Alice

 DVD, Voyager S6 (Alice)

A case of low expectations improving the experience, as I went into this with the vague remembrance that it wasn't up to much, and the teaser only confirmed that impression, being a rather unexciting opening. I love all the banter about Tuvok's age (more on that later), but stumbling upon a junkyard and its genial host is hardly one of the most enthralling beginnings. It's also a bit of a cliched story of a character becoming obsessed with something to the exclusion of all else and the inevitable damage it does to him and those around him. It's not difficult to see where it's going, and while you don't always need mystery to draw you in, a pretty blatant outcome doesn't much make for compelling drama. Somehow, despite all that, it turns it around and, with the major assistance of B'Elanna fighting to reclaim her man from the machine mind, it has a touchingly tender conclusion. There is still a bit of a major problem, perhaps due to running out of time, and that is we never learn why 'Alice' wanted to get to this particle fountain, why she called it home, and how she left it. I felt it had set the stage for a typically warmhearted Trek finale, much like 'Encounter At Farpoint,' where a seemingly hostile alien is helped to find redemption and its true place in the universe, but they skimped out on such a joyful finish thanks to going too far down the 'evil influence' route. I was wracking my brain thinking something like this had been done before in Trek, but the closest I could come up with was 'Dramatis Personae' where Sisko, under alien influence, becomes obsessed with building a clock.

'Alice' is actually a mirror of another Sisko obsession episode, 'Explorers,' where he and Jake build a solar sailing ship. This could have been the same kind of thing for 'Voyager' where B'Elanna engages with her husband-to-be over a joint project, but they preferred the dark approach of alien mind control, which is fair enough, but it doesn't take the idea further, whereas the earlier episode had a beauty to it and succeeded in showing us another level to the characters. This isn't that, it's strictly an examination, as I saw it, of addiction, whatever kind you care to name: Tom starts out eager and focused on this beloved project, becomes intent, then gradually slides towards it being everything to him, uninterested in his real life, dispassionate to those around him, irritable when anything gets in his way, and finally violently confrontational towards any slight threat that might prevent him from continuing this path. He loses all sense of self in his absorption with this alien shuttle, stops caring about his professional appearance, changes his clothes to fit his new 'lifestyle' and is constantly led on by the alluring words of this maggot in his brain. Again, I think they really missed a trick by not giving Alice any kind of sympathetic nuances, she's wholly bad for Tom, there's no room for growth or sadness for her, that's why we needed to learn if she was actually some kind of entity that had been captured or trapped by mistake, which needed freeing from her prison, but we're not afforded anything that would make us care a jot for her, especially as she nearly succeeds in killing B'Elanna.

It's generally preferable to have villains with identifiable motives as we can somewhat understand them and see them as a warning for how not to go about getting what you want or need - look at Gul Dukat, for example, an atrocious man who, nonetheless, on occasion you actually feel sorry for or who you can enjoy a joke with, forgetting his atrocities for a few moments. In a word, a delight to watch (the same can be said for other Trek villains like Kai Winn or Weyoun, but we are talking about the cream of the crop with 'DS9' and 'Voyager' tends more towards the more simplistic model of 'TNG' and most other Trek examples). In this case Alice is merely a tool or a drug to push Tom into new realms of confusion and pain, and in that regard I'd say the story has more in common with 'Coda' or 'Bliss' (and even 'Star Trek V' has parallels), for being an evil creature appearing as 'an angel of light' in order to mislead the spotlight character, in both those cases a disgustingly creepy devourer of the living, regardless of their sentience. This setup doesn't have anywhere near the same level of horror, as there's something about enticement into being consumed that is just too horrible. Here, the villain is more of a mental figment playing on the memories of the host's brain to manipulate them, and in that regard I will say it was very well blocked, if that's the correct directorial word - the choreography and movement of the camera and the figures in front of it was expertly staged (always enjoy scenes where a fleeting figure disappears just round the bend, Voyager's corridors ideal for this oft-used tension device), as we move smoothly from one appearance of Alice, to absent space where she was, popping up again in a heartbeat, and especially when B'Elanna becomes a second voice in Tom's head to save him.

If anything I'd have loved the episode to have been even more like that, perhaps we never actually see Tom on Voyager and he's trapped in some alien world where drugs or atmosphere are slowly changing him and making him more and more subservient to the mental manipulation, and only B'Elanna showing up in his mind can bring him back to reality, like an undercover mission, one only he can see. Even then, that's been done very well in the past - I think of 'Warlord' from this series, and of course 'DS9' did it better with 'Waltz' where the aforementioned Dukat was seen to have multiple characters existing only in his mind. Poor old 'Voyager' can't seem to match the heights of its sister series, and I wonder if the little addition to Ferengi lore was one more way to be a little bit smug that the older series had now ended and they were free to add whatever they wanted to Trek lore. Not that the Ferengi were exclusive to 'DS9,' 'TNG' invented them, but 'DS9' was the series which fleshed them out, made them believable on their own terms, so making up a whole new addition to lore in the 'Five Stages of Acquisition,' which sounds quite central to their culture, does come across a little like stepping on the toes of the 'DS9' writers. I only wonder if this had a slight odour of nefarious purpose because of the rivalry between the two series' and the fact that they'd had one final negative brush with 'DS9' by hiring Ron Moore and then parting ways shortly after. It probably wasn't any slight, and the episode's writers had of course worked on that series and no doubt saw all Trek lore as fair game.

It was fair game, too, that's the thing with Trek, once a series is done and dusted it can stand as it does, but later Treks can come along and add to the canon, and that's as it should be, the living, growing expansion of Trek lore and continuity is one of the many things about it that kept it alive and fresh, even if now too much is taken for granted and rewritten by modern writers to detrimental effect. A small mention of new Ferengi information (however much it seems like the kind of thing we should have heard of before!), is hardly going to make a big difference (like, say, changing the date of the Eugenics Wars - not going to let that one go!), and at the time it was just lovely to hear any reference towards anything in the familiar Alpha Quadrant, and as I said, it was now their slate to do with as they willed. Not a blank slate, they still needed to keep within the rules, but the history of the future was in their hands exclusively with this season. One part of the episode deals with rules and protocol, something else that warmed me towards the story when, as I've mentioned too many times, modern Trek doesn't care too much about rigid protocol and familiar customs and expectations. Actually there were a couple of instances of reassuring behaviour that would be less common in today's world of 'anything goes, be yourself no matter what you think that means,' etc: the main incident was in how Paris and Chakotay interact when he's starting to go off the rails.

We've seen the pair clash over the years on occasion, Chakotay there to ensure the smooth running of the ship, taking his role very seriously, while Tom is laidback, casual, open to teasing his superiors when he can. He reminds us how he's only an Ensign (for all the difference its made materially to his position and standing on the ship, which is to say there doesn't seem to be any!), and if he disobeys orders he could be busted down to Cadet! (Surely Crewman would come first?). This time Tom listens to his First Officer's admonition, takes it on board and doesn't rebel, rant and rave, or let loose a sarcastic barb or two, and Chakotay isn't forced into being heavy-handed with him. He reminds him of his duties to wear Starfleet uniform, to shave - in other words there's an expected conformity of appearance quite removed from today's attitude where anyone can have tattoos (maybe not the best example since Chakotay has a facial tattoo, but in his case it shows a dedication to a specific belief system and tribe and took a lot of effort for him to come around to as we saw in the suitably named 'Tattoo'!), coloured hair, facial jewellery, and how long before it's actual mutilation, reversing into a time of primitivism, expression through bodily alteration... It's reassuring to see a certain standard of attire and behaviour, therefore, perhaps one reason why it's seemed so hard for modern Trek to make a series based on a standard crew on a standard ship, it's more often been a ragtag band, a disparate group or superheroes as that's easier to make vastly individualistic models that appeal to today's audience brought up on casualness and lack of respect for authority, I assume.

It's also pleasant on a character level to see these two being so congenial despite the circumstances, Tom not arguing, Chakotay not overbearing. Even if this may have been a further sign that Tom was becoming more and more duplicitous, and rather than openly doing what he was doing he continues what he wants to in spite of warning, going undercover to pretend things are normal, though he can't disguise it. It's another of those times when you'd think someone would realise what's going on. 'So there's this neurogenic interface... right... and it plugs directly into the brain... right... Why haven't we had the Doctor examine the device or monitor Paris while he's using it, we don't know what could go wrong with such an invasive mode of interaction.' But no, I suppose there are always other things going on aboard the ship, they can't be expected to anticipate every possible outcome, and if they did where would the drama be? Although, that could have been another angle through which to explore such a story, with everyone knowing quite early what was wrong and then you'd have to find a way to continue with Tom being even more sneaky. The other commentary on today's world I found was in the teaser where Harry and Tom are trying to guess Tuvok's age (something I don't think was ever tied down, though I was under the impression he was around a hundred years old), and he eventually responds in typical Vulcan manner that he sees no reason to 'enlighten' them.

The line between public, private and personal has very much been blurred this century in large part due to so much instant communication and access to knowledge, but especially the rise of social media, bringing people into an expectation they should share in anything of someone's life and when it comes to their own, appear to have very few qualms about privacy (a worrying trend when you consider the direction of one way of thinking, and anyone who disagrees should be excised from society, meaning harbouring personal views are almost becoming illegal in the desire to placate anyone that thinks differently to normal modes of behaviour). So it pleased me, and fit well within the Vulcan racial character that he would be so secretive and not succumb to their aimless curiosity. Of course there's always been a fun line of ribbing Tuvok, and Vulcans in general, since we all know, aside from their emotions, they are superior in almost every way to humans and as it's a franchise written by humans we have to needle them where we can, even while having set them up on this pedestal close to perfection (though again, we must puncture any Vulcanness by undermining the established culture and show them as actually quite emotional and irrational, as seen in 'Enterprise,' and 'Strange New Worlds' especially). At least Tuvok got to be the one sitting in the Captain's Chair this time - last week it was the EMH (sorry, ECH), and now it's him, while the Captain and First Officer appeared to be having a meeting in the Ready Room.

My belief that the cast weren't well integrated this season has so far taken a number of hits as this is yet another episode where I was pleasantly surprised by how they were handled - Tuvok, Chakotay, even Neelix have good little scenes peppered about to remind us this isn't the Janeway/Seven/Doctor show that I keep expecting it to become. Neelix stood out as he's instantly recognised by Abaddon, owner of the junkyard, by his bearing and attitude for being a fellow trader, and it's really nice to recall his days when Voyager first encountered him, and the kind of selfish, sly little man he used to be until the crew rubbed off some of his rough edges and he found a place to call home. I call attention especially to his moral core for musing on whether he should return what is discovered to be a valuable item among so many worthless artefacts Abaddon managed to palm off on them - even when they've been treated with less than honest goodwill Neelix still feels the pull not to take advantage, which was a lovely moment. It sounded like Alice had belonged to an Haakonian, the race that was at war with the Talaxians, but written down it was 'Harkonian,' unwise to use a name so close to an established race we know from this series. We also hear the name of his shuttle, the Baxial, the first time it had ever been mentioned (and a rare example of the shuttle even being referred to at all!), so they continue to build the characters and the details of their lives, and Neelix' discovery (with the aid of Seven), turns out to be crucial for reeling Abaddon in when he's keen on a fight if they try for anything remotely resembling a refund, so he's still integral to the crew despite no longer being the trader he was in another life.

The Baxial is supposed to still be down in the Shuttle Bay, but then I must ask how many Bays they actually have because the ship isn't that big, yet they have Baxial, they have Delta Flyer (neither of which is shown), and according to Chakotay in a most grievous example of lack of continuity, a 'full complement of shuttles'! I could believe it on the original 'Enterprise' or the D, but little Voyager can carry two sizeable vessels, plus several standard Starfleet shuttles and still have room for an empty Bay to contain Alice?! I can only imagine they have shuttle building days to keep the numbers up... I was pleased to get the best view we've yet had of the Shuttle Bay (or a Shuttle Bay as I should call it), since a chunk of the episode occurs in there and in the past they've just made do with keeping characters within the ship or at best showing CGI to enhance the set ('Counterpoint' for example), though I imagine it would have been a redress of either a Cargo Bay or the Holodeck. Interesting that Chakotay suggests Tom might be able to replicate the various components he needs in a few weeks if the ship can replenish its power reserves. It made me wonder how they do that (thinking of the Destiny swooping into stars' coronas in 'Stargate Universe'!). The fact that Paris starts swiping Voyager's internal components to get what he needs meant I'd have liked a scene with Neelix who similarly stole from the ship in 'Fair Trade,' as there were definite comparisons to be made.

Tom had become an addict, however, drawn into Alice's Wonderland and unable to escape her, going to the extent of becoming a much slower version of that woman being dragged into the machine in 'Superman III' (still one of the most chilling images I can remember!), and becoming assimilated, all these coloured wires wrapping themselves around him in a visual sympathy with the mental net he's become ensnared within. It's a warning that addiction can creep up on you from seemingly harmless sources and while it's not a deep episode or in any way shown to be an issues story, it does work on that level. I think what put me off in the past, aside from the romantic nature of his attraction to the humanoid mental creation of a girl he knew in the past, is that Alice is such a blandly written role. The fault may lie with Claire Rankin, I'm not sure (better known to me now as recurring character Dr. Heightmeyer in 'Stargate Atlantis' - she was a similarly unassuming presence in that), but it's also the fact she's contrasted by one of Trek's great guest stars in John Fleck (his one and only appearance in 'Voyager'). I felt his role was too small for his talents and that familiar voice brought back so many roles from 'DS9' and 'Enterprise' and even back to 'TNG' (bring him back in new Trek!), but also Abaddon was quite a flamboyant character that put Alice into the shade if she weren't already meant to be understated in her gradual and growing influence on Tom. I was glad when we got Abaddon back and when we learn he still suffers from the figment left behind from Alice, it adds a new dimension to his character that had been so jolly before.

I also have to say that the whole idea of Tom Paris wanting a new shuttlecraft to work on was rather redundant considering the Delta Flyer is still so new. I can see they came up with the story and wanted to run with it, but perhaps it would have been better to play it out with the Flyer being modified with technology rather than being an entirely new ship, as that would make more sense rather than Tom being so smitten with a newer model so soon - the Flyer was only built a year ago, don't forget! Pointing out flaws I have to say there was one tribute I could have done without: when Abaddon first comes aboard Voyager he's buzzing round the Transporter Room and stamps his foot on the upper platform housing the console, and you can hear a hollow rap which rather gives away the fact it's all built on wood rather than the solid metal structures we believe in. It instantly reminded me of many a similar moment in 'TOS' when someone would shift weight on the Bridge and the floor would creak, embarrassingly. Nowadays (or then-adays, I should say now - hard to believe it's almost as long since this episode as 'TOS' had been when this was made!), you'd think they'd have caught such an issue and replaced the sound with something more suitable, or removed it entirely! Though there were flaws, as with most episodes, the whole was surprisingly better than I'd thought, which I had in mind as one of the lowest points of the season. Yes, I wanted Tom to explain the nature of Alice at the end, since he was linked to 'her,' how she'd been taken against her will and consequently had reason to distrust humanoids, and tragically never gets past it, but even without modifications this is a good, solid, reliable instalment, and though it feels like the kind of story that could have been done in the early seasons, and the series isn't taking advantage of its longevity enough, I liked it.

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