I love how sensibly plotted this story is. Nobody is forced to act like an idiot in order to make the story work. The telepathic abilities of the Enarans are immediately brought up. Torres’ dreams are immediately put down to their visitors presence. The Doctor finds an immediate cure to the visions she is undergoing. And it is Torres’ choice to continue to experience the narrative because she feels a connection with Korrena and wants to know how the story ends. When the truth is exposed, the Enarans refuse to believe the horrible truth they are hearing. And Torres reaches out to one woman to let her experience the same dreams, and hopefully spread the word. At each one of these turns the story could have gone in another direction where characters are made to look stupid in order to progress the story but it follows a direct, linear and sensible course throughout. And it’s shot through with real emotion to make it all the more impactful.
The second anyone starts talking about ‘regressives’ who ‘don’t think like we do’ who are being resettled then warning klaxons start going off in my head. Even Korenna looks completely unconvinced when she tells one of the regressives that they will be going somewhere else where they can be with their own people. Star Trek has made a habit of holding up a mirror to the horrors of the past by telling a story in the future and Remember is one of the better examples. A dislike for the unlike. Suggesting that people who choose to live their lives a different way are unsanitary and need educating in better ways. Cutting away that part of society and sterilising it. The Enarans treatment of the regressives is brutal and the episode doesn’t shy away from it. The fact that Korenna then becomes part of the propaganda machine that tells the children that ask questions about the regressives that they essentially killed themselves in their new resettlement is the most alarming thing of all. For these people to have been swept away and then blamed for their own destruction is just appalling.
Character – Torres talking to Chakotay about her sensual dreams being liberating is one of those moments when one of the Voyager crew sounds utterly authentic and not scripted. They don’t hit too often.
Performance – Roxan Dawson is one of the great unsung heroines of Voyager, often forgotten next to Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan and Remember displays exactly what I mean by that in spades. She gets the chance to play two very different characters compellingly, and to give her brand new character Korenna a great deal of depth and nuance and to show how one character has a profound effect on the other. When Torres suggests that she is liberated by dreaming of being this character, that is exactly what Dawson is doing. Getting the chance to stretch her wings and do things that Torres would never do. I particularly like Korenna’s unrepressed sexuality, because that is quite the opposite of Torres and reveals a whole new side to Dawson.
Great Dialogue – ‘No apologies. No requests for forgiveness. Just the truth.’
‘So that’s it? We just go on our merry way and nobody has to take any kind of responsibility.’
Production – For once Neelix is shoving another culture down the throats of the crew for a good reason and his impromptu party for the Anarans and how he tries to educate the Voyager crew in their culture is really rather special. The décor, the ambience, the music; it all works. This is Star Trek seeking out new life and new civilisations.
Best moment – The sequence where Korenna has to face up to the fact that her father is a monster and has been systematically wiping out the regressives…and how with a little persuasion from the man himself she finds that she can live with the idea rather than throw away her career. The fact that she turns in her own regressive lover rather than acknowledge publicly that her father is a monster is a shocking moment. And suddenly the entire reason that she has been pouring these memories into Torres’ head makes perfect sense. She wishes to atone for that terrible choice she made all those years ago. For Voyager this is some surprisingly hard-hitting characterisation. Normally it would duck out of characters making stomach turning choices like this. Dawson plays the scene where Korenna makes her choice in complete silence and the conflict that she goes through and the ultimate choice are stunning acting choices.
I wish they hadn’t done that – TNG’s Violations dealt with a race of telepaths that came on board the Enterprise and imposed their will upon the crew. Comparisons between the two episodes are inevitable.
A reason to watch this episode again – It might be easy to pass this off as another Voyager episode that is gripping because it isn’t about the Voyager crew (ala Living Witness, Timeless, Pathfinder) but the way in which Remember develops means that it shows how much the Enaran history touches B’Elanna means that she can pass on that knowledge to future generations. They have an impact of this society because she was chosen. Throughout I was convinced that this was some enemy of the Enarans trying to sully their name but because of the gripping, direct way in which the flashbacks are told and how Torres reacts so vividly to them you know that this disturbing memory of genocide is very real. As the episode progresses, the memories get more unnerving until we reach the scene where Korenna’s lover is exposed and murdered and it’s one of the most hand to mouth scenes in this shows entire run, especially because Korenna herself has been corrupted to give him up. Roxan Dawson is a revelation, proving in one episode why she was chosen for such a vital part on this show and giving a performance that is a cut way above what is expected of episodic television. The fact that Jeri Taylor thinks that this is one of the season three episodes that doesn’t work goes to show just how much we are on different pages in terms of quality. I think it is one of the rare season three episodes that scores big time. A carbon copy of Violations this isn’t. It’s better.
****1/2 out of *****
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