S2 E07: Parturition

...

Really?

This is an entire episode about the Neelix/Kes/Paris love triangle.

*Sigh*

Paris is teaching Kes how to fly a shuttle (her competence just puts Neelix's incompetence in an even brighter spotlight), and they get all giggly and Tom rocks the simulated shuttle to toss her in his lap. Neelix turns out to be telepathic too, or otherwise there's no reason for him to have forgotten everything that Chakotay taught him last time. Paris and Kim have a pretty cute scene together where Paris plays the lovelorn teen, pining after Kes, and Kim plays the clarinet for him. Which he made with the replicator by saving his rations and eating Neelix's cooking. You know, I wish Neelix were at least good at something. Even the cooking - not one character has said a word of praise for it, and many have taken every chance they can to take a cheap shot at it. Well, Paris tells Kim, as much as he lusts for loves Kes, he would never disrespect Neelix by pursuing it, so he'll just have to avoid Kes forever. It's a start.

He fails immediately, and when he doesn't sit with Kes in the mess hall, Neelix angrily confronts him and they get into a food fight. Yeah, really. Janeway picks that moment to call them to her office and tell them they need to go on a shuttle mission together to a dangerous planet, where they will inevitably be stranded with only each other and need to look past their differences and get along. Well, she doesn't say all that, but we get the subtext. You and I, we're pretty bright.

While stranded on the planet (who knew??), they bicker, fight, and generally act like the entitled tweens I expect them to be by now. Then they raise a reptile baby together (looks like a cheap, rubbery sock-puppet with moving eyelids), find out they can learn something from each other after all, and come clean about Kes, and now they're buddies. Isn't that great? This is daytime TV material. Nothing about this episode except the props (and the small bit about figuring out how to feed the hatchling) reminds me that I'm not watching soap (yeah, after The Price is Right, soaps are very popular patient viewing material in most hospitals I've worked in, so I'd know).

It is too easy though to blame a stale formula for this episode's failure. Trek (particularly DS9) loves to do the whole two-people-stranded-on-a-planet-need-to-reevaluate-their-relationship thing - and most of the time, it works. Take Armageddon Game, where Bashir and O'Brien (who have even been stranded together before, and will be again) are stuck on a planet. It does a great job of easing the viewer into the idea of them potentially getting along, while giving them a chance to vent frustrations with each other in a way that doesn't worsen their relationship OR bring it to a sugary-sweet conclusion. Take a look at Disaster or Starship Down, where instead of focusing on just one pair, we get focused interactions between multiple different odd-couples, with comedic and cathartic results (respectively). Admittedly, Starship Down aired a month after this episode, and is a fourth season episode, but the difference in quality is startling. Each of the five different vignettes in that episode were more compelling than the one story in Parturition.

Watchability: 1/5

Bottom Line: I guess they resolved the jealousy thing. Right? For real, this time? Please? Wasn't I saying this at the end of the previous episode?