VOY – Alice

 

Plot – ‘Don’t make me regret this…’ says Chakotay at the thought of a ‘slightly used alien ship’ being brought on board Voyager to add to their compliment of shuttles. It’s funny, I was thinking exactly the same thing. 

The teaser does make promise of a great adventure in Abbadon’s scrapyard in space. It feels almost TOS in nature (not TNG, they were far too po-faced when it came to having an adventure) to stumble across a flotilla of junk and get bartering. You could imagine Kirk and Scotty having great fun making deals with Abaddon.

Character – There’s dialogue in this episode that is extremely telling about the surface level of characterisation on Voyager. Tuvok plays ‘guess his age’ on the Bridge, Neelix talks about his long-forgotten shuttle, Baxiel and Torres fails to prevent the green-eyed monster from emerging as Tom gets close to Alice. It’s entirely one-dimensional dialogue. There’s no substance or meaning to any of it. Its characters chatting away, filling up an hour, revealing nothing profound or amusing about themselves. A cardboard cast.

When I was watching Lineage in season seven I mentioned that I was astonished that the Torres/Tom romance could generate so much emotion when they had been treated as bad sitcom characters in the past. This was one of those moments. Torres gets insanely jealous over Alice in an agonising scene where Tom is diverting all of his attention away from their relationship. Torres then confides in Harry Kim (of all people), wondering why every time Tom gets a new obsession that he forgets that she even exists. Harry attempts to justify it. What he should have said was ‘because he’s’ a twat and you can do better.’

Performance – Watch very closely the scene where Chakotay asks Tom to shave and get back into his uniform. You can see how much Robert Beltran is dying behind his eyes being forced to say such unimpressive things. He’s long given up on the show giving him fresh opportunities to act at this point (and was extremely vocal around this time about it) and you can see just how badly he is phoning in Chakotay.

Sometimes you have to ask if an actress was screen tested before they secure a role on Star Trek because they are so ill-suited to the role they are given, and yet I know that these things are vigorously screened by Paramount. So how Claire Rankin scored the part of Alice is a mystery because she redefines the term ‘flat performance’ with an unemotional, fish wife (that’s the only way to describe how desperate and pushy Alice’s personality is) spaceship. If she’s trying to be sinister, she fails. If she’s trying to be sexy, she really fails. If she’s trying to generate some drama…you get the idea.

Terrible Dialogue – ‘We’re one now, Tom. Think of what you want me to do and I’ll do it…’ – Alice attempts to be seductive…and fails

Production – Tom Paris’ glitzy new uniform that he dons to work on Alice has to be seen to be believed. Obviously, Alice is a huge fan of the space age glam rock period if that is the kind of couture that she likes her pilots to don.

Best moment – That glorious moment of ‘suspense’ when the script abandons the characters for a moment so the audience can have a moment alone with Alice and she lights up menacingly to tell us she is a sinister cur.

I wish they hadn’t done that – ‘We’ve already got a full compliment of shuttles…’ I’m not going to go crazy, just point out that Voyager has lost about 25 shuttles at this point in its run. How they have a full compliment is a complete mystery.

At this point in television I think montages were a thing of the past, or at least used in parodies of television shows past. Except Voyager. Voyager features a cheerful montage of Tom and Alice getting to know each other with a chirpy score and everything but Robert Duncan McNeill giving a thumbs up to the camera.

A reason to watch this episode again – This is so awful it almost doubles back on itself in quality terms and reaches a level high art kitsch. On the back of three seasons of TOS, seven seasons of TNG and seven seasons of DS9, I fail to understand that when Voyager is finally the unique voice of the franchise that it produces something as crass, obvious and unengaging as this. Haven’t they learnt anything from the lessons of the other shows? Alice is enjoying itself until the centre figure of the episode arrives; the eponymous Alice and then the episode becomes all about Tom Paris and his latest obsession and we all know how those sorts of story’s usually go down. Robert Duncan McNeill is a fine chap by all accounts and there are reports that everybody enjoyed working with him…but that doesn’t mean he is a particularly strong actor and I struggle to think of many moments across the seven year run of Voyager that showcases him at his best (to contrast, I can even do that with Garrett Wang – Timeless, The Thaw). Alice is certainly not one of those moments, when Tom becomes an adolescent obsessive, cheating on his Chief Engineer girlfriend with his latest piece of technology and turning psychotic in the last act as she gets in his head in a very intimate way. It’s a challenge to watch because the premise is so hokey, the execution awkward and the acting abysmal. This was written by the man who gave us The Visitor and the guy who conceived Discovery. Sharp, smart writers. How they could produce a script this lacking in braincells boggles the mind. The parallels with Christine are both obvious and intentional. The idea of a sentient ship that can dig its fingers into the mind of its owner doesn’t have to be entirely embarrassing, as long as you are a writer that can explore the potential of the idea. Alice is somewhere in the middle stages of neutral about how to play the horror; neither gloriously over the top to tip into B-Movie territory (think of something like DS9’s Empok Nor) or subtle enough to unnerve (think Voyager’s own Meld). It tiptoes in the tepid middle area of timidity and as such it fails to work as a horror episode in either direction.

* out of *****

Clue for the next episode: