OVEG: Cold Fire

Description: We begin with a summary of Caretaker, which like all "Previously On" is told by the computer. Except that, since this is providing exposition, the clipped tone normally intended to say "Warning: Warp core malfunctioning due to deep personal stupidity" isn't really up to the task of providing all the exposition. It sounds like someone who's never been in front of more than two or three people is now giving a speech to an elk lodge. We see Janeway pick up the urinal cake and are told "They look and feel human, and they have a plan." Well, okay, I added the quote... pretty obvious really, since it's such an inaccurate description of the Voyager crew. Color me foolish.

Now we get to the teaser, which shows Tuvok helping Kes develop her mental powers. He's burning incense, because it would be foolish to attempt any psychic abilities without that around. Tuvok puts his hands on her face, and she starts hearing voices that represent the thoughts of the crewmen on the ship. Tuvok tells her to try to focus in on a single voice, to read that one person's thought. Huh. Later he'll be helping another crewman develop his X-Ray vision by looking into Torres' sonic shower, then Ens. Brown develop his detective skills by rooting through Kes' underwear drawer. She focuses in and finds out she's listening to Neelix's thoughts. Neelix is thinking about his ear hairs - is anyone really surprised?

Afterwards she heads over to Sickbay, where she fills the Doctor in on her training. However, before we can fully explore the implications of Tuvok teaching her precognition (really) there's a strange noise. Turns out the Doctor left a potato in the microwave... oh no, wait, that's the urinal cake. It's dancing around and everything, causing the Doctor to stare at it, then at Kes because he knows this is a Kes episode, so it must have something to do with her. Maybe its her new psychokinetic resonance ability operating on a delta wave frequency, you never can tell with those wacky Ocampa.

So we join the episode proper at the six minute mark, with Janeway getting a nice close-up whiff of the urinal cake ("Strawberry! I win four replicator rations!"). Torres is scanning it for life signs but finds none, and yet this doesn't stop it from dancing around on the table a short while later. They start to pick up sporocystian, a sure sign that it's related to the caretaker in some way, since he was a Sporocystian-based lifeform (and don't you feel smarter knowing that?). Torres says that the remains are resonating in response to another lifeform. Christ, everything in this goddamn galaxy resonates or has a frequency; the whole place feels like it's held together with spit and bailing wire. One well-placed opera singer could kill us all!

Anyway, they start scanning and find evidence of another Sporocystian lifeform around. This prompts the standard Voyager device of having several people offering one sentence to get across the relatively obvious: maybe it's the other caretaker who left and could send them home. This is important, so no time is wasted jumping to a bullshit plan: Torres places the urinal cake in a hexi-prismatic field so that the resonance can point the way to the other lifeform. Hexi-prismatic... I wonder if Brannon Braga had a program that just made up words for him. Tuvok takes Janeway aside, however, and says he's concerned with seeking out the alien since it's so much more powerful than they are, not to mention the fact that it also definitely looks and feels human and has a plan. Looking over the Doctor's analysis of the urinal cake, he thinks he can make a weapon to hurt the alien in case things go bad. Janeway approves of this plan, naturally, since it involves whole new ways of killing their scientists hadn't even theorized yet.

After a while the whole hexi-prismatic thing starts a-workin' and they head off in a new direction. They find another array just like the one over the Ocampa homeworld, except one tenth the size. They don't pick up any of the Caretaker's people but they do detect two thousand Ocampa on board. Voyager hails them, but the array only replies by firing at them. Apparently the reduction in size has been a real kick to the junk, because the beams just kind of slap the ship a little rather than doing the kind of thing you'd expect a station that can suck ships across the galaxy could do. An Ocampa appear on the screen announcing that this is their warning to stay away.

Janeway takes Kes to the bridge to discuss it with her; apparently the station's three hundred years old, but Kes has no knowledge of any of her people ever leaving the ass-end of space they call their homeworld. Janeway asks Kes to serve as the intermediary, so they contact the Ocampa again and Kes gets him to agree to come to Voyager. The alien, by the way, is Alien Nation's Gary Graham, who also played Soval, the clipped Nazi butler-speaking Vulcan from Enterprise (amusingly, his name in this episode is Tanis, as in the city that was the final resting place of the Ark of the Covenant until Nazis arrived).

So Tanis and Ocampa #1 show up on Voyager and Janeway explains they've been searching for the Sporocystian alien, and the Ocampa wonder aloud if it's so they can destroy it. Janeway seems shocked nay stunned that anyone would think she'd want to harm an innocent creature who happens to have unfathomable power that she wants, what a slander! The Ocampa, however, explain that Voyager has a reputation, that when Voyager shows up people fear destruction. For a moment, when Tanis started to explain about Voyager's reputation, I had a fleeting hope that we'd see something along the line of Remmick's grilling in the TNG episode Coming Of Age (a moronic story nevertheless) which actually looked back at events we had seen and twisted them to make Picard look bad. A good lie is an altered truth, not fabrication. Unfortunately, instead of presenting Voyager's past in a checkered light, it's just a series of lies about what they've done. *Sigh* God forbid anything except outright lies be presented to color Voyager, we wouldn't want Janeway to stop and reflect on how her decisions and the actions of Voyager could be unwittingly striking terror in people's hearts. We don't want to overload the story, but at the same time an opportunity is raised, and then just casually tossed aside. Janeway goes on and on about Starfleet ideals, but the chance for her to consider that they are the sole representatives of Starfleet out here, and that their actions and reputation reflect that, is ignored. What if there were rumors of a Voyager-Viidian alliance (recalling that Voyager had captured and released them in exchange for their assistance, and also their rendezvousing at a known Viidian outpost, where they didn't both helping any of the poor captives there)? Would that make Janeway wonder if she'd made the wrong choices, or if she needs to do something to address that? And that's just one example. Gah, what a waste!

Tanis uses telepathy to tell Kes that he wants to speak with her alone, so she asks everyone else to leave. They talk a bit, Tanis having softened a bit on Voyager thanks to Kes, and she takes him to see the "airponic" (*sigh*) bay. And by the way, it looks less advanced than the home and garden department at Wal-Mart, and seems to raise about enough food for one meal for a few dozen people. In addition to finding out that Voyager is one broken replicator away from cannibalism, we also learn that Tanis is fourteen, and a bit egotistical. He also tells about how their caretaker - Suspiria - has been helping them unlock their mental potential. He has the ability to cause instantaneous massive growth in plants ("enhancing life"), a nonsensical point to say the least. Have the Ocampa become the Q of all of sudden? It would be an impressive step, since at the moment they seem the humanoid equivalent of goldfish.

Kes speaks with Janeway and Tuvok about it. Naturally their overall reaction is that everything's coming up roses and it'll all work out for good in the end. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that in the very next scene Tanis contacts Suspiria mentally and she makes it clear she wants to destroy Voyager (This is even more clear if you watch the Voyager preview episodes that UPN did, since they come right out and say it. Voyager previews are forged by a being who at best is devoid of a soul and at worst is Satan himself.) Then it's back to Voyager for a dinner where they discuss some things, including Suspiria, although the whole "planning to murder you all in your beds" part is left out. Incidentally, the words "space-time continuum" are used... it's usually a pretty good bet if you hear those words, you're dealing with a Brannon Braga script. I don't know where that love affair came from, but I'm pretty sure that most if not all of his Voyager scripts so far have used it. Tanis offers to take them to see Suspiria, and also offers Kes the chance to stay with them on their station, and to help her mental abilities grow.

Ah, but enough about that, let's discuss ways of killin' things we don't understand! Tuvok's showing Janeway his nice BFG he's made that'll shoot a toxin that paralyzes Sporocystian beings. Janeway looks grim, no doubt because paralyzing is a long way short of killing, but she gives Tuvok the go ahead to finish his weapon.

Meanwhile we get Jedi training, Braga style. Let me give you a sample: "In your mind, visualize your hand. Now reach out with that hand and grab the tea cup. Reach out with the fingers of your mind. Grasp it." Yes, that just fires the imagination. Now's when he tries to be clever and, naturally, fails miserably. Tanis tells Kes to not try to move it, just try to take a drink from it. This causes the cup to slide to her hand; Tanis explains this is because she knows that to take a drink from it, she needs to put the cup in her hand, so it moved to her hand. Except, of course, that if you applied that reasoning, she should have telekinetically moved her hand to the cup, not the other way around, because that's how you pick things up. If you could move stuff into your hand to pick it up, life would be a hell of a lot easier. He also follows it up by saying that it's like if she was going to drink from it with her hand, she wouldn't think about the task, she'd just do it. Well, yes, but that's only because she's learned the task so well she doesn't need to think about it. Ever seen a child try to pick up a cup? The reason they don't do it well or even at all is because they don't know how to do it yet, they've got to learn how to use those muscles, so these analogies fall flat.

Next, Tanis teaches her pyrokinetics... yeah, that's a good day one lesson, nothing bad can possibly come from that. That's like a dojo that on the first day teaches you how to snap necks. Kes learns to look at the atoms and molecules that make up her tea, then heats it up with her mind, causing them to do a stop-motion hoedown. The whole time, incidentally, Neelix is watching. Surprisingly, while the mere sight of Tom Paris with his back to Kes sent him into a blind hobo rage, the sight of Kes engaged in telepathic communication with the powerful, charming member of her own species doesn't affect him even slightly. That lobotomy must've helped. After it's done she talks to Neelix about everything that's happening, wondering if she should go to live with the Ocampa. Again, shockingly, Neelix not only shows support for her mental abilities that previously he'd mocked, but supports her in wanting to do something that doesn't directly involve him. Maybe she's using her telepathy to make him be less annoying... or maybe he's still thinking too much about his ear hair to worry.

Meanwhile, Voyager arrives at the meeting place, and Tanis sends out a subspace carrier wave to contact Suspiria. "We'll let you know when she makes her appearance," Janeway says. "That won't be necessary. I'll know when she's here." Because of the sound of cracking bones, tearing flesh, and the unholy screams that will issue from your broken carcasses as you realize you will enter a domain of endless agony! MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

Now it's time for Kes to show off her pyrokinesis to Tuvok. She starts heating up the tea, but she can't stop. The cup fractures, and in desperation she looks to Tuvok. Only now that means that she's essentially set Tuvok's face on fire. Oops. Kes starts screaming. Incidentally, she screams like a high-pitched Nazgul, I don't know what her deal is. Next scene Tuvok is back to normal in Sickbay. He seems better for the moment; the Doctor tries limiting his duty, but Tuvok has Vulcan healing techniques, whatever the hell they are. Kes apologies for, you know, melting his face off. Tuvok tells her that he plans to continue her training, if only to make sure that she doesn't accidentally kill somebody.

Kes heads down to the aeroponics bay and starts talking with Tanis. Tanis is in full smug mode now, telling her that soon she'll be so far beyond the rest of the crew they'll seem like pets. Shit, given their decisions I feel that way right now. *whistle* Here Harry! Whosa good boy den! Whosa good boy! You want a clarinet? It's also particularly amusing given that even with their advanced technology the Ocampa measure their lives in dog years. Tanis has her touch the plants with her mind, causing her to see them in new ways, specifically, in a kind of Ted Turner over-exposed colorization that I suppose is supposed to be inspiring. Then Tanis tells her to "Bring the fire!" and she does her Jean Grey thing and kills everything. Oops again. Tanis tells her it's proof she must leave Voyager, and that once she meets Suspiria, she'll be able to go with her to Exosia to exist as pure thought. Yeah, I think some of that Romulan marijuana is still smoldering.

Down in Engineering, the urinal cake is going crazy. Not long after Torres reports it, we see some purple computer animation slithering down into the room. Harry starts picking up "plasmatic readings" from there, which seems to be serious. Janeway tries asking Torres about it, but there's no answer, so Tuvok and some hapless dope head down there. Meanwhile, Kes is meditating in the empty mess hall because it's clearly the room she'd be the most connected with. Tanis shows up trying to convince her that it's time to leave with him. He helps her get in touch with Suspiria, and figures out the frickin' obvious: that she wants to destroy Voyager.

Down in Engineering, Janeway meets a little girl crying to herself and holding the urinal cake, who turns out to be Suspiria. Janeway tries talking to her, but then the girls voice turns into that of a creepy matron, and we find Tuvok and Torres bloody and stuck in their air like it was invisible flypaper. She starts attacking Janeway and breaking up the ship. Down in the mess hall, Tanis has grabbed Kes by the shoulders and is trying to drive home how much she needs to leave. When Neelix intervenes Tanis tosses him across the room with his psychoflexus powers. Kes freaks and decides it's time for some more face melting. This weakens Suspiria at the same time for some reason. Tanis drops to the floor. "Su-spi-ri-a!" he cries. You're breaking my heart! You're shaking my confidence lately!

Suspiria loses concentration enough so that Tuvok and Torres drop from the ceiling; naturally, they're completely unharmed by doing a belly flop onto the deck. Janeway takes up the BFG and blasts Suspiria, then puts up a forcefield to contain her. Boy, that's pathetic... the only way it could possibly get worse is if they held her hostage with a musket. Janeway puts away the BFG and releases the forcefield to convince her that she doesn't mean any harm. Suspiria turns into a CG booger and disappears into the wall, taking Tanis with her.

And now it's time for the magic reset button. Kes can't use any of her magic powers any more, because... who knows. Honestly, the most likely explanation is that the powers were always Suspiria's, that for all of Tanis' smugness he's been duped the entire time into thinking he had great powers. It actually would've made an interesting ending. That's not what we get, of course, it's that she needs to rediscover them, and thus practice with Tuvok. Oh, and Janeway announces that she will continue to try to contact Suspiria so she can get her home. She never will, of course... This was it, the big payoff from Caretaker, nine minutes of antics that involves her being stopped by one of the slime containers from Ghostbusters 2. I wouldn't show my face in this space-time continuum again after that either.

Rating: 5

Stupid Neelix Moment: Thinking about his ear hairs. If you want stupid Neelix, going directly into his brain is definitely the quickest way to do it.

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