| Maquis crew members start dropping like flies - not dead, just unconscious. Tuvok's investigation reveals that he is the guilty party - and his strange acticities are traced back to a subliminal message he received in the last data transfer from Starfleet. A renegade Bajoran vedek, Teero Anaydis, had been a member of the Maquis who experimented with mind control, appears to have orchestrated this event. Tuvok had been planting subliminal signals in the Maquis members of the crew, which he now activates, and they seize control of the ship. However, Tuvok regains control and turns the tables on them again. |
On the face of it, this is a mystery that is not very mysterious. Tuvok's acting weird from the beginning, and they just got a transmission from home; putting two and two together wasn't that hard. And, of course, since it is a Tuvok episode, he has to be emotional for reasons outside of his control. When it is a Seven episode, you know she's got to learn about being human, when it's a Kim episode he's got to be in love, and when it's Tuvok's turn, he's got to wig-out. It wasn't always this way for Voyager, but in the later seasons the writers seem to be even less willing to take chances with a story.
On the plus side, we're reminded here that there are all these people in the crew who aren't really part of Starfleet. You know, the Maquis. This episode belongs to the group of season five episodes that would have made more sense if it were aired in the first couple of seasons. It is clear that the writers didn't want to use the crew's division, why would they go back to it now? But I'm definitely looking at this in a way that I am not expected to by the writers; this show was not written as a sequential story. The intent was to be able to pick it up at any point, in any order in reruns, and have it make sense. Kind of like a Fingertips for TV instead of music. For the end-of-series review, this is something I'm definitely going to come back to.
So does it make sense? Well, it gives voice to a genuine concern, even if it happened to be raised by a mind-controlled character: will the Federation be as accepting of the Maquis crew as the Starfleet members of Voyager's crew have been? The two groups have been bound together by necessity, but other than a couple of hiccups they have been a good fit. It's natural though; it is harder to be enemies with good people that you know personally and work with closely. But their superiors at Starfleet don't know them personally and haven't worked with them closely, so will they simply take Janeway's word for it that they're good people? I would love to see this emerge as a theme this season, the way the theme of Seven being afraid of returning surfaced for a while there, but I don't have my hopes up. After all, all of this is just based on an off-hand comment from a mind-controlled person.
And the solution? Well, one of two things happened: either Tuvok just flipped a switch and overcame his programming for no reason, or he was so attached to Janeway that the mere thought of shooting her broke the mental control. I'm not happy with either choice.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: I mean, I'm happy to see them remember that there are Maquis around, but it does just remind me of how unused they are. It's not taking any real dramatic chances to have their independence emerge only when they're mind controlled. The plot didn't leave much to hold my interest because it was so predictable, and I got nothing really new for Tuvok either.
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