Plot – Season six of Voyager is the point where this was the only Trek show delivering content. If there was ever a moment to shine, this was it because there was nothing to compete against. It’s the oddest season of Trek in that it has what I feel is a complete 50/50 split in terms of quality and it lurches dramatically between very good episodes and really terrible ones. Instalments such as Survival Instinct, Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy, Pathfinder, Memorial and Muse rub shoulders with Alice, Riddles, Virtuoso, Spirit Folk and Fury. The good stuff is very good, perhaps the best Voyager ever delivered. The bad stuff is about as bad as Trek can sink. I don’t think there has ever been another season quite like it.
Character – Janeway calling Torres ‘Lanna’ is a watershed moment between them. There’s a maternal relationship that has been fascinating to follow from the start of the series, but was kind of put on hold for a few seasons once Seven of Nine was introduced. A shame because it is as interesting a relationship as far as I am concerned and given Torres’ tricky relationship with her mum it produces fireworks from time to time that are glorious to watch. This episode explicitly makes that Captain/Engineer relationship Mother/Daughter, which I appreciated very much.
Torres thinks she inherited the forehead and the bad attitude but that is as far she goes as a Klingon. How penetrating to not go down the obvious route of Torres complaining about her Klingon half but to have to accept that her mother might be punished and sent to hell because she rejected everything that it is to be a Klingon. They strike me as just prideful and obsessed with their own self image to do that to somebody after they have died. She has to look at herself and try and understand why she hates that part of herself so much and try to come to terms with it to rescue her mother. On every level this is satisfying; as an examination of Torres and her established racism, as an examination of her relationship with her mother and as a chance for Torres to finally come to terms with the part of herself that she always tries to hide. This is where Kira was in season one DS9 when she faces the death of an honourable, dead Cardassian and claims that his hating him for the race he comes from isn’t enough. The fact that Voyager got there in season six (and still had time for some further scrutiny in season seven) is a shame but I still applaud the effort to let Torres come to terms with these things.
Whilst Neelix’s intentions are always pure, I don’t know why somebody doesn’t just sit him down and explain that they don’t need him to spend his time creating events that ram the cultures of the crew down their throats. He’s trying to do a nice thing here but celebrating Kilngon culture is the last thing that Torres would ever want to indulge in. And if he spent as much time with her as he thinks he does he would understand that. She hasn’t exactly been quiet about it. Just say ‘many thanks for thinking of me Neelix, but why not worry about your own empty existence for a while and stop trying to busy yourself with the personal affairs of other people.’ She even specifically asks him not to do this. Clearly wasting five barrels of blood wine is more important than protecting the feelings of a member of the crew to this morale officer. Later he presents food and tells people to eat it or he will force it down the gullet of their corpse. To be fair he’s been doing that since season one. Perhaps I should cut him some slack, he’s only an illusion after all.
The Paris/Torres relationship is a tricky one for me because in the hands of the shows better writers it is an authentic, loving relationship between two people from different cultures who are very drawn to each other. In the hands of the lesser writers (and when it comes to character I would certain put Braga in that category) they come across as dozy sitcom lovers who can’t keep their hands off each other or fly into a jealous rage for no good reason. The relationship swings alarmingly between the two with an unfortunate emphasis on the latter. Torres suggesting she wants to simulate a near death experience in order to contact and save her mother in the afterlife provokes an emotional reaction from Tom. He loves B’lanna and doesn’t want her to die and yet he is uniquely qualified to understand how she feels about her people, and her mother. How he steps back respectfully whilst still making it clear he wishes she wouldn’t proceed is the perfect handling of this relationship.
Performance – A wonderfully written, sweet, believable scene between Torres and Chakotay. God how I missed those in the later seasons. They were the bread and butter of the early ones. Beltran responds really well to the opportunity.
Production – In an episode where the execution is impressive throughout, the opening shots of the Delta Flyer coming into to land on Voyager from the point of view of the pilot are really impressively done.
The Barge itself is an impressive piece of design, wonderfully gothic and travelling on a sea of blood through wind and lightning towards the most ominous set of doors imagine. It’s some of the more commanding imagery that Voyager indulged in. It feels like one of the planets that they conjured up on Farscape, heavy with atmospherics. Watch as the Klingon falls into the sea of blood and is immediately set upon by hungry creatures.
Best moment – I love the scene between B’lanna and Tuvok that swings from meditation to combat. I was rolling my eyes at yet another session of candle watching with our resident Vulcan when things took a disturbing turn and he started taunting her and questioning her authenticity as a Klingon. As far as a Klingon is concerned this is real therapy, not getting in touch with your feelings but grabbing a weapon and fighting your personality. I wish the real Tuvok performed therapy in this fashion, the Voyager crew could do with the wake up call.
Watching the Voyager crew get cut down in slow motion by a bunch of blood hungry Klingons might be in my top ten favourite scenes on this show. I don’t hate all the characters but watching the ones I don’t get along with get stabbed in the stomach fills me with glee. If anybody questions that Mike Vejar was one of the most technically impressive of directors in the Trek franchise then they only need to watch this sequence. The lighting, the camerawork, the performances, it all comes together to create an atmosphere of horror and suspense.
The climax is a labyrinth of scenes packed with vivid imagery but are always rooted in character. Torres wakes up in hell and it is depicted as Voyager. Does that mean that her life there hiding away from her Klingon heritage is what she considers to be hell? All her friends chip in to tell her what a stubborn, dishonourable, unsociable woman she is. It’s the voices in her head. What is she supposed to be? A good Starfleet officer? Maquis? Lover? Klingon? This is all very healthy characterisation.
I wish they hadn’t done that – At this point I have come to accept that Voyager still wants to play about with the Alpha Quadrant races and will go to any lengths to include them. The creators know what makes Star Trek that the fans want to watch. Ferengi. Klingons. Borg. Cardassians. It should annoy because it is more pandering to where this show wants to be rather than exploring where it is but this is season six and it is past time to complain about such things. In the twilight of a series nothing is going to change and so as long as it is doing something worth watching with established continuity, that’s fine by me.
A reason to watch this episode again – Klingon episodes are not my thing (something to do with the macho posturing and the emphasis on ritual and fighting, I’m sure) and so it is no small thing for me to say that this is one of my favourite episodes of Voyager. In the long term it has no real impact but it takes hold of a character that I happen to really like, and one that has been ignored for some years now in favour of new arrivals, and takes the time to examine her in some depth and give Roxan Dawson a chance to prove what an incredible actress she can be. It has a powerful visual style and proves to be a genuinely creepy experience at times. More importantly it has a character thread that I can fully comprehend – always having difficulties getting on with your mother and having to deal with that after she has died – which is handled deftly and comes to some definitive conclusion about. Barge of the Dead is a diversion from the usual bland Delta Quadrant nonsense and nose dive into dark psychology and it has Ronald D. Moore’s fingers all over it. It’s such a shame that he ducked out of Voyager so quickly because the four episodes that surround his involvement were all very good. I can only guess what he would have gone on to do with the final two seasons.
****1/2 out of *****
Clue for tomorrow's episode:
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