150 – Repression

Grade: C+

Summary

A Bajoran we have never met before is in a spooky room, chanting something to himself. Suddenly, we see images of B’Elanna, Chakotay and Tuvok, who were all members of the Maquis.

Meanwhile, Tom and B’Elanna are on the holodeck, watching a 3D movie. They decide they want to be alone, so they delete all the holographic characters. They notice that one character is still in the holodeck, but he is unconscious. Now they need to find out why and who has attacked him.

Commentary

There’s quite a bit to like about this episode. I liked the holodeck scenes; the reference to Revenge of the Creature was really cool to see; the music and atmosphere were great; and the mystery was fantastic. The acting wasn’t bad, and it was pretty enjoyable. But on the other hand, I found there were too many plot holes and contrivances for me to just simply accept.

For example, just who is this Bajoran? We’ve never seen him before. His name has never been mentioned, and the events that took place in Tuvok’s past have never before been referred to. It just strikes me as a wee bit too convenient for the writer to refer to things we’ve never heard of before. It would have been much better if there had been some clue sometime that something happened to Tuvok that caused him to be brainwashed in the first place. It’s not horrible, obviously, but it isn’t the way I like things to be. It would have been better for continuity if we had seen some cluse well before this.

Something else bothered me. I would never believe it that a Bajoran would be capable of brainwashing a Vulcan. Maybe a Betazed, but a Bajoran? I’m sorry, I just never see it happening. I also don’t believe it that Tuvok would just go nuts only because he heard a message from this guy who brainwashed him years ago.

The other thing I find hard to believe is why this Bajoran would want to choose this particular moment to take advantage of his brainwashing of Tuvok. I mean, they’re 30,000 LY away from the Alpha Quadrant. Even if they successfully take over Voyager, they’re 30 years away from getting home. The Bajoran Brainwasher is likely to be dead by the time the ship makes it back to the Alpha Quadrant. Surely he knows this – or at least has reason to suspect it.

So anyway, it really could have been a whole lot better.

Of Note

I loved it that they showed parts of Revenge of the Creature in this episode. What you might not know, however, is that this actually was a movie shown in 3D way back in the 1950s.

OK, I don’t speak Bajoran, but Captain Janeway obviously doesn’t either. Her pronunciation was downright awful – or at least it was completely inconsistent with everyone else’s.

It would be nice if there was some consistency in these stories. In this episode, they estimate almost 1/4 of the crewmembers are former Maquis. I’m wondering two things – first, how do they have enough room for all these outlaws on the ship? Second, just how big was Chakotay’s ship in the first place? Could they really have fit 35-40 people onto that ship? If I remember right, it looked to be about the same size as a Federation shuttlecraft.