This episode starts with a nice Paris and Kim scene, where Kim is practicing clarinet and the two get talking about hopes for getting home and women. It really isn't relevant to the rest of the episode, but I'm glad it's here. I wish there were more of these character scenes, where friendships are built gradually and fluidly. This is admittedly DS9's strength, but I'm happy to see some of it rub off here.
Voyager encounters a planet that is recovering from an ice age caused by changes in it's sun. They receive an automated signal informing them that survivors of this planet's catastrophe are planning to return, so please stay away - an optimistic request in this quadrant if ever I heard one. The catch is that, according to the signal, they were supposed to return four years ago. Kim finds evidence of three survivors in stasis pods beneath the planet's surface, and Janeway orders them to be brought aboard.
There are actually five pods, but two of the occupants have died. According to the Doctor's readings, they died from stress-related causes. Since there's no way to safely disconnect the remaining three, they're supposed to be able to let themselves out, and they appear to be linked into a virtual environment through the pods, Kim and Torres are sent in to retrieve them. There are complications. If you have never seen this episode, I recommend watching it instead of reading further, it is worth it.
The computer linking the survivors (henceforth: the Kohl) has used their thoughts and emotions to create characters in the virtual world. Over the years, the manifestation of fear has taken over; amongst all the fears the Kohl must've had when trying to survive their planet's catastrophe, that isn't surprising. Additionally, there's another fear in play: the virtual world's own fear of ceasing to exist should the Kohl's stasis end at the scheduled time. To that end, the personification of terror has kept them trapped in the pods.
It was a pretty campy move to make Fear (henceforth capitalized so that I don't need to keep using "manifestation" or "personification") a clown, leading a bizarre carnival of other circus people. At the same time, it is a very effective move, in terms of making the virtual landscape sufficiently surreal and creepy. Most of the background actors in this episode are from Cirque du Soleil, which grants their actions an extra bit of eerie grace. Fear himself is played by Michael McKean: the manic energy that he brings to the part would be easy to screw up, so I'm very grateful that the producers shelled out for the big name guy. He torments Kim (Kim does play effectively on Fear's fear of dying to allow B'Elanna to escape and warn the others) with a kind of sadistic glee, making all of his personal fears come to life. The Kohl watch in horror, terrified to do anything, but feeling guilty that he must face what is ultimately their creation.
The Doctor's arrival to interrupt the torture is brilliant. Janeway foreshadows his arrival in a previous scene, but with the knowledge that he's going to show up, his dry, calm demeanor is very satisfying as a counterpoint to Fear's behavior. The Doctor doesn't exactly save the day though, he just buys time. Fear still won't release his remaining prisoners, and that's good. I love the Doctor and all, but I don't want him to be the Doctor Ex Machina too often. I don't think it diminishes his role here at all for him not to be the one who saves the day just by being a different type of sentient life.
After trying a couple more technical things that don't work, the crew tries to beat fear by thinking like fear. Janeway makes good points about fear's usefulness as a human response. I mean, fear is very often inconvenient, but ultimately good that we as humans have it around, largely to keep us from repeatedly making bad decisions. Pain is similar: for the most part, we look at pain as a bad thing. But there are people who can't feel pain - and these people don't live terribly long because their body isn't telling them when to stop doing simple things, like standing in one position for too long. Pain and fear both send important signals to humans - but with all of that said, this Fear is still a bad guy.
The crew uses Fear's fear of death again to trick him into taking a risky deal - release the hostages, in exchange for one different hostage (Janeway), and they'll agree not to just pull the plug and take their chances with brain damage. You know there's going to be a catch, and Fear must know it too, but he is too blinded by his fear to thoroughly analyze the situation. When he realizes that the Janeway they sent in was actually a hologram, while fooling him by hooking her actual body up to the machine without putting her under all the way, his world slowly fades to black in a very chilling way.
Watchability: 5/5
Bottom Line: This episode, not only in terms of high concept but also in somewhat campy execution and even set design, is very reminiscent of classic Kirk Trek. It is a great idea, executed well, and with an excellent guest actor.
This is one of my favorite episodes in spite of the fact that it scared the crap out of me as a kid. I'm easily scared, even now, and as such, there are a couple of Trek episodes I avoid (like TNG's devolving one), but this one fascinated me. It really helped that there was a meta aspect of fear being conquered not only in the episode, but my own personal fear of watching scary Trek episodes.
ReplyDeleteI really like the episode even more if you keep in mind the speech that Spock gives during Kirk's hearing during the new Star Trek movie: "The purpose is to experience fear, fear in the face of certain death, to accept that fear, and maintain control of oneself and one's crew. This is the quality expected in every Starfleet captain." So, it makes the interplay between the captain and fear very complicated, especially when he says: "Finally, someone who understands me" and "Don't we make a good couple?" It worked so well.