S5 E03: Extreme Risk

The Malons (aren't you glad they're back? I sure am) chase a Voyager probe into the atmosphere of a gas giant, and they blow themselves in the process. Voyager comes to collect its probe, but the Malons have sent another ship to do the same thing. Traditional methods of retrieval won't work, so both crews are forced to develop new shuttlecraft capable of entering the atmosphere - a task which Paris jumps on as an opportunity to create a new ship (the Delta Flyer) that he's been toying around with. Torres is injured in a holographic test flight with the safeties off, and the Doctor discovers that she has been taking this sort of risk a lot lately - and has nearly died many times. Janeway confronts her, and relieves her of duty. Chakotay goes through the programs that she's been running and finds one that is a recreation of the slaughter of the Maquis - which he brings her into and confronts her there. She asks for one more chance, and he lets her go on the probe retrieval attempt. She is sufficiently engaged by the mission and through ingenuity she saves the crew.

I want to love this episode. The eradication of the Maquis was a huge development and the Maquis crew members have every right to be completely despondent. The only two major characters who were Maquis are Chakotay and Torres; Chakotay was more personally invested in the Maquis cause, but the writers backed his character off from them at warp speed. Thus, Torres, the only Maquis personnel who made any sort of on-screen adjustment, is the only choice for this story. In fact, I'd credit her Maquis sympathies as being a big element of my early enjoyment of her character. And any time that we can get Torres development that is separate from her "relationship" with Paris, I'm all for it.

And they do nail her maladjustment pretty well. It isn't straight-up survivor guilt, it also has a reasonable amount of straight up major depression mixed in. The anhedonia, her risk-taking, her reaction to having her responsibilities revoked, those are perfect. It is painful to watch her act self-destructively, but it should be. She's got a world of baggage here. I'd definitely say that the Voyager staff must have a good psychology consultant, certainly better than their science consultants.

But the Torres plot here is significantly hurt by the resistance to continuity on the part of the writers. Something this big needs to have been hinted at in previous episode. Season two tried it on the milquetoast Paris/Jonas Kazon collaboration plot, and it's like the writers decided that since it didn't work there, they can never do story growth like that. Yet, where those bits of continuity were used to set up a lame plot, here they could have been used to establish a needed Torres character arc, and deal with what should be the biggest news Voyager could receive short of a way home. The problem lies not just in the build-up though, but also in the resolution. While they tried to make it clear that Torres is just on the road to recovery, not all the way there, I have no hope that we'll ever hear of this again.

What else? The Malons are still pathetic. What made the writers think bringing them back was a good idea? The Delta Flyer is cool, but it is hard not to contrast it with the creation of the "stealth ship" in BSG. The stealth ship was a labor of love, a glimmer of hope in the bleak despair of BSG; its christening is an incredibly cathartic, tear-jerking moment... over the creation of a ship. Like I said, the Delta Flyer is cool, but that's about all.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: I wanted to love this episode, but had to settle for liking it well enough. At least we got a Torres episode without much Paris involvement.