Living Witness

DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Living Witness)

I came to this not expecting much at all, even though I'd rated it highly in the past. I hadn't seen it for years and I knew all about the Voyager crew portraying evil versions of themselves, and that's all of the episode that stuck, so as I watched I began to wonder if I'd merely enjoyed the novelty of it, and false caricatures of the crew were as interesting as it was going to get. But I was wrong, it became as good as I had noted it to be, though it doesn't really start until some way into the episode when the Doctor, or to be precise, a backup module of his program, is activated and the process of revealing the truth begins, the way that will ultimately lead to the two alien races finally coming to an understanding and acceptance of each other. Because, though we're seven hundred years in Voyager's future (and this could easily be an episode misconstrued as irrelevant in today's serialised form of storytelling for having no bearing on the series as a whole), we're not at the end of time, not even at the end of the era we see in the episode, and when this revelation literally pulls back in front of us, our eyes uncovered, it's an incredible piece of dramatic storytelling that shows just what Trek can do with its format. If only the episode's co-writers, Bryan Fuller and Joe Menosky, had been able to pull off this kind of depth with 'Discovery' before their association with it was cut short, because this is the Trek that means so much and carries so much weight compared to the relatively uninteresting question of physical violence and conflict, as we see in the episode.

Physical violence and conflict is the basis for the inaccurate extrapolations of the Voyager crew, and makes up much of their time in the story - one thing I really appreciated was that the Doctor was able to tell his side of his-story without the episode resorting to the expected flashbacks to the 'current' period of the series that we usually see. The entirety took place in this far-flung future and the only way he does portray the truth of his shipmates was in a recreation via simulation (something he'd repeat much later with his Voyager 'inspired' novel in 'Author, Author,' another time when the crew are misinterpreted, though under the guise of fiction - in fact he does the opposite of what he does here, though sadly they are two different 'hes' so the real Doctor wouldn't know about this or he might not have been so quick to abuse his colleagues and surroundings for the sake of creativity, although this is happening long, long after that episode's time despite the fact we saw it long before!). The Kyrians skewed or completely fictional, abhorrent and bizarre speculation on the crew of this famed ship gives us the closest we'd get to seeing their Mirror Universe counterparts as, in common with 'TNG,' it's the only other series not to visit (though Mirror Tuvok cropped up on one of the 'DS9' MU episodes). The MU is really only partially interesting as a mirror on our fine, upstanding Federation citizens, and as such this episode displays why, beyond the first novelty of seeing them acting up, it can become a little tiresome.

This is an extreme version of what other sci-fi shows are like without the positive future humanity that Trek strives to portray (however farfetched in reality). Obviously most sci-fi isn't about nasty, violent or depraved characters, but there is a trend, or perhaps it's just a cul-de-sac, for bitterness, nastiness, dark shades of grey (and knowledgeable Trek viewers know that not every shade of grey is worth seeing!), which has even come to Trek, with 'DSC' leading the way into a less civilised version. In Trek, this began with the sequel after 'Voyager,' when further 24th Century adventures were eschewed for a visit to the theretofore unexplored 22nd Century, with a desire to move closer in kind to our own society's more identifiable foibles, flaws, attitudes and problems for the sake of drama and being different. 'Enterprise' wasn't all that bad, but it certainly lost much of the spirit of what made the Trek spinoffs so appealing until that time, and 'DSC' has continued that new tendency. Whether 'Star Trek: Picard' can bring things back around and give me once more the optimistic, uplifting variety of Trek I've been missing since the start of this century, I don't know (and have doubts since it's from the same people who thought bringing a murderous Empress of the MU into our universe, and even giving her her own series, was a viable idea for another spinoff!). I suppose what I'm getting at is that the unpleasant version of Voyager wasn't as much of a draw as it used to be because I see too much nastiness or thoughtlessness in post-'Voyager,' modern Trek.

The other side of the story, that of a museum curator and historian, was also somewhat lacking at first. He was a bit bland as a character, although I wouldn't expect the alien Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, there was nothing much to him. Added to that, I wasn't sure about either the Kyrian or Vaskan alien designs, they seemed almost half done (though Michael Westmore's experience working on 'Rocky' must have been useful for the ugly bruises and swelling on the prisoner Kim beats). The Kyrians had a sort of Bajoran nose with disconcerting extra nostrils at the brow with some kind of tiny antennae protrusions which were like staring at a snail. And the Vaskans weren't much better with their lizard-like brows. I was surprised to see that seven hundred years in the future, even granting that this is an alien world, they were still using flat, two-dimensional displays to watch the 'historical' events of Voyager's important role, though it could have been deliberate to fit with that era. As the episode progressed, however, things came neatly, if slowly, together: with the activation of the EMH backup (which I'm sure we've never heard of before, a rather convenient way to get our character into the story, but it doesn't matter because of how good that story is - see, you can justify bending canon if the payoff's worth it!), the first glimmers of greatness shimmer into existence, and I don't just mean the Doc himself! Suddenly we're with him, thrust hundreds of years beyond his time, opening up manifold possibilities and sadnesses that we don't necessarily think about in the day-to-day of Voyager's adventures when there isn't time to wonder about the future, beyond getting home.

I felt a warm joy creep through me as the Doctor began to have an impact on the curator, whose name I can't even remember because he was so quiet and bland. But he was an example of the average person of his world, I felt. Intelligent, but accepting the mistaken 'facts' and explanations that had become the history they believed. There's a theme in here about history not being certain, and I think that's a useful theme - it shows over the course of it that history needs to be examined and everything brought to light because otherwise injustices can abound. Such as the Kyrians seeing the leader of their world at that time as a noble martyr, executed at the hands of callous Captain Janeway, when in the Doctor's impartial view, he was the instigator of hostilities and was killed by a Vaskan, much to Janeway's displeasure. Did the Vaskans even have the ability to send Voyager home as the simulation claimed? Such a simple fact, yet it seems impossible, and the alien history is full of such things. I don't take it that the message of the story is not to trust history at all, just that we should be careful not to imprint our own viewpoints, and how we've learnt to see things now, as the filter through which we interpret the past. Perhaps we have to accept that there are things we can't know instead of filling in the details with what we believe most plausible?

The greatest part of Trek is in its desire to put things right, the bringing of justice, whether that be on a personal level, or planet-wide, because the whole of creation groans for things to be made right, and while Trek crews aren't God, they can give us a small sense of fulfilling that ultimate goal in each small adventure, the reason I felt a glow of satisfaction and happiness as the Doctor worked to set the record straight. Of course they weren't simply going to believe him right away, but as the curator says in his personal log, the Doctor himself represents a fact they got wrong, and he's maintained from the first moment a story he says is true. Deception and the entanglements of lie or half-lie can be apparent even without proof, while truth shines forth and makes the most sense upon reflection. An important component of why this episode works is that the curator takes time to think about the Doctor's claims. Thinking time is not something encouraged in today's world, at least not in our entertainment. Who wants to put in mental effort when we can just experience vicarious thrills? What value is there in simply thinking things through? A lot, and I appreciated this side of the story. It wasn't going to be that easy, even once the curator is won over, the authorities and politicians aren't just going to accept something that may affect their position, both racially and societally, but also potentially change the balance of power. They're sceptical and suspicious, but it's more from the Kyrian side as they have more to lose from the new narrative, while we see the advantage to be gained by the Vaskans makes them open to its investigation for their own self interest.

The shocking thing is that the divisions bubbling under Vaskan and Kyrian society rise to the surface, and while we see the two species living or working side by side (and it might have been very interesting if the curator had had a Vaskan assistant to hash out the arguments with, though perhaps unnecessary), the tensions and cracks remain not healed. We're in another part of their history when they thought they had it together and things were moving along pretty smoothly, and they looked back at the past believing themselves to have moved on from that time, yet the episode ends with us pulling back from the museum, shattered and broken by angry rioters, and we see another group watching the curator and the Doctor search for the missing Tricorder that contains proof of which weapon shot their 'great' leader seven hundred years ago, realising that even this is a simulation in the same, restored museum further into a future where there is genuine peace and tranquility between the races. It's a crushingly beautiful moment that breaks the fourth wall in a way, but not into our viewing reality, into their own descendants', and shows that even the 'advanced' period was just another period, just as that former period in which Voyager is still travelling was only a past that had yet to become one, and that things can change for good or ill, a warning not to become complacent with the achievements we've made or the successes we've had because they can be reversed, and whether it's a people group or a person, we're all part of a stream of time, and we don't know when it will end, either individually or totally.

Revisionist history, time itself, these are big themes to tackle, but they don't forget about the personal amid all this, and for the Doctor, it's a deeply tragic moment when he realises his crew are all long dead and wonders if they ever made it home. It's sweet and stirring, and even though this isn't technically 'the' Doctor, it is him until the point of this episode, so for all intents and purposes, it is him, a very clever way of sending someone into the far future without real time travel, similar to Scotty's method of storing himself in the Transporter only to be brought out decades later by the Enterprise-D crew (I thought there was a subtle reference to him in the aliens believing B'Elanna was Chief Transporter Operator when she was really the Chief Engineer, both jobs that Scotty did - it could also apply to O'Brien who began as Transporter Operator on 'TNG' and became Chief Engineer on DS9!). As the curator puts it so eloquently, 'when your program is inactive, a moment or a millennium are the same to you,' which is incredibly poetic about holographic life. He's likely to live 'forever,' but unlike Data, who also confronted this issue of outliving all his friends, and was permanently on, he can be unconscious of vast passages of time. Just as the curator is slow to believe him, the Doc doesn't believe what he's told at first (it's not the first time he's been activated and manipulated with the nature of reality - 'Projections,' for example), so it's lovely to see the mutual distrust between the pair fall away.

Another cool side to the story is that it's set seven hundred years after the 24th Century, which places it in the 31st Century, the same time period that mysterious temporal agent Daniels originated from in 'Enterprise.' So when the Doctor wants to try and contact Starfleet and wonders if there even is one in this time, he would be okay after all, thanks to that retcon, if you can call it that since it's all in the distant future. What's fun is that even the Doc's futuristic holographic emitter (which this version obviously doesn't have), is from the 29th Century, so he's travelled further even than the series had ventured before, and I think was the furthest into the future we'd seen to this point, until 'Enterprise' and Captain Archer's trip to an alternate 31st Century, and now, from what I hear, 'DSC' will be going into the 33rd. Even better, we have a perfect ending, not just through seeing the observers of the history that the Doctor's activation becomes, but in hearing what happened afterwards: things were made right, the curator died only six years later, the Doctor served on the planet for many years, and especially, that the Doctor eventually chose to leave and pursue the course Voyager took and one day return home. It wouldn't matter to him if it took sixty years to return to the Federation, even if he never found any faster way, so I'd like to think that he did find his way (no excuse not to get Robert Picard on 'DSC' - they're very familiar with holograms, after all…), and if he did, he might even have met thine own self that had lived through those seven centuries (now it sounds like 'Highlander - The Animated Series'!), and hear the story of Voyager's voyage home firsthand.

'The Voyage Home' is an apt connection because, although 'Star Trek IV' isn't one of my favourites in the film series, whenever I watch it I have a similar pervasive feeling of rightness and goodness as I felt with this episode. It has to have the negatives: those that react as if the Doctor is a liar, refusing to allow for the truth that must be released, and those that react to that truth in the wrong way, with violence and hatred, smashing the museum's exhibits in rage - I mentioned earlier the Kyrian similarity to Bajorans, and they also seem to be the more passive, and lower in the joint system. The Vaskan that calls into question the curator's view of history as presented in the museum reminded me of a Cardassian from the way he wore his hair, the clothing, and the anger in his questioning, storming off when the curator responds as if there could be no other sensible view. Also the fact that he's at the forefront of the rioters charging through the museum. I doubt there was supposed to be a hint of Bajoran/Cardassian politics or Jew/Nazi as those races can often be seen in the light of, because the Vaskans and Kyrians weren't as easy to pigeonhole, nor do we see enough of them to confirm any direction in that regard, but there did seem unconscious inspiration. And while I'm looking at potential inspiration or possible reference, what about Janeway in the Doctor's recreation, when they're creeping up on a raid aboard Voyager she says, 'we're approaching section thirty-one.' Section 31 was created in Season 6 of 'DS9,' for 'Inquisition' an episode aired on 8th April 1998. 'Living Witness' was released 29th April 1998. Coincidence? One for the conspiracy theorists out there… though I'm not sure why they'd bother referencing something from one episode that they didn't know was going to become a controversial addition to canon for decades to come!

The fun side of the episode is in spotting the outlandish conjectures made in the simulation: we get to see Neelix dressed in the gold of Security (unless it's operations - he did seem to be at Kim's post), for, what, the third time after 'Before and After' and 'Year of Hell'? We get a Kazon (part of their 'three hundred' strong contingent of soldiers), for the only time this season, and what's a season without at least one Kazon in it (it was as much fun as when there was a Ferengi serving on the Enterprise-D bridge in that episode where it happened!), the Doctor is an android with weird eyes like he had in 'Darkling,' Seven of Nine is leader of a group of Borg shock troops (I'll bet Jeri Ryan was 'overjoyed' to be back in the cybernetic prosthetics again!), using the Borg alcoves aboard Voyager for more than just her, something that wouldn't become the norm until Season 6, and for once we actually see a USS Voyager that has been augmented with alien technology, something that some viewers wanted for the real ship, though I maintain it would have ruined the lines and curves unless they made very subtle, slight changes, which would almost be pointless. With all that you could be forgiven for thinking it was set in the Mirror Universe as it takes some time before we realise what's going on, and this isn't real. When you know that twist it's more like waiting to get past it, which is why the real twist at the end was so awe-inspiring.

Having just had Garak actor, Andrew Robinson, direct an episode, we have another Trek cast member, this time the Vulcan himself, Tim Russ, behind the camera, and he did a great job, so much that it's astonishing he never directed another (official), Trek again, an oversight I hope will be rectified in the coming years with the current multiple productions, as I believe he still directs. Again, it's the draw you get that really makes a difference, and he got a terrific script to play with and did a grand job creating a whole other large set for the museum, as well as turning the standing sets into part of an alien simulation. The reason why it all works was because we'd already had the experience of an unhappy ending: 'Distant Origin' was very similar in that Voyager comes along to prove a history far different from the accepted version, and those in authority care only about keeping the status quo. It was one thing for the curator to overcome his doubts, but it seemed a long shot that a world of two entire races would submit to a new understanding of their joint history. And that's how it appeared it would go, with the Doctor threatened, the museum and its irreplaceable artefacts wrecked in a fury of passion, the Doctor feeling himself to be the flashpoint of division for the two integrated races, horrifying him enough that he'd rather abandon the truth and sacrifice himself by decompiling his program because of the damage he's caused this society, his concern for the people leading him astray, showing that even good intentions and noble aspirations can be twisted through fear.

He even goes as far as suggesting that history is unimportant, it's the now that matters and if it mars that then it would be better to forget it all, in much the same result of the Voth in 'Distant Origin,' the Doctor basically taking the bad guy role through his horror. But the curator is able to talk him down and we witness the result of the truth becoming accepted, the maelstrom of violence only a passing storm to be waited out. It's very true to his character that he'd become so distraught as to wish to try and hide the truth, but also that he's rational enough for reasoned thought to sway him. That old curator might not have been the most exciting character, but he was the ideal opposite of the excitable Doctor and together they were able to instigate change.

In the spirit of the curator's research of true history I did a spot of background reading myself, in the latest edition of 'The Star Trek Encyclopedia' I discovered the DNA of this episode is even richer than it's dramatic credentials appear, because Henry Woronicz, the actor who played the museum curator, Quarren, had previously played the same role in 'Distant Origin': Gegen, the scientist trying to prove another alien authority's understanding of history to be incorrect. Not only that, but previous to that he'd played yet another similar role as the Klingon scientist J'Dan in yet another episode concerned with finding the truth, 'The Drumhead' on 'TNG'! That adds more perfection to an already wonderful story, and I take back what I said about him seeming bland. Of far less importance, but still some interest, is the fact that Rod Arrants (Daleth, the Vaskan Ambassador), had been in 'Manhunt' on 'TNG' as Rex the holographic Dixon Hill bartender, and Morgan Margolis (the Vaskan visitor to the museum, whom I take to be the angry young man, though there were several visitors), played Crewman Baird in 'Vanishing Point' on 'Enterprise,' and even the Vaskan arbiter was played by Craig Richard Nelson: Krag in 'A Matter of Perspective' on 'TNG'). I suppose I could say my own view of history was changed by watching this story as I had the impression I wasn't going to like it nearly as much as I used to, and now I like it a little more: Whaddanepisode! Makes me want to watch more Trek, and it doesn't get more inspiring than that!

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