Voyager is lured into a trap, and the Kazon steal one of its transporter components in a precise attack. Janeway is determined not to leave the technology in their hands... but Chakotay soon takes matters into his. The raid was successful because it was planned by Seska, and Chakotay takes personal responsibility for undoing the damage that, as he sees it, he caused.
At this point in season two, you might imagine Chakotay is the main character of Voyager; this is the third episode to feature him, when it feels like other characters have barely been the focus of one. It's also the third decidedly mediocre Chakotay episode, and I do have to wonder if this somehow informed the sidelining of the character in later seasons.
I don't blame Robert Beltran here, but rather poor writing decisions. The raw premise is good enough: let's give Voyager a recurring nemesis, and give one of the main characters in particular some personal stakes in the rivalry. But the "cat and mouse" game here always seems to make one side look dumb more than it makes the other side look smart. The attack on Voyager feels too easy; Tuvok is made to fail at every turn, and gets taken to task by Janeway as a result. Chakotay weirdly just gives up rather than even try to escape, failing to keep more valuables (his knowledge) out of Kazon hands. Then in the end, the Kazon just leave their pants down (or rather, their shields) to allow Voyager to easily resolve the situation.
Way too much time is spent with the uninteresting Kazon. We get it guys: you have sects. You have a lot of sects. Anywhere you go in Kazon space? More sects. Multiple scenes trying to convince us we're seeing some kind of Joker-Penguin-Riddler-Catwoman teamup all fall flat, because most of these monologuing villains haven't been established before this episode. The monologues from the established villains aren't that compelling, either. Seska is Lady Macbething all over the place, but her motivations don't seem at all clear. Is there an endgame for any of this power grabbing? And what aim does she have when she drops the soap operatic twist that she's impregnated herself with Chakotay's baby?
Not that Seska has the monopoly on inexplicable behavior here. Chakotay must be wildly less stable than we thought to now strike out on his own after Seska. Why doesn't Janeway actually punish him in the end? It seems like brig time would be called for here; the morale hit of losing/penalizing the first officer seems like nothing compared to rolling out the red carpet for this kind of behavior. (Episode writer Ken Biller reportedly felt the same on this latter point; he'd wanted Chakotay thrown in the brig, but the executive producers overruled and rewrote him.)
And why, oh why, is Seska still at large at the end of all this?! Janeway has four Kazon Majes in her custody, and barters for the return of all Starfleet technology. Why not throw in that traitor who's on the Kazon ship while she's at it? There is simply no explanation for this that can make sense; this is purely the writers wanting to do at least one more Seska episode somewhere down the road.
One character does manage to have a good episode, though: B'Elanna. The scenes where she advocates to Janeway on Chakotay's behalf are quite effective. And it feels like Roxann Dawson is infusing her performance with the subtext suggested a few episodes back: B'Elanna might be in love with Chakotay. Certainly, their opening "post-hoverball" scene in the turbolift feels like a flirtation. I can't help but wonder about the road not taken had the writers continued to lean into this relationship.
Other observation:
- The writers really have Vulcan passive-aggressiveness down, and Tim Russ always delivers the performance in those moments. When Tuvok suggests that maybe Chakotay could use his knowledge of Seska to put one over on her next time, I can almost hear the "oh, snap!'
With too much dumbing down of smart people, too much wild character behavior, and too much emphasis on Kazon villains we don't care about (too much "sects!"), this episode that feels great on paper comes out flat to me. I give "Maneuvers" a C+.
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