Revulsion

DVD, Voyager S4 (Revulsion)

I'm not sure who had the more uncomfortable assignment, B'Elanna going on an Away Mission with the Doctor or Harry given the task of working with Seven of Nine. Alright, I'm being flippant, what I really meant was B'Elanna having to deal with a psychopathic hologram, as she actually gets on quite well with the Doc these days. The embryonic stages of a few things that would develop into hallmarks of the series are either continued or begun in this episode, none more so than the Doc's eagerness at new opportunities. His overzealousness would become a familiar comedic element in the character's exploits as he's gone from being completely repressed and dry to delighting in the potential others have seen in himself and the Captain allowed him to realise. We see this overriding excitement in his immediate response to the hologram, Dejaren, whose distress call fires the Doctor's interest so that he practically orders an Away Team and puts himself at its head, much to Janeway's restrained amusement. But she sees how much meeting another of his 'kind' would mean to him, and graciously acquiesces, while at the same time reminding him of his place. A hologram's place is very much at the heart of the episode, both narratively and figuratively, but it's not so much the Doctor as it is his 'patient,' or the being that became a sort of personal project (good job he didn't get too invested, thanks to Dejaren's unstable attitude, or he might have blamed himself for B'Elanna's injuries), whom he was able to encourage and represent the achievements he'd succeeded in for holographic life.

Life. A small, simple word, and yet that's what the Doctor had long attained. No longer is he considered a part of the ship's advanced technology, he's a person in his own right, and thanks to the 29th Century emitter, with a measure of freedom, though as we witness again here, his life is as fragile as an 'organic's,' if in a different way: the holoemitter can be damaged where he couldn't, and since his mobility depends on it, it provides a weakness to an otherwise superhuman character. Cleverly, a limitation that both unveils a broad canvas of freedom, but also restricts - there's no replacement emitter if this one's damaged, unless they want to hop into the future. The Doc isn't the only character on Voyager to have superpowers - it used to be limited to him and Tuvok, whose mystical Vulcan ways are as old as Trek on TV, and now that Kes and her telepathic abilities had departed, only one other could be said to be in this category: Seven. She has far better visual acuity than an ordinary human (as proved when she notes Kim's biological changes when she enters a room!), and her Borg exoskeleton allows her to withstand extreme charges, this latter ability giving her an understandably careless attitude toward Starfleet safety protocols (though she isn't invulnerable: presumably the Borg were able to repair their organic parts with nanoprobes, yet Seven still has these in her, so why can't she fix her gashed hand? Probably doesn't have enough). But her least controlled power is over Kim himself, with a cool, unemotional response to his nervousness, only agreeing to work with him to fit in with this crew.

So she puts up with Harry's odd behaviour until she realises he's attracted to her, and in the same blunt manner states that she's willing to explore this side of her humanity, instructing the Ensign to take off his clothes. It's an amusing moment and deals with the rather obvious (some would say cynical), visual presentation of the character, wrapped tightly as she is in silver foil. It's the aspect of Seven that was the elephant in the room, the reason she was added to the cast, though they allowed Jeri Ryan to show her acting prowess before broaching the subject, which demonstrated they had their priorities right, and I like that the fact she stands out so much among the crew is addressed in a humorous way (in fact she wouldn't get a real romance until near the end of the series!). It's all wrapped up in a neat package of the dichotomy of her character: she appears to be accepting her human heritage, though she doesn't fully understand the nuances and intricacy of interaction (no wonder, since she's still a virtual prisoner of the Cargo Bay, having little else to do than regenerate, read the Starfleet database or contemplate her existence, since she sees pretty much everything else as irrelevant). Outwardly, her beauty shows how human she is, yet inwardly she has a long way to go to throw off the shackles and hive mentality of the Collective. I think it's these contrasts that attract Kim, even though he didn't want to work with her in the first place - she points out why he would have misgivings: she attacked him and tried to contact the Borg last time they worked together!

Thus was born the recurring theme of Kim's inability to pick a partner, with Paris referring back to the last time he had this problem with 'the hologram' (although she actually turned out to be more than a hologram, see 'Alter Ego'), a fitting reference for this episode in particular, neatly tying the two stories together, if the fact that the odd couple theme wasn't enough. When the stakes are down, Kim just has to suffer a little embarrassment (not least where we get a rare view of Chakotay's quarters when the Ensign goes to suggest he and Seven stop working together only to find that she'd already spoken with the Commander and given him the Borg seal of approval, calling him 'competent,' or words to that effect, the equivalent of praise from Seven, much to Chakotay's enjoyment), whereas Torres gets a massage of the heart even Kim wouldn't have wanted. The ominous tone of the episode's opening, where we see Dejaren haul a dead humanoid through the decks of a darkened, empty vessel, blood trailing behind, was an excellent way to put us in the mood. I'm not sure if we're supposed to be immediately suspicious of the hologram as being the cause, though the dark portent of the music (very accomplished, almost fairytale, full of mood), might point towards it. It's difficult to know how I first saw it, when now I'm watching with the sure knowledge that this guy is deranged, though it's quickly apparent that he's lying by the fact he says the crew died from a virus, yet the body he dragged had obviously died violently against a bulkhead.

What helps to raise the episode beyond merely competent (as Kim was awarded), is the shift in tone between the two story-lines, as well as a warm, familial post-credits opening where we see all the main characters together, celebrating (I especially liked hearing about how Janeway first met him, nine years previous), and ripping Tuvok as he's promoted to Lieutenant Commander (though he gets some good ripostes in, as you'd expect from any good Vulcan). Paris would have got on well with Dax, I think, both having a propensity for practical jokes on their precise, ordered comrades; Paris on Tuvok, Dax on Odo! I wonder how many takes it took them to get that right? Quite a few, if the stories of the actors' antics on set are true, with their well known reputation for corpsing and having fun, perhaps to rival only the 'TNG' cast. Often, the best horror episodes have moments of lightness, humour and warmth to provide greater contrast to the darkness and evil, and the scene serves its purpose very well, Dejaren's ship cold, empty and very dark, these chilling senses only heightened by coming directly from a good-humoured party of friends. I'd have liked Tuvok's promotion to be for a specific reason, rather than his general service, and it would be have been appreciated if such an important change had occurred because of some mission he'd carried out, a reward we saw earned in heroism. Maybe that's not how these things work. But his promotion could easily have been the focus of an episode in itself.

While the humour of Kim's dance with Seven serves to continue to heighten the danger aboard the alien vessel, that's really the A-story. And it is a grim story, the Doctor inadvertently cementing the wayward hologram's prejudices against 'organics' in a way he couldn't have imagined. The mood aboard ship isn't felt by B'Elanna and the Doctor right away, but there's certainly one there for the audience. Like 'Empok Nor' of 'DS9,' and countless other episodes where our heroes board an apparently empty or damaged ship, it's very dark, the Engineer has to go down deep to bring things back online, and something nasty in the shadows waits… Like the aforementioned episode, it even has that same scene where we watch them going about their tasks from the dark corner and point of view of a malevolent observer. Dejaren's twitchy, corpselike figure could be explained as his fear of being alone rather than guilt after murder, or two sides of him: one knowing that he needs these people to repair his ship, the other desperately full of an almost uncontrollable rage to snuff out every organic life he can, in payment for bad treatment. He's a tragic figure, and it's only the Doctor's revelations about having a life beyond his occupation, the time and ability to explore art and literature, that keeps him from killing Torres right away, I suspect. His own wish to get the ship working again is conflicted - he can't exist in a ship that won't go anywhere and will slowly break down, but he doesn't want to go back to his old life either.

Though Dejaren suggests he and the Doctor escape their organic-controlled lives once the ship is fully operational, and the Doctor does seem to give it consideration, being tempted by the chance to get to know one of his own kind (probably for less than a second, though for a hologram that is an eternity…), at this stage of his development he wouldn't seriously consider abandoning his friends on Voyager. He was still learning to be a 'real boy,' still needed the support and guiding hand of Janeway and her crew, although the more egotistical he would become later, the more he would give thought to his own existence. Though he talks of the arts, and interest in such things, holographic life would eventually become tired of these trifles because they're all geared towards organics, and the resentment that holograms don't have their own culture would eventually overpower the desire to examine such things, I think. Ultimately, the question of whether holographic life in Trek is genuine life, is answered by the fact that it is not: they could perhaps program other holograms themselves, but they'd have to learn those skills from organics. They could become self-sufficient from humans, say, but they'd still need a level of technology which we've seen in the 24th Century is beyond what is capable - perhaps by the 29th Century, holograms are creating holograms, but the fact remains that they can't exist in the real world separately from technology. It's part of their existence. While I couldn't help but agree to an extent with some of Dejaren's speech, railing against the disgusting nature of organic life (because when you think about it, it is all a bit gross), he depends on that life to sustain himself - he may not need meat and plant material, ingested into a pit of acid, but he does need energy, and a continual supply. His raving about B'Elanna being the prisoner in a cage of blood and bone, was a fascinating concept (and true when you realise the physical world isn't all that exists), but he was the true prisoner.

As much as I like the Doctor, he couldn't live his life separate from his creators, and though we see holograms doing that later ('Flesh and Blood'), tech as it stands can't free them from this nature, an artificially created existence, designed with intelligence so that complex tasks can be completed, sometimes in situations that organic life couldn't survive. As a useful tool, a holographic crewman has the potential to become vital, but my speculation would be that all races would eventually realise that unless they were going to give these artificial races equal right to existence (and it wouldn't be in their best interests to do that), then they would eventually cease the invention of sentient technology for all the confusion, moral issues and threat to survival that creation brings, and instead only use basic level intelligence for a specific task, as we use robots today. If holograms ever did become fully divorced from the technology holding them together (some kind of self-sustaining matrix housed within their own bodies), then perhaps they could be considered a race in their own right, but to do that they'd have to lose some of the abilities they had (such as phasing in and out), making them less holographic and more solid. It's the same theme as that explored in much of 'DS9' where The Changelings were such a radically different form of life that it came to war of the entire Quadrant as their need to control 'solids' gave them licence to do so, in their minds. But I've strayed from the episode quite a bit now - it shows that Trek continued to provide food for thought, even in its fourth TV show!

Getting back to the episode, it's not quite fully formed in its narrative. We don't get the punch at the end that the Doctor's eagerness to rush in and respond to whatever his feelings tell him to, resulted in B'Elanna's injury, so it wasn't so much of a lesson-learning experience for him. It shows again that he is capable of going on Away Missions, though Janeway is still concerned about the holoemitter, knowing the loss of that would put him almost back to square one. Before he got it they'd begun to placing emitters throughout the ship, and that would have been the natural development of his freedom (though with the caveat that you never know when holograms are going to start appearing, or whether you can trust your eyes, another deeply fascinating scenario, covered partially in 'Persistence of Vision,' though not as much as could have been - it's another aspect of the advance of technology that leaves you wondering about the implications of basically turning real life into a Holodeck). Her concern is justified when Dejaren strikes the emitter, disabling the Doctor completely. No doubt if he'd managed to off Torres, he'd have stolen the emitter and rampaged murderously through the galaxy. But even his own kind found him to be a disturbed individual, the Doctor at first finding excuses for his odd behaviour, though ultimately having to concede the depths of his character.

It makes sense that other races would have developed holographic servants, if not slaves, though at this stage in most technology there isn't the power resource for a ship full of them, just one. I wonder if advancements like this have been one reason why no Trek series has been developed since, that went further than the 24th Century? Perhaps it was felt that things were becoming too fantastical and it would be tricky to deal with half-holographic crews and suchlike. They jumped back to the beginning of space exploration with 'Enterprise' and now, with the new series approaching, it so far appears that again they're going for a prequel before 'TNG,' so they still aren't in a position to address holographic rights, wrongs and wherefores. It remains a juicy topic for discussion, however, and I hope one day we do see Trek's timeline expand ever more into the future - perhaps not where time travel is a tool in the arsenal of Starfleet as that could truly prove problematic, but that wasn't until the 26th Century, I believe, so there are still decades and decades we could see unfold.

It's a good episode for the Doctor, because, in spite of no digital soul-searching at the end, it does temper his enthusiasm a bit and reminds him that not all holograms are like Starfleet holograms, just as not all spacefarers are like Starfleet, and it's good to get back to the bright, comforting surroundings of his Sickbay after the horrible events. Because he hadn't yet attained quite the level of gung-ho enthusiasm of subsequent seasons, he didn't have so far to climb down, as he was hardly advocating Dejaren's right to murder his unfriendly crew! The end scene is more of a jokey acceptance of the untidiness of his crew-mates to cover the chilling nature of what they've just been through - his fastidiousness and sense of order would be something he'd share with Seven, so I'm surprised they hadn't yet had scenes together, but you want to see her interact with each and every cast member as it's interesting to see the results between established characters and one so different and yet so compelling. We've already seen B'Elanna being less than friendly to Seven, her Klingon hot temper evident, and in this episode her Klingon nature almost gets her killed: if she'd carried on working at the console when Dejaren came a-killing, she'd have deactivated him in no time, but she had to take the aggressive stance and attempt to strike him, never a wise move since holograms can phase out so matter passes through, and they don't feel pain anyway, so it would only have damaged Torres' fist!

At first when we see Dejaren (in a superb performance from Leland Orser, who later appeared in the far less interesting 'Enterprise' episode, 'Carpenter Street' his most easily recognisable performances, but had also been in a couple of 'DS9' episodes - I hope he gets a role in the new series as it would be shame for his Trek career to have ended on a low), I thought he shouldn't be showing effort when dragging the dead body through the bowels of the ship, but I must concede that he did it in a very robotic manner, and may have been programmed to show organic traits, though murder wasn't one of them. There was more to his character than a simple urge towards violent disgust, as seen by his having created a secret pet fish, Spectrum, a fellow hologram, presumably in a holographic jar of holographic water, which showed that he keenly required like companionship (long before Doc Zimmerman and his holographic menagerie). He was almost as compelling a character as Suder had been, though not quite, as he never got his redemption. I'd have loved to have heard what happened about the Serosian ship, and felt a Captain's Log was needed to round off the episode's story before we had the humorous final scene. Did they send a message to the race it belonged to, letting them know what had happened, or just leave it floating in space, not their responsibility? A vessel of the dead with only a dangerously unhinged hologram aboard that might one day find a way to re-stabilise its program… a sequel would have been great!

I was glad the Tom and B'Elanna declaration at the end of 'Day of Honor' was addressed - according to Paris it only happened three days previous as that's how long they've been avoiding each other, and as I said in that review, it could easily have been an admission under the duress of certain death, but B'Elanna says it wasn't, so that clears things up. As well as the beginnings of their great friendship, we also have Neelix going on his first mission as official Ambassador (although I thought he already held that post in episodes such as 'Macrocosm,' but perhaps it wasn't felt he'd quite earned the official title then); Paris officially appointed Doctor's Nurse - he'd played the role since the early seasons, but it was usually only for emergencies, and with Kes gone he was being made to fulfil regular obligations of three duty shifts a week. That's the way it is when you don't have new crewmembers to take up posts, though I'd have thought one of the Vulcans aboard might have been just as good a bet since they could learn efficiently, and quickly, and would have been accepting of the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, or the one. Maybe the Doc secretly prefers Tom, despite the disrespect he tends to show him! The genesis of the Astrometrics Lab begins here, which is the project Kim and Seven are working on, a location that would become Seven's main haunt away from the chamber of horrors Cargo bay.

I should also point out the excellent direction of Ken Biller, seen best in the scene following Tuvok's promotion where we rove slickly to and fro between various conversations, though all the stuff aboard Dejaren's ship was very atmospheric and equally as accomplished. I don't tend to have a very high opinion of Biller as he took over as an Executive Producer in the final season, which was also a weak period of the series, so it's good to realise how much he did bring to the series in episodes like this. And this was another episode with one of the many one word titles beginning with 'R,' including 'Resistance,' 'Resolutions,' 'Remember,' 'Repression' and 'Repentance.' Now I'd better stop leaving my oily residue on this keyboard and finish.

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