OVEG: Twisted

Description: Long has it been asked after I've raked the latest serving of Voyager or Enterprise over the coals, just what does it take to earn a 1? That the nonsensical Ocampan sex plots can't do it, nor can the idiotic Parallax, or the one that was so bad I couldn't finish it on the first viewing -Initiations- all managed a 2 seemed to suggest I was still going soft on them. Au contraire. The reason is that as bad as all those were, occassionally, Voyager manages to get even worse. The 1's are those that have earned that special place, not just bad, but truly the worst of the worst.

Ladies and gentlemen, draw your eyes to the center ring. Voyager gives us Twisted, yet another title from the Star Trek Truth In Advertising department. I'm looking forward to future episodes like "More Shit," "We Long Stopped Caring," and "Of Course We Don't Respect You." The episode begins with Kes walking into the French Pool Hall on the holodeck, with all the lights out. She wanders around in the dark for a while, calling for people, but there's no answer. Now, I'm not making this up: in a moment of boredom, thinking of the most hackneye thing I could possibly come up with, I yelled, "Surprise!" Not two seconds later, well, guess what happens? Yes, everyone jumps out and yells surprise, and there's Neelix with a cake, and all that crap. Ugh. You know an episode sucks when not only is it predictible, but it's predictable by sarcasm!

Sigh. Welcome to another Kenneth Biller script. This folks is how you hit a number 1: you start out with a cliche and then go downhill, and believe me, there is plenty of hill to go down. After a little bit of uncomfortable crap with the surprise and all that, we find the Doctor dressed as a cliche French painter tending the bar, who was on hand in case the surprise should cause Kes to have a spaz attack or something. The cliche owner of the poolhall keeps hanging on him and speaking in that cartoon accent. Then cut to the bridge, where Harry's chomping at the bit to get down to the party (so of the bridge crew, the ones sitting out the party are Tuvok, who of course has no emotion, and Harry, Voyager's token bitch - I can see why he gave up screwing a hot girl on Earth for this). Tuvok finally sends him on the pretext of checking the holodeck systems, but just as he's about to leave Tuvok spots something and calls him back... poor dumb bastard. "I'm afraid that holodeck inspection will have to wait, ensign," Tuvok says, at which point the turbolift opens, revealing a cop on the edge who doesn't play by the rules, a greedy corporate bigwig looking to get rich by poisoning the water supply, and the skinny black guy whose job it is to say "Damn!" and refer to "my black ass!".

Back to the holodeck, and Neelix brings out the giant cake, and more crap, and then Tom gives Kes his present: a locket that cost him two weeks of replicator rations. Neelix, of course, is horribly jealous, because that's his reaction to everything Tom does. We're still in the teaser, around four minutes in... at this point, I attempted to commit seppuku using a plastic coke bottle, but sadly my escape from this would not come easily.

At this point Tuvok contacts Janeway to tell her about the green thingie he's seen on the screen, but the comm goes nuts - it won't work for the rest of the episode. Janeway ends the party and sends everyone back to their duty stations. Back on the bridge, Harry announces it's a spatial distortion, so Tuvok prudently suggests they back away from it. Oh, but it seems it's behind them as well, surrounding them like a ring. Naturally, Tuvok flies up or down to escape- oh no, wait, that assumes they're not morons. Instead he tells them to head straight through it. However, the engines go offline when they try that, so Tuvok sends Harry to go tell Janeway, since she'll likely be pissed and it'd be easier if Harry were within striking distance. On the way Harry comes across a nameless security officer who was working out in the gym, saying other stuff isn't working either. "Should I report to my duty station?" this senior grade lieutenant asks an ensign eight months out of the Academy. That's really this episode in a nutshell: if it's not cliche or annoying, it's just plain stupid.

Chakotay, Janeway, and Paris are on their way to the bridge, but wind up on deck 4. Annoyed, they get back in and try again. Cut over to Neelix and Kes, and Neelix is being a slightly more subdued shithead in his jealousy, in that he's not ranting and raving as usual, but he's obviously still annoyed that she probably inhaled air that was once in the lungs of another man... a man with two lungs, of course, just to spite Neelix. Anyway, Kes shows up at a door that isn't to her quarters, and then Torres tries to walk into Engineering and instead walks into the mess hall. Then it's back to the turbolift trio, who this time wind up in Engineering. Then back to Torres who runs into the security guy (turns out he's Baxter, for anyone who gives a shit) in the transporter room. He can't find the cargo bay or his security team; of course, this guy seeks orders from Harry, so he may not be all that sharp to begin with.

The Doctor shows back up in the holodeck, and the skank is all over him like Pepe Le Pew on a cat. Why does the universal translator choose to give them those stupid accents anyway, it's not as if the Romulans all have an accent or something. Well, Harry shows up; turns out neither of them can shut down the pool hall. He goes to check on the program while the French lady keeps making eyes at the Doctor. And then it's back to Kes and Neelix; they can't find Kes' quarters, and what's more, the quarters they do find Kes knows aren't on her deck, or on the same decks as each other. This gives Neelix another chance to do his jealousy routine, since she'd only possibly know those facts if she was screwing every one of them, and not because she had a documented photographic memory. Eventually everybody winds up in the holodeck - thank God, as I'm getting rather tired of this. However, in case anyone has been sleeping for the past fifteen minutes and missed people wandering all over the ship, Janeway repeats it all again. She has even -and this is so Voyager I can't help but be amused- set up all the little cocktail tables to emulate the one in the magic meeting room, and has everyone sitting around it like they do for all their briefings and debriefings and just general exposition.

After laying out what's going on (that the ship's layout is all wrong and changing) Janeway says they need to get to the bridge. Torres suggests beaming someone there, because that way they could almost certainly kill Neelix. I cannot believe no one thinks this is in any way dangerous when we've seen that a stiff breeze will ruin the transporter system and the ship is suffering multiple technical failures as well as not even obeying the laws of the universe. Using the transporter makes as much sense as making an elevator out of a garbage disposal.

At this point it's time to follow the tactic used so effectively on Scooby Doo: pair off and go hunting for clues. Torres and Paris will go to Engineering, because there's absolutely no chance they'd ever be in a sexual relationship. Harry and Janeway will go through the Jeffries Tubes to get to the bridge, so that he'll be within easy striking distance if they fail. Kes will stay with the Doctor to help him try to fix the holodeck or get him back. Chakotay plans to go as well, but he plans to make a map so that if he doesn't make it there, they can have a little more information. And then we encounter a double strike which manages to achive stupid Neelix moment and Best moment back-to-back. Neelix volunteers himself to go with Chakotay, as he announces with a voice dripping with arrogance that his tracking skills are legendary. Janeway asks Chakotay if it's all right with him, and he makes an expression of extreme irritation but finally diplomatically nods. "Truly this is hell," he must be thinking.

And then it's more of what we haven't gotten enough of: wandering around and technobabble. Torres tries to go into the next room, only to find a buff man in his underwear. Like everything with this episode, what could have been funny has all the humor just sucked out of it by being poorly laid out, almost like some kind of anti-joke at this point. Neelix then takes some time to ask Chakotay about jealousy, since it's not like they have anything better to do than converse nonchalantly. Tuvok shows up - turns out that when no one came to the bridge he decided to go looking for them personally, since that was the stupidest move available after deliberately flying into the distortion. Neelix decides the best thing to do is wander off during their conversation, and it turns out he vanishes - don't let the universe hit you in the ass on the way out!

Now we cut to Janeway and Harry going through the tube. After reading some things with their tricorders and such, Janeway suddenly and without any clear sign of linear thought, compliments Harry on how well he's served aboard Voyager and exceeded her expectations. Um, okay... you picked a hell of a time for this, captain. I half expected it to be part of a ruse to make Harry do something dangerous, since that would at least have it make some kind of logical sense, instead of another random act by Janeway. The script seems to be as messed up as the ship is, putting dialogue bits in the wrong scenes. Of course, this whole story's been messed up, so why should this surprise me?

Let me take a moment to just comment on the whole story by way of nostalgia. Around about fifteen years ago, I remember reading an article by one Tom DeFalco, who was at that time Editor-In-Chief of Marvel Comics, with many years of writing in the comic book medium. The article was about those who wanted to break into writing, and he said that so many would-be writers came to him and said "I have lots of ideas!" And he replied with something that is so simple that I can sit here fifteen years later and still recall it: "Good ideas do not a story make." And he's absolutely right; simply having a good story concept doesn't mean the job's done. Last week's Non Sequitur is a fine example, good concept, pathetic execution. Likewise here, with Twisted, we see what sounds like a good idea, with this strange spatial issue with the ship, but the problem is that all it is... is a good idea. It's not a story, nothing interesting is actually done with it, and that's why it falls apart. Now this is not a simple episode concept, I can't even offer a quick off the cuff idea for it, but I can tell you that what you do with it is do the opposite of what these people did, namely, don't assume that if you take a clever concept, fill the episode with corridor wandering and dull character interaction, and bookend the thing with a damn birthday party, that you've got an acceptible hour of television. What you get is a load of rubbish, because that's all that went into making it; a good idea doesn't suddenly make it greater than the sum of its parts. And it certainly isn't helped when there's so little logic to the whole thing anyway.

Let's continue the scene to see this in action. They reach the hatch to lead to the bridge when low and behold it won't open. Janeway uses the manual release, forcing it open, and finds that beyond is more seriously messed up tube, all distorted and stuff. Her arm turns all Reed Richards and is stuck in the tunnel until finally Harry is able to pull her back in and her arm is just fine. Harry says that there's an intense electromagnetic charge in there that must have been what was pulling her in. To quote Mike Nelson, "And if your hands were metal, that would mean something." Janeway says they'll have to regroup and try to come up with a new strategy, and then, for absolutely no reason, she suddenly has a spaz attack, as if there were some time-delayed side effect of getting her arm sucked in. Harry takes her down to the holodeck so we can watch more of that tired French bullshit.

Now we cut back to Tuvok and Chakotay. The more I watch this, the more I think this was supposed to be the fourth or fifth episode, because everyone's been downgraded. Torres is still calling Harry "Starfleet" for Christ's sakes. What we have here is these two being mildly confrontational over issues that came up months and months ago, and in the midst of a crisis that could kill them all. We'll find out later on that Tuvok is unhappy that Chakotay was made first officer over him, and Chakotay finds Tuvok arrogant because he's smarter than him. Fair enough, but it's a little late in the game and very ill-timed for this little tiff. It doesn't help that Chakotay is basically just being a dick here. Tuvok suggests right turns to systematically search through the ship, but Chakotay says there's a flaw in that logic: the assumption that there is logic in the pattern. Well, that's all well and good, but what's the alternative? If logic isn't going to help, then what would, doing it half-ass? Seems to me that you're no worse off using logic in those cases because it would be no less effective than a random pattern, and if there is a true pattern in all this then logic's the way it's going to work. In other words, Chakotay's just being a bitch about it.

Down in Engineering, they're ready to try the transport. Rather than sending a test object through, Torres and Tom both just nonchalantly try it on themselves. These people must loathe their own existence; with the way the ship is messed up, not only is there the usual risk of transporter malfunction, but now they could be beaming into space. Fortunately, because they're both lucky enough to have their name in the opening credits, they get beamed onto the pool table in the holodeck. They get filled in; particularly amusing is the way Chakotay says "That's not all - we lost Neelix too." Just something about it seemed to require a maniacal laugh to follow. "Yes, he's lost, and definitely not beaten to death with a tricorder."

Harry suggests they feed all their tricorder data into the batcomputer and have it figure out what's going on for them. It shows an image of Voyager that's twisted and imploded, which would be fine except that what it should really show is Voyager like a jigsaw puzzle with the pieces put together wrong - remember the deck with room from multiple floors on it? And if it was only twisted, then they shouldn't keep winding up back in the same place, they would curve right along with the corridors. Whatever, it was just a major letdown, because I thought it was going to at least look like a nifty fouled up thing, and it just looks like a warped Voyager. Anyway, turns out in just over an hour, they're all going to be crushed to death as if they were in the closing fist of a righteous diety.

Back down to the pool hall to try and work out the next step. Tuvok starts speculating on the origins of the space ring thing, but Torres jumps down his throat, saying it's a waste of time trying to figure out what it is, they should just worry about stopping it. Yeah, and knowing what it is definitely won't be any help in that direction. Chakotay -remember, one of the subplots is that he doesn't like Tuvok all of a sudden- firmly backs up Torres. Her plan is to create an explosion to counteract the implosion, which sounds bad. She calls it a shock pulse, which sounds even worse. Then it's pointed out that it would also create a subatomic particle shower that could, ya know, kill them all, but Torres said it won't if she can precisely match it to the distortion frequency of the ring. "That will be exceptionally difficult," Tuvok said, winning the understatement of this episode. And why would it even have a frequency anyway?

Anyway, this continues the Tuvok-Chakotay penis-measuring contest, with Chakotay snapping a "You have any better suggestions?" at him. However, he seems to have forgotten that he's dealing with a Vulcan, so the answer is yes: get to navigational control and try to fly out. However, that plan is less dangerous and involves no technobabble, and Chakotay just doesn't like Tuvok, so he tells him to shut his Vulcan mouth and tells Torres and Harry to go make with the extremely dangerous and improbable shock pulse. It's a vital scene, so the two stand there and shout bullshit at each other as if it were drama, then run away. They are pleased that they haven't blown up or irradiated themselves, but it turns out that all they did was make things worse. They get down to the pool hall in time to be cut off from anywhere else in the ship. Eventually Tuvok says that they have no choice but to wait and hope that they don't die, setting off a tense argument that might almost be dramatic, if Janeway didn't suddenly sit up in the middle of it and begin shouting gibberish like something out of the Exorcist. Pretty much the definition of television failure is when your comedy is met with silence and your shocking drama prompts laughter.

Torres is indignant and turns to Chakotay, but Chakotay agrees saying "Maybe this is one bear we can't wrestle to the ground." Ah, and here I was holding out hope that since they didn't bring up his Indian tracking skills earlier they wouldn't drop into any stereotyping, but nope. From this point on, there's nothing to do but watch the descent as the momentum from the downhill roll plunges onward. Tuvok and Chakotay make up, then Harry and Tom share in some homoerotic dialogue, and then the Doctor sings his praises of Neelix to Kes. This kind of bullshit goes on for several minutes of circle jerking (makes me think that Janeway's comment for Harry was moved to the Jeffries tube scene since she wouldn't be conscious to make it now, and Biller didn't want to cut it). And then the thing just starts swallowing them all up, to be pulped and sifted... too good for 'em, I say!

And then, everything's fine again, without explanation. Janeway's even fine too, and she reveals that the spatial distortion was actually some kind of lifeform - oh Christ. Everything's fine too, there's no effect at all on anything or anyone by the distortion, just the magic reset button. There's something about all this extra data in their systems, but it won't get mentioned again. And then, when you think things can't get any worse, Neelix comes onto the bridge with "Cake, anyone?" holding Kes' giant birthday cake. Good God... some things are so trite it actually hurts.

Rating: 1

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