Captain Janeway is determined to bring the wayward crew of the Equinox to justice at all costs, ultimately sinking to the level of their immoral behavior. Meanwhile, Seven of Nine is being tortured aboard the Equinox by a reprogrammed Doctor -- even as Captain Ransom is having a crisis of conscience and reawakening of his Starfleet ideals.
After several years of there being two Star Trek series on the air at the same time, this episode marked the moment where Voyager was carrying the franchise torch on its own: Deep Space Nine had concluded months ago. Ronald Moore had written on The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine for a decade, and had been thinking about moving on from Star Trek. But he was persuaded by his Next Gen writing partner Brannon Braga (and, he'd later say, his own self-doubts about "life after Star Trek") to join the Voyager writing staff.
I lead off with this background because Moore's tenure on Voyager would be spectacularly short, and flamed out spectacularly hard. His friendship with Braga was strained for years by the few short weeks he worked on Voyager, and he was not shy in publicly airing his complaints about the way Voyager was run. I'm going to talk about Moore a lot for the next few "Voyager flashback" blogs, because in my view he was absolutely right about everything. (Indeed, objectively so, when you consider how many TV shows he'd subsequently create and keep running for years. Moore knows a thing or two about making television. Yes, no matter what you think of the end of Battlestar Galactica.)
"Equinox, Part II" is clearly built on the writerly device of role reversal: the first part showed Ransom as a "fallen angel" of a Starfleet captain and Janeway as the righteous figure judging his actions. This conclusion shows Janeway descending into Ransom's brand of obsession and evil, while Ransom's better instincts reawaken. The problem is there's no justification for any of it. Or, as Moore put it: "The things that Janeway does in 'Equinox' don't work, because it's not about anything. She's not really grappling with her inner demons. She's not truly under the gun and suffering to the point where you can understand the decisions that she's made. She just gets kind of cranky and bitchy."
Yeah. Janeway goes full Ahab. She threatens to murder someone to get them to talk, and it's clear she would have gone through with it had Chakotay not intervened. Because he does, she relieves him of duty rather than stop to consider why one of the people she trusts most is expressing doubts about her. In short order, she threatens to do the same to Tuvok, her oldest friend. These certainly are all moments that tell the audience, "oh shit, this is serious." But why is Janeway this worked up about it? She's been in tighter spots before. She has no personal connection to Ransom (as, say, Captain Sisko did with Eddington when he got similarly set on vengeance). Worse, she just lets it all go at the end for even less reason, and everything goes back to normal.
The change in Ransom is equally unjustified, though easier to overlook since we don't know the character as well. He's been on a wicked rampage for years, but apparently letting someone else torture Seven of Nine is the final straw... because he thinks she's hot and daydreams about her? And he just decides to sacrifice his life for no reason in the end when he could easily be saved?
Amid the unjustified behavior of the captains are tons of missed opportunities for other characters. The history between B'Elanna and Burke, set up intriguingly in part one, barely figures into part two. Gilmore's PTSD is no longer a thing, and she too has an unexplained change of heart. Rather than emotionally pitting The Doctor and Seven of Nine as prisoners, we instead get "instant psychopath, just remove ethical programming"; the Doctor spends the episode torturing her, without much of a reckoning in the end about what happened.
Then there's the "schmuck bait," the writers basically lying about the jeopardy of characters just to falsely ratchet up the tension. That starts with the resolution of the actual cliffhanger moment from last season: Janeway was caught helpless with an alien creature bearing down on her, but now after the summer break, she easily dodges and is fine. A big showdown between Doctors is forestalled when the Voyager version is simply faster on the "delete button" and erases the Equinox version.
OK, there are a few nice moments scattered about. Seven's stoicism in the face of her predicament is entertaining (particularly her one-liner to Ransom: "You would be an inferior role model."). The cat and mouse games of Voyager stalking the Equinox do evoke some of that classic "submarine combat" vibe that often works well in Star Trek. The fact that Janeway and Chakotay are allowed to get into a major conflict is nice (even if the way they get there doesn't feel earned). You do feel these thrills and others as you watch the episode.
Other observations:
- In the end, a few Equinox crewmembers are brought into the ranks of Voyager. But despite how interesting it might have been to see if they truly fit in, we never see the characters again.
- Is Voyager's Doctor still missing his ethical subroutines when he deletes the Equinox Doctor? That would certainly explain his willingness to "kill." Though why he's suddenly working for the good of Voyager is unclear.
I will say that while this episode breaks down utterly for me under even a little scrutiny, there is something that's kind of viscerally entertaining about it as you watch it. It moves at a breakneck pace, and delivers fireworks that you feel like you've wanted to see on the show for ages. So that makes me want to grade it a little higher than the predominately negative response I've outlined would probably lead you to think. I'll give it a probably too generous C.
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