S5 E19: The Fight

Voyager is trapped in "chaotic space," which warps and twist reality and breaks the laws of physics. Aliens who are native to this space are trying to contact Chakotay telepathically by activating a gene that causes alzheimer's/dementia-like symptoms. Chakotay resists, since it awakens his fear of living out his life the way his grandfather did, who also had this gene. When he finally comes to terms with his fear, through visions influenced by his boxing hobby, he becomes a conduit through which the aliens can communicate, and he pilots the ship out of the region.

One of the more pervasive minor themes in Voyager is that of a fear of alzheimer's disease and dementia. There have been a number of episodes that have explored this theme, and for good reason. Given the number of elderly patients I see in the ER, people who their families remember as vibrant and resilient people, who now no longer know who they are, where they are, or who these people are around them, I fear it a whole hell of a lot. If I could name one disease process to get immunity to, out of the whole of spectrum of human ailment, it would be this one. Not because I myself would suffer that much, but because I would cause so much pain to those I love without even knowing it.

Anyways, so this episode has a good catch. But mostly it is used to have a bunch of trippy "things are soooo crazy in Chakotay's head!" scenes, like they wanted to do an extremely surreal episode along the lines of Frame of Mind. But while Frame of Mind had a mystery element to it (i.e. "wtf is going on?"), this episode spills the beans right away. Within the first few minutes we know that aliens are trying to contact Chakotay but he is too scared of the associated dementia. It would have been nice if any of the boxing or dementia themes had been introduced for Chakotay before - his interest in boxing has never come up before, and seems to clash with his otherwise pacifist sensibilities.

Like Bliss, I think this too could have been a good Tuvok vehicle. However, unlike Bliss, I think it would have made it an altogether better episode, as it would have added an element of order versus chaos. A Vulcan's mind represents a constant battle of order (logic) overcoming chaos (emotion). Being in chaotic space, with aliens who introduce chaotic thought in order to communicate, it would have added a little something extra to have the afflicted crew member be a Vulcan, someone who prizes that order so highly. It would have been easy to add the grandfather with dementia to Tuvok's backstory - in fact, there already exists a Vulcan malady in cannon, Bendii Syndrome, which Sarek suffered from.

Watchability: 3/5

Bottom Line: This episode comes from a good place, but feels poorly fleshed out and ultimately feels like a somewhat flimsy excuse to have surreal scenes that don't make much sense.