Displaced

DVD, Voyager S3 (Displaced)

A good little story, dis-placed third from de end of de season, it's quite happy to be a small-scale (though far from intimate), tale that is very much an ensemble piece for the cast. It just seems content in its own skin without trying to be a wham-bam, action-packed spectacle, or a stage play bottle show, and I like it for what it is. Like the previous episode it's nothing major, just an enjoyable enough sci-fi examination of a subject, this time I would say the message isn't as clear, but it's probably something to do with war (the Nyrians have a unique approach to conquest through infiltration), and trust. Actually, when you start to think about the message it sort of infiltrates you - it may not seem to have a strong opinion on anything, but I think it's pointing out how subtlety can overwhelm a ship, or the mindset of an individual or society by introducing alien concepts in their midst. At first this may not threaten their values or way of life, but eventually comes a tipping point and things have changed and can't go back to the way they were: the insidious takeover has happened through the use of a seemingly benign build-up. This can be seen in attitudes projected through TV itself as a motivator of change on society and not necessarily of change for the better. So it could be TV commenting on itself in a subtle way about the subtlety of suggestion! Either that or my mind fell down a paradox…

Getting back to the actual episode, removing it from its potential warning about the 'frog in a pan' effect (a frog changes its temperature and will continue to do so as the heat under the pan is turned up, until it's eventually boiled alive), it is one I quite enjoy for its simplicity in storytelling and for using the cast well, even if they do look foolish for not taking strong enough precautions against the possibility that this apparently peaceful and disoriented group of aliens are actually an invasion force. Fair enough, the first few 'refugees' that appear you would treat with the benefit of the doubt, but as soon as you see a pattern and that this number is continuing to grow you'd think they would have done more to contain a potential threat than put them in a cargo bay. Chakotay doesn't seem to get it until very late, and he's usually the one to present an alternate way of looking at things to his Captain - Tuvok, too, should have been more on the ball, but I think he was one of the early abductees so his valuable insight was missed. Chakotay waits until he's down to an absolute minimal crew, and only when he discovers the empty cargo bay does he tell them to beware as the Nyrians 'might' be trying to take over, which does make him look a little slow. Then again, he's always been known as a peaceful man willing to put trust in strangers to encourage their trust in him, so it's true to his character that he wouldn't be interrogating the aliens and blaming them.

As we saw in 'Distant Origin' he takes great care to show himself as unthreatening and approachable, but sometimes that attitude puts him in a difficult position. That's when he becomes Action Chak' - just like that previous episode, it's up to him to solve the problem. There are other aspects of the story that mirror the episode, though: a saurian alien in Jarleth, the Ferengi/Neelix alien type, and once again Voyager taken over by a superior force. That's twice in two episodes, you'd think they'd start to get a complex about it! Not that it's been an uncommon occurrence as we had the Vidiians taking over in Season 2's 'Deadlock,' the Kazon in 'Basics,' and the Voth swallowing the ship in its entirety. Somehow they always manage to recapture Voyager by the end of the story, funny that. There wouldn't be much of a series without the title character, I suppose, but it would have been interesting if they'd had to live out lives away from their mobile home for a few episodes. Perhaps combine the later story, 'Workforce,' with a similar event to 'Basics' and that could have made for a great multi-episode arc. Even 'DS9' did that, losing control of the station for six episodes. But this was the time when 'Voyager' had started to pull back from internal continuity, not completely, but they weren't going to be doing ongoing plots like the Maquis spy or the Neelix jealousy over Kes, which was a shame, but at the same time they were about to enter their best couple of seasons.

Ever since Neelix and Kes broke up they had less purpose on the series, and I felt that again in this episode. Even though both have lines they don't feel important to the story and could have just as well not been there. The Doctor proves to be a life saver thanks to being a useful tool (he becomes Geordi La Forge's VISOR!), Tom and B'Elanna's friendship is fully apparent, and the others tend to be highly trained Starfleet officers or action heroes, leaving the alien characters in the dust, sadly. I wonder whether Jennifer Lien or the writers knew at this point that Kes wouldn't be staying with the series? More effort is definitely seen being put into the Torres/Paris deal, with their building friendship taking on the characteristics it would run with as the series progressed, such as Tom encouraging the Klingon heritage of B'Elanna, and she getting frustrated with it, and him. It's a real shame we didn't get to see the Klingon fighting holoprogram, though it was good to see the result of BYOB from the previous episode - it would have been an ideal way to put in a callback to 'TNG' with its multi-levelled jungle set and skull warriors, and 'DS9' with the courting Dax and Worf, but I suppose the budget and story time had to be spent on the Nyrian invasion and habitats of their 'prison ship' - learning they were on a ship didn't have the same impact as the earlier Season 3 story, 'The Chute,' and we didn't even get to see it from the outside, instead relying on an on screen diagram. Probably another budgetary constraint, and one that may well be rectified when the series gets its Blu-Ray rebirth.

The Nyrians never pulled off being the major threat of the episode, more like a cross between Alixus of the 'DS9' episode 'Paradise' ('enjoy your new home, and gets used to it' attitude to captivity), and some kind of religious order in dress code, not having the horror that was needed, even when unmasked. Sometimes it can be more terrible when a race or character previously thought benign, kindly and bewildered, become malign and reveal nasty cunning, because you've accepted them and allowed them into your comfort zone, but although it was still something of a shock when violence ensues there was never malevolence. It also gets you wondering: if they're so advanced with this translocator that can beam great distances (maybe that's what Old Spock gave to Young Scotty in 'Star Trek XI'?), and they're warlike, wanting to capture alien ships, there seems to be some discrepancy.

Is it laziness that they don't like building their own, because they clearly don't need other species' ships if they can build a massive travelling prison rigged up to hold who knows how many races in habitats suitable for them? If they went to all that trouble, why bother stealing ships in the first place? There isn't the feeling of dismay such as you get in 'Dragon's Teeth' about unleashing a terrible force on the quadrant, or the growing tension of something bad in the bowels of the ship, as 'Star Trek: First Contact' did so well with the Borg. They're simply an irritating race that obstinately refuse to play war by the rules. If we'd learned that they were xenophobic like the Founders or Romulans we could start to appreciate their motive, but because we don't get a chance to see their culture because of the format of always moving on to the next story, there's not enough time for a revulsion to creep in, so they remain simply bad guys. Sometimes this works brilliantly where a lack of information about a race in the shadows stimulates the imagination and encourages fear, but with these people, everything was simple and the only horror was in seeing the ship taken over so easily (but there's also something amusing about seeing people vanish in front of their colleagues, such as the goldshirt who taps his badge, but is speechless for what to say - likely a money-saving trick because they didn't want to have to pay an extra, extra!).

A way this could have been improved is as a 'Lower Decks' for this series. In the 'TNG' episode it was all about lower-ranked characters going about their business under the heroes we know. Here we could have had an action-packed version of that - the seeds are in place with several minor characters being forced to operate the ship after the majority of the crew have disappeared, and it is really enjoyable to see an Ensign left in charge of the bridge due to necessity, a chance to see how Starfleet's underlings show their mettle. But in the fight against the invaders it's all too little, too late, and they're shown as being particularly ineffective against a none too aggressive force. What should have happened was a war on two fronts - while Janeway and the others devised an exit out of the habitat, Chakotay, or once he was gone, one of the Ensigns, should have led the insurgency (again, 'DS9' did that well in 'The Siege'), but with a group of minor characters shown to be using all their training to survive while plans went awry because people kept being translocated. It could have made a more tense B-story, especially as we'd have got to know these few and wouldn't be sure of their survival. But the series tended away from recurring characters after the first two seasons, with those that were established (Vorik, Samantha Wildman, Jo Carey), appearing rarely. With Voyager more a community than any other starship before it, it would have been ideal for developing a village feel, but instead they wanted to set themselves apart from 'DS9,' the result just another example of failing to meet potential.

There are other things about the Nyrians that you question: if they can choose who to translocate (as scientist Rislan demonstrates when he moves Torres to the top of the queue), why didn't they take out all the senior staff to begin with? Because it would have looked much more suspicious if the Captain had been first to vanish, whereas sadly, Kes, at this stage of the series wasn't missed for quite a while! But once they were in control why not take out the leaders and top-ranked? And why couldn't they just beam the whole crew off at once if they had such advanced tech? Actually that one was answered in the episode, suggesting that the translocator took longer for greater distances, which was why they had to do it one at a time. I'd get that glitch fixed, though, if they really want to be invaders - another fact that makes me wonder if the Nyrians are warlike because they're lazy and don't want to live off their own hard work!

The Nyrians aren't the only ones to question in this story, however. Take, Jarleth, their friendly neighbourhood saurian who just stops by to let them know they're welcome. He's easy to please, he just wants to make friends and barter for food. Yes, that's the food that the crew get free from the Replicators in their habitat. I understand that these machines are programmed to replicate food of the race that exists in the habitat, and Jarleth likes to taste something different (though it didn't look much like human food to me!), but he's shown to be pretty handy with technology - he did find out how to travel between habitats via the invisible portals, after all. And he can't reprogram his own Replicator so he can make whatever food he wants? Let's just cover it over by saying he likes wandering into other races' homes/gilded cages, but even accepting that, he's happy to reveal his portal-hopping secret for a couple of baskets of this food? He didn't think introducing this ability to other groups might give the Nyrians cause to clamp down on this blatant disregard for life in their prison? And in the nine years he's been there he's never been able to find other portals to other locations so he could escape? His species seemed easily content, so maybe they're a non-combative race, perhaps even as lazy as the Nyrians themselves!

The Doctor, too, was not thinking straight, as he claims he hadn't been cut off from the ship before, but in 'Future's End,' the story that introduced the mobile emitter he was kidnapped by it and trapped on Earth! I know he lost his memory this season, but that happened before (I think. Or did it? It's catching!). As for the way he's treated by Torres, she was taking a real liberty by removing his ability to speak - it's a humorous moment, yet when you think about it, it's also quite chilling the way he can be treated in this extreme manner. No wonder he later started championing holographic rights: it was all the fault of B'Elanna's hot Klingon temper! Talking of liberties, Janeway shows what she's capable of when she tortures two of the Nyrians by having them beamed into the freezing cold habitat, something which they can't take (Voyager's temperature has to be upped to 45 degrees centigrade in hospitality for their guests, which is very hot indeed, yet no one sweats, and they go about as normal - must be those all-weather Starfleet uniforms, though they didn't do so well in the cold…). I can see why she did it, but it's one of those extreme courses of action that Janeway would take when her crew's safety was at stake. This feels like the start of her path to 'Equinox' in which she was willing to let people die.

Torres and Tom are thrust together by circumstances once again, and in a cave, just like in 'Blood Fever' - she knows she can rely on the guy, though they do have a falling out during the episode which afterwards is shown even in body language when she mirrors Tom's folded arms, he notices and deliberately puts his hands behind his back in response, which I thought was great attention to detail. B'Elanna's temper hasn't been such an issue this season, I would suggest, so to have it become part of the plot again was a good move, and also gave Paris something to bump up against, in case he thought everything was going so well. I wouldn't have thought he would outrank her as he claims, citing his position as a bridge officer. Surely the Chief Engineer is about the fourth most important position on the ship, way ahead of helmsman, no matter how fluently he pilots the ship - without the Engineer that ship isn't going anywhere! In 'TOS' Scotty was third in command, but then that was a century before, and the situation here is different because Torres wasn't even technically Starfleet. But going on that reasoning, Tom was a convicted felon! It should be ranked as Janeway, Chakotay, Tuvok, then Torres.

At least the Vulcan was on the ball, as usual. The Nyrians were wise to take him early as he would have surely been a voice of caution against the aliens. As it is, he resigns himself to making a phaser that looks more like a lightsaber (we also see what looks like Dagobah for a fleeting moment, as one of the habitats) - I half expected him to spin a line about this being something Chakotay's Father had wanted him to have, the weapon of a Jedi, but it was nice to see the pair have a quiet moment of levity together, even if it would have meant more if the conflict between the two at the start of the series had been followed up on. Doesn't seem to matter whether he has nothing but natural materials (bow and arrows out of sticks in 'Basics,' for example), or technology to engineer, Tuvok can always come up with a weapon in any situation - another reason why his Vulcan is so cool! The different habitats and this hub area brought to mind the structure of computer games, but in this case I got the impression that they weren't holographic. This does bring up further questions of the abilities of the Nyrians to build something like that, but it also makes you wonder how these things fit together as the hub entrances aren't that far from each other, or they didn't seem to be! Obviously we couldn't explore the vast area of a habitat, but they do a good job of the hub and making it feel like a connecting area to different doorways: to the ice world, the desert world, the jungle, etc. I wonder if they did have a race of Yoda's species hidden in there?

For a story about a slow takeover of the ship it actually cuts to the chase pretty quickly and spends time in the habitat. I suppose human's don't have a reputation in this quadrant so the Nyrians had no way of knowing that caging a ship full of them wasn't going to work as they weren't going to sit back and accept the change as Jarleth's race did (they didn't watch 'The Cage' from 'TOS,' obviously), or as I imagine the Nyrians might if faced with it themselves, and they'd have been better advised to not interfere. The ending didn't live up to the great and thoughtful conclusions that have peppered this season, with Paris and Torres making up by sitting together in the Resort holoprogram, but it's good to see characters getting along, and brings to mind the ending of 'The Ascent,' and other, similar stories, though this hadn't earned such a strong reaction because the pair hadn't been through something so intense, it was just a little personal argument in the midst of much bigger things. We get a couple of point-of-views that we don't see in Trek often: when Torres is translocated we see Engineering dissolve around her and turn into the habitat. We also see it from the Doctor's perspective when his vision is calibrated to detect portals. Dammar wasn't the best choice of name as it was too close to Damar on 'DS9,' and this character had none of the complexity of the Cardassian, but at least we now know the reason the Kes and Kim action figures never came out in the UK: those were the first two to be abducted by the Nyrians.

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