Season 6 Ep 24 / 25 "Life Line" / "The Haunting Of Desk 12"
May 26, 2016 12:33:01 GMT -5
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Post by Prole Hole on May 26, 2016 12:33:01 GMT -5
Season Six, Episode 24 - "Life Line"
Doctoring The Truth
Again with the doubling. Again with Robert Picardo getting to play opposite himself. Again with Reg and Troi. "Life Line" is a perfectly competent stab at something we already know both Star Trek and Voyager can do at this stage. Do we need to do it all over again? Apparently we do, because here we are, frittering away another episode before we get to the big End Of Season Two-Parter.
You may have noticed, over the last few reviews, that finding redemptive angles on some of these episodes is becoming tougher, and indeed had you noticed that you would be correct. It's not necessarily because these episode, "Spirit Folk" aside, are irredeemable, but there's a certain samey-ness that feeds into them. They aren't episodes that necessarily need to be redeemed because there's nothing especially bad about them, but equally there's not a lot to say that can't be summed up with a, "well that was perfectly fine" then move on. And that's what "Life Line" is. Perfectly fine. But there's hints of self-indulgence that are starting to creep in here, and it's not to the benefit of the show. This is again a chance to give Robert Picardo the opportunity to show off his stuff, and OK he can do the Doctor being a fish out of water pretty much in his sleep by now. And of course there's Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of the Doctor, who's both the same and different. So Robert Picardo gets to strap on a bit of grey wig and shout about a few sets on Jupiter Station, and that's fine as well. But there's way too much material to squeeze into a single episode here, and as a result everything feels rushed and incomplete. Just the Doctor facing his creator and getting to the heart of why he has such a hard time accepting the EMH Mark I would be more than enough, but on top of that we have the mechanics of beaming the Doctor halfway across the galaxy, we have Reg, we have Deanna, we have the holo-assistant, we have the terminal disease... There isn't nearly enough time to address all of this, and as a result not enough time is spent on any single issue to snap the episode into the kind of focus this sort of scripting needs. None of what we have is bad, but it is achingly incomplete. If any episode this season was crying out to be expanded into a two-parter it's this one.
Because a lot of the material here is fairly compelling. Zimmerman's terminal disease is a bit obvious maybe, but the idea that he simply can't face accepting a cure from something which used to be such a symbol of pride but is now his ultimate source of humiliation is a compelling psychological angle to give the character. The only glimpse in Voyager that we've had of Zimmerman was a holo-reproduction which we met in "Projections" back at the start of Season Two, and what we get here is broadly in line with that – temperamental, self-centred, and somewhat childish, but nevertheless brilliant. This approach to the character makes it easy to believe he would be so stubborn as to actively undermine the one person who has a shot at saving his life, and his final breakdown and admission to the Doctor as to just why he couldn't say yes earlier is easily Zimmerman's best moment in the episode (and Picardo's, for that matter). But one killer scene doesn't quite manage to make up for the time we take to get there, and a lot of the rest of Zimmerman's time on-screen makes him seem petulant to the point where it becomes genuinely difficult to care whether he lives or dies, and that's obviously something of a flaw in an episode which expects you to understand his plight. Some of his antics are mildly amusing, but Picardo doesn't quite nail the performance of Zimmerman and so it oftentimes looks like he's shouting his lines just to differentiate the performance from the Doctor rather than because Zimmerman is a distinct character in his own right. This also feels like missed opportunity, because we've been repeatedly told how far the Doctor has come in his development and here we have the perfect chance to show that and contrast him with his creator, but that never really happens. It certainly would have been a more fruitful way to spend our time than Seven choosing which bits of the Doctor's program to leave behind so Jeri Ryan gets a few extra lines this week. By failing to land Zimmerman until The Big Scene it just leaves too much work to be done to get us to engage with the character. It's good that he does land in that scene, it's just too little, too late.
And what of Reg and Troi? Yes, what of them? They're... certainly in this episode. Reg works better here than he did during "Pathfinder", at least in part because he has a much smaller role, and giving him "do this, go there" material means we don't get bogged down in unnecessary detail or character work that the episode doesn't have time to support. His relationship with the Doctor works rather well, and Dwight Schultz and Robert Picardo have a certain natural rhythm together than lends credence to a swiftly-developing friendship (and Schultz is playing a little more level than he did in "Pathfinder" as well, which helps). By keeping him as a bit-part player, he's able to fulfil his plot function, and that's fine, that works for him. As for Troi... Well, this episode makes a real, sincere and genuine attempt to engage her in her actual profession, it gives her some proper counselling to do and it marks are very, very rare attempt to use the character for the function she was originally designed (which, contrary to popular belief, isn't just saying "he's definitely hiding something, Captain" to Picard on the bridge). The episode blows this spectacularly, but it does try. Because there's no spare time to really interrogate the idea of what Troi does professionally, we get a couple of "counselling sessions" which seems about as basic as it's possible to get, one of which Troi flounces out of in a huff. It's not the fault of Marina Sirtis, who as ever gamely gets stuck into material that, hardly for the first time, fails to use her character in a way that actually allows her to function, and she is (as always at this point) a charming, wonderful presence to have on-screen. But the character is marginalized, in the end has nothing to do with the breakthrough Zimmerman and the Doctor reach, and is left as just another example of too many ideas without enough space for their execution.
But I always say I prefer episodes with too many ideas than not enough, and that's definitely true of "Life Line". If it's not a spectacular episode (and it's not), then it's absolutely not an abject failure either. There may be too many ideas, but at least they're all up there on the screen. We might not spend enough time exploring them, but at least they're left open for further development down the line, should we again return to the Alpha Quadrant. And, and this is the critical bit, none of them are bad ideas. Everything the episode tries to do actually seems like a worthwhile thing to do, and if it doesn't stick the landing on all of those it certainly shouldn't be judged harshly for trying. The flaws are apparent, and yes this season probably didn't need another Picardo-centric story, but the time spent here is certainly justifiable. And a few of the little details are nicely handled – the holographic iguana and fly are small details the episode didn’t have to throw in, but they add a little shading to the character of Zimmerman without belabouring the point, and Haley, the holo-assistant achieves the same thing. Troi gets her chocolate ice-cream again, which is a bit obvious at this stage, but at least the details are being observed (it helps that it comes from Haley, rather than Reg, a nice touch). That helps the episode add up to a bit more, and certainly stops it becoming to rote or clunky. So yes. "Life Line" is fine, and if you're in the mood for Robert Picardo getting a bit self-indulgent, then you could do worse.
Any Other Business:
• This is the only episode in the entirety of Voyager to have a writing credit from a member of the cast, this having been co-written by Robert Picardo. You can kind of tell....
• This is also the only episode in the entirety of Star Trek to show a bit of the Enterprise-E, which amounts to a door behind the first shot of Deanna when Reg calls her. Startling, eh?
• One definite criticism of this episode is it takes far too long to actually send the Doctor to the Alpha Quadrant already. We don't get to Jupiter Station until the 11 minute mark, and the Doctor doesn't get his first line there until fourteen minutes in. That's basically a third of the episode!
• Yet another reference to the Viidians in this season...
• An absolutely phenomenal, tiny, but significant detail (that you can see in the picture at the top of this review) is that the Doctor is, in absolutely every scene, fractionally taller than Zimmerman, suggesting that Zimmerman's ego allowed him to just slightly improve his holo-representation. That's a brilliant little detail to throw in, and it's completely unremarked upon, so kudos to whoever came up with that idea.
• Nice (and non gratuitous) nod to "Message In A Bottle", which establishes the fact that the Doctor can be successfully sent across the galaxy, thus making the possibility here seem much less like a plot contrivance than it otherwise might.
• The scene where the Doctor persuades Janeway to send him to the Alpha Quadrant is one of the few instances of a scene of that nature being written correctly, whereby Janeway is openminded enough to listen to compelling arguments from someone else, and the arguments from that someone else actually are compelling, so credit for that at the very least.
• Another "only episode" - though it's been mentioned a few times, this is the only episode of Star Trek that actually visits Jupiter Station. Other than the establishing shot, it looks like every other building in Starfleet. Surprise!
• I said the only time Picardo nails Zimmerman is in The Big Confrontation, but that's not quite true. The scene of him dictating his will is very well handled as well – Picardo's good at melancholy and regret, and it makes a pleasing change from the usual comedy of the Doctor or the bellowing of Zimmerman. The episode could have stood to have a lot more moments like that, instead of all that set-chewing.
• There's a tentative feeling throughout this episode that the initial, gossamer thread of communication that was set up in "Pathfinder" is getting stronger here, and that contact with, and eventual return, to the Alpha Quadrant is very being very, very gradually layered into the season. This is extremely welcome, and really excellently handled throughout the remainder of the show.
• The final scene, where Zimmerman asks the Doctor to write is kind of sweet as well, both allowed to keep their guard up, but also acknowledge the change that's happened. That's handled well to.
Season Six, Episode 25 - "The Haunting Of Deck 12"
All Whacked Out On Scooby Snacks
Right, hands up everyone who thought an episode which amounts to "Neelix narrates a ghost story to the Borg kiddywinks" would suck? And hands up everyone who's surprised that it didn't? You can assume my hand is in the air at this point, because I had virtually no memory of this episode, and the idea that this would turn out better than crap simply didn't seem very likely.
But surprisingly it is better than crap. Substantially better, in fact. But let's do a little bit of comparison. Of the final standalone episodes, Season Three ended with the terrifically good fun "Worst Case Scenario". Season Four ended with the mature character study "One". Season Five had the quirky "Warhead". And Season Six has this. You certainly couldn't accuse the show of sticking to a specific formula when it comes to closing out its seasons. There's some attempts to play around with the narrative geomoetry of the episode, which has three distinct sections – the present, the present as narrated by Neelix, and the past, when most of the episode occurs. It's not a spectacular device, but it shakes things up a bit, and after a succession of episodes which have been narratively linear, that helps to keep things fresh. Indeed the framing device of the ghost story as told by Neelix serves this episode surprisingly well, though rather more from Neelix's side than from the Borg children, because again he's lit correctly (mostly in darkness, and from below) and becomes rather less of the reassuring presence we're used to, which seems appropriate for a ghost story. This extends to the way he's shot in the past as well, and since we see a return of his agoraphobia and an undermining of his usual safe places (the mess hall, the bridge) this too feels appropriate. His terror is just so much more convincing when he looks the part. Again, nothing necessarily revelatory here, but it just makes it possible to take the whole thing that much more seriously. There's a lot of nods to the past that help to re-enforce this, actually – quite apart from Neelix's terror, we also get a bit of the Neelix-and-Tuvok Show (nicely effective for the brief time we get it), he gets short of breath quickly (logical for someone with one lung)… just little details that all add up to something a bit more. This is broadly an ensemble piece, even if Neelix takes a lot of the focus, but the details are right and the character beats are right, and that makes the whole enterprise credible.
But we couldn't talk about this episode without talking about the direction, because David Livingston works absolute wonders with a script that gives him a bottle show to work with, a couple of outside effects and absolutely nothing else. In fact Livingston, over the course of Voyager, directs a mammoth twenty-eight episodes, and the skill and experience that this has given him is shown off in every way here. Indeed, this episode is an excellent example of how a good director can really give material a lift from OK to excellent, because, though there's nothing bad on paper here, what he does with it elevates far, far beyond what could be a fairly stagey, cut-here-then-here production. There's certain things even he can't work round – every single act ends in the same way, with a "dramatic" zoom to one of the Borg children, which is a pity – but the tension he's able to wring out of a few corridors, the bridge and Engineering is properly remarkable and something that deserves real credit. In fact the episode becomes compelling almost in spite of itself, and having everything lit either by hand torches or flashing red alert panels gives everything a claustrophobic, unsettling appearance which really gets every ounce of fear out of the script. Seven getting nebula-gassed is given a certain amount of dramatic weight, but when the same thing happens to Janeway later on in an escalation of events it becomes genuinely frightening, even though we know she much survive. Mulgrew is great here, rasping, choking and gagging as the entity tries to kill her, but never backing down, and again, just lit by the unrelenting, grim red alert lights makes it all the more dramatic. That's a pretty difficult thing to achieve, so all credit where its due.
Equally everyone on the regular cast seems to be awake and giving their best here, which ratchets things up a notch as well. This is the second-last episode of the season so it would be understandable if everyone was burned out but that's not at all what happens here. Even Harry's great, mature in a crisis, taking command when he needs to, calming down Tal Celes when she starts over-reacting... and of course it's great to actually have her in another episode, following on from "Good Shepherd" and making her appearance in that episode more than just a one-shot. It's not something either this episode or the show really needed to do, but it's nice that they just take the time to do it, another little link in the Voyager chain. And she's good too! She's got a refreshingly easy rapport with Harry and, praise Rassilon, he doesn't try hitting on her but instead actually acts the way a bridge officer should. Such a little thing makes such a big difference. The rest of the regulars are fine are good as well – other than Mulgrew, nobody really gets a big role, but they all fit in well and they're all delivering urgent performances which help up the drama of what's going on. There's also a nice little through-line about taking responsibility for ones actions – Voyager inadvertently caused the destruction of the creature's natural habitat so takes responsibility for finding a new one; Neelix takes responsibility for saving Tuvok in the Jeffries Tube after insisting he come along; he also takes responsibility for telling the story to the Borg children but letting them believe it's not real so they're not frightened, and so forth. It's not something that's overtly drawn attention to, and we're spared a Big Speech about responsibility, but it adds connective tissue to the various disparate parts of the episode. Even the creature accepts responsibility for its own actions and allows Janeway and the crew to live.
It's not perfect, of course. The cuts back to the cargo bay every time there's an end of act approaching, as I mentioned earlier, are deeply unfortunate, especially because they're not necessary. We get it, the story is being narrated, nobody's going to forget that over the length of a commercial break (this looks even sillier when watched without commercials, of course). Phillips is good at delivering Neelix's fear and resolve, but there's just a couple too many scenes of him basically sitting in the cargo bay reading the script at the Borg kids. The Borg kids themselves are... present, but nothing more, and Icheb looks far too old at this point to be buying any of this. The younger kids are a bit better, partly because they're, well, younger, but Marly McClean deserves a bit of praise for turning in a very credible performance as youngster who just wants to hear the damned story and not get interrupted every five minutes (something I wholeheartedly sympathise with during this episode). It's also a bit obvious the script is struggling to accommodate all the characters, with B'Elanna and Tom getting especially short shrift (though Tom's electrocution at the helm is pretty well handled). I suppose one could complain about the comparatively vague nature of This Week's Threat, although I'm not going to because this is, after all, a ghost story and those so very rarely work when coupled with rational explanations, and we do find out enough for the episode to actually make sense. So yes, all in all this ended up being something of a pleasant surprise. I was expecting something at best mediocre and more likely poor, but what we've ended up with is really rather good. It's no better than good, but it's distinctive, it makes sense, it's going enough individuality to mark it out from the episodes that surround it, and overall it was pretty enjoyable. As a final episode of a season it does enough to hold interest over to the big two-parter we all know comes next, and that's going to be a whole different thing. Next week I'll do the Season Six wrap-up and then on to "Unimatrix Zero". Until then... best leave the lights on.
Any Other Business:
• The sets here really are fantastically well utilized, and once again all the praise to David Livingston for doing so much good work here.
• It takes just a little too long to get on with the story and stop mucking about with the set-up but it's not too damaging and once things get underway it's fine.
• "We are not faint of heart." "Our cardiopulmonary systems are re-enforced". Ha!
• As I mentioned in the review, it's lovely to have Tal Celes back.
• The narrative conceit of having the entity communicate through the stock phrases the computer uses works sparingly well. It really does make it seem like it's the ship that's out to get them.
• Handily, Neelix's happy memory appears to have occurred after "The Gift", thus sparing the need to explain why Kes isn't present.
• Janeway gasping out, "I wont be your prisoner, you'll have to kill me!" followed by the ship calmly announcing, "Acknowledged" is genuinely creepy as it then proceeds to do just that.
• And then the creature finds a new home. Awww.
Doctoring The Truth
Again with the doubling. Again with Robert Picardo getting to play opposite himself. Again with Reg and Troi. "Life Line" is a perfectly competent stab at something we already know both Star Trek and Voyager can do at this stage. Do we need to do it all over again? Apparently we do, because here we are, frittering away another episode before we get to the big End Of Season Two-Parter.
You may have noticed, over the last few reviews, that finding redemptive angles on some of these episodes is becoming tougher, and indeed had you noticed that you would be correct. It's not necessarily because these episode, "Spirit Folk" aside, are irredeemable, but there's a certain samey-ness that feeds into them. They aren't episodes that necessarily need to be redeemed because there's nothing especially bad about them, but equally there's not a lot to say that can't be summed up with a, "well that was perfectly fine" then move on. And that's what "Life Line" is. Perfectly fine. But there's hints of self-indulgence that are starting to creep in here, and it's not to the benefit of the show. This is again a chance to give Robert Picardo the opportunity to show off his stuff, and OK he can do the Doctor being a fish out of water pretty much in his sleep by now. And of course there's Lewis Zimmerman, the creator of the Doctor, who's both the same and different. So Robert Picardo gets to strap on a bit of grey wig and shout about a few sets on Jupiter Station, and that's fine as well. But there's way too much material to squeeze into a single episode here, and as a result everything feels rushed and incomplete. Just the Doctor facing his creator and getting to the heart of why he has such a hard time accepting the EMH Mark I would be more than enough, but on top of that we have the mechanics of beaming the Doctor halfway across the galaxy, we have Reg, we have Deanna, we have the holo-assistant, we have the terminal disease... There isn't nearly enough time to address all of this, and as a result not enough time is spent on any single issue to snap the episode into the kind of focus this sort of scripting needs. None of what we have is bad, but it is achingly incomplete. If any episode this season was crying out to be expanded into a two-parter it's this one.
Because a lot of the material here is fairly compelling. Zimmerman's terminal disease is a bit obvious maybe, but the idea that he simply can't face accepting a cure from something which used to be such a symbol of pride but is now his ultimate source of humiliation is a compelling psychological angle to give the character. The only glimpse in Voyager that we've had of Zimmerman was a holo-reproduction which we met in "Projections" back at the start of Season Two, and what we get here is broadly in line with that – temperamental, self-centred, and somewhat childish, but nevertheless brilliant. This approach to the character makes it easy to believe he would be so stubborn as to actively undermine the one person who has a shot at saving his life, and his final breakdown and admission to the Doctor as to just why he couldn't say yes earlier is easily Zimmerman's best moment in the episode (and Picardo's, for that matter). But one killer scene doesn't quite manage to make up for the time we take to get there, and a lot of the rest of Zimmerman's time on-screen makes him seem petulant to the point where it becomes genuinely difficult to care whether he lives or dies, and that's obviously something of a flaw in an episode which expects you to understand his plight. Some of his antics are mildly amusing, but Picardo doesn't quite nail the performance of Zimmerman and so it oftentimes looks like he's shouting his lines just to differentiate the performance from the Doctor rather than because Zimmerman is a distinct character in his own right. This also feels like missed opportunity, because we've been repeatedly told how far the Doctor has come in his development and here we have the perfect chance to show that and contrast him with his creator, but that never really happens. It certainly would have been a more fruitful way to spend our time than Seven choosing which bits of the Doctor's program to leave behind so Jeri Ryan gets a few extra lines this week. By failing to land Zimmerman until The Big Scene it just leaves too much work to be done to get us to engage with the character. It's good that he does land in that scene, it's just too little, too late.
And what of Reg and Troi? Yes, what of them? They're... certainly in this episode. Reg works better here than he did during "Pathfinder", at least in part because he has a much smaller role, and giving him "do this, go there" material means we don't get bogged down in unnecessary detail or character work that the episode doesn't have time to support. His relationship with the Doctor works rather well, and Dwight Schultz and Robert Picardo have a certain natural rhythm together than lends credence to a swiftly-developing friendship (and Schultz is playing a little more level than he did in "Pathfinder" as well, which helps). By keeping him as a bit-part player, he's able to fulfil his plot function, and that's fine, that works for him. As for Troi... Well, this episode makes a real, sincere and genuine attempt to engage her in her actual profession, it gives her some proper counselling to do and it marks are very, very rare attempt to use the character for the function she was originally designed (which, contrary to popular belief, isn't just saying "he's definitely hiding something, Captain" to Picard on the bridge). The episode blows this spectacularly, but it does try. Because there's no spare time to really interrogate the idea of what Troi does professionally, we get a couple of "counselling sessions" which seems about as basic as it's possible to get, one of which Troi flounces out of in a huff. It's not the fault of Marina Sirtis, who as ever gamely gets stuck into material that, hardly for the first time, fails to use her character in a way that actually allows her to function, and she is (as always at this point) a charming, wonderful presence to have on-screen. But the character is marginalized, in the end has nothing to do with the breakthrough Zimmerman and the Doctor reach, and is left as just another example of too many ideas without enough space for their execution.
But I always say I prefer episodes with too many ideas than not enough, and that's definitely true of "Life Line". If it's not a spectacular episode (and it's not), then it's absolutely not an abject failure either. There may be too many ideas, but at least they're all up there on the screen. We might not spend enough time exploring them, but at least they're left open for further development down the line, should we again return to the Alpha Quadrant. And, and this is the critical bit, none of them are bad ideas. Everything the episode tries to do actually seems like a worthwhile thing to do, and if it doesn't stick the landing on all of those it certainly shouldn't be judged harshly for trying. The flaws are apparent, and yes this season probably didn't need another Picardo-centric story, but the time spent here is certainly justifiable. And a few of the little details are nicely handled – the holographic iguana and fly are small details the episode didn’t have to throw in, but they add a little shading to the character of Zimmerman without belabouring the point, and Haley, the holo-assistant achieves the same thing. Troi gets her chocolate ice-cream again, which is a bit obvious at this stage, but at least the details are being observed (it helps that it comes from Haley, rather than Reg, a nice touch). That helps the episode add up to a bit more, and certainly stops it becoming to rote or clunky. So yes. "Life Line" is fine, and if you're in the mood for Robert Picardo getting a bit self-indulgent, then you could do worse.
Any Other Business:
• This is the only episode in the entirety of Voyager to have a writing credit from a member of the cast, this having been co-written by Robert Picardo. You can kind of tell....
• This is also the only episode in the entirety of Star Trek to show a bit of the Enterprise-E, which amounts to a door behind the first shot of Deanna when Reg calls her. Startling, eh?
• One definite criticism of this episode is it takes far too long to actually send the Doctor to the Alpha Quadrant already. We don't get to Jupiter Station until the 11 minute mark, and the Doctor doesn't get his first line there until fourteen minutes in. That's basically a third of the episode!
• Yet another reference to the Viidians in this season...
• An absolutely phenomenal, tiny, but significant detail (that you can see in the picture at the top of this review) is that the Doctor is, in absolutely every scene, fractionally taller than Zimmerman, suggesting that Zimmerman's ego allowed him to just slightly improve his holo-representation. That's a brilliant little detail to throw in, and it's completely unremarked upon, so kudos to whoever came up with that idea.
• Nice (and non gratuitous) nod to "Message In A Bottle", which establishes the fact that the Doctor can be successfully sent across the galaxy, thus making the possibility here seem much less like a plot contrivance than it otherwise might.
• The scene where the Doctor persuades Janeway to send him to the Alpha Quadrant is one of the few instances of a scene of that nature being written correctly, whereby Janeway is openminded enough to listen to compelling arguments from someone else, and the arguments from that someone else actually are compelling, so credit for that at the very least.
• Another "only episode" - though it's been mentioned a few times, this is the only episode of Star Trek that actually visits Jupiter Station. Other than the establishing shot, it looks like every other building in Starfleet. Surprise!
• I said the only time Picardo nails Zimmerman is in The Big Confrontation, but that's not quite true. The scene of him dictating his will is very well handled as well – Picardo's good at melancholy and regret, and it makes a pleasing change from the usual comedy of the Doctor or the bellowing of Zimmerman. The episode could have stood to have a lot more moments like that, instead of all that set-chewing.
• There's a tentative feeling throughout this episode that the initial, gossamer thread of communication that was set up in "Pathfinder" is getting stronger here, and that contact with, and eventual return, to the Alpha Quadrant is very being very, very gradually layered into the season. This is extremely welcome, and really excellently handled throughout the remainder of the show.
• The final scene, where Zimmerman asks the Doctor to write is kind of sweet as well, both allowed to keep their guard up, but also acknowledge the change that's happened. That's handled well to.
Season Six, Episode 25 - "The Haunting Of Deck 12"
All Whacked Out On Scooby Snacks
Right, hands up everyone who thought an episode which amounts to "Neelix narrates a ghost story to the Borg kiddywinks" would suck? And hands up everyone who's surprised that it didn't? You can assume my hand is in the air at this point, because I had virtually no memory of this episode, and the idea that this would turn out better than crap simply didn't seem very likely.
But surprisingly it is better than crap. Substantially better, in fact. But let's do a little bit of comparison. Of the final standalone episodes, Season Three ended with the terrifically good fun "Worst Case Scenario". Season Four ended with the mature character study "One". Season Five had the quirky "Warhead". And Season Six has this. You certainly couldn't accuse the show of sticking to a specific formula when it comes to closing out its seasons. There's some attempts to play around with the narrative geomoetry of the episode, which has three distinct sections – the present, the present as narrated by Neelix, and the past, when most of the episode occurs. It's not a spectacular device, but it shakes things up a bit, and after a succession of episodes which have been narratively linear, that helps to keep things fresh. Indeed the framing device of the ghost story as told by Neelix serves this episode surprisingly well, though rather more from Neelix's side than from the Borg children, because again he's lit correctly (mostly in darkness, and from below) and becomes rather less of the reassuring presence we're used to, which seems appropriate for a ghost story. This extends to the way he's shot in the past as well, and since we see a return of his agoraphobia and an undermining of his usual safe places (the mess hall, the bridge) this too feels appropriate. His terror is just so much more convincing when he looks the part. Again, nothing necessarily revelatory here, but it just makes it possible to take the whole thing that much more seriously. There's a lot of nods to the past that help to re-enforce this, actually – quite apart from Neelix's terror, we also get a bit of the Neelix-and-Tuvok Show (nicely effective for the brief time we get it), he gets short of breath quickly (logical for someone with one lung)… just little details that all add up to something a bit more. This is broadly an ensemble piece, even if Neelix takes a lot of the focus, but the details are right and the character beats are right, and that makes the whole enterprise credible.
But we couldn't talk about this episode without talking about the direction, because David Livingston works absolute wonders with a script that gives him a bottle show to work with, a couple of outside effects and absolutely nothing else. In fact Livingston, over the course of Voyager, directs a mammoth twenty-eight episodes, and the skill and experience that this has given him is shown off in every way here. Indeed, this episode is an excellent example of how a good director can really give material a lift from OK to excellent, because, though there's nothing bad on paper here, what he does with it elevates far, far beyond what could be a fairly stagey, cut-here-then-here production. There's certain things even he can't work round – every single act ends in the same way, with a "dramatic" zoom to one of the Borg children, which is a pity – but the tension he's able to wring out of a few corridors, the bridge and Engineering is properly remarkable and something that deserves real credit. In fact the episode becomes compelling almost in spite of itself, and having everything lit either by hand torches or flashing red alert panels gives everything a claustrophobic, unsettling appearance which really gets every ounce of fear out of the script. Seven getting nebula-gassed is given a certain amount of dramatic weight, but when the same thing happens to Janeway later on in an escalation of events it becomes genuinely frightening, even though we know she much survive. Mulgrew is great here, rasping, choking and gagging as the entity tries to kill her, but never backing down, and again, just lit by the unrelenting, grim red alert lights makes it all the more dramatic. That's a pretty difficult thing to achieve, so all credit where its due.
Equally everyone on the regular cast seems to be awake and giving their best here, which ratchets things up a notch as well. This is the second-last episode of the season so it would be understandable if everyone was burned out but that's not at all what happens here. Even Harry's great, mature in a crisis, taking command when he needs to, calming down Tal Celes when she starts over-reacting... and of course it's great to actually have her in another episode, following on from "Good Shepherd" and making her appearance in that episode more than just a one-shot. It's not something either this episode or the show really needed to do, but it's nice that they just take the time to do it, another little link in the Voyager chain. And she's good too! She's got a refreshingly easy rapport with Harry and, praise Rassilon, he doesn't try hitting on her but instead actually acts the way a bridge officer should. Such a little thing makes such a big difference. The rest of the regulars are fine are good as well – other than Mulgrew, nobody really gets a big role, but they all fit in well and they're all delivering urgent performances which help up the drama of what's going on. There's also a nice little through-line about taking responsibility for ones actions – Voyager inadvertently caused the destruction of the creature's natural habitat so takes responsibility for finding a new one; Neelix takes responsibility for saving Tuvok in the Jeffries Tube after insisting he come along; he also takes responsibility for telling the story to the Borg children but letting them believe it's not real so they're not frightened, and so forth. It's not something that's overtly drawn attention to, and we're spared a Big Speech about responsibility, but it adds connective tissue to the various disparate parts of the episode. Even the creature accepts responsibility for its own actions and allows Janeway and the crew to live.
It's not perfect, of course. The cuts back to the cargo bay every time there's an end of act approaching, as I mentioned earlier, are deeply unfortunate, especially because they're not necessary. We get it, the story is being narrated, nobody's going to forget that over the length of a commercial break (this looks even sillier when watched without commercials, of course). Phillips is good at delivering Neelix's fear and resolve, but there's just a couple too many scenes of him basically sitting in the cargo bay reading the script at the Borg kids. The Borg kids themselves are... present, but nothing more, and Icheb looks far too old at this point to be buying any of this. The younger kids are a bit better, partly because they're, well, younger, but Marly McClean deserves a bit of praise for turning in a very credible performance as youngster who just wants to hear the damned story and not get interrupted every five minutes (something I wholeheartedly sympathise with during this episode). It's also a bit obvious the script is struggling to accommodate all the characters, with B'Elanna and Tom getting especially short shrift (though Tom's electrocution at the helm is pretty well handled). I suppose one could complain about the comparatively vague nature of This Week's Threat, although I'm not going to because this is, after all, a ghost story and those so very rarely work when coupled with rational explanations, and we do find out enough for the episode to actually make sense. So yes, all in all this ended up being something of a pleasant surprise. I was expecting something at best mediocre and more likely poor, but what we've ended up with is really rather good. It's no better than good, but it's distinctive, it makes sense, it's going enough individuality to mark it out from the episodes that surround it, and overall it was pretty enjoyable. As a final episode of a season it does enough to hold interest over to the big two-parter we all know comes next, and that's going to be a whole different thing. Next week I'll do the Season Six wrap-up and then on to "Unimatrix Zero". Until then... best leave the lights on.
Any Other Business:
• The sets here really are fantastically well utilized, and once again all the praise to David Livingston for doing so much good work here.
• It takes just a little too long to get on with the story and stop mucking about with the set-up but it's not too damaging and once things get underway it's fine.
• "We are not faint of heart." "Our cardiopulmonary systems are re-enforced". Ha!
• As I mentioned in the review, it's lovely to have Tal Celes back.
• The narrative conceit of having the entity communicate through the stock phrases the computer uses works sparingly well. It really does make it seem like it's the ship that's out to get them.
• Handily, Neelix's happy memory appears to have occurred after "The Gift", thus sparing the need to explain why Kes isn't present.
• Janeway gasping out, "I wont be your prisoner, you'll have to kill me!" followed by the ship calmly announcing, "Acknowledged" is genuinely creepy as it then proceeds to do just that.
• And then the creature finds a new home. Awww.