Inside Man (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Inside Man) (2)

I'll bet Dwight Schultz enjoyed playing a different version of his famous character, a Reg Barclay hologram that is the direct inversion of a previous foray into the Voyager world when he recreated their ship holographically back home in the Alpha Quadrant - now he can be suave, sophisticated, the life and soul of the party all rolled into one exceptional personality program, but his words ring with propaganda. He dubs Voyager 'the miracle ship,' he encourages and urges on the least (Neelix as morale officer), to the greatest (Seven as the inspiration for all those who've lost someone to the Borg), handling seasoned Starfleet officers with aplomb - if those Ferengi can't make Latinum via Borg nanoprobes you'd think they'd have a sterling career as holo-authors! But maybe they don't want to wait or put in all the grind to make it big in the world of holoprograms, instead concentrating on this instant get-rich-quick scheme as their sole endeavour. It's a fun story and I always loved when the series was able to tie into Alpha Quadrant lore (as we'd seen only recently with 'Repression' in which another force from home seeks to cause harm to the crew - I didn't realise such a similar story was coming so soon!). You get the familiar races mentioned, the Borg, the Romulans, we have Ferengi, all long before we were ever going to get these things in an ongoing series again. With 'Enterprise' on the way there would be more Trek to come, but aside from minor side visits from such notables we'd be bereft, and one could argue even in this new age of Trek we've been missing regular encounters with some of the staple species of old.

It is interesting to view the series from both the context of the time it was made, and now, a quarter of a century later. Back then it was a thrill merely to see the grey-shouldered 'DS9' uniforms as a reminder that time had moved on since the USS Voyager got dragged into the Delta Quadrant away from all they held dear. Seeing Starfleet buildings, ships (although I note we never got to see the USS Carolina, sadly), officers, not to mention an actual Ferengi vessel, the D'Kora-class Marauder which hadn't been on screen in a few years - I don't recall if they were shown on 'DS9' so it could be as far back as 'TNG,' although there is a dichotomy between the supposedly huge size of these vessels and the relatively small Bridge, which is all we see internally. There was a lot of empty space in there, perhaps that was meant to emphasise the size, but it was simply a pleasure to be aboard the familiar technology when in all likelihood we were 'never' going to see such a ship again. Because who knew what the next series would be and how long Trek would continue? One regret is that, while they made use of an old antagonist for the villain of the piece, they didn't do anything to develop them further, the Ferengi were simply there, doing what they always did and causing trouble for profit. The episode might have been enhanced by a greater attempt at giving the individuals concerned more depth and personality instead of merely using them as basic villains. It's like they'd reverted to the 'TNG' days of simplistic villainy, ignoring the work 'DS9' put in to round them out as an interesting people.

We aren't given any sense of what Ferengi society may have developed into under Grand Nagus Rom, and if you're going to play in the Trek world you can do it best by using the canon to your advantage. Perhaps something as simple as having one of them decry the state of the Alliance these days and how there are so few Ferengi left willing to go these lengths for their profit, at least give us a sense of change in the air, but there's none of that. I wouldn't say it hurts the episode, it's just more clear as I age how the little details can enhance the appreciation of that world, especially in the light of so much canon violation and destruction nowadays. What is a pleasure is reuniting the little troupe of Alpha Quadrant characters that had appeared a couple of times before last season: Barclay, Troi (looking her best, and here in her final appearance until 'Nemesis'... then the 'Enterprise' finale, then 'Lower Decks,' then 'Picard'...), Pete Harkins and Admiral Paris. Again, it would have been nice to incorporate a little more of their character into the story, though I do understand time was limited for such things. Connection with Starfleet could have been played up even more than the couple of times a season they were going for, making the recurring nature of this parallel storyline a larger part of the conclusion to the series (which they did near the end of the season, granted). Strangely, I couldn't help thinking about the 'Enterprise' finale, 'These Are The Voyages...' and the furore from some quarters over a 'TNG' episode taking over, something I've never been against, but perhaps if that story had been somehow told (probably in modified form), in the middle of a season like this one it might have been more widely accepted for what it was.

This one shifts plenty of attention and time over to guest characters, but I suspect at this stage of the series, even early on in the season, the main cast would have been grateful to have less work to do and only too happy for others to share the load. Barclay is noticeably less extreme in his ticks and mannerisms, almost as if this project to bring Voyager home, and specifically the idea of sending a hologram had given him better grounding and sense of purpose in life. In real world terms it may have been felt the previous appearances in 'Pathfinder' and 'Life Line' were a touch excessive and they wanted Schultz to rein it in a little, but either way it's a fine line to balance upon - he's still lacking in self-awareness or reading those around him, such as when he shows up on the beach where Deanna's relaxing, or when he, as this large bear of a man, comes storming into Harkins' tour of the facility for a group of children that might have been frightened by some great, booming guy charging in shouting about the Borg! But it's always great to see Barclay again, it's sad that out of all the various returnees of the modern era he's never been brought back. Mind you, he wouldn't seem as special or outlandish now when we have so many wacky characters in modern Trek, whereas in those days he was surrounded by straitlaced professionals. Okay, so Tom and B'Elanna are able to pull off a good tease on Harry when they claim a new way home has just been found, but our Voyager people are serious, grounded crewmembers.

There are missing characters in this one, we're back to barely seeing Tuvok, Chakotay or Neelix, but for once it's less due to Seven, the Doctor or Janeway taking more than their share, and more to do with the increase of guest characters. One of which is the seasoned Ferengi player, Frank Corsentino (who died in 2007), as Gegis who'd been two of the race on 'TNG' going back as far as Season 1's 'The Battle,' so no wonder these examples appeared much more like the old versions than later iterations had given us. The Barclay hologram's ability to do 'impressions' of people, or more specifically, recreations in the same creepy way Data could mimic the exact voices, was both funny and creepy, later to be much more the latter when he impersonates Seven - what happened to her, did he put his fingers in her brain? What then, does that mean she died, since solid matter pushed into your skull would surely do severe damage, but we never see her after that incident and have to assume she was okay? I didn't quite understand what happened with the escape pod, they must have beamed her and the program back, but it wasn't a very definitive ending. I actually liked that Voyager didn't find out exactly what had occurred in this episode since they can only communicate with home once a month, apparently, so good sticking to canon, even if it is a bit strange that they're left to speculate rather than the usual finality of learning from the experience. Continuity is well served as Tom brings up a couple of previous examples of times they were fooled into thinking they were about to get a quick ride home: with Arturis in 'Hope and Fear,' and the plant in 'Bliss.'

You'd think Harry would have heard of the Iconians and would know they were no longer around, something that immediately flags up Tom's 'news' that they've found another way home as suspicious to the Trek initiated - they may have only been important to a couple of episodes ('Contagion' in 'TNG' and 'To The Death' in 'DS9'), but they're one of those mysteries never to have been resolved, along with the parasite creatures of 'Conspiracy,' who the Hur'q really were, and what the Breen actually look like (whoops, thanks to 'Discovery' we did get the latter, but it was a wa-wa-wa-waaaaaah moment). It's exciting to hear such things even mentioned in passing, the same for Troi dropping in at the end that she and Will are going to Tiburon for their holiday - it sounded like she was inviting Reg along for dinner there, which suggests it's not very far, but I had the impression the place Dr. Sevrin studied at (in 'The Way To Eden' from 'TOS'), was a long way out. Admiral Paris was also a long way out: in his pronunciation of the Ferengi - he calls them Feren-gay, so I don't know where he got that. He may have erred there, but I was definitely in favour of the Doctor's point about erring on the side of caution when it came to the ship and crew's safety. For that matter Tuvok should have been much more in evidence as it was all too easy to accept this herald of a shortcut home, especially after a missing communication the previous month which should have set his hackles rising.

Yet another episode with certain styles or impressions of the early seasons, this time the Doc being stuck in Sickbay or the Holodeck when Reg borrows his emitter to go gallivanting off around the ship, supposedly on business. Easy to see his complaints as personal issues and overreaction, but Janeway knows him well enough that he's worth listening to and he shows himself to have progressed when he publicly apologises to the Barclay program when it appears his concern was unfounded, even though he was actually right. The episode is a little messy in some regards towards the end, but I also felt the main plot the Ferengi were following, as much as I want them to be involved, would surely have been more effort than it was worth: to bring Voyager back from the Delta Quadrant merely to seize nanoprobes from Seven's corpse... Surely it would have been easier to find an abandoned or crashed Borg vessel and harvest what they want from there. I know there would be risk (the riskier the road, the greater the profit!), but it would seem less effort and more chance of success. One thing only barely touched on is when fake Barclay asks what Seven will do when she returns home and, practical as ever, she states she'll attend to repairing Voyager. Only after he's given her this whole spiel about how she was Borg so she's given everyone back home hope for anyone that's ever lost someone to them, which is a far more realistic and Trek-worthy attitude (whether it's true or not, coming from a fake hologram), than what we eventually saw in 'Picard' where she's basically a miserable outcast. 'Voyager' was made when Trek was still hopeful, a big reason it still resonates today.

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