In The Flesh

DVD, Voyager S5 (In The Flesh)

In an age when so many old Trek characters are being brought back, from Q to Jellico, it's easy to forget that these used to be used sparingly in old Trek, especially in 'Voyager' since its location made it trickier to bring in existing Alpha Quadrant people and races. One character that won't be coming back, since the great Ray Walston is no longer with us, is Groundskeeper Boothby (how did he never get a Playmates action figure, complete with pruning tools and apron?), the man who is said to have made many of the best Captains what they became, including Picard (both of which garner mention in this episode). Out of the myriad and memorable characters over the years Boothby was a one off. Literally, as he only appeared in the one 'TNG' episode, the great 'The First Duty,' and he wasn't young then, so it was a major surprise when this series got Walston to reprise the role one last time (although, as it turned out, he'd be reprising it again later in the season, though not in the way you'd think from how this episode ends!). The crusty old man with a twinkle in his eye, or a flash if you got him angry, was about as far as you could get from Species 8472, this utterly alien race from beyond space as we know it, that had caused even the Borg to seek assistance from Janeway as they were being annihilated in combat with these creatures, and whose mission statement was to purge our galaxy of all life! In this, choosing Boothby as their spokesthing was a masterstroke, and illustrative of the kind of radical choice Trek could make at any time.

Instead of starting this episode with a light scene on the Bridge, then seeing how our crew reacts to a Federation signal on long-range sensors, then cutting to opening titles, having a conference to decide how best to approach this mysterious station, and finally getting to the Away Team down on 'the planet,' we jump right in, and that's a great way to create a mystery, because we all knew Voyager was so far from Earth, in the natural sense, it was unlikely they were going to get back home (unless they came up with a last-minute solution that literally threw them right onto the front porch, but there's no need to go into that now!). They had already been back to Earth, even as early as Season 2 when Harry Kim woke up in his Quarters in San Francisco, or the whole crew made it back to the homeworld, the catch being it was 1996, so going back to Earth on its own wasn't enough to be revolutionary. What was revolutionary was that an alien race should wish to recreate Starfleet Headquarters, complete with Golden Gate Bridge and all the main landmarks, as part of a training mission to infiltrate the real HQ. Is it likely 8472 would create even one of these hubs in just the spot where Voyager happened to come along? No, the odds are infinitesimal, even if what they said about creating them all over the galaxy was true (they might even have been exaggerating on that count anyway). But that doesn't matter, it's enough that it happened.

What I like about all this is how alien the approach is. They fully immerse themselves in human culture, reading replicated books, living as humans, even down to talking like them. It's the best way to go about making such a story, because as we saw in Season 3 and 4, 8472 are one of the more alien aliens in that they're huge, don't conform to the bipedal norms, and everything about them is in opposition to our perspective, from organic technology to unreasoning rage at the disturbance of their realm. Unless they had chosen to take on human form so fully it would have been difficult to understand them at all. They were one of those races of pure menace, maybe even seen as pure evil, but as Trek has always done, they found a way to show another side to them, one that was workable and sympathetic, not uncompromising evil that can only be opposed. Some would say that this wasn't always a good thing because sometimes a villain is a villain through and through with no remorse, but I think the Trek idea is that not all of a race are the same. The Borg perhaps were the closest and they became quite cuddly on occasion, this series often accused of making them far too easy to stand up to, which is very true, and we saw examples of Cardassians, previously the torturers living in a dystopian police state, the Jem'Hadar, so dedicated to their masters they'd kill themselves in service, and the Founders, Changelings so bitter they'd annihilate populations just out of spite, and yet all of these races had their positive individuals and groups.

I suppose it was inevitable that Species 8472 weren't going to be considered merely terrible monsters intent on the destruction of all life, and this serves as a nice cap to their few appearances previously, though I believe this was the final episode in which they featured, though the story suggests a sequel. I think we have to take it that when 'Boothby' returned to his race in Fluidic Space they took his advice on board to a degree, that our galaxy didn't pose a threat to them, but rather than have dialogue they decided to retreat to their own realm it must have been enough to know they weren't likely to be attacked and so didn't need to put any more thought into this strange reality that had interfered with theirs. It shouldn't have been quite as simple as that when you think that it was actually the Borg who disturbed the hornet's nest, probing into areas they shouldn't have done, and any other race could just as well have come to that level of technology where they peered into the abyss of another reality, so Janeway's assurances that the Federation would do no harm to them shouldn't have assuaged their concerns over other races. But there is only limited running time, and while this may well have made a great two-part story, or even something that could have carried over to a number of episodes threaded through the season, the series had pretty much discarded its earlier attempts to create arcs, probably acting in opposition to 'DS9' and its ever more complex unfolding narrative.

In consequence, we never got a sequel, we don't know for sure what happened with 8472, we just know that it appears Janeway's diplomatic efforts were successful. It's a good and positive outcome, thwarting a potential takeover of Starfleet from the inside (with echoes of 'Homefront' and 'Paradise Lost' from 'DS9,' the last time Starfleet HQ had been visited, I believe), and choosing to reason with and deescalate rather than keep pushing. It's a fine line and Janeway trod it very well. She wants to talk, but she's also not going to back down, and 8472 aren't going to back down either, so she begins to see, or sense on an instinct, that these people don't want to fight, but feel forced into it and she takes the first risk by standing down the Borg weapons that had proven effective against 8472 previously. You'd think 8472 would have been researching such things if they can go to the trouble of a spot-on recreation of a location tens of thousands of lightyears away, and had developed a countermeasure. And it does look a little off that one little ship can stand against an entire station - being so paranoid, or cautious, knowing how much this spatial reality is against them, you'd think they'd arm any facility to the teeth, and would have countless ships around. Or if they went the opposite way and wanted a low profile, how could Voyager stumble upon them, and wouldn't they have developed a cloak, or something? But you just have to take the situation at face value because that's how it needs to be for the story to work.

One thing that's harder to accept is when Janeway says they hadn't been in contact with the Federation in four years, but last season they'd managed to send the EMH onto a Starfleet ship and then they made direct contact through the Hirogen array and received various letters and communiques, didn't they? That would seem to be a major oversight in the writing, unless we take it that Janeway wanted to play up their isolation instead of mentioning these few instances. Still, the idea that 8472 can be so easily reasoned with is a little too pat. I understand this is supposed to be the Federation ideal, and that without cooperation on the side of the enemy those ideals can't stand, which is why the Borg and 8472, in their first appearance, were so fearsome: because they weren't an enemy that could be talked to, reasoned with, explained or understood, that was the whole point, and what do you do when you're ideals of peace and discussion have no reciprocation? Seven even tells Janeway it's time to resist Starfleet philosophy, and yet Janeway is proved right. I can see the intention, but it was a little too easy for her to get through to Boothby. Yes, there is some opposition from Admiral Bullock, who represents distrust and aggression, but Valerie Archer, whom Chakotay shared an intimate moment with, has been won over (we're supposed to think it was more from reading human books than Chakotay's attentions, I think!), and Boothby is the boss anyway and overrides Bullock's qualms.

For a race that were so violent and have clearly gone to the trouble of making such an accurate recreation, you'd think they'd be much more subtle and cunning, but they don't come across at all like the Changelings who just wanted to foment paranoia and disrupt a settled planet and Quadrant, they seem almost childlike in their lack of guile. And they claim they only want to observe and report back, but can we trust them on what they say? I just didn't feel there was enough time to know one way or the other on their character, they needed to show they were trustworthy more than was accomplished in this brief span. That's probably why they chose to jump straight into the story instead of going through the usual procedural part. As well as creating a great mystery they needed as much time as they could get to go into our crew understanding what was happening, reacting, then trying to calm the situation. All that said, it's not a bad episode, even if some things ring a little false - such as Archer's talk of how humans created art, music, literature, etc, and making it sound as if humans were the sole creators of such artistic expression! This is one area where 8472's childlikeness would fit in nicely as, if they'd only encountered Voyager and the Borg (and the Hirogen), you can see out of those, only humans would have those modes of expression. I wish that had been played up, that these aliens are so different to us they see things in a much more simplistic way, and that level of complexity to the story, if all angles followed that premise, would have made it a touch more impressive.

It's a bit like the revelation that Trelane in 'The Squire of Gothos,' for all his power, is actually a mere child. I'm not saying that should have been the answer, just that 8472 could have been shown to be much more innocent and unaware than we'd thought them, and it would make more sense that they were so easily turned from their mission by Janeway, and even that they then had no further interest in our galaxy. It's a theory (which I've just come up with!), that could work, that they are in fact adolescents in terms of development, for all their use of adult human bodies, and I quite like that idea. But even if not, I felt their setup could have had some holes in it rather than being so perfect. Maybe they say the wrong things or have some strange beliefs about what humans do, or why. But I suppose they were very well informed if they could recreate entire books. That was one area where I didn't have a problem: it's not explained how they came by such detailed knowledge (could Fluidic Space open up close to Earth - it's surprising that suggestion never even came up that Voyager could get home, and they could always have said the ship wouldn't withstand the journey inside as a blocker to that solution), but it's suggested they may have got the Borg's database. Janeway also says they're the only Starfleet ship in the Quadrant, which would prove to be untrue at the end of the season, so there could well have been other ships that had been swept in by the Caretaker and 8472 found one of them.

I liked that the whole reason Voyager stumbled upon them was that the recreation was so realistic they were actually sending out a Starfleet signal, another example of the simple thinking of this race, lacking the nuances of life in this galaxy. It was also refreshing that Chakotay was the one leading the story, as his easygoing, friendly attitude fitted in nicely with the 'humans' he encountered, though I think his last big episode was 'Unforgettable,' another story in which there's a romantic side to it. Not that this episode was romantic, but there was certainly something going on with Archer. She comes to trust him which causes her to speak up on the humans' side. The only thing is that Janeway, as you'd expect being the Captain, rather takes over the story once Chakotay's been captured. That was good, the night suddenly turning to day, though the various 'Starfleet' personnel stalking him didn't have the creepiness and dread you'd want from that situation. Indeed, I would say the creep factor should have been turned up quite a few notches to provide greater contrast when 8472 acquiesce to Janeway's open arms. The concept these huge creatures are stuffed into human-sized bodies, was terrific, and quite chilling when they have to keep injecting themselves to avoid reverting to their natural form, but the episode was much more concerned with getting to a mutual understanding than with the potential body horror, but then it wasn't written by Brannon Braga!

The casting throws up all kinds of fascinating connections. I'm assuming the Zach Galligan who portrayed David Gentry is the same guy who was in 'Gremlins' (not that I like that film, but reading old Starlogs recently I came across the name a few times so it stayed in my mind), which, if so, would be perfect symmetry for this episode since Gentry is a sort of Gremlin in reverse, or even Gizmo since he has a 'monster' inside him (they really shouldn't have fed Gentry after midnight!). But it doesn't end there because we also have Tucker Smallwood as Bullock, his only appearance on 'Voyager,' but who'd go on to play a member of the Xindi race in 'Enterprise' - it hit me when they were all sat round the Briefing Room table and he was getting angry that it's very similar to the Xindi Council arguing over... what to do about the humans! See, it's almost the same story, though the Xindi were definitely only interested in destroying a perceived threat from the humans... And finally, Kate Vernon played Archer and would go on to be a recurring character in the 'Battlestar Galactica' remake. I don't think she was one of the Cylons (yet another race distrustful of humanity and seeing the only option being to wipe them out!), it's been a while since I saw it, but the character definitely concealed a lot. I can imagine Galligan was hired because of the connection, but obviously the others were merely chance since this was made before those other productions, but it's fascinating to see how all these things came together!

An added attraction at the time the episode was made was the chance to see Starfleet Headquarters again. Obviously 'DS9' was still in production (and we do see images of HQ after its attack by the Breen), but they never went back to film in the grounds that had been established for the Academy and other sites, and here we see more than we'd ever seen before, with only the aforementioned 'DS9' two-parter coming close (we also see Chakotay use a much more easily concealed Type 1 Phaser, the kind that can be hidden in the palm). I so wish they'd continued to use the site in current Treks - they could incorporate Vasquez Rocks, but not this? It was also a treat to see so many Alpha Quadrant aliens on 'Voyager,' so far from that familiar world, although you can tell things aren't quite right from the fact 8472's uniforms are out of date, following the Voyager style rather than the by now well-established 'First Contact' look. It's also interesting to see several Ferengi in Starfleet as it would seem unlikely that many would have followed Nog into the Academy when he'd been part of Starfleet for only a few short years (bumped up to field commission during the Dominion War), so it suggests either 8472 are well out of date, or they weren't able to get as accurate a picture as it seemed. There was another reference to enjoy, too, as Seven mentions the dark blot on Trek's optimistic vision, World War III (though now they could just change it so it never happened judging by what they did to the Eugenics Wars - silly people!).

While Janeway seemed to forget the contact they'd had with Starfleet, Harry Kim has also blocked out his encounter with the Taresians in 'Favourite Son' when he says he's always wondered what it's like to date an alien. I don't blame him for forgetting (though he'd find out again later this season that it's not a good idea...). Interesting that Chakotay refuses alcohol, preferring water as he always likes to stay in control - hasn't he heard of Synthehol, which is supposed to give all the 'fun' of alcohol, with the ability to pull away from any level of feelings of intoxication whenever it's required? Or was he just being more cautious than ever in that particular situation? The idea of there being an imposter on Voyager would have been a great addition to the season, but they quickly quash that, losing all possible paranoia and drama in the process, though it was a great scene where Janeway reminisces about the Academy with Chakotay until he realises she's testing him. I never twigged for a moment as she was so natural in how she drew the conversation around. It's fortunate Chakotay's quicker on the uptake than I am! I also felt there was something to be mined in the brief mention of faith Janeway and Seven throw in at the end of a conversation, except it wasn't developed. And then we don't even get to know what 8472 call themselves (the Undine, according to non-canon sources, which was a good name that could have worked). They were so immersed in being human (something which could have been used against them?), that I can understand why they weren't 'themselves,' but at the same time it's sad that nothing was done with the potential of furthering the storyline. And I had the sense that this episode, as good as it was, could have been a classic with just a little more exploration and focus on certain parts ideas.

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