Emanations (VOY)

It's been a busy week, so we're switching around the schedule. Jonah's next DS9 review will run on Friday.

            On the whole, I have been enjoying season one of Voyager more than season one of TNG. First seasons are pretty much always awkward, and it’s much harder to tell good stories before you’re familiar with the cast and the world you’re working in. But Voyager has mostly been aware of the kinds of stories you save for when you’ve got a pretty good handle on things and the stories that help you get to that point. On that level, “Emanations” is kind of a miss.

            The beginning shows a lot of promise. Voyager discovers an asteroid field with a naturally-occurring compound that has all sorts of amazing properties and could revolutionize something. When they get to the surface, though, it becomes clear that the asteroid belt is a burial ground of some sort. Chakotay is adamant about not disturbing it, which is a little bit of a stereotype, but consistent with his character. Janeway ultimately agrees, and they’re about to go on their way when subspace vacuoles start to open up all over the asteroid, and Harry Kim gets sucked into one. Meanwhile, a dead alien gets beamed to Voyager in his place.

She's not dead, Jim.

            The alien just died, and B’Elanna realizes she could still be resurrected, so the Captain orders it done, over Chakotay’s objections. I’m reasonably certain this violates the Prime Directive, and it’s a huge about face for Janeway from her position five minutes ago, but she is very protective of her crew, and I think Harry Kim especially she feels responsible for, so its not a huge stretch that she’d be willing to bend the rules if it meant some hope of finding him.

            Speaking of Harry, he wakes up in a coffin on an alien world. It turns out the Vhnari send their sick through the subspace vacuoles just before the moment of death, and their religion tells them they are reborn in the “Next Emanation”. Without physical bodies to make them question it, the Unari’s belief about death is taken more factually than any human religion. In fact, their culture often kills people it otherwise wouldn’t, like Hatil, who has been disabled in an accident. Since everyone is so certain about the “Next Emanation”, moving on early isn’t considered suicide.

            Harry is horrified by this practice, and the Vhnari are terrified of him, because his report, that the Vhnari who come through the vacuoles stay dead, threatens to destroy the fabric of their society. It’s unclear whether the Vhnari have warp travel, but it takes Harry a good ten minutes to realize he’s trampling all over the big PD. To his credit, he figures it out before Janeway does.

            Janeway opts to revive the alien woman, Ptera, who is shocked to find herself not in heaven and quickly undergoes a perfectly reasonable existential crisis. Kes is detailed to help her get a handle on things, which is a smart move on Janeway’s part, given the Ocampa’s unfailing optimism and rare gift for actually thinking of the person she’s talking to as an actual person with feelings.

Harry and Hatil have a heart to heart.

            B’Elanna comes up with a plan to get Ptera home and maybe get Harry back, but of course it doesn’t work, and Ptera ends up conveniently dead. It’s unclear whether she would have survived if she’d wanted to. Meanwhile, Harry and the doomed Hatil realize they can solve both their problems – Hatil can run away and start a new life, while Harry get in his coffin transporter and beams back to the asteroid belt. Harry has to die for a few minutes, but it works and the crew goes on their merry way, having wrestled with moral quandaries but never actually having been forced to face any.

            And therein lies the essential problem of the episode. It’s afraid of its premise. It wants to ask a lot of big questions – about what happens when we die, about when it’s okay to interfere with another culture, about how much of a role religion is allowed to play in our moral systems – but it’s scared of the answers, so it skirts around them. TNG, in its prime, isn’t afraid to get its hands dirty. If Voyager wants to succeed, it has to start doing the same.

The other problem here, and it’s related, is one of focus. Like “Justice”, “Emanations” sets up several interesting concepts without taking the time to explore them. It could be about euthanasia, but it never really delves into that. It could have been a great character piece for Chakotay, if the conflict between his religious beliefs and Janeway’s pragmatic course of action had been more at the forefront, but that whole angle melts away halfway through the episode. The core of the plot is Voyager’s need to rescue Harry/ Harry’s need to get home, but the philosophical and emotional heart of the episode is missing. It makes a lot of promises, but fails to deliver on any of them in a satisfying way.

Random Observations:

I continue to love the B’Elanna/ Chakotay relationship. B’Elanna and Harry are starting to develop decent friend chemistry, but the writers have finally figured out that this is not where romantic sparks are going to fly.

Paris and Tuvok, having been in the spotlight last week, basically take the week off. Neelix does not appear at all. I didn’t really miss him.

Hatil and Ptera are both very well cast, and their actors do a great job making us empathize with them under all the make-up.

Most humans in Starfleet are portrayed as being atheists, but Harry seems to be more of an agnostic. He doesn't discount the possibility of God or souls or heaven he just doesn't see a reason to believe in them. Janeway, on the other hand, is a straight up atheist.

Speaking of Harry and Janeway, their mentor to student/ mother to son relationship is very sweet, and I like that the episode ends on it.

Minor Character Watch: Lt. Seska is back, now working in the transporter room. She still hasn’t gotten a name or much of a backstory.

The make-up on the Unari is mostly uninspired, but I love the extra nostrils.

Harry Kim Death Count: 1 (Trust me, we’ll need this.)