This Is the Finest Scene in Star Trek: Voyager’s First Season

Star Trek has at all times discovered nice energy within the episodic format. Positive, the basic reveals all dabbled in serialized parts, and a few of them excelled in these parts the additional they performed with them, like Deep Space Nine did in its again half. There’s a cause that, when Trek was revitalized for the streaming age in a predominantly serialized form, followers bristled (after which turned to level at fashionable examples that leaned into bucking that pattern, like Strange New Worlds, as a “return to type”). For generations, Trek has prided itself on that episodic nature, that you would be able to tune in at any level in a season, in a collection, watch an journey, and get out, and also you’ve had every part you’ve wanted—and hopefully acquired a killer story alongside the best way.

It is perhaps honest for many individuals to say, then, that episodic storytelling is the place Star Trek is at its greatest. However generally these disparate selves, even within the basic heyday of the franchise, may brush up in opposition to one another and create attention-grabbing, and sometimes irritating, friction, and Voyager was maybe one of many biggest examples of that within the ’90s ouevre. Its broader premise of a ship and crew stranded on the opposite aspect of the galaxy, 70 years’ journey away from Earth, creates fascinating questions that thrive in serialized parts—the influence on the crew and their relationship with one another, the shortage of assets, the very act of sustaining a starship in a panorama the place expertise and attitudes is perhaps radically completely different to what’s recognized in Federation area.

But it surely was additionally a present about getting in, most of the time within the early days scanning an anomaly of the week, and getting out, simply in time for all of it to occur once more subsequent time. Even with these serialized parts hanging over its situation and setting, Voyager, maybe much more than TNG and DS9, was staunch in its championing of the episodic format that Trek had at all times embraced—even when it in the end meant it’s a present the place high quality could veer wildly from week to week. Typically, nevertheless, it too may have its cake and eat it, prefer it did 30 years in the past at this time with the printed of “Prime Elements,” the ninth episode of its first season.

The episode at massive has an intriguing premise. Voyager finds itself crossing paths with an amicable superior civilization, the Sikarians, who crave pleasure, and rejoice on the alternative to lavish unusual new vacationers with presents and samples of their idyllic society. However when the crew discovers the Sikarians have space-folding transporter expertise that might both considerably cut back their journey dwelling, or get rid of it solely—in addition to strict legal guidelines that forbid the sharing of such expertise, not in contrast to an equal of the Prime Directive—friction begins to emerge, not simply between Voyager and Sikarian management, however between events on Voyager itself and parts of Sikarian society who assume a deal may very well be made to commerce for the expertise no matter their chief’s needs.

This all climaxes when, as Voyager prepares to go away the Sikarians behind, a bunch of the crew resolve to go rogue and make the commerce: Voyager‘s library, full of recent tales the Sikarians crave, in alternate for a pattern of the transporter system. At first, the ideological divide is unsurprising; the hassle is spearheaded by B’Elanna Torres and a bunch of different ex-Maquis crew, who protest that Janeway’s Starfleet requirements are getting in the best way of an opportunity to get dwelling. However they and the viewers alike are shocked when they’re aided within the commerce by Tuvok, Voyager‘s staunchest rules-stickler and Captain Janeway’s closest confidant.

However once more, that is an episodic story, and it’s 9 episodes into Voyager‘s journey. They’re not going to get dwelling, and “Prime Elements” is aware of it, nevertheless it performs with the concept. Tuvok makes the commerce, however the tech doesn’t absolutely combine into Voyager‘s methods, and it almost destroys the ship within the technique of making an attempt to make use of it. Issues don’t simply go dangerous, they go about as close to to catastrophic as they may very well be. That’s not stunning. However what’s, is what’s subsequent: a completely unimaginable scene, when Janeway orders Tuvok and Torres into her workplace to see who claims accountability for disobeying her orders. First, Torres makes an attempt to fall on the sword, however Tuvok gained’t enable it, revealing to a surprised Janeway that it was he who made the commerce, working on the Vulcan logic that he may tackle the moral and ethical quandary as a substitute of leaving Janeway herself to be stricken by it.

And Kate Mulgrew just kills it in response. The anticipated fury is there when she attire down B’Elanna, stuffed with a bitter disappointment that builds on their burgeoning relationship, so quickly after she’d simply made the controversial determination to have Torres be Chief Engineer. Though Janeway doesn’t ever get away into full-on shouting, she virtually growls each phrase she will be able to in Torres’ route, elevating her voice simply sufficient to let you already know she means enterprise. It’s arguably probably the most fearsome she’s been within the present thus far, and but it’s simply as equally controversial that what comes subsequent is much more fearsome, when she dismisses Torres and turns to Tuvok.

The anger is not there on the floor, buying and selling a melancholy softness to extoll the lengths to which she feels the betrayal of not simply her most trusted senior officer, however considered one of her solely true pals on Voyager. The look on Janeway’s face as Tuvok explains his logical view of the state of affairs to right here, in addition to his frank estimation of the punishment he ought to face, is absolute heartbreak, even when Mulgrew by no means goes as far to permit her voice to do greater than emit a tremble to point out the grief Janeway feels. The scene ends—the entire episode ends—on this uneasy area the place each Janeway and Tuvok alike really feel like their relationship has been irrevocably modified by this second, that their belief has been damaged, and will at some point be rebuilt, however is on this second uncooked and risky. They will keep it up with a reprimand as Captain and Safety Chief, however whether or not or not they will keep it up as confidants, as pals, is up within the air?

It’s so good, however once more, the following time we see them within the very subsequent episode, every part is ok. Every little thing needs to be. Star Trek: Voyager is an episodic present, in spite of everything. All that stress, that heartbreak, these questions, it has to fade into nothing so we are able to choose ourselves up and keep it up with the established order. There’s a frustration there, to make certain—that the present had one thing with a lot potential, that it executed on so properly, and it in the end can’t matter. There’s a captivating thought experiment to think about what it could’ve been like if we had been allowed to see the ramifications of this relationship’s breakdown play out over weeks of tales, seasons even. However that’s simply not what sort of present Voyager is.

And but possibly there’s one thing in that, that allowed us to get a second as nice as the ultimate scene in “Prime Elements” is. Would a serialized present as early in its run as Voyager was right here threaten to radically alter one of the crucial essential relationships on the collection so quickly? Have been the alternatives made right here emboldened by the truth that this divide, this emotional rift, solely needed to exist throughout the context of this one scene, and the performances may go all out realizing that it was all going to dissipate off-screen?

Regardless of the cause for it, we acquired it anyway—and in getting it we noticed a glimpse of what Voyager may very well be at its highest.

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