaging because they lead to lazy writing and lazy audiences carry a meta-commentary on Star Trek itself (in this case somewhat ironically, given that the nature of Season Six has definitely tended towards formula, but I'll discuss that more in the Season Six overview in a couple of weeks). We've seen this before, and more explicitly, in the meta-narrative that "Worst Case Scenario" ran, but here things are more low key, and more subtle (though that's not a knock on "Worst Case Scenario", which handles its meta-commentary with aplomb), as befits this kind of setting – this is, after all, theatre, not panto. In amongst all the classical allusions this meta-narrative gives "Muse" relevancy to the show it's a part of as well, and that way it manages to weave its relevancy into the ongoing narrative gives the episode a contemporary sharpness that sits alongside the historical.
And what's more this is fun! "Much better than all that kissing," B'Elanna jokingly tells Kelis once they figure out how to end their play, and that lightness of touch means the episode is able to retain its clarity without ever becoming ponderous or overly self-serious (which a treatise on the nature of drama could very easily become). B'Elanna's is, despite the crash and the apparently dire circumstances she finds herself in, about as relaxed and naturalistic as she's ever been, a testament to how well both the script and Roxann Dawson handle the character. For B'Elanna's apotheosis into the very spirit of drama itself to be convincing she needs to be in a place where she's open to that kind of revelation, and the creativity that is required of drama is paralleled in the creativity B'Elanna requires as an engineer to get herself out of her situation. Throughout the episode B'Elanna improvises, works around, vamps, and otherwise does everything she can to help herself. Creativity, the episode tells us, isn't just about being able to put words on a page, or say lines on a stage. Creativity can be found anywhere and everywhere, and in her own way B'Elanna The Engineer is just as creative as Kelis The Poet. She just does it in another field. It takes her time to understand that there's really no difference at all. But that creativity she uses leaves her open to the ideas that Kelis feeds her – how the written word can change the world around them – and she finally becomes a convert. She says as much to Harry - "have you ever inspired anyone?" she asks him, finally realizing her role, but he has no answer. How could he? In accepting her role as the inspiration for change, B'Elanna finally learns what it is Kelis has been trying to teach her, and in that moment, as she does in the very final shot of the episode, she ascends. Back in the review for the similarly-B'Elanna focussed "Prototype" I posed a little thought experiment and asked a question – what is Star Trek for? The answer, as it turns out, is both really rather moving, and incredibly simple. It's this. This is what Star Trek is for.
Any Other Business:
• Best episode of Season Six bar none. An astonishingly intelligent, smart, well written episode. Really magnificent.
• It's a shame Harry's in this. I don't really mean that as any disrespect to the character or Wang (this time), but he fulfils no real function beyond delivering a single component, and it would have been an even more impressive episode (if that's possible) had it solely focused on B'Elanna.
• I haven't ticked off all the classical allusions, of course, but I have to at least mention the "Eternals" as being representative of the pantheon of Greek gods, all with different tribes, agendas and powers. Again, so much detail from so few words.
• There's even time for a little love triangle! It doesn't amount to a huge amount, but it gives more credence to This Week's Aliens being actual, rounded people with lives and relationships that go on outside of the four sides of a television set.
• Winter's Tears is a lovely, poetic local name for dilithium.
• The Big Speech, where Kelis explains that the theatre used to be a temple where sacrifices are made could have been really cheesy but actually it works completely.
• I rather like the ruined set of the Delta Flyer, lit by candles.
• The masks held by the actors on stage are really well designed – you can make out Seven's occular implant, and the Janeway mask really does look like Kate Mulgrew.
• Not much to say about the stuff on Voyager. Tom gets to look a bit heartbroken, Janeway stares off into the middle distance. You know.
• Well, that's the Prime Directive fucked!
• That ending, as B'Elanna ascends/is beamed away, is incredibly audacious. Full marks to everyone involved.
Season Six, Episode 23 - "Fury"
You Wouldn't Like Her When She's Angry
You know by now that Kes is a character that, throughout this re-watch, I have found to be almost entirely redeemed, so it's an interesting idea to see her return a few years after her departure to find out what's become of her. Quite apart from the obvious, wonderful return of Jennifer Lien to our screens, it gives Voyager the chance to revisit a character who, at the point of her departure, had become so much more than she had been at the beginning of the show three seasons earlier, and explore her in more depth. "Fury" fumbles this a bit, to be honest, and that represents a bit of a wasted oppertunity. There's nothing special about this point in Voyager's history which really demands the return of A Character From The Past, but since this season has been so obsessed with history it makes a certain sense that at some point personal history was going to be brought up, and right enough, here it is. But the thing about "Fury" is that it doesn't, despite surface appearances, really deal with the past of Kes at all – this, unusually for Season Six, isn't an episode about history, even though a good two thirds of the episode is set in the past. What it's really about is time travel and paradox, with some history and character stuff bolted on, when it should really be about character and history, with a bit of time travel and paradox bolted on. In other words, the emphasis here is wrong.
But the material we do get is, broadly speaking, pretty good. Kes marching down a corridor as it blows out panel after panel behind her is a terrific pre-credits scene, all the more dramatic for just how unlikely it is – gentle, caring Kes violently assaulting the very ship that gave her respite and safe haven. Or the careless, offhanded way B'Elanna is killed in Engineering as Kes comes into physical contact with the warp core, played as it should be, with her death treated just as an extension of what Kes has become, not a false way to up the drama. There's lots of really good little action-adventure moments here, and just as "Muse" gave us a long-absent genre collision (or at least, one worth talking about), so the return to the action-adventure aesthetic here does wonders for "Fury". Indeed, not only does it return to this, it actually expands upon it – when, in "Deadlock", we heard of Voyager being forcibly boarded by the Viidians this was news which was urgently delivered on the bridge as a portent of doom. Here we actually get to see the Viidian ship swing into place above Voyager and deploy boarding tubes, making their assault on the ship that much more visceral. And of course all of this cements the status of the Viidians as the most interesting and impressive threat from the early history of the show – no sign of the Kazon here, instead we have a threat that feels real and direct and, well, threatening. Not that there was any doubt about their status, really, but the Viidians have actually been mentioned a couple of times this season, and once in the same breath as the Borg and Species 8472, so it's good to see that status being capitalized on so effectively here.
But all this action-adventure comes at a cost, and the cost here is the squeezing out of time for character work. But that doesn't mean to say that there's none. There's a sharp, clear contrast between the Old Kes of now and the Young Kes of then, and Jennifer Lien is excellent at playing the just-barely-suppressed contempt the Old Kes has for the crew she's returned to, and her impatience to just be done with this already is very well delivered. These scenes make a clear, direct contrast with her younger, more idealistic self and they allow that distinction to be made without just resorting to lots of over-the-top shouting and ranting (though we do get some of that as well) but rather by being able to just see what it is she's come to so dislike about being here. These are by far the most successful scenes with Kes, and give Lien the best chance to show off her chops. Hearing her make secret contact with the Viidians or whatever doesn't carry quite the same charge, and even her big face-off with Janeway at the end isn't just quite as good. Neither her nor Mulgrew are anywhere approaching bad, of course, and Mulgrew gets one really brilliant moment when she gets to express her grief wordlessly at having to shoot down Kes, but the impermanence of these scenes does somewhat undercut them – we know this is a time-travel episode, and we know that this scene happens way before the last couple of minutes of the episode, so however strong the conflict between them is, as the audience we know there's still going to be some more to come. And right enough, we get a workaround whereby Janeway is able to use the very fact of Kes's time travel to prevent the action in the first place, "Relativity"-style. Again, it's not that this is bad – in fact on a purely scripting level this works very well, and because the solution is built into the nature of the problem, it doesn't feel like a cheat or a deus ex machina. But it is again prioritizing plot over character, and in a story where the point of the episode is the return of an old character this just cannot help but feel like the wrong call.
Despite this, though, I can't bring myself to dislike or even really strongly criticize "Fury" because there's more than enough good moments in it to justify its existence, and even justify the return of Kes regardless of whether more could or should have been done with her. Some of them more significant than others – there is, for example, exactly one line spoken in the whole of Voyager between Kes and Seven, and here it is, the episode actively placing them next to each other and inviting comparison, which it really didn’t have to do. It's a moment that lasts just a few seconds, but it's just incredibly pleasing that it's there (this is the third and final episode that contains the entirety of the regular Voyager cast across all seven seasons, the other two being "Scorpion" Pt 2 and "The Gift") - not a big thing, but a nice one all the same, and suggests that someone's paying attention. Then there's the final scene in the transporter room – it would have been lovely to have more time between Neelix and Old Kes in this episode, but the one scene they do get is absolutely note perfect, because this is the grown-up version of their characters. Neelix looks both heartbroken and proud of Kes and Kes has obvious love and affection for him, but it's all communicated in just a few words, a mature, adult relationship realized exactly as it should be. Phillips deserves special praise here for a scene that's really all about what isn't said rather than what is, and in this he delivers a minor triumph in just under one minute. In a sense, they don't really require more time than that, but it would have been wrong if there had been no time spent between them at all. And on it goes. I won't list every moment that's worth paying attention to, but an action-adventure core, and lots of little moments, give this episode a frission that goes well beyond the return of Kes, even if that is clearly the main draw. Should more have been done with the opportunity of her return? Absolutely. But what we have is still thoroughly enjoyable, and yea, it's just lovely to see how easily Jennifer Lien slides back into the role, even while delivering two separate versions of it. Watching it after the obviously superior "Muse" doesn't do "Fury" any favours, but then, flexibility has always been a hallmark of Star Trek, and that ability to shift gears one of its mainstays. Though this episode isn't really about history (and it's definitely not) it does at least have a veneer of history about it, and that stops this from feeling tonally inconsistent with the rest of the season, or indeed the episode it's next to. If "Fury" doesn't, quite, fulfil its potential, it does give us one more episode with Kes, and for that, if nothing else, I will always be grateful. Safe travels back to Ocampa.
Any Other Business:
• I do love that opening scene with Kes walking down the corridor, even though the fact that it's bluescreen is relatively obvious.
• The inside of Kes's shuttle is, yet again, the reused set of the Aeon from "Future's End", which has turned up quite a few times now. They're seriously getting their money's worth from it.
• The scene where Kes goes to the galley to get Janeway coffee and encounters Neelix is brilliant work from Lien, just just keeping a lid on her obvious desire to just yell at Neelix to get her damn coffee already.
• The nods to the early days of Voyager are all pretty well handled ("good choice for Chief Engineer"), though Chakotay doesn't have the little flecks of grey in his hair that he had during Season One (and it's a shame he got rid of them really, because the slightly older look really worked for him, in contrast to the younger crew around him).
• A couple of great moments for Chakotay here as well, using the "controlled pitch" solution to detach the Viidians and his yelling of, "then tear it apart!" when Harry's fearful of the damage it will do to the ship. Great effects work there as well.
• When Janeway guns down Kes in the Airponics bay and Kes morphs back to Old Kes, her clothes morph back with her. Just sayin', is all.
• Guess there are holoprojectors in Engineering now, so Young Kes can persuade Old Kes away from her path of destruction?
• That final transporter scene really is magical. All credit to everyone, and its just a beautiful detail that the very last thing Kes does is look at Neelix as she's transported away.
