VOY - Night

Plot – I love the Captain Proton holodeck programme and it is a huge feather in Voyager’s cap; camp, silly and really enjoyable. It doesn’t quite make up for the hideous programmes that surround it (Lord Burleigh’s gothic romance, the Jamaican luau, Leonardo Da Vinci’s study and the obscenity that is Fair Haven) but I do appreciate the fact that for one year only the show has decided to find the fun. It means that two of the most stilted performers in this cast have an excuse to be so (Duncan-McNeil and Wang) and the crazy melodramatic music, the detail in the ridiculous design and the beautiful black and white photography really help to sell the magic of this period of SF comic strip sagas on the big screen.

Character – There is a feeling of disquiet amongst the crew as the ship is finally crossing an area of space that is completely unknowable. The lack of stars means that it is impossible to navigate or even see where they are going and as Chakotay says for sailors who are used to exploring that is the worst position to be in. Rather than use this as an excuse to kick start a plot about jet black aliens that are swarming around the ship or some such nonsense, the writers instead decide to turn this into a psychological exercise. It is one where the crew have a long chance to consider their situation in the Delta Quadrant, the reason that they are stuck here and the strong possibility that they might never make it home. It is unlike Voyager to really push for intense examination of this nature, so it is especially fine that they chose this route. These are officers with nothing to report, with no star systems to chart or explore, where the blackness of the windows seems to pressing in on them and claustrophobia pervades.

Fascinatingly, it takes removing Janeway from the show altogether to reveal just how much she holds this crew together. It was a brave move to write out the central character for the first third of the season opener but in doing so they make her even more of a focal point than ever. She’s conspicuous by her absence and everybody is feeling it and has questions. Janeway is kept from the audience as well as the crew so we are all part of the mystery. When we do finally catch up with her she is darkly silhouetted in her quarters, brooding and depressed. It might seems an odd time for the consequences of her actions in Caretaker to finally have caught up with her (five years later) but when you are trapped in area of space where nothing is the order of the day and there is nothing to do but think then the mistakes of your past are bound to come back to haunt you. Janeway as this dark, critical thinker is not what we are used to (she’s often the real morale officer on this ship) but it plays to Mulgrew’s strengths as an actor and she really grapples with the darkness in the script. ‘If the crew asks for me, tell them the Captain sends her regards.’ It turns out Janeway thrives on danger and excitement and the second they are under attack she is back at her best. I just can’t imagine her stuck behind a desk back at Starfleet Command. She won’t give an order to strand the crew in the void when she has a way out of it, tying into her questionable (but understandable) decision in Caretaker. She’s willing to sacrifice herself in order to give her crew a push home, which is reckless but very noble. Tuvok says her methods are unorthodox and that that is her greatest strength and weakness as a Captain. She displays both here in spades.

Chakotay suggests that there is discord between him and Tuvok, which has been apparent since the pilot when he posed as one of his Maquis officers. Strange that they should bring this up here because I haven’t felt any kind of tension between them since the end of the first year.

Production – It’s so interesting that we are in the same sets we always are but by simply taking away the pricks of light outside the windows and suddenly it feels like there is a hand wrapped the ship and it is squeezing. Thanks to some strong directorial touches (the lighting is much more brooding than normal, suggesting the lack of light outside) and the increased anxiety from the actors and the premise really bites.

The most obvious thing that the script could do is plunge the ship into darkness but with 20 minutes of build up about how claustrophobic the crew already is, it is a really sweaty moment of panic. How the light snap off sequentially feels darkly playful, like somebody is trying to frighten the crew. Suddenly we’re in horror territory as the crew is trapped in absolute darkness with the suggestion of alien nasties in the shadows.

I rather like the Malon and their grungy, dirty aesthetic but I fully accept that they are hardly the most memorable of races that Star Trek has ever come up with. It is nice to have a race that is neither good nor evil but simply doing their job and spreading environmental hell throughout the quadrant as they do. We would see a little of them this year but nowhere near as much as I would like.

Best moment – Seven of Nine disabling Satan’s robot in less than five seconds and concluding her role in the holodeck programme before they have even started. It is screamingly funny, aided by Ryan’s brilliant deadpan delivery.

‘You realise you can all be hanged for mutiny?’ The crew show their solidarity in refusing to let Janeway sacrifice herself, by refusing to obey her orders. It is mutiny, but it’s also very cute.

Worst moment – Only Harry Kim could consider an existential crisis a ‘two-year holiday.’ Sometimes you have to wonder why they don’t install him with some kind of pain collar and every time he thinks up some insanely optimistic suggestion, they give him a quick zap of absolute agony. At least Tom and Torres both chide him for his remark this time around. The writers are coming around to the fact that they have created a complete chump.

I wish they hadn’t done that – I’m not the sort of person to normally worry about technical inconsistencies but if the power is down then surely the holodecks would stop working and we wouldn’t be seeing Seven and Tom in black and white anymore?

It is a shame that when the aliens are revealed they look a little like sparkly turds in body stockings. This could have been the Voyager episode to really get under your skin.

The closing scene where Voyager enters a densely packed region with thousands of star systems is very nice, but imagine how this would have felt after a handful of episodes trapped inside the dark region of space? The relief feels unearned because we have only come in at the end of this two-month trip through hell.

A reason to watch this episode again – This is the start of what is easily Voyager’s most successful season and one where the show exhibits the one thing that it has been lacking for most of its saga to date and would go on to lose again once this season is over; confidence. That is exemplified in the brilliant campy and overdone pre-titles sequence set in the Captain Proton’s holodeck programme, in the fact that this is an intimate character piece rather than a wham bang thank you ma’am action season opener, in the charismatic character interaction and the faith that this episode has in its cast. I have two complaints; one is marginal and the other is inherent in the series’ fabric. The aliens that attack the ship really should have been the most terrifying race we have ever met and they are patently absurd looking (although ultimately I like how they are used as a victim of the Malon’s waste dumping, because it sets up the race well for the rest of the season). And Voyager loves making these bold suggestions – two years in a pitch-black region of space – and then ducks the potential of long form storytelling within that by wasting the premise on a single episode. That means this episode is vivid and unique but it wastes the potential of the kind of what it could be exploring. I’d love this darker, more psychological take on the show long term. Night is a very strong season opener and it pleases me to see Voyager having this much belief in itself and its ridiculously talented cast.

**** out of *****