Year of Hell, Part II

DVD, Voyager S4 (Year of Hell, Part II)

You could easily look upon this two-parter as an ultimately pointless exercise. We don't learn anything about an alien race that will become integral to the unfolding Trek lore, we don't get any permanent development for the USS Voyager's crew, and nothing is discovered that will have a lasting impact on the series or the franchise in any real way at all. But, to paraphrase Fake Spock of the Abramsverse (or the newly rechristened 'Kelvin Timeline'), 'whatever our lives would have been, they are now irrevocably altered. If only we hadn't diverted when we met that comet…' Because the value lies in an exploration of 'what would it be like if…' which makes much more sense for an individual episode, or two-parter than it does for an entire (and the only current), Trek film series to cover, and rather than being about getting brand recognition to make the most box office possible, this story has a genuine creative reason for existing. Even if it only does so for a couple of episodes (give or take a third, if you want to count 'Before and After'). This is why such examinations can be so fascinating, because in a weekly TV series it's good to shake the status quo up occasionally, even at the risk of proceedings appearing to be for naught in the long run. Think of it as a short story, an alternative history of how Captain Janeway and her intrepid crew would react if they were constantly on the run with a permanently scarred, battle-damaged vessel, housing only the last core remnants of that crew.

After the majority of the crew exited via escape pods at the end of Part I, it affords full focus on the command crew, those which the series is really all about anyway. And the pressure has taken its toll, not just on a blinded Tuvok, but on all of them, including the Captain. Especially the Captain! Janeway is at her stubborn, single-mindedly determined best, and it's only a shame that her survival ire is directed against an impassive, dispassionate foe, both in terms of Annorax, the man pulling the strings of fate, and Time itself, whom he has anthropomorphised over his two centuries of meddling to a moody beast that has its whims, its punishments, and refuses to let itself be fully governed by the firm hand of the Krenim weapon ship's leader. Janeway really needs someone aggressive and violent to face up against, but too often it's been uncaring, unemotional enemies that caused her greatest frustration - the Borg, for example, or the macrovirus. The last is apt, as it was the first time we saw her strip down to a vest and go hunting. From that we learnt that when Janeway goes to vest uniform you know things are bad! It's a visual representation that the gloves are off, no punches will be pulled, no temporal directive will stand in her unwavering personal battle to practically physically hold everything and everyone together by iron force of will alone. It's the kind of vision of this Captain that reminds us of the steel beneath her skin, like some kind of Terminator she'll never give in, even at the risk of everything around her imploding, bent on her goal, like some ancient Greek goddess, striving even beyond her strength.

A bit poetic, I know, but the episode is like some kind of Greek tragedy transported into the 24th Century realm of technology and space. We have downed heroes (Tuvok, bravely battling on with his impairment), allies (Seven, devotedly assisting Tuvok in his daily tasks or movement about the obstacle-ridden decks), thinkers (Chakotay, a touch of Stockholm syndrome perhaps), and simple, goodnatured dependables (Neelix, who else?). But the biggest change is in rebellious or insubordinate attitudes being squeezed out in the crucible of unchanging danger and constant weariness. Paris is all for provoking a mutiny among the dissatisfied Krenim crew that have grown tired of Annorax' measured leadership, tempered by obsessional, rigorous determination to continue until all is as it was when he first used the weapon. Chakotay comes around to the man's mental stamina, the steadfastness that could equally be applied to Janeway, but in a different way. Annorax has the bearing of a Captain, the wise outlook, and an unflinching, unending task before him of finding the exact formula of events that will return everything to its rightful sequence, and restore his beloved wife. He's like a gambler caught within a net of gambling, but with the power to continue indefinitely, first altering this variable, then changing that input, often winning big, but doomed never to score the jackpot, playing interminable odds that constantly shift with each new attempt to control them, a game that is impossible for mere mortals to win.

It's fully in Chakotay's character to seek alternative solutions, not to be bound unto death to make things one myopic way they should be, in the manner of both Janeway and Annorax. While Janeway's obsession is getting Voyager home, Chakotay has always been more open to whatever their best chance of survival is. It's one of the most fascinating things about the pairing of this particular Captain and First Officer - while all such double-acts of command in the various series have had a challenging of either side's views (the purpose of a First Officer is to present the Captain with options, after all), Janeway is so focused on her main goal that she refuses anything less than the perfect achievement of it, exactly mirroring Annorax, and will do whatever it takes, whether that means abandoning her principles, making whatever sacrifices, even exchanging herself for that prize. Chakotay's always been a man of peace, despite taking up arms against the Cardassians. He's not afraid to fight when it's right to do so, but he prefers peaceful solutions, in some ways he's the perfect foil for Janeway, in others he's the worst First Officer a Captain of her style and attitude needs to rein her in. Imagine how things would have played out if Riker had been Janeway's Number One. Or Kira (violence might have ensued, or at least a bitter parting). Or even Spock - we get a sense of what that would have been like from Tuvok. Here, he's clearly realised the best chance of survival for the crew is to blindly (literally), follow her rule, instructing Seven that the Captain is always right. A far cry from his usual persona of stolid guidance and advisement of his friend and Captain.

That was Chakotay's issue, he was satisfied with having what he could get, rather becoming an obsessed, driven leader like Janeway - if only he could have been tougher with her, she might have learned better balance. But as we see over the course of the series, her strength, while it gave the crew the portion to continue against ridiculous odds, also showed some mental difficulties. Maybe that's what was required, but she was dangerously willing to make a gamble. Not the precise, specific tweaking of Annorax, but a messy, all in, free-for-all charged on gut instinct as we see when she finally decides to ram home her message by crashing the crumbling remains of Voyager into the weapon ship. It was the biggest 'might' in history when she suggests that all of history might be restored if the ship is destroyed. At that stage I suppose there was no alternative, she'd gone as far as she could and only destruction remained, her stiff-necked refusal to give up all control meant that she would try something that could have simply ended all their lives where Chakotay might have been amenable to settle down on some planet rather than risk nonexistence. She's not the same Captain the Kazon were able to trick into taking away Voyager from her, and maybe much of her survival instinct and predatory inability to lease control to another force stems from that incident? If it was this Janeway she'd have ordered her crew to fight to the death and personally gone on a rampage, phaser rifle in hand, rather than give up her means of getting her crew home. She would almost be the type to destroy all she had to get what she needed.

It's not entirely fair to compare the Janeway of this episode to that of the series. We're seeing an alternate history play out, a year that was never experienced by 'our' Janeway, and we're seeing just how far she can be pushed. And despite her questionable attitude of unbreakable stubbornness, she remains a heroic figure: she bravely enters deflector control, steels herself to the unavoidable pain and is badly burned saving the ship, which itself has become an extension of her: its skin, the hull, is also pitted and rutted, peeling away, and it's like the Captain and her vessel are become one. Which is why when she makes her decision to try and wipe the Krenim vessel out with Voyager, sacrificing herself in the process, you feel like all that is holding the shattered husk together is her unbending will. It's telling of her charisma and aura of authority that she is able, even with such a broken, punished ship, to forge an alliance out of nowhere, so it's a mini armada of five ships that takes on the weapon, distracting the Krenim from the only one that really matters (surely all they needed to do was stay out of the cumbersome temporal weapon's line of fire, but the idiot aliens fly right into its path, although shortly after, the Krenim do use conventional weaponry as well, so it was a losing proposition with any tactics) - I liked the designs of the Nihydron and Mawasi ships, and it's a shame we never got to see what the aliens themselves look like, but it reaffirms the established single-mindedness of Janeway, that it is her will and hers alone that matters. So bent on her target she doesn't even see her allies, so we don't either. I can see why they'd keep them faceless, without contact as it would distract from the purity of Janeway's endeavour. They became irrelevant as soon as they agreed to her alliance, just pieces of her plan.

There's a kind of callousness in Janeway that means all else is futile and unimportant beyond what she must do, and it's brought out to the max thanks to her year of suffering. Her strength and power comes from an inability to give in, something that's sometimes necessary, and she'd rather die than melt into a new life, where Chakotay is more malleable, and therefore probably more destined to have a healthier, happier life. But I'm sure Janeway would accept the burden of whatever hardship or sacrifice she must endure or relinquish, like a true hero she has an implacable vision. Maybe she should become head of Starfleet? No threat would be too big for her to overcome, she just has that uncompromising nature about her, though it can be self-destructive, the other rebelliousness of the episode coming from Janeway herself. Paris' mutinous ideas are shot down by Chakotay, who suggests that he either follows the command structure or they do it the old-fashioned way - you almost want him to say the Maquis way, as that's the ominous threat he's making, that if violence is required to ensure discipline, then that's what will be meted out. Chakotay isn't soft, he's tough, he just prefers the civilised alternative, but he's had plenty of experience of rough justice, and in the beginning he seemed a little more of a fighter, though fitting neatly by Janeway's side. She might have become harder-edged earlier if he'd shown more belligerence, but the inverse happened, he was happy to fade into the background and take Janeway's lead, and perhaps she took a greater hold than she should, which is why Chakotay had to face up against her sometimes, to varying degrees, depending on how strongly he felt about it.

It's not he that opposes her this time, it's the Doctor. It's always a great moment when the Chief Medical Officer of a Trek series has to make the big call and officially sanction the main character, the big hero, the Captain! They're the only character that can make that determination, and I'm surprised it's never been abused by some alien possession or something (in the rare cases of it happening I can't think of any time when it's been anything other than aboveboard). Just as the Captain's been pushed beyond what would normally be expected, so has the crew. The Doctor at first holds his counsel, not pulling rank on Janeway when she refuses lung treatment after taking in too much gas from a nebula they're hiding in (this might be the first time we see the breathing masks on the series, perhaps deemed required equipment after the incident in 'Parturition' when Neelix and Tom were forced to shelter in a cave from noxious planetary gases). I thought at the time that he merely thought it was a lost cause to try and halt Janeway at that stage, just as Tuvok, with his choice to follow her whatever happened - that any opposition would only make her task harder, and division would be unhealthy as she was the backbone of their survival. In fact, the Doctor was merely being tested, and his resolve finally drives him, later in the episode, to do the unthinkable and relieve her of command. Even then, she refuses to comply, and with no crew to back up his determination the Doctor's orders fall on deaf ears. I'd love to have seen what the other crewmembers would have done had they been privy to the conversation - would there have been a civil war, splitting the Janeway and Doctor camps? As she said, she'd be willing to face a general court martial if they ever got home, showing that, despite everything, she hadn't completely lost all sight of her position and what she stood for, it's just that it was irrelevant at that time, survival the only thing that mattered. Like the 'might,' it was a very big 'if.'

While Janeway faces opposition on Voyager, Chakotay has come to appreciate Annorax for the genius he is. He recognises that, like himself, the Krenim appreciates dignity and restraint. Why did he wait two months before inviting the two Voyager prisoners for an audience? Because he's a very patient and meticulous man, never in a rush (or rarely), and when he's had two whole centuries in which to consider and plan, two months must feel like no time at all, just as when you get older time appears to go past at an ever increasing rate as you get so familiar with its passing. He invites his guests to a banquet of erasion - he dines well, but it's a blood meal, eating and drinking the last remnants of now deleted races, genocide has become nothing more than a thought experiment to ponder, because if they were made never to exist in the first place, then there is no sin, surely? That's the rationale he's come to accept, his moral compass no longer functioning as a master of all time, nothing and no one has any real meaning (just as Obrist talks of realising that it was fruitless to honour the birthdays of the dead or those that never existed, he and the rest of the crew trapped in a bubble of unreality, well past the date of their own lifespan and that of their families), a single species now insignificant except as a thread to pull and see what happens. I felt Chakotay and Paris should have immediately been offended and refused to participate in the meal, the full horror apparent, but Chakotay prefers discourse to silence, an attempt at understanding and common ground than instant opposition.

Annorax sees a common spirit between them, both in a tenacious struggle to reach home, and as someone he can tutor in the fine art of altering history in tiny ways to make huge impact. Annorax has come to see his ship as not just a weapon, but a museum of lost histories, the last existence of so many races, but it's mere bemusement, another thought to idle the time away, to keep his mind active. I can see why a new audience to share with would encourage and interest the man, especially as he's only had his crew to interact with for so many years. In their place they see Paris as an end to their vain toil, and so both prisoners come to be important in the events on that ship, which is integral to the episode's success. Because the important thing is how we see the characters deal with their troubles and challenges - there's a lovely moment when Janeway and Neelix clamber through the remains of Chakotay's smashed quarters and she finds the pocket watch he wanted to give her as a birthday gift. It's a reminder of the characters and places them at the heart of the story. There's also a touching final exchange between Janeway and Tuvok, where they discuss what Voyager itself means, Janeway explaining that it's more than a material construction - just as in Part I when the Doctor eulogises the crew and their exploits, Janeway does the same for her beloved home, considering it (as most people probably do with the ships and station of the Trek series'), as important as a member of the crew. And then its farewell and a foreshadowing of the kind of death she expects to encounter, a prophetic reminder to Torres that a Captain always goes down with her ship.

So much of the story reminds me of my favourite Trek film, 'Generations' - you have the pocket watch, a villain intent on recreating his old life which has slipped through the sands of time, desirous of manipulating the very forces of nature to his success, and a Captain on their own unsalvageable bridge for the last time… It doesn't succeed on the same level as the film, there isn't the weight of an entire series behind it with which to feel the poignancy of the end of things as we knew them, and of course we're only halfway through the series with many more adventures to experience, with the events of these two episodes erased from existence. But that's like many of the great episodes of this series (I think of 'Deadlock,' or 'Course: Oblivion' for just a couple of examples), in a way the whole series is almost unconnected from Trek as a whole, because how likely is it that the Delta Quadrant and its races will return to, to be fleshed out even more? But as an exercise in how far the crew and its ship could be pushed it had gone where none had gone before and showed us what was possible.

I did feel the ending was a little bit throwaway, without as much of the chill of poignancy or poetic satisfaction as some episodes ("I was never really here" - 'Persistence of Vision'), the Krenim ship (the other one, not the weapon), showing up as it had several times before, its commandant advising Voyager to avoid Krenim space (how do they know its boundaries, did he beam over star maps?), but I like the happy ending with the crew back in their rightful places, the bright, clean bridge of Voyager so beautiful after the dingy, dilapidated remains in the other timeline, so reassuringly familiar, and as we like it, not permanently scarred as so much of 'Battlestar Galactica' was. But the best happy ending is for Annorax himself, who is back at work in his home, his wife indulgently leading him away from his work. At the same time I felt a slight sense of uncertainty in how we're supposed to interpret what will happen, from the tone of the music to the way the camera zooms in on the pads cluttering his desk with calculations. It seemed to say that he's abandoned them for now to be with his wife, but will he come back and restart the whole process, the loop impossible to escape? After all, he has no knowledge of the two hundred year existence he endured, and with no actual time 'travel' involved, no one can learn from their mistakes. Perhaps that's the most intriguing thread that's left hanging for us to consider.

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