Season 6 Ep 6 / 7 "Riddles" / "Dragon's Teeth"
Mar 23, 2016 17:04:41 GMT -5
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Post by Prole Hole on Mar 23, 2016 17:04:41 GMT -5
Season Six, Episode 6 - "Riddles"
This week, on "Come Dine With Me"...
Eh. "Riddles" makes a stab and finding something interesting to say about Tuvok and Neelix, but it's haunted literally by "Tuvix" and metaphorically by its inability to commit to much of anything. A two-hander between Tuvok and Neelix is fine – they work well in that The Odd Couple way, and the script wrings a few meagre laughs from this. And exploring the reactions of each character to the other through trauma isn't necessarily a bad way of doing it. But, even if we ignore the fact that much of this has been done before, we're still left with a story which says, "Tuvok and Neelix like each other, really." That's fine as a statement, probably, but it's something we're already quite well aware of. Neelix wants to earn Tuvok's respect – we've seen this in everything from "Year Of Hell" to, um, "Rise". And Tuvok is respectful enough of Neelix's abilities ("Rise" again), even when not necessarily showing it. So what does this episode add to the mix that expands or deepens our understanding of this?
Not a thing. Because that's the real problem here. This is an episode that's just stating a bunch of stuff we basically already know as if it were somehow revelatory or new material, and it just isn't. Even if you're a casual fan of the series (and the likelihood is if you're reading through these reviews you probably aren't), the chances are that everything you already know about these two character is basically just confirmed. Neelix is a bit annoying at times but he's got real heart to him, and he genuinely cares. Tuvok is a bit of a tight-arse but under it all he still values friendship. I wouldn't go so far as to say, "so what?" But, y'know. We know. We get it. The script sees to be pretty convinced that it can rely on the performances of Phillips and Russ to get away with peddling this overly-familiar approach, but it can't quite get away with that, and unusually the weak like here is Russ, who's a bit variable. His performance as Tuvok before the attack is fine, and he's great at the silent Tuvok before he's able to speak again, but once it is back he's all over the shop, apparently aiming for vulnerable but more often than not landing on hesitant. And it's not even as if hesitant is a bad way to play what happens to Tuvok, but the problem is it looks like he's ended up doing that while trying for something else, and thus it doesn’t convince. Phillips, on the other hand, is generally better than average, and gets a few really terrific moments (desperately searching for something he can to do help Tuvok, or admitting he wouldn't be a very good friend If he gave Tuvok bad advise just so Tuvok would be a bit nicer to him). He's annoying in the first scene on the Detla Flyer but at least this time he's meant to be.
The idea that this episode is based round riddles doesn't really come off either. Ignoring the bad joke of the ensign surviving with just a calendar (he eats the dates!) there isn't really a riddle here at all, just a mystery that needs to be solved. That's OK, I suppose, but at least in something like "Think Tank" the crew really had to think. In "Riddles" they don't really solve any riddles, they just find out what's going on, same as they do every week. There's some gestures towards thematic resonance, during the scene when Seven and Neelix chat away in a darkened mess hall - another great scene for Phillips, by the way, who's really good at just barely keeps Neelix's frustrations in check - and Neelix asks, "when is a Vulcan not a Vulcan?". This works to an extent, with Seven providing a surprising insight into the nature of the problem, also a good use of her. But it's still not a riddle. Neither is tracking down the aliens, working out what they're up to (which inventively is nothing...), or finding a cure for Tuvok. They're problems, certainly, but a problem is an inquiry into something that requires investigation, or something that needs to be demonstrated, whereas a riddle is something specifically posed to require a degree of ingenuity or lateral thinking to solve. There's not, sadly, a lot of ingenuity on display here. Even this week's resident rent-a-Fox Mulder, Naroq, who tells us he's been investigating the mysterious, mostly-mythical Ba'neth, isn't solving a riddle, he's just investigating. That's fine as well, that's his role (and indeed his rank, it seems), but though he's quite likeable in his self-described eccentric ways, and though it is again good to have someone who's just what they are, he also doesn't register much because he doesn’t have a vast amount of screen time and the episode isn't really about him.
And indeed, "doesn't register much" is as a good a definition of "Riddles" as I think I'm going to find. Poor Ethan Phillips really gets the short end of the stick when it comes to Neelix episodes, doesn't he? Because I really would like to emphasize that he's good here, because he is. But he's stuck delivering good work in a nondescript runaround, and it's both unfortunate and terribly unfair. This is a slight episode that ought to be stuck somewhere near the end of a season, marking time till we get to something with a bit of character work or explosions. Stuck in between the action-adventure of next week's "Dragon's Teeth" and the better-done character work of last week's "Alice" (in itself hardly a lost classic) this barely even seems to exist. I literally watched it half an hour before writing this, free of distractions (unless you could some candles and a glass of red wine as distractions) and yet I'm really having a hard time thinking of what else to discuss (and no, that's not the fault of the red wine). I guess I can mention that this is Roxann Dawson's first time in the director's chair, and she acquits herself well, given that everything here takes places on the standard sets of either Voyager or the Delta Flyer. She has a few show-off moments (Tuvok lying flat-out on the floor just before the credits, the zooming, rotating camera that closes in on Tuvok as he awaits his treatment) but mostly she turns in good work which gives the actors enough space to breathe, though only Phillips really takes advantage of this. It must feel a bit unlucky to get stuck with such a mediocre scrips first time out but she does what she can with it. Honestly, Kubric couldn’t have made this shine.
And that's it, yet somehow I still have another two hundred and fifty words to cover. Oh hey, you know, we're six seasons in and I've never really talked about Voyager's title sequence, so let's do that. It's terrific isn't it? With one exception – the asteroid, because as with DS9 it seems Star Trek can't do asteroids well in title sequences – it's really great, and Voyager is the only version of modern Trek not to chance its title sequence once in the whole run of the series, which seems like a vote of confidence in it. Even now the CGI looks great, and it all lines up with that most magnificent of theme tunes – I especially love the big cymbal crash as the sunlight flares behind the ship near the end, but it's all incredibly well done. Each modern Star Trek title sequence presages the show it represents, so TNG reflects its roots in TOS by maintaining the "space, the final frontier" voiceover and the Enterprise warping towards the camera, DS9 is stately and thoughtful just as the show is, and Voyager is seen zipping through various different locations in space, just as the show does. It all lines up really wonderfully (and for the record, Voyager is my favourite theme of all the modern Trek TV series' – thus far). Apparently it was mildly controversial at one point that Voyager's shadow can be seen reflected in the (presumably ice?) rings of the planet it passes through around the "Jeri Ryan as Seven Of Nine" point, because that's not what would really happen were a starship to actually fly past a ringed planet. Really, some people have no poetry in their soul, and speaking of no poetry, I've now hit the word count for "Alice", so let's come to a grateful stop. I hope I never have to really think about "Riddles" again, and given how little I remember of it after having just watched it, I can't see that being much of a problem.
Any Other Business:
• Completely and utterly rote. My first attempt to write a review of this episode consisted simply of the first two letters of this review, but I felt I should make an effort to do a bit more, and effort it was indeed.
• But, yes, praise to Phillips, again lost in a sea of mediocrity.
• It's so unusual to see Tim Russ as anything other than great, but the middle section sags here precisely because he has difficulty finding a tone and then actually delivering on it. He's not embarrassing to watch, but the performance never coheres into anything.
• It's a nice, but unremarked-upon, touch that Tuvok is a really good cook when he actually puts his mind to it, which feels like a nod to the events of "Tuvix", even though they're not explicitly referenced. Indeed it's probably for the best that "Tuvix" isn't referenced directly, because it's a much better episode than this.
• Welcome to the director's chair, Roxann Dawson! Like Phillips, she does what she can with very uninspiring material, and manages to make some of it actually engaging, which is a lot more than the script does.
• The final scene before Tuvok goes for his treatment acts as an explicit rejoinder to the scene in "Tuvix" where Janeway "murders" Tuvix to get Tuvok and Neelix back, with Neelix finding a way to reach Tuvok with the power of an argument, and some real emotional honesty. It's the best scene in the episode by an absolute mile, Phillips completely nails it, and finally Tim Russ finds his feet as well. The episode is just about worth it for that scene alone. Just about.
• The very final scene is sweet (ha) as well, as Tuvok finally allows a glimpse of friendship to show through his now-restored Vulcan exterior by adding to Neelix's riddle.
Season Six, Episode 7 - "Dragon's Teeth"
No sign of a Dragon's Dentist, then
Now that's more like it! I love "Dragon's Teeth". Always have, always will.
But here's the thing. There's been an elephant in the room over the last six seasons and it's one that I've brushed up against from time to time, but largely steered clear of. So it's time to grab the elephant by the trunk, as it were, and deal with bafflegab, because although I do love "Dragon's Teeth" very, very much, if you want to point to an example of an episode that ends with a flood of gibberish (which is something Voyager has a reputation for), then this is definitely the episode to pick. Let's lay this out explicitly so we can see what we're really talking about - Janeway needs a way to get Voyager back into orbit, and to do this she needs to undertake a risky manoeuvre:
Janeway: "Harry, the radiogenic particles in the atmosphere, can we use them as a power source?"
Harry: "We'd need to modify the warp core's conversion matrix, it could take hours."
Janeway: "What if we draw the particles directly into our plasma manifold?"
Paris: "That would give us one hell of a boost."
Harry: "It could also blow out every power relay on the ship."
Janeway: "Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Open the forward nacelles and reverse the pressure gradient. Take in 600 kilogrammes."
And thus it continues until impulse is back on line and they can clear the planet. It's kind of ridiculous isn't it? But, you know, as I said Voyager has a reputation for being bafflegab heavy, and though there have been a few examples along the way, that hasn't really proven to be the case. Or, more accurately, it hasn't proven to be any more so than TNG or DS9, both of which also have their moments of lapsing in to bafflegab (indeed, TNG is probably the most guilty of this, since almost all of the post-TOS bafflegab – ODN conduits, nadion particles etc etc – are established during TNG's run, which is logical as it's the first series out of the gate). There are questions here though – what is the purpose of bafflegab, how does it function, and how can it be made to work?
The first question is relatively straightforward. Bafflegab, or technobabble if you prefer (and I don't), exists to sounds like "the future", which is to say, it's lots of technical sounding stuff that exists to try and make your story, situation or technology look suitably advanced and sophisticated – it's technical by its nature, obviously, and usually descriptive of a specific object or concept. The second part is relatively straightforward as well. Bafflegab functions within an episode but only within an episode - free of context, it doesn't mean anything so it requires context to make it function (in this sense bafflegab can never been post-modern, because post-modernism requires removing something from its original context, placing it in a new one and still expecting it to function). You can't walk up to someone in the street and ask them what a plasma manifold or a Heisenberg Compensator is, because it's a made-up bit of a starship, and if you don't know it comes from Star Trek then you're never going to be able to work it out. Two down, one to go. The final question – how can it be made to work – well, that's the tough one, because there are really two ways bafflegab can be used, either in support of the story being told, or instead of the story being told. What I mean by that is when bafflegab supports the story being told it does so by enhancing the action with an idea or concept which works technically with what the script is describing. And when it doesn't its used as a way to get Our Heroes out of a difficult situation by throwing a bunch of crap in and hoping its convincing enough to get us to the end credits.
And though it looks ridiculous on paper (screen, eInk, however you're consuming this) that chunk of script I quoted up top actually works in the second way. Mulgrew, Wang and McNeill rattle it out at some speed, which is appropriate because it's a big, tense moment, but in fact most of it is easy to understand, and crucially, the radiogenic particles that are being discussed have been repeatedly mentioned throughout the episode and are referred to as being highly charged. This isn't some convenient deus-ex-machina thrown in at the end when the odds are stacked just too highly, this is something which has been layered throughout the episode in a considered way, so when the crew need to use them to escape it actually makes sense given what we've been told. We have Tom on hand to give us a little explanation just to clarify, then the explanation of what needs to be done to achieve this. Yes, reverse the pressure gradient sounds a bit silly but we're given all the information we need to work out what's going on, without it just being an excuse because the writer has painted themselves into a corner. Voyager's struggles to get back into orbit add extra tension at a crucial point in the story, and their desperate plan is laid out in a way that means we understand both what's got to be done and why. It is, in other words, supporting the story, which is as it should be. Perhaps that speech isn't so ridiculous after all.
Normally when I veer off at a tangent like that it's because there's not a lot else going on in the episode, but that's absolutely not the case here. That bafflegab scene is just thirty or so seconds near the end of the episode, and there's just so much more here to enjoy. For one, the Vaadwaur are an excellent creation – a culture sketched out in all the right ways, with implications supported by small details, and a culture that manages to suggest aggressiveness without being just another clichéd warrior race and, most significantly, with a sympathetic protagonist who's actually smart enough to adapt to changing circumstances rather than repeating the mistakes of the past. They're a terrific invention. We even get a suggestion of their architecture, not from the usual two-corridors-and-a-square, but on two different scales, from getting to see a whole city from the air and from hearing small but significant details like Gedrin having a garden overlooking the space Voyager is now sitting in. Those are unusual details to get, and are very much appreciated. The Turei are a little less fleshed out, necessarily, but we spend just enough time with them to get an impression of their culture, achieved with just a few lines and a few references from Gedrin. And I think I'm going to have to stop pointing out when an episode does a good job of setting up a proper society and environment which goes way beyond Voyager's arrival and makes the Delta Quadrant feel alive, because that just seems to be the default now. I've pointed it over the last few episodes and it continues to be true here – the sense of history between the Vaadwaur and the Terei feels real, there's the surprising fact that Gedrin recognizes Neelix's species but gets the name slightly wrong because of how long he's been in stasis... these seem like small things but they add up to so much, and given "Dragon's Teeth" a real sense of place and time.
In fact "Dragon's Teeth" does nothing wrong at all, and everything right. It's a firm, bracing return to the action-adventure aesthetic after a few episodes where that's very much not been the case, but it also takes enough time to lay out it's culture and thesis without feeling the need to rush into it. It's confident and bold, and smart enough to assume the audience can keep up (yes, even with the flood of bafflegab). It feels like the show has founds its feet and its own voice again, after having struggled to do so up to this point in the season, and in doing so also produces one of the best episodes of this season. Throw in some excellent design and production work and there's just nothing to find fault with here. I love "Dragon's Teeth" - always have, always will.
Any Other Business:
• Great opening few seconds with bolts raining down out of the sky and smashing into already-ruined buildings.
• Gedrin really is a great character, ably played Jeff Allin. Smart, intelligent, likeable but someone with an edge... his moment when he admits to Janeway that "both versions of our history are correct" is fantastic, because he's honest, and "not all my people are stuck in the past" later in the episode allows him some real strength of character and courage. Terrific.
• This is another episode which understands what narrative function Naomi plays and how to use her. Her dislike of the Vaadwaur children is disquieting to Neelix, who is then inspired to do some research, then takes that research to Seven, which then brings the truth of the Vaadwaur to light. It's a great escalation of events from a single, small incident, and some really solid writing.
• Chakotay gets to name another episode, trotting out another myth, this time Greek.
• The whole episode is framed round Seven's desire to help reconstruct a society after having spent so long as a drone destroying and assimilating them. These scenes only really top and tail the episode as a whole, yet as ever Ryan brings her A-game, and its terrific in selling Seven's guilt (and her impulsiveness when exploring the caves).
• Though they're referenced later in the series (in Season Seven's "The Void"), we don't get to encounter the Vaadwaur again, despite Janeway's ominous warning in the final scene that she doesn't think they've seen the last of them. Guess she can't be right all the time... On the one hand it's a shame that such a great race isn't seen again, but on the other it does make "Dragon's Teeth" entirely self-contained, which is perfectly fine.
• Though special effects aren't something I normally mention, special praise is definitely deserved and earned here, with some lovely shots of Voyager landing and taking off under fire, collapsing buildings, pitched space battles between dozens of ships... terrific work all round.
• This episode never feels like just forty-five minutes when watching it because there's just so much material packed in here. That's partly a consequence of the fact that it was originally going to be a two-parter but then got cut back to a single episode and, not for the first time, that narrative shortening makes everything feel very propulsive, even though there's plenty of time given over to slower, character-based moments.
This week, on "Come Dine With Me"...
Eh. "Riddles" makes a stab and finding something interesting to say about Tuvok and Neelix, but it's haunted literally by "Tuvix" and metaphorically by its inability to commit to much of anything. A two-hander between Tuvok and Neelix is fine – they work well in that The Odd Couple way, and the script wrings a few meagre laughs from this. And exploring the reactions of each character to the other through trauma isn't necessarily a bad way of doing it. But, even if we ignore the fact that much of this has been done before, we're still left with a story which says, "Tuvok and Neelix like each other, really." That's fine as a statement, probably, but it's something we're already quite well aware of. Neelix wants to earn Tuvok's respect – we've seen this in everything from "Year Of Hell" to, um, "Rise". And Tuvok is respectful enough of Neelix's abilities ("Rise" again), even when not necessarily showing it. So what does this episode add to the mix that expands or deepens our understanding of this?
Not a thing. Because that's the real problem here. This is an episode that's just stating a bunch of stuff we basically already know as if it were somehow revelatory or new material, and it just isn't. Even if you're a casual fan of the series (and the likelihood is if you're reading through these reviews you probably aren't), the chances are that everything you already know about these two character is basically just confirmed. Neelix is a bit annoying at times but he's got real heart to him, and he genuinely cares. Tuvok is a bit of a tight-arse but under it all he still values friendship. I wouldn't go so far as to say, "so what?" But, y'know. We know. We get it. The script sees to be pretty convinced that it can rely on the performances of Phillips and Russ to get away with peddling this overly-familiar approach, but it can't quite get away with that, and unusually the weak like here is Russ, who's a bit variable. His performance as Tuvok before the attack is fine, and he's great at the silent Tuvok before he's able to speak again, but once it is back he's all over the shop, apparently aiming for vulnerable but more often than not landing on hesitant. And it's not even as if hesitant is a bad way to play what happens to Tuvok, but the problem is it looks like he's ended up doing that while trying for something else, and thus it doesn’t convince. Phillips, on the other hand, is generally better than average, and gets a few really terrific moments (desperately searching for something he can to do help Tuvok, or admitting he wouldn't be a very good friend If he gave Tuvok bad advise just so Tuvok would be a bit nicer to him). He's annoying in the first scene on the Detla Flyer but at least this time he's meant to be.
The idea that this episode is based round riddles doesn't really come off either. Ignoring the bad joke of the ensign surviving with just a calendar (he eats the dates!) there isn't really a riddle here at all, just a mystery that needs to be solved. That's OK, I suppose, but at least in something like "Think Tank" the crew really had to think. In "Riddles" they don't really solve any riddles, they just find out what's going on, same as they do every week. There's some gestures towards thematic resonance, during the scene when Seven and Neelix chat away in a darkened mess hall - another great scene for Phillips, by the way, who's really good at just barely keeps Neelix's frustrations in check - and Neelix asks, "when is a Vulcan not a Vulcan?". This works to an extent, with Seven providing a surprising insight into the nature of the problem, also a good use of her. But it's still not a riddle. Neither is tracking down the aliens, working out what they're up to (which inventively is nothing...), or finding a cure for Tuvok. They're problems, certainly, but a problem is an inquiry into something that requires investigation, or something that needs to be demonstrated, whereas a riddle is something specifically posed to require a degree of ingenuity or lateral thinking to solve. There's not, sadly, a lot of ingenuity on display here. Even this week's resident rent-a-Fox Mulder, Naroq, who tells us he's been investigating the mysterious, mostly-mythical Ba'neth, isn't solving a riddle, he's just investigating. That's fine as well, that's his role (and indeed his rank, it seems), but though he's quite likeable in his self-described eccentric ways, and though it is again good to have someone who's just what they are, he also doesn't register much because he doesn’t have a vast amount of screen time and the episode isn't really about him.
And indeed, "doesn't register much" is as a good a definition of "Riddles" as I think I'm going to find. Poor Ethan Phillips really gets the short end of the stick when it comes to Neelix episodes, doesn't he? Because I really would like to emphasize that he's good here, because he is. But he's stuck delivering good work in a nondescript runaround, and it's both unfortunate and terribly unfair. This is a slight episode that ought to be stuck somewhere near the end of a season, marking time till we get to something with a bit of character work or explosions. Stuck in between the action-adventure of next week's "Dragon's Teeth" and the better-done character work of last week's "Alice" (in itself hardly a lost classic) this barely even seems to exist. I literally watched it half an hour before writing this, free of distractions (unless you could some candles and a glass of red wine as distractions) and yet I'm really having a hard time thinking of what else to discuss (and no, that's not the fault of the red wine). I guess I can mention that this is Roxann Dawson's first time in the director's chair, and she acquits herself well, given that everything here takes places on the standard sets of either Voyager or the Delta Flyer. She has a few show-off moments (Tuvok lying flat-out on the floor just before the credits, the zooming, rotating camera that closes in on Tuvok as he awaits his treatment) but mostly she turns in good work which gives the actors enough space to breathe, though only Phillips really takes advantage of this. It must feel a bit unlucky to get stuck with such a mediocre scrips first time out but she does what she can with it. Honestly, Kubric couldn’t have made this shine.
And that's it, yet somehow I still have another two hundred and fifty words to cover. Oh hey, you know, we're six seasons in and I've never really talked about Voyager's title sequence, so let's do that. It's terrific isn't it? With one exception – the asteroid, because as with DS9 it seems Star Trek can't do asteroids well in title sequences – it's really great, and Voyager is the only version of modern Trek not to chance its title sequence once in the whole run of the series, which seems like a vote of confidence in it. Even now the CGI looks great, and it all lines up with that most magnificent of theme tunes – I especially love the big cymbal crash as the sunlight flares behind the ship near the end, but it's all incredibly well done. Each modern Star Trek title sequence presages the show it represents, so TNG reflects its roots in TOS by maintaining the "space, the final frontier" voiceover and the Enterprise warping towards the camera, DS9 is stately and thoughtful just as the show is, and Voyager is seen zipping through various different locations in space, just as the show does. It all lines up really wonderfully (and for the record, Voyager is my favourite theme of all the modern Trek TV series' – thus far). Apparently it was mildly controversial at one point that Voyager's shadow can be seen reflected in the (presumably ice?) rings of the planet it passes through around the "Jeri Ryan as Seven Of Nine" point, because that's not what would really happen were a starship to actually fly past a ringed planet. Really, some people have no poetry in their soul, and speaking of no poetry, I've now hit the word count for "Alice", so let's come to a grateful stop. I hope I never have to really think about "Riddles" again, and given how little I remember of it after having just watched it, I can't see that being much of a problem.
Any Other Business:
• Completely and utterly rote. My first attempt to write a review of this episode consisted simply of the first two letters of this review, but I felt I should make an effort to do a bit more, and effort it was indeed.
• But, yes, praise to Phillips, again lost in a sea of mediocrity.
• It's so unusual to see Tim Russ as anything other than great, but the middle section sags here precisely because he has difficulty finding a tone and then actually delivering on it. He's not embarrassing to watch, but the performance never coheres into anything.
• It's a nice, but unremarked-upon, touch that Tuvok is a really good cook when he actually puts his mind to it, which feels like a nod to the events of "Tuvix", even though they're not explicitly referenced. Indeed it's probably for the best that "Tuvix" isn't referenced directly, because it's a much better episode than this.
• Welcome to the director's chair, Roxann Dawson! Like Phillips, she does what she can with very uninspiring material, and manages to make some of it actually engaging, which is a lot more than the script does.
• The final scene before Tuvok goes for his treatment acts as an explicit rejoinder to the scene in "Tuvix" where Janeway "murders" Tuvix to get Tuvok and Neelix back, with Neelix finding a way to reach Tuvok with the power of an argument, and some real emotional honesty. It's the best scene in the episode by an absolute mile, Phillips completely nails it, and finally Tim Russ finds his feet as well. The episode is just about worth it for that scene alone. Just about.
• The very final scene is sweet (ha) as well, as Tuvok finally allows a glimpse of friendship to show through his now-restored Vulcan exterior by adding to Neelix's riddle.
Season Six, Episode 7 - "Dragon's Teeth"
No sign of a Dragon's Dentist, then
Now that's more like it! I love "Dragon's Teeth". Always have, always will.
But here's the thing. There's been an elephant in the room over the last six seasons and it's one that I've brushed up against from time to time, but largely steered clear of. So it's time to grab the elephant by the trunk, as it were, and deal with bafflegab, because although I do love "Dragon's Teeth" very, very much, if you want to point to an example of an episode that ends with a flood of gibberish (which is something Voyager has a reputation for), then this is definitely the episode to pick. Let's lay this out explicitly so we can see what we're really talking about - Janeway needs a way to get Voyager back into orbit, and to do this she needs to undertake a risky manoeuvre:
Janeway: "Harry, the radiogenic particles in the atmosphere, can we use them as a power source?"
Harry: "We'd need to modify the warp core's conversion matrix, it could take hours."
Janeway: "What if we draw the particles directly into our plasma manifold?"
Paris: "That would give us one hell of a boost."
Harry: "It could also blow out every power relay on the ship."
Janeway: "Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Open the forward nacelles and reverse the pressure gradient. Take in 600 kilogrammes."
And thus it continues until impulse is back on line and they can clear the planet. It's kind of ridiculous isn't it? But, you know, as I said Voyager has a reputation for being bafflegab heavy, and though there have been a few examples along the way, that hasn't really proven to be the case. Or, more accurately, it hasn't proven to be any more so than TNG or DS9, both of which also have their moments of lapsing in to bafflegab (indeed, TNG is probably the most guilty of this, since almost all of the post-TOS bafflegab – ODN conduits, nadion particles etc etc – are established during TNG's run, which is logical as it's the first series out of the gate). There are questions here though – what is the purpose of bafflegab, how does it function, and how can it be made to work?
The first question is relatively straightforward. Bafflegab, or technobabble if you prefer (and I don't), exists to sounds like "the future", which is to say, it's lots of technical sounding stuff that exists to try and make your story, situation or technology look suitably advanced and sophisticated – it's technical by its nature, obviously, and usually descriptive of a specific object or concept. The second part is relatively straightforward as well. Bafflegab functions within an episode but only within an episode - free of context, it doesn't mean anything so it requires context to make it function (in this sense bafflegab can never been post-modern, because post-modernism requires removing something from its original context, placing it in a new one and still expecting it to function). You can't walk up to someone in the street and ask them what a plasma manifold or a Heisenberg Compensator is, because it's a made-up bit of a starship, and if you don't know it comes from Star Trek then you're never going to be able to work it out. Two down, one to go. The final question – how can it be made to work – well, that's the tough one, because there are really two ways bafflegab can be used, either in support of the story being told, or instead of the story being told. What I mean by that is when bafflegab supports the story being told it does so by enhancing the action with an idea or concept which works technically with what the script is describing. And when it doesn't its used as a way to get Our Heroes out of a difficult situation by throwing a bunch of crap in and hoping its convincing enough to get us to the end credits.
And though it looks ridiculous on paper (screen, eInk, however you're consuming this) that chunk of script I quoted up top actually works in the second way. Mulgrew, Wang and McNeill rattle it out at some speed, which is appropriate because it's a big, tense moment, but in fact most of it is easy to understand, and crucially, the radiogenic particles that are being discussed have been repeatedly mentioned throughout the episode and are referred to as being highly charged. This isn't some convenient deus-ex-machina thrown in at the end when the odds are stacked just too highly, this is something which has been layered throughout the episode in a considered way, so when the crew need to use them to escape it actually makes sense given what we've been told. We have Tom on hand to give us a little explanation just to clarify, then the explanation of what needs to be done to achieve this. Yes, reverse the pressure gradient sounds a bit silly but we're given all the information we need to work out what's going on, without it just being an excuse because the writer has painted themselves into a corner. Voyager's struggles to get back into orbit add extra tension at a crucial point in the story, and their desperate plan is laid out in a way that means we understand both what's got to be done and why. It is, in other words, supporting the story, which is as it should be. Perhaps that speech isn't so ridiculous after all.
Normally when I veer off at a tangent like that it's because there's not a lot else going on in the episode, but that's absolutely not the case here. That bafflegab scene is just thirty or so seconds near the end of the episode, and there's just so much more here to enjoy. For one, the Vaadwaur are an excellent creation – a culture sketched out in all the right ways, with implications supported by small details, and a culture that manages to suggest aggressiveness without being just another clichéd warrior race and, most significantly, with a sympathetic protagonist who's actually smart enough to adapt to changing circumstances rather than repeating the mistakes of the past. They're a terrific invention. We even get a suggestion of their architecture, not from the usual two-corridors-and-a-square, but on two different scales, from getting to see a whole city from the air and from hearing small but significant details like Gedrin having a garden overlooking the space Voyager is now sitting in. Those are unusual details to get, and are very much appreciated. The Turei are a little less fleshed out, necessarily, but we spend just enough time with them to get an impression of their culture, achieved with just a few lines and a few references from Gedrin. And I think I'm going to have to stop pointing out when an episode does a good job of setting up a proper society and environment which goes way beyond Voyager's arrival and makes the Delta Quadrant feel alive, because that just seems to be the default now. I've pointed it over the last few episodes and it continues to be true here – the sense of history between the Vaadwaur and the Terei feels real, there's the surprising fact that Gedrin recognizes Neelix's species but gets the name slightly wrong because of how long he's been in stasis... these seem like small things but they add up to so much, and given "Dragon's Teeth" a real sense of place and time.
In fact "Dragon's Teeth" does nothing wrong at all, and everything right. It's a firm, bracing return to the action-adventure aesthetic after a few episodes where that's very much not been the case, but it also takes enough time to lay out it's culture and thesis without feeling the need to rush into it. It's confident and bold, and smart enough to assume the audience can keep up (yes, even with the flood of bafflegab). It feels like the show has founds its feet and its own voice again, after having struggled to do so up to this point in the season, and in doing so also produces one of the best episodes of this season. Throw in some excellent design and production work and there's just nothing to find fault with here. I love "Dragon's Teeth" - always have, always will.
Any Other Business:
• Great opening few seconds with bolts raining down out of the sky and smashing into already-ruined buildings.
• Gedrin really is a great character, ably played Jeff Allin. Smart, intelligent, likeable but someone with an edge... his moment when he admits to Janeway that "both versions of our history are correct" is fantastic, because he's honest, and "not all my people are stuck in the past" later in the episode allows him some real strength of character and courage. Terrific.
• This is another episode which understands what narrative function Naomi plays and how to use her. Her dislike of the Vaadwaur children is disquieting to Neelix, who is then inspired to do some research, then takes that research to Seven, which then brings the truth of the Vaadwaur to light. It's a great escalation of events from a single, small incident, and some really solid writing.
• Chakotay gets to name another episode, trotting out another myth, this time Greek.
• The whole episode is framed round Seven's desire to help reconstruct a society after having spent so long as a drone destroying and assimilating them. These scenes only really top and tail the episode as a whole, yet as ever Ryan brings her A-game, and its terrific in selling Seven's guilt (and her impulsiveness when exploring the caves).
• Though they're referenced later in the series (in Season Seven's "The Void"), we don't get to encounter the Vaadwaur again, despite Janeway's ominous warning in the final scene that she doesn't think they've seen the last of them. Guess she can't be right all the time... On the one hand it's a shame that such a great race isn't seen again, but on the other it does make "Dragon's Teeth" entirely self-contained, which is perfectly fine.
• Though special effects aren't something I normally mention, special praise is definitely deserved and earned here, with some lovely shots of Voyager landing and taking off under fire, collapsing buildings, pitched space battles between dozens of ships... terrific work all round.
• This episode never feels like just forty-five minutes when watching it because there's just so much material packed in here. That's partly a consequence of the fact that it was originally going to be a two-parter but then got cut back to a single episode and, not for the first time, that narrative shortening makes everything feel very propulsive, even though there's plenty of time given over to slower, character-based moments.
