voyager repression cast

Repression (episode)

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Tuvok investigates a series of assaults that are apparently targeted at the former Maquis aboard Voyager .

• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Production
• 4.2 Cast and characters
• 4.3 Continuity
• 4.4 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest Stars
• 5.4 Co-Stars
• 5.5 Uncredited Co-Stars
• 5.6 Stand-ins
• 5.7 References
• 5.8 External links

Summary [ ]

Bajoran's computer display

A Bajoran man is performing an incantation while looking at the schematics of Voyager and looking through its crew manifest, scrolling through the profiles of the former crew of the Val Jean .

Act One [ ]

Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres are settling down in a holodeck recreation of a 20th century Earth movie theater . The movie will be Revenge of the Creature , in 3D. Torres questions the purpose of using a three-dimensional simulation of a two-dimensional medium that simulates 3D. A holographic character shushes them and Paris deletes the audience. They discover that one audience member remains. When they investigate, they discover an unconscious Tabor , who is a friend of Paris'.

The Doctor finds that Tabor is comatose and has microfractures in his skull , though he cannot find a cause. Captain Janeway assigns Tuvok to lead an investigation into the matter. Tuvok enters Tabor's quarters, where he finds Jor , a friend of Tabor's. She claims that she is there to retrieve a book to read aloud to Tabor. She had heard that that is good for comatose patients.

In a meeting, Tuvok declares Jor a suspect to Chakotay and Janeway, but in any case is sure that the assailant is a USS Voyager crewmember, but he cannot explain why he is so confident about that. Janeway says that she can think of several other possibilities. Tuvok says that he just has a hunch.

Crewman Yosa is investigating a Jefferies tube off engineering , where Jor was stationed, when an unseen person, hiding behind a bright light, attacks him. Later, The Doctor finds that Yosa was attacked in the same way as Tabor, and is now also comatose. Since Jor was the one who found him, Tuvok and Chakotay go to find her. However, they find Jor was herself attacked, in a coma in the mess hall .

Act Two [ ]

Former Val Jean personnel meet in the mess hall

There are now five victims in sickbay, but, unfortunately, Tuvok hasn't made progress and The Doctor still doesn't have the cause. The situation becomes even more tense when Chakotay notes that all the victims are ex- Maquis . Janeway is dismissive of the idea that there are still tensions with the former Maquis crew, as there hasn't been for years.

Chakotay assembles all the remaining Maquis crew and tells them to carry phasers at all times and to only circulate through the ship in pairs. Some of the crew suspect foul play from Starfleet , possibly having to do with the latest data stream from the Alpha Quadrant , which was received shortly before the attacks began.

Harry and Tom are on the holodeck to find out through scanning for negative photon displacement who was on the holodeck with Tabor to find the possible assailant. However all they can get is a vague outline. Tuvok, who is observing them and initially skeptical, however is showing some concern.

Chell , a Bolian ex-Maquis crewman, is walking with Torres through the corridors and expresses his concern thinking that Starfleet is somehow bent on eliminating the former Maquis crew.

Meanwhile Tuvok is continuing his investigation trying to find out whether or not the latest data stream has anything to do with the attacks. He calls in Harry Kim, who thinks he wants an update on the holodeck scans. However Tuvok wants to talk about Kim's latest letter, because of the 28 people who received a letter only six match the physical parameters of the photon displacement, including Kim. Tuvok refers to the fact that one of Kim's friends was killed by the Maquis, something that Kim's cousin had mentioned in the last letter. Kim, who is angry to learn Tuvok has gone through his and everyone's letters from the last data stream, sarcastically confesses to having used his Captain Proton comatizer to shoot it at any Maquis he could find. But then he tells Tuvok he knew this friend had died (probably through a letter in one of the previous data streams) and that he had come to accept this, holding no grudges. This answer baffles Tuvok, who then expresses the notion that this investigation defies logic. The Doctor interrupts the investigation, calling Tuvok because Tabor has regained consciousness. However Tabor is not able to recall who attacked him.

Chakotay spots Chell in a corridor alone. Chell tells Chakotay that Torres was his partner and she insisted on going off by herself. Understanding this, Chakotay goes to find Torres in cargo bay 2. He finds her there unconscious on the floor. Tuvok, who had been hiding in the shadows, attacks Chakotay and initiates a mind meld .

Act Three [ ]

Tuvok is investigating the latest attacks. He apparently has no recollection of his part in it. Janeway meets him and tells that Yosa and Jor have regained consciousness, apparently with no lingering effects. Again referring to the fact that it makes no sense. Tuvok reminds her that it's still a pattern and that it implies purpose. However this assailant has outwitted Tuvok each time. Tuvok feels his presence, as if the assailant is challenging Tuvok to find him. Janeway sends him to his quarters to get some rest since he has been on his feet for three days.

During a meditation in his quarters the latent memories resurface. Tuvok sees flashes of the attacked crewmembers in the moment of their attack. Instantly confused, he gets up and goes to the sink, but he continues to see the memories flash, including Chakotay striking him in the side. He confirms it by looking at his bruise. Then, Tuvok sees a Bajoran man in the reflection of his mirror, but he is gone when he turns around. Tuvok now has reason to believe he is the suspect.

Then Tuvok runs to the holodeck where Kim and Janeway are still trying to enhance the image of the assailant. Tuvok asks the computer to isolate the exact time of that image and then to tell where Tuvok was at that time. After lifting the restriction on that information, it seems Tuvok was in Holodeck 2. As he turns to tell Janeway what is going on he sees the same Bajoran standing behind Kim and Janeway and it seems only Tuvok can see him. He raises his phaser at him, demanding to know who he is, but does not get an answer. Tuvok gives up the phaser to Janeway and states that he believes he is the attacker and must be put in the brig immediately.

Act Four [ ]

With Janeway's help, he discovers that a Bajoran , who only Tuvok can see, is controlling him. Tuvok tells Janeway that he had received a letter from his son in the latest data stream, noting that when he went through everyone's letters he neglected to check his own.

A communication from Sek

Janeway meets with Chakotay, who has woken up after 29 hours in a coma, just after Torres. Together they go to astrometrics to meet Seven of Nine . Seven has found a message from the Bajoran, named Teero Anaydis , hidden in a recent letter from Tuvok's son Sek (which was calibrated to Vulcan synaptic frequencies, meaning Tuvok would not have been consciously aware of it). Chakotay tells them that Teero was a fanatical Bajoran vedek who the Maquis refused to work with because of his unethical methods, which included mind control as a way to recruit members.

With this further information Tuvok is able to remember that Teero had kidnapped Tuvok years before when Tuvok was working undercover for the Federation in the Maquis, and had implanted something in his mind. Apparently, the hidden message triggered it.

Then Tuvok has another flashback. He is restrained. With Janeway's help he manages to reconstruct this memory. Teero knows he is Starfleet, however he doesn't want to expose him. He wants to use him. But Tuvok is not successful at counteracting Teero's influence. Tuvok activates his combadge and transmits to Chakotay the words, " Pagh t'em far, B'tanay. " Chakotay responds, " Understood " and then abruptly leaves astrometrics. Tuvok tells Janeway that it means time of awakening, but he doesn't know what that means and what he or the former Maquis are supposed to do.

Meanwhile, The Doctor notices a change in Chakotay's cortical monitor as he walks in to sickbay. Chakotay immediately deactivates The Doctor and stuns Paris with a phaser blast. Then he repeats the Bajoran phrase to Torres, who replies, " I understand ".

Act Five [ ]

Very soon, all the Maquis who were attacked are armed and and able to use the element of surprise to quickly and effortlessly take over the ship locking all Starfleet and the few remaining unaffected Maquis in quarters while Janeway tries to get Tuvok to explain what he was doing and to resist Teero. Soon, the ship is put on red alert and Chakotay with the other officers corner Janeway in the brig. They ignore her when she reminds them that the rebellion ended years ago, declaring that the Maquis still exist aboard Voyager , and therefore so does the rebellion. They then place her in the cell, while Tuvok is now completely under Teero's control and joins Chakotay's side.

" Looks like a nice place for a Federation colony . "

Chakotay, now in command, finds a class M planet on which to deposit the Starfleet personnel. But he has one problem to deal with first. Tuvok seems to be under Teero's control, but Tuvok has betrayed Chakotay before. Chakotay devises a test. He has Janeway brought to the ready room and gives Tuvok a phaser, set on kill. He orders Tuvok to kill Janeway. Tuvok presses the fire button, but the phaser doesn't work. Chakotay declares that Tuvok has passed the test. Chakotay orders the Maquis guard to take Janeway back to the brig, leaving himself alone with Tuvok. Tuvok leaps on Chakotay and initiates another mind meld.

Later, on the bridge, Torres states that they've arrived at the planet and can start the beam downs immediately. Chakotay says that the planet's atmosphere is unstable and that they must find another. Torres protests, but Tuvok and Chakotay quickly disarm the Maquis.

Teero's control of the remaining Maquis is undone and Janeway assumes command again. Back in the holographic theater, Janeway asks Tuvok how he was sure that the phaser was out of commission. Tuvok replies that since Chakotay didn't trust him, he wouldn't have given Tuvok a working phaser. Janeway is thankful that Tuvok's hunches are usually correct and they begin to watch the 3D movie.

Log entries [ ]

• " Captain's log, supplemental. Chakotay and B'Elanna are the latest victims of our mysterious assailant. I've decided to put the ship on a level 10 security alert. Non-essential personnel are confined to quarters, and security teams have been posted on all decks. "
• (log entry made by Chakotay)

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Pagh t'em far, B'tanay. "

" These will make the images on the screen appear three-dimensional. " " Let me get this straight: you've gone to all this trouble to program a three-dimensional environment that projects a two-dimensional image, and now you're asking me to wear these to make it look three-dimensional again? " " Great, isn't it? "

" We'd better find a way to protect the rest of the Maquis; I'm running out of beds. "

" Can you extrapolate the assailant's height and weight? " " I'd say between 170 and 190 centimeters, maybe 75 kilograms. " " That describes about half the members of the crew! " " At least we can rule out Naomi Wildman. "

" It could be her. " " Oh, please. "

" All ready for Attack of the Lobster People ? " " I am not familiar with that species. "

" Your sarcasm could be viewed as subterfuge. "

" Who's your partner? " " Lieutenant Torres. I told her we shouldn't split up, sir, but she said she could handle herself. You know how stubborn she can be. " " I have a vague idea. "

" Computer, isolate the precise time index of this image. " " Stardate 54090.4. " " Where was Commander Tuvok at that time? " " Access to that information has been restricted. " " By whom? " " Access to that information has been restricted. "

" What the hell are you doing?! "

Background information [ ]

Production [ ].

• Brannon Braga was responsible for a rewrite to freelancer Haskell Smith's teleplay but went uncredited.
• This is the last episode of the series to be directed by Winrich Kolbe .

Cast and characters [ ]

• Derek McGrath and Jad Mager reprise their roles as Maquis - Starfleet officers Chell and Tabor . Chell was seen in season one 's " Learning Curve ", and Tabor was seen in season five 's " Nothing Human ".
• Anthony Montgomery , who later played Travis Mayweather , had auditioned for the role of Tuvok's son.

Continuity [ ]

• The two Bolian members of the crew, Golwat and Chell , make an appearance in this episode. Chell appeared only once before in the first-season finale " Learning Curve ", while Golwat first appeared in the series premiere " Caretaker ".
• Chell says "Ever since Voyager began sending datastreams back home, Starfleet has known that almost a quarter of the crew is Maquis," in a reference to the monthly communications between Voyager and Starfleet that was set up in the sixth-season episode " Life Line ".
• Speaking to Torres, Paris mentions "the secret to a lasting marriage," referencing their having married in the previous episode " Drive ".
• Talking of evidence of the assailant's height and weight, Kim mentions that the investigation "can rule out Naomi Wildman," notably ignoring the ex-Borg children Azan , Rebi and Mezoti . The children were seen to depart Voyager in the earlier episode " Imperfection ", but that episode is dated after this one, so it can be assumed that the ex-Borg children are still aboard during the events of this episode.
• It is in this episode that we first learn that Chakotay's ship was named the Val Jean . The name was displayed on the monitor that Teero was using to check on the Maquis' personnel files.
• Teero's phrase to activate the repressed memories is "Pagh t'em far", a Bajoran word similar to pagh'tem'far , which was used to describe a vision from the Prophets in DS9 : " Rapture ".
• Seven and Janeway mention that the ship is currently thirty-five thousand light years from Earth .
• Among the items in Teero's residence are models of the Maquis Raider used on both Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and in " Caretaker ", and of the saucer module from a Galaxy -class starship.
• Among the Maquis seen in this episode were Tabor , Chell , Ayala , Doyle , Jor , Yosa , Golwat , and an unidentified Vulcan female . This contradicts " Counterpoint ", which made it clear that Tuvok and Vorik were the only Vulcans aboard, although it would be consistent with a comment made by Tuvok in the third-season episode " Flashback " ("one of the other Vulcans on the ship") and a comment made by Janeway in the series finale " Endgame " ("the other Vulcans on Voyager ").
• Chell mentions that "almost a quarter of the crew is Maquis," which for the first time in the series provides a hint as to how many Maquis crew were integrated into Voyager 's in the series premiere " Caretaker ". Given the assumed crew complement of 148 at the end of " Equinox, Part II ", that would imply a Maquis component of 'almost' 37. Furthermore, Chakotay says "There are still twenty three of our former comrades who aren't with us yet," which, given that seven crew take part in the mutiny, implies at least 30 Maquis in total.
• Torres says that the Maquis and Starfleet crews put aside their differences seven years ago, implying that this episode takes place in 2378. Janeway, however, claims the Maquis rebellion ended three years ago, implying this episode takes in 2376. Both of these dates contradict the rest of the season (prior to " Human Error "), which state it has been either six years or almost seven years since Voyager was stranded in the Delta Quadrant, suggesting this episode takes place in 2377.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, Paramount Home Entertainment ): Volume 7.2, 7 May 2001
• As part of the VOY Season 7 DVD collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

• Robert Beltran as Chakotay
• Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
• Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
• Ethan Phillips as Neelix
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
• Garrett Wang as Harry Kim

Guest Stars [ ]

• Keith Szarabajka as Teero Anaydis
• Derek McGrath as Chell

Co-Stars [ ]

• Jad Mager as Tabor
• Carol Krnic as Jor
• Mark Rafael Truitt as Yosa
• Ronald Robinson as Sek
• Scott Alan Smith as Doyle
• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited Co-Stars [ ]

• Andrew English as operations officer
• Christine Delgado as Susan Nicoletti
• Tarik Ergin as Ayala
• Kerry Hoyt as Fitzpatrick
• Kate Jo Hughes as Vulcan command officer
• Tom Miller as sciences officer
• Brita Nowak as command officer
• Stephen Pisani as operations officer ( unconfirmed )
• Stuart Wong as command officer
• Ann Smithee
• Command officer
• Male command officer in mess hall

Stand-ins [ ]

• Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan
• Curtis Wong – stand-in for Jad Mager
• Stuart Wong – stand-in for Garrett Wang

References [ ]

3D glasses ; Alpha Quadrant ; assailant ; Attack of the Lobster People ; Bajoran ; Bajoran raider ; Captain Proton Comatizer ; centimeter ; chewing gum ; Chicago ; coma ; coma ward ; compression phaser rifle ; confined to quarters ; counterintelligence ; cover story ; crown molding ; double feature ; dozen ; duty roster ; Earth ; exolinguist ; Federation ; gesture ; gill-man ; height ; Jefferies tube ; Ju'day -class ; Kim, Dennis ; lecture hall ; level 5 diagnostic ; logic ; mail ; Maquis ; Maquis Intelligence ; Maquis raider ; microfracture ; mind control ; mind meld ; movie theater ; mutiny ; non-essential personnel ; Palace Theater ; paranoia ; popcorn ; polarity ; privacy protocol ; rebirth ; Revenge of the Creature ; sarcasm ; Sek ; Soroyan, Maxwell ; suspect ; synaptic pathway ; time index ; toast ; traitor ; Val Jean ; vedek ; Vulcans ; Vulcan brandy ; weapons control ; Wildman, Naomi ; yellow alert

External links [ ]

• " Repression " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Repression " at Wikipedia
• " Repression " at the Internet Movie Database
• 1 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Calypso (episode)

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Star Trek: Voyager – Season 7, Episode 4

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After members of the crew are discovered unconscious, Tuvok leads the search for the mysterious attacker who preys on those involved in the Maquis resistance movement.

Derek McGrath

Keith Szarabajka

Ron Robinson

Scott Alan Smith

Tarik ergin, carol krnic.

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Star Trek: Voyager – Repression (Review)

There is something almost obligatory about Repression , as if the production team have arrived at the point in every season where they are obligated to do a Tuvok-centric story but without any particularly strong ideas for that Tuvok-centric story. It is there because Tim Russ is a credited lead and Tuvok is part of the ensemble, and because there is a twenty-six episode season order to fill. It is not there because any writer thought that there was a story that needed to be told with Tuvok, some part of his psyche that needed to be illuminated.

The seventh season is populated with episodes like this, stories built around particularly characters in the most archetypal of fashions. Star Trek: Voyager is frequently criticised for recycling premises from other Star Trek series, especially Star Trek: The Next Generation , but the show is less often criticised for simply repeating itself. The supporting characters on Voyager don’t really have arcs, often simply having a handful of stories that the series dutifully cycles through on rotation.

“Another fine mess(hall) you’ve gotten us into, Tuvok…”

On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine , a marathon of character-centric episodes would reveal the slow and gradual evolution of the cast. Julian Bashir changes and evolves over his time on the series, from the generic any-character-will-do narratives of The Passenger and Melora into the weirder and more awkward Distant Voices through to his emergence as a distinctive person in Hippocratic Oath , Our Man Bashir and The Quickening . Bashir is not the same character in What You Leave Behind that he was in Emissary , and watching a chain of episodes based around Bashir would explain and explore that growth.

In contrast, a character-centric marathon on Voyager would be a much more frustrating experience, as the characters inevitably go through the same motion and repeat the same plots. This is particularly true in the seventh season episodes, where the obligatory character-focused episodes underscore how little these characters have actually and fundamentally changed since the first season. In Nightingale , Harry Kim is still insecure and lacking in experience. In Lineage and Prophecy , B’Elanna Torres is once again wrestling with her Klingon heritage. In Drive , Tom Paris is once again the careless flyboy who learns about responsibility.

“The more things don’t change…”

At the same time, Tuvok has always represented a very particular challenge for the writers, in that he doesn’t even really have an archetypal story in the same way that Torres or Kim or Paris does. Tuvok doesn’t have a “lesson” that he needs to learn over and over again, or a default factory setting that he can fall back to in order to learn that lesson. At least at the end of Extreme Risk or Juggernaut , Torres had learned that she should not let her more destructive impulses guide her actions, even if she would forget it and learn again. This allows for a character arc that can be repeated and reiterated. In contrast, Tuvok was generally well-adjusted and well-balanced.

As a result, stories featuring Tuvok tend to take something away from him and watch him struggle to return to normality. As a Vulcan, Tuvok is often stripped of his Vulcan reserve and forced to recover it. The results can be interesting and compelling, with Meld and Gravity ranking among the best episodes that Voyager ever produced. However, these episodes can also feel very trite and formulaic, often reducing Tuvok to a passenger in stories nominally focused on him: he drives a lot of the plot in Random Thoughts , but Torres in the focal character; Riddles is about something that happens to Tuvok, but focuses on Neelix.

Looking at things from a new perspective.

Repression is notably the show’s last Tuvok-centric story. It is also perhaps the most archetypal. As with episodes like Nightingale or Lineage , it is a collection of familiar tropes for a supporting cast member trotted out one last time before the show crosses the finish line. Repression is an episode that has clearly been assembled from a variety of earlier episodes focused on Tuvok, right down to plot points and individual scenes or costume choices; it is Random Thoughts meets Meld , with an extended final-act homage to Worst Case Scenario . All of which reduces Tuvok to a passenger in his own story.

This is a shame, as Repression works about as well as any episode built around its core premise has any right to it. Like Drive before it, there’s a certain pulpy thrill to its core premise that fits comfortably within the heightened retro sci-fi surroundings of Voyager . The story of a detective who is investigating himself, spreading subversive ideas through telepathic assault,  Repression is a patently absurd bit of television which feels very much of a piece with earlier stories like  Cathexis or  Macrocosm or  Darkling or  In the Flesh . It works much better as a trashy late-night B-movie than as a character-centric narrative.

There’ll be Meld to pay for this.

As with a lot of seventh season episodes, Repression is an episode that is very much typical of executive producer Kenneth Biller’s approach to Voyager . In fact, Biller is given a story credit on the episode, which suggests a fairly high level of involvement for the man overseeing the day-to-day production of the series. According to Bryan Fuller in an interview with Cinefantastique, the idea actually had a long gestation period:

Ken had this story that he wanted to do several seasons ago — what we had basically was The Manchurian Candidate, which Star Trek has done before. In fact, there is hardly a sci-fi series that hasn’t. So we thought, ‘ How can we do this episode and make it interesting and fresh? ‘ I thought it would be interesting if Tuvok was ‘Maquis Mary’, as opposed to Typhoid Mary, and was re-infecting the Maquis crewmen with their old, righteous political agendas.”

Fuller is alluding to Mind’s Eye , a fourth season episode of The Next Generation in which the Romulans abducted Geordi LaForge and turned him into an assassin intended to destabilise peace talks between the Federation and the Klingons. It was a fun and pulpy adventure, heightened by some impressive direction from David Livingston and benefiting from a sense of heightened genre-driven playfulness that wasn’t on-brand for Next Generation at that point.

Never mind.

To be clear, there is nothing wrong with multiple episodes of Star Trek drawing inspiration from the same basic idea. After all, certain critics would contend that there are only a finite number of plots in existence and that most works of art are just variations on these core templates . To pick an obvious example, the franchise has done multiple homages to The Magnificent Seven , in episodes like The Magnificent Ferengi or Marauders , and the influence of Rashomon can be seen on stories like A Matter of Perspective and Living Witness .

This is to say nothing of how frequently Star Trek has pilfered its own history for story ideas. Journey to Babel established a template for an entire subgenre of Star Trek episodes that arguably include everything from Elaan of Troyius to Lonely Among Us to  The Dauphin to Remember to  Fallen Hero to Babel One . The transporter accident in The Enemy Within seeded stories like Second Chances , Faces or Tuvix . This is to say nothing of the franchise’s obsession with recreating Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in films like Star Trek: First Contact , Star Trek: Nemesis , Star Trek or Star Trek Into Darkness .

“I’m just saying, why don’t they try to redo The Final Frontier ? That’s all.”

There is nothing wrong with recycling old ideas. By the time that the seventh season of Voyager entered production, there had been over six hundred pieces of Star Trek filmed and released. Repetition was inevitable. As Kenneth Biller explained in The Fifty-Year Mission , it was almost impossible to pitch an episode without pitching an idea that had already been used at some other point in the Star Trek canon:

I remember going into the writers room dozens of times to see Brannon or Jeri and say, “Oh my God, I’ve got the greatest idea for a Star Trek episode!” And I would pitch them this idea and they’d go, “Yeah, we did that in season two of Next Gen” or “We did that in season three of DS9” or “That was an original series episode.” And it was terrible for me. I thought, “God, how are you ever going to come up with something new?” And it got even worse toward the end of season six and then, seven, when I was brought on really to run the writers room and be the guy, because Brannon was going off to create the next series. I was just in a panic about how we were going to do it. How were we ever going to come up with twenty-six more episodes? Somehow we did. I’m not sure how, but we did.

This is perhaps the best argument that could be made for simply changing the way that Star Trek told stories in the first place, shifting away from the old episodic model. If Star Trek couldn’t tell new stories, it could at least look at telling those familiar and established stories in new and interesting ways. This was another example for how the Star Trek franchise needed to change and evolve, no matter how uncomfortable that made the fans.

It’s all a blur.

However, the issue with Repression is not that the episode is too much like Mind’s Eye . The basic premise is similar enough, with a member of the regular cast mind controlled to serve a political agenda, but the emphasis is distinct. Most obviously, Repression structures itself as something close to a mystery, with Tuvok and the audience oblivious to the culprit responsible for these assaults. In contrast, Mind’s Eye was told from a linear perspective aligned with the experiences of Geordi LaForge, with the audience witnessing his abduction and torture before he returned to the ship.

The big issue with Repression is that it feels derivative of other episodes in other ways, lifting key plot beats and even whole scenes from earlier episodes, stitching them together to fill forty-five minutes of television. In many ways, Repression isn’t a story so much as it is a collection of recycled story beats. Once again , Tuvok has an emotional breakdown, like Meld or Riddles . Once again , the Vulcan mind meld is used as a dangerous assault weapon, as in Meld or Blood Fever . Once again , Tuvok becomes a danger to the crew acting under an influence other than his own, as in Cathexis or Meld .

“There really is a lot of Meld in here, isn’t there?”

Entire sequences seem to have been lifted from earlier episodes. This is perhaps most obvious with the Maquis takeover of the ship, which is a very strange storytelling decision to make with ten minutes left in the seventh season of a show that has largely ignored the existence of the Maquis. It makes sense only in the context of a writers’ room that really enjoyed the holographic fantasy of Worst Case Scenario , and wanted an excuse to play out that dynamic once again. After all, the Maquis even wear the same outfits in Repression , which are supposed to be a rejection of uniforms, but have ironically become their own uniforms.

Even beyond the obvious repurposing of the basic premise of Worst Case Scenario for the episode’s final arc, there’s a lot of Meld in the way that Repression approaches Tuvok; the framing of a mind meld as what Lon Suder would describe as “almost an act of violence” committed upon a crew member, the sequences in which Tuvok is locked behind a forcefield as Janeway tries to reach him ( “I advise you to remain outside the forcefield,” the EMH warns Janeway), the breakdown of Tuvok’s stoic Vulcan resolve.

Poor (uni)form.

All of these ideas were radical and subversive when employed by Meld during the second season. After all, it had been a quarter of a century since a live action Star Trek television series had featured a Vulcan regular, and audiences had loved watching Leonard Nimoy fracture Spock’s emotional reserve in episodes like The Naked Time , Amok Time and All Our Yesterdays . Taking that hook and applying it to a mid-nineties psychological thriller was an incredibly canny piece of writing, and there is a solid argument to be made that Meld is one of the best episodes of Voyager ever produced.

However, that idea has been diminished through repetition. It isn’t just that Voyager has returned time and again to the idea of Tuvok losing his emotional resolve in episodes like Gravity , Riddles and Repression . It is also the fact that this is apparently the only Tuvok-centric story that the production team know how to tell. The original Star Trek got a lot of mileage out of the emotions simmering under Spock’s rational exterior, but it also managed to tell stories that used the character in a way that didn’t rely on a near emotional breakdown; The Galileo Seven , Mirror, Mirror , The Enterprise Incident .

“Don’t worry, Tuvok. We promise that this will be the last time that your mental faculties are compromised… as the primary plot of an episode.”

Voyager has never really done this with Tuvok. There have been episodes that feature Tuvok in a major role without diminishing his logical faculties, like Innocence , but they are few and far between. There have been bigger stories that provided subplots for Tuvok, like  Year of Hell, Part I and  Year of Hell, Part II . There are more episodes that treat Tuvok as a secondary featured character without breaking down his logical faculties, like Worst Case Scenario , Alter Ego , Rise , The Raven or Random Thoughts , but these are also relatively rare.

Whenever the “who are we featuring this week?” spinner lands on Tuvok, it’s a safer bet than not that the character will have some sort of emotional breakdown that will fracture his cool Vulcan resolve. This is why Repression feels so hackneyed and familiar. It has nothing to do with being the second Star Trek episode in (just under) a decade built around The Manchurian Candidate , and being the third Tuvok story (out of a super-set of only three Tuvok stories) in three years that hinges on pushing the character to the point of emotional breakdown.

No real Endgame for the character.

Indeed, it is worth noting that Tuvok’s mental breakdowns are such a reliable and defining attribute of the character that even Endgame builds its few Tuvok-centric moments around his deterioration. The series finale introduces an older Tuvok who has been confined to a psychiatric institution after his neural peptides degrade. It is a throwaway character beat, something that was added to the script to ensure that Tuvok would have something to do in the last episode of the series. It also cynically adds some more stakes for the time-travelling Admiral Janeway, on top of Chakotay’s death.

It is worth taking a moment to reflect on Tuvok as a character, as Repression is the last episode of the series to really focus on him as a character. This is of itself disappointing; there are twenty episodes left in the seventh season, and it is disappointing that the series could not come up with something interesting for Tuvok to do that wasn’t the obligatory-and-embarrassing “Tuvok finally experiences Pon Farr” subplot in Body and Soul . In some ways, even more than Harry Kim, Tuvok is the character who is most profoundly failed by Voyager .

A time for reflection.

On paper, Tuvok represented a genuinely fascinating opportunity for Voyager . He was the first Vulcan character to be part of the leading ensemble since Spock on the original Star Trek . Given the popularity of Spock, and the essential role that Vulcans play within the larger Star Trek cosmology, this was a big deal. More than that, Tuvok was the first full-blooded Vulcan regular in the Star Trek canon, distinguishing him from Spock’s status as a “child of two worlds.” It helped that Tuvok would not be expected to play the role of “outsider” in the ensemble as Spock and Data had done, that role going to the EMH and (later) Seven of Nine.

Unfortunately, as with a lot of the interesting ideas built into Voyager ‘s premise, the production team never really had any idea what to do with Tuvok as a character. To be fair, downplaying the tension between Starfleet and the Maquis after Parallax was likely a major factor. Tuvok was the character who bridged the two crews, having worked undercover as a Starfleet spy within the Maquis; playing down that tension between Starfleet and the Maquis meant sacrificing one of the most interesting angles on Tuvok as a member of the crew.

The thinking Vulcan’s Vulcan.

With that shift in direction, Tuvok often found himself relegated to the role of providing exposition and moral support for other characters. The series repeatedly suggested that Tuvok was a confidante of Kathryn Janeway, although that role was also gradually eroded – first by the tension between Janeway and Chakotay, and then through the mentoring dynamic between Janeway and Seven. This is a shame, as one of the best vehicles for character development is a unique dynamic with another character.

As an example, Tom Paris arguably managed to stay as important as he did through his network of relationships to the rest of the cast. After all, Paris is just as subject to the “same plot, different season” syndrome that affects the other leads. With Paris, the problem is compounded by the fact that episodes like Ex Post Facto , Investigations ,  Vis à Vis and Thirty Days simply don’t play to the strengths of Robert Duncan McNeill. However, Paris has enough solid relationships that he can play a part in Kim-, Torres- or even Tuvok-centric story. He can also serve to bring the rest of the crew together, as his holodeck program does here.

Projecting.

In contrast, Tuvok’s potential relationships with other cast members were all very quickly and very brutally cut off. Tuvok served as a guide for Kes in episodes like Cold Fire , but Kes departed the ship in The Gift leaving him without a student. The Raven , coupled with  Year of Hell, Part I and  Year of Hell, Part II , suggested a possible dynamic with Seven of Nine, but the writers pushed Seven towards Janeway and the EMH. Tuvok could mentor Kim in Alter Ego and Torres in Resistance or Juggernaut , but the series never fleshed these relationships out into anything meaningful. As a result, Tuvok ended up isolated.

One of the more complicated aspects of how Voyager approached Tuvok rests in the casting. Russ is an African American performer, and so the role becomes coded in these terms. While obviously black Vulcans exist outside of an existing cultural framework, the presentation inevitably plays into contemporary ideas about race and identity. This is why, for example, Avery Brooks was so insistent that What You Leave Behind could not end with a brown father abandoning his son. It might (hopefully) mean nothing in the twenty-forth century, but it carried a lot of weight to twentieth century audiences.

To be fair, Tuvok’s job performance rating is still considerably higher than Odo’s, in that he never jeopardised the entire quadrant to get laid.

As David Greven points out in Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek , the character of Tuvok provides a point of intersection between the franchise’s portrayals of black masculinity with the broader sense of “otherness” that Spock associated with Vulcans:

Given Trek’s incitement of allegory and its conflictual representation of the black male intellectual, we can consider Trek’s recurring representation of the black male body in a heightened state of physical distress – sweating, throbbing, bleeding, burning, or melting – as indicative of profound anxieties within not only the depiction of race but also the entire allegorical project. In several episodes throughout the Trek mega-text, the black male body undergoes a transformation through a series of traumas that threaten to destroy the body from within and take the repression/explosion tension that is always inherent in the representation of black masculinity to an explicit, corporeal level: in other words, to explode allegory into direct explication. On Original Trek, some of the most affecting moments of the series occur when Spock, suddenly besieged by a force that strops away his fiercely maintained layers of logic, breaks down, piteously or violently railing against or lamenting his lonely, nether-human-nor-alien condition. Spock’s repression/explosion tension affectingly speaks to several different, related kinds of experienced racial subjectivity – being non-white, mulatto, or Jewish; desiring across interracial lines; racial, gendered or sexual passing; being queer; being queer and of mixed race at once; or simply any feeling of difference from the normative social order. Voyager’s Vulcan Tuvok also poignantly experiences these wrenching assaults on his logical composure. But given that Voyager races its Vulcan character by casting an African American actor in the role, the implications are different and, at times, more disturbing, especially given certain aspects of the way the series chooses to depict these breakdowns of black Vulcan composure.

This is all subtext, never articulated or discussed within Voyager itself. However, it cannot escape the larger context of the series around. Arguably more than any other Star Trek series, Voyager is rooted in racial anxieties.

Inspecting the body of evidence.

Part of this is baked into the larger depiction of the Delta Quadrant, which is frequently characterised in such a way as to evoke the Third World. In contrast to the relative luxury and stability of the Alpha Quadrant, where geo-political powers are clearly defined even in the midst of an epic all-consuming war, the Delta Quadrant is defined by poverty and brutality. There is a recurring sense that the region is impoverished, without any major powers to dominate with without any central political order. Voyager suggests that the Borg might be a reason for this, striking down any civilisation that becomes too powerful.

However, a lot of this is coded in racial and political terms, conforming to popular depictions of continents like Africa and South America as geographically and politically unstable, playing off stereotypical depictions of “primitive” societies. As the crew journey through the region, there is a recurring sense that the region is populated by nomads such as those featured in Darkling or superstitious cultures like those appearing in Sacred Ground or False Profits . These powers are governed by dictatorships like those featured in Resistance or  The Chute or Warlord , and societies ravaged by war like those in Nemesis or Living Witness .

An illuminating discussion.

It does not help matters that many of the major alien species featured in Voyager are coded in explicitly racial terms. Caretaker introduced the Kazon as the Delta Quadrant’s answer to the kind of unreconstructed “savages” that would appear in John Ford westerns, with episodes like Initiations doubling down by presenting them as an ill-advised metaphor for Los Angeles street gangs and Alliances focusing on how civil their (white) former masters were. Similarly, the Vidiians were introduced in Phage as a once-great civilisation ravaged by a deadly disease that evoked the spread of AIDS.

Voyager often flirted with racially-charged plots that reflected contemporary American anxieties about outsiders. Displaced was a classic Star Trek allegory, built around the fear of the crew being “replaced” by immigrant aliens. Day of Honour focused on refugees displaced by the Borg, who turned out to be mercenary and untrustworthy. As a rule, the inhabitants of the Delta Quadrant are so hostile that Janeway even expressed surprise in Survival Instinct on meeting some friendly aliens. “After all the xenophobic races we’ve run into, don’t you find it just a little refreshing to meet some people who value openness and freedom?”

Keeping his demons at (Sick) Bay.

As such, Voyager invites a reading of a character like Tuvok informed by his ethnicity and background. In hindsight, the idea of an African American actor playing a Vulcan feels almost prophetic. Seven years after the end of Voyager , the United States would elect its first African American President, Barack Obama. Interestingly enough, one of the stock comparisons for Obama would be to Spock for Star Trek , as Kenneth T. Walsh illustrates :

To some of his supporters, Obama is presiding over a passionless presidency. He seems too cerebral and per­sonally disengaged from the problems of everyday Ameri­cans. Some have compared him to Mr. Spock, the brainy and aloof Vulcan of the Star Trek movie and TV se­ries who tried to base his decisions totally on reason and logic. In a recent interview, Obama told me that his goal is to “make decisions based on information and not emotions.” Actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on Star Trek, even weighed in. “I guess it’s somewhat unusual for a politi­cian to be so precise, logical, in his thought process. The comparison to Spock is, in my opinion, a compliment to him and to the character.”

To be fair, the comparison is not necessarily conjured from nothing. Barack Obama defined himself as “a nerd” , and was affectionately described by the media as the “geek-in-chief.” More than that, Obama was an avowed Star Trek fan . He would occasionally flash the iconic Vulcan salute , and marked the passing of Leonard Nimoy with a statement reading, “I loved Spock.”

Heated debates.

As such, the comparisons between Obama and Spock did not arrive entirely out of left field. Like Spock, Obama was a tall and handsome man who became an unlikely intellectual sex symbol . In a broader context, Obama’s candidacy evoked the cultural context of the sixties ; a young upstart from outside of the long-standing party establishment running on a platform appealing to youth . (Reflecting Obama’s status as an object of attraction and reinforcing the sixties parallels, actress Scarlett Johansson famously boasted of her “email relationship” with Obama, joking with reporters that “[her] heart belongs to Barack.” )

Obama was frequently criticised in office for being too calm and too rational . Observers suggested that he had difficulty connecting with voters because he was not demonstrative with his emotions . This is a highly subjective argument, of course; Obama could be very emotional on speaking about issues that affected him like gun control , but it is also fair to observe that he was in some ways more restrained than other political leaders . Similarly, Obama was frequently attacked for his interest in reason and knowledge, criticisms of the President taking on a decidedly anti-intellectual tone .

“You know, you’d think an attempted mutiny and marooning would leave some anxiety or bad blood on the ship. But nope.”

While Obama was likened to Spock, a light-skinned alien played by a Jewish actor, there was always an uncomfortable racial undertone to a lot of this back-and-forth about Obama’s perceived emotional restraint. As Frida Ghitis observes, Obama himself has acknowledged the importance for a black man to be perceived as calm and rational in interacting with white people :

He gave us the clues to the origins of his coolness in the pages of his memoir Dreams from My Father. “People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves,” he wrote. “They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn’t seem angry all the time.” Obama learned to keep calm; to conceal his emotions. But four years in the White House, months of presidential campaigning, the final stretch of competing in an election whose outcome was in doubt until the very end, it takes its toll.

Obama’s calm and collected exterior was very much practiced and very much considered. He was very good at it. Indeed, there is a solid argument to be made that he was aware of how the white population of the United States might react to him if he were to present himself as angry or aggressive or emotional. Instead, Obama was always considered and always careful.

Make the Maquis Great Again.

Of course, this intellectual and rational quality was not a requirement for all candidates to high office. In fact, Barack Obama would be succeeded as President of the United States by Donald Trump. Trump was very much the opposite of calm and collected. He was prone to speak off-the-cuff with no information to back up his assertions and was highly emotionally volatile . Trump was prone to make bold assertions and level serious threats over Twitter , to the point that the United States military was reportedly worried for several minutes that he might declare war on North Korea via a 140-character broadcast message .

There was clealry a double standard applied to Donald Trump as compared to Barack Obama, reflecting the uncomfortable racial politics underpinning Obama’s highly rational (and unemotional) public image. Obama was arguably wrestling with the racist archetype of “the angry black man” , the recurring image in American popular consciousness of highly volatile and highly emotional African American masculinity . One often used to deflate or dismiss criticism . This cliché is rooted in stock racist ideas, most notably the idea that black people are less rational than their white counterparts and that they are more animalistic .

Just popping in.

Ta-Nehisi Coates argued that Obama’s conscious efforts to avoid that racist cliché were a cornerstone of his electoral success :

Part of Obama’s genius is a remarkable ability to soothe race consciousness among whites. Any black person who’s worked in the professional world is well acquainted with this trick. But never has it been practiced at such a high level, and never have its limits been so obviously exposed. This need to talk in dulcet tones, to never be angry regardless of the offense, bespeaks a strange and compromised integration indeed, revealing a country so infantile that it can countenance white acceptance of blacks only when they meet an Al Roker standard.

This certainly makes a great deal of sense, particularly when considering the country’s discomfort with more confrontational movements like Black Lives Matter .

Voyager into the unknown.

All of this ties back to Tuvok. The idea of a “black Vulcan” is inevitably intertwined with all of these ideas of black masculinity and contemporary American anxiety. While Tuvok predates a lot of these mainstream debates about the portrayal of African Americans in popular culture, it should be noted that California was working through its own complicated racial politics through the nineties into the twenty-first century ; arguably more than a decade ahead of the rest of the country . Certainly, episodes like Initiations and Alliances suggest that it is perfectly valid to read Voyager through this lens.

As such, it feels very pointed that the most prominent African American actor on Voyager should be cast as the most stoic and rational member of the senior staff. Theoretically, Tuvok is the least emotional member and most reliable of the primary cast; for example, he is the last person to bid farewell to Janeway in Year of Hell, Part II and he is the only other crewmember to whom Janeway entrusts the revelations about Kes in Fury . He is arguably stronger than any other regular cast member, with the possible exception of Seven of Nine, but he is also the most restrained.

Is he a Vulcan or a Vulcan’t?

There is also something notable in the fact that Tuvok is one of the three primary cast members to leave a loved one behind in the Alpha Quadrant in Caretaker , a plotting choice that serves to (theoretically) preclude those three characters from potential romantic entanglements. In its first season, Voyager effectively renders Janeway, Tuvok and Kim chaste and sexless. It is unlikely to have been a coincidence that the three chaste crewmembers were the older female lead, the young Asian man and the African American Vulcan.

Voyager is particularly anxious about Tuvok’s sexuality, perhaps reflecting broader cultural anxieties about black masculine sexuality . Both Janeway and Kim were eventually allowed to sever their familial attachments to the Alpha Quadrant, embarking on romances in episodes like Counterpoint or Favourite Son or The Disease or Fair Haven . In contrast, Tuvok remained loyal to a wife who was only mentioned by name in four episodes and who only appeared on screen in three episodes. She was played by two different actors in those three appearances.

“Personally, I’m surprised that the writers remembered that I existed to deliver this MacGuffin.”

While a story centring on Tuvok going through pon farr seemed inevitable, given that Voyager was due to run for seven full seasons which was precisely the length between pon farr cycles, the series made a number of awkward attempts to forestall and downplay that looming storyline. In Blood Fever , the plot hinged on another Vulcan going through pon farr. In Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy , the idea of Tuvok going through pon farr was played as a delightful musical joke. In Body and Soul , the actual storyline is shunted into the background of an episode about the EMH and Seven of Nine.

This anxiety about Tuvok as a character with a sexual identity arguably simmered through in other aspects of the Tuvok-centric stories. Voyager repeatedly latches on to the idea of a mind meld as an act of violence rather than an act of spiritual communion. The meld remains sexually coded as it was during the original Star Trek , but it is presented as a much more deviant activity. It is “dangerous” when Tuvok melds with Suder in Meld , and he meets with Guill in a shady alleyway in Random Thoughts . Even in Repression , the meld is presented as physically violent; the EMH reports “several microfractures” on the victims’ skulls.

Taking a crack at the case.

More than that, Voyager repeatedly emphasises the meld as an aggressive and non-consensual act, becoming something of a metaphorical sexual assault. In Repression , the first victim is found unconscious in Tom Paris’ holographic simulation of a fifties theatre. Paris had brought Torres there for a romantic encounter. “People didn’t go to the movies just for the movies, you know,” he assures her. As such, the assault is position within an intimate space, having already been defined by the franchise as an intimate act. Even Teero’s assault on Tuvok is filmed to recall the imagined assault on Seven of Nine in Retrospect , an explicit metaphor for sexual violence.

This is particularly apparent in how Repression actually portrays its mind melds. Only a couple of these melds are presented on screen. In both cases, Tuvok is attacking a male victim; in both cases, it is Chakotay. Traditionally, the mind meld has been presented as an act conducted face-to-face, even non-consensual mind melds like Spock’s use of the meld on Valeris in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . In contrast, both melds in Repression are framed as aggressive sexual assaults, with Tuvok attacking and subduing Chakotay from behind. It is hardly subtle.

Getting into his (head)space.

Indeed all of this hints at the unease and discomfort that Voyager feels towards Tuvok as a character. The unspoken assumption about Tuvok is that his calm and collected exterior hides an explosively violent interior; that lurking beneath his rational and logical manner is another “angry black man” waiting to escape. Voyager seems uncomfortably fixated upon the idea of tearing Tuvok down, of stripping him of his civility and his control. It reflects the same uncomfortable core anxieties that informed so much of the Kazon arc; racially-driven fears about the perceived dangers of an unrestrained and uncontrolled minority.

All of this is a shame, because there are parts of Repression that work remarkably well. As with Drive , the basic plot of the episode is complete nonsense. This reflects the same weird madcap “throw everything that’s left at the wall and grab whatever the wall doesn’t immediately throw back” tone that defined so much of the seventh season of The Next Generation , a sense that there aren’t really any bad ideas but there most definitely are deadlines. More generously, there is a sense of genuine commitment to absurd ideas, the reckless abandon of writers who know that this may be their last chance to do something like this.

The show is really Tabor-ing off at this point.

In an interview with Cinefantastique , Biller boiled down the gonzo appeal of the episode’s core premise down to a one-line pitch:

“What [would happen] if Tuvok is investigating a mysterious crime and he discovers that the criminal is him?’ That is just a great one-liner that I said to myself, and then started to figure out what could it be.”

Of course, it’s an absurd (and incredibly clichéd) plot, but it is the kind of story with which the writing team could have some fun.

Chasing his own tale.

After all, there is a rich tradition of pulpy investigative narratives focusing on characters who are ultimately investigating themselves. In many stories, this self-interrogation is metaphorical rather than literal. In Red Dragon , Will Graham is terrified at how completely he understands the mind of the men that he hunts and fears that he might become them. In Silence of the Lambs , Clarice Starling is forced to trade the details of her own life to Hannibal Lecter in return for assistance on the case that she is working.

The concept becomes decidedly more ridiculous when taken literally. A few months after the broadcast of Repression , writer Charlie Kaufman would mock both the hackishness of the concept and the trashy appeal of it in Adaptation . In Adaptation , Charlie’s (fictional) twin Donald pitches a psychological thriller called “The Three” that would would focus on an investigator trying to solve a kidnapping where he was both the perpetrator and the victim. Repression doesn’t manage to rich quite that level of heightened pulp, but it comes close; Tuvok is certainly both victim and perpetrator, but of different crimes.

A fresh angle.

As with Drive , there is a certain appeal in the unapologetic craziness of Repression . The episode works best when it consciously leans into the trashy late-night thriller aspects of the narrative, pitching itself as something between a horror movie and a psychological thriller. Director Winrich Kolbe is a huge asset to the episode, particularly when filming the attack sequences. Kolbe turns the lighting down and positions the camera so as to create a sense of mounting tension and claustrophobia on these familiar sets. The ship becomes a hunting ground, which is impressive given how rarely Voyager creates genuine anxiety.

The script for Repression – credited to Mark Haskell Smith from a story by Kenneth Biller – actually works well enough in these early sequences. The idea of Tom Paris coming up with another twentieth century pop culture marker to amuse himself is a little tired, especially the absurdity of a 3D cinema rendered by state-of-the-art immersive technology. However, the episode is just self-aware enough to pull it off. Torres is just as bemused by the simulation as the audience, reflecting, “Let me get this straight. You’ve gone to all this trouble to programme a three-dimensional environment that projects a two-dimensional image, and now you’re asking me to wear these to make it look three-dimensional again?”

They really need to screen the crew better.

At the same time, there’s some genuinely charming about a monster stalking the crew of Voyager, with its first attack taking place as a fifties b-movie plays in the background. Voyager often struggled to find its own identity, but it owed a lot to fifties and sixties pop culture. The communist panic in Cathexis and In the Flesh felt rather strange in the nineties, but worked better as an affectionate throwback. Similarly, it is easier to imagine episodes like Darkling or Macrocosm as retro b-movies than it is to watch them as Star Trek episodes. The hyper-evolved dinosaurs of  Distant Origin or the floating truck in  The 37’s tap into the same aesthetic. Bride of Chaotica! arguably cements this association.

Indeed, the mind control aspect of Repression fits very comfortably with how Voyager tells these stories, with a willingness to embrace ridiculous science-fiction tropes for the purposes of its own storytelling. The brainwashing featured in Repression obviously harks back to The Manchurian Candidate , which is itself tied back into fifties paranoia about the torture of American prisoners of war in Korea and the experiments being conducted by the United States military and intelligence services known as “M.K. Ultra.” As a result, the frankly ridiculous plot that drives Repression feels very much of a piece with Voyager , and could easily be the plot of one of Tom Paris’ late-night creature feature.

Getting into Tuvok’s head.

However, Repression inevitably brushes up against some serious internal issues that prevent from working even on these terms. The biggest issue is the ridiculous final-act twist, when it is revealed that Tuvok has been brainwashed by a rogue Bajoran Vedek who plans to use Tuvok’s psychic abilities to reignite the Maquis rebellion on Voyager. Nothing about this plot makes sense. Of course, it doesn’t really have to, if the story is told well. An audience is willing to forgive a lot if a narrative is constructed in an engaging manner, and will overlook glaring plot holes or structural issues. However, Vedek Teero Anaydis is such an absurd concept that he breaks the episode around him.

Most obviously, what the hell was Teero actually planning to do ? It is very clear that he correctly deduced that Tuvok was a Starfleet spy sent to infiltrate the Maquis. “It is Lieutenant, isn’t it?” he asks his captive. “I’m sure your Maquis comrades would be interested to know your Starfleet rank. Don’t worry, I don’t plan to expose you.” But… why not? What does Teero have to gain from having Tuvok infiltrate the Maquis as a Starfleet spy while also being Teero’s spy? What is the plan here? What is the agenda? Chakotay explains that Teero “was thrown out for experimenting with mind control. He thought it was a good way to recruit agents.” However, recruiting them for what?

The mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Presumably, Teero always wanted Tuvok to mind meld with the Maquis and implant certain ideas; after all, Tuvok does not assault any of the Starfleet crew. However, what ideas did Teero want to implant? Chakotay explains, “Teero was a fanatic. He’d go to any extreme for the Maquis. He called the rest of us traitors for rejecting his ideas. Swore he’d fight the war on his own if he had to.” So perhaps Teero wanted to use Tuvok to implant more radical ideas into the heads of the Maquis, to make them more aggressive and confrontational than they had been, to harden the organisation’s resolve and rejecting any attempt to temper their terrorist leanings.

There are three big issues with this motivation. In terms of basic planning and organisation, it seems strange that Teero would need Tuvok to enact this plan. There are other Vulcan members of the Maquis, as demonstrated in The Maquis, Part I and The Maquis, Part II . Tuvok is an agent trying to infiltrate the organisation, but surely that makes him more volatile from Teero’s perspective; Tuvok boasts that he has been “trained to resist mind control” , so it seems there must have been an easier mark. More than that, it also seems unnecessary for Teero to have realised that Tuvok was a spy. If he would truly “go to any extreme for the Maquis” , why wouldn’t he reprogramme Tuvok to betray Starfleet in a way immediately useful to the Maquis?

“I mean, if I want you to assault and radicalise the Maquis, why do I even need a trigger phrase? I mean, is there a time when I’m not going to want you to radicalise the Maquis, or should I wait until you turn them all over to Starfleet or what?”

Beyond this, the most obvious issue with the episode’s plot is that the reawakened Maquis in Repression don’t seem particularly extremist. Sure, they stage a mutiny and take over the ship, but this is nothing more extreme than the possibility that Tuvok worried about in Worst Case Scenario and certainly less extreme than Michael Eddington’s actions in For the Cause and For the Uniform . In fact, Chakotay is arguably more civilised than his holographic counterpart in Worst Case Scenario . The Maquis refuse to hurt the Starfleet crew, which is strange given that Tuvok acknowledges to Kim that the Maquis were recently still staging terrorist attacks that killed Starfleet officers without Teero’s intervention.

Even beyond that, the plan makes next to no sense. What is Teero’s objective? He is “a fanatic” who believes in the Maquis, but the Maquis no longer exist following Blaze of Glory . More than that, the Maquis no longer have any need to exist after What You Leave Behind . The Cardassian Union has been shattered. It is presumably being occupied. Even if it is not, it is in no state to be a threat to anybody. So what is Teero actually trying to accomplish? Repression nods towards this, and shrugs it off. “We’re Maquis,” Chakotay states. “We’ve always been Maquis.” Janeway responds, “The rebellion ended three years ago. You know that.” Chakotay replies, “In the Alpha Quadrant, maybe. Not on this ship.” What are they rebelling against ?

Rebels without a pause.

Even glossing over the massive plot holes, the pacing of Repression is disastrous. The episode suffers from the issue with a lot of Kenneth Biller stories; The Q and the Grey , Worst Case Scenario , Demon , Thirty Days . There is a sense that the production team ran out of plot about one act from the closing credits, and so offer a sharp right turn that completely up-ends the episode. The Q and the Grey begins as an episode about Q courting Janeway before becoming a story about a Q Civil War; Worse Case Scenario meditates on storytelling before becoming another “holodeck runs amok” episode; Demon burns through a half-dozen ideas to keep moving; Thirty Days stitches a framing device on to a special effects show that becomes an environmental parable.

Even if the tonal shift made sense, it arrives far too late in the episode and in the series. The proper time to tell stories about the Maquis was during the first and second seasons, when Voyager repeatedly hesitated and fumbled the ball. When the matter comes up in the background of stories like Life Line , it feels incongruous and awkward, a delayed attempt to resuscitate one of the best ideas that the show ever wasted. Repression works too hard to revive the idea of tension between Starfleet and the Maquis, whether in Chell’s paranoia or in Tuvok’s interrogation of Kim. “I learned about Max’s death a long time ago,” Kim explains. “I was upset, but I don’t blame the Maquis, and I certainly don’t blame anyone on this ship.” It feels too ham-fisted and heavy-handed.

This plot put Torres right to sleep.

Within the episode itself, the Maquis coup occurs ten minutes from the closing credits. Within the space of a commercial break, the Maquis have overpowered their former colleagues and changed out of their uniforms into their… other non-uniform uniforms. It all happens too quickly for any of this to have any impact whatsoever, to the point where Torres makes an off-hand reference to how “Kim and Paris engineered a little breakout on deck six” through to the fact that Tuvok effective switches sides twice in the space of ten minutes. It just doesn’t work. It is an entire episode crammed into ten minutes of television. It is disorienting, it is uneven, and it greatly undercuts the atmospheric build-up to this point.

Given that this is the seventh season of Voyager , and given that the audience already knows what to expect of the show, it is churlish to point out that this radical climax has absolutely no impact on the show going forward . Chakotay staged a mutiny and tried to strand the Starfleet crew on a distant planet. Torres betrayed her husband as part of this mutiny. Tuvok was a clear and present danger to the integrity of the crew. Of course, all of this can be explained through mind control, but it still seems strange that this should have absolutely no impact on any character dynamics going forward. After all, even if a rational explanation can be provided, human emotions are seldom truly rational in application.

“Je m’accuse!”

So Repression ends with the entire crew sitting down to watch a movie together in Tom Paris’ latest bit of holodeck nostalgia. There is no lingering tension, no unspoken animosity. Chakotay hands the ship back to Janeway with some light banter, and no implication that the two need to have anything resembling a serious conversation about what happened. There is no coda acknowledging the fact that Torres was willing to banish her husband to an alien world. Instead, this is business as usual. It is just another day at the office. In some ways, this hints at one of the deepest underlying frustrations with Voyager , the way that the self-contained episodic format reduces the crazy and the absurd to something as mundane as “just another thing that happened.”

Repression might also be interesting for how it prefigures the arrival of Star Trek: Enterprise , which looms just over the horizon. Tom Paris’ latest holographic simulation foreshadows the use of “movie night” as a social activity in the first two seasons of Enterprise . As in the final season of Voyager , the first couple of seasons of Enterprise find the crew coming together to watch classic cinema; Night of the Killer Androids in Cold Front , For Whom the Bell Tolls and Sunset Boulevard in Dear Doctor , The Wages of Fear in Vox Sola . Even beyond that, Voyager ‘s flirtations with the trappings of fifties pop culture might be seen as conscious lead-in to Enterprise . After all, Enterprise was a prequel to Star Trek , one of the most iconic markers of the sixties.

“You know, I don’t mean to be intrusive, but between this and the whole Flashback thing, you should probably get the occasional neurological check-up done. And maybe cut back on the melding.”

Even beyond the introduction of the concept of “movie night” , the characterisation of Tuvok on Voyager undoubtedly paved the way for the handling of T’Pol on Enterprise . If episodes like Meld , Random Thoughts and Repression suggested that the mind meld was a metaphor for sexual assault, this idea would be literalised in Fusion and Stigma . Even beyond that, Enterprise would fixate on the idea of T’Pol losing control of the emotions simmering beneath the surface with even greater frequency than Voyager did with Tuvok. Episodes like Damage would find T’Pol actively experimenting with lowering her emotional control, instead of having it taken from her.

There is some small irony in the fact that Spock should demonstrate much greater control of his emotional responses than either Tuvok or T’Pol, despite not being a full-blooded Vulcan. Perhaps this speaks to how certain traits of iconic characters get exaggerated over time, and to how episodes like The Naked Time or Amok Time have come to be considered defining and iconic stories for Spock, and so perhaps became the core around which characters like Tuvok and T’Pol were built. Perhaps it simply speaks to Leonard Nimoy’s remarkable gifts as a performer, and the manner in which he aggressively and proactively protected the character of Spock in arguments with writers and producers. Maybe it is just the way things work.

Maquis is catching.

Repression is a mess of an episode, and a reminder of how thoroughly Voyager wasted the character of Tuvok. It has a certain pulpy charm, but even that is lost in the disjointed and ill-judged third act.  Repression might be best forgotten.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: Emotion , logic , obama , race , recycled , restraint , star trek , star trek: voyager , the manchurian candidate , the maquis , tuvok , Vulcans |

5 Responses

Got to give props to Keith Szarabajka, a short, scary man who made a career out of talking softly for lots of cash.

I love your pointed question, “What are they rebelling against?” Nothing; they want to hijack Voyager because that’s what you do when you’re a bad guy on Voyager.

“I know the difference between Vulcans that just need a lesson in manners, and the freaks like you who would only enjoy it. I guess I’m gonna have to try to enjoy it a little more.”

I suspect Szarabajka is a large part of why I don’t hate Repression as much as I really should. (I don’t think the review pulls any punches, but it’s about as positive as it could be.)

This is a terrible episode, with a plot we’ve seen far too many times. When Odo turns out to be the criminal, it is far more interesting. This is just pedantic and predictable. Speaking of which, it seems like Voyager only feels safe to sully DS9’s world-building now that their sister show is over. They are reaching back to Alpha Quadrent lore again, raiding the world building of better writers rather than building a story in their own setting. They also found a way to talk about conflict between the Maquis and the Starfleet crews – temporary insanity – because a permanent conflict would involve actual writing, and such aspirations were abandoned seven years ago.

The show starts with Voyager back in the Alpha Quadrent, then moves it back to 1950s Earth. Delta Quadrent? Who needs exploration when we can have endless nostalgia!

The return of the Bolian officer is interesting. We haven’t seen him in like Seven seasons. I also noted the appearance of a female Vulcan. Where was she when Vorik was in heat?

Tuvok is sent “a signal designed to correspond with Vulcan Synaptic frequencies”. This is meaningless. Our brains down receive signals on frequencies like radio antennae, lol.

Any idiot can see that the Madquis are all being set up to be ‘activated’. Yet Janeway, who now claims to be be so adept at mental practices that she can guide her 100+ year old Vulcan friend through meditation….doesn’t see this coming. So we as viewers must sit through the sloooooow ‘unveiling’ of the stunning surprise.

Chakotay’s minions shoot everyone with no questions asked, yet they hold back with Janeway. Chakotay explains their plans and locks her up. Why not shoot her too? We all know why.

The best part of the episode is when we get Chakotay’s captains log entry. This is maybe the best starting premise for a Voyager episode ever! I want to see this show. What would happen if his crew took over? What would happen if the Federation crew were abandoned on (what appears to be a paradise) a class M world? We all know the reset is mere minutes away, yet we don’t want it to come.

And how is everything reset? Tuvok just furrows his brow and focuses his way out. Another typical Tuvok plot of him ‘losing control’. Heaven forfend that he have a plot showing the virtues of his ontology. Even his son’s message is devoid of content…replaced with the secret signal…replaced with the plot-derived purpose and stripped of any possible character development.

And then everything is back in place. No one remembers they were almost killed by their peers. And we all are expected to approve of the crew sitting around watching some of the worst cinema in world history. An apt metaphor perhaps.

It’s hard to feel much sympathy for writers complaining about a lack of ideas when they’re wilfully ignoring the very fertile bed of story ideas laid down from the start of this show. Even if ideas are reused, which definitely happens (I for one believe there are only so many basic plots to work with), it’s certainly possible to compellingly tell the same essential story in more than one way. Yet it seems the Voyager writing staff just crossed ideas off immediately if they had been done, or if they went through with the idea it was usually in the most straightforward manner possible. Their abhorrence of basing stories around characters was a tremendous hindrance in this way, since it blocked off many intriguing avenues they might have explored.

It’s funny the show pays so little attention to Tuvok, because he seems to most embody the spirit of Voyager in that he is fundamentally driven by a need for order above all else. Any disruption to that order is malignant and destructive.

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS7E4Repression

Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 7 E 4 Repression

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As Chief of Security, Tuvok is tasked with investigating. He has a hunch that Tabor was assaulted by a member of the crew, but admits to Janeway that he has no logical explanation for it. Crewman Jor, a friend of Tabor's, is his first suspect, but it is not long before both she and Yosa, another crewmember, also turn up comatose in separate incidents.

A pattern emerges: all three victims were former Maquis. This leads to suspicions that someone has a grudge against them, though it doesn't explain why they would suddenly lash out now, apropos of nothing. For safety, Chakotay orders all remaining former Maquis to travel in pairs and stay armed. Meanwhile, Paris and Kim are on the holodeck trying to extrapolate forensic data about the attacker from the holodeck logs, but the information is not specific enough to exclude more than about half the crew.

Tuvok investigates the contents of the latest data stream from Earth, which arrived only just before the attacks. He questions Kim about a letter he received in the data stream, which made mention of a friend that was killed by the Maquis, and suggests it may have provoked Kim to violence. Kim is incredulous, saying his friend's death was old news to him and that he had already gotten over it. Tuvok, who seems to tacitly agree that Kim is an unlikely suspect, expresses frustration over the inscrutability of the case. In sickbay, Tabor wakes with no memory of his attack and no apparent health effects, which only raises more questions.

B'Elanna, who refused to stay with her partner and ventured out alone, becomes the next victim. Chakotay discovers her in one of the cargo bays and is then attacked himself. The assailant is revealed to be none other than Tuvok, who overpowers Chakotay and renders him comatose using a mind meld.

In response, Janeway confines all non-essential crew to their quarters. Tuvok continues the investigation with no recollection of his involvement, but feels a sense of unease, saying it's as though he can feel the assailant's presence. While meditating in his quarters, Tuvok begins to have flashbacks of the attacks, then sees the reflection of an unfamiliar Bajoran man in his mirror. Rushing back to the holodeck, he finds that Janeway and Harry are still stuck on the rough holo-image, but he accesses sensor data about the attacker, which matches Tuvok precisely. Convinced that he is the instigator, Tuvok requests that he be sent to the brig.

The mysterious Bajoran man, whom only Tuvok can see, is apparently controlling him. Seven of Nine finds a subliminal message hidden in a letter sent by Tuvok's son in the last data stream, which Tuvok claimed to have neglected to check during his investigation. Chakotay and B'Elanna, who have now woken from their comas along with the rest of the victims, identify the man in the message as Teero Anaydis, a fanatical Bajoran vedek who did experiments in mind control but was expelled from the Vedek Assembly for his unethical experments.

With Janeway's help, Tuvok begins to recover memories from when he worked undercover in the Maquis. Teero found out that Tuvok was a Starfleet spy, but chose not to reveal him. Instead, he implanted something in his mind to be activated later, and repressed his memory of the event. Still fighting Teero's control, Tuvok calls Chakotay and speaks a cryptic Bajoran phrase said by Teero in his message. Chakotay calmly acknowledges, then proceeds to stage a mutiny with the aid of the others who were attacked by Tuvok.

Now in control, Chakotay declares Voyager a Maquis ship, and starts searching for a habitable planet on which to leave the Starfleet crew. Tuvok appears to still be under Teero's control, but since he betrayed the Maquis once before, Chakotay arranges a test of loyalty for him. He ushers Janeway into the ready room, gives Tuvok a phaser set to kill, and orders him to shoot her. Tuvok complies, but the phaser was sabotaged, so Janeway remains unharmed.

Satisfied, Chakotay clears the room to speak privately with Tuvok, but the moment he turns his back, Tuvok grabs him and initiates another mind meld, undoing Teero's control. Together, they neutralize the Maquis on the bridge, and Tuvok is able to free the rest of the compromised crew. Tuvok later explains to Janeway that he fired the phaser to gain Chakotay's trust, wagering that he would not have given Tuvok a functional phaser while his loyalties were still in doubt.

• Book Ends : The episode starts and ends in Paris' 1950s movie theater recreation on the holodeck.
• Blinded by the Light : A victim working in a Jeffries tube is dazzled by someone shining a SIMS beacon in his eyes. This also hides the attacker's identity from the audience as well.
• Brainwashed : Teero's brainwashing of the crew is nearly perfect. Besides Tuvok, everyone who was affected behaves perfectly normal both before and after being "activated", with their loyalties being the only thing that changes.
• Brick Joke : In the opening scene, one of the holographic audience shushes B'Elanna when she talks over the start of the movie. In the closing scene, B'Elanna herself does this to Janeway.
• Continuity Nod : Chakotay's Maquis ship is revealed to have been named the Val Jean . Maquis leader Michael Eddington's obsession with Les Misérables was previously highlighted back in "For the Uniform" on DS9 .
• Deadpan Snarker : Janeway: I'm beginning to think our perpetrator is a ghost. Tuvok: Perhaps we should conduct a seance.
• Don't Call Me "Sir" : After taking control of Voyager , Chakotay tells Tuvok to drop the formalities.
• Everyone Has Standards : The Maquis gave Teero the boot for being too extreme, and the Vedek Assembly did the same because they viewed his experiemnts with mind control to be unethical.
• Foreshadowing : Tuvok's unexplained Gut Feeling that Tabor's attack was the work of another crew member hints at his repressed knowledge of it. For anyone else, it wouldn't be unusual, but Tuvok is a full-blooded Vulcan with no reason to have such a feeling.
• Idiot Ball : After finding Chell roaming without a buddy, Chakotay leaves his own buddy with him and heads off by himself — and is soon attacked.
• Insane Troll Logic : The justification for the mutiny used by the Teero-brainwashed crew, given that Voyager can't possibly affect anything the Maquis were fighting for. Even ignoring them still being nowhere near the Alpha Quadrant, it's been three years after the movement was destroyed, Cardassia is no longer an imperial power, and the entire reasons they were fighting no longer exist due to the Dominion War. (The closest justification for all this is that Teero has gone certifiably insane.) It's even explained In-Universe . Janeway: We're thirty-five thousand light-years from Earth, Chakotay. No one out here even knows about the Maquis. It doesn't make sense. There's nothing you can accomplish. Chakotay: As long as we exist, so does the rebellion. Janeway: That's Teero talking. He was unstable, you said so yourself.
• The Killer in Me : Tuvok is the amnesiac variety, although he does not actually murder anyone.
• Let Me Get This Straight... : B'Elanna's reaction to Tom's movie theater . B'Elanna: Protective lenses? Tom: These will make the images on the screen appear three-dimensional. B'Elanna: Let me get this straight — You've gone to all this trouble to program a three-dimensional environment that projects a two-dimensional image and now you're asking me to wear these to make it look three-dimensional again?
• Manchurian Agent : When Tuvok, in the secretly encoded message from his son, hears the phrase, "Pagh t'em far, B'tanay," or "This is a holy time, a time of awakening," Teero's Maquis programming asserts itself in Tuvok.
• Tuvok's forced mind-meld on the former Maquis members on board Voyager .
• Teero apparently did this to Tuvok years ago in preparation for this event. If Tuvok's memory of the event is anything to go by, it was quite painful.
• The Mutiny : Teero's mind control causes Tuvok to unwittingly start a pro-Maquis mutiny. Once he regains his self-control, he quickly stages another to return to the status quo.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business : While being brainwashed by Teero, Tuvok loses control of his emotions and begs him to stop.
• The Remnant : With the Maquis having been wiped out over three years ago, Teero is one of the final holdouts.
• Sarcastic Confession : Lampshaded Harry: You got me Tuvok, I confess. I was so distraught after hearing Max's name that I fired my Captain Proton Comatizer at every Maquis crew member I could find. Tuvok: Your sarcasm could be viewed as subterfuge.
• Shoot Your Mate : Chakotay demands that Tuvok shoot Janeway to prove his loyalty. Tuvok correctly gambles that the phaser is not functional , and thus succeeds in winning Chakotay's trust by making the attempt.
• Subliminal Seduction : Tuvok's message from his son includes a coded message from Teero that activates him as his brainwashing agent.
• Suspect Is Hatless : When trying to extrapolate the physical parameters of the attacker by dampening the photonic ambience in the holodeck and reversing the polarity , Paris and Kim are able to conclude that they were about 170-190cm in height and 75kg in weight — which matches about half the crew. Kim quips that they can, at least, rule out Naomi Wildman.
• Trigger Phrase : "Pagh'tem'far, b'tanay", Bajoran for "This is a holy time, the time of the awakening".
• Yawn and Reach : Tom demonstrates this to B'Elanna while showing her what theaters were for, besides the movie itself.
• Star Trek Voyager S 7 E 3 Drive
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 7 E 5 Critical Care

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Star Trek: Voyager

“Repression”

Air date: 10/25/2000 Teleplay by Mark Haskell Smith Story by Kenneth Biller Directed by Winrich Koble

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

"Let me get this straight: You've gone to all this trouble to program a three-dimensional environment that projects a two-dimensional image, and now you're asking me to wear these [3D glasses] to make it look three-dimensional again?" "Great, isn't it?" — B'Elanna and Tom

Review Text

In brief: Why make this episode? The story's destination is woefully contrived and completely pointless.

"Repression" is an hour of television that goes to great (and unlikely) lengths of plotting to accomplish basically nothing. It's one of the most artificial, pointless Voyager exercises in recent memory. I'm trying to think what the creators thought they were onto here by putting a story like this into production, but I'm at a loss. When the whole point of a show like this is to be a contrived mechanical exercise and absolutely nothing more, what exactly are we supposed to take from the experience?

I'll tell you what I got: a cynical nod to the existence of a universe beyond Voyager 's current mission statement (whatever that is) — specifically, a shallow, retroactive acknowledgement that the Maquis crew members, once upon a time, existed. The trailers for "Repression" alleged that there would be mutiny. I wasn't fooled, but I didn't think even a fake mutiny plot would be this starved for justification.

I've complained in the past that Voyager tends to come up with plots that are at the expense of the characters. Well, "Repression" ranks among the most egregious examples — an episode where the plot steamrollers right through the characters, who are nothing more than hollow vessels to be moved around by totally artificial, manufactured circumstances. Ostensibly, this is a Tuvok vehicle (one of the show's most overlooked characters), but Tuvok is just a writer's toy here — his Vulcan mind powers are used to service an absurd plot while the character itself might as well be wallpaper.

In a nutshell, the premise for the episode is what I'm terming "remote-controlled mutiny by proxy." Please do not laugh (yet). A Bajoran maniac in the Alpha Quadrant sends a hidden message in a letter to Tuvok which subconsciously triggers buried brainwashing that was therapeutically programmed into Tuvok seven years ago when he was an undercover infiltrator of the Maquis. This prompts Tuvok, unaware of his own actions, to engage in a mission to mind-program other former-Maquis members of the crew to seize control of Voyager . Yes.

It begins as an investigation story when members of the crew are mysteriously attacked and left comatose. Doc can't explain the comas. Tuvok takes on the assignment of figuring out who attacked the victims and why. Admittedly, the one thing of value to be taken from the episode is the idea of Tuvok facing the frustration of an investigation full of dead ends. Of course, it turns out he's investigating his own attacks and unaware of it, but that's a "twist" that is surprisingly obvious from the outset. The writers, fortunately, don't keep the "character unwittingly investigates his own crimes" angle a huge mystery for so long as to completely sabotage the show. But not to worry — they sabotage the show with the rest of the plot.

As for the flow of the investigation, I won't get into details except to note that Tuvok's suspicions of Kim, as well as others, are pretty thin: If everyone with any kind of emotions is a suspect, how can an investigation possibly narrow down to find the perpetrator? Another clue involves a stored "afterimage" in the holodeck, which shows the mystery figure attacking one of the victims. I thought this visual clue wasn't nearly masked enough for the audience; I could almost tell it was Tuvok, though I already had my suspicions.

The investigation scenes are actually not badly handled for the most part. But once Tuvok realizes he's the culprit, the plot is pretty much a downhill slide. The question for Janeway is why Tuvok assaulted these people, and what's the significance of all the victims being former Maquis. The plot is obvious to us well before it is to Janeway & Co., and the Idiot Plot syndrome in action here revolves around the fact that once the comatose characters awaken, no one suspects that they might have been compromised the way Tuvok was. Shouldn't they be confined until the captain can get to the bottom of things? (Of course not, because then how could they take over the ship?)

By far the biggest question I had was why in the world the Bajoran maniac, a guy named Teero (Keith Szarabajka), would even want to have the Maquis crew members seize control of Voyager in the first place. Dialog and flashbacks reveal that Teero was a Maquis fanatic who wanted to use extreme, experimental methods to further the Maquis cause. One of these methods was brainwashing/mind-programming. He had discovered Tuvok was a Starfleet officer infiltrating the Maquis. Rather than exposing him, Teero programmed Tuvok to be his secret weapon at some later date. That date is today, seven years later, and mayhem ensues. There are scenes where Tuvok and Teero face off inside Tuvok's hallucinations as Janeway tries help Tuvok regain focus of his mind. Such scenes are marked with plenty of urgent shouting, etc., but none of it can overcome the banality of why it's all happening.

I'm sorry, but Teero's motives here are beyond any sense of a useful purpose and venture into flat-out stupidity. I don't buy for one second that Teero is going to go to the trouble — nearly four years after the Alpha Quadrant Maquis have been wiped out — to send a message to Tuvok, who's on a ship 35,000 light-years away. What can he possibly get out of it? What purpose does it serve that helps any Maquis or former Maquis in any way? The answers are nothing and none, so the story just supplies "he's fanatical" as the lame explanation. No. That's a cheap cop-out, not a motive. Since obviously Voyager 's Starfleet and Maquis officers are not going to go at each other's throats under any normal circumstances (despite the trailer's attempts to convince us to the contrary), the only possible reason for us to care about this story is if the motivation of the character pulling the strings from afar has any sort of impact. It doesn't, so we don't care. It's a writer's wave of the hand, and frankly it's pretty insulting.

The other big annoyance here is the writers' presumption that a Vulcan mind meld is equivalent to flipping an on/off switch in someone's brain. Based on what he's able to accomplish here, Tuvok should be registered as a very dangerous weapon. He melds with several Maquis members of the crew, including key people like Chakotay and Torres, and when he "activates" them, they suddenly become pro-Maquis and anti-Starfleet. "He's simply helped us remember who we are. We're Maquis. We've always been Maquis," says Chakotay. Sure. Just like that. (My, how handy a plot device the mind meld is.)

And yet, the way the episode plays it, these people seem to know what they're doing and why. They aren't robots; it's more like their actual attitudes have been changed to make them different people. Unanswered is whether they know right from wrong or are struggling with their sudden change in mindset, or if anyone cares about the betrayals after the madness has been magically set right with reverse mind melds in the lame, simpleminded conclusion. No matter — in reality there are no answers to such questions because the script is just jerking characters around to falsely manufacture a mutiny plot. It's almost as if the trailer about the mutiny was written before the episode, and the writers did whatever they could to concoct a story that would get them to this final act, no matter how implausible and lacking in motivation.

This episode is, simply, a crock. It's an over-plotted, under-thought, meaningless hour-long contrivance — all concept, no content. A hundred things happen in this episode, but none of them matter. It's depressing to watch so much plot written to advance a story to an end point that is so fundamentally false. Really, I doubt a mutiny on Voyager could've rung true in any conceivable form. A real mutiny would've been interesting years ago, but today it would've been just as inappropriate as "Repression" stands. So the question is, why pretend this could actually be a real issue on this series today? The writers must think we're a whole lot dumber than we are. Now there's a surprise.

Next week: Doc vs. an alien HMO.

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133 comments on this post, aj koravkrian.

Another problem I have with this episode it that are the memories of the maquis wiped out by Tuvok's melding with them ? that they are willing to let their friends and loved ones leave behind ? Also, I have an issue with portraying maquis as heartless terrorists in this episode, because the franchise has gone to great lengths to tell us that they had been fighting for a just cause. In one episode, the writers undermine all of that. Shame.

What an awful, awful episode.

Rob in Michigan

I don't think you understood the Tuvok "activating" the Maquis scenes correctly. I thought that all of the Maquis had already fallen victim to Teero at some time in the past (like Tuvok had). Teero had reasons to be antagonistic toward Chakotay for "not going far enough for the cause". What better vengeance, than to co-opt his "commander" and the rest of his "cell" by subjecting them to control. The rest of your analysis is right on though. What in the hell was he trying to accomplish by "activating" his drones (for want of a better word) now? Wouldn't this be something he'd do if/when Voyager returned to the Alpha-Quadrant, perhaps as a way to strike back at the Cardassians in some way? The timing for this story doesn't work. And, of course, the resolution is so rushed that it's almost funny in how ridiculous it is.

I saw your rating for this and read the first couple of lines of the review, as well as the negative feedback about the episode, before actually viewing it. I was thus braced for the worst, but I didn't find this show to be nearly as bad as everyone else here. The concept of mind control and sleeper agents actually exists in our own reality so it's hardly a far-fetched concept in the sci-fi world of Trek. It's nice to be able to just watch an episode and spend some time in the Star Trek universe, without picking apart every plot thread and character motivation in a desperate search to find something to complain about.

"It's nice to be able to just watch an episode and spend some time in the Star Trek universe, without picking apart every plot thread and character motivation in a desperate search to find something to complain about." David, you're right. Unfortunately, your above-comment, given the forum you chose to make it, might have fallen on deaf ears. Fandom and the concept of "fans" both are very fascinating: there is a "trashing that which you claim to love" mentality evident on so many websites "dedicated to" or that serve as "fora" for people presumably interested in a show, created by people who presumably like it. I'm for picking apart an awful episode when doing so is called for as much as anyone else is, but it never ceases to amaze me how some of the people I'm talking about are apparently satisfied with none of the episodes (they've seen them all and are dissatisfied with them all, which begs the question of why they continue to watch the shows). These critics, I think, must find the criticisms enjoyable exercises in entertaining themselves and in possibly entertaining other individuals. Once in a while, though, I wish the creative energy behind criticism could be redirected to something else, like, say, writing your own story, or finding a show you really do like (sadly, people get their entertainment more from mockery than from being inspired by something). Or, as Spock might have said (paraphrasing), "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy, than to create."

Ken Egervari

Did we really need to see a brief "what if the maquis took over the ship" episode? Did we? Really now? I thought I was watching a miss episode of DS9 - just for a second. I thought... oh boy! There was a DS9 episode I *didn't* see?! Nope. One thing I will credit to this show. The beginning has a very different flavour than many voyager episodes... and for a time, I thought this episode might head a in a good direction. At least the whole "voyager is an action series" wasn't present in this episode... and that's a good thing. It seems that every episode is so repetitive in its plotting and action sequences, that this episode felt different. Having said that, this episode is horrible. To me, it was pretty obvious Tuvok was the person responsible. The blurred out image actually does look like Tuvok - you can see the ears and the bald head. Didn't fool me in the slightest. However, there was a loophole in the episode where Tuvok not able to commit one of the mind-meld attacks as he was preoccupied with the investigation. I honestly don't know how we did it. Nonetheless... even at this time I figured it was Tuvok, just because I knew the writers were going in that direction. From here, the episode turns in a horrible direction. The whole Maquis vs. Federation angle just doesn't fit in season 7.... nor does the motivation of why did the Bajoran mind-control lunatic decide to do this now? What is the motivation? The show NEVER, EVER answers for this... which makes an already bad episode worse because we got to see the "what if" just because the writers wanted to... not because it had any sound premise.

Daniel, There are voyager episodes that perfectly good and likeable. In these episodes, it is easy to enjoy it, get lost in it and savour it. Then there are episodes like this.. and dozens like it. It is very hard to just watch it and enjoy it when the writing is just awful. It is well below the standards set back Voyager's better episodes... or other series like TNG and DS9. This site in particular is not a "We love Voyager" fan site. It is a review site for all Star Trek series, some of which are reviewed very favourably, such as DS9 or TNG. The hate comes from loving Star Trek so much... and seeing a series like Voyager rip it to shreds. It's about acknowledging what could have been. There is a lot of frustrating and even anger in long term fans of the franchise when they write crap like this episode. It's not just the episode - it's the mentality of laziness and the utter lack of desire to make something of high quality. The real problem with Voyager, as I've said in many other threads, is that the writers cannot create a sound premise for a story to save their life. There are always massive continuity errors, even contradicting episodes from week to week. There are always characters behaving in illogical ways... or behave way out of character. The writers seem to change anything as long as it works to convey the story they want to tell... and this just wasn't done on earlier series. Frankly, it's somewhat insulting, and it frustrates me to no end.

Uh, when an episode begins with somebody uttering the words "prophecy" and "holy," you're almost guaranteed to have a boring, trashy episode ahead. When Paris then recreates a 20th-century environment, you KNOW the show is liable to be dumb as a doorknob, too. Well, the first 15 minutes turned out to be quite exciting: A mystery attacker incapacitating crewmembers left, right and center. But then when it becomes evident that some "spirit" has possessed Tuvok, the whole thing goes downhill. The action parts are fun to watch but they make no sense and are founded on a risible basis. It would've been alright (sans all the mind alternation junk) three seasons back but not at this point. The ending totally sucked, including the theater scene. I'd give it two stars though.

Ken: "It seems that every episode is so repetitive in its plotting and action sequences[.]" In fairness, and this is coming from someone whose comments tend to be caustic and cynical, by Season 7 of Voyager, Star Trek aired 500 episodes plus a number of full-length movie features, so one can forgive the writers for running out of ideas. It IS difficult to make so many interesting episodes featuring the future fou centuries hence in a massive universe. It doesn't excuse the sloppiness and laziness of the scriptwriters but still, Voyager is a damn sight better than, say, the Original Series, which just makes me cringe: Even for the 1960s the lack of imagination is stupendous!

"Why make this episode?" I'm glad you asked, Jammer. One of the things I take pleasure in the most from Voyager is the way they slap DS9 in the face when they get the opportunity. Obviously, not being marred in the lollipop parades of the Alpha Quadrant, opportunities to use Bajorans and Cardassians are few and far between, but when they do, it's a very smart and biting portrayal. This species just does not belong in a civilised Universe: The Bajorans' religious fervour and brain-washed, battle-hungry quality is personified in Teero. Think of it this way: "This is a holy time" etc are catchphrases, propaganda--very common occurrences in our society. People are duped into doing things that only appear to have a motivation or make sense: Chakotay, "So long as we exist, the rebellion exists." That doesn't make any sense, but it sounds like it does. I can't count the number of times I've heard something similar, "we may have some problems, but look at North Korea." What does that mean? Nothing. But, well N. Korea is a communist dictatorship, and we're better so, yeah point made. ??? The foil of course is Tuvok--only a mind as devoted to logic as he (almost religiously) can hope to overcome the mind-control. Teero meant to utilise Tuvok's vulcanness and hidden identity as a weapon, but it turned out to backfire (as it did in "Random Thoughts"). Teero's motivation--well, think about it. The only remnant of the Maquis, the organisation which gave his lunacy purpose, exists solely on Voyager, and the ability to communicate with Tuvok has not existed until now (the Mitas Array, blah blah blah)--there are notes of Captain Maxwell from "The Wounded" here. Part of the Trekkian brilliance of Voyager is the irony shown in season 7--after being isolated from the Federation, stocked with rogue humans and mired with desperate situations, Voyager holds on to its values, its principals. In the AQ, the war and ass-headed writing on DS9 has literally destroyed the Federation's soul. So when mediæval spores find there way onto Voyager from the motherland, the microcosm reveals just how corrupted home has become. I would have liked to see an episode which dealt with this more directly "Do we really want to go home?"--it would have been more of a direct slap in the face to DS9, which could be problematic for a franchise, but DS9 had no problem slapping First Contact, so, there it is.

Michael: "So one can forgive the writers for running out of ideas." Here's an idea: Stop making episodes. If they have truly run out of ideas in their own estimation, then stop making the series. But the truth is, there were tons of ideas to do in Star Trek. New, talented writers could have brought a lot of life to the series. The problem was the premise of the series. Moving around from Star to Star, or some chance encounter, is actually pretty damn boring. Sure, an episode here and there was interesting, but it's not enough to keep people coming back week to week. TNG pretty much exhausted most of the core ideas this kind of series offered.

"Voyager holds on to its values, its principals. In the AQ, the war and ass-headed writing on DS9 has literally destroyed the Federation's soul" I actually find this laughable. Voyager compromised on its principles MANY times. In fact, Janeway would argue opposing ideas from one episode to the next. One episode she would advocate "we do whatever it takes to get this crew home" and another episode she'll say, "We can't violate the prime directive in order to get ourselves home!" Since the episodes are not fresh in my mind, I can't offer quotes, but if I rewatched this series, I know I could find at least 20 occurrences of this kind of hypocrisy. As for the part about DS9, I completely disagree about the writing being ass-headed. While it was definitely a deviation from Star Trek's original premise, this isn't a bad thing. Now that I know a great deal more about philosophy, the Trekkian philosophy does not make sense in practice, and it's actually immoral in many areas. After watching many episodes from all the series later on, I could pull tons of immoral decisions and societal consequences as a result of this "enlightened" philosophy. To be honest, it's very much a pretend "working" form of communism. But you see, communism IS evil and cannot work. It is very much against human nature of rational, long-term self-interest. If anything DS9 just showed humans for what they were, and made less pretenses about it. Sure, Sisko made many immoral decisions, but at least he didn't do it in the name of starfleet principles, he did it because he was a man and made choices with his freewill. There's a big difference there.

Don't confuse Janeway's character for the show's philosophy. See that's one of the great deviations between Voyager and TNG--in TNG Picard is virtually always right--or at least becomes right in the end of the episode, thus he is the figurehead for the whole show. I'm not interested in getting into a debate about communism. It's been done to death. Your comments strike me as rather young--there's no such thing as an "evil" philosophy; you may argue if you wish that the future as depicted in Star Trek is impossible. Well, many physicists, astronomers, philosophers and economists would agree with you, but that's not the point. Optimism is not evil. However, I will agree that economically speaking, the Federation is communist--or at least socialist--the waters are a little muddy on that front. People work to better themselves, not to gain a profit. DS9 showed people as they are NOW perhaps, but the universe Star Trek inhabits isn't possible if it was created by humans as they are now. My beefs with DS9 are numerous, but in terms of its place in Trek, here's my biggest problem: if the writers wanted to make a show about their own science fiction philosophy, then fine, more power to them; but how dare they take the creations of another mind and show and insidiously change their qualities to prove a point. People mistakenly believe that DS9 expanded upon Gene's universe to show the reality of the situation; if you watch carefully, you'll see that the things established in TOS and TNG had to be changed (without any explanation) in order to fit DS9's pessimistic philosophy. Take "Emissary"; Picard would NEVER tolerate the kind of disrespectful behaviour exhibited by Sisko (no matter what happened to his wife), let alone twice. It's ridiculous, but hey, Sisko's inexplicably awesome because the Gods favour him--wow, really? I'm actually working (in my spare time) on a throughline of Janeway's development as a character with regard to her Prime Directive decisions. People have this textbook expectation from TV shows that the characters should DEVELOP in this conventional way, but that really doesn't tell the human story. What is so beautiful about the character development on Voyager is that it is subtle and slow--I will always be angry that the writers on Voyager weren't afforded the same liberties as those on DS9, they were confined to a marketing image that they were able to work in spite of, but oh how wonderful to have been given a long leash like DS9. Janeway's decisions were also because she was a woman who made choices with her freewill. The fact that she tied her decisions into Starfleet principles makes for a very interesting dichotomy, but it doesn't devalue her decisions.

"there's no such thing as an "evil" philosophy" I know you didn't want to get into a debate about communism, but I have to analyze this statement. Are you sure? So if I create a philosophy that ends up advocating the death of all human babies and that we ought to prevent all reproductive abilities because I concluded that it was necessary to end our species, is that not evil? In order for communism to work, you have to steal from those that have productive ability and give to those who do not have it. You have to violate property rights in order to redistribute the wealth. Is not that not evil? In all communist countries, there were mass murders, and all kinds of other atrocities. Were these not evil? This was all brought upon by communism. Sorry, but philosophies can rationally be judged to be evil, and it's important that we judge them as such. "Optimism is not evil. However, I will agree that economically speaking, the Federation is communist--or at least socialist--the waters are a little muddy on that front." Optimism isn't evil, but I don't think Star Trek is really about optimism. Optimism really isn't a philosophy. Truth be told, optimism isn't a rational concept. Definition: "A tendency to expect the best possible outcome or dwell on the most hopeful aspects of a situation" Notice this definition doesn't say anything about facts and using logic and reason to be optimistic. It is basically being optimistic for the sake of it. It is based on whim. Anyway, Star Trek does not explain it's model for economics at all. Sure, they have replicators and all of this technology, but where did it come from? Did people build all of this stuff for "the good of mankind?" Altruistically? So even the laziest bums benefit from the achievements of a few? This is actually not just, as they have no right to profit from unearned achievements. Also, who does all the grunt work? All the messy labour nobody would want to do? I mean, if you don't have to work and everything is provided for you... where is the incentive to slug it out producing all the energy needed by the federation? There wouldn't be any incentive at all, and nobody would do it. Are you to force them? Well, that's immoral. You can't force people to work. It violates their rights, and is akin to slavery. "People work to better themselves, not to gain a profit." This is, unfortunately, flawed thinking. I am all for people striving to better themselves, but I do not think it is immoral to make profit at the same time. In fact, I don't think there's a way to be the best individual you can be without having the ability to pursue your own rational self-interests (i.e., making profit, among other values you may have). This is why no matter how much I love Star Trek, I am deeply bothered by it's moral and philosophical premises. It just would not work in practice. As for DS9, I would totally concede to you that it deviated from the premises set in TOS and TNG. Note, I don't think the show is "right" because it showed people as they are today, and I am just saying it is different. There are many fantastically written stories in DS9 that are among my favorites out of all the series, regardless of this deviation. Some of the writing is stellar. The problem with character development on Voyager is that a lot of it is arbitrary. Kim is the worst example. For 6 seasons+, he is basically the same character. And then the writers to shoe-horn "growth", but it just doesn't work. I think the writers did a decent job with B'lana, some times. Even then, there's faults. One of the big problems with Voyager is that massive character changes would happen in 1 episode, and then were forgotten in the very next episode. Some continuity would have made the series MUCH better. Take Tom Paris for example. There's one episode where he switches bodies with another person, and the whole premise is that he's bored on the ship and is depressed. But the episode before, he's chippy and happy. They had this gradual planning in the first 2 seasons, but totally botched it in seasons 3-7. I have no problem with Janeway using freewill, but it was mighty convenient for her (and the writers) to alternate her positions on various moral decisions as the story dictated. I think this made her character (and the show) much weaker than it should have been.

I'm still refusing to actually debates the merits and faults of communism, but I will point out a flaw in your own logic, as you are wont to do systematically: how many communist countries have there been? 6 maybe? compared with the number of capitalist countries, that's hardly a pool for forming any sort of conclusion. If we were to judge the "morality" of capitalism on the actions of the first few societies to practise it, the results would be FAR more horrendous than even the worst goulag-implementing, tank-rolling regime in modern history. Modern capitalism, for better or worse, has had centuries to develop in myriad ways. Given the same opportunity, socialism could certainly develop into something like the Federation given time and trial. The fact that dictators have been the only means so far by which communism has been practised is I think far more the cause of the "evil" than the economics. Machiavelli, Hammurabi, Trujillo and Hitler were all capitalists, but so were Thomas Jefferson and Queen Elizabeth. Let me ask you about your own character growth, Ken. When something traumatic happens to you, do you advertise it to all your coworkers? If you have subordinates, do you reveal it to them? In the quiet private moments on Voyager, one sees how characters are affected by experience, but you won't see something like Kira storming around or Sisko shirking Federation values because someone on Voyager had a bad day. In the 60's the "reset button" was seen as a cornball way to pacify the "family audience." In Voyager, there is a striking reuse of the button--take the final scenes in "Prime Factors," "Resolutions," "Scorpion," "Prey," "Nothing Human," "Counterpoint," "Equinox," "Barge of the Dead," "Dragon's Teeth," "Memorial," "Critical Care," "Workforce," "Human Error" and "Natural Law"--all have a reset button, but in each case, it's a matter of preserving face--a necessary sacrifice one must make in a military institution like Starfleet...but it also forces the characters to possess a strength of character and a resilience which allows them to survive and not fall appart into chaos throughout the seasons--which is apparently what everyone wanted to see. I will be creating my own reviews of the 5 Trek series and 11 movies in time, and I welcome your feedback.

"But I will point out a flaw in your own logic, as you are wont to do systematically: how many communist countries have there been?" Actually, there is no flaw in my logic. And let me explain so you don't just take my word for it. I concede that it is not a valid proof that just because we haven't seen a successful implementation of communism that this fact alone can conclude that it is evil. However, you *can* prove that communism is evil because of how it achieves it's ends, which I already discussed. It *IS* immoral to take the earned property away from one man and give it to another. You cannot justify this and say that this is moral. This form of legal theft is a fundamental part of communism. It is based entirely on the violation of man's rights. There is no way this practice can actually further life, but can only seek to destroy it. It's not just the right of property, but communism violates the right to liberty, and the right to pursue your own happiness. Under communism, you have to pursue the happiness of the state. Pursuing your own happiness would be "selfish" according to communists. To enforce the violation of rights, you have to use physical force, because you can't force a man to think or convince a man to work against his own self interests. And this is exactly what happened in every communistic country. The government had to use progressively more force to implement it's ideas. Essentially, you can't practice evil and expect a moral and good society to come about. When you mix evil with good, evil wins. Every time. I can go into the proof of all of this, but it would take some writing. Nonetheless, if you want me to go through it with you, I will. Do you really think "modern capitalist countries" practice real capitalism? They don't. They actually mixed economies. There is *some* economic freedom, but there's actually a lot of government regulation, intervention (central banking) and redistribution of wealth (social programs). The reason "modern capitalism" does not work is because it progressively gets more socialized. Governments continue to violate more rights against the individuals, and puts a stranglehold on individual freedom. Many of the disasters that we are experiencing today are not the result of capitalism (although our politicians and media definitely want you to believe that... please don't take their word for it!). They are the result of government. They cause the problems, blame business, and then go about "fixing it", only to make the problems worse. Logic and actual history proves this, both under Republican and Democratic rule. The real truth is that we have NEVER had a free economic system. Not once. It has never happened. The closest thing to it was 1800-1914 United States, and I don't need to remind you that this by far the most prosperous period in all of human civilization. We continued to enjoy the benefits of capitalism until the federal reserve caused the great depression, and in the 1950-1960's, socialism really started to play a massive part of the United States. Today, you cannot call the United States, Canada, England, etc. capitalist countries. There is no way. Also, hilter (and others) were not capitalists. In fact, any government that violated the rights of the individual - the right to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness - was not a capitalist. Real capitalism is freedom, and humanity has not seen it.

"When something traumatic happens to you, do you advertise it to all your coworkers?" No, but why not a private scene in their room? Why not *something* to stress the continuity? The real truth is that the writers didn't work together, and a lot of them were incompetent. They couldn't think bigger than a single story, let alone defining the direction for 1 season or the entire series. "In the quiet private moments on Voyager, one sees how characters are affected by experience, but you won't see something like Kira storming around or Sisko shirking Federation values because someone on Voyager had a bad day." I don't see a problem with any of this. Kira's growth as a character was exceptional. The writers did a farely convincing job taking her from A->B->C->...->Y->Z. I think they did a great job with character development of all the major characters, except for Ezri. "In the 60's the "reset button" was seen as a cornball way to pacify the "family audience." In Voyager, there is a striking reuse of the button." I hate the reset button. It is incredibly annoying. It actually insults my intelligence that I am meant to "forget" what I just spent 40 minutes watching when I start up the next episode. How is it that TNG managed to successfully have some character continuity between episodes... and note that TNG came BEFORE Voyager... and Voyager royally messed up this idea that characters have continuity? "but in each case, it's a matter of preserving face--a necessary sacrifice one must make in a military institution like Starfleet...but it also forces the characters to possess a strength of character and a resilience which allows them to survive and not fall appart into chaos throughout the seasons--which is apparently what everyone wanted to see." Who is "everyone"? Not me. I hated this aspect of the show. And no, I don't think people should make sacrifices, especially when it comes to their mental well-being. "I will be creating my own reviews of the 5 Trek series and 11 movies in time, and I welcome your feedback." I am definitely good at stating my opinions ;)

I will BRIEFLY adress all your points: 1) There is no one formula for how communism, capitalism or any other "ism" works--economics is a system of theories which are implemented according to unique sets of variables, all of which must be taken into consideration when judging a society. People are capable of committing evil actions, but no person, system or idea is inherently evil. There are numerous ways in which capitalism promotes the exploitation of man by his fellow man, but this does not make it evil, just as the state-sacrifice model of communism does not make it evil. "It *IS* immoral to take the earned property away from one man and give it to another. You cannot justify this and say that this is moral." This is based upon the premise that it is possible to earn possessions or other property with one's labour. This is neither true nor false, it is an assumption, one upon which capitalist values are based. Communist values are based upon the idea that there is an intrinsic value to labour which cannot be measured in goods, property or currency. This is also an assumption. There is no proof that one is right and the other is wrong, it is about choices. 2) "When you mix evil with good, evil wins. Every time." I'm not sure what to make of this statement. I do find it ironic that you are a fan of DS9 which makes a big huff about how it avoids these kinds of black and white statements. You seem to view good and evil as some sort of ingredients, like sugar, spice and everything nice; such philosophies are doomed to realm of fairytales I'm afraid. I agree that no country is capable of practising "pure" anything. as I said, these are theories which, when implemented in the real world, must factor in an host of conditions which "impurify" the system. We must, however, make generalisations and "round up" systems to their models in order to make comparisons. China is certainly not a pure communism, neither was the USSR, neither is Cuba, etc. but we can treat them as such to compare with relatively capitalist societies. It is of equal value to compare the ways in which they are impure--but this is a tangent upon a tangent, so I will stop here. I feel I must point out that no economic system guarantees anyone's liberties or freedoms--these ideas are socio-political and moralistic,--economic systems are mathematical models on the distribution of wealth and the valuation of labour. An economic system is never a guarantee of any social liberties or violations. 3) My point with the DS9 comparison is that we WERE shown character growth on Voyager a lot, but never in the melodramatic, public displays seen on DS9. It is the difference between staged life and real life. In staged life (as in a play) we need to see very strong character changes very quickly in order for the premise to prove itself (in a good play). In a TV series, we have the opportunity afforded no other genre, time. We can have characters who interact more believably because they have time to show character development in little morsels strewn throughout the years. DS9 was always so busy trying to make its point that the characters were often ridiculous and many of the episodes unwatchable. "Threshold," well established as Voyager's worst outing, has a plot which insults even basic intelligence, but the characterisation of Paris is very compelling in spite of it. Now, how in the world could the ship continue to function if Janeway and he were to let that weird little adventure creep into their future interactions? There is no way. We must do this in real life, move on. What we DO see is a change in the level of intimacy. We don't need a dinner conversation where they say, "Hey, remember when we were slugs and made babies? Yeah, that meant a lot to me." What we see is a quiet change in the interpersonal relationship (ie she's much more likely to call him "Tom" instead of "Mr Paris," and he begins to reveal to her more and more about his shady past). THAT is realistic character development stemming from a terrible episode, which is what made Voyager great. 4) You missed my point about the reset button. I'm sorry you hate it, but if we're reduced to that then there's not much more to say is there?

"economics is a system of theories which are implemented according to unique sets of variables, all of which must be taken into consideration when judging a society." Economics is really just the study of how people trade. There are different systems, most being drastically different from one another. And most of them are not a true representation of real human economic behaviour. "People are capable of committing evil actions, but no person, system or idea is inherently evil." This is wrong. If a system advocates that the theft of someone's property to give to someone else, then that system is immoral, and is evil. Why? Because the system is going to cause evil actions. When implementation, that theft really will happen. Basically any system that requires immoral actions in theory to bring about it's goals will produce immoral actions in practice. "There are numerous ways in which capitalism promotes the exploitation of man by his fellow man, but this does not make it evil" Actually, this is truthfully statement, but probably not the reason you think it is. What is exploitation? There are two drastically different definitions. If you mean it as, "The act of using something for any purpose"... then I absolutely agree. This is not evil whatsoever. However, if you mean as: "to take unfair advantage of others"... then no, capitalism does NOT do this. Capitalism is based on the idea that people have complete freedom to pursue their own happiness, just as long as they do not violate the rights of other individuals. If you want to acquire a value, you must trade for it. You cannot take it by force. Likewise, you can't take advantage of people because they must first consent to buy your products. If your price is to high, they will shop elsewhere. If there are no competitors, it will encourages others to compete with you, as there is no government controls to stop them from competing freely. Also, workers must agree to the wages that they are getting paid, and if the wages are too low... they will find other work. There is actually no long-term way for a business under true a free market to take advantage of anyone. It will be against their own relational, long-term self-interest to behave in an unethical way. Likewise, if a business does harm and violates the rights of an individual, they can be sued and go to prison. So while I agree with your statement, I hope I clarified it in principle. "just as the state-sacrifice model of communism does not make it evil." As I explained above, it does make it evil. To me, this is very obvious. Self-sacrifice is easily proven to be to the destructive to man's life. Just as anything rational that further's man life is good... anything that destroys man's life is evil. It is not in man's nature to serve others. We are INDIVIDUALS, not some collective. We do not exist to bring about the happiness others. We exist for ourselves. The very idea that man should self-sacrifice is totally against man's nature, just as it's against the mouse's nature to fly or balloon filled only with sand to float in the air. Yes, someone can choose to self-sacrifice, but this is not in man's best interest. It does not further his life. It only brings about his destruction. People follow altruism - self-sacrifice - because it's taught to them. They are educated and raised to believe it and practice it, but it is not natural, and that's why it is impossible to live up to, and why nobody has ever lived up to it. "This is based upon the premise that it is possible to earn possessions or other property with one's labour." Huh? I'm not following you. If a man owns some wood and tools, and then makes a chair with his own mind, and his own materials... is the chair also not his? Why does anyone else other than the man that produced it have a claim to it? He may choose to sell the chair, or give it away voluntarily, but if he doesn't, the chair is his own and nobody is entitled to it. "This is neither true nor false, it is an assumption, one upon which capitalist values are based." I do not start with the idea of capitalism and then work backwards to justify it. I actually taking facts about reality - the idea that we are individuals, that we have free will, that we have rights to life, property, liberty, pursuit of happiness, etc.... and then conclude that capitalism would be the only moral system of government to promote human life and freedom. These are not just the values that capitalism is based, but it's the system that is best suited for man's nature. "Communist values are based upon the idea that there is an intrinsic value to labour which cannot be measured in goods, property or currency." The labour theory of value was actually debunked before the bolshevik revolution began. In fact, economists of the time debunked it even before Marx died in 1883. The only person who actually believed it was Lenin, and every communist afterwards. It was NEVER based on proof. "This is also an assumption. There is no proof that one is right and the other is wrong, it is about choices." Actually, this is really not true. Read above. As for Laissez-faire capitalism, there is actually mountains of philosophers who have proved that capitalism is in fact moral, and would be the the most moral system of government ever devised by man. Ayn Rand would easily come to mind as the fore-front of making the best moral case for Laissez-faire capitalism. It is, ironically, the only one we have not actually tried. "I'm not sure what to make of this statement. I do find it ironic that you are a fan of DS9 which makes a big huff about how it avoids these kinds of black and white statements." Example: If someone comes over to steal $1000 from you, and you negotiate it down to $1, did good win? Of course not. Evil still won, even if only $1 was stolen. In fact, you've just encouraged more theft in the future. Who's to say more and more people won't come over to take $1 too? And if they could get $1, why not $2? $4? When does it end? While it's hard to accept, there is compromise between good and evil. Evil wins. "I agree that no country is capable of practising "pure" anything. as I said, these are theories which, when implemented in the real world, must factor in an host of conditions which "impurify" the system." The best way to ensure that a country stays true is to limit government's power to only protect the rights of individuals. That's it. Pure Communism would even be worse than 75% communism, which is worse than %50 communism, and so on. Any system of government that violates the rights of individuals, no matter how small or big, is evil. And yes, that pretty much includes every form of government we ever tried. But we're working on it. In early United States, they got it *close*. Maybe in another 50 or 100 years when everything goes to hell, perhaps we'll try it finally. It only took 8000 years or so to get there. "I feel I must point out that no economic system guarantees anyone's liberties or freedoms" True. Some people will starve. Theft will still happen. Murder will still happen. The real question is... is the system promote immoral behaviour or not. Capitalism is the only system that does not. And note, under capitalism, people do get sued and go to jail for violating other's rights. When people use force or fraud against others, it should be met with force. That is the only time force is to be used. I am not suggesting a perfect utopia by any means. This is not possible. But why choose a system of government that is evil by design for? This is stupid.

Okay, I'm going to try one more time; if you don't get it, I give up. First of all, you are operating under another assumption, which is that the way people behave "naturally" is automatically THE GOOD and that if they are taught some value which is different, it is THE EVIL. I don't agree, but that doesn't really matter. What matters is that this is an ASSUMPTION. It is an axiom for a belief. You believe that capitalism is generally good because it conforms to the aforementioned assumptions ("good" assumptions). All I ask for now is that you admit this much. Unless you're a bible thumper or something, theft in itself is not an evil action. Robin Hood would never have been written if there weren't doubt about this. It's always about context. A socialist believes that it is actually good to steal from a rich person and give to a poor one because we are not animals in a Darwinistic competition to out-survive one another (or at least we shouldn't be). You don't have to agree, but it is a matter of perspective. There is no simple answer to this. This is why a drama like Star Trek is so powerful when done well, these questions are what propel humanity forward. If there were a simple quick-fix to the world's problems, life would be pretty meaningless. You state over and over again that it is not "in our nature," etc. etc. Aptly, I am reminded of the myth Chakotay tells Janeway about the Scorpion: "I couldn't help it; it's my nature." Seven of Nine becomes the very test of that truism. Our nature is not fixed in stone, altruism IS a natural state of human existence sometimes, given the right conditions. This is part of the complexity of society, something all other animals (and certainly inanimate objects like balloons) lack. It is humanity's compassion, intelligence and altruism which the Star Trek universe expands upon (it does not invent them out of thin air). I am NOT advocating communism per sæ. I don't want that to become our debate. You have not come close to proving that communism is evil. Don't get me started on Rand. She reminds me of DS9--she sings one note over and over again and has to make 2-dimensional characters (all but her übermensch that is) to make her point. People who advocate Rand do so only because they agree with her. This is puerile, reactionary bigotry. I enjoy "The Fountainhead" even though I disagree with its political philosophy, because it contains Rand's only insightful view of a part of the human condition in the artistic impetus of Howard Roarke. The labour theory is no "debunkable." It may be impractical under most conditions (maybe even all conditions), but it is a theory of value, not a science. It's not as though it must work or not work, it is a principle, a moral. This "good wins, evil wins" nonsense is frankly a little disturbing. Such a grossly polarised view of anything is certainly immoral if anything is. What rights do individuals possess? Well that's a question of a socio-political nature. In modern countries, these rights are specifically outlined in constitutions. China has them as well as the USA. They are different rights, so Chinese and Americans have different rights as individuals. If and when the constitutions change or are removed, those peoples' rights will change. So if a country's economic practices violate the rights afforded individuals by the state, indeed the economy is incompatible with the society. This is closer to being called "evil," but it still operates under the premise that the charter of rights is intrinsically "good" which may or may not be true. I'm vaguely amused at the notion that we keep trying economic systems on like shoes or perfume. Economics are always in flux, over time in difficult and often schismatic ways, humanity's altruistic faculties have overpowered to a degree its selfish ones, but there will always be a tension between them. Star Trek chooses to believe that specifically a major catastrophe and dissolution of structure (Star Trek VIII) will result in a revolutionary degree of change in this same direction. This is a fantasy and contrivance meant to encapsulate the notion of humanity's potential in a single event, thus creating an allegory. And allegories are what drama needs to tell stories and create emotional resonance. Final note: if any philosopher had ever "proved" anything, there would be no more philosophy on the subject. This has never happened and is unlikely to occur.

"First of all, you are operating under another assumption, which is that the way people behave "naturally" is automatically THE GOOD and that if they are taught some value which is different, it is THE EVIL. [...] What matters is that this is an ASSUMPTION. It is an axiom for a belief. You believe that capitalism is generally good because it conforms to the aforementioned assumptions ("good" assumptions). All I ask for now is that you admit this much." Yes, I am operating under this premise, but I don't take it as an axiom. It is not a primary that my logic is based on, but actually one of the larger blocks. Let me try to explain in the smallest amount of text possible, as it's my fault not going through the primaries and just starting with higher level conclusions in the first place. Human beings have consciousness. We have the ability to abstract, to form concepts, to apprehend reality using our faculty of reason. Reason is not automatic, we have to choose to use it. At every moment in one's life, we can make choices. One of the most fundamental choices we have is life and death, and the most basic tool we have to help us is reason. If we choose life, we do things that we think will prolong it (i.e bring about our surival and our prosperity). If we don't choose life... or we fail in our thought process, than we die. Life is the rational standard of value, and it's a value that all volitional living orgasms have. Essentially, things that seek to further our life are good, and things that seek to destory or oppose or threaten our life are evil. Since life is the ultimate standard of value, we must have a right to pursue that value. If we don't have that right, we are essentially forced to act against our own self-interest and our own life. Essentially, we would be forced to do somethign which is evil, because evil seeks to destory our life. Therefore, we must have the right to life (which is the good) and nobody else has the authority to violate this right. It would be massive contradiction in terms to say, "Yeah, I'm a human being and life is my ultimate standard of value, but I'm going to kill another human being because I choose to not recognize his ultimate standard of value too." This is not at all rational. It's hypocritical. All other rights, like the right to property, the right to pursue happiness, etc. stem from the basic right to your own life, because these are necessary to support your life. It is the only implementation of your right to your own life. For example, if you have no food and must go hunting, and then just after you cook the meal someone steals your food... how can you live? If they continually steal your food over and over for days, you'll eventually not have the strength to hunt any more, and you'll eventually die. (Let's just ignore alterantive food sources, and blah blah... they can steal those too). What if they just lock you up in a cage until you starve? The thieves in this case are Evil, because they're opposing your right to life. So you must have the right to your own actions and productive efforts (whether that's hunting, making a chair, or building a fortune 500 company). There can't be any other way to implement your right to life if you don't also have the right to property. So, this is what I mean by man's nature. Of course, I'm over-simplifying as it is, because this is a focused crash course in metaphysics, epistomology, ethics and even politics. Point is, when a socialist claims that it is "good" to steal property and give it to someone else, he is wrong and is evil because he seeks to destory or oppose my right to life. It's really that simple. ------------------------------------ "Unless you're a bible thumper or something, theft in itself is not an evil action. Robin Hood would never have been written if there weren't doubt about this. It's always about context." I am an athiest. And I agree, theft is not always evil. I never said it was. But in the context of taking someone's produced goods or earnings, then theft in this case is definitely evil. If someone were to steal my property through the use of force, I have every right to retalite by force to take it back. Of course, in modern society we give these rights to government so they do it for us, but if there were no government, we would have to operate on this right ourselves. The same is true if you kill someone is self-defense. Once a man uses force, you can only respond with force. If he's trying to violate your right to life, and you have to end his life to perserve your own, so be it. His irrationality to attack you in the first brought it on himself. Anyway, so I am not context dropping in my earlier discussions about theft. The context was communism after all, and it would be equally true if one person refused to work and watched TV while still collecting welfare checks from his productive fellow citizens. ------------------------------------ "A socialist believes that it is actually good to steal from a rich person and give to a poor one because we are not animals in a Darwinistic competition to out-survive one another (or at least we shouldn't be)." I would argue that the socialist is wrong because what gives him the right to steal from the rich man in the first place? Did the rich man do anything wrong? Why is he being punished? Why does he not have the ability to give his consent? Also, even if you ignore that, why is it even desirable to make sure nobody out-survives anyone in the first place? Are you saying everyone must live to be the same age? Are we really 100% equal regardless of merit, productive achievements, intellect, effort, etc? Of course not. This is absurd. It is completely contrary to idea of justice. You see, socialistic ideas simply fall apart. They don't make any sense at all. The socialist can believe it all he wants, that doesn't make him right or his ideas good. ------------------------------------ "You don't have to agree, but it is a matter of perspective. There is no simple answer to this." I guess we'll have to disagree here. I think it's pretty clear-cut honestly. ------------------------------------ "This is why a drama like Star Trek is so powerful when done well, these questions are what propel humanity forward. If there were a simple quick-fix to the world's problems, life would be pretty meaningless." I agree with this. Debate is definitely healthy, especially if we can come to a truth. This is ultimately the most important thing - to seek truth. It's how I come to a lot of the ideas I am advocating. I used to think altruistically in many cases... and I used to completely believe in the vision projected by Star Trek at one time. I was heavily abused as a child, which really muddled with my thinking as an adult, and so did education systems and a variety of other experiences. I now think differently because evidence and logic has given me new truths to replace the old ones. I choose to think. ------------------------------------ "You state over and over again that it is not "in our nature," etc. etc. Aptly, I am reminded of the myth Chakotay tells Janeway about the Scorpion: "I couldn't help it; it's my nature. Seven of Nine becomes the very test of that truism." I actually 100% agree with what you said here. An animal's nature is pretty simple and predictable. The reason, in a nutshell, is that they don't have free will. Since the Borg didn't have free will, I think it is fair to postulate, does a severed borg retain their nature as well? This was a fantastic episode by the way ;) However (like the episode concludes), humanity is very different because not only are we not pre-programmed with lots of knowledge and behaviours like animals, but we were given free will too. We were also given the ability to think and learn, and the ability to use logic and reason to achieve our values. Ironically, logic and reason must be a conscious choice. We also have no idea what values to pursue either. We must choose those as well. This is the essence of what it means to be an individual. And ironically, for a show that is very collectivist, Voyager made some fantastic cases for individualism (See, I said something good about Voyager!) ------------------------------------ "Our nature is not fixed in stone, altruism IS a natural state of human existence sometimes, given the right conditions." No, altruism is a choice, just as anything else. Not only that, it was an invention by man. Man had to make it up... and ever since, it is proven time and again to be destructive to one-self and to others. And I do want to be clear, I don't think generousity and charity is equivalent to altruism. Absolutely not! A man can be 100% rationally selfish and still decide to give his money or his time away to charity or to someone he cares about. If I had cancer and I was a billionaire, do you not think I may choose to donate money to cancer research, which may actually help thousands or millions of people? If my wife died to cancer, do you think I might have a selfish desire to make sure cancer doesn't take the life of anyone else? I very well might. I know a woman who is very generous, and she may even say she's altruistic... but I know she wouldn't do these things if it meant that she had to sacrifice herself, her property, her well-being, etc. She just wouldn't. When I say altruism, I really do mean the sacrificial part - the part where a man believes he can only live for other people and not himself... because if he does, he will then feel massive amounts of guilt and shame. This entire line of thinking is 100% educated and taught by churches, schools, parents, governments, etc. A child out of the womb does not know any of this. ------------------------------------ "It is humanity's compassion, intelligence and altruism which the Star Trek universe expands upon (it does not invent them out of thin air)." I agree that Star Trek takes these ideas and expands upon them, but all I am saying is that the form of government and way of life in Star Trek has no logical basis, and in principle, is proven to be immoral. Simply, the writers made it up. It's not like they hired the top philosopher's in the world to build them a philosophy that made sense (not like they actually did when it came to explaining the science aspects of the show)... because if they had, their form of government and type of society would be totally different than what is actually presented in the series. Basically, Star Trek really is fiction and it is not something to hope for because it really cannot exist as presented. If it were attempted, it would just end up as communism. ------------------------------------ "I am NOT advocating communism per sæ. I don't want that to become our debate. You have not come close to proving that communism is evil." Okay, I give up on this then. To me, it makes perfect sense. ------------------------------------ "Don't get me started on Rand." I don't agree with everything rand thought. I think her ideas on intectual property were probably wrong. I actually think most or all of her ideas on sex and relationships were wrong too. Clearly wrong. Still, her books are art, not reality. She wanted to communicate concepts easily and clearly, because this is what she defined art to be. A lot of her characters represent different ideas and how they will play out, but her books on actual philosophy had much more depth and information than the novels. ------------------------------------ "The labour theory is no "debunkable." It may be impractical under most conditions (maybe even all conditions), but it is a theory of value, not a science. It's not as though it must work or not work, it is a principle, a moral." Just as a thought, what good is a theory if it has no practical basis in reality? To me, if you can't prove a theory in the realm of reality, then it's debunked. I mean, what use is it other than to say, "Yeah, this is how we NOT do it." ------------------------------------ "This "good wins, evil wins" nonsense is frankly a little disturbing. Such a grossly polarised view of anything is certainly immoral if anything is." Not really what I said. There is NO compromise between good and evil. If such a compromise happened, evil would win. If someone is seeking to destroy your life, even a little, does it not succeed? On the other hand. there can be compromise between 2 rational ideas. This is perfectly fine. ------------------------------------ "What rights do individuals possess?" First the right to life, then the right to property. all other rights like the right to pursue happiness, the right to liberty, etc. stem from those. ------------------------------------ "Well that's a question of a socio-political nature. In modern countries, these rights are specifically outlined in constitutions." I do think we have inalienable rights that surpass whatever government wants to give us. I also don't think government can add rights - like the right to have a home - either. It works both ways. Is it not convenient for a government to say, "Well, it's in our expert opinion that you have a right to property..." That is immoral. You can make any evil policy legal, but that doesn't make it moral. This is why a moral government will outline a constitution that is actually 100% consistent with the rights that man actually has, and not anything different. ------------------------------------ "China has them as well as the USA. They are different rights, so Chinese and Americans have different rights as individuals. If and when the constitutions change or are removed, those peoples' rights will change. So if a country's economic practices violate the rights afforded individuals by the state, indeed the economy is incompatible with the society. This is closer to being called "evil," but it still operates under the premise that the charter of rights is intrinsically "good" which may or may not be true." Frankly, I don't disagree with any of this, but I don't government is in a position to say what is good from what isn't. It's proven to be an evil institution from day one in all cases of human civilization, some more than others. ------------------------------------ "I'm vaguely amused at the notion that we keep trying economic systems on like shoes or perfume." I never said this. I said we come up with lots of different systems to explain human economic behaviour, but we don't practice what these systems say. The systems just attempt at modeling what acutally happens in reality. Kansian economics, for example, is completely messed up and austrian economics has many good ideas. ------------------------------------ "Star Trek chooses to believe that specifically a major catastrophe and dissolution of structure (Star Trek VIII) will result in a revolutionary degree of change in this same direction." And that's fine, but I disagree with their premise. If such a catastrophe were to happen, just like our recent financial collapse or how both of our world wars were funded, we'd see that government intervention, government regulation and governments violating the rights of individuals were the problem in all of the cases - not capitalism. What I don't understand is that the fictional people in Star Trek choose a form of government that is entirely consistent with the evil governments that have already existed and have been proven to be evil. It's pretty hard to "live long and prosper" when your form of government is opposing some individual's right to life. Okay, time for bed. LOL.

Oh, I meant to say: Is it not convenient for a government to say, "Well, it's in our expert opinion that you DON'T have a right to property..." That is immoral. You can make any evil policy legal, but that doesn't make it moral.

Against my better judgement... "At every moment in one's life, we can make choices. One of the most fundamental choices we have is life and death, and the most basic tool we have to help us is reason. If we choose life, we do things that we think will prolong it (i.e bring about our surival and our prosperity). If we don't choose life... or we fail in our thought process, than we die." I'm sorry but the contradictoriness of this is glaring; at both ends of one's life, the ability to "choose life" is nonexistent. As very old people, we can choose all we like, and we're still going to die (if not sooner in some accident), and of course as infants we are ENTIRELY dependent upon the charity (call it altruism, whatever) of others. Now, everyone has heard about the theory that parents sacrifice for their children because it ensures the continuation of the species. Fine. But it is still a selfless act brought on by a natural, uncoerced or taught, simply acted upon. Your hunting allegory is preposterous; of course if the hunter's food were stolen in its entirety day after day, they would die. However, what if the hunter's EXCESS food were "stolen"? In other words, let's say the hunter caught more food than he needed; all he and is family need is left them, but the excess is given to a family which could not hunt enough to feed itself... I'm going to stop pin-pointing here...I just realised it's pretty useless with you--the point is, you are of the opinion that certain there are certain absolutes about the Universe and our species, etc which you can never prove, simply state that they "are" and leave it at that--this is akin to a religious belief, which I will not attempt to argue with you. TNG was able to give us a realistic (at least socio-politically) picture of what society looks like in what cynics today call "Utopia," and VOY showed us what that life would mean outside the safety of a powerful infrastructure. You don't have to like it, but to say it's "been proven evil" is absurd. There are numerous examples in all the Treks which show people who are misfits, as is impossible to avoid in any society, but misfits, even many of them does not justify labeling the system as evil. There is nothing innate in a right to property. We aren't born with it, it is given to us by someone, we have no natural rights to it. There is no ground on which you can say that a property-uncentred society is implicitly immoral. Governments (good ones, and certainly the Federation) don't lay a claim to "good" or "evil"--simply what is legal. In all cases those laws are based on principles. In the USA, those principles are based on a free-market, individual-centred conception of the world, the Federation is based on the notion of mutual coöperation, work-centred existence and esoteric fulfilment. Neither is evil or immoral, they simply differ from one another.

"This is wrong. If a system advocates that the theft of someone's property to give to someone else, then that system is immoral, and is evil." This is simply question-begging nonsense. It's only true if you already accept that property exists, and that owning property is good. You have to accept a capitalist world view from the get-go to accept this point as valid. What if your belief system has an axiom that states that "property is theft"? From that viewpoint, naturally, any system which posits the accumulation of more and more property as a goal will be seen as clearly evil. But then, I wouldn't expect anyone to concede the argument before they had begun.

"This is simply question-begging nonsense. It's only true if you already accept that property exists" Existence exists, and we have consciousness that perceives what exists. These are the 2 basic axioms of philosophy. What else is more basic than that? "and that owning property is good." Owning property for the sake of owning property is not automatically good. Who said that? However, if one is to have the right to their own life, they must also have the right to property as they need keep the productive efforts of their actions to sustain and self-actuate their own life, which IS good. "You have to accept a capitalist world view from the get-go to accept this point as valid." No. The capitalistic world view comes after man's rights. Politics is an advanced concept in philosophy, well after Metaphysics, Epistemology, etc. and the capitalistic world view is even more advanced as it's built on top of politics. It does not work the other way around. "What if your belief system has an axiom that states that "property is theft"?" It was never an axiom, and that is not what was said. If you steal property from someone, and they have deemed that property to further their own life (food, water, clothing, money, etc.), it is wrong to deny them the right to sustain and self-actuate their own life. "From that viewpoint, naturally, any system which posits the accumulation of more and more property as a goal will be seen as clearly evil." Statements are not in a vacuum. You must understand the context.

"'This is wrong. If a system advocates that the theft of someone's property to give to someone else, then that system is immoral, and is evil.' "This is simply question-begging nonsense. It's only true if you already accept that property exists, and that owning property is good. You have to accept a capitalist world view from the get-go to accept this point as valid." Paul: A world without the existence of property is impossible in practical terms. That kind of world would mean that anyone could choose to sleep in "your" bed tonight because, hey, the bed doesn't belong to anyone! They might choose to not do that because it would mean that YOU could sleep in THEIRS, which they would probably equally not like. But ultimately it all reverts to YOURS and NOT YOURS. Not only, therefore, is such a world impossible; it is also undesirable. We acquire property by and large to make our lives more comfortable. If there is no notion of acquisition, then what exactly would be the motivation for doing anything other than surviving? To improve the whole humanity? But why would I work my skin to the bone and then have someone who did nothing enjoy the fruits of my labor as much as I (as would inevitably happen)? Capitalism is castigated as being "unfair," but would THIS kind of system be fair? It seems to me it would be much more iniquitous than capitalism has ever been.

Michael, I agree with much have said. I would also contend further that nobody could even survive let alone be comfortable without the right to property, as it is necessary to own property to self-sustain and self-actuate your own life. For example, if you had no rights to property but still had the right to life, people could constantly take your food and you would starve to death, thus violating your right to life. That is why the right to property comes after the right to life philosophically. As for capitalism, it is the most just and fair social system I can think of, because it's based on merit and productive output. In order to succeed in capitalistic society, you have to produce things of value to others. Obviously the looters and parasites in society who think they have a right to food, a home and a well-paying job would not do well in this type of social system. But it would really be just and fair if they should perish in it. As long as people profit without violating the rights of others, it is just that they become rich if they deserve it. After all, justice really is just getting what you deserve. If you kill someone or steal, you should be punished... and if you invent a computer or an airplane or build a massive skyscraper, you should be rewarded. I can't think of any fairer social system. A lot of people think America is a capitalistic society, but it isn't. Without getting too much into today's politics, America hasn't lived under anything close to real capitalism in about 100 years since the Federal Reserve was created... and slowly but surely, it's become highly socialized and a borderline police state. What we have now is not capitalism... but a sort of crony capitalism... and in some cases, outright fascism. It's really too bad Star Trek tries to link the Ferengi ideas of acquiring wealth and property as immoral. The writers do such a blatant job to poison the viewers about what capitalism really is. They writers go out of their way to link making profit with slavery, paying low wages, treating women badly, bribing people, plotting and scheming just to make a buck, etc.... and that's not at all what capitalism is about. I like Star Trek, but this entire philosophy that we do without money and property has caused me to stop loving it like I used to - back before I understood these things. I only wished the writers actually challenged this premise... but I guess that wouldn't be very "Star Trek" of them :/

@Michael Your analogy is very simple-minded and hardly something on which to base a theory of impossibility. There have been many cultures in which there is no such thing as "my bed" and "your bed". They simply slept where they slept that night. It's hard to imagine for us because the idea of mine v. yours is so entrenched. I'm not necessarily advocating either viewpoint, simply pointing out that your conclusions stem from close-mindedness and don't really adress the issue. @Ken Seriously, you talk about your educating in capitalism like an epiphanic moment...it's disturbing. Education and economics operate on a continuum and are always in flux. Try to step out of your narrow little corner once in a while.

Ken: That's Star Trek for you. I like the entire franchise and I still remember skipping school to watch Next Generation when I was about 7 years old. Never cared much for the Original Series (which I saw later) or DS9. But anyway, the thing has always promoted wooly, liberal dogma, most of which I never had much of a problem with. What I find amusing is that the pursuit of riches is usually decried either by those who are filthy rich (such as the liberal Hollywood elite a la the Voyager scriptwriters) or by those who are dirt poor (for whatever reason but usually because they either screwed up somewhere or because they're still in education and never did much real-world work). Those who have spent at least a year or two working are quite happy with the "evil" capitalist (or pseudo-capitalist, if you will) system system, even if they may have had more radical, quixotic notions back when they were in college. ---------------------------------------- Elliott: "Your analogy is very simple-minded and hardly something on which to base a theory of impossibility. There have been many cultures in which there is no such thing as "my bed" and "your bed". They simply slept where they slept that night." Yes, usually on the ground by a fire; they didn't have anything--individually or communally--TO sleep on or in. As soon as societies advanced enough by discovering or inventing items of worth vis-a-vis the quality of life, the notion of property closely followed. My chosen example is simple on purpose. If the system being advanced fails at the "where-do-I-sleep-tonight" hurdle, then any further discussion about it is not worth pursuing. "[I am] simply pointing out that your conclusions stem from close-mindedness and don't really adress the issue." What IS the issue? I hardly think it is closed-minded to rejec a philosophy, which appears to not have even theoretical merit. And now if you will excuse me, I will go watch Escape From Alcatraz on my Dell Inspiron One touchscreen, which IS mine, for which *I* worked, and which I do NOT want to share with the rest of the world.

It's rather funny that I should come across this today considering the discussion we are having: www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6J730PqBik&feature=player_embedded

"What IS the issue? I hardly think it is closed-minded to rejec a philosophy, which appears to not have even theoretical merit." Exactly. I think the fact that I have come to the conclusions I have is because my mind was active in the first place. I do not think all philosophies have merit or can be true - we have the ability to reason and apply logic... we need to use it to figure out which is valid from what isn't... and most of the philosophies (fascism, socialism, communism, etc.) are proven to be wrong. I will not "open" my mind to taking things on faith like Elliot seems to imply that we should. Logic is the only way of obtaining knowledge, and proper use of logic says the fantasy told in Star Trek would never work, as it has never worked in the past and doesn't work in theory either.

Bear in mind if you would that 1) property, law and liberty existed before Locke and his co-philosophers in market economics 2) all philosophies to some extent are borne of their respective ages what your goofy little video fails to point out is that the ownership of property assumes that men work for their survival. In Locke's time, for example, this was more or less true (although ironically his time also saw a class of regal decadents who never worried about it, as well as a much larger class which could hardly guarantee its survival even working their very lives out of them). In our time, we certainly have similar needs to men of any other time, but in the 21st century, our technological abilities actual allow us to feed and house the entire over-populated planet without expecting an hour's work from more than a relative handful of people. Now, I'm not suggesting that the remainder of the populace be permitted to sit around and do nothing with their lives, but the game has changed: we no longer NEED to look out for our survival, it's guaranteed by virtue of our genius. Our political systems however circumvent this fact by establishing and enforcing what are now out-moded archaic ideas about property. Locke's philosophy (and those of this cohorts) made sense for their time and represent the fruits of a particular age, but it is naïve and self-defeating to conserve their application to a time whose contexts and realities are different. Going a step further, the hypothesis of Star Trek is that continued technological advancement, along with intellectual enlightenment, along with political revolution would eventually force the issue into a philosophical change in political discourse wherein our technological abilities service a social behaviour which does not centre around survival. Thus, man's work becomes a means to a different end, or perhaps an end unto itself. Either way, I do not imply or suggest that you, Ken, take anything on "faith." I suggest you step away from the position that your philosophical "discoveries" (which as your video points out were made by better men hundreds of years ago) have presented your with an absolute and irrefutable Truth. Such things do not exist, there is a always a moment of flux, an unseen dimension, an uncharted corner of the universe, both physical and mental, which we must explore. Trekkian ideals are not the end of intellectual evolution, simply the next (theoretical) phase of it. After it, who can guess what should follow? I would wager that a science-fiction author would be the first to think of it though.

Stop right here: "In our time, we certainly have similar needs to men of any other time, but in the 21st century, our technological abilities actual allow us to feed and house the entire over-populated planet without expecting an hour's work from more than a relative handful of people." Are you volunteering? Should we force them to feed the whole population? Who decides on who produces food from who plays video games or develops computer software? "Now, I'm not suggesting that the remainder of the populace be permitted to sit around and do nothing with their lives, but the game has changed: we no longer NEED to look out for our survival, it's guaranteed by virtue of our genius." Wrong again. It wasn't YOUR genius. YOU had nothing to do with whatever you are talking about. We are a group of individuals responsible for our own failures and accomplishments... not collective takes credit for the accomplishments of everyone. And I have to ask... what caused humanity to be in a position where more of its population can focus on other things besides the production of food? Oh... that's right! It was man's ability to create new technologies to earn profit and accomplishment! Without that incentive, we wouldn't have what we have in the first place. It seems odd to abandon it so easily now that we "have" it. As for Locke, I never heard of him until today, nor do I claim that he was right or wrong because I have not done any research. However, Ayn Rand and many others have discussed property and I their conclusions are not "archaic". They make perfect sense and completely rational.

Why am I not surprised that Ms. Rand came into this discussion... Look, that ugly woman wrote one book over and over again which touts bits and pieces of others' philosophies into a poor excuse for drama. The philosophies on which she bases her characters are not meritless by any means, but arguing Ayn Rand as a philosopher is like arguing Brandon Braga as a physicist. You seem to be implying that because a certain individual or group over time created the technologies which allow for social change they are entitled to...I don't know, get MORE MONEY!!! HHAHAHA That's like saying that if I cook a meal for a group of people, buy the ingredients and serve them I should get to eat more than anybody else. Most would call this tactless and strange. I would also call it archaic and unnecessary. So long as I, like everyone else eat my fill of the meal, I don't need anything else EXCEPT that in turn, everyone I serve treat me courteously, and offer of their own geniuses with generosity, even if they could never hope to feed a group as large as I have. My selfish impulses may desire a recompense, but those can be taught out of me, just like good manners should. If you're going to respond, maybe do a little bit of research, my friend. While I admire your tenacity and honesty, you cannot expect to be taken seriously if you don't know what you're talking about.

"Look, that ugly woman wrote one book over and over again which touts bits and pieces of others' philosophies into a poor excuse for drama. The philosophies on which she bases her characters are not meritless by any means, but arguing Ayn Rand as a philosopher is like arguing Brandon Braga as a physicist." So attacking her looks and her character is the first place you start a rational argument? While she did build one some aspects of Aristotle, etc., it's not as if she didn't understand it. On the contrary, she built an entire philosophy from the ground up from the 2 basic axioms of philosophy, and proved everything. She was the first to solve many philosophical problems that have not been solved and have not been solved since, like the is-ought dichotomy and many others. And she did complete a philosophy. Atlus Shrugged was not her philosophy, but a work on fiction with many aspects of her philosophy built in. "You seem to be implying that because a certain individual or group over time created the technologies which allow for social change they are entitled to...I don't know, get MORE MONEY!!! HHAHAHA" What? I don't know where to begin when you say things like this. I implied no such thing. I simply stated that it wasn't YOUR genius that was responsible for the technologies people have developed to make it possible for more and more people to pursue other forms of productive work. "That's like saying that if I cook a meal for a group of people, buy the ingredients and serve them I should get to eat more than anybody else." What does this have to do with ANYTHING I have said? It has nothing to do with it. However, if you bought all the ingredients and you cooked the meal, it is your choice whether you want to share it with anyone or not. If you want a bigger portion, it's certainly your right. Nobody has a say on what you can and can't do with your own food. If you don't want to give it to anyone else, then that's perfectly fine. "My selfish impulses may desire a recompense, but those can be taught out of me, just like good manners should." Are you assuming that being selfish is somehow bad or immoral? It isn't. Human beings must do what is in their rational, long-term self-interest for their own survival and happiness. The very fact that you admit you have selfish desires is perfectly normal, because it is part of human nature. There is absolutely no need to "rise above it" - this is foolish. "If you're going to respond, maybe do a little bit of research, my friend. While I admire your tenacity and honesty, you cannot expect to be taken seriously if you don't know what you're talking about. " On the contrary, most of you posted is jumping to conclusions and making incorrect assumptions... not to mention character assassination without really using facts or logic to back up your points.

A person can be of the highest order of physical attractiveness and still be "ugly." I did not criticise her appearance, but her character as a human, which was ugly. Scientific theories can be proved (some of them). Genealogies can be proved. Mathematical theorems can be proved. Philosophies by their very nature cannot be proved. They are a series of rationalisations based on a context, a perspective or a principle. I don't know what it means if she "solved philosophical problems" that no one has since also solved... Atlas Shrugged is a poor resource for absorbing her philosophical points (weak though they are); try "The Virtue of Selfishness." Brandon Braga also understands something about physics, but when put to the test of utilising his knowledge, his knowledge falls short. Your opinion that it is my right to demand more of what is "mine" is exactly my point to you; yes it is natural and normal to be selfish. It is also natural and normal to desire sexual intercourse with many people, strike people with whom I have an argument, ignore my responsibilities, etc. Without learnt behaviours of social conduct, I would fall prey to these instincts. It is possible to survive in such a manor if society allowed room for it, but the rules dictate otherwise. There is no reason a different set of rules could not demand different behaviours. We must "rise above" many natural instincts if we are to make progress as a species. In fact, we already have risen above many of our natural instincts to the betterment of man. This is not to say we don't lose something in that evolution: no one including myself is implying that anything is free, but species that do not change die. You never did answer the implied question about the developments which "make it possible for more and more people to pursue other forms of productive work." It is NOT perfectly fine that I selfishly keep my food from others for no reason other than my whim. Rationality can mean many things. Long-term can mean many things. One can easily argue that rationalism would lead one to devote one's resources to the creation of a society in which one can pursue fulfilment without paranoid fear in losing one's property to others.

and for the record, I believe consciousness, existence and self-identity are three axioms of Objectivism, not two.

"A person can be of the highest order of physical attractiveness and still be "ugly." I did not criticise her appearance, but her character as a human, which was ugly." Sure, but if you have come to conclusion that she's wrong, how relevant is her level of attractiveness then? It has no relevance. So why bother mentioning it? The only reason I can think of is to move away from the facts - a debate tactic. Even the fact that we are now talking about Ms. Rand and not the real issues of this debate is somewhat of a tactic to derail it. "Philosophies by their very nature cannot be proved. They are a series of rationalisations based on a context, a perspective or a principle." This is incorrect. She starts with 2 axioms. The first is that existence exists, and the second is the one has consciousness that perceives which exists. From there, she proves everything in metaphysics, epistemology, etc. all the way to politics and capitalism. She wasn't right about everything (her conclusions about sex and relationships didn't make a whole lot of sense), but her fundamentals are incredibly well thought out and I haven't heard of a single argument that disproves them. "Atlas Shrugged is a poor resource for absorbing her philosophical points (weak though they are); try "The Virtue of Selfishness." Brandon Braga also understands something about physics, but when put to the test of utilising his knowledge, his knowledge falls short." I agree, It is fiction, not a philosophy book. I actually ALREADY said this... so why bother bringing this up for? What made you think that I had read only Atlus Shrugged? There we go with the assumptions. I have read most of her work, especially Virtue of Selfishness and many others. I've also read Leonard Peikoff's book on Objectivism as well. "Your opinion that it is my right to demand more of what is "mine" is exactly my point to you;" It is not my "opinion" or "belief" - it is fact. If you buy a hamberger at mcdonalds, you absolutely do not have to share it through the use of force. However, you CAN decide to share it if sharing that hamberger is in your rational, long-term self-interest. Only YOU can decide this. No government or individual can decide this for you. "yes it is natural and normal to be selfish. It is also natural and normal to desire sexual intercourse with many people, strike people with whom I have an argument, ignore my responsibilities, etc." You're doing some leaping here. If you have responsibilities that are in your rational, long-term self-interest to do, then you should do them. It is not natural one way or another to ignore or do them - this is a matter of free will. Free will is in our nature - laziness is not. "Without learnt behaviours of social conduct, I would fall prey to these instincts. It is possible to survive in such a manor if society allowed room for it, but the rules dictate otherwise." The measure of whatever an individual should or shouldn't do something can only be determined if it is in their rational, long-term self-interest. Having sexual intercourse with lots of random people is probably not in your rational, long-term interest... simply because more than half of the population has a disease of some kind, there is the chance of pregnancy which would go against your long-term self-interest, and many other consequences that would seek to have a negative impact on your life. Being selfish is actually really hard, because it does not mean being impulsive or making decisions based on emotion, which I am guessing is your assumption. This is simply not correct. "It is NOT perfectly fine that I selfishly keep my food from others for no reason other than my whim. Rationality can mean many things. Long-term can mean many things. One can easily argue that rationalism would lead one to devote one's resources to the creation of a society in which one can pursue fulfilment without paranoid fear in losing one's property to others. " Only YOU can determine what you want to share and who you want to share it with. Every man determines their own values, and cannot leave beyond their own means. If is perfectly rational to not share food if you are poor. It is also perfectly rational to note share food or money with complete strangers whom you do not value in the slightest. On the other hand, it is perfectly rational to share food with your spouse, children, friends and family if you value their company, their well-being, etc. "You never did answer the implied question about the developments which "make it possible for more and more people to pursue other forms of productive work." What implied question?

The law of identity is a corollary to existence. Existence is identity and consciousness is identification.

Elliott: "That's like saying that if I cook a meal for a group of people, buy the ingredients and serve them I should get to eat more than anybody else. Most would call this tactless and strange. I would also call it archaic and unnecessary. So long as I, like everyone else eat my fill of the meal, I don't need anything else EXCEPT that in turn, everyone I serve treat me courteously, and offer of their own geniuses with generosity, even if they could never hope to feed a group as large as I have." So, you DO expect something in return. You expect them to reciprocate with something, even if it's not food or cooking a similar meal in turn. You would like to use something they are, have or create. That's bartering. That's acknowledging the existence of assets and ascribing relative value to them. That's capitalism. Or are you saying that you would be happy to "cook a meal for a group of people, buy the ingredients and serve them" continually? If these are infants, elderly or the infirm, I can understand that. But would you REALLY invest whatever you create or "earn" (insofar as earning is possible when there is no property) over and over again to feed someone who sits under a tree every waking hour while you're digging up the potatoes to feed them later?! Somehow, I doubt that very much. So, I dare assume you would argue that there would need to be some kind of control at some level of who does what. Now: Who exercises that control and on what basis? In any case, that is called a command economy where a more-or-less central entity determines how resources (e.g. manpower) are distributed. I think much of the world tried that in the latter half of the last century, to none too salutary an outcome. The bottom line is this: Are you happy to take any toothbrush lying around to brush your teeth with and are you happy for anyone who so pleases to take "yours"? Yes, it IS that simple! If the answer is no, then you acknowledge the existence and the importance of the existence of property. If yes, then, well, you are part of a tiny minority, which I seriously doubt will ever gather pace for rather obvious reasons.

The law of identity is a corollary to existence. Existence is identity and consciousness is identification. What? Have you ever seen any, even basic mathematical proofs in semi-group theory? Field theory? It's possible to prove that there can only be one identity element in any semi-group - because if you posit that there are two, it's easy to prove that i_1 and i_2 are in fact the same element. But it's certainly possible that there are semi-groups without an identity element - and proving the existence of something within a mathematical structure is often a much harder task than proving stuff about the properties of that thing should it happen to exist in the first place. "Existence is identity" reads like suspiciously woolly thinking to me.

but arguing Ayn Rand as a philosopher is like arguing Brandon Braga as a physicist. OMG...that was so awesome.

Finally found something worse than the episode - some of the comments. Star Trek (except perhaps DS9 or parts of it) is based on a very optimistic/idealistic world where we have become an "enlightened" species who genuinely are all self-motivated and gain real enjoyment from working for the betterment of ourselves / the species / Federation / etc and helping others. It may be difficult to imagine because actually we are NOT enlightened - for one, many are lazy (as strong capitalist advocates are quick to point out when they feel welfare is getting a little generous), and on the other side of the coin many are greedy and selfish (as strong communist advocates are quick to point out when one guy is living in luxury and others are dying of starvation) In their world these things do not exist. We have evolved. It may not seem realistic, but there's nothing wrong with optimism especially in fiction. In an ideal world like Star Trek where everyone is self-motivated (i.e. where the problem of lazy people benefiting from the work of others doesn't arise or if it does it's a very rare exception and possibly considered a mental illness) I see capitalism as the more "evil" system (I'll not get into defining good and evil, but suffice to say it seems to vary between religious and/or socialist views) as the whole thing basically then revolves around deception and tricking others into giving you more wealth because you are more arrogant than the next guy. Don't get me wrong, I don't see capitalism as "evil" in our present form. I actually see our system of mostly capitalism with government regulation as the most fair, though it's a tricky balance that no government so far has really got right (instead one tends to go too far in a particular direction and the opposite government gets voted in for 10 years or so, rinse and repeat - at least in the UK). Without ANY intervention greed would take over and people would be left to die in the streets (not all of them necessarily get there through laziness either and I don't see it that lazy people deserve to die). Not to mention less fortunate countries. At the other end of the scale when it gets overly "left", people sit there taking welfare while everyone else does the hard work. It's all in balance, and fanaticism on either side is stupid IMO. This thing about "stealing" property: to be fair, that is only applicable if you had a concept of property in the first place. This seems to me like a problem that stems from trying to convert a capitalist country into a communist one, which does tend to require these acts of "evil". Star Trek's world developed through World War III, an apocalypse of sorts that destroyed everything and led them to having to rebuild human society from scratch, which is perhaps the only "fair" way it could occur. As it stands capitalism is already the world's foundation, and it can't really be converted. Now then, I've forgotten what the episode was even about! Oh yeah, a very worrying form of mind control where people seem to act perfectly normally, it's like Kes's syndrome in Fury - these people are conscious of their decision to turn "bad" as if it's perfectly rationalised in their own minds. It's not like normal mind control where it's obvious to anyone they're being controlled and opens up a huge can of worms (how many others may have been controlled like this throughout the Marquis or even the Federation?). I prefer not to think about it. It's an episode that wasn't thought out (no surprises there) and is trash. Oh yeah to address an even older point, why we complain. It's not all complaints, sometimes it's high praise! But go and look up what critics do and come back. I'm just participating in comments, maybe a rough amateur critic of sorts, but of course Jammer is a professional critic (well that's how I view him anyway) and this is what they do. Why? Well what are people's motivation for other things: entertainment for others, self enjoyment, perhaps a living. In the case of criticising fiction, perhaps to encourage better quality - many are not consciously aware of what makes good or bad quality fiction, and so the critics speak for them. At the same time I do personally value the views of those who don't think about things so much (even our beloved action junkie :)) as sometimes one tends to over-think things when they're just intended for light entertainment or casual action. For me adding to the comments and adding my own criticism and nitpicks (as well as high praise where it applies) is just something I enjoy doing. If others appreciate my views or offer a reasonable great, if not, fine. If I do complain it's mostly because I know Star Trek's creators were capable of so much more than what they sometimes mindlessly churned out for Voyager. They got complacent in Star Trek's success and became a bit lazy I think, and it's sometimes frustrating. I also think that it became a bit too much of a brand related profit generation exercise instead of all the obvious heartfelt passion that went into most of TNG and DS9. I still watch it though - partly because I'm a Star Trek fan and want to see all of them (when DS9 and Voy first aired Sky One messed up with the schedule too much and I never managed to keep up). Partly because it's actually had some damn good periods, and all in all the first few seasons were good enough to get me hooked and caring about the series as a whole and its characters that I am in for the full ride. Thankfully nothing has been bad enough to put me off completely.

In the third to last paragraph I meant "offer a reasonable debate, then great". Not used to these non editable systems these days :) Just FYI so you can judge any bias, my political compass is approximately central but very slightly to the top left.

I'm not a passionate fan of capitalism, but believe it be the best system the world has thus far "invented"/evolved into and the most suitable to the world as it is. I am skeptical about the possibility of a truly self-motivated society EVER emerging. That would require not just langor and avarice to be eliminated (or considered a mental illness), but a shift in people's perception of the meaning of life. Self-motivation would entail perceiving the good of the society as worthwhile--and not just as worthwhile but as the highest goal to aspire toward. That may be difficult to accomplish and sustain. Right now people are driven by greed, religion or some other self-fulfilment, i.e. for their own benefit here and now or in the putative afterlife (by and large). It would require a seismic shift in perception of self, society AND one's role in spacetime for us to move to a more altruistic people. For us to want to work for the benefit of the society first, we would have to believe in that society, its continuity through time and its value through time. Given that societies last centuries or a few millennia at the most, which is nothing compared to the posited infinity of spacetime, would many not feel their lives being wasted if they put the transient society first? (Of course, the same applies to self, as opposed to the society. However, we want to benefit ourselves because the benefit is more readly obvious. That is the reason we prefer a higher paycheck to paying taxes even though the latter, ultimately, benefits us just as much if not more as the former.) Oh I don't know; I lost my train of thought! LOL!

I can agree with those comments (first time for everything hehe!) Suppose the point, as far as I'm concerned, is that it's about as feasible as anything else in Star Trek: not very. But it doesn't stop me enjoying it, or dreaming. I think the original comment that triggered this huge debate was a complaint that it exists in the Trek universe - well it's highly optimistic fiction that features many things about as likely as pixies and magic so whilst this episode is a bit of a stretch in many ways... I don't think this is one of them.

Okay, far too many comments with too much in depth analysis on this episode. This isn't a serious episode. That established, it's actually no where near as bad as made out (and this isn't the only review site to mark it so bad). Watching this yet again just now, it's not brilliant, but it's not awful either, and is enjoyable to watch if you just disengage Trek geekness and forget the logical flaws. On average it works as an okay mystery for a fair bit of the episode, then gets a bit daft but still passably enjoyable with the takeover of the ship. The only thing that irritates me is the thing that irritates me in so many Trek episodes (new and old), and that's the last scene "Everything is back to normal" scene. Extremely common in Star Trek where the episode climax comes up and next scene everything is fixed without showing what happened. So many times have I almost kicked the TV when we get "Captain's Log, everything fixed". Aghhhhh! Maybe this is because of the way American TV places the last ad break before the epilogue scene any many people switch to another channel or leave the room at that point so the last scene is generally inconsequential (odd concept as a Brit I should add). Anyway, in general, nothing brilliant, but a slightly memorable episode and enjoyable enough. Doesn't achieve much, but it's Trek. Unlike episodes like 11:59 which are truly utterly pointless episodes. Nothing at all to do with Star Trek and really does achieve absolutely nothing (and not really enjoyable either!).

Holy crap. For anyone else reading these comments, it's all capitalism vs. communism until Tim just above.

Wow. I agree with Ken and Michael. I usually don't bother reading Michael's posts but these clearly show we have something in common. There are some posters here that don't quite understand "finding common ground". Case in point, I don't always agree with Jammer's review or rating but we both love Trek and value it's thought-provoking episodes (science and characters both) as well as enjoy some action. If I can't find this common ground, I wouldn't be making comments on his website...

On that note Elliot, can you at least find common ground with Ken that Trek's concept of "there's no money" wasn't really thought out? Its funny, from my experience, but I somehow was a Star Trek fan for a really long time without knowing about the no money thing. They don't mention it that often, honestly. I managed to miss the episodes where they did. I knew the Federation/Starfleet seemed to have much higher ethical/moral standards than many people/nation states today have, and things seemed generally more utopic. I just assumed that there was a monetary system, even if the system wasn't really capitalistic, until I saw Star Trek: First contact. I was actually incredulous when I read that. I was like: "What? Since when!?". Why did I believe there was money? Well, obviously I have assumptions from my own experiences - I come from a world with money, but there's also scenes from the show itself: Never really "got into" DS9, but I from what I've seen of it, that show is full of money (Latinum). 1st episode of Voyager, Quark is trying to sell Kim cufflinks. If Starfleet officers aren't paid, why is he bothering? 1st episode of Voy again, Chakotay accuses Tom of betraying them: "What did they offer you? Freedom? Latinum?" I guess Star Trek writers aren't very consistent with their universe.

Captain Jim

Tim said, "This isn't a serious episode. That established, it's actually no where near as bad as made out... Watching this yet again just now, it's not brilliant, but it's not awful either, and is enjoyable to watch if you just disengage Trek geekness and forget the logical flaws. On average it works as an okay mystery for a fair bit of the episode, then gets a bit daft but still passably enjoyable with the takeover of the ship." This is pretty much the same thing I was thinking. Still, I have to agree with Jammer that Teero's motives are indeed inexplicable.

Solid debating Ken. Held him until Michael could deliver the finishing blow. 100% in agreement with you fellas and V. Never seen Elliot routed so nicely. You had him reduced to name-calling, baiting, etc but everytime he stuck his nose up, you snipped it off. The main problem I see today and Elliot is a prime example of it, is that we teach people not to JUDGE. That every value system, economic system, moral system, justice system, cultures, religions, sexual identity etc etc, everything, all have the same merit and we should just be glad to have such diversity in the world. This is wrong. Completely wrong. Now, I'm not saying we go around being... asshats, as Ken said, that's not in our long-term self-interest. Anyway, we all determine OUR own worldview, our perspective, who WE are, and we come to who WE are by judging whether A, B, C etc; is right or wrong? is it good or bad for me? To teach that judgement is wrong and that everything has merit, we end up with people that will believe anything and everything. Elliot, you yourself said that communism might just not be able to work in any realistic scenario. You're arguing that it could exist in fantasy. Take away star trek context and this is what every communism v capitalism argument sounds like. But I would say, that I really think that if we ever really get into space, find alien species etc, that our people can get it together. We're explorers. How many of us dream of something greater? Our movies, novels, television, everything caters to our deep-seeded desire to just drive off into the unknown. The dark spots on the map these days are far and few between. Humanity (or generally, western secular humanity - religious folk got God) has sunk into a sort of low-key malaise. Boredom with where we are in life. Hundreds of years from now though, when you and I are no more than dust, the maps will have more dark than not on it and we can explore and expand again... so I don't think Star Trek is a total implausibility. As Michael said, it would take a shift of seismic proportions and in the Star Trek universe, we have this in World War 3. A point Ken should have made would be to quote Zephram Cochrane (since I won't), who didn't build the Pheonix to usher in a new era but so he could make money, island with naked ladies etc. Greed gave us warp drive - and it probably will! Then greed could fade away in just the scenario Troi suggested in First Contact. Not implausible at all for the star trek universe to evolve along those lines. Socialism/Communism I think could definitely work in a far off implausible future in which Humanity explores the galaxy, wages war and peace with alien species and has access to technology to just *snap* make ANYTHING! (rar!) Of course, watching these episodes of the "future" I feel like it's just a bunch of silly selfless nincompoops traipsing through space with their shields down and falling for every cardboard con man in the quadrant... getting themselves into trouble time and again... Shields up, Warp 9.whatever and just get home, don't stop to help anybody unless they got something you need. Home. Go! Wouldn't have made for a good show but that's what my present-day-bored-realist logic says to do! :)

Just wanted to add it took me longer to read the reviews than to watch the episode and I was MUCH more entertained by the former than the latter. Thanks all

Damn...I assumed that from the size of the Maquis ship in Caretaker, that the Maquis were maybe 15-20 of the total crew of 150 on Voyager. But from the number of Maquis in comas in sickbay and then the number of other Maquis in the next scene, they seem to be more like 40-50. Voyager must have been quite undermanned on its maiden voyage...

@Jay, Voyager lost 7 confirmed crew in "Caretaker," but it's assumed that it was quite a bit more than that. No body count was ever given in that episode, so it is conceivable that the Maquis were that numerous. That being said, this episode is a steaming pile of shit. Its only redeeming feature is that the Maquis are treated as something that's actually real for a change. It's almost astonishing to see Chell and Tabor again. At this point in the series, seing any Maquis that's not Chakotay, Torres, or the ubiquitous but mostly silent Ayala is practically shocking. And here we have yet another episode where characters who are supposed to be smart are reduced to the level of dimwits in order to advance the plot. In fact, this may be the worst example of all. Tuvok: Tuvok to Chakotay. Chakotay: Go ahead. Tuvok: Pagh'tem'far. B'Tannay. Chakotay: Understood. Janeway: Janeway to Chakotay...Commander? Duh...what did that mean, Tuvok?

Absolutely awful. The kind of bad, poorly written and realized episode that seems to have haunted all of Voyager's 7 seasons. By this time I had thought the really poor episodes would have been a thing of the past...On par with "Threshold", The Fury" & "Spirit Folk".

Oh and as Jammer points out, just how underused are any Tuvok led stories that when we get one as awful as this...makes ti worse that it is...

@Rosario : I don't want to open up this can of worms again. If finding yourself in alignment with a Objectivist cipher and a neo-con, torture-loving bigot (and you thought I was taught not to JUDGE people...hahahaha) makes you happy, I wish you the best. You think the "problem with the world" is our being led not to judge things, ideas, people as anything other than "alternative." Of course, you don't mention that starting any thought with "the problem IS..." is the inevitable prologue to utopianism. If only people thought more like YOU, things sure would be better! If you were to bother looking up the origins of your philosophy, you'd find yourself nodding approvingly of men like Nietzsche. Nietzsche disagreed with the idea that anything exists outside ourselves and therefore there is no basis by which one may come to collective ideas of ethics. Therefore, each must live according to his self-interest. Now, this is fine except the way in which he dismisses Kant in order to do this is laughably inadequate: he criticises *Hegel* for being idiotic (which he was); Hegel was considered to be the forebearing disciple of Kant, but he was not. He was a fraud. So Nietzsche debunked a fraud to make his point. He could never debunk Schopenhauer except to denigrate his poetry about the metaphysical as "dangerous wishful thinking." At any rate, Nietzsche's late philosophy is the cornerstone of Objectivist theory in the modern age and is remarkably flimsy. I NEVER argued that one should be communist or that communism is better than capitalism or that one is good and one is bad--there was never a Communism v. Capitalism debate to be had in this thread. I simply stated that to throw out a philosophy as just "evil" is dangerous as it is useless. Hitler and Stalin weren't taken out of power for being "evil", they were removed for being enemies of other states or their own people. Calling a belief, a theory or a lifestyle "evil" has only ever resulted in evil things, things as gross and sweeping as the Crusades to things as personally tragic as teen suicides. You're entitled to your opinion about space-travel and communism or whatever else, but Ken's obstinate refusal to acknowledge the holes in his arguments to not constitute "solid debating," and Michael's nihilism is not a "final blow" to anything. I'm always amazed by those who look at something like the technology of the future--in many ways, though derived from existing science, equally implausible as the economic and social theories which inhabit the same universe--without the sickening skepticism and abject hopelessness with which they view an optimistic future.

@Elliot: Frankly I can't remember what this thread was about. It also seems like you're arguing with Nietzsche, not me. Actually Elliot, a stray thought just flitted through my mind. I recall a thought that must have been thought while reading this thread, that the continued use of the word, "evil" was the only thing I disagreed with. "Bad" "Doesn't work" "poor" etc. are fine but "evil" just invites an arguement that would most likely distract from any point trying to be made. Terrible word choice. Also, you normally seem rather cool and measured in your responses but your opening paragraph and the vitriolic labels dispensed therin strike me as kind of beneath you. And frankly if the world did think like me it might just be a better place. You see Elliot, I'm a rare gem - I don't care about myself at all. Not in the slightest. All that matters to me is the greater good, what strengthens my people, what makes them greater, keeps them strong and vital and self-reliant. I say self-reliant even though that may seem at odds with the "greater good" but if someone can take care of themself, they should - and leave the state entity with more time and money to spare on things that are more important than me and the other folks that can take care of themselves. Secondary impulses to humanity should not be a matter of law but a matter of personal choice. I could go on but I just have a feeling that no matter what, your thought process will stop at, "Hitler would have loved a nation of this guy!" :)

@Elliot: I've read a lot more of your posts since that last one and I sure had you pegged wrong. While I still don't agree with you 100%, I find myself in agreement with you more and more and even when in disagreement I find myself reading your posts two or three times and sometimes re-evaluating my thoughts based on your insights. Anyway Elliot, just wanted to apologize for sub-consciously pegging you at all.

@Rosario: Thanks for the apology! I'm glad what I've had to say held some meaning for you. Best, E

pretend you know nothing about mindmelds and maquis and what not and it is an enjoyable episode 2.5 star episode.

While I have a certain amount of trepidation about getting involved in this "debate", there are certain things that must be said, and I'll try to say them while remaining civil and respectful to other points of view. Firstly, there is a huge and very unfortunate amount of confusion about what "communism" is. A basic reading of Marx will clarify that communism is the when the State has withered away. In this regard, in fact, the most radical liberalism (what is mistakenly called "capitalism" or free market philosophy), anarchism, and communism actually have a huge amount in common. Therefore, communism in its true state has never existed. Socialism is what existed throughout the cold war, which according to Marx is when the State owns or controls the means of production, distribution and exchange. Correctly using these terms is so important in this debate, but unfortunately is exceedingly rare. So. Communism is when the state has disappeared. Socialism is when the state owns the means of production, distribution and exchange. Liberalism is not "left wing" or communist ideology, or anything like that. Liberalism is when the economy is free from the control of the State. This is yet another misuse of terms in current political debate. Now. What about Capitalism? Capitalism, as the name suggests, is an economic system based on the ownership of capital. Capital refers to the goods that may be used to produce more goods. The nature of this ownership is not based on merit. The ownership of capital can come from inheritance, theft, confiscation, or it can indeed also be the result of merit. But it is certainly not only accumulated by merit. This explains why some of the wealthiest people or highest salaries are the result of simple speculation on stockmarkets or currency markets. Unfortunately, as of yet, we have no way to measure merit. In many cases, "merit" is considered to be a person's professional or educational background, which is fair enough, but in many other cases, "merit" is considered to be how much money a person is able to generate, whether this makes the world a better place or net. In turn, some of the poorest salaries go to people such as nurses, teachers, police, whose impact on our society is very tangible. As is that of doormen, cleaners, people who work in the service industry. No man is an island. And no success story happens in a bubble. We drive on publicly funded roads, we are protected by publicly funded police, we interact with people often educated in public schools, who are tended to in public hospitals. We benefit from good government, or suffer due to bad government. The business world (the famous capitalists) functions because of a publicly provided legal framework, overseen by a public legal system. And even though Ayn Rand might wish to ignore it, any real or imagined John Galt or any other 2 dimensional character created by her or some other equally uninspired philosopher is part of a society, and has benefited from being so, and is what he or she is because of the people around him or her. So, under our current system, while nurses help to heal us, police protect us, and teachers form young minds; speculators on the markets gamble on chance, and even create the sort of circumstances that lead to the economic collapses we've seen in recent years, whereby the value of companies and goods are based on imagined rather than concrete value - leading to collapses when reality meats the fiction. But it is the latter who gain most spectacularly, and the former who live in poverty. A broker is paid millions for gambling with imaginary money, in the same investment company a janitor or cleaner earns a pittance, although he (or more likely she) ensures the broker doesn't get sick from germs in unclean places, to name just one example. Moving away from the concepts, and to address another issue that has come up on this debate, what motivates people to investigate, discover, invent? Without wanting to offend Zephram Cochran, not all inventions are driven by the thought of tropical islands full of naked women. I would hesitate a guess that recognition is a key driver, or simple curiosity. And this leads me finally to the Gene issue, which sparked this lengthy discussion. I think what Gene was imagining was just that. A world where people are inspired by their curiosity or a thirst for recognition and acknowledgement or simply in order to better their world and to advance science and society. Someone has asked who does the grunt work? The way I see it what technology doesn't do, people do as part of their training or to learn more about their field, to gain expertise. People have also asked, well, what if everyone wants to have a restaurant like Papa Sisko - well, interplanetary emigration has probably opened up some space on Earth, and replicators and a replenished environment would take care of the rest. As for why there is latinum on DS9, well, that's probably because it's on the frontier dealing with other, less enlightened societies. Unfortunately in a "capitalist" system, the struggle to stay alive means that many people cannot follow their passions, as they have to leave them aside to simply survive. Not to mention, the millions and billions of people who cannot pursue their interests just due to being born in the wrong place, or into the wrong family. I do agree that communism in its true theoretical sense is an ideal, as is true liberalism or anarchism, and so is Gene's imagined universe. But let's be realistic about the system we have now. How many brilliant people who could make our world a better place cannot reach their full potential because of the restrictions created by the dog-eat-dog world that we live in... because their parents can't afford to give them a good education, because their life has led them to uninspiring jobs or insufficient pay has given rise to insufficient nutrition, shelter or whatever else blocking their potential. And yes, shelter and food are human rights, ALL are entitled to. I don't care whether someone is lazy or not, but no fellow human being deserves to starve. THIS is why we are not animals. There is merit in merely BEING a human being. And if we are surrounded by people who are starving or driven mad by hopelessness, we're going to be living in a far worse world than a world where there are a few "looters" (to use Ayn Rand's charming turn of phrase) or bludgers. In that sort of world we really will have to fight to stay alive. However, if as seen so often in Star Trek, we show compassion and understanding for our fellow human beings (or aliens, forehead of the week or not), then maybe we can help them be better people, and become better people ourselves at the same time. That is the heart of Star Trek, and that has been Gene's gift to science fiction.

Jo Jo Meastro

When I saw the star rating, read the plot summary and took a peak at the review; the temptation to just skip this episode was pretty strong. But since this is the final season and a rare Tuvok centered story, I thought I might as well give it a fair chance. All I can say is it really wasn't worth the effort, and the embarrassingly naff second half of the show reduced it to an unintentional self-parody that sabotaged any possible merit in the plot set ups. Jammer covered everything I wanted to say, except that this is such a lame and depressingly unintentionally hilarious murder "mystery" that I'd consider this an ugly descendant of TNGs' "Aquiel" spiced with the shittiness of "Sub Rosa". Seeing Tuvok in action (not *that* kind of action!) and a decent first half was what only just barely kept me from hitting the off button on the TV. I only managed to scrape out enough entertainment to give it an extremely lowly half star.

Hopefully T'Paul and the other members of this debate will possibly still see it. The Federation, however, is not a Communist society. It is, very specifically, provisionally Post-Scarcity. What this means is that technology (whether replicators, or robotic automation, more realistically) is sufficiently advanced, that most (if not all) of the staple commodities which individuals need to physically survive on a daily basis, are reproducible to the point where they are, for all practical intents and purposes, limitless. At a superficial level, this appears to be similar to Communism; however, as well as potentially deviating from several of Marx' other planks, there is one key difference. Communism still recognised the existence of material scarcity, and theoretically tried to assign everyone an equal *ration* of that scarcity. Post-scarcity, on the other hand, operates on the assumption that most (not necessarily all) resources literally are limitless, in which case, there is no need for any individual's share to be rationed; they can have as much as they want. Now, here is where the "provisional," part comes in. You will notice that being outside of Federation space, Voyager still had to mine, trade, and scrounge for various things. It is highly likely that even in the 24th century, certain rare minerals, and certainly specialised ship parts, could not be replicated completely out of either thin air or monomolecular raw material, in which case for them, a Capitalist/currency based economy would still need to exist, whether latinum or whatever other currency was used. This also explains, as T'Paul pointed out, how Quark was able to earn latinum on DS9. Not every alien species has replicator technology, and those that don't are still going to need an exclusively conventional economy, for all of their resources.

@T'Paul - I must respectfully disagree with your statement: "Therefore, communism, in it's true state has never existed." Let me quote at length from Will Durant's "Story of Civilization Volume I: Our Oriental Heritage." The basic gist of this is that all primitive man existed in a state of communism. I find the footnote a very interesting thought as well and probably more interesting in its theory than the rest of this. "Trade was the great disturber of the primitive world, for until it came, bringing money and profit in its wake, there was no property and therefore little government. In the early stages of economic development property was limited for the most part to things personally used; the property sense applied so strongly to such articles that they (even the wife) were often buried with their owner; it applied so weakly to things not personally used that in their case the sense of property, far from being innate, required perpetual reinforcement and inculcation. Almost everywhere, among primitive peoples, land was owned by the community. The North American Indians, the natives of Peru, the Chittagong Hill tribes of India, the Borneans and South Sea Islanders seem to have owned and tilled the soil in common, and to have shared the fruits together. "The land," said Omaha Indians, "is like water and wind - what cannot be sold." In Samoa the idea of selling land was unknown prior to the coming of the white man. Professor Rivers found communism in land still existing in Melanesia and Polynesia; and in inner Liberia it may be observed today. Only less widespread was communism in food. It was usual among "savages" for the man who had food to share it with the man who had none, for travelers to be fed at any home they chose to stop at on their way, and for communities harassed with drought to be maintained by their neighbors. If a man sat down to his meal in the woods he was expected to call loudly for some one to come and share it with him, before he might justly eat alone. When Turner told a Samoan about the poor in London the "savage" asked in astonishment: "How is it? No food? No friends? No house to live in? Where did he grow? Are there no houses belonging to his friends?" The hungry Indian had but to ask to receive; no matter how small the supply was, food was given him if he needed it; "no one can want food while there is corn anywhere in the town." Among the Hottentots it was the custom for one who had more than others to share his surplus till all were equal. White travelers in Africa before the advent of civilization noted that a present of food or other valuables to a "black man" was at once distributed; so that when a suit of clothes was given to one of them the donor soon found the recipient wearing the hat, a friend the trousers, another friend the coat. The Eskimo hunter had no personal right to his catch; it had to be divided among the inhabitants of the village, and tools and provisions were the common property of all. The North American Indians were described by Captain Carver as "strangers to all distinctions of property, except in the articles of domestic use... They are extremely liberal to each other, and supply the deficiencies of their friends with any superfluity of their own." "What is extremely surprising," reports a missionary, "is to see them treat one another with a gentleness and consideration which one does not find among common people in the most civilized nations. This, doubtless, arises from the fact that the words 'mine' and 'thine,' which St. Chrystostom says extinguish in our hearts the fire of charity and kindle that of greed, are unknown to these savages." "I have seen them," says another observer, "divide game among themselves when they sometimes had many shares to make; and cannot recollect a single instance of their falling into dispute or finding fault with the distribution as being unequal or otherwise objectionable. They would rather lie down themselves on an empty stomach than have it laid to their charge that they neglected to satisfy the needy... They look upon themselves as but one great family." Why did this primitive communism disappear as men rose to what we, with some partiality, call civilization? Sumner believed that communism proved un-biological, a handicap in the struggle for existence; that it gave insufficient stimulus to inventiveness, industry and thrift; and that the failure to reward the more able, and punish the less able, made for a leveling of capacity which was hostile to growth or to successful competition with other groups. Loskiel reported some Indian tribes of the northeast as "so lazy that they plant nothing themselves, but rely entirely upon the expectation that others will not refuse to share their produce with them. Since the industrious thus enjoy no more of the fruits of their labor than the idle, they plant less every year." Darwin thought that the perfect equality among the Fuegians was fatal to any hope of their becoming civilized; or, as the Fuegians might have put it, civilization would have been fatal to their equality. Communism brought a certain security to all who survived the diseases and accidents due to the poverty and ignorance of primitive society; but it did not lift them out of that poverty. Individualism brought wealth, but it brought, also, insecurity and slavery; it stimulated the latent powers of superior men, but it intensified the competition of life, and made men feel bitterly a poverty which, when all shared it alike, had seemed to oppress none." - * * - "Perhaps one reason why communism tends to appear chiefly at the beginning of civilizations is that it flourishes most readily in times of dearth, when the common danger of starvation fuses the individual into the group. When the abundance comes, and the danger subsides, social cohesion is lessened, and individualism increases; communism ends where luxury begins. As the life of a society becomes more complex, and the division of labor differentiates men into diverse occupations and trades, it becomes more and more unlikely that all these services will be equally valuable to the group; inevitably those whose greater ability enables them to perform the more vital functions will take more than their equal share of the rising wealth of the group. Every growing civilization is a scene of multiplying inequalities; the natural differences of human endowment unite with differences of opportunity to produce artificial differences of wealth and power; and where no laws or despots suppress those artificial inequalities they reach at last a bursting point where the poor have nothing to lose by violence, and the chaos of revolution levels men again into a community of destitution. Hence the dream of communism lurks in every modern society as a racial memory of a simpler and more equal life; and where inequality or insecurity rises beyond sufferance, men welcome a return to a condition which they idealize by recalling its equality and forgetting its poverty. Periodically the land gets itself redistributed, legally or not, whether by Gracchi in Rome, the Jacobins in France, or the Communists in Russia; periodically wealth is redistributed, whether by the violent confiscation of property, or by confiscatory taxation of incomes and bequests. Then the race for wealth, goods and power begins again, and the pyramid of ability takes form once more; under whatever laws may be enacted the abler man manages somehow to get the richer soil, the better place, the lion's share; soon he is strong enough to dominate the state and rewrite or interpret the laws; and in time the inequality is as great as before. In this aspect all economic history is the slow heart-beat of the social organism, a vast systole and diastole of naturally concentrating wealth and naturally explosive revolution."

Wow, it's like middle school debate all over again.

Poor episode, even by Voyager standards. Now, as for this 'debate' I give kudos to Petrus for FINALLY mentioning that the Federation exists in a POST-SCARCITY society. Complete energy to matter conversion, replicators, transporters... in other words, unlimited energy and resources. What is left when you don't need to waste your precious time fighting for resources? Fight for an ideology! The ideology of the Federation is the one we all know, spoken by William Shatner some 45 years ago now. Those in the Federation can join this crusade for peaceful pursuit of knowledge of the universe, or they can choose to be a regular citizen to pursue their own ideas; within the bounds of civilized norms. I think, to be a good citizen in the Star Trek universe, one would need a heavy dose of empathy, patience, tolerance, and an innate disposition to accept and/or try new ideas. Perhaps they were all heavily medicated? ;) Lastly, the problem with Communism is that there's never been a true communist country. So called communist countries are usually totalitarian police states.

At the largest scale, the Federation is not post-scarcity. They do not have unlimited energy and resources. Replication may be super-efficient precision manufacturing, for example, but it still needs inputs.

I suppose, if we go by what we see in the various TV shows, the Federation still needs to source dilithium crystals to run their ships. This necessitates the need to constantly find new suppliers. On one level this makes a good hook for many storylines, but it doesn't make much sense logically. What about solar/fusion/any other number of power generation technology? Indeed, humanity as depicted in the 24th century is surprisingly UN-advanced. Where is the army of automated robots? Why aren't there millions of 'Data' clones doing menial tasks? So much of what is depicted in the Federation should be completely automated. Why are the computers in starships less reliable than 'manual control'? In modern aircraft, the pilot's role has essentially been reduced to babysitting the auto-pilot. If we extrapolate our current rate of advancement with space exploration robotics (ie. Mars and lunar rovers), we'll have the solar system teeming with automated robots with sophisticated AI in two hundred years - probably a lot sooner! Back to post-scarcity, the big assumption one must make about the Federation is that people have moved beyond the NEED for material possessions. It's like everyone is living the life of a billionaire, able to procure anything on a whim, so all that is left is their individual motivation to improve one's self, and/or work with other like minded individuals to push the boundaries of awareness - whether it be through scientific, artistic, metaphysical ect... This is why I find DS9's big baddies, the shapeshifters motivation to wipe out all 'solid' life forms more than a little silly. The universe is infinite right? Why not just construct generation ships then head to an unpopulated part of the galaxy? No need to perpetrate mass genocide. Indeed, in post-scarcity societies, the motivation to push one ideology upon another looks rather pointless. IMO, the best of Trek strives to pit the ideals of the Federation up against other competing visions (ie. Romulan domination, Klingon war-mongering, Ferengi runaway capitalism, Borg suppression of individuality)... these 'conflicts' makes for compelling human drama. I'm just not so sure about the realism of the outcomes most of the time.

@Nick You can tell the whole moneyless future, limitless resources thing really writes them into a corner. They have to make replicated food "not as good as the real thing" to justify people sourcing fresh ingredients, or even cooking at all. The list of unreplicatable goods is kept long and vague so the Enterprise can be rushing some random medicine to another planet as a plot device. In a world where you could replicate anything, the only really valuable objects would be the spare parts for when the replicator breaks down (maybe all colonies have two as a failsafe). The replicators do have to build things out of something though, so I suppose the very act of collecting raw matter would be enough to drive an economy of a sorts (just a really efficient one where you can turn anything into anything). And the process of replicating itself requires energy, which isn't limitless, so there's that I suppose. It does keep it all relatable too. It'd be hard to really comprehend or relate to the dilemmas facing a society that can create food, medicine, anything at a whim. But yes as you point out, it's interesting that Star Trek barely touches things like mass-producing robots or genetic engineering or cybernetics (beyond Data, Bashir and Geordi, respectively). It's like these things just...didn't happen, in *any* of the major societies, as far as we can see. Even if it's not the "Starfleet way" and there's some Treaty of Shortsightedness that blocks it, I imagine someone like the Romulans would *love* an army of vision enhanced cyborgs. The Cardassians could have used drones in the labour camps mining dilithium, made the occupation much smoother!

"Back to post-scarcity, the big assumption one must make about the Federation is that people have moved beyond the NEED for material possessions. It's like everyone is living the life of a billionaire, able to procure anything on a whim..." No, this assumption is false. Federation citizens, and especially Starfleet personnel, may have a 'rich' median compared to our Earth, but they are assuredly not all billionaire-equivalents. Poverty may have been eliminated on Earth, but not everywhere. Work is still necessary for survival. Resource exploitation is still necessary: for example, there is mining, and the relative efficiency of different mining methods is significant ("The Quality of Life"); this wouldn't make any sense at all if replication equaled unlimited free stuff. And THERE IS MONEY.

One thing that I thought really helped set up this episode was the beginning with the Tom and B'Elanna in the movie theater watching the cheesy horror movie. I looked at the whole thing through the lens of a schlocky horror movie, and it actually worked pretty well. I thought Tim Russ was great in this episode – I really liked his acting. He got to show a bigger range and it was nice. I didn't mind that I could guess early on who did it. I appreciate that there are some episodes where the audience is surprised and it's not revealed until the end, and that's fine. But there's other episodes where the audience is "in on the secret" and that can be fun too. You're watching, knowing what's going on, and waiting for everybody else on TV to catch up. I don't have a problem with that. One nitpick I just have to point out is the goofy scene where they're looking at the images in the holodeck – Tuvok asks the computer where he was at a certain time. Wow! That's handy! Why didn't they just ask the computer in the first place who is in the holiday at that time? So the computer stores the locations of every crewmember at every moment? And, just to chime in on the political discussion, I'll add another viewpoint to the mix. I am a Catholic who would love to live under a monarchy! Ha ha. It seems like many of us have the same experience – we watched Star Trek originally when we were young and idealistic. We didn't have a problem going with utopian ideals that were presented. Then, we got older and formed our own opinions and were influenced by our surroundings. Now, we like Star Trek for other reasons – and mostly overlook the utopian stuff. I watch Star Trek for the human virtues – loyalty, courage, friendship, wonder and awe at the universe, etc. Those are the things that keep me coming back.

Just to agree with the above, I do find that my "utopian" Trek-based idealism has faded over the years, and really did so a long time ago. That being said, I still prefer an optimistic future to a dystopian one, and one thing that I was always wished we saw more of was 24th Century Earth. How do regular people live? Are only Starfleet people routinely in space? If Sisko had left Starfleet in "Emissary" as he planned, what would he have done? We can have a better society while acknowledging that a few hundred years isn't going to fundamentally change people. We do respond to our environment tremendously, but the oft-derided "anti-Trek" on DS9 reacted against the idea of the New Federation Man, putting it in the context of a post-scarcity society that maybe isn't all that lacking scarcity. Or politics. But we had a lot of that on TNG too (Hello Admiral Satie!).

"One nitpick I just have to point out is the goofy scene where they're looking at the images in the holodeck – Tuvok asks the computer where he was at a certain time. Wow! That's handy! Why didn't they just ask the computer in the first place who is in the holiday at that time? So the computer stores the locations of every crewmember at every moment?" The five minute version of this episode: Janeway: "Computer - who was in this holodeck concurrent to Ensign Tabor?" Computer: "Tuvok, Paris, and Torres." Janeway: "Security - escort Mr. Tuvok to the brig. We'll try a novel new approach to apprehending suspects this time: don't allow the suspect to retain his comm badge and don't give him a phaser with which to escape. Oh and also put him behind bars instead of a force field, since our ship loses power almost every week due to some anomaly or Hard Headed Alien. He'll work his problems out from within his cell, having only mindfucked one of our crew." *End credits roll eight minutes into the episode*

I fully agree with Jammer on the emptiness of this episode. It was really pointless and not even entertaining. Actually, the whole debate on Communism in the comments above was far more entertaining than the episode. Although just as pointless in the most part, since a priori Manichean ideas of anything do never serve any good purpose. A shame that we are still so 21st century-ish.

The Professor

"A Bajoran maniac in the Alpha Quadrant sends a hidden message in a letter to Tuvok which subconsciously triggers buried brainwashing that was therapeutically programmed into Tuvok seven years ago when he was an undercover infiltrator of the Maquis. This prompts Tuvok, unaware of his own actions, to engage in a mission to mind-program other former-Maquis members of the crew to seize control of Voyager. Yes." This ranks among the greatest statements in all the internet.

I find this episode is comparable to TNG’s « Genesis »: it opens so many cans of worms that the series is not willing to address (in this case, how easy it is for the Maquis crew members' minds to be manipulated and then de-manipulated) in order to devote 5 minutes of screen time to events that we weren’t interested in seeing in the first place. WHY? The only worthwhile thing to come out of this episode is that we finally learn the name of Chakotay’s Maquis ship: the Val Jean. I thought this was a nice bit of continuity with DS9's Maquis arc (Eddington mentioned he was a fan of Les Misérables in "For the Uniform" and that he saw himself as the Val Jean to Sisko's Javert).

This episode is trolling. I swear. It's trolling people who actually wanted Voyager to be good. It had so much promise. But it settled for mediocrity. This episode not only has the long wanted mutiny that would have been fantastic near the beginning of the show, but it also has a line by one of the Maquis that would have made a good story in its own right: Starfleet telling Janeway to arrest the Maquis. It's basically just saying "Hey look at the plot threads we could have done to make Voyager a good show! Are you happy now?" Ugh. I wonder if Voyager's writers actually had a long leash they could have made something good like DS9. Although the way Berman and Braga write, I highly doubt that. Perhaps if Moore and Piller had been in charge.

@Sean: plots don't make a show good. Any story can be great or terrible, it's about the execution. The writers were under no obligation to play fan service and please the base.

@Elliott: I agree that execution is important, but I would also argue that SOME plots will never work no matter how good the execution is (the aforementioned "Genesis" being an obvious example). And isn't this episode an attempt at fan service? Doesn't it seem like the writers felt that viewers wanted to see those Maquis uniforms again, no matter what it took to ge there? Why else would they have made this episode?

Well I liked this episode even if the flow was a bit illogical I thought it was a fun hour and jammer I can't understand how you rate this 1.5 stars when I read nothing in your review that would show u liked anything about this episode I love ur reviews but mabye u should have turned off the episode eariler if u hated the flow so badly....

I agree with this being a lame episode. The two things that drove me nuts were..Janeway is so incredibly smart so why the hell didn't she immediately suspect that the comatose crew were dangerous and do something about that. For that matter Tuvok would have had them under high security (despite being brainwashed). How stupid!? Also, would have been a small consolation for giving us a shitty episode if at the end when they were watching the 3D flick, we got to see them all jump back in their seats from the attack of the lobster!!! Right?

Another Tuvok-specific episode. Enjoyable as always. The story was a bit farfetched but I guess they had to play the Maquis angle one more time even tho by this time there were no more Maquis. Still, considering Tim Russ rarely got to demonstrate his acting chops he managed to turn nothing into something entertaining. I give it 2.5 stars.

grumpy_otter

Wow. Sorry I wasn't around for the communism/capitalism debate some years ago, as I would be willing to bet I am the only actual card-carrying Communist on this site! I absolutely loved how this episode started with Tom and B'Elanna in the movie theater--I have always thought Tom's fascination with all things 20th century was adorable! And one of the few character traits that was consistent throughout the series. But the rest was meh. Just not that interesting. When the Bolian showed up my disbelief was stretched beyond recovery.

I'm going through Voyager with a friend who missed most of it during its original airing. After we are through I am never watching this episode again. The movie theater bit were fun and the thought of another Tuvok Investigates was cool but then it had to go turn into some pointless mutiny that made no sense.

Whoa - it took a long time to read through this review. I see that many Star Trek fans have vastly different views/opinions of the world in which we live. So, here's my two cents. I believe everyone is entitled to the Basic Essentials of Life (Food/Water/Shelter/etc...) even if they are lazy or uneducated, and have not earned them. However, it should be the BARE minimum to survive with absolutely no luxuries. Grade F Beef, not steak. Studio apartments, not houses. Don't get me started on these refugees coming into Canada, who want a free house to live in, and are unhappy with the shelters we have provided, when many of us Canadians can't afford one, because we can't save the down payment or get a loan. We also treat these refugees better than our own homeless. I also know people who live in low-income housing, who do nothing, and live better than hard working people who work 60 hours a week at minimum wage jobs. I know, I know - Life isn't fair. (Law 46 - Ensign Robin Lefler - TNG - The Game) On Earth, in the Star Trek universe, where there is no money, how people live may depend on how they contribute to society. Those who do nothing will still get what they need to survive, with minimal replicator rations, but those who work hard, and/or contribute in a positive way to society, would earn more replicator rations, therefore eating better and having more land/bigger homes etc...

Now - On to the show A Voyager mutiny in Season 7. Ugh. This would have worked better in Season 1. Instead of the transmission triggering Tuvok, Teero could have programmed Tuvok to be triggered by a ringing of a bell (A cliche fit for Voyager).

Wow, some heated debates about this episode (and other stuff less related). I don't think this one will ever reach any top-5 lists of VOY but apart from that, I thought it was an enjoyable hour. The first half especially is really cool. It is obvious Tuvok was behind it all but the tension was build really well regardless. There are a couple of scenes that make Tuvok look scary as hell, such as Chakotay turning around in the Cargo Bay and Tuvok suddenly being there from out of nowhere. The latter half doesn't make much sense I agree, but it's still not bad overall. I'd rate it 2.5 or 3.

Also, I thought it was kind of funny how Tuvok just kindly asked the computer if he was there in the Halo deck when the first victim was attacked, and computer was able to tell this perfectly fine. If they have a system in place of tracking the position of every crewmembers at any time, wouldn't you use this at the very beginning of an investigation instead of waiting 3 days?? Or am I missing something and is this just the way the Voyager crew rolls.

This started okay, I like the idea of a schlock horror film juxtaposed with a real murder mystery. Tuvok's investigation was interesting, if not a little obvious. I like the idea of a Maquis rebirth on Voyager and I think they could've done this here. Maybe introduced an alien group fighting for a cause the Maquis crewmembers supported while rank-and-file Starfleet did not. Or even a strange virus that made crewmembers paranoid would've worked okay (see DS9 "Dramatis Personae"). But Jammer's right, the motive for Alpha quadrant Maquis makes no sense. If such a capable fanatic existed, you think he could've helped out some people on his own world or own system, or heck somewhere in the DMZ the Maquis cared about. Acting out some vendetta on a ship decades away by warp just honestly reeks of Idiot Plotting. 1.5 stars

Diamond Dave

One of those episodes that sets up a really good, credible finale - and then goes to the pub while things spin off into WTF-ville. I thought the first 3/4 of this were excellent - a decent mystery, a really good atmosphere, yes a little melodramatic but even so it seemed to be heading somewhere interesting. The finale? The less said about that the better. And I'd agree that this was an episode that might have made more sense about 6 series ago, when the Maquis issue was still relevant and stuff. 2.5 stars for the bulk of the episode.

Some people are saying that we should ignore the fact that this story has ridiculous timing, dealing with the Maquis in the last year after basically ignoring them all series. People say one should ignore the concept behind the plot and just enjoy the fun of seeing the crew in action. I can get behind that idea occasionally. Unfortunately, that requires an enjoyable plot and seeing the crew behave at their best. I just don't see that here. Let's take Tuvok, for starters. He is clearly intelligent when he's taking out the Maquis. This brainwashing allows him to keep his faculties, as we see by him changing security protocols, locking out that poor guy in the Jeffries tube and deleting the info that he was in the holodeck. And yet, when we finally see evil-Tuvok in action, he is visibly struggling and unsure of what's going on. So how was he so good at knocking out the Maquis members, but then struggled later? Also, they make it clear that Tuvok is not faking the investigation. He clearly does not remember that he did it, and is trying to solve the crime. So, how does that work? Did he get a switch that turned him from evil to good and back? When does he turn evil? Just when he sees a Maquis alone? But doesn't he have to plan out these attacks? How can he be good Tuvok for most of the time but then switch to evil Tuvok and then head back to good Tuvok? Does he not remember what he was doing? Does he not realize he has random memory loss? At least in The Mind's Eye, we never really know if Geordi ever becomes good. Either he was evil the entire time, or part of the brainwashing was changing his memories for the time that he was evil. But how is Tuvok's brainwashing working? Likewise, if Tuvok was a good guy during his investigation, why didn't he arrive at the conclusion it was him earlier? Wouldn't he have noticed that the security had been locked out on who was in the holodeck? Wouldn't that be one of the first things he checked? Shouldn't he have figured out that the intruder was using the computer to cover his tracks? Geordi did in the Mind's Eye, after all. Is Tuvok that bad of an investigator? He did better catching Suder. So Tuvok was poorly written this episode, how about Chakotay? Ordering all the Maquis to have a buddy system: smart! Then running off on his own without a buddy: stupid! Then, we see that Torres and the Bolian split up. So Chakotay goes into the cargo bay on his own (despite the Bolian being right there!) Then he calls for Torres and gets no answer. So shouldn't he realize some bad mojo was happening and call for backup? After all, it's not like Torres was in danger; the intruder wasn't permanently harming anyone. Yet he goes off searching for her and getting knocked out by Tuvok in the process. Very poor decision making process here. It's what you would expect from dumb highschoolers in a cheap horror movie, not a trained officer. Then we get to Janeway. Someone else already mentioned this, but it's worth repeating. Tuvok gives a code to Chakotay, a code Janeway knows came from a Maquis fanatic. Then Chakotay doesn't answer her own call. Shouldn't that be a sign that something is wrong? Shouldn't she be more concerned? Instead, she just keeps on chatting with Tuvok as if it wasn't a big deal, and is then surprised when Chakotay comes in and grabs her. Serves her right, really. Speaking of which, we know that the captain is able to lock out the ship's controls. Why did she not do that as soon as she saw what was going on? It's hard to just enjoy the ride with the crew when all three of the top officers are freaking stupid. The entire plot could have been avoided if anyone had any brains, which kinda kills the enjoyment factor. And then add in the fact that that Vedek's plan seemed to be just to be evil rather than, y'know, actually having a point, and I have to agree with everyone who says this episode was just pointless.

Disappointed

Yes - a disappointing episode - and I'm a huge fan of Voyager. Disappointing for all the reasons laid out above - and one thing continues to nag at me. When the mutiny is in full swing, the Maquis crew are all suddenly wearing Maquis costume. Where the hell did these come from? 'Oh, we just thought we'd hang onto these in case we decided to have a Maquis coup sometime in the future!' Or are they simply wearing their civvies to distinguish themselves from the Star Fleet crew. All in all, a very silly and disappointing episode.

While watching this episode I couldn't help but notice a female Vulcan amongst the former maquis crew. And all I could think was, she would have been helpful when Vorik and latter Tuvok went through Pon Farr

I don't get it I just don't get it. Whats the point of reactivating the Maquis when the Dominion war is over? The demilitarized zone is probably completely under Federation control now. And even if it isn't with 800 Million people dead and a destroyed economy I don't think The Cardassians have the resources to harass Ex Federation colonies even if they felt like it! I wonder if the Voyager staff kept track of what happened on DS9's finale and how certain events might effect their story.

@Ivanov That's hilarious, I never put the timelines together but you're right. My guess is the writers were short on ideas for S7 (I mean, most of this season pretty lousy) and fished out a show that was originially pitched for an earlier season.

Not to defend this episode overly, but I don't think this particular detail is totally inconsistent. Eddington said that the Maquis were going to declare themselves a separate state. The Maquis' apparent disillusionment with the Federation would still be there in whatever vestiges remain (including Bajorans). So this guy, who we're also told is a crazy ideologue, could either be trying to just get revenge on *someone*, and take the Federation as a new target, or trying to revive a movement to making the region independent of anyone.

Wow, we get into the economics of the Federation from this episode? I will not digress. :-) I forced myself to watch this dung simple to come here and reveal the fact I think it's dung. Good lord... I don't think Tim's acting in this one is that good. Probably because it's shit. More Bajoran voo-doo crap? Jesh, didn't we just have an episode where a hologram attempted to make himself a god? Maybe Elliot is right.... this episode is a slap directed at DS9. I go 1-star because the 1st time I watched this the first 15 minutes of the episode were engaging. This episode is shaping up like DS9 season 7. Hit or miss with the episodes. Either is 3+ or crap (so far)

Tu vok or not Tu vok? That is the question (**)

God, I thought the episode was bad, but then I made the mistake of reading through the rubbish posted in the comments. I'm assuming the arguers are Americans. Only Americans can argue about the "evils" of other political views whilst their poor die because they can't afford medical care. Btw I'm Australian and a Liberal voter (Republican). There's not a single political party in this country that doesn't believe in free hospital care, but in the interest of fairness I will add that we only brought it in in 1988.

I liked exactly one thing about this episode: Tuvok owning Chakotay's ass. Chakotay even picks up a weapon and still gets owned. I love a good ass whooping. I'm surprised Jammer didn't complain about the action, but I suppose I could've missed it. I only skimmed the review. Didn't otherwise like this episode. Whenever something happens with Tuvok it's always something to do with his brain. Mind meld gone wrong. Brainwashing by Borg or Maqui. Or just good old fashioned brain damage. It's tiresome.

I actually liked this episode. :P I usually don't like voyager much, but for some reason I enjoyed this one. Don't ask me why. Maybe because as someone earlier said, it plays out as a shlock horror movie. 'Don't go in there alone you idiot!' And when Tuvok was aiming the phaser, set to kill, at Janeway, I was praying he would do it. Please do it! And he did! yay! But it didn't work, unfortunately. :( They should have kept the mutiny going and finished out the series that way. Chakotay, Torres, and Tuvok in charge. The only characters on the show that aren't consistently idiots. Only sometimes. :) Chakotay is about a 100 times better captain than Janeway ever could be. 3 stars from me

Ultimately, a disappointing episode and one that doesn't make a lot of sense. The resolution of this episode happened way too quickly and easily and is inconsistent with the build-up -- namely Tuvok being unable to resist the Maquis mind control dude but then Janeway finally convinces him? And then the Maquis mutiny quickly unravels. Pretty stupid... The whole Maquis thing is over and this isn't the Alpha Quadrant -- so as far as a subliminal letter getting to Tuvok and making him revive the Maquis and mutiny the ship...for what purpose? To get back to the Alpha Quadrant and resume the Maquis stuff decades into the future? It couldn't be that the subliminal letter was lost in the mail as it was meant for Tuvok...Poor writing and conception for the episode here. One good thing about "Repression" is that it is a rare Tuvok episode and Russ can be a decent actor -- he is fighting off the Bajoran mind control dude and that is believably acted, as is his sort of self-doubt and conducting of the investigation. The early part of the episode is a good, credible "whodunnit" for me. Clearly something is not right with Tuvok and it is intriguing to find out what it could be. However, the episode stretches the mind meld capability to a new level, which I was not a fan of. 2 stars for "Repression" -- some pretty significant flaws in terms of motives, amount of suspension of disbelief, and the ending was all too quickly and easily sorted out. Pretty disappointing given what seemed like a half-decent premise and start to the episode.

Writers really must have been grasping at straws at this point. This comment section is something else on this one though, made it worth it.

I enjoy Elliott's defense of the episode above, and the idea in the episode about propaganda's radicalizing effects being encoded as Vulcan mind control stuff isn't bad. That there are people who might see Voyager as the last outpost of the Maquis in a universe which has otherwise scattered and wiped the out also make sense, and it suggests maybe a more touching episode that could have happened, somewhere -- what happens if some scattered Maquis come to view Voyager's Maquis as their standard-bearers, and view their capitulation to Starfleet, when they find out more about it, as a betrayal? But anyway, the episode as is still doesn't get any further than silly in my book, and even that it only really gets based on the decent, if sometimes overly obvious in its foreboding tone, investigation scenes early on. It's obvious we're not meant to take the Maquis mutiny seriously, so the only question is whether it reveals something interesting about either the mutineers or about Janeway et al. -- is there some part of Chakotay that chafes under Janeway's command, etc. -- and I'm going to go with "no." Tuvok's willingly firing at Janeway based on logical deduction -- taking a big risk for the possibility of a bigger payoff -- is a cool moment, though, which reminds me of Spock's dialogue to Kirk in Whom Gods Destroy about how he knew which one was him and which was Garth. Marginally 1.5 stars.

Tuvok eps ranked by quality / Tuvok-ness: Meld Tuvix (sort of) Gravity Random Thoughts Innocence Worst Case Scenario (ensemble but he has a lot of material) Alter Ego Flashback Learning Curve Riddles Ex Post Facto Rise Repression A great character, well-acted, generally neglected and misused, with only one really great episode (Meld) and a number of missed opportunities. Oh well. I still enjoy the character a lot, but I wish that he had had more chances to shine. I think Tuvok was hurt the hardest by Seven's entry into the show (well, excepting Kes obviously) -- Seven took the Stoic Character/Captain's Confidante role from Tuvok in many episodes, Kes' departure left his role as tutor behind, and generally Tuvok-centric shows mostly dried up, after him being one of the most central figures in the early seasons.

B&B should have been given credit for re-introducing Bajorans in a big way - there was no real need to try it 2 years after DS9 ended, but they tried it anyway!

I keep forgetting this episode as I rewatch the series--and yet it could have been SO good--IF they'd spent most of it with the characters struggling to come to terms with the idea that they could be so easily turned evil. Instead, that's the last three minutes and it's not even a question.

The episode was terrible @David. Your lame excuse to defend it by attacking people who did not like it is...well...lame.

Ken- Ayn Rand proved/solved philosophical issues? So untrue. Learn to recognize your own bias. You agree with her, for now... your world view will change as you grow (ideally).

Startrekwatcher

2 stars What started out with an intriguing mystery surrounding the Maquis & involving a mysterious Bajoran with lots of spooky tense atmosphere ends up with a lame payoff wherein Tuvok has his mind messed with for the millionth time and the Maquis are brainwashed into taking over the ship for a nanosecond for the reason(a reason I don’t buy)of the Bajoran wanting the Maquis alive *somewhere* even if they are 35000 light years away from the DMZ and thanks to the Dominion the Whole purpose for Maquis to begin with no longer exists

That Tuvok was "whodunnit" was obvious early on, but it was nice to see a Tuvok-centered ep. Tim R is so good at what he does, it's always nice to watch him. The story itself is not particularly engaging, and the Tuvok in the basement scene was very disturbing. It was fun to see a Maqui plot, and the way that played out was little more surprising than Tuvok's guilt. The ending, though, was too . . . neat and abrupt.

Pretty funny when all the "woke" Maquis changed into their old bad-ass Maquis battle uniforms, lol, guess they had those hanging in their closets

TUVOK: "I was tending to my duties." Cringe-worthy dialogue, that.

At least Mulgrew was entertaining.

Todayshorse

Suprised how it all gets wrapped up in about 15 seconds at the end. Very strange!

I for one, enjoy reading the comments of these long-ago posters almost as much as watching the show. I am impressed at the debating and analytical abilities of these people! Not to belabor some of my own past points (about giving a littIe slack to the writers), I thought this episode was at least interesting. I too, criticize ST at times but it really has to be off the wall for me to severely pan an episode.....or maybe I am getting soft in my old age. Here's a beef for this episode....not enough Seven!

It wasn’t a GOOD installment, but a combination of several elements made it “fun” and entertaining. It was a decent whodunit up front, though I guessed Tuvok before it was revealed. So I liked that the writers gave that away early, undercutting our self-satisfaction for having “got it.” Which means something else is going on, and we have to figure out what. Then we got the ol’ split personality hustle, and could enjoy Tuvok being both the culprit and the detective, playing both roles earnestly. Next it became a question of motivation which churned on for a few minutes, asking us to figure out why Tuvok would seemingly be attacking the Maquis, and what did it have to do with Bajoran extremysticism. Maybe Tuvok had suppressed a burning hate for the Maquis (after all, he’d been planted as a spy by Starfleet), and something had triggered his bloodlust at this late date. But no...he’s not ANTI-Maquis, he’s activating them for a mutiny, and the crew injuries are just unfortunate side-effects. Well, whyever would he do that? And when we learn his function was engineered via remote control by the Bajoran cleric...well, okaaaaaay, but as Jammer asks about the cleric, “What can he possibly get out of it? What purpose does it serve that helps any Maquis or former Maquis in any way?” Three options work for me. As mentioned upthread, maybe he’s one of the South American Nazis who plotted a deluded return to power for decades after WW.II, and thinks Maquis with an Intrepid-class ship hi-jacked from the Feds would be a powerful (eventual) gathering point for a renewal of the cause. Or maybe he just hates the Federation for what they allowed to happen to the Maquis, and finds some malicious joy in this belated act of revenge. Or MAYBE he hated Tuvok, personally and for his undercover role, and took particularly malicious glee in breaking the vaunted Vulcan discipline - never mind how long the interval between offense and retribution. Along with this, he likely had some pride in his mind-control craft. After the final twist that Tuvok was a remote-control agent, the plot descends into sheer lunacy, working out a mutiny played as farce. You couldn’t take it seriously, but you could enjoy the spectacle of our players in betrayals and shifts of allegiance. Thus far I found it a suitably convoluted mind game for the viewer, with the successive reveals well paced. The ending was simply lame, and I’d find it hard to accept that Janeway would forgive everyone so blithely. But ... all’s well that ends well, huh? I enjoyed this romp. ________ I wish we’d had more Vulcans as core characters in the various ST series. We’ve really only gotten to know three well, but I’ve found them all well-written and compelling. It’s hard not to consider Spock the greatest of them all, just for dignity and gravitas his example lent the race. But then I don’t know where to rank Tuvok or T’Pol. I’m one of those freaks who thinks Jolene Blalock was fabulous in her role, and brought a lot of depth and dimension to our understanding of the Vulcan soul. And I also think Tim Russ briiiantly portrays perhaps the most conflicted and complex Vulcan of them all. And one has to point out that, for all his seriousness and probity, he’s the Vulcan we’ve seen most often fail to maintain the discipline, often with serious consequences. Meld, Unimatrix Zero, and this episode are the ones that come first to mind - but, paradoxically, this most serious of Vulcans is also the most unreliable. I like that.

Sleeper Agent

Of all the damn episode reviews on this homepage, VOY's "Repression" has the comment section turning into a myriad of communism vs. capitalism essays. Makes as much sense as the episode. 1 Star.

The only thing that sucks more than this episode is half of you idiots.

Which half? The suspense is killing me.

Walrus1701D

You can see Tuvok's left hand as he comes at the frightened crew member in the Jeffries Tube...

I started to watch this episode because...I like Tim Russ. Great actor. And...Voyager is a special time for me during the evening... A holy time. That's all I remember.

Sarjenka's Brother

Here's a rare example of bad idea / good execution. This simply should have never made it past the pitching stage. They set up a Maquis/Starfleet situation in the pilot and then failed to properly cash in, bringing them together much too quickly. Mistake made. You move on and learn. But it was silly to bring it back up in Season 7. Who cares in Season 7? All that said, paradoxically enough, it was a fairly entertaining episode otherwise. 2 stars.

It was half investigation and half mutiny. I think it would have been better to make the whole thing about the mutiny. It wasn't too bad though.

I was actually quite enjoying it until the end. The obvious problem being there wasn't one. It had an Act 1, 2, 3, 4... and then an epilogue. All set up and no pay-off. What was it building to? What was the point of it? Very underwhelming.

I have to say, I enjoyed revisiting the Maquis and seeing characters like Chell again, however briefly. Yeah, I don't know what good activating a ship of Maquis will do given how far away they are and given that the Dominion War is over by this point and the Cardassians Empire has been demolished, but that Bajoran seemed pretty irrational anyway.

ThatsOnYoutube

Great episode! Ya'll are crazy to not like this. I love neo-noir vibe, and Tuvok as a detective. MUCH better than the excruciatingly dumb previous episode where everyone decides playing Speed Racer in Space is better than stopping the Borg from raping the universe or getting home.

The set up to this episode was fine. I liked the whole Tuvok 'as investigator' motif, and began to imagine an entire series in which my new hero, 'Tuvock Holmes', would be sent out by Starfleet as a Vulcan consulting detective to conduct these investigations on a regular basis. It would have been great, with a 24th century version of Columbo's wrinkled raincoat specially fitted to Tuvok's frame, and a tricoder/magnifying glass and briar pipe to tamp tobacco into and occasionally point with, but sadly it was not to be. Instead, the episode began to spin out of control to such an extent that I had to pretend that it was deliberately done as an alternate universe show. Maybe that's what the writers intended, but the 3 feet of celluloid containing the crucial scene ended up stuck to the pink Bazooka bubble gum on bottom of B'Elana's boot. If it was not deliberate alternate universe story, or a cauchemar in the fevered mind of Naomi Wildman, how else can one explain the following: (1) perfectly pressed and dry-cleaned patent leather Maquis uniforms instantaneously draped upon Chakotay and his cohorts; AND (2) Complete memory loss on Janeway's part allowing her to forgive these vicious turncoats so that by show's end she's mindlessly sitting next to Tuvok in the last scene like nothing had happened. I like cardboard 3D movie glasses and the Creature from the Black Lagoon as much as the next person, but geez.

Amelia Woggz

This is definitely one of the worst VOY episodes, and most boring lol. I feel like the DS9 writers who were overly spiritual hijacked this Voyager episode.

This episode demonstrates the limited vocabulary of stories upon which Voyager had to draw. Some secret force takes control of one of the main characters and prompts a rebellion by the Maqui? That idea would have been played out halfway through Season One.

EventualZen

@Jim >That idea would have been played out halfway through Series One. It should have been the series 1 2-part finale with part 2 playing in series 2. That way there would be more sense of danger, the audience would think may be the Maquis have really taken over, and not just be a reset episode. Over all score: 7/10

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The Cast of Gremlins : Where Are They Now?

How have Phoebe Cates, Corey Feldman and the rest of the cast coped with being terrorized by little green monsters in the 1984 classic?

Warner Bros. Pictures/Amblin E/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Gett

Forty years ago, somebody didn’t follow the very strict and very clear rules about their new pet, unleashing havoc in the process.

Director Joe Dante’s 1984 horror comedy Gremlins saw a horde of frighteningly hilarious little monsters take over a small town at Christmastime, and film-goers ate it up — but hopefully not after midnight! The film came in second at the box office on its opening weekend (behind another ’80s classic, Ghostbusters ), and in the four decades since it’s become not only a cult favorite, but also something of an off-beat holiday staple .

In 1990, the film spawned an even more wild sequel, Gremlins 2: The New Batch , and more recently Netflix revived the franchise in an animated series, Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai .

On the 40th anniversary of Gremlins ’ release, let’s check in on the film’s cast to see how they’ve faired since being tormented by the little green ghouls.

Zach Galligan as Billy

Zach Galligan was 20 years old when he made his film debut as small-town teen Billy in Gremlins , and would go on to reprise the role in 1990’s Gremlins 2: The New Batch . He’s also appeared in a slew of horror films, erotic thrillers and other B movies over the past 40 years, including 1988’s Waxwork and its 1992 sequel, 1993’s Warlock: The Armageddon and the 1993 sex comedy All Tied Up . He’s also had guest roles on hit TV series like Melrose Place , Tales from the Crypt , Star Trek: Voyager and Law & Order: Criminal Intent .

In recent years, he’s also dipped back into the Gremlins universe, first with a 2021 Mountain Dew commercial in which he appeared alongside furry mogwai companion Gizmo (voiced by Howie Mandel), and again last year when he voiced a supporting character in Netflix’s animated series Gremlins: Secrets of the Mogwai .

Galligan married Ling-Ling Hu Ingerick in 2005. The couple divorced five years later.

Phoebe Cates as Kate

Warner Bros. Pictures/Amblin E/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty; Jim Spellman/WireImage)

After making a splash in an iconic bikini scene in 1982’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High , Phoebe Cates again stole the spotlight in the role of Billy’s love interest Kate in Gremlins , delivering a memorably chilling monologue about why she hates Christmas — a moment she would later spoof in Gremlins 2 .

She continued to work steadily throughout the ’80s and early ’90s, appearing in comedies like Date with an Angel (1987) and Drop Dead Fred (1991), and dramas like Bright Lights, Big City (1988).

While auditioning for a role in The Big Chill (which would ultimately go to Meg Tilly), Cates met future husband, Kevin Kline . The couple married in 1989 and appeared in two films together: 1990’s I Love You to Death and 1994’s Princess Caraboo . After Princess Caraboo , Cates stepped away from acting to focus on raising her two children with Kline . In 2001, she briefly returned to the screen, appearing in Fast Times costar Jennifer Jason Leigh’s directorial debut The Anniversary Party . She also reprised her Gremlins role in 2015, voicing the character in the video game Lego Dimensions .

Howie Mandel as Gizmo

Pictorial Press Ltd / Alamy Stock Photo; Steve Granitz/FilmMagic

Already a star of NBC’s St. Elsewhere , in 1984 Howie Mandel lent his voice talents to the role of adorable fuzzy mogwai Gizmo in Gremlins , creating the character’s distinctive coos and squeals. He went on to star in ’80s comedies like A Fine Mess , Walk Like a Man and Little Monsters , while also voicing several characters in Muppet Babies . Mandel returned to voice Gizmo again in Gremlins 2 , and created and starred in an animated series of his own, Bobby’s World , which aired on Fox Kids from 1990 to 1998. 

Mandel has continued to work in films and TV series, frequently appearing as himself, over the past two decades. More recently, he’s become a go-to game show host and reality competition judge, most notably on Deal or No Deal and America’s Got Talent . Last year, he even competed as the Rock Lobster on The Masked Singer .

Mandel met wife Terry while they were both still in their teens. The couple married in 1980 and have three children . Mandel has talked openly about his struggles with obsessive compulsive disorder, a condition he shares with his eldest daughter, Jackelyn .

Corey Feldman as Pete

Warner Bros/Kobal/Shutterstock; Phillip Faraone/Getty 

After starring as Billy’s kid sidekick Pete in Gremlins , Corey Feldman went on to appear in some of the most iconic movies of the ’80s, his roles in The Goonies , Stand by Me and The Lost Boys making him one of the biggest child stars of the decade. He appeared alongside fellow teen star Corey Haim in License to Drive (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), and the pair became inextricably linked as “The Two Coreys.”

Like Haim, however, Feldman struggled with addiction and has frequently been a magnet for controversy . In 2020, Feldman released a documentary My Truth: The Rape of 2 Coreys , in which he alleged that both he and Haim had been sexually abused as child stars. And Feldman himself has been the subject of sexual misconduct allegations by several women .

He has also released several albums since 1992, and most recently appeared on The Masked Singer as the Seal .

Feldman has been married three times, first to actress Vanessa Marcil from 1989 to 1993, to Susie Sprague from 2002 to 2014 and most recently to Courtney Anne Mitchell from 2016 to 2023. He shares one son with Sprague.

Hoyt Axton as Billy's Dad

Warner Brothers/Getty; Ron Galella Collection via Getty

A prolific singer-songwriter — he penned Three Dog Night’s “Joy to the World” — and actor in the ’60s and ’70s, Hoyt Axton was the perfect choice for Billy’s father in Gremlins , bringing an earthy warmth to the role.

After Gremlins, Axton continued to act in small roles on shows like Diff'rent Strokes , Murder, She Wrote and an episode of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre . In the ’90s, he returned to music, releasing three albums between 1990 and 1998.

Axton married and divorced three times before marrying his wife Deborah. He was the father of five children, including musician Max Axton. He died at the age of 61 in 1999 .

Keye Luke as Mr. Wing

United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo; Jim Smeal/Ron Galella Collection via Getty 

Before appearing as elderly antiques dealer Mr. Wing in Gremlins , Keye Luke had a long and storied Hollywood career, beginning in the 1930s with his roles in the Charlie Chan films and as Kato in the Green Hornet film serials.

Already in his 80s at the time, Luke continued to work throughout the 1980s, with appearances on The A Team , Miami Vice , MacGyver and The Golden Girls following Gremlins . In 1990, he returned for a cameo as Mr. Wing in Gremlins 2 , and appeared that same year in his final role in Woody Allen’s Alice .

Luke was married to wife Ethel from 1942 until her death in 1979. He died at the of 86 in 1991.

Dick Miller as Mr. Futterman

Warner Bros. TCD/Prod.DB / Alamy Stock Photo; Oliver Walker/FilmMagic

Veteran character actor Dick Miller appeared in hundreds of film and TV roles over the course of his 60-year career, including all of Gremlins director Joe Dante’s films. Dante tapped Miller to play town drunk Murray Futterman in the 1984 horror comedy, and Miller returned to the role six years later in Gremlins 2. Small roles in films like The Terminator , Innerspace and The ’Burbs followed Gremlins in the ’80s, and Miller also voiced a character on Batman: The Animated Series and appeared on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine in the ’90s.

In 2014, he was the subject of a documentary, That Guy Dick Miller , and his final film, 2019’s Hanukkah , was released following his death in that year .

Miller was married to wife Lainie from 1959 until his death at the age of 90. The couple had one daughter.

Polly Holliday as Mrs. Deagle

Warner Bros./Courtesy Everett Collection; Evan Agostini/ImageDirect/Getty

Best known as sassy waitress Flo in CBS’s Alice (1976–1980), Polly Holliday went from sassy to nasty for her role as the sinister Mrs. Deagle in Gremlins .

Guest and recurring roles on shows like The Golden Girls and Home Improvement followed in the ’80s and ’90s, and Holliday also appeared in beloved films Mrs. Doubtfire and Nancy Meyers’s 1998 remake of The Parent Trap alongside a young Lindsay Lohan. She was last seen in 2010’s Fair Game , playing CIA officer Valerie Plame’s mother opposite Naomi Watts and Sean Penn.

Judge Reinhold as Gerald

Warner Bros./courtesy Everett Collection; Mark Davis/Getty

Phoebe Cates’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High costar Judge Reinhold appeared in Gremlins as Billy’s rival both at work and for Kate’s affection. The same year, he starred as Detective Billy Rosewood opposite Eddie Murphy in 1984’s Beverly Hills Cop , a role he would return to in the film’s two sequels.

A decade later, Reinhold landed another recurring role in 1994’s The Santa Clause , returning for that film’s two sequels as well. His memorable appearance as “the close talker” in a 1994 episode of Seinfeld earned him an Emmy nomination. In the 2000s, Reinhold has appeared in guest roles on series like Monk , Arrested Development and The Detour .

Later this year, Reinhold will return to the Beverly Hills Cop franchise once again, reprising his role in the fourth installment, Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F .

Reinhold was married to Carrie Frazier in the '80s, but the couple later divorced. He married film director Amy Miller in 2000, and their daughter Haley was born in 2013.

Jonathan Banks as Deputy Brent Frye

Warner Bros.; Stewart Cook/Getty

Jonathan Banks has been bringing his gruff, no-nonsense vibe to film and TV roles for decades, appearing in a small role as a local cop in Gremlins and alongside Judge Reinhold in Beverly Hills Cop that same year.

But today he’s perhaps best known to Breaking Bad fans as cop-turned-drug cartel enforcer Mike Ehrmantraut. Banks has reprised the role in both Breaking Bad prequel series Better Call Saul and in the Netflix film El Camino , earning five of his six Emmy nominations for his performance. His first Emmy nod came in 1989, for his role in the CBS crime drama Wiseguy .

Banks was married to his first wife Marnie from 1968 to 1970. The couple share one daughter, and Banks shares twins and a stepdaughter with his second wife, Gennera.  

Most recently, Banks starred opposite Noomi Rapace in this year’s AppleTV+ sci-fi series Constellation . He’ll next voice a character in Max’s Harley Quinn spin-off series Kite Man: Hell Yeah! , due out later this year.

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Floor It and Catch the Speed Cast Then and Now

It's been 30 years since keanu reeves and sandra bullock had to deal with a bomb on a bus in speed , and we're checking in with everyone who was along for the ride..

Pop quiz, hotshots: How many years has it been since Speed  was blowing up at the box office ?

Well, let's see, its lead stars haven't aged a day, so...

Wait,  30 years? Indeed, the action blockbuster starring  Keanu Reeves  and a then- almost -famous Sandra Bullock   rolled into theaters in June 1994, and didn't slow down until it had made $350 million.

Barely pausing to allow for Reeves' LAPD SWAT officer Jack Traven to get a coffee (which he doesn't even get a chance to drink), the fast-paced film directed by Jan de Bont had a bonkers premise: A freeway-bound bus is rigged with a bomb that will explode if the vehicle's speed drops below 50 miles per hour.

Seriously, what do you  do ?

Luckily, Reeves reported for duty with the intensity only he can provide. Plus, some memorable character actors and future Oscar winner Bullock—who gets behind the wheel after the bus driver becomes incapacitated—were among the morning commuters.

"I just remember a vehicle full of really kind and fun people," Bullock told  50 MPH  podcast  host Kris Tapley , "and a concept that I remember people scoffing at...Look, I was just happy to be there."

Added Reeves, "All of the artists who worked on it and the craftspeople who worked on it, there was a warmth to everyone and a sincerity."

So while audiences were on the edges of their seats, there was just a big ol' lovefest playing out onscreen as the ensemble dug into the "highbrow-lowbrow" of it all, as Reeves put it, and made summer movie magic.

With  Speed  still hurtling by on cable 30 years later, read on to see the cast then and now:

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Keanu Reeves

Not that it was in question, but Reeves triple-secured his heartthrob status playing LAPD S.W.A.T. officer Jack Traven, who ends up in a 50-mph-and-faster game of cops-and-bomber in the 1994 blockbuster Speed .

The Canadian-born actor has been a very busy movie star ever since, doing action ( The Matrix trilogy, the John Wick tetralogy), romance ( Sweet November , The Lake House ), comedy ( Something's Gotta Give ), sci-fi horror ( Constantine , The Devil's Own ) and everything in between. 

And while he passed on  Speed 2: Cruise Control , he said on a May 2024 episode of the  50 MPH  podcast that, were he and Sandra Bullock to reunite for a third installment, "I mean, you know—we'd freakin' knock it out of the park."

On a personal note, the very private Reeves has been in a relationship with Alexandra Grant —his partner in X Artists' Books—for probably much longer than anyone knew before they went public in 2019.

Sandra Bullock

While the Virginia native had been in an bunch of stuff, even landing the Melanie Griffith role in a short-lived TV adaptation of Working Girl , playing bus passenger turned emergency driver Annie in  Speed  was Bullock's true breakthrough.

From there, it was just a short jump over a gap in the freeway to  While You Were Sleeping ,  The Net ,  A Time to Kill , Hope Floats ,  Practical Magic ,  Miss Congeniality , Two Weeks Notice and so much more .

Not even starring in  Speed 2: Cruise Control slowed her momentum as the next great America's Sweetheart.

She reunited with Reeves for 2006's The Lake House on her way to  The Proposal and winning a Best Actress Oscar for 2010's  The Blind Side .

The mom to Louis and Laila (adopted in 2010 and 2015 respectively) slowed down a bit during the '10s to focus on her kids, but scored another Oscar nomination for her haunting turn as an astronaut in 2013's Gravity , and toplined the likes of  Ocean's 8 ,  Birdbox and  The Lost City .

Most recently seen in a pivotal small part in 2022's  Bullet Train , Bullock has been taking a break from acting since the death of her partner Bryan Randall from complications of ALS in August 2023.

Jeff Daniels

So 1994 was a bit of a year for Daniels.

After playing Jack's ill-fated S.W.A.T. partner Harry in Speed , he turned up as Jim Carrey 's partner in criminally funny nonsense in  Dumb and Dumber , which came out six months later.

The Michigan native, who stayed in the Great Lakes State to raise kids Ben , Lucas and Nellie with wife Kathleen , has never been far from a big screen. But it was his Emmy-winning turn as ANN anchor Will McAvoy on the Aaron Sorkin series The Newsroom that vaulted him to prestige-everything status. (And, at last there was the 20-years-in-the-making sequel Dumb and Dumber To ).

Meawhile, Daniels is a three-time Tony nominee, including for his sold-out run as Atticus Finch in Sorkin's stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird , and he picked up another Emmy in 2018 for the Western series Godless . He played real-life FBI agents in The Looming Tower  and The Comey Rule and characters from best-selling books in American Rust and A Man in Full .

He also performs with his son in the aptly named Jeff Daniels & Ben Daniels Band and penned the 2023 memoir Alive and Well Enough .

And he almost passed on  Speed  because, when he first read it, Harry didn't make it out of the elevator shaft during the opening rescue sequence. As Daniels recalled on The Rich Eisen Show , his agent told him, "'Hey, there's another draft coming, you die later,' so I thought, OK."

You know him from everything, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day   (playing the doomed inventor of the chip that might just destroy mankind), and in Speed Morton played Jack's solid boss Capt. Herb "Mac" McMahon.

A sampling of Morton's screen titles since: Lone Star , What Lies Beneath ,  The X-Files ,  Ali ,  Smallville ,  American Gangster ,  The Good Wife ,  Grace and Frankie ,  Law & Order , Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and Justice League.

And, last but the opposite of least, he played Olivia Pope's father Rowan on Scandal for six seasons, winning an Emmy for Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 2014.

Morton is also a veteran of the theater, taking on King Lear in 2022. "I do mostly television these days, and television has a hiatus. That's what this is," he told American Theatre during rehearsals. "But for most of my career, if I do something like Speed or one of those bigger films, they have paid for my ability to do a low-budget film, and maybe I do a low-budget film that pays for me to be able to do theater. It all sort of works out."

He shares three kids with ex-wife Nora Chavooshian .

She may have only been called Bus Passenger No. 1 and her few words are delivered in nervous squeals, but the cat-eye glasses (much like ones she wore in real life) and pearl-button cardigan made what could have been an unremarkable role into a noticeable part of the movie. 

"I had a lot of crying scenes," Gad told the Los Angeles Times in 1995, "and was one of the last people off the bus."

Acting was a sporadic side project for the Belgian-born painter, who used a snapshot of herself with Speed 's leading man to inform her piece "Gad/Reeves," memorializing the two-month film shoot.

Her last exhibition before her death at 73 in 2021 was the virtual "Siren Shores."

In an obituary, the Track 16 gallery called her a "force of perseverance and independence in the Los Angeles art community."

The actual last person off the bus (through the door, that is) was the future Connor Roy. Though when the Cleveland native showed up in Speed  as a tourist trying to get  away from the airport he was Cameron-from- Ferris Bueller .

After the 1994 hit, Ruck was among the tornado chasers in director Jan de Bont 's post- Speed action hit  Twister  and then was part of the  Spin City ensemble from 1996 until 2002. 

Then it was onto a slew of guest roles on everything from Medium , CSI  and  NCIS to  Bunheads,   Burn Notice and  Masters of Sex before his 2018 resurgence as the actual eldest, but perennially overlooked, Roy boy in Succession , for which Ruck earned an Emmy nomination in 2023.

He shares daughter Emma and son Sam with ex-wife Claudia Stefany  and daughter Vesper and son Larkin  with his actress spouse since 2008, Mireille Enos .

Hawthorne James

At least getting non-fatally shot early on allowed driver Sam to be safely transported off the bus before the day got really out of control.

And just as James—who got his theater degree from Notre Dame and a master's from University of Michigan and studied at the London Shakespeare Academy—was a busy working actor before Speed , appeaing in The Color Purple ,  Hill Street Blues ,  The Doors and more, so he's been ever since.

The Chicago native's credits include Se7en , Amistad , Charmed , ER ,  Workaholics and  Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders . His latest is the 2023 miniseries  Incandescent Love and he's playing the title character's real estate mogul father in the drama Mr. Gates .

"I always look at it and say, 'I haven't done anything yet,'" he told Good Morning Texas ahead of the film's June 2024 premiere . "And then I have to step back and look at the resume and realize there are people who'd give their right arm" for his kind of career.

Glenn Plummer

The prolific character actor gave Jack an essential ride in his Jaguar, door-to-door-smashing service right up to the speeding bus before he's left to veer into a bunch of waste bins and shake off his surreal morning.

He was so entertaining, he was elevated from "Jaguar Owner" to Maurice in Speed 2: Cruise Control .

Otherwise, you've seen Plummer in Strange Days , Showgirls ,  ER ,  Dexter ,  Sons of Anarchy ,  Southland , Major Crimes ,  Suits ,  Shameless ,  9-1-1 ,  A House Divided and a hundred other things.

On the home front, he shares two children with ex-wife DeMonica Santiago .

Carlos Carrasco

Construction worker Ortiz was actually pretty essential to saving the day as well, or else Jack might still be hanging onto the bottom of the bus for dear life.

Carrasco, who goes back and forth from stage to screen, has appeared on (to name a few of his dozens of credits)  ER ,  Star Trek: Voyager (as well as Deep Space Nine and Progeny ),  Angel ,  CSI ,  Parks and Recreation , Looking , Insecure and Hunters . 

The Panama City native is also a longtime supporter of Latino and Afro-Latino actors and filmmakers and ran the L.A.-based Panamanian International Film Festival for eight seasons.

Along with Joe Morton, you have also seen Grant in everything. Probably even more of everything.

While she got her start in 1979, her TV work since playing the fatally impatient Helen in Speed includes  Friends ,  Sabrina the Teenage Witch ,  Angel ,  The X-Files , CSI , Malcolm in the Middle ,  Everwood ,  Six Feet Under ,  Bones ,  Jericho ,  Pushing Daisies ,  Criminal Minds ,  King of the Hill , Modern Family , Dexter ,  Justified ,  Grey's Anatomy , American Gods ,  The Mindy Project , A Series of Unfortunate Events, Goliath ,  Dollface , and Grace and Frankie .

At the same time she's been moving seamlessly between notable indie films and massive movies: Todd Haynes ' Safe , A Time to Kill , Dr. Dolittle ,  Donnie Darko ,  Pearl Harbor ,  Matchstick Men ,  Little Miss Sunshine ,  Flags of Our Fathers ,  No Country for Old Men ,  Crazy Heart ,  The Artist ,  Jackie  and  Amsterdam .

"Turn on your TV at night, one of the movie channels," The Mindy Project 's Ike Barinholtz told the Wilmington Star-News in 2013, "and count how many minutes until Beth Grant appears in one of those movies."

Grant is also mom to actress Mary Chieffo with her actor husband since 1985, Michael Chieffo (whom you also have seen in many things!).

Dennis Hopper

With credits dating back to  Rebel Without a Cause , Hopper was known for masterfully kooky turns in Easy Rider (which he also directed), Apocalypse Now , Blue Velvet and True Romance before he played Howard Payne, the ex-Atlanta PD bomb squad officer with fingers numbering nine who plants enough C4 on a bus to blow a hole in the world.

He'll either collect his money or blow Jack and that Wildcat behind the wheel to smithereens, w hichever comes first.

Looking back, Hopper "really loved"  Speed , he told AV Club in 2008. "I thought it was a terrific movie. Jan de Bont's first directorial job, coming from being a cinematographer. He did a terrific job. That was fun."

He followed it up with Kevin Costner 's much-maligned  Waterworld ("I enjoyed it"), and continued to act for the rest of his life, starring in a TV adaptation of the Oscar-winning movie  Crash  a year before he died of prostate cancer in 2010 at the age of 74.

Hopper, who was married five times and had four children, was also a prolific photographer and painter. 

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Okuyama Hiroshi’s ‘My Sunshine’ Looks at Adolescence, Ice Skating and Repression in Japan

By Mark Schilling

Mark Schilling

Japan Correspondent

• Okuyama Hiroshi’s ‘My Sunshine’ Looks at Adolescence, Ice Skating and Repression in Japan 2 weeks ago
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A 22-year-old prodigy when he won the New Directors Award at San Sebastian in 2018 for his student film “Jesus,” Okuyama Hiroshi took something of a roundabout route to his second feature, “ My Sunshine ,” which screened in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard lineup.

Okuyama’s coming-of-age drama about two tween ice skaters — a boy and girl who study under the same coach in a northern provincial town — originated from his own seven years in the sport. “I learned skating from the age of 5 to 12 — I wanted to become a professional,” says Okuyama.

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“I thought that if I could use (“Boku no Ohisama”) as a theme song, I could make it into a movie,” Okuyama says. He wrote a letter to the musical duo, who, after rejecting other offers to use the song in films, give him their enthusiastic OK.

The final piece of the puzzle was Ikematsu, an in-demand actor who had appeared in everything from the hit “Death Note” horror series to Kore-eda Hirokazu’s award-winning 2018 family drama “Shoplifters.”

After turning down Ikematsu when he proposed working together on a manga-based film project, Okuyama asked him to appear in a documentary he was making for the Hermes brand. “I was able to experience his true coolness and charm, and it made me want to make a film with him again,” Okuyama says.

The film will be released in Japan by Tokyo Theaters and in France by Art House Films. Charades is handling international sales.

Both Koshiyama and Nakanishi had had experience as skaters when Okuyama cast them as Takuya and Sakura, but not Ikematsu, who trained intensively for the part. “He practiced once a week for six months, more than an hour each time, before the shooting,” says Okuyama. “I was really amazed at not only at his progress, but also at the fact that such a famous actor could devote so much time to creating a role.”

Okuyama donned skates himself to film the skating scenes at a rink in snowy Iwate Prefecture. “The sun doesn’t shine [on the landscape] that much because there are mountains nearby,” he says. “So I set up lights on all the windows.” The resulting gauzy light beams flow around Sakura as she skates, while Okuyama’s camera glides and swirls in synch with her movements.

“My Sunshine,” however, is more than a gorgeously shot ode to the sport or celebration of youth: It also examines the difficulties and dangers of being a sexual minority in conservative Japan.

But the film refrains from black-and-white judgments about its characters. “I think it’s important to show a good person doing or saying something bad,” Okuyama says. “Even a good person can have a bad heart at times.”

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• Cast & crew
• User reviews
• Episode aired Oct 1, 1997

Amidst promotions, added duties and shifts in relationships, Voyager responds to a distress call from a hologram, one who proves himself dangerously unsafe to be around. Amidst promotions, added duties and shifts in relationships, Voyager responds to a distress call from a hologram, one who proves himself dangerously unsafe to be around. Amidst promotions, added duties and shifts in relationships, Voyager responds to a distress call from a hologram, one who proves himself dangerously unsafe to be around.

• Kenneth Biller
• Gene Roddenberry
• Rick Berman
• Michael Piller
• Kate Mulgrew
• Robert Beltran
• Roxann Dawson
• 11 User reviews
• 6 Critic reviews

• Capt. Kathryn Janeway

• Cmdr. Chakotay

• Lt. B'Elanna Torres

• Lt. Tom Paris

• Seven of Nine

• Ensign Harry Kim

• Voyager Ops Officer
• (uncredited)
• Science Division Officer

• Command Division Officer
• Ensign Culhane
• Command Officer
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia The scene in which Seven of Nine orders Harry Kim to undress was one of two scenes that were used to audition actresses for the role of Seven.

Seven of Nine : All of these elaborate rituals of deception... I didn't realize becoming human again would be such a challenge. Sexuality is particularly complex. As Borg, we had no need for seduction, no time for single-cell fertilization. We saw a species we wanted and we assimilated it. Nevertheless, I am willing to explore my humanity. Take off your clothes.

• Connections Referenced in Star Trek: Voyager: Drive (2000)
• Soundtracks Star Trek: Voyager - Main Title Written by Jerry Goldsmith Performed by Jay Chattaway

User reviews 11

• makiefer-87128
• Mar 14, 2024
• October 1, 1997 (United States)
• United States
• Official site
• Paramount Studios - 5555 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA (Studio)
• Paramount Television
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

Technical specs

• Runtime 46 minutes
• Dolby Digital

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Wuthering Waves 12+

Waking of a world.

• #5 in Role Playing
• 4.2 • 9.8K Ratings
• Offers In-App Purchases

Screenshots

Description.

Wuthering Waves will officially launch on 2024/05/22 19:00 (PT)! Wuthering Waves is a story-rich open-world action RPG with a high degree of freedom. You wake from your slumber as Rover, joined by a vibrant cast of Resonators on a journey to reclaim your lost memories and surmount the Lament. Introduction Welcome aboard, roving voyager. Upon the shores lay the silent embers of a world during the Ebb Tide. Desolated by the Lament, the erstwhile creations and earthly beings are left static. But they strike back, strong enough to penetrate the silence. Humanity has risen anew from the ashes of the apocalypse. And you, Rover, are poised for an adventure of Awakening. Companions to meet, enemies to conquer, new powers to gain, hidden truths to unveil, and unseen spectacles to behold... A vast world of endless possibilities awaits. The choice rests in your hands. Be the answer, be the leader, and follow the sounds to arrive at a new future. As Wuthering Waves echo endlessly, mankind set sail on a new journey. Rise and embark on your odyssey, Rover. Features Desolated by the Lament, civilization is born anew / Delve into an expansive world Embrace high degrees of freedom in immersive overworld explorations. Utilize grapple and wall dash to travel great distances and overcome obstacles with little strain for stamina consumed. As the world of Solaris-3 unfolds, your lost memory begins to see its recovery through this ceaseless quest. Strike fast and unleash your inner warrior / Engage in smooth & fast-paced combat Avail against enemy attacks in smooth and fast-paced combat. Apply easy controls of Extreme Evasion, Dodge Counter, Echo Skill, and unique QTE mechanisms that allow the fullest possibility of battle experience. Forte awakened, journey alongside your companions / Encounter Resonators Compose a harmonious battle concerto with Resonators of different abilities. Their unique Fortes revealing distinctive personalities will be your strong assets for the journey ahead. Power of your foes at your command / Collect Echoes to aid you in battle Capture lingering phantoms of Tacet Discords to harness your own Echoes. Upon this mystic land of everlasting reverberations, a diverse array of Echo Skills will strike enemies with powerful responses. Official Social Media Official Website: https://wutheringwaves.kurogames.com/en/ X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/Wuthering_Waves Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WutheringWaves.Official YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@WutheringWaves Discord: https://discord.com/invite/wutheringwaves Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/WutheringWaves/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wuthering_waves Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wutheringwaves_official

Version 1.0.0

Game description updated

Ratings and Reviews

9.8K Ratings

Editors’ Notes

Here comes the wave! In this gorgeous open-world RPG, explore eroded landscapes, battle otherworldly creatures, and unlock incredible skills.

Pretty good; but

Wuthering Waves has been both good and very generous so far; I'm level 13 and have 3 5*s, (soon four), the exploration is very fun, the battle is smooth and satisfactory, and the story so far has been interesting. Unfortunately, the experience is ruined a lot by a ton of lag. Whether I use my phone or a tablet, it lags so hard, it's rough to even run around; and that's with the absolute lowest level settings possible. It also crashes constantly; a cutscene? Crash. Unlocking a new area on the map? Crash. I can only imagine what co-op would be like in this state. I'd like this game to be available on playstation; not only because it is my main gaming platform, but because I'm sure it will have a much better quality experience than on my phone or tablet. Not entirely sure why you wouldn't release a playstation version with the base release of the game, (I've seen many different sources saying playstation will be implemented at some point,) since I feel that would bring in more players quicker. I've heard this game has been in development for over two years; and yet cannot include other main gaming platforms for other players who can't access the ones available? Not to mention; I've seen quite a few reviews about how horrible the controller support is; the button placement and controls was atrocious. I haven't tried it myself, but I'm hoping it'll get better.

Don’t hate js bc its very similar to genshin. Genshin is similar to botw

“Too many bugs they aren’t fixing them omg!” Yes they are?? Literally since launch on tues they had released over 18 mini updates to fix various bugs. They are working OVERTIME. I think tuesday was a much deserved break day because they didnt release any updates that day, but i can respect that. “Needs wifi to play on!!!” This is one of the complains of the top reviews (seriously?). EVERY GOOD GAME NEEDS WIFI TO PLAY ON YOU DILAPIDATED TRIANGLE. “Doesnt work without wifi!” OF COURSE IT DOESNT HAVE YOU PASSED THE THIRD GRADE? “Music is bland” Music is subjective but there is also a music bug going around where you cant hear the background music after it plays once (outside of jinzhou). This will definitely get fixed very soon because it is one of the main leading factors locking people from playing main quests. They refuse to continue because without the music the experience is gone. Fortunately i was able to find a way to get the music back for a short time, so i was able to experience the main story to the end WITH music. Even if the music is bland, if people keep saying things about it, it will probably get upgraded. Vanguard worked with them on Pgr but they seem to be a bit understaffed right now so they only made a few songs for Wuwa. Personally tho i quite like the music, loving the scifi feel and it definitely adds some emotion to the post apocalyptic theme.

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