Voyager Season 3 Getting Good
By
Kristin Battestella
After
two lackluster seasons of Star Trek:
Voyager, Year 3 adds some quality guests, Original Series feelings, and fine two-parters for a not too bad
little season. Eureka!
Captain
Katherine Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) and the crew of the stranded in the Delta
Quadrant USS Voyager leave their Kazon enemies behind while Vulcan Lieutenant
Tuvok (Tim Russ), pilot Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeil) and Talaxian chef
Neelix (Ethan Phillips) encounter previous friends and foes. Time travel,
Ferengi, and the Borg don’t make Voyager’s long journey home any easier,
either. However, Voyager’s holographic Doctor (Robert Picardo) soon has life
altering experiences of his own, as does half-Klingon Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres
(Roxann Dawson) and the growing psychic Kes (Jennifer Lien).
“Basics
Part II” is a nice little season opener, with ship intrigue, love to hate
comeuppance for Martha Hackett as turncoat Seska, and primitive planet fun.I’m
so glad to be done with Kazon, too. After
all, lingering on these factions just keeps a ship that is supposed to be moving
at warp speed too stagnant, but thankfully, those impracticalities are replaced
by solid SF adventure. The fine action and quality moments for Robert Picardo’s
Doctor and returning guest star Brad Dourif might be resolved a bit too easily,
but everything serves its purpose here. Of
course, too many frickin’ humanoid looking aliens with assorted forehead motifs
and the Harry and Tom prison buddy episode “The Chute” hamper a bit of Season
3’s steam. We haven’t seen that before, nope. Again, these rehashings can just be too
jarring and remove the hard built fantasy. Fortunately, touches of return to
form Trek in “Flashback” are
wonderful thanks to Tuvok and our Excelsior favorites. Okay, so it’s an obvious
concept, but this re-watch, I’m enjoying Tuvok’s long-lived Vulcan dilemmas and
adventure the most. “Alter Ego” and
“Blood Fever” also wonderfully explore the ship and family camaraderie versus holodeck
solitude – especially when that inevitable Pon Farr comes around. “Displaced” gives all the players their
moments, complete with invasion, sabotage, and new action in the Delta
Quadrant. It’s fast paced, has lots of quality effects and landscapes, and
should be the ideal Voyager adventure.
It’s
so nice to see all these fine character storylines mixed with good science
fiction concepts, interesting themes, and heavy statements! Robert Picardo is
again lovely in “The Swarm,” and the lightheartedness of “False Profits”
matches with the heavy for Roxann Dawson’s B’Elanna Torres in “Remember.” “Future’s End I and II” have fun time travel,
top-notch action, a sweet Sarah Silverman (Wreck
It Ralph), and a sleazy Ed Begley Jr. (St.
Elsewhere). What’s not to love? One might joke that the entire reason for
this double plot was to get The Doctor unrestricted from sickbay, but Voyager could have had more episodes
dealing with the technological woes and abduction paranoia here. Imagine if
Voyager and her crew were stuck in the right place but the wrong time for four
or six episodes! Naturally, it wouldn’t be Voyager
without a few loose bottle shows like “Macrocosm.” Your ship is adrift with no sign of crew, an
alien is afoot, and the holographic doctor is the last person you seek? This type of plot hole and iffy M.O. are
those little holes that more often than not sink Voyager’s ship. Thankfully, Mulgrew is again delightful as Captain
Janeway. Though I did like the bun, the Captain has literally let her hair down
this season, and this ponytail in some small way signifies her distance from
Starfleet and warms up Voyager. “Sacred
Ground” does reach a little in its religious ideas with double talk and that
anti-religion Star Trek feeling, but
it is a solid Janeway exploration, and “Coda” is also a lovely Janeway
retrospective. Bemusing spectacles with guests John de Lancie and Suzy Plakson
also accent the historical action serious for Janeway in “The Q and the Grey.”
Despite
the significant improvements early on in Season 3, some characters are still
showing their weaknesses, Robert Beltran’s Commander Chakotay and Jennifer Lien
as Kes among them. Ironically, “Sacred
Ground” also has a strange misuse of Chakotay. After having Native American
beliefs as his only attempts at character development, it’s odd that he is
disbelieving his captain’s leap of faith instead of being spiritually
interested. “Unity” begins as another pull the wool over on Chakotay show;
however, it is a smart introduction to the Borg on Voyager. Is this separated collective doing its forced will for
good any better than the assimilation and destruction of the standard Borg
variety? The debate here is just right,
unlike some of the overused Borg complaints that plaque Voyager later in the series. “Distant Origins” and “Displaced” are
also a fine pair discussing Delta Quadrant evolution from multiple angles.
Who’s in the right place or the wrong way? We would think it would be Janeway
tackling these strong SF spins and big character conversations, but it’s some
of Chakotay’s best here. He’s not duped, speaks honestly, has all the facts,
and tries to help someone. It seems corny, even insulting, that his finest is
opposite talking reptiles. However, the advanced dinosaur concepts aren’t hokey
at all – the science and effects look good. “Warlord” is a familiar tale with
lots to chew, but it is a good break from the Kes routine before the weird long
hairstyle and pseudo rebellious teen years hamper “Darkling,” which is
otherwise owned by the Doctor gone crazy.
Somehow, the Ocampa go from nice little imps or elves to long blonde
poofy and tight clothes hoochie. What happened?
Thankfully,
“False Profits” is good fun for Ethan Phillps’ Neelix. Even if you don’t love
Ferengi humor and the reliance on Alpha Quadrant stories, the set ups are
solid, the tie-ins are necessary to attract Trek
fans back to Voyager, and Ethan
Phillips always makes it worthwhile. By
contrast, “Fair Trade” is a surprisingly dark Neelix foray – though I don’t
want him to get too dark. His humor and softness is needed if everyone else is
going to get heavy. I’m surprised there is never a mention of Tuvix, but Neelix
and Tuvok are wonderful together in “Rise,” too. This episode reminded me a lot
of Blake’s 7, and I kind of like the
idea of Voyager as being confined,
suspicious, full of dilemmas, pointing fingers, and arguing. The show pacings
and occasional script confusions can make the series uneven, but the cast of Voyager is capable of this kind of meaty
material. “Real Life” is another standout delight for the Doctor, but his plot
is hurt by a meaningless phenomena B story.
Some
of the B’Elanna Torres meets Pon Farr twists feel a bit forced in “Blood Fever”
as well, even if the Paris/Torres suggestions are intriguing. Their potential
implications are done much better in the pleasantly backward “Before and After.” This might be the first serious science
fiction on Voyager. I kept asking
myself, ‘How far is this going to go?’ Unfortunately, Garrett Wang’s Ensign
Harry Kim gets the short end of the stick again in “Favorite Son.” Harry being connived by women and wanted for
sex is just a bit pretentious, and the copulation is all just a little too
weird. At best, Harry solo episodes just aren’t that interesting. I’d much
rather see an alien character slowly being diseased toward losing his alien
makeup to become the human actor beneath the mask. Why fall back on evil sexy
aliens? “Worst Case Scenario” provides these nice what could have been
explorations thanks to a mutinous holodeck simulation gone awry. However, by
the end of Season 3, it feels like we simply don’t see as much Tuvok or Paris. Fortunately, everyone is on the same page and working
together in the solid “Scorpion” finale.
Voyager Season
3 is better than I originally remember. It’s faster and stepped up compared to
the meandering first two seasons. In seeing this season now, one almost wonders
why they changed things further for Year 4. Perhaps that forward movement was
the natural progression of the quality created here, and the cliffhanger finale
necessitates the continuation to Season 4.
One of this season’s few faults is the fact that it is not a
self-contained year. Were this pre and
post not the case, new audiences could begin Voyager here. If the show had started with this new, exciting,
fresh presentation and forward motivation, there would have been no need to
change the series’ tone halfway thru. Long time SF fans can delight in Voyager’s kicked up style, and new
viewers or returning Star Trek fans
can enjoy this largely unfettered Season 3.
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