Seven of Nine decides to explore her humanity on the holodeck, which includes simulating a romantic relationship... with Chakotay. Meanwhile, crew members plan a baby shower for Tom and B'Elanna. But things turn serious when Voyager finds itself passing through an alien mine field.
Writer-producer Brannon Braga was in a relationship with actress Jeri Ryan in the latter years of Star Trek: Voyager's run, and it seems at least a few of the regular cast members felt this had contributed to Seven of Nine getting so many scripts. Robert Beltran had been complaining openly about having stories taken away from Chakotay, and as you might expect, complaining in public didn't prove to be a fruitful path to enticing the writers to write for his character.
So, reportedly, he tried a different approach. In a light-hearted (?) moment on set, Beltran said to Jeri Ryan that Braga would never have the guts to write a script in which Seven of Nine kissed Chakotay. Ryan, it's said, found that hilarious and told her boyfriend Braga... who responded by writing the relationship between Seven and holographic-Chakotay into this script. It sounds like exaggeration -- and probably is -- but it's actually a story that both Beltran and Braga agree on when they talk about it today. (I'd love to know what Ryan says, but it seems no one has asked her. Hmmm.)
That bizarre background really explains why the romance presented in this episode seems to come out of nowhere. Quite simply, it did. Nothing organic to the characters led to it; this was simply an actor angling for screen time and getting it in a bizarre way.
And I think the weirdness, the sense that this episode means more to the people behind the scenes than is expressed on screen, infects the episode in other subtle ways. Take the opening teaser: less than 60 seconds of Seven of Nine just sitting at a piano, playing to a metronome. We see she doesn't have her implants. And... roll the credits. This is supposed to be a teaser to keep us from channel surfing? Are we all supposed to sit up in our seats and cry, "my God, where are her implants?!" Then there's the weird level of engagement the Doctor has in her relationship, once he discovers it. It taps into the character's own rather creepy background with Seven, sure -- but it also just fundamentally assumes that the audience wants to see Seven in a relationship as much as the writers do.
It also doesn't help that this episode is following in the footsteps of some Next Generation episodes that brushed up against the idea that using the holodeck for weird fetishes with real people you know is really not okay. (We just weren't ready to even conceive of, much less learn, that lesson in the 1980s.) The episode really keeps its focus on "how wonderful it is that Seven is relaxing and learning to be more human," and barely engages with "but isn't it creepy that she's created an AI Chakotay boyfriend to do it?" It's quite simply hard to watch the flirtation between Seven and Chakotay, no matter how well Ryan and Beltran may be playing it. It feels so weird!
Jeri Ryan in particular does shine in her performance, though. There really is a profound shift in her demeanor when Seven is playing out her holodeck scenarios. She really does seem like a "different person," but really does fundamentally still feel like Seven of Nine. (In a way, it's something of a preview of her portrayal decades later on Star Trek: Picard.)
There's also a nice subplot here about throwing a baby shower for Tom and B'Elanna. It's not that the story line is revelatory or profound, but it is rare for Voyager to keep an ongoing story alive like this, and so it's welcome to see. I also like that the "ship jeopardy" subplot, about some random space shock waves, barely gets any screen time at all. They let this be a purely character-based episode, pretty much to the maximum extent Voyager ever allows.
Other observations:
- The baby shower gifts are fun. In particular, I imagine there are a few Trekker parents out there who would buy diapers with the Starfleet logo, if they were a real thing.
- There is weirdest innuendo in this episode about furnishing Seven of Nine's holographic quarters, when she's told she'll need to get drapes that match the carpet. Wow, people. Just wow.
- Seven of Nine shouldn't need a metronome to keep time while performing music, right? She must have internal Borg widgets to do that?
- It takes the Doctor singing a version of "Rock-a-Bye Baby" with disturbing shuttle crash lyrics for you to really stop and realize how disturbing the actual lyrics to the song are.
- Once you have seen Star Trek: Picard, the whole "why Chakotay?" of all this becomes even more pronounced: in Picard, Seven of Nine is in a relationship with a woman. You can forgive that a child-like Seven, fresh from the Collective, might still be learning this sort of thing about herself. But it does make me wonder if a more interesting version of this episode might have portrayed Seven simulating a relationship with Janeway. That would have added the complexity of confusing love for a mentor with romantic love, and might also have entangled Janeway's strict policy not to get involved with her crew members in that way. (Seven has to simulate the relationship, because it could never happen in real life.)
"Human Error" isn't all bad, but it is awkward and forced. I give it a C+.
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