Workforce, Part II (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Workforce, Part II) (2)

Usually, second parts are slightly inferior, not living up to all the setup of Part I, but in this case I found too much setup in the first episode and this second benefited from the satisfaction of all things being made right again as the net around the corruption ring draws slowly tighter thanks to the various individual parts being played and knowledge gained of both Voyager staff and honest Quarrens. That the conspiracy to capture and alter the memories of aliens in order to use them in the workforce was only a 'select' band is a relief, especially as we see ordinary, good citizens that simply want to do their job well and help others, which really adds a great sense of justice and goodness - the young doctor who questions his twisted superior may have been guileless in his innocence and should've played his cards close to his chest rather than confronting the other on what was going on (almost suffering his own memory adjustment as a result - love that he's offered the temptation to join evil and he clearly chose not to, despite the rewards for compliance and consequences for rejection - inspiring!), but it only serves to emphasise his lack of malevolence and cunning in comparison to the so-called 'superior,' Kadan. His character was best summed up when the other good man of the story, investigator Yerid, tries to get to the bottom of what's going on, has Kadan captive and tells him to get the other medical staff to leave the room: he delicately says to ask them for privacy, and in response the harsh indifference is shown by Kadan simply ordering them dismissed. Simple writing, but so eloquent!

Trek is (was), so great at giving us that strong sense of justice winning out, and this episode has exactly that, with the conspiracy unmasked and everyone happy, all back in order and as it should be - thanks to it being a two-parter we're afforded a little more time for the wrap-up than most individual episodes. Perhaps the cooperation of the Quarren government with Voyager could have been explored a little more, as it is we simply have the investigator and a high-up (I think it's the Ambassador seen in Part I), sitting around the conference table aboard Voyager with the ECH and Harry, but that side of things isn't as important to us as the resuming of the status quo, as Janeway arrives on the Bridge at the very end, Chakotay asking if she regrets losing the life she'd been given to return to her real one. Before that, we see Tom and B'Elanna together again as man and wife, playful banter showing how much this means to B'Elanna in particular. And then of course the tragic goodbye between Janeway and Jaffen after they'd grown so close. I did have a moment when I wondered if he was actually part of the plot, there to keep Janeway from ever guessing the truth, further incentive for her to remain oblivious to her old life: when she looks out at the plant and he's not at the console as the enemies arrive. It would have made it an easier parting if she'd been played, but it's much more dramatic to have an enforced separation as the two are no longer on equal footing thanks to her responsibilities to ship and crew.

I'd go so far as to say it was along the lines of how a 'DS9' episode would have finished: allowing breathing room for the ramifications to the characters, not skipping off merrily to the next adventure. Jaffen's devotion to Janeway stood out as true love since he agrees to go along with helping her and the others even though it looks like it will lead to separation from their newfound idyll - the ability to let go through self-sacrifice for the sake of another must be one of the profound elements of Trek characters, most notably displayed by Spock in saving the Enterprise at the cost of his own life. That isn't the case here, but Jaffen does lose the life he would have had otherwise. Chakotay continually does all that he needs to do to ensure the crew and Captain are saved, really getting to be the heroic First Officer we'd like to see more of, but who is far too often reduced to a 'yes, Captain, no Captain' slumped in his chair on the Bridge in far too many episodes. He was made to be a dynamic character and this story allows him the range he needs. And it's not limited to the characters on the planet - back aboard Voyager who better to rehabilitate the confused and distressed B'Elanna than gentle Neelix, meek and mild. He takes her through the realities of her true life and I was impressed with Roxann Dawson being able to deal with this important part of her character's arc while also having to govern the whole production as Director. Usually an actor will be given a story lighter on their character so they can focus on directing, but she had some key scenes.

I always think actors acting while being Director tend to be more serious than usual in their role as if they can't quite hide the grim determination and heavy responsibility of being in charge of a big budget episode of series' TV, and this was the case again, but it suited the position of the character in this case as she deals with the life she knows turning out to be fake. But there were a lot of moments across the episode when you get this satisfaction of people coming to some kind of realisation that there's more than what they know, always a rich seam to mine, and very sensitively handled much of the time here - a standout for me was the delicate way Chakotay breaks the news to Janeway that she's his Captain, by telling her indirectly while reporting events to Harry on the comm. It still has the force of a snakebite to Janeway who can't cope with the suggestion her ideal life is a mere dream. There are things that were a little too easy, such as Chakotay taking mere seconds to wipe away his alien face (it's unclear if this is supposed to be real skin grown from his own cells so as to avoid detection by medical authorities, or whether it's mere 'makeup,' but the use of a dermal regenerator seems to suggest actual skin manipulation), or the Doctor so quickly finding a way to access the crew's lost memories and fix them up in no time when surely memories being extracted or blocked should be a major issue. But these are minor problems simply solved so we can get on with the story.

The only major story point that I didn't feel had its due was the subplot of the Doctor enjoying command so much (even though he isn't exactly in command - see the review for the previous episode where I discussed this), he wants to remain in that mode once the crisis is over. It didn't make much sense since unless he goes off on his own ship, what can he be in command of, and it wouldn't be fair to other members of the crew that he can simply download these command subroutines to his program and suddenly he's qualified, in the same way that genetic modification gives unfair advantages and why the Federation rightly banned such things. But I still felt there was room for more discussion on the Doctor's ambitions for future career advancement, even if it's largely played as a joke, and is, really, since he is pompous and childish in his wish to do everything. At least the idea of Harry and he competing was nicely settled - while the Doc's idea of dropping a Photon Torpedo between two pursuing ships, then detonating it by shooting it with Phasers wasn't bad, it also seemed more common than they were suggesting, while Harry's solution to dealing with three pursuing vessels by releasing some Escape Pods, masking life signs and then detonating them, really did seem like tactical genius. The important thing is they gained respect for each other through the experience.

I'd completely forgotten Voyager hard-lands in this episode, hiding in the crater of a moon, but that's probably because we didn't see them go down and there wasn't the usual fuss and procedure with Blue Alert sounding and all that - they may have, but we weren't shown it. Just a couple of other notes: I found it interesting Seven had no trouble reading Quarren text which was clearly alien, so I wondered if her memories (and presumably everyone else's since they can all operate the consoles), were altered not just with a new life, but the ability to read the language so as to integrate more efficiently. As we know, language is key in forming the mind, if you control that then you control people's thoughts, as we see in the battle for ever more subtle use of words and wording in today's world to subvert our thinking. And how did Chakotay get wounded so badly his shoulder was bleeding? It could be the Quarren hand weapons, which appeared to emit a Phaser beam, like most energy weapons in Trek, were actually spitting out a Disruptor beam (like Klingons use), but there didn't seem much rupturing at the time in any of the bursts - the alternative would be that Chakotay fell against something during his fight, but either way it was quite dramatic to see blood in Trek! I should also mention this was Tom Virtue's final of four appearances on the series (the crooked supervisor at the plant), and Joseph Will (one of the security officers, though he's not very recognisable), had been in 'Muse' and would go on to be in three episodes of 'Enterprise' as a recurring character, so they must've liked him. It's funny that my previous viewing of this story gave me the opposite impression: that Part I was superior, so it's surprising what difference a few years makes.

***

Workforce (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Workforce) (2)

Was this the best idea for a mid-season event two-parter? I know we'd already had 'Flesh and Blood' as the feature-length event, but this one seems more like a way to amortise the cost of the large sets they built by spreading the story across two episodes. In fairness it's not a bad first part, but I had the impression of not particularly liking it on previous viewings and despite the low expectations I didn't think it was amazing, though pretty good, the opposite of a recent 'TNG' rewatch when I saw 'The Dauphin' thinking it was going to be very average, but was highly impressed. I don't know if the knowledge this was a ripoff of a 'Stargate SG-1' episode, which I wouldn't have caught before as I wasn't as familiar with that series as I am now, may have coloured my perception - it's only fair if so since 'SG-1' was 'inspired' by so much Trek over the years, although in reality I'm not sure if this was a case of the sincerest form of flattery since I believe both series' stories came out the same year, the 2000-2001 TV season, and who knows which was actually written first, both roughly being in the middle of their respective seasons. It's more likely to be a case of two creative groups coming up with the same idea, and it's not a bad one. 'Workforce' comes off the better of the two, perhaps because it made it a big budget extravaganza, presumably so they could create these relatively large sets and significant amounts of CGI establishing shots - CGI was never really one of the series' strong points, it was early days for TV in that regard, but I would say it worked pretty well here.

Did it need to be a two-part story, now that's a different question? There are some interesting elements played with, some of which I found more appealing than others. No doubt the female audience were drawn to Janeway getting the chance to let her hair down (literally - she's really grown it out and it suits!), with a male colleague, something she can't ordinarily do since she outranks everyone on her ship, though of course they tried it occasionally with a guest character ('Counterpoint'), or a hologram (in the Irish village holoprogram). More successful from my point of view was the use of the more obscured characters of this season: Chakotay, Neelix, B'Elanna and Harry, allowing them to get a greater share of the spotlight than they had been getting, while Janeway, the Doctor, and especially Seven are bumped 'down' to more equal status, and in Seven's case she's reduced to very few scenes, so there is a much greater sense of the ensemble, even if a lot of them aren't ensembling together! Paris naturally gravitates to a bar, but his concern for the pregnant loner, B'Elanna, is touching and you can see the automatic impulses of reality in action, even while he's shown to be a bit of a womaniser - it's like he can't deny the subconscious urge to help and protect his real life wife and unborn child even if neither of them remember.

Not a lot really happens, it is after all about our characters having jobs on an alien world, mainly at a dull, smoky power plant, with the occasional social period - what's more interesting is when reality breaks through, as with Tuvok, who gets to the stage where he mind melds with Seven to bring her memories to the fore, or events on Voyager itself where the Doctor's changed into the Emergency Command Hologram when the Captain and crew were forced to abandon ship. I thought that was supposed to be a joke, not a real feature of his program, but it's nice to see him doing something different. Especially interesting to me was the command hierarchy in that situation: Janeway transfers command to him, with all her command codes, but then Chakotay, the First Officer, returns. I was wondering if Janeway empowering the Doctor to be ECH meant he outranked anyone other than her, but whether that's true or not, it's not what occurs in the practical situation of Chakotay's return. The Doc even complains about having to do menial repair work when he should be on the Bridge, but it's clear Chakotay is the one in charge - even Kim doesn't exactly recognise the Doctor's status when the pair of them are left for Chakotay to infiltrate Quarren society to find out what's happened to their missing crew - rather than state the hierarchy Chakotay leaves it to them to sort it out amongst themselves, which is an interesting command style! It'll be interesting to see if this ECH rank is further explained in part two, and how Janeway sees it, though I imagine she, too, would see it only as temporary command in an emergency, and once that's over with Chakotay, Neelix and Harry returning to Voyager, that effectively ends the need for it.

When it was just the Doctor, the episode this reminded me of was 'Remember Me' when Dr. Crusher found herself slowly becoming the only occupant of the vast Enterprise-D in 'TNG.' In this case it made a little more sense that a hologram could control a starship usually designed to be operated by an entire crew since he could interface directly with the ship's computer (always nice when Majel Barrett gets a little more to say as the Computer, especially when she's the only company for whoever's talking to her!), but in that case why would he bother with verbal interaction (other than for the benefit of the audience)? There was something quite pleasant about the idea of the four of them, Harry, Neelix, the Doctor and Chakotay all off in different parts of the ship working to get Voyager up to full strength again, or at least working strength. It was a bit of an anomaly that Voyager hadn't been taken by the Quarren until the story makes clear the crew left in escape pods and they tried to find it, but were unable to do so thanks to the actions of the Doctor, earning his keep as he always does, so there weren't any logic holes in the story that I could see. At the same time there isn't all that much to write about because it's mostly setup and the enjoyment of seeing our characters in other lives, the 'what if?' scenario usually reserved for Mirror Universe or other parallel universe stories.

In some ways the trivia of the episode is more interesting than the story, which is mysterious enough the first you come to it (even the first time I watched it I'd have known the twist that they're captives on an alien world with their minds brainwashed to think their jobs are what they should be doing, since I was reading Star Trek Monthly and getting episode synopses well in advance of viewing), since you don't know if Janeway is undercover or what from the teaser. But we not only hear of Neelix' ship, we get to see it again, a rare occurrence for the series, as he and Chakotay use it to go down to Quarra - I had the feeling it didn't exist any more, but maybe it's fate is still coming, or perhaps Neelix leaves with it at the end of the series, I don't recall. The casting is especially of interest - we get good old Tom Virtue back for both parts of the story. He'd been a human crewmember way back in two episodes of the first two seasons. It was a little incongruous seeing him since we know crewmembers have been altered mentally so you might expect Baxter to be seen (assuming he'd survived all the other adventures in the intervening years!), and other than some slight prosthetics to show he's alien, he looked very similar, to the extent it used to take me out of it a bit. The big name is Iona Morris, following her brother, Phil Morris' Trek career with her own entry, though she's also one of the few actors and actresses to have been in both 'TOS' and the later spinoffs, which is quite an exclusive club to be part of (she plays the bar owner where Paris wheedles his way into a job, but she'd been one of the uncredited children in 'Miri' back in the 60s when they simply got the offspring of 'TOS' and 'Mission: Impossible' stars in to play the roles!).

Apparently one of the Security Officers (#1, to be precise!), presumably the one who speaks to Janeway and Jaffen about curfew, would go on to have another small role as an Engineer in 'Enterprise.' Another Security Officer (#2, if you must know), was played by Matt Williamson who'd go on to be a Klingon in the 'Enterprise' pilot. And that's about it, really, it's a perfectly satisfactory story that introduces the situation and characters well, is nicely shot, all smoke and dark tones, so maybe Part II is the disappointment and doesn't live up to the setup, which can often be the case in Trek where it was almost like they couldn't quite stretch out a story beyond an hour, perhaps due to them being so used to condensing things tightly into the forty-five minute structure that worked so well for Trek. My only question is why there are purple Benzites there? Obviously they aren't really Benzites since they'd be blue (the blues are covered by Bolians who clearly must be from Voyager's crew), and it's just a case of the production reusing old masks, which are very good, but I think needed a little more modification than a simple colour change to get past the eagle eyes of Trekkers everywhere! In my previous review, back in 2010, I speculated that the issue of holograms in command would be addressed in any post-'Voyager' timeline production, but it never was, which says a lot about how much the modern writers care about Trek history and internal reality (what, you thought I could go a whole review without at least one dig about modern Trek?).

***