Waking Moments

DVD, Voyager S4 (Waking Moments)

Dreams can be both gloriously freeing, and hideously nightmarish, full of inescapable terror, so it is with some regret that I must call attention to reasons why this episode, while great, doesn't fully push the envelope of control. I've always loved Trek episodes that deal with, or feature in some way, realities within realities, and the ambiguousness of whether what we think of as real is so, or if bizarre and disturbing unrealities could be the truth. Trek has always been heavily science-based and much more sci-fi than fantasy, but now and again they do things which can only be described as magical or fantastical, and this is one of those times - choose an image in your mind, then tap the back of your hand three times to wake up? This isn't 'The Wizard of Oz'! No doubt lucid dreaming, taking control of events within the unconscious mind, and having the ability to wake at choosing, could be classed as pseudoscience, and it is this that drives the episode. Why isn't the story entirely successful? Simply because they're restricted by the nature of necessary uncertainty in reality - in other words, they couldn't go into any great impression of a dream world and all the horrors and wonders that might have been depicted or they'd have tipped their hand and the audience would be able to see which part was real life and scenes only in their minds. Usually in dream states they make things much creepier and surreal, with a strong hint of menace and lack of control, but then they couldn't have the twist that Chakotay realises he's still in a dream (similar to 'Extreme Measures' on 'DS9').

It's a good twist, I must say, and it's chilling when he suddenly notices the Moon and realises he hasn't woken as he thought he had, still within an elaborate deception from the dream aliens. That's why the episode works on the whole, because for all its lack of foreboding and a helpless impression of being at the mercy of a race that can inhabit dreams as they can reality, there's still a chill to realising unreality and the fear of not waking up. It's usually easier to create the tension of multiple realities because generally we have the Holodeck to thank for that, or aliens using mind control. Here, it genuinely is a different state of being, since this existence is generated by the crew themselves, the aliens simply make them all share the same dream. That makes me wonder if their game plan was flawed, because if they'd all gone to sleep and existed in their normal, separate dreams, they wouldn't have figured out what was going on and been able to do anything about it. Come to that, what exactly were the aliens hoping to achieve? Take over Voyager? Do they thrive on creating fear in other species, is it merely to scare others off so they can rest in peace? They claim that this is their way of warfare, but I don't see what they gain from it? Maybe they feast on the bodies of other races by drawing them to their lair? That would have upped the ante much more if we felt the crew's mortal bodies were the goal. Instead, as in a dream, things are a little hazy. At the same time there's a little too much explanation where shadowy motivations would have been better, although their apparent openness was all part of the deception.

It's good to see Robert Beltran carry the episode again, especially in the light of the latter seasons and their sidelining of Chakotay. He was a bit quick to jump straight into the dream world to confront the aliens - he says they're out of options, but they'd only just realised what was happening, they hadn't even searched the whole ship in case the aliens were aboard! But just as he was an ideal supporting player in the previous episode, there for Neelix when he questions his beliefs, he's the right man for this job, his unique understanding of the dream state true to his heritage and he has the background that enables him to be the best 'sleep warrior' of the crew. I'm not sure how deep his beliefs run, but he mentions the Aborigines and their view of the dream world, though he says it with a smile - he is talking to a hard science Captain, and they are primarily a science vessel, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that such things are thrown in offhand. We've seen the crew turned to sleep before, of course ('Persistence of Vision' is my favourite), and we'd go on to see the idea of 'collective unconsciousness,' as Seven puts it, comparing it to the opposite of the Borg's existence, explored in an emancipative way ('Unimatrix Zero'), but here it's a result of the aliens' interference. It's always poor Harry who gets the worst deal - he was chosen by the Taresians to become one of them in 'Favourite Son,' and got mashed by Species 8472, and in this episode he gets beaten up by Seven (in a dream), and is the first to succumb to the aliens' dream state. He's the heir apparent to O'Brien's tortured exploits!

Though there's less tension because of the style of direction, a deliberately design so we never see any difference between waking and sleeping Voyager, the teaser is put together particularly well, jumping between various odd moments that various crewmembers are experiencing in their seemingly ordinary lives. It flashes between events most effectively, and then things take a turn for the strange and we realise what's happening is well out of the ordinary. The music was especially effective at opening the episode with a portentous air, yet equally it could have been just the kind of music that shows all is normal on the ship and everyone's going about their business. After the scene with Tuvok walking the corridors without any clothing (you only see a closeup of his face, but you can tell what's happening), the next shot is Seven suddenly descending a hatch and I thought she, too, was naked for one moment because of the lighting and the mental image of Tuvok. Kim's still besotted with her, we learn, since he dreams of being taken down into the bowels of the ship for a good smooch, though in reality he's got a good professional interplay with her. We don't see B'Elanna's dream, but we do see her wearing new attire, an engineer's jacket in the same mode as Dr. Crusher's medical coat - that was to hide Roxann Dawson's growing pregnancy, unlike in 'DS9' where they worked Nana Visitor's into the story rather cleverly.

One thing that does surprise is how quickly the story develops, there isn't the slow build of 'Scientific Method' where everyone's having issues and it takes them a while to realise what's happening. Perhaps because of that previous experience Janeway's more suspicious of anything out of the norm - she and Chakotay are discussing their similar dream experiences, Paris chips in, and it's soon obvious they all saw the same alien. It's a shame they didn't use the Holodeck to create the 'E-fit' for a three-dimensional design, instead relying on a flat computer screen. That may have been deliberate as they might not have wanted to remind audiences of another false reality in an episode about false realities, but such things have been done so effectively in the past (I think of 'Identity Crisis' and 'Schisms' on 'TNG,' not to mention the previous episode, 'Mortal Coil' where Chakotay recreated the shuttle accident). Another thing that showed some development in Janeway's thinking is when she believes Voyager to be taken over by the aliens and makes a ship-wide announcement to initiate 'Defence Procedure Omega.' It's entirely possible that this was just an imagined part of her dream that she would have come up with something like that, but it would also make sense if it had been implemented: after the Kazon were able to capture the ship in Season 2 they'd be likely to create a response to the threat, if there wasn't already a Starfleet procedure in place.

What's real and what isn't doesn't just stretch to the story, but the story logic. They definitely cheat at one point when we think Chakotay's woken up after his deliberate mission into the dream state (two vision quests in two episodes, it's like we're back in Season 1 or 2!). We have an exterior, establishing shot of the ship, which we shouldn't be able to see, unless the rationale was that any of the characters could have dreamed seeing the ship (maybe they dropped a routine probe and were looking at an image onscreen). There's also the issue of the Doctor, who doesn't dream and so shouldn't be having any influence on the dream world. Granted, thinking back, it can get a bit confusing over which bit was reality, and they probably kept his role correct in the imagination of the other characters, but he's trying to help Chakotay in both the real world and dream, so it's all a bit confusing, even if he does have good lines ("No rest for the never weary," and describing himself as a "Verbal splash of cold water"). The concept becomes maze-like as the exhausted Chakotay becomes fallible, dropping in and out of sleep and into the clutches of the aliens, and then waking as if doubling back from a dead end in a maze to do what he thought he'd done, again. It's a bit like 'Future Tense' on 'Enterprise' where they keep doing the same task, realising at the same time that they've done it before, or even 'Cause and Effect' for a more extreme comparison.

Chakotay would be good at Poker, because I believe him when he gives the alien an ultimatum that if the crew aren't freed, the cavern where their waking bodies are lying will be destroyed, along with himself. I think he would sacrifice himself to save the ship, and evidently so did the aliens. I can see why they might be so unfriendly when you notice the painfully hard stone slabs they're all lying on. If they spend most of their lives like that, they're bound to be a bit grouchy! I felt we could have done with more of the impossible moments which helped to make the episode such a different proposition: Janeway goes back into Engineering as the Warp Core's about to blow, and survives the breach intact. Mind you, why were Tuvok and Torres hurrying out the door? They admit that the ship should have been destroyed, so it wouldn't matter where they were aboard her! Maybe it was all part of the disorientation they were experiencing? I like that we actually get to see the shattering glass (or transparent aluminium, or whatever the material was), of the core, about to explode, as we usually leave the area rather than hang around at that point. It was also fun to see a deer running round the corridors (just as it was to see emus on the Promenade of DS9), but I hope it didn't ruin any carpets…

When you know the twist well and are watching from the point of view that nothing is real most of the time (like 'Projections'), it isn't quite as nail-biting as it once was. They also missed a trick in not ending the episode in an ambiguous style, wondering if this is indeed reality or if they'd been duped again (like 'Persistence of Vision' or 'Far Beyond The Stars,' though that was more poetic musing). It had been done plenty of times before so I can see why they didn't, you don't want every 'reality within reality' story to be the same. But the core concept still works very well, the idea of having to stay awake because going to sleep, a state where you no longer have control over your mind, is such a dangerous battleground. It's like the Holodeck with the safeties off: if your mind believes it's been injured or killed then you could be in the real world. It doesn't lose any of its power to frighten - no one likes the thought of losing control. In spite of all that, there are fun moments such as the possibilities of a Vulcan's dream being the butt of amusement (two episodes in a row where a false vision of the crew causes consternation from the dreamer's perspective: Neelix at the Prixin party in the vision quest, and Tuvok turning up on the bridge completely naked in a nightmare), and I think what they said about them having more terrible nightmares, would be true, their unconscious mind unbound from logic and control. A trip into a sleeping Vulcan mind would make a great story, even if one variation has already been done ('Flashback'). The aliens' warning, "Pray you never dream of us again," is a strong underline of their threat, so it's a shame we never encountered them again. But Voyager is always moving on, and as Janeway said, "Sometimes first contact is last contact."

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