S3 E07: Sacred Ground

Okay, I'm going to try not to get too sarcastic in the synopsis.

*Deep Breath*

While the crew visits a temple on another world because they can't be bothered with going home, Kes is struck by a forcefield that she wanders into and almost dies. The monks at the temple won't let the crew bring instruments to scan the field and figure out how to make Kes better, but Neelix finds precedent in the culture's mythology for a family member of someone in Kes' predicament to beseech the monks to allow him or herself to go through a ritual, pass through the field, and beg the gods to cure the dying person. Instead of going with the obvious person (Neelix), Janeway has been busy setting herself up as the hubris-filled science strawman by being extra dismissive of the natives' beliefs, so she goes down to the planet instead. What follows is a string of cliche-driven sequences that "teach" Janeway that since science can't explain everything, she should just have faith, and that science is really faith too, so, in closing, faith is the best. The Doctor then starts explaining everything that happened to cure Kes, and Janeway, changed by her experiences, says "That's a very thorough, scientific explanation, thank you Doctor," then flashes her best condescending smile, and walks off.

When I was new to the internet, I used to read forum debates about things like science vs. religion for fun. For the first couple of pages, I'd see some interesting points, and then it would invariably devolve into a handful of people using more rhetoric than logic, dead set on changing their opponents' minds. I would never participate, because the futility of doing so was readily apparent, but I would seek these things out for years. So not only have I seen just about every piece of rhetorical flair out there, but, particularly relevant in this case, I have seen many, many misunderstandings of what science actually is.

When Janeway admits that though she can't yet explain what the field is, and she still believes that it is possible to explain it with more study, the spirits have this to say: "Even when her science fails right before her eyes she still has full confidence in it. Now that's a leap of faith" (in the smarmiest tones imaginable). To the scientist, the lack of ability to describe something in scientific terms is not a failure, it is just an unknown. An opportunity to know more. And maybe that is what the spirits are attempting to criticize. But to then have that "lesson" be the central point of the show, for Janeway to have "learned" to not be curious anymore, and have that be the happy ending? Of a Star Trek episode no less?!

Furthermore, the "leap of faith" that Janeway needs to take to rescue Kes, by doing what the spirits tell her and taking her physically into the field, isn't even really a leap of faith. A dilemma, for sure: but a risk/benefit analysis of the situation puts doing what the spirits say waaaay on top. Either (A) lose Kes for sure, or (B) take a chance that the spirits aren't trying to teach her a lesson by killing her (no benefit to them to do that) and have an opportunity to save Kes with negligible risk to herself. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.

We really didn't need this kind of character assassination for Janeway either. I understand that the writers felt that without making Janeway act so intolerant at the beginning, they couldn't make her grow; but this isn't the growth she needs. It doesn't even really count as character growth if you just make the character worse for part of one episode so that you can "correct" it later in the episode. Up until now, Janeway's certainly taken a pretty agnostic view of things (see in particular Emanations); contrast with Picard's atheism or Sisko's whole "being the emissary of the Prophets"* thing, and I should be thrilled. After all, that's me. She's representing me on the world's stage - no she's representing me to the whole delta quadrant. And, when it counts, she turns out to just be a sock puppet, set up to show that science, learning, and intellectual inquiry is a kind of quaint endeavor; the real goal is to jump off a cliff when your gods tell you to.

The talent of Harry Groener (Tam Elbrun, Nathan Samuels, but most importantly, The Mayor) is completely wasted here. He plays the political leader of the Nechani, and he's just a useless politician the whole time. I guess there's some misdirection here; I kept expecting him to turn out to be devious, sociopathic, or at least a little complicated, but got nothing.

The minute or so that Torres has in the show at the beginning is good at least. She's decisive and authoritative, and continues to be well characterized, and it gets me thinking: how much more awesome would the show be with her as the captain? Sure, I don't always agree with her philosphically, but she's got enough insight to know her limits and not so overconfident that she wouldn't take the advice of others into account, while still being sufficiently pragmatic to not get sidetracked with worry and doubt. I think the writers are a lot less cautious with her and have seen a lot of success as a result.

Watchability: 0/5

Bottom Line: This episode was finely crafted to my exacting specifications for the worst episode of all time. Say what you will about TNG seasons 1 & 2 being bad; they were bad because they simply didn't know how to make a television show. The problems were mostly in pacing, dialogue, and characterization - or just flat out being uninteresting. Other than Up the Long Ladder (season 2, where we learn that it is okay to slaughter clones because cloning is evil), I can't think of any episode that I was nearly as disappointed by on a philosophical level. Voyager has dug itself a huge hole with this entry.

*Actually, for all of his being the mouthpiece of the gods to the Bajoran people, he plays the much more comfortable agnostic. Curious about Bajoran religion in an anthropological sense, respectful of the important role it has played in the survival of their species, yet still guarded when it comes to the unobservable.