Night

DVD, Voyager S5 (Night)

Much has changed in the three years since I sat down to review the end of Season 4, none of it for the better. We've had a few characters from this series return to be played or voiced by their original actor, something that would have been very unlikely and unforeseen before. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, they ruined the legacy characters of past Trek in this new era (certainly Seven of Nine - I haven't seen 'Prodigy' yet, but don't hold out hope for it), for the most part, and it's got to the point where I actually wasn't looking forward to revisiting a series I've always considered my second favourite (after 'DS9'), the modern writers having sucked the joy out of Trek for me with their emotionalism, agendas, crudity, lack of respect for the established timeline and history, and a general failure to create good drama and attractive, principled characters doing inspirational things. But years ago I always planned to write reviews for the whole series, and Season 5 has gone down in my memory as possibly the best of 'Voyager,' so here I am at the beginning. That's a very suitable word as this appears to have been very much an attempt to, if not reset the series, certainly bring any casual viewers up to speed, while at the same time presenting a similar dilemma to that which stranded them in the Delta Quadrant originally, and they don't shie away from drawing a parallel in case we didn't get it.

I don't know whether it was in an effort to avoid competing with 'DS9' as that series ended its penultimate season on a sort of cliffhanger (the Wormhole shut, Sisko returning to Earth), and opened with a resolution, but they chose to close out Season 4 with a standalone tale, which left them free to begin Season 5 any way they wanted (as opposed to the end of the season which very much ended on a cliffhanger, like a message to those who might have confused them with 'DS9' ending to say they clearly were going to continue). It was the first time since the transition into Season 2 (which is not so easy to pin down anyway with the episodes filmed during Season 1, then shown in 2), that they hadn't plunged into a sequel to the previous episode and so it meant they could try something a little different: the Captain has isolated herself in her Quarters, Chakotay is running the ship, and tempers are fraying as the crew struggle with the psychology of crossing a region of space devoid of all life... or at least of all stars and celestial bodies (so where did the aliens get the materials to make their ships...?), a place of black space and nothing else. It's quite poetic, a lone ship, isolated and alone, a tiny beacon moving through the nothingness, like a summation of the series itself. Only our usually confident, reassuring Captain is wallowing in guilt at having brought her crew into this place - not just the 'void' as they call it (not to be confused with the Season 7 episode of the same name!), but the Quadrant itself, forgetting all the good they've done and blaming herself.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the episode, because I remembered quite liking it, but not how much, and it isn't a classic, that's for sure. It doesn't have the tension and sense of rising heat between crew-members that was done so well in 'The Ship' on 'DS9,' for example. A lot of it is spoken about and perhaps that dangerous mood is lessened with the fun, but frivolous introduction of the Captain Proton Holodeck program Tom Paris loves so much - usually with these programs the writers drop lines here and there about them, but we don't always see them, left to our imagination to fill in the blanks, but for whatever reason, perhaps flush with a new season's budget, they physically created it. The unique spin is that it's all in black and white, aping the old 'Flash Gordon' serials, so that when the Doctor enters, he shows up as the only colour in sight. It does make sense that the crew would be trying to unwind and getting away from their situation of boredom and emptiness in fantasy, but it also doesn't make sense since they're supposed to be conserving power as much as possible for this long, two-year trip across void space. But that's one of the dramatic conventions of the series, that the Holodecks can continue running almost no matter what, a bit like gravity never giving out, even when environmental systems are hit, and you have to accept it and move on.

Harder to accept is the breach of protocol from the Doctor of walking into a running program. He could have called, left a message, maybe even knocked on the door chime, but he just walks right in. Again, it's for the purposes of showing he's in living colour when everything else is monochrome, but that's quite a serious interruption and if I were the occupants I'd certainly feel aggrieved at the breach of privacy. On the other hand, he is the Doctor, he's part of ship's systems, so technically I don't see why he couldn't override the privacy functions and waltz in, and in fact he could even have simply fritzed into place within the holomatrix, which is what he always used to do before he gained the portable holo-emitter, and although we don't see how he entered, either would have worked. The other issue is that with the crew in such a state and using the Holodecks so much, perhaps they weren't locking out anyone that wanted to join in midway during a session, or Paris had forgotten the option to allow extra participants in, and otherwise would have turned it off. So none of it is a big problem in technical terms, it's just the Doctor's lack of finesse, and that comes with the character, even if he had grown significantly since the days of terrible bedside manner.

I do think the episode would have benefited from a more aggressive, boiling tension, but then it wasn't quite the same situation as that in 'The Ship,' they had the space to move around, the ship was functioning normally, it was merely the fact there was nothing new to do, and the prospect of continuing in that vein for so long without a planetary break or anything to alter the tedium - it's gotten so bad Tuvok doesn't even upbraid Harry Kim for playing his clarinet on the Bridge when he's supposed to be nightwatchman, or whatever it was he was doing! I'm sure Tuvok was comfortable with such a long seclusion from outside interference, being Chief of Security, as no threats were likely, but even he prefers to see stars outside, moving to Astrometrics for some accompaniment to his Vulcan meditations. Neelix is the one that really sells the situation best, getting extremely panicky and reacting so badly, and if those two and Chakotay, the characters that got lost in the latter half of the series, are being so well integrated, that can only be a boon for the series. Regarding the others, Seven is typically unaffected, while Tom and B'Elanna argue during their play with Duplo blocks (actually a game called Derada, but as I have no memory of it, unlike Kadis-kot, or Dabo, I'm guessing it never got played again).

If the atmosphere wasn't fully achieved, I could also suggest the story is a little too easy - it's great to have a story with a moral centre again and serious stakes: not the galaxy-ending fantasy, in no way believable or possible to identify with of modern Trek, but very personal and dealing with the psychology of people, as if they're real people and not superheroes or eccentric aberrants. This means you feel for them and sympathise with their plight, they win you over (if I didn't already like the characters). It's great that the choice is between a quick escape from this mentally draining challenge, at the cost of the life of one alien who, don't forget, had attacked the ship - I'd have liked to see Paris' reaction to the news they were going to help these aliens when he'd suffered severe burns from an encounter. It's a replay of their original predicament to stay behind and destroy the Caretaker's array that would send them home, or use it and commit an entire race to the slavery of the Kazon. The Malon (where's Talon? Nah, they didn't do 'Zelda' references in those days, fortunately!), aren't quite the same, they're more like the Ferengi, only interested in profit and not caring about who or what gets hurt along the way, except even the Ferengi have some kind of ideals that we see played out through Quark ('Business As Usual' a perfect example). This Malon, Emck, doesn't care about the harmful radiation he's dumping in the aliens' space, killing them, nor that his people's lives could be improved by Voyager's offer of cleaner technology, all he cares about is his own livelihood and continuing that, which you can tell by looking at his scabby face is doing him physical harm in itself!

There's a bit of an ecological message there, but it isn't rammed in your face the way I'm sure modern Trek would do it, it's just about what's best for all concerned, and that used to be Trek's way: not battering viewers over the head with blatant agendas, but subtly introducing concepts and ideas to think about, which is much more useful and intelligent. It's not really about the damage the Malon are doing (to themselves and others), it's about Janeway, primarily, stepping up and not sinking into depression. Bizarrely I thought of the spoilt brat Kelvin Timeline version of Captain Kirk in 'Beyond,' bored by being out in space where everything's the same, except here it really is, with a long term of perseverance anticipated. Janeway snaps to herself as soon as action is required when the aliens threaten the ship, so it's only the inaction that has produced this damaging introspection. The brilliant thing about this episode is how well her crew knows her, how Tuvok has anticipated that her present mood will drive her into trying to deal with the feelings of guilt by self-sacrifice, so that when she does indeed repeat past behaviour (and it was interesting to hear about when she was Commander on the USS Billings, a little piece of her background), and makes plans to stay behind while Voyager goes through the escape tunnel, the crew are already briefed and ready to mutinously refuse her orders. It's a great character moment for them all, and while I'm often horrified by the repeated insubordination and failure to snap to and follow a superior's orders in modern Trek, this was such a rarity here and in the face of Janeway making the wrong decision, that it fits perfectly and only serves to strengthen their bond with her.

The part where it was a little too easy is how they can come up with an alternative where they'll blow the tunnel themselves, so no one has to remain behind. A greater emphasis on the dangers was necessary to show how much they were willing to risk to keep their Captain, but at the same time, if it seems too risky then Janeway's extreme solution begins to look like the correct course, so it was a difficult literary position. It's also true that the aliens were a little too quick to trust Janeway - the injured one gets beamed away before she's agreed to do whatever she was going to do, so there's a sense of uncertainty about what the aliens are going to do, ideal for the story, but would they have been so easily persuaded by the one injured guy? And what if they weren't just victims, what if they were as nasty as the Malon? Because they are clear victims it makes the choice to side with them very easy and takes away a bit of the dilemma. But if it is too easy at least they still have to go up against the heavily armed rubbish scow (would any race really arm such a ship so powerfully that a state of the art Federation vessel would be challenged?), and they don't have it completely smooth sailing as they come out of the tunnel still within the void. I'd hoped they were going to say they'd need a few more days of travel at least, before getting back to normal space, but I think they had them just on the edge so they could have that moment of the crew joyful at seeing stars again. But they could have done that anyway, just say a few more days of toil had passed and then do the scene.

Still, it was a great concept (later used in 'Enterprise'), and the visuals of streaking stars to denote warp travel, and the fact they draw parallels with sailing ships becalmed, added suitably apt comparisons to the cabin fever, even if the actual cabin fever wasn't very intense. It can also be said that Janeway was quick to trust the creature and they could have been hoping to lure Voyager into a trap, but she's usually a good judge of character and they couldn't make things too complex with the limited running time they had for an episode. I also liked the fact there was a parallel drawn with the Doctor's own situation, how he goes into his own personal void whenever he's deactivated. I wonder if his line about the phrase 'to be continued' was meant to be ironic considering the season opener is usually continuing from that? I would say this was a functional opening that nicely injects some psychological horror into its story, something the series was good at, while getting everyone up to speed on the ship's position away from the Federation. It's not a great episode, but it's solid and uses all the characters, so in that respect it gave a good base from which to work from in the rest of the season.

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