Maquis crewmembers aboard Voyager are falling into comas, and soon it becomes clear that some assailant aboard the ship is responsible. No sooner than Tuvok reaches the inescapable conclusion of the culprit's identity is the true purpose of these attacks revealed: a Maquis agent from the Alpha Quadrant has used his mind control techniques, and the monthly data streams to Voyager, to reactivate his "compatriots" in the Delta Quadrant.
While this episode doesn't have two different story lines exactly, it does take a sharp turn partway through... and I feel like both parts are intriguing without either getting full space to breathe. Initially, the episode is a mystery, following Tuvok as he investigates a series of attacks. This aspect of the story admittedly couldn't be stretched too much further for a few reasons. For one, the timing is wrong -- this story would have played much better earlier in the series, when there was more mistrust of the Maquis aboard Voyager. (It would have also helped to show Tuvok doing his security job early on, more than just standing at the tactical station.) For another, the episode's twist is totally spoiled during the scene in which the holodeck extracts a shadowy image of the attacker; the figure isn't shadowy enough, and you can totally make out Tuvok's Vulcan ears and the gold of his uniform.
Still, a bit more more could have been made out of Tuvok uncharacteristically following a "hunch," and of digging deeper into the histories of the Maquis victims. (After all, the episode actually goes to the trouble of bringing back multiple characters introduced in previous episodes.) It could have gotten a bit more mileage out of the paranoia among Maquis about who might be attacked next, and could also could have extracted a few more minutes in the Doctor seeking a medical solution for Tuvok's condition once it's fully exposed.
None of that is strictly necessary, of course. But I'm looking to flesh things out to roughly a full episode's length, so we can end on a cliffhanger of "sleeper cell Maquis" taking over Voyager. Because the rest of the story after that feels like an interesting premise of its own that gets far too little time in the episode as aired. Voyager crewmembers working against each other is a great thing to dramatize. So is trying to stage a retaking of the ship when you can't use lethal force to do so. Taking the ship back should be really difficult, but we really don't see any of that.
It might also have been good to understand more of what Teero Anaydis, this distant Alpha Quadrant puppeteer, was really planning here. Janeway is right to ask at one point: what good does it do to have just one Maquis ship, thousands of light years from home? What was he trying to do? Why mind control only Maquis crew members, when it seems like mindmeld-fueled brainwashing would have worked on the Starfleet crew equally well? (It can't be that you already have to be sympathetic to the Maquis; Tuvok himself never was.) Maybe I just wanted to see more of guest star Keith Szarabajka, who enjoyably played this sort of righteous zealot on other genre shows I've seen over the tears.
So yeah, my issue is that this episode is overstuffed. Yet it does still make time for a few nice moments. The movie theater is a fun new holodeck setting (especially B'Elanna's snark about using a 3D environment to project a 2D image, then wearing glasses to make it appear 3D again). Harry's reaction to having his mail read and then being accused of a crime by Tuvok feels like a rare bit of earned conflict between main characters. It's also nice to more heavily feature the relationship between Janeway and Tuvok (even if I think it's a stretch that a simple talk from her can overcome mind control; that's something that also could have been given more time in a two-part episode).
Other observations:
- Whenever people in TV and movies decide to break off into pairs, someone in a pair always finds a reason to head off alone so they can become a victim. Like, why do the writers even have the characters suggest the whole "work in pairs" thing only to have to then come up with a weak excuse to undermine that so the plot can progress?
- And while we're playing the hits, gotta do the "never give someone a working 'gun' and ask them to prove their loyalty" trope.
- Brainwashed B'Elanna is enthusiastic about marooning all the Starfleet people on some planet. It would be nice if the episode could acknowledge that she's now married to one of those Starfleet people.
I love the potential of this story, but I think the execution has problems. The mystery is exposed too early, and the far more interesting "friends against friends" part of the story gets short shrift indeed. I give "Repression" a B-.
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