S1 E07: Ex Post Facto

Murder mysteries are very tricky to produce when you have an audience who knows the outcome. "What, you mean a major Trek character didn't commit the murder he's being accused of?" It's not a big shock, I'm not spoiling anything you didn't already know. What works here is that it doesn't matter. It's not really a murder mystery, it's all about how we get there.

What we have is a story built around an interesting sci-fi premise; that of a civilization that punishes the guilty by transplanting the victim's memories of his or her death into the perpetrator. An elegant solution if you ask me. And you are, just by being here. However, in this case, the memory is clearly a forgery, since it shows Tom Paris killing another man out of lust for his wife; a woman he met two days ago. The story does not try to avoid casting Paris as the womanizer, which we've already seen that he fancies himself as from the holodeck program he conjured previously. He acts foolishly and with all the restraint of a hormone encrusted adolescent, and brings us some truly excruciatingly teen-drama-esque scenes. According to Memory Alpha, Michael Piller was going for noir when he wrote the episode, but here I think he was closer to Twilight.

What really holds the episode together is Tuvok, who plays the investigator trying to find out what really happened. The self-described "dispassionate" Vulcan is the perfect fit in this case for an impartial seeker of truth. It at first seemed odd to have a Vulcan security chief (and must seem odd to the writers too, since they are always having him do odd-ball sciencey stuff when Kim or Torres or someone else isn't available), but now I'm sold. On top of that, being a Vulcan gives him access to the perfect tool for this particular investigation: the Vulcan Mindmeld! I also like that the Doctor is really perturbed about its use, like Vulcans are just reckless cowboys who roam the galaxy trying to mindmeld with everyone they see. Of note, the mindmeld here seems to go back to using its effect from TOS, which is just a temporary melding of minds, rather than the TNG use, where it forms something of a permanent bond. I'm glad, because that means we could potentially see it more often.

We get a nice little space battle (where Neelix continues to wear his uselessness proudly), and some twists to wrap up the investigation and BAM, we have a good episode. Which was the real surprise, because I distinctly remember hating this one. It could be that I just plain miss the Alien-A-Week format. I love DS9 and Firefly and Battlestar and Babylon 5 but I don't see continuity-heavy long-term-plotline as the only way to do sci-fi. One-offs like this allow us to take a quick look at a species that has a cool punishment technique without examining every aspect of their culture. Not that Voyager is really a shining example of everything you can accomplish with Alien-A-Week, or that it couldn't do with stronger internal consistency, but I'm glad that I watched this episode.

Watchability: 4/5

Bottom Line: Okay, that 4/5 does involve kind of grimacing through the Paris-and-random-lady-alien parts, but I had a good time. I should probably make a post about what the numbers mean, since actually laying it out might even help me be more consistent. Maybe.