The Swarm

DVD, Voyager S3 (The Swarm)

The title sets up expectations of a Borg-like alien menace. But unlike the unstoppable cybernetic villains, who had a name and a reputation, these beetle-like creatures only had a reputation and were eminently stoppable. I'm not saying they were definitely trying to draw a link to one of Trek's greatest races, but the threat of the episode did seem more in that vein than any other, unless you count the mysterious Breen, since they both talk in a machine-like buzz. But even the Breen had several seasons for their mystery to grow until we finally saw them (or did we?), whereas the Swarm Aliens only had Neelix' worried hearsay to bolster their badness rating. I like that Neelix is still providing the crew with local knowledge (if vague rumours can be that helpful!), especially in the light of what was to happen with his character and role aboard Voyager this season.

The most obscure action figure ever released by Playmates in their celebrated 90s line, must be the Swarm Alien. They appeared in only two scenes of this one episode and were never encountered again! It could be because the design was so strong (or maybe at first they were intended for a comeback?), although I felt they needed to be hidden in shadow, not fully revealed in the well-lit environs of starships. Saying that, the Borg got the same treatment, but while 'Q Who?' was an instant and undeniable classic, this is a bit messy. Not major league messy, but the two plots didn't compliment each other at all. Usually I'm all for the A and B plot threads Trek episodes generally have, but both of the concepts in this were strong enough to have taken the full running time alone, and because they fight for space, both come off second best.

Back to the aliens: good idea, great design, unique ships, mysterious, but lacking a sense of menace because we were supposed to be creeping through their backyard without them noticing, and haring across a (relatively) narrow gap in their space. That sounds exciting (ugh, I'm thinking of 'New Scotty' now!), but while it's not a dull episode, neither does it live up to the premise. I loved the moment the aliens start beaming onto Voyager's bridge and individual crew members take them out in rugby tackles, blows and phaser blasts, but just think what the episode could have been like if it had taken 'Star Trek: First Contact' as its template (a little hard, I know, since the film hadn't yet been released at that time) - the Swarm Aliens beam in and take key areas of the ship, there are patrols led by Tuvok or Chakotay, gingerly moving down darkened corridors knowing that at a moment's notice aliens could materialise and attack. A battle for Engineering. The aliens are fought off and Voyager limps over the border in time to escape.

One scene that did help to instigate the feeling of impending doom was when they rescue the sole survivor of a damaged vessel in all his white-skinned alien-looking glory. He reminded me of a similar one in the second season of 'DS9' - the episode 'Rivals' where Martus Mazur is shown a gambling device by a dying alien in his security cell with the same kind of face and straggly hair (though not white), and I wouldn't be surprised if some elements of makeup were the same as they were often cannibalising and reusing what they could (e.g: the Doc's opera program looked very similar to Sandrine's, or Janeway's Gothic holonovel). The scene ties into the Doctor's unfolding memory loss, but it made me realise how interesting that story would have been if a whole episode had been allowed to concentrate on it. At first it's comic the way he states the obvious that the man is very ill, but then when the alien's died and he hasn't realised and Kes gives him a harmless tool to play with we see her distress at his condition.

The episode could have been a commentary on memory loss, age, mental illness, and we certainly get some of that thanks to Kes' nurturing of the Doctor, having to respond to him considering her a stranger at one moment, a friend who won't tell him what's going on the next, but it doesn't go into it enough. This is actually as much a Kes episode as it is the Doctor's. She goes through a lot with him, and we see how far she's come when she manages to keep sickbay going during the Doc's inability to do his job. Even so, it made me wonder how the ship could cope if the Doctor wasn't there. We know Kes has been an able pupil, and Tom's usually there as a backup medic, but it's never really been explained how many of the crew have medical knowledge. You'd think training up as many people as possible would be a priority if their survival depended on it.

One thing that happens in the episode is a rarity, amusing, but also a fascinating other side to the Doctor - I'm not talking about seeing him with hair and massive sideburns (though that would also qualify), but the first time we get to meet an approximation of the Doctor's creator, Dr. Lewis Zimmerman. It's a deft touch to introduce him by having him lean out from behind a console and snap at B'Elanna, instantly imprinting his character on us. He's messier and sharper, ruder and more brusque than our Doctor, but he also has that noble streak that we've seen develop in the EMH since he was accepted as more than a computer program: he gives up his matrix without ever questioning it, and although he's ranted about how programs don't have emotions, etc, you still get a sense that he might have been able to exceed his programming just as the Doc did. Which makes me wish they hadn't sacrificed him. Why not keep him as a useful utility? The Doc could have found a kindred matrix in him, perhaps met up regularly in the Holodeck to talk about their Father and their origins.

Hearing the Doctor realise he had some kind of memory of the Jupiter Station recreation was like someone having a memory of being in the womb. Previously he'd always had his activation on Voyager as his earliest memory, but it makes sense that their could be some residual familiarity from the days he was created and tested, and that any 'memories' of that time would have been wiped, but seeing the place again reactivates them. It was also fascinating to hear Zimmerman talk about being a diagnostic tool for all the holograms meaning there were more out there. Prior to this it was easy to think of Voyager, alone in the Delta Quadrant, as being the only ship to have this unique feature, but, as would be shown in 'First Contact,' the enhancements of Voyager were put into other new ships of the time, too.

There are parallels with Data, his creator Dr. Soong, and maybe even Lore, although the Doc's creator never saw him as special as evidenced by the offhand manner the diagnostic reacts to him. Although the template was the same, the two stories went off in quite different directions. These thoughtful, introspective dealings with the Doctor don't sit well within an action story. It artificially adds the tension that the Doc needs help and there's no time for the crew to deal with that, but at least it decides Kes in taking matters into her own hands to help him - even this far into the series it doesn't immediately occur to Janeway that they must safeguard the Doctor's personality as much as any 'solid' person, needing Kes to pipe up for him. This was another turning point in the Doc's development as the crew were forced to realise what it would be like if he lost the connections and learning that he's achieved. The opera singing was similarly a moment the Doctor broke from his bounds and was the kind of thing we'd become used to in later seasons, but would be difficult to conceive of in the first two (and is also wonderful when you know it was the actual actor singing!).

I can see that with Season 3 they were trying to be more action-packed and this is probably the reason the 'main' story of getting across Swarm space had to be there, but in many ways the Doctor's experiences are more compelling. Not to say there aren't good scenes - it's fun to see Tom and B'Elanna together for a change, even if Paris gets more damaged than her in the attack (for the second time in two episodes he's unconscious and ill!), but you can put that down to tough Klingon genes, I suppose, although it was really only so the Doc would have a patient to mess up on. Something that's probably not even at the forefront of our minds as we watch this, is Robert Picardo appearing twice in the same scene. By now they'd got it down to an art and it looks even more natural than, say, the two Janeway's of 'Deadlock' in Season 2.

There are several other episodes that are referenced or come to mind in this one, most obviously 'Elogium' as not only does the Doc mention rubbing Kes' feet, which was from that, but the swarm of ships were reminiscent of the space slugs that attached to Voyager's hull. The first ever scene where we see the Doc was also mentioned, and another episode that came to my mind was 'Projections': seeing Zimmerman in sickbay I realised that that location could be the scene of realities within realities because it has holoprojectors, but I don't remember them ever doing anything with that capability in sickbay, which was why it was so strange to see another hologram in there.

The ending was a great way to go out, giving us hope that the Doctor as we know him is not gone forever as Kes and Torres at first fear. It reminded me of B4 in 'Star Trek Nemesis', who starts humming a song Data sang, and both have a nice way to go out on, but the downside was that I don't think they ever addressed it again so we're left to assume the Doc returned to normal over the next few days. The same was done to Uhura in 'TOS' episode 'The Changeling' - she loses her memory and has to relearn everything, but we never see or hear about the experience: a sad fact of episodic TV is that in general they don't tie into other episodes much or deal with the consequences (one of the great things about 'DS9'). With two stories pretty much fighting against each other in tone and content, the episode remains merely a good one, and though notable for Zimmerman, and featuring Kes' caring nature at the forefront, it felt like it needed to be setting things up and so feels unfinished when viewed with hindsight: the Swarm Aliens were not to be the series' recurring replacement of the Kazon. But in spirit they were, making way for a creepily similar, and better known race…

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