Thirty Days

 DVD, Voyager S5 (Thirty Days)

Is it an environmental lesson? A Prime Directive story? A personal crisis for Tom Paris? Yes, it's all of those, garnished with some beautiful effects work that really shows what they could do. It includes some fun Captain Proton black and white Holodeck scenes, it introduced the famed Delaney sisters that had been mentioned by Tom and Harry since Season 1 (though they'd never reappear, sadly - a case of late-'Voyager' not being favourably disposed to having many recurring characters as if in opposition to the 'DS9' way of doing things), and it reminded us of Tom's history of rebellion. But really it was all B'Elanna's fault! If it weren't for her he might not ever have considered taking matters into his own hands and trying to force change on an alien culture - it could be said that Harry Kim played a part in one small way when he reminds his friend of the words his Father said to him about how he never finishes anything, and that, coupled with Tom's own sense of guilt and unresolved issues with his Father, all contributed to his surprising course of action. I was very impressed they got the same actor back to do the voice of Admiral Paris whom we'd seen in 'Persistence of Vision' (at least I assume they got him back, since he's credited, rather than reusing lines of dialogue from the former episode?), though it makes me wonder why they didn't bring Warren Munson in to reprise the role fully when the character began to appear from Season 6 onwards, unless they changed their minds about the direction they wanted, moving away from the stern and unfriendly image to a much more avuncular version, from what I remember, in Richard Herd's portrayal.

It's always the little details I appreciate when it comes to Trek, one of the reasons modern Trek is so hard to take since it considers details to be fully flexible for the needs of badly thought out storytelling! The first thing I thought upon seeing Paris being stripped down to the rank of Ensign at the opening of the episode was, 'well, if he was on 'Discovery' he'd be eligible for promotion to First Officer from that lowly rank,' since that's exactly what happened with Ensign Sylvia Tilly in Season 3! Then in a similar vein it's easier to see why people were upset about the Kelvin Timeline's Enterprise resting underwater in 'Into Darkness,' since that's not even as advanced as the USS Voyager which Janeway said would require a week before it would be ready to travel to such depths. It's easy to get round that by saying the Enterprise didn't go very deep and it's supposedly based partly on late-24th Century technology (to include all the facts!), and I never really minded about that other than from good sense that it would be easier to simply stay out of sight in orbit and beam down. Either way, this episode looked absolutely beautiful with its superb water effects, the pre-'Star Wars Episode I' underwater sequences and 'bigger fish' ("'Tis a hidden city..."), looking terrific, and that's not always the case with the CGI on 'Voyager.' Maybe it's easier to do water than solids or gases, but even the Monean ships looked good.

That goes for the makeup, too. They were quite simple designs, but also had an aquatic impression like a manatee or other smooth-skinned lifeforms, complete with a mottled effect on the skin which contrasted well with the plain single colours and simple cut of their dress. They are very far from being aggressive or threatening in appearance, which would have made it easier for our people to intervene against. But intervention is not Starfleet's way, in general. I'm not sure how much of a Prime Directive issue it was, since they did have warp capability, but the Directive isn't just about having contact with a species that is less technologically advanced, it's also about not imposing upon them because of that. Using Tom to play out the narrative of an intervention of force did fit his character on the surface, but at the same time it almost came out of the blue, since as Janeway says, he's been an exemplary member of the crew for the four years he's served under her (love that sense of regulation and seriousness, and the distance in ranks that has been so lost in modern Trek's preference for casual attitudes, favouritism and matey buds running ships rather than a command with hierarchy and proper respect for position!). We can remember times when he showed his rebellious streak, such as the arc in Season 2 when he was going 'undercover' as a troublemaker in order to flush out the Maquis spy (see? They did use the Maquis sometimes!), but he really took to his new role of trust with this crew so that it comes across as a slight stretch for him to go rogue like he did.

Unless... he was really trying to impress B'Elanna? Women can be a source of changing character in a man, and when you consider we'd never heard about his fascination with sailing ships before (Janeway even calls it out that his interests go back further than the 20th Century he's traditionally an expert on!), it does escalate quite quickly - one moment he's interested and captivated by this ocean, the next he's becoming an activist who will go to terrorist lengths to ensure its survival (and as Janeway said, he couldn't be certain the Moneans were just going to sweep their recommendations under the rug)! It is quite shocking, and in the light of today's much more extreme political attitudes, one way or the other, the episode is a little less cosy to watch. Clearly he was wrong to get involved against the direct orders of his Captain - his argument that it isn't the Moneans' ocean to do with as they like doesn't justify his own defiance, so I was glad to see Janeway prevent his actions at the last moment (even if the actual on screen event of the torpedo exploding by being taken out by with another one from Voyager, didn't match Tuvok's line about it being deflected!). I can see the parallels of apathetic governments only willing to commit to token acts of appeasement when it comes to the modern religion of Saving The Planet, but it's concerning when it comes to curtailing of people's freedom in a perceived greater good that may or may not be hypocritical in itself, in the same way that so much freedom was taken away due to terrorist attacks like the 11th September destruction of the World Trade Towers. Environmentalism seems to be a stick to beat populations with, and while everyone has a duty to steward this world we've been given and not be frivolous with the life they have, when it comes to people being less important than the state, and governments aligning with getting rid of people because their impact on the planet makes them unjustifiable then it can be a dangerous and worrying trend.

But I digress, the topic of environmentalism and the direction we're heading in is only one small part of this episode. Obviously we like Tom Paris and we can usually respect his opinions, and there is some justification in saying the ocean isn't the Moneans since they discover it was created like some kind of inverse Noah's Ark, sucking all the water off-planet into a ball. It's a great concept, the kind of thing Trek used to be known for, and while it's since been done in various other things ('Star Wars Episode II' and 'Stargate SG-1' I seem to recall), it was exciting to see something like that here. The device of Tom recalling the events in a letter to his Father made it much more personal, knowing the troubled history between them (so it's surprising to read that was a late addition to the story), and that we'd be meeting him for real the following season, but at this stage he's still the judgemental, harsh man of Tom's childhood nightmares, and we don't know him. We do know the crew, however, and it was nice to see the various visits he has in the Brig (which I think had been previously used last season for Seven of Nine, and maybe others). Unfortunately most of these scenes weren't gold and seemed merely a chance to give the other cast members a moment, but it did show a good representation of the monotony of prison life where every little change is something to be treasured and prolonged - at what other time would Paris desire a checkup in Sickbay!

We learn something we didn't know about him - that he originally wanted to join the Federation Naval Patrol, which may well have come out of the Royal Navy which Malcolm Reed of 'Enterprise' mentioned as an organisation his own family had a history with, showing that naval tradition and dynasties were still going in the 22nd Century, and with this reference by Tom, demonstrates there was still a body that patrolled Earth's oceans, which you wouldn't really think about with all these starships, but it's nice to know such a thing exists. Then there's the Captain Proton program - Harry's penchant for making the wrong decisions gets a mention ('first it was a hologram, then a Borg, now the wrong twin'), a running joke that would continue as long as the series did (though more serious later in the season with 'The Disease'), in the same vein of Chief O'Brien always being 'tortured' at least once a season on 'DS9.' I wondered if the Delaney sisters' roles (played by real life twins), of the 'twin mistresses of evil,' and the fact they hold Harry captive, was a reference to the Duras sisters and their capture of Picard? They were quite likeable so I wonder why they never brought them back? Willie Garson played Riga, the Monean willing to risk all to force his people to listen - he was famous on 'SG-1' as the alien who creates a successful TV series out of the top secret Stargate programme in both the one-hundredth and two-hundredth episodes, so it's fun to have him in Trek before that.

I noticed a couple of apparent mistakes, apart from the visuals not matching Tuvok's description of events already noted: the Doctor usually walks right through forcefields, but when he visits Tom in the Brig he stops, waits for it to be deactivated, then walks through. I suppose it could conceivably be that the Brig would have no holo-emitters within it (what would be the point?), so he'd need to wear the mobile emitter, which of course wouldn't be able to pass through a forcefield, and when he's in Sickbay the Doctor wouldn't be wearing that since that location was designed for holograms. Okay, so maybe that was actually superb attention to detail and not a mistake after all! But there is another clunker: Torres invites Tom to dinner at 0700. Surely if she meant 7am she'd be inviting him to breakfast, unless she actually meant 1900, 7pm? A minor quibble, maybe Klingons sometimes have dinner in the morning, or perhaps she was finishing a night shift. It didn't make any difference to Tom, he was just relieved to get out of confinement! It's rare to see a crew-member on Trek receive punishment like this as they're usually professional and keep within the regulations, and even rarer to see a demotion, so I applaud the series for exploring that. I just felt it was a bit sudden for Tom to develop such strong moral feelings about something so quickly, but it doesn't spoil what is a pretty good story. Caring for the environment is an important issue, even if it can be abused, and I'm in no way opposed to such messages - of course nowadays the whole ship would probably abandon the Prime Directive and be disgusted by an alien race that refused their warnings, but then that's the time we're living in...

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