The opening dumps us straight into the action, and half of the bridge crew is in disguise on a planet's surface conducting some shady deals. It is hard to imagine the circumstances that drove the Upright Starship Brigade to stoop to this level, but apparently the yellow power they're buying is a critical substance we've never heard of. The planet they need to get it from is governed by a fascist bureaucracy whose soldiers promptly show up and shoot Janeway, and capture Torres and Tuvok (Neelix is spared).
Aboard the ship, Kim, Neelix, and Chakotay attempt to open negotiations with the planet's government for the captive's release, but meet with no success. The leader, Augris (who has played Romulans twice for TNG), is appropriately smug and stern and cold, giving them the runaround at every opportunity. It's a little frustrating to have a fruitless major plot thread, but it does help to emphasize the obnoxiousness of the antagonists here.
In thread #2, Tuvok and Torres are in prison being interrogated for information that they don't have about the planet's resistance movement. Tuvok is exercising his Vulcan passive resistance well, and it highlights the irony of having a pacifist (well, almost) as a tactical officer. He also contrasts well (again) with Torres, who is simultaneously infuriated by and admiring of Tuvok's composure. Tuvok is significantly disfigured by the torture (he is heard screaming in the background of one of the scenes), and that makes his reserve that much more potent.
Most of the episode focuses on Janeway, who has been rescued by a man who thinks that she is his daughter. Piece by piece, we get this man's sad story; he and his wife had been members of the resistance, and out of (probably) cowardice he had failed to make a rendezvous with her - she was captured and killed in captivity. Since then he'd become Gollumy from living with the guilt, and Janeway's insistence that she needs to free her crew from the prison fits right into his fantasy that he could rescue his wife. Janeway's acting in these scenes is the best she's done in the whole series so far, which may sound like faint praise coming from me, but I was really never displeased with it. There is one very uncomfortable scene in which she pretends to be a prostitute (!) to get past the guards (which apparently was hyped by UPN as being the central theme of the show in the trailer, much to the dismay of the writers), but it is over soon enough.
Her companion, Caylem, also pulls his weight as an actor, behaving convincingly crazy. There's a scene where he knowingly makes a spectacle of himself to allow a resistance member to escape some guards, which nicely adds to the tragedy of his role by showing that he still has enough insight to grasp the gravity of his actions. The prison break is a success, and Caylem comes out as a hero in a very bittersweet way.
Watchability: 4/5
Bottom Line: We take a break from the continuity of the last two episodes here, and that's okay.
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