Season 7 Ep 4 / 5 "Repression "/ "Critical Care"
Jun 16, 2016 11:06:40 GMT -5
Jean Luc de Lemur likes this
Post by Prole Hole on Jun 16, 2016 11:06:40 GMT -5
Season Seven, Episode 4 - "Repression"
At the late night double feature picture show
Sci-fi mind control, especially when it's done to female characters, is often used as a stand-in for rape. We've seen this in Star Trek plenty of time, probably the most prominent and explicit example of which is what happens to Troi during Star Trek: Nemesis, where her control being wrested from her is explicitly referred to as a "violation". The same thing, of course, applies to Seven with her experiences with the Borg, where her control is specifically removed, not only from her mind but from here body as well. Yet it's not the only thing that mind-control can stand in for, and "Repression" makes that clear because here mind control is used as an allegory of religious or social conditioning, particularly in terms of religious extremism tipping over into outright terrorism. This gives the episode a certain prescience - it was broadcast almost exactly a year before 9/11 - as well as fitting in with the little-explored Maquis side of Voyager's crew, and it works alongside the Bajoran freedom fighter/terrorist duality from DS9. It feels like there's a lot going on here, and there is.
The problem "Repression" has to overcome, if it's to be adjudged a success, is that every single element of this story has been seen before, so the combination of elements needs to be done well enough, or with enough purpose, to overcome its own repetitious nature. Some of these familiar parts last occurred a fair while ago but still, everything here has been done. So Tuvok investigates a mystery that he himself is responsible for, just like in "Cathexis". And he slowly loses control over his mind, just like he did in "Meld". And the Maquis try to take over the ship, just like they (sort of) did in "Worst Case Scenario". And so forth. The little twist on the format here is that this is due to a message received from the Alpha Quadrant restarting a battle that's long since over, but that doesn't on the surface add very much, unless you want to add something about turning a parent's child against them, since the embedded message that triggers Tuvok's "conversion to the cause" comes in a letter from his son. This is really delivered too lightly to make much of in isolation, yet the idea of turning family member against family member does key in with the overall thematic aspects of the episode, and that's really where "Repression" scores highly, because all these elements do integrate very well together. The idea of a long-dead conflict coming back to life and doing damage now has also been seen before, in "Prototype" and even more specifically in "Dreadnaught", where the fallout of the Maquis/Cardassian conflict really is what drives the plot, but the storytelling here is noticeably more sophisticated than either of those rather more linear episodes. By utilizing a more nuanced approach to storytelling, "Repression" is able to use each familiar element to comment on other familiar elements, all without seeming like the episode is just a re-tread. That's because the overall message of this episode – that the inability to forgive the past and move beyond it causes nothing but death and destruction in the present – feels relevant in any number of ways to both Voyager and DS9 (from which this episode draws obvious inspiration). Clearly there are plenty of scenarios this applies to in our world – the Troubles in Ireland immediately spring to mind – and that relevancy to both the fictional and real-world concerns is what makes "Repression" work.
Mostly. Because "Repression" has one flaw, and it's one that's dogged quite a few episodes of late, which is pacing. Everything we actually have on screen in "Repression" is mostly terrific, it's smartly written, and unlike quite a few episodes which wrestle with these concerns, it understands its own core concepts and doesn't undermine them with muddled thinking or a lack of clarity. What it does do however is start, run for forty-five minutes, then stop. There's not a lot of build-up to the big dramatic moment of Chakotay taking over the ship, and when we do get there the resolution almost happens off-screen, which is deeply frustrating The lead-in at the start of the episode, with Tom and B'Elanna's trip to the pictures is fine, and indeed fairly entertaining as their relationship continues to move forward after their wedding, but it just takes up a bit too much screen time that could have been better served giving the climax more time to come to a head (a battle, perhaps, in the corridors, giving a physical manifestation to the more abstract philosophical points the episode is making). Similarly Tuvok's investigation into himself is handled well enough, but it's fairly slow and it doesn't really gain any narrative momentum even when we discover he's the one that's responsible for the deaths on the ship - the revelation is more, "oh yea, that makes sense" rather than "wow I did not see that coming!". The script is good enough here that it can – just – overcome these flaws, but it's always frustrating to see an episode which tip-toes up to the line of being really brilliant, then falls away because of something that ought to be fairly straightforward to fix. This is also the second episode in a fairly short stretch of time to bring up the Maquis again, which makes sense for a series nearing its conclusion and looking back on where it's come from, but the problem is that Janeway is dead right when she points out the rebellion ended ages ago and doesn't matter any more – it did, and it wasn't all that fascinating when it was contemporary either. The Maquis have, in honesty, always had a bit of a gap between what they represent philosophically and how they've been realized on screen, both in DS9 and in Voyager. The former, what the Maquis represent, is pretty excellent, and fertile ground for a show like Star Trek to cover, and the latter, how they are on screen... just isn't. Often they come across as paper tigers at best, and at worst just laughable. The non-Maquis Bajorans, the Cardassians, even Section 31, all come across as much more compelling on screen, and that doesn't give Maquis storylines a lot of places to go (which is why it was in the end a good idea to eventually just wipe them out on DS9, and have the crews work as one on Voyager).
Still, if the episode is going to use the Maquis, at least they get used more or less correctly, even if they're not the most dynamic of plot engines, and that helps the story move along too. Chakotay (and Beltran) are good at being back in charge as we get to see the mix of his ruthlessness and compassion, and it's refreshing to see him get a bit more to do after a fairly long period of time when we haven't. We even get an (admittedly somewhat brief) return of Tabor, This Week's Bajoran from "Nothing Human" back in Season Five. That's a small attention to detail, but it's one that's appreciated, partly because it means he's not treated as a redshirt (well, not just a redshirt), but also, as we will see a few times during Season Seven, it shows that people are paying attention. This is the kind of detail that already starts to elevate things above where they were last season, and if the result of that attention to detail is a little slackness of pace, then it's not the worst exchange in the world. Because enough of "Repression" hits home it's able to overcome its worst flaws, even if its true that those flaws didn't need to be there in the first place. What "Repression" really is, though, and what makes it work despite any shortcomings, is that it's smart, and it's smart in a way that feels similar enough to the likes of "Imperfection" to start giving this season a bit of shape. The arguments here all make sense, the point of the episode is clear without being laboured or unsubtle, and there's more than enough thematic work to engage the brain. Looking back over the end of Season Six, it's that depth and intelligence that a lot of the episodes – even the better ones – are obviously lacking, so to see two of the three episodes of this season get this right already really makes it feel like things are getting back on track (and even "Drive" is fine, it's just a different beast). So let's end things by just saying that if "Repression" doesn't represent the absolute best of Voyager it is equally a clear, direct sign that things are picking up again. And long may that last.
Any Other Business:
• The conceit of the picture house that Tom and B'Elanna visit is cute and works well, even if bits of it are (intentionally) silly.
• Yea, Tabor's inclusion is a nice, subtle nod to the past in amongst all the other more explicit ones.
• Another inclusion is Chell, the not-quite-comedy-relief Bolian from waaaaaay back in "Learning Curve", which is another nod to the past, and the fact that he and Tabor have been in the show before isn't drawn attention to, which makes their appearances here work really well in minor roles.
• As Teero Anaydis, the Bajoran who starts the whole thing back when Tuvok was undercover, Keith Szarabajka is just a little broad. Not Seska-levels of distracting or anything, but a slightly smaller performance might have rendered things a little more sinister.
• Another nice thing about this episode is getting to see Tuvok deliver a straight performance rather than Betty Davis-ing the place up.
• Well, until that final "hunches" scene, where he's back to the eye-rolling again (though it is good fun).
• We finally find out the name of Chakotay's ship! It's the Val Jean. Oh. That was a little disappointing.
• The final shot of Tuvok and Janeway in 3D glassus is really great.
Season Seven, Episode 5 - "Critical Care"
Logan's run
The Doctor has, as a character, had a lot to deal with over the course of Voyager, but a surprisingly small amount of his episodes are actually based in medicine. This stems from the fact that, at least for the first three seasons, he was the outsider character looking in on humanity and so was often used as a perspective as much as anything else (at least until Seven came along and fulfilled that role instead, leaving him free to develop in other directions). The Doctor had three starring episodes in the last season, "Virtuoso" - which is about singing and his ego - "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy - which is about singing and his ego - and "Life Line", the closest to actually doing something vaguely medical, but there the medical procedure was more a representation of Zimmerman's fears than it was about the actuality of medicine itself. These were, despite sometimes having a serious point behind them, also fairly light, comedic episodes without a particularly dramatic hook. "Critical Care", therefore, feels like it's dealing with the Doctor in a way we haven't seen for ages, and actually deals with who he is (a doctor) rather than what he is (a hologram with an emergent intelligence).
Now it doesn't take a genius to work out that this episode stands as a satire of health-care, and particularly health-care systems which prioritize social status or financial standing above the needs of the patient. That's good, solid ground for a show with Star Trek's liberal humanism to cover, and the Doctor's natural sense of affront at injustice is a good fit for an episode where making a principled stand is the order of the day. And just as it was refreshing to see Tuvok drop the Betty Davis routine in "Repression" and take things seriously for a change, so it feels equally refreshing to see the Doctor dropping the outraged comedic mugging and actually play things straight for the first time in what feels like a long time. Picardo is a great comic actor and it's obvious why the show has chosen to deploy his skills in this area, but this has, especially in later seasons, rather occluded the fact that he's just as good at playing it straight (and indeed that this was one of the reasons the character became so popular in the first place). Here, exercising a modicum of restraint and stripped of his usual sparring partners on the ship, Picardo turns in one of his best performances in a long time – there's moments of comedy here, for sure, but there's a real chance to deliver some drama and he runs with it. The difference from the usual comedic shenanigans is palpable, and it goes a long way to selling the audience on the reality of the situation he finds himself in. This is greatly assisted because, while he's trying to fight a poorly-disguised stand-in of medical health insurance companies, he actually miscalculates and gets someone killed. This gives some stakes to the proceedings and gives them a bit more weight than "fighting against bureaucracy" would have on its own, because it makes clear the kind of damage that can be done by this type of system, even when trying to work within the system with the best of intentions. Indeed as far as healthcare goes, this episode is practically socialist in its outlook, with the clearly stated belief that status and money are irrelevant and all that matters is that health care is given as required (and if that sounds like a version of the UK's NHS "free at the point of use", well there's a reason for that).
There's also something significant about the fact that the disease the cytoglobin the Doctor attempts to acquire is both fatal and easy to cure. This gives the disease any number of real-world stand-ins (malaria, perhaps), whereby the only thing that stops the disease being eradicated is money and/or the willpower to actually do what needs to be done. The Doctor dipping his toes in the waters of revolution is surprisingly direct for Star Trek, both with his failed attempts at working within the system and his eventual blackmail to get things to change. This kind of direct action isn't unprecedented even as its unusualness stands out, but what's most striking here is how this relates to the Doctor's final conversation with Seven, when he hopes that his actions were the result of a malfunction rather than his own choice. He took action to ensure a disease – easily curable – would in fact get cured, but to do so resulted in him intentionally harming someone else, by poisoning Chellick. The ethics of this are left somewhat vague within the episode itself – indeed that's pretty much the point of the episode, and the viewer is left to decide for themselves whether his actions are justified – but if the ethics are vague one thing definitely isn't, and it's the fact that the Doctor clearly, deliberately breaks the Hippocratic Oath. He does intentional harm to another to achieve his own ends. This is a big step for someone like him, and is as clear a sign as any we have seen that the Doctor is not simply beholden to his programming but is able to make the same kind of informed choices we've seen from the rest of the crew. We know Janeway, for example, can be, shall we say, flexible when it comes to her interpretation of the Prime Directive, but the Hippocratic Oath is, in many ways, his Prime Directive and here he violates of his own accord, and without the excuse of a programming glitch or malfunction. That he does it for what he perceives to be the greater good isn't really the point, it's the fact that he's capable of doing it at all that matters the most. It's a powerful character moment for him, and the fact that the episode takes the time to lay this out in the final scene helps to underscore this, rather than ending on a jokey pun or some forced laughter. The ease of the cure for this disease balanced against the difficulty of the decision that the Doctor makes to get it cured stand in contrast to each other, and make for an effective dichotomy.
During the review for "Repression" I mentioned that it was the depth of both it and "Imperfection" that are really starting to give this season shape, and "Critical Care" follows up on this admirably. That depth comes not only from the philosophical and character work that lies at the heart of the episode, but the feeling that this is actually a real place and these events are happening to real people. If the arguments at the centre of the episode are hold sway its necessary that we feel a connection to the people caught up in the events we are witnessing. This means there's some proper effort put into making the hospital and society the Doctor finds himself in work conceptually, even though we're in one of those alien environments that mostly consists of the odd establishing shot, two rooms and some hey-it's-that-guy actors trying to make it work. In this, at least, Voyager tooling about this region of space trying to find him serves to widen the focus, and is unusually successful in doing this. Generally the "cut back to the ship" scenes in these types of episodes are time-killing vamping, keeping the rest of the cast out of the action until they need to turn up in the final act to mount a rescue. But here the broadening of focus and the relatively minor but intrusively problematic attempts to locate the Doctor ground the society we see him fighting to improve in a wider context and helps make this planet feel part of the area we're exploring this week. These scenes are the lighter ones in the episode, but they still fulfil a function that really makes this episode feel just that bit more expansive. So as the ethical issues and character focus tie this episode to "Imperfection" so the wider view of this part of space ties to "Drive", and we have that increasing sense of cohesiveness. Thus far Season Seven is coming together much, much better than I expected. Normally at this point I'd pose a rhetorical question along the lines of, "but can it maintain this level of quality?" But I don't want to jinx things, so I'll simply come to a stop by saying this is really, really good, and (since this is also becoming something of a theme this season) deserves to be remembered more than it is.
Any Other Business:
• Though I made a joke of it, the establishing shots are actually well used here, and we get to see them in both day and night, which is unusual but really helps to sell the fact that time is passing for the Doctor.
• The best-known of this week's hey-it's-that-guy this week is Gregory Itzin, 24's President Charles Logan, among many, many, many other TV roles (and of course he's got guest spots in DS9 and Enterprise as well). He's pretty great here.
• Kate Mulgrew is still at Camp Force 10, sashaying her way through all her scenes.
• It's not exactly subtle, but the fact that medicine is dispensed by an "all-knowing", cold automaton without any human intervention makes its point clearly enough.
• The Neelix-and-Tuvok show is good fun for what it is. And Gar's make-up, while good, makes him resemble Jack Nicholson's Joker, which is slightly disconcerting.
• Chaktoay and B'Elanna turning up to "save the day" is a bit perfunctory.
• Ryan is only in one scene, but she makes the most of it, and those final exchanges between the Doctor and Seven really do work very well to make the episode's points without overly belabouring it.
At the late night double feature picture show
Sci-fi mind control, especially when it's done to female characters, is often used as a stand-in for rape. We've seen this in Star Trek plenty of time, probably the most prominent and explicit example of which is what happens to Troi during Star Trek: Nemesis, where her control being wrested from her is explicitly referred to as a "violation". The same thing, of course, applies to Seven with her experiences with the Borg, where her control is specifically removed, not only from her mind but from here body as well. Yet it's not the only thing that mind-control can stand in for, and "Repression" makes that clear because here mind control is used as an allegory of religious or social conditioning, particularly in terms of religious extremism tipping over into outright terrorism. This gives the episode a certain prescience - it was broadcast almost exactly a year before 9/11 - as well as fitting in with the little-explored Maquis side of Voyager's crew, and it works alongside the Bajoran freedom fighter/terrorist duality from DS9. It feels like there's a lot going on here, and there is.
The problem "Repression" has to overcome, if it's to be adjudged a success, is that every single element of this story has been seen before, so the combination of elements needs to be done well enough, or with enough purpose, to overcome its own repetitious nature. Some of these familiar parts last occurred a fair while ago but still, everything here has been done. So Tuvok investigates a mystery that he himself is responsible for, just like in "Cathexis". And he slowly loses control over his mind, just like he did in "Meld". And the Maquis try to take over the ship, just like they (sort of) did in "Worst Case Scenario". And so forth. The little twist on the format here is that this is due to a message received from the Alpha Quadrant restarting a battle that's long since over, but that doesn't on the surface add very much, unless you want to add something about turning a parent's child against them, since the embedded message that triggers Tuvok's "conversion to the cause" comes in a letter from his son. This is really delivered too lightly to make much of in isolation, yet the idea of turning family member against family member does key in with the overall thematic aspects of the episode, and that's really where "Repression" scores highly, because all these elements do integrate very well together. The idea of a long-dead conflict coming back to life and doing damage now has also been seen before, in "Prototype" and even more specifically in "Dreadnaught", where the fallout of the Maquis/Cardassian conflict really is what drives the plot, but the storytelling here is noticeably more sophisticated than either of those rather more linear episodes. By utilizing a more nuanced approach to storytelling, "Repression" is able to use each familiar element to comment on other familiar elements, all without seeming like the episode is just a re-tread. That's because the overall message of this episode – that the inability to forgive the past and move beyond it causes nothing but death and destruction in the present – feels relevant in any number of ways to both Voyager and DS9 (from which this episode draws obvious inspiration). Clearly there are plenty of scenarios this applies to in our world – the Troubles in Ireland immediately spring to mind – and that relevancy to both the fictional and real-world concerns is what makes "Repression" work.
Mostly. Because "Repression" has one flaw, and it's one that's dogged quite a few episodes of late, which is pacing. Everything we actually have on screen in "Repression" is mostly terrific, it's smartly written, and unlike quite a few episodes which wrestle with these concerns, it understands its own core concepts and doesn't undermine them with muddled thinking or a lack of clarity. What it does do however is start, run for forty-five minutes, then stop. There's not a lot of build-up to the big dramatic moment of Chakotay taking over the ship, and when we do get there the resolution almost happens off-screen, which is deeply frustrating The lead-in at the start of the episode, with Tom and B'Elanna's trip to the pictures is fine, and indeed fairly entertaining as their relationship continues to move forward after their wedding, but it just takes up a bit too much screen time that could have been better served giving the climax more time to come to a head (a battle, perhaps, in the corridors, giving a physical manifestation to the more abstract philosophical points the episode is making). Similarly Tuvok's investigation into himself is handled well enough, but it's fairly slow and it doesn't really gain any narrative momentum even when we discover he's the one that's responsible for the deaths on the ship - the revelation is more, "oh yea, that makes sense" rather than "wow I did not see that coming!". The script is good enough here that it can – just – overcome these flaws, but it's always frustrating to see an episode which tip-toes up to the line of being really brilliant, then falls away because of something that ought to be fairly straightforward to fix. This is also the second episode in a fairly short stretch of time to bring up the Maquis again, which makes sense for a series nearing its conclusion and looking back on where it's come from, but the problem is that Janeway is dead right when she points out the rebellion ended ages ago and doesn't matter any more – it did, and it wasn't all that fascinating when it was contemporary either. The Maquis have, in honesty, always had a bit of a gap between what they represent philosophically and how they've been realized on screen, both in DS9 and in Voyager. The former, what the Maquis represent, is pretty excellent, and fertile ground for a show like Star Trek to cover, and the latter, how they are on screen... just isn't. Often they come across as paper tigers at best, and at worst just laughable. The non-Maquis Bajorans, the Cardassians, even Section 31, all come across as much more compelling on screen, and that doesn't give Maquis storylines a lot of places to go (which is why it was in the end a good idea to eventually just wipe them out on DS9, and have the crews work as one on Voyager).
Still, if the episode is going to use the Maquis, at least they get used more or less correctly, even if they're not the most dynamic of plot engines, and that helps the story move along too. Chakotay (and Beltran) are good at being back in charge as we get to see the mix of his ruthlessness and compassion, and it's refreshing to see him get a bit more to do after a fairly long period of time when we haven't. We even get an (admittedly somewhat brief) return of Tabor, This Week's Bajoran from "Nothing Human" back in Season Five. That's a small attention to detail, but it's one that's appreciated, partly because it means he's not treated as a redshirt (well, not just a redshirt), but also, as we will see a few times during Season Seven, it shows that people are paying attention. This is the kind of detail that already starts to elevate things above where they were last season, and if the result of that attention to detail is a little slackness of pace, then it's not the worst exchange in the world. Because enough of "Repression" hits home it's able to overcome its worst flaws, even if its true that those flaws didn't need to be there in the first place. What "Repression" really is, though, and what makes it work despite any shortcomings, is that it's smart, and it's smart in a way that feels similar enough to the likes of "Imperfection" to start giving this season a bit of shape. The arguments here all make sense, the point of the episode is clear without being laboured or unsubtle, and there's more than enough thematic work to engage the brain. Looking back over the end of Season Six, it's that depth and intelligence that a lot of the episodes – even the better ones – are obviously lacking, so to see two of the three episodes of this season get this right already really makes it feel like things are getting back on track (and even "Drive" is fine, it's just a different beast). So let's end things by just saying that if "Repression" doesn't represent the absolute best of Voyager it is equally a clear, direct sign that things are picking up again. And long may that last.
Any Other Business:
• The conceit of the picture house that Tom and B'Elanna visit is cute and works well, even if bits of it are (intentionally) silly.
• Yea, Tabor's inclusion is a nice, subtle nod to the past in amongst all the other more explicit ones.
• Another inclusion is Chell, the not-quite-comedy-relief Bolian from waaaaaay back in "Learning Curve", which is another nod to the past, and the fact that he and Tabor have been in the show before isn't drawn attention to, which makes their appearances here work really well in minor roles.
• As Teero Anaydis, the Bajoran who starts the whole thing back when Tuvok was undercover, Keith Szarabajka is just a little broad. Not Seska-levels of distracting or anything, but a slightly smaller performance might have rendered things a little more sinister.
• Another nice thing about this episode is getting to see Tuvok deliver a straight performance rather than Betty Davis-ing the place up.
• Well, until that final "hunches" scene, where he's back to the eye-rolling again (though it is good fun).
• We finally find out the name of Chakotay's ship! It's the Val Jean. Oh. That was a little disappointing.
• The final shot of Tuvok and Janeway in 3D glassus is really great.
Season Seven, Episode 5 - "Critical Care"
Logan's run
The Doctor has, as a character, had a lot to deal with over the course of Voyager, but a surprisingly small amount of his episodes are actually based in medicine. This stems from the fact that, at least for the first three seasons, he was the outsider character looking in on humanity and so was often used as a perspective as much as anything else (at least until Seven came along and fulfilled that role instead, leaving him free to develop in other directions). The Doctor had three starring episodes in the last season, "Virtuoso" - which is about singing and his ego - "Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy - which is about singing and his ego - and "Life Line", the closest to actually doing something vaguely medical, but there the medical procedure was more a representation of Zimmerman's fears than it was about the actuality of medicine itself. These were, despite sometimes having a serious point behind them, also fairly light, comedic episodes without a particularly dramatic hook. "Critical Care", therefore, feels like it's dealing with the Doctor in a way we haven't seen for ages, and actually deals with who he is (a doctor) rather than what he is (a hologram with an emergent intelligence).
Now it doesn't take a genius to work out that this episode stands as a satire of health-care, and particularly health-care systems which prioritize social status or financial standing above the needs of the patient. That's good, solid ground for a show with Star Trek's liberal humanism to cover, and the Doctor's natural sense of affront at injustice is a good fit for an episode where making a principled stand is the order of the day. And just as it was refreshing to see Tuvok drop the Betty Davis routine in "Repression" and take things seriously for a change, so it feels equally refreshing to see the Doctor dropping the outraged comedic mugging and actually play things straight for the first time in what feels like a long time. Picardo is a great comic actor and it's obvious why the show has chosen to deploy his skills in this area, but this has, especially in later seasons, rather occluded the fact that he's just as good at playing it straight (and indeed that this was one of the reasons the character became so popular in the first place). Here, exercising a modicum of restraint and stripped of his usual sparring partners on the ship, Picardo turns in one of his best performances in a long time – there's moments of comedy here, for sure, but there's a real chance to deliver some drama and he runs with it. The difference from the usual comedic shenanigans is palpable, and it goes a long way to selling the audience on the reality of the situation he finds himself in. This is greatly assisted because, while he's trying to fight a poorly-disguised stand-in of medical health insurance companies, he actually miscalculates and gets someone killed. This gives some stakes to the proceedings and gives them a bit more weight than "fighting against bureaucracy" would have on its own, because it makes clear the kind of damage that can be done by this type of system, even when trying to work within the system with the best of intentions. Indeed as far as healthcare goes, this episode is practically socialist in its outlook, with the clearly stated belief that status and money are irrelevant and all that matters is that health care is given as required (and if that sounds like a version of the UK's NHS "free at the point of use", well there's a reason for that).
There's also something significant about the fact that the disease the cytoglobin the Doctor attempts to acquire is both fatal and easy to cure. This gives the disease any number of real-world stand-ins (malaria, perhaps), whereby the only thing that stops the disease being eradicated is money and/or the willpower to actually do what needs to be done. The Doctor dipping his toes in the waters of revolution is surprisingly direct for Star Trek, both with his failed attempts at working within the system and his eventual blackmail to get things to change. This kind of direct action isn't unprecedented even as its unusualness stands out, but what's most striking here is how this relates to the Doctor's final conversation with Seven, when he hopes that his actions were the result of a malfunction rather than his own choice. He took action to ensure a disease – easily curable – would in fact get cured, but to do so resulted in him intentionally harming someone else, by poisoning Chellick. The ethics of this are left somewhat vague within the episode itself – indeed that's pretty much the point of the episode, and the viewer is left to decide for themselves whether his actions are justified – but if the ethics are vague one thing definitely isn't, and it's the fact that the Doctor clearly, deliberately breaks the Hippocratic Oath. He does intentional harm to another to achieve his own ends. This is a big step for someone like him, and is as clear a sign as any we have seen that the Doctor is not simply beholden to his programming but is able to make the same kind of informed choices we've seen from the rest of the crew. We know Janeway, for example, can be, shall we say, flexible when it comes to her interpretation of the Prime Directive, but the Hippocratic Oath is, in many ways, his Prime Directive and here he violates of his own accord, and without the excuse of a programming glitch or malfunction. That he does it for what he perceives to be the greater good isn't really the point, it's the fact that he's capable of doing it at all that matters the most. It's a powerful character moment for him, and the fact that the episode takes the time to lay this out in the final scene helps to underscore this, rather than ending on a jokey pun or some forced laughter. The ease of the cure for this disease balanced against the difficulty of the decision that the Doctor makes to get it cured stand in contrast to each other, and make for an effective dichotomy.
During the review for "Repression" I mentioned that it was the depth of both it and "Imperfection" that are really starting to give this season shape, and "Critical Care" follows up on this admirably. That depth comes not only from the philosophical and character work that lies at the heart of the episode, but the feeling that this is actually a real place and these events are happening to real people. If the arguments at the centre of the episode are hold sway its necessary that we feel a connection to the people caught up in the events we are witnessing. This means there's some proper effort put into making the hospital and society the Doctor finds himself in work conceptually, even though we're in one of those alien environments that mostly consists of the odd establishing shot, two rooms and some hey-it's-that-guy actors trying to make it work. In this, at least, Voyager tooling about this region of space trying to find him serves to widen the focus, and is unusually successful in doing this. Generally the "cut back to the ship" scenes in these types of episodes are time-killing vamping, keeping the rest of the cast out of the action until they need to turn up in the final act to mount a rescue. But here the broadening of focus and the relatively minor but intrusively problematic attempts to locate the Doctor ground the society we see him fighting to improve in a wider context and helps make this planet feel part of the area we're exploring this week. These scenes are the lighter ones in the episode, but they still fulfil a function that really makes this episode feel just that bit more expansive. So as the ethical issues and character focus tie this episode to "Imperfection" so the wider view of this part of space ties to "Drive", and we have that increasing sense of cohesiveness. Thus far Season Seven is coming together much, much better than I expected. Normally at this point I'd pose a rhetorical question along the lines of, "but can it maintain this level of quality?" But I don't want to jinx things, so I'll simply come to a stop by saying this is really, really good, and (since this is also becoming something of a theme this season) deserves to be remembered more than it is.
Any Other Business:
• Though I made a joke of it, the establishing shots are actually well used here, and we get to see them in both day and night, which is unusual but really helps to sell the fact that time is passing for the Doctor.
• The best-known of this week's hey-it's-that-guy this week is Gregory Itzin, 24's President Charles Logan, among many, many, many other TV roles (and of course he's got guest spots in DS9 and Enterprise as well). He's pretty great here.
• Kate Mulgrew is still at Camp Force 10, sashaying her way through all her scenes.
• It's not exactly subtle, but the fact that medicine is dispensed by an "all-knowing", cold automaton without any human intervention makes its point clearly enough.
• The Neelix-and-Tuvok show is good fun for what it is. And Gar's make-up, while good, makes him resemble Jack Nicholson's Joker, which is slightly disconcerting.
• Chaktoay and B'Elanna turning up to "save the day" is a bit perfunctory.
• Ryan is only in one scene, but she makes the most of it, and those final exchanges between the Doctor and Seven really do work very well to make the episode's points without overly belabouring it.
