Course: Oblivion

 DVD, Voyager S5 (Course: Oblivion)

The nature of reality. This was always going to be a favourite of mine since I love those episodes where what appears to be reality is questioned, probably dating back to 'Frame of Mind,' one of the few 'TNG' episodes I saw as a child, but perhaps even further still with 'TOS' episodes such as Kirk wandering the empty corridors of what looks like his Enterprise, and perhaps even going right back to my beginnings with Trek, my earliest memory being of 'Miri' where that man suddenly rushes out on the Landing Party and dies clutching the tricycle. There's a sense of wonder, but also horror as the truth is revealed, while even before that we know something is not right. Trek did so many of these episodes in the 24th Century era ('Enterprise' had 'Vanishing Point,' but that was a bit of an 'it was all a dream' cop-out!), always close to normality, but slightly askew. In contrast, I've never really loved mystery stories, like crime whodunits, so there was something very specific to the Trek interpretation of mystery that has always struck some nerve with me. This episode is about as far as you could possibly go in the exploration of a false reality, so it was going to rate highly, but it's also one of those very rare examples of the sequel being superior to the original. I think of the Eddington arc that began in 'For The Cause' as another example of that - while it was a great episode, 'Blaze of Glory' was even better, and though that was actually the second sequel, or finale of a trilogy after 'For The Uniform,' my point still stands.

Generally in Trek the second part of a two-parter, often even a cliffhanger ending and follow-up at the start of the next season, wasn't quite as strong as the first part, simply because the writers were so accomplished at creating these incredible situations for the characters to be stuck in ('The Best of Both Worlds' comes to mind, first and foremost), though I wouldn't denigrate the sequels, they were following greatness after all, which is very hard to do as successfully. But with 'Course: Oblivion' I found it to be a classic derived from a pretty good episode ('Demon'), but which took the whole concept further (I liked they brought back original Director Anson Williams, too). One thing 'Voyager' was criticised for, and I've done my own share of criticism in these reviews, is that it didn't reach its full potential, it became a little lazy, for want of a better word, it didn't exploit the premise for arc stories enough or explore the recurring characters, had all but written them out by this time in the series (Ensign Wildman, Vorik, etc), seemingly in opposition to the 'DS9' style of giving everyone depth and a place in that world - an example in this episode is that even when 'Janeway' (I'll stop putting quotes around the names henceforth!), gathers the crew together to tell them of this radical revelation of their situation, all we see are a handful of officers in a corner of the Mess Hall. At least show her words being pumped round the ship, people stopping in corridors, others at their stations, just to present the idea of the crew consisting of more than ten! With crowd numbers it's usually a budgetary constraint (regular Trek Director David Livingston famous for trying to get big crowds when he could, while also denying them to other directors in his role as Producer!), and that's one of the few criticisms I could level at this episode.

That's because it's so well done, even coming to it with the foreknowledge of what it's all about, which you'd think would diminish the power of the story. Not so, it only makes things that much more tragic when you know what's coming. I wasn't sure it would still hold up as a classic judging by the first chunk of the episode. Not that it wasn't fun to see a wedding take place on the ship, everyone threaded up to the nines in their dress uniforms, an absolute rarity, especially on this series since there were no Starfleet functions to attend, the marriage of Thomas Eugene Paris and B'Elanna Torres, prefiguring (and standing in for, but that wasn't this episode's fault), the actual happy event to come later in the series. I've always loved slow motion, especially when it's emphasising an important moment, the coming together of these two that had been 'courting' for over a year, but there was also a sense of something not quite right even in that (it's almost like you have to take everything with a pinch of salt, or perhaps rice...). I don't know if Tuvok's line, "When it comes to affairs of the human heart, it is wise to look beyond logic," was a deliberate attempt to sound a discordant note in the proceedings, but that's how I took it. It just didn't seem like the kind of thing Tuvok would say - Spock, yes, half-human, much later in his journey of balancing Vulcan and human experience, but not Tuvok. Then there was the conversation in the Jefferies Tube between Torres and Seven with the latter effectively expressing her belief that being joined with one person to life would be boring. B'Elanna's response about her not going into stasis for the rest of her life could be mistaken for a vote for promiscuity and not honouring her husband (something notably absent from her self-made vows at the ceremony), though they were talking generally about social situations, so I don't think anything untoward was meant.

Anything that seems out of place or out of character can easily be explained away, because, and at this point in the review I feel I can reveal it, since the episode is only a little way in before the truth comes to light: they aren't the real crew. Or the real Voyager. But they are part of the real universe and timeline, that's the uniqueness of this episode's conundrum: they are duplicates. And in keeping with that quote that some character said in Trek once, 'everyone's human,' they keep hold of the humanity they don't really have, even to death. In itself it wasn't an original idea, even the series' second episode dealt with the ship encountering a duplicate of itself ('Parallax'), though in that case it was a time-related issue. There were others, too, 'Deadlock' being an obvious example with two Voyagers, and in fact Harry and Naomi are both from that other reality. The crew of Voyager roaming the galaxy and being part of events and contacts the real one wasn't would later be explored from an entirely different and more comedic angle in the following season's 'Live Fast and Prosper,' so duplication, for whatever reason, could be a rich vein of storytelling. As I always say in relation to Trek stories: you can do anything, it's not what you do, it's how you do it. And this was a most poignant and tragic exploration of what it would mean if everything you knew and believed in was proved to be false. Or perhaps not false, but not relevant to you. In fact this episode very much demonstrates the power of belief and that it can achieve great things or be responsible for great mistakes, both are in evidence, mainly through Janeway's actions.

She is the quintessential example of the Captain, pigheaded in her resistance to what she sees as giving up what has become her life's mission, butting heads with her First Officer once again, all for the idea of reaching a home that isn't hers to reach, but eventually coming to realise what's best for her crew. It's a touching and heartfelt story that reaches out for the best of what it means to be Starfleet, the moral values so important to this organisation, exemplified in these officers. They aren't real so why should they strive to get 'home' to a place that wouldn't even receive them with joy if the truth were known? Why should they follow Janeway's orders, she's not a real Captain, she hasn't been to the Academy, none of them have? They could have simply dropped into despondency and refused to do anything further, the whole nature of discipline and motivation suddenly pulled out from under them. As Tom says, why follow orders, reverting to a version of the real Paris who was always a little rebellious in the early days, though even here he doesn't mutiny or actively oppose Janeway's decisions, if he does become sarcastic and questioning. Harry is, as he usually is, more supportive of authority and it's fascinating to see the traits of these characters so firmly portrayed in their duplicates, showing how close they are to the originals. That goes for the technology, too. Somehow, this 'silver blood' as it was called, can create warp capable engines, Holodecks (Neelix is giving Paris options for his honeymoon), and even the holographic Doctor. They really do travel at warp, so this silver blood would be an amazing asset if it could be a harnessed resource developed for practical use, though that isn't the point of the episode!

The main point I took is about identity, and is a lesson for today's world as much as it was then. Their belief system was integral to keeping this crew together instead of splitting off and going their separate ways. They trusted in Janeway's leadership in spite of her not being the original, and she in turn led them in strict accordance with the protocols they knew, the guiding principles. They could have destroyed that alien ship (the voice of whose occupant or Captain went uncredited), when it denied them safe landing on a Class-Y planet that could have served to save them, or at the very least provide rest and recuperation until they moved on, in one of many heartbreaking moments in the episode. But in their worst moment they don't give up their principles - it can be argued Janeway's salmon-like urge to return home (planning to pass through the centre of the Milky Way - but what about the Great Barrier, had it been taken down since the events of 'Star Trek V'?), was detrimental to herself and her crew, the idea that feelings drove her, but she eventually fights this inherent nature to realise what is best, only it was too late, and that's the real tragedy. But getting there is the sweet inspiration of our real characters, showing what even copies of Starfleet heroes are capable of. This sweet, nutritional storytelling is what made Trek great and which the current era has lost (ironic, given Bryan Fuller who kicked it all off wrote this episode!), in a big way: at their most desperate need they're turned away from sanctuary and it leads to their destruction, but they continue to act with integrity no matter the cost, and that's amazing and beyond what you could expect from people.

The episode could very easily have been laughable and gone down in the series' history as lamentable as many see 'Threshold' (though I find it generally pretty good, apart from the loose approach to Trek's internal reality!). Trek has numerous examples of being overzealous with the makeup and turning characters into wacky monsters: look at 'Genesis' on 'TNG' (for all its great design, it's still pretty wacky), or 'Extinction' on 'Enterprise'! When characters begin to slime up and look mouldy it could have been bizarre, even Janeway gets it slathered all over her face, but it's in how they exhibited good character beneath that which made it so poignant. The last time I think Neelix was covered in gunk was in the disgusting end of the terrific 'Persistence of Vision' when he's bleeding slime from pores all over his skin in an effort to distract Kes from reality (another great 'nature of reality' episode!), but here he has the dignity and the resilience to carry on, even appointed Chief Medical Officer in a fine moment of Janeway reinforcing the trust she's always placed in him (and I loved his comeback about now he's CMO he can relieve her of duty if she refuses to rest!). The last time Kim was slimed up was in 'Scorpion' after he'd been attacked by Species 8472, and yet here he ends up Captaining the ship as everyone's dead, the last man on the Bridge, ordering Seven to eject the Warp Core... Even Chakotay is back to his best as the voice of reason to counter Janeway's excesses. Though none of these characters had yet been lost in the shuffle, they'd be lessened in the last two years of the series, and knowing that adds more poignance and is one reason I feel Season 5 was the last great year for the series.

Being strict, there are other negatives to the episode apart from what I've already mentioned: why would B'Elanna put Seven in charge of the Core when she was 'going away' for her honeymoon, she does have subordinates, does she not? And what does Seven make of it - just like Troi driving the Enterprises-D and -E to destruction (I know, I know: unfair!), she ends up ejecting it! Don't put her in charge down there again... Joking aside, we should have been shown the Core ejection, that's one of the things about Trek convention they stuck to, except in the inverse: when reality wasn't real, like a Holodeck for example, you'd never see the external views because of course they wouldn't exist. In this case they were a real ship in the real Galaxy, so it would have been better to show a real Warp Core eject sequence, though we had already seen it once, I believe. Not that it harms the episode, just that it could have enhanced it further. A minor thing I noticed was when preparing to land on the planet they went to Red Alert rather than the correct procedure, Blue Alert, though that's one of those things that can easily be explained away by them not necessarily following the exact procedure the real Voyager would (though they mention Grey Mode, which was just as rare!), a slim argument since they were so exactly duplicated they appeared to behave and think, with all the same memories, like the real crew. That can also go for the reference to Painstiks which Janeway says at the wedding they'll forgo, but Painstiks had nothing to do with weddings, they're confusing them with ma'stakas, the ceremonial clubs used to 'attack' the bride and groom and seen in 'You Are Cordially Invited...'! Again, easily explainable as part of their degradation, but in reality I suspect it was a mistake on the part of the writers. Oh dear...

There was also the curious fact that while their skin had these mottled abrasions and the ship was shimmering apart, you never see their uniforms do the same, though they must be made of the same material as everything else - this was unlike the similar effect of the Changelings in 'DS9' where you would see even their clothing affected, such as when they were desiccating. Probably another item we can put down to time and budget concerns. There's the fact they somehow catch up with where Voyager is now, though they could have been travelling ever since we saw them in 'Demon,' and an experimental Warp Drive is mentioned. And I felt the sequence where the rice falls through the wibbly-wobbly floor (shades of 'Twisted,' most notably in the Jefferies Tube where it's first noticed), of the Mess Hall wasn't quite... I don't know, it looked okay, but it was just a strange choice as the way to flag up something was wrong and I can't imagine how difficult turning the script directions into actual filmed images was to achieve because it's almost abstract - these small grains of rice bouncing on the pattern of the carpet (never have we had such a close look at the flooring on the series, with the full focus of the frame upon it!), and falling through, you'd be forgiven for not quite understanding what was going on.

Perhaps it could represent another theme of the episode: dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Which brings me round again to the tragic nature of this reality and the conflict between the course of action they should take. They're quite quick to accept the bizarre notion of their true nature, because to all outside knowledge they appear to be what they thought they were, and only digging deeper reveals the truth. At least they don't reject the truth for a lie because it doesn't suit how they feel about themselves. And it doesn't change their struggles, they are certainly real to each other, and though Chakotay says belief alone won't hold the ship together, knowing the truth and still holding on to the identity they'd been given was what encouraged them to push on. In the end there was nowhere to go and, much like the ending of 'Time and Again,' no one really knows what happened. In that case it was a happy ending because the disaster Voyager was originally responsible for, was averted, and with this one there isn't even that poignancy of learning a lesson, such as the profound experience Picard went through in 'The Inner Light,' but because there was absolutely nothing to be gained, nothing was left but desolation, not even their experiences, logs and memories could be passed on, and that makes it even more tragic and has a huge impact on the viewer because we're the only ones that share this knowledge and will remember this courageous group that were so like the people we knew.

If Voyager had found out who these people were and had been able to glean anything of their short existence it would have robbed the story of its final, powerful conclusion, and perhaps this could be a last theme: that one day we'll all be forgotten and end up like that ship and its crew. It's one of the advantages of the short story medium to be able to so fully grasp a situation or a set-up and play it out in a brief period of time. At the same time, because this was a direct sequel to an established episode, it had an extra layer of sadness: that this group were once known of by the real Voyager, but never will be again. At the same time it can't be entirely without a degree of creepiness to the concept, because these people were hoping to get back to Earth and could have met their 'families' as if they were the real versions, though from the integrity shown, especially from their Captain, you know they'd have been as honourable as the originals they'd duplicated. It wasn't 'all a dream,' it was real to them as they were real to each other, friendships, marriage, trust in each other... All to end up as a footnote in Janeway's log, a distress call that was answered but too late. I wouldn't want every episode to end like this one, hope and reward, even on a small scale are important, but sometimes the nature of reality is such that we need a dose of that reality to remind us of our reality.

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