Emanations

DVD, Voyager S1 (Emanations)

You can often judge an episode's quality by how much you want to write about it, and this one, though provocative, doesn't give much literary inspiration. It's a Harry Kim story, a rarity, and I always liked that he goes to another dimension, and the asteroid, filled with the dead, is pretty effective in setting the tone. But instead of an action horror like 'Phage' it becomes, what seems like an episode debunking belief in life after death. There is the scene at the end which allows that their beliefs were true after all because some kind of energy leaves the bodies and becomes part of the rings, but the balance of the episode seems more to the 'rational' scientific side, than the alternative.

Tuvok was not included in the discussion, something which leaves the Vulcan viewpoint absent, although we learn Kes' people have a similar belief. Chakotay and B'Elanna, both types who would believe or whose cultures believe in the afterlife were also absent from any discussion. I suppose that was partly the point - it is Kim's dilemma, the youngest of the crew, who doesn't have any of these wise crewmates to help him. The nicest part of the story is in his plan to get back to Voyager which will help the Vhnori man who doesn't wish to die (though he was so skinny it's hard to believe Kim didn't get found out - "my dear, you've put on so much weight since I last saw you... and why aren't you speaking to me? It's the last time we'll speak!" - maybe they thought he was sulking because he still didn't really want to die!).

The episode would have been helped if all the Vhnori people we meet didn't seem objectionable or annoying. Petara was the worst, and the makeup, which usually doesn't make a difference, somehow accentuated their bad points. It's interesting that the wife who wanted her husband to die had quite a skull-like face, and of all the people of her race that we see, some of which are going to die, or have died, she is the most 'dead-looking'. At the very least we were treated to some attractive shots of Voyager flying over the rings, but in general the episode failed to excite, and seemed like a lost opportunity for the characters mentioned above to have a debate.

In the end Harry has to have the Captain suggest that the Vhnori's beliefs weren't wrong after all, rather than learning something for himself. And it was a shame Neelix wasn't in it, but maybe they felt his upbeat persona wouldn't work for such a downbeat episode. Jerry Hardin makes another of his Trek appearances (and last to that point, I believe), though he isn't given any great scenes. And I seem to have found a fair amount to write about the episode after all. That doesn't mean it was good, just that you can write a lot about episodes that have a lot of quality or very little, just not the mediocre ones!

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