State of Flux (VOY)

            Star Trek and The Next Generation were both extremely episodic, designed for the casual viewer who watched maybe one or two episodes, maybe not in order. Deep Space Nine, on the other hand, is highly serial – episodes build on the events of previous ones, and its best watched as a complete project. Voyager tries to strike a balance between the two, and “State of Flux” is an episode where this experiment is in full effect. As such, it kind of has to be two different episodes, and it makes some sacrifices to achieve that end. I’m not sure it’s a complete success, but it’s certainly not a complete failure – it’s watchable, and exciting, and it introduces us to one of Voyager’s most memorable recurring villains.

            From an episodic standpoint, “State of Flux” falls a little bit flat. It’s trying to be a mystery story, but there’s no twist. Well, there is a twist, but it comes at the wrong point in the story to be effective. A good mystery story leaves you wondering who’s guilty until the end. I think even if I hadn’t been spoiled, I would never have suspected anyone but Seska. The scene where they interrogate Carey falls extremely flat, like the interrogators are talking to the audience and saying "look, it really could be this guy, see!"

Chakotay makes Carey squirm.

            There’s also some wonderful set up of Chakotay and Tuvok as partners – kind of the classic buddy-cop-movie pairing of the by-the-book cop and the loose cannon who doesn’t play by the rules. There’s even a little acknowledgement of the history between the two characters – Tuvok did gain Chakotay’s trust with the intention of betraying him, and that’s not something you forgive easily. These two needed an episode to get into this stuff, and I can’t help but feel they got shortchanged.

            So a little more time could have made this episode a much better mystery and a better Tuvok/ Chakotay story. Where did that time go instead? It went to developing Seska as a character and making us care about her betrayal. It went to establishing her relationship with other characters like B’Elanna and Chakotay. All of this is extremely important when we realize that Seska is going to be Voyager’s nemesis for the next two seasons. The fact that she lived and worked with these people, that she and Chakotay were lovers, makes her a much more interesting villain. But all of this could have been built up slowly over several episodes.

            Or State of Flux could have been Voyager’s first two-parter. It had enough going on to justify one, and the stakes were high enough. But I understand the writer’s not wanting to take the risk. Two-parters tend to be heavy on the action, which this episode was not. But I can’t help but feel there were a lot of missed opportunities.

But Seska makes Chakotay squirm even more.

            The serial aspect of the episode is more of a success. I especially like how much it draws on not only Voyager’s past, but Star Trek’s as well. On the one hand, we have the most recent past – in the previous episode, both Seska and Joe Carey showed they were willing to bend the Prime Directive to get Voyager home. Now that a more serious breach is committed, making them the primary suspects is excellent payoff for that episode. Going back to the pilot, we see the Kazon make good on their promise to “make Voyager rue the day”, and we see the horrible effect of ignoring the prime directive and giving them technology.

            But what really works for me is the reveal that Lt. Seska is a Cardassian sleeper agent. A Cardassian is the perfect villain not only from a plot standpoint (it makes perfect sense for them to have put a spy on a maquis ship) but also from a psychological standpoint. The Cardassians work as villains on Deep Space Nine because of the stark contrast that their militaristic, collectivist culture poses to the Federation. When you think about what we know about Cardassian psychology, Seska’s actions up until this point make sense. She wants to get home. She’s willing to break rules and make back-handed deals to do it. She also has the Cardassian penchant for speechifying, which helps immensely.

            Seska is not often mentioned when the great villains of Star Trek are recounted – if Janeway has an iconic nemesis, it’s probably Susanna Thompson’s borg queen. But at this point, she has all the hallmarks of being truly memorable, and she really never stops being a thorn in the Captain’s side, even seasons after her death. I’m looking forward to seeing her reign of terror continue to develop, and seeing how Chakotay takes this ever-increasing tide of betrayal.

Random observations:

Seska and Chakotay’s banter is nice. The whole “Mushroom soup” scene did an excellent job of showing how awkward Chakotay’s position is as first officer and Maquis liason.

I hope the gross leola root becomes a running gag. Incidentally, it looks like someone shellacked a piece of ginger.

B’Elanna doesn’t use Scotty’s patented Chief Engineer exaggeration technique. If she says it will be done tomorrow, it will be done tomorrow.

The scene with Tuvok and Chakotay playing gin during the stake-out was amazing. I want to see more little slice-of-life-on-Voyager moments.

Tom Paris hasn’t been involved in a plotline in a while.

Maj Cullah just makes hairdressers squirm.

Maj Cullah is probably even less memorable as a recurring villain than Seska, but I should probably note that we meet him for the first time in this episode.

Despite all the bluffing back and forth, no shots are actually fired in space (no torpedoes expended)

No fatalities, but we can definitely count Seska as a lost crew member.