OVEG: Coda

Description: I must admit to some nervousness after my previous review of Voyager, Fair Trade. Not only did I like it, but I liked a Neelix story! Was I feeling feverish? Had my small heart grown three sizes that day? One fear I had was that I had watched all the episodes of Enterprise between the time I did Macrocosm and the time I did Fair Trade, and I wondered: had exposure to so much of the really, really crappy episodes that populated a large percentage of that series unwittingly innoculate me against this, leaving me with some useless superpower to find entertainment in crap, like some kind of mental cockroach that can survive on low faire?

Thank God for Coda. No, it wasn't me, Fair Trade just was a better episode. And thank you, Jeri Taylor, for Coda, to show me the suck in Voyager once again. That oh so familiar feeling of boredom and impatience was back, old friends that had joined me on the couch as I pushed through many an episode in years past. Coda is a return to classic Voyager, and by "classic" I of course mean "shitty." The only good thing about the episode would be the pleasure I'd take in Janeway's misery.

So the episode begins, and Neelix ambushes Janeway heading up the hall, and we get the following exchange:

NEELIX: I thought last night went well, didn't you?
JANEWAY: Extremely well. Everyone had a lot of fun.

To my disgust, my wife (busy doing far more important things than I), made a comment about the ship-wide orgy Neelix had arranged. Unbeknownst to her, that horrible mental image got worse with every - single - line that followed:

NEELIX: I was thinking of making it a regular feature, say once a month?
JANEWAY: It's certainly worth a try.

Now hold on to your hats.

NEELIX: And Captain, you were especially good last night.
JANEWAY: Thanks Neelix. It's been a while.
NEELIX: You'd never know.

Airsickness bags are located in the compartment in front of you.

NEELIX: Now, Captain, I, do you think, I mean, I, I, I was wondering if-
JANEWAY: What is it, Neelix?
NEELIX: Could you possibly keep Mister Tuvok busy on the bridge that evening?

You can speculate for yourself on what Tuvok did that made them want to keep them out of their fun.

So Chakotay and Janeway for some reason only known to Jeri Taylor decide to take a shuttle to some planet somewhere, because it's obviously routine for the two senior-most officers of the ship to just head off without an escort or anything. Obviously they're only doing this for an important reason, namely, so the two will be together when the inevitable happens, and actually coming up with a reason would have gotten in the way of talking about how frickin' awesome Janeway is, at least to her creator. So we finally find out what all that talk was about, and it turns out it was a talent night, and Janeway had won (of course) by performing the Dying Swan. I'm presuming it's a dance and not that she took a swan out and killed it, but I can't rule it out entirely.

Before long they start heading in, but it turns out there's a storm. Of course, they wait until they're too far into the atmosphere to turn around and get hit by lightning, and fly in out of control. We quickly see, yes, it's the shuttle that's only used for the really dangerous missions, so they really should have known better. Incidentally, watching them crash reminds me of something I always hate, when people start talking about what they're planning to do. Maybe I'm an exception, but for me when I need to really concentrate on something, like weaving a car to avoid an accident without hitting anyone else, I don't say anything that requires any kind of coherent thought, I usually just recite a bit from my favorite piece of music, The F-word Concerto In D-Minor. The reason is that my brain has left the mouth to its own devices, because at the moment it's too busy telling things like the hands and feet what to do. In all the times I've been in an accident (driver or passenger) or near accident or just perilous situation, no one has ever started to state what they're planning to do, they do it! If you've ever been on a skid on a frozen road, you don't say, "I'm going to initiate the recommended turn into the skid to try to straighten out," hell, you're lucky if you even remember you're supposed to turn into the direction of the skid. We're not talking cool under fire here, we're talking the common sense of doing something first, and then, when the hands/feet/whatever are done, let the mouth provide the color commentary if it's needed once you don't need your attention on something else.

So they finally crash, and Janeway's hurt so bad she's near death, whereas Chakotay is absolutely fine and can even carry her body away without a problem. I guess his animal spirits must have shielded him from the impact, like a New Age air bag. Either that, or Janeway was targeted by the cosmos for assassination, a point I cannot completely rule out. So Chakotay carts her away through the lightning storm (no rain, if you're curious, can't go over budget) and does his impression of Ed Harris from The Abyss as he performs CPR on her. It doesn't work, but just a dab of the on-button hypospray is enough to instantly bring her around from death, it's just that potent.

So they make plans to set up a homing signal and rough it on the surface (the shuttle was flooding with some gas, and even though the back of the damn thing is wide open that's apparently not going to be enough to stop it from being lethal in there, so they'll have to sleep outside). However, Chakotay figures out the lightning strikes were actually Vidian weapons fire, and that they're now closing in on them, so the two of them take refuge in some caves. Well, as further proof of my "cosmos is trying to kill Janeway" theory, the Vidians are already waiting for them, and shoot Chakotay. Janeway is so intensely distracted (between this and Chakotay's over-the-top CPR scene, I think Jeri Taylor is again pushing the Chakotay/Janeway relationship down our throats) another grabs her and slowly strangles her to death. As you can see, this episode isn't entirely bad.

Now with that, we wind up back in the shuttle again, talking about talent night. However, they soon quickly realize what's happened, so they decide not to land on the planet. Janeway scans for the kinds of things that makes space-time their bitch, but there's nothing unusual going on. Chakotay tries hailing Voyager, but Janeway says they're out of range. What? It was Jeri Taylor who wrote that stroke fantasy of Resolutions, and they were able to contact Voyager from a day and a half away so she could give her stupid speech. As I said for Acquisition, I'm not normally bothered by little continuity issues, but if you yourself write two Janeway/Chakotay stories within six months of each other, and you make it a significant and noticable part of the story that you can reach them with your comm badge after 36 hours, then don't make the next story in your masturbation arc be how you can't reach them with a shuttle after a few hours. It's hard to be consistent with everything other people do, but try to be consistent with the last story you wrote. Even Braga managed to be consistent on Neelix's lung, and the man can't go to the bathroom without shitting out a Star Trek script.

Of course, there's another explanation for this, but I'll be saving my ire for that later in the review.

So the Vidian ship closes in and Voyager fights it a bit, then blows up, and we wind up back in the talent night discussion again. By now you might be thinking, "Oh, it's just like Cause And Effect." Well, sorry, you're wrong. For starters, this episode sucks, remember? So they pick up two Vidian ships now, and they contact Voyager, as they are now on the cusp of being out of range. Tuvok assures them he's on his way, so in thirty-six hours when he gets here, he can vacuum up the remains of the shuttle. They send out a tachyon pulse, and a little while later the Vidians vanish. Tuvok contacts them and says he'll be there to pick them up in four minutes. What? Even excluding Resolutions, this means the shuttle's comm can't reach Voyager if it's more than five minutes away? Jesus, I can almost do better with a ham radio.

So they come aboard and Janeway says to go scanning for signs of temporal anomalies, but Chakotay has no memory of any such thing. Given the possibility of a cosmic event warping the laws of space and time that only she's aware of, or the fact she just flaked out for a minute, Janeway figures both are equally likely so has both checked out. The Doctor soon reveals that she has contracted the Vidian phage, and that the time loop was just a hallucination brought on by the disease. Of course, since the only time she came into contact was a Vidian was during the hallucination, that explanation makes zero sense, but why start actually making sense now?

So Doc gives her a sedative and looks into how to treat the phage, but after she wakes up nearly two days later there's no hope for a cure, eventually it's going to lead to dementia and insanity - how anyone will notice the difference isn't explained. So the Doctor, having considered the options, decides the only treatment is: euthanasia! Woohoo! Dun-dun dun-dun dun DUN! So the Doc starts to gas her, and she tries to delete him to save herself, but the computer won't accept her code, so she slowly dies-

And winds up back on the damn shuttle again (if you haven't figured it out yet, every time they come back to talent night, they talk about Janeway doing The Dying Swan. Get it? Ha, in your face, Memory-Alpha!). This time they see a great big glowing thing that's hurting the ship. Chakotay, of course, suggests flying into it. Janeway refuses, and the ship is destroyed, and this time they wind up back on the planet with Chakotay trying to save her with CPR, but it doesn't work this time and she dies while a disembodied Janeway watches. So, yes that's right, everything you've seen up until now has just all been in her head.

I realize this might confuse, since I gave Projections such a high score and am giving this one such a low one, when both have some similar elements to them. The reason for the difference is in their execution. You see, in Projections, things start in what could clearly be reality, and only small clues suggest otherwise, until finally it all gets pulled out from under you. In this case, it's been constant bombardment of bizarre events, until the only possible explanation is that it's all just a dream. Now, psychological things can be good - in Projections, this entire episode was about insight into the Doctor's character and a look at what it's like to wonder if your life is a lie. The reveal was just an escalation in the events about the Doctor. In this case, all the goofiness is now revealed to be goofiness for its own sake, because none of it will actually have any impact, play any role, or provide any insights for the rest of the episode. Congratulations, twenty minutes of your life have now been wasted. Seriously, you could take everything from the start of the CPR scene until Janeway appears as a ghost, cut it out, and not only do you lose nothing of any value, the show would actually be better for it! Instead we have half the episode to a weak blending of Groundhog Day and An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge. No thanks.

And the suck doesn't even stop here.

After Chakotay gets all weepy (funny how nobody weeps for, say, Hogan when he's eaten) Voyager shows up and they beam her up. They try to bring her back to life, but not even the Doctor's experience with necromancy is enough. After everyone leaves Janeway tries to get in touch with Kes, since she's has psychoflexus mind powers, and eventually she's able to convey her presence to her, but that's all. The crew decides to take Kes' heebie jeebies as maybe a genuine presence, and so begin to run every bit of technobabble in the book to try to find her. While that goes on, the anomaly from before shows up again, this time the size of a door and only visible to Janeway. From it emerges Janeway's father, who's apparently dead. This is the second time I can recall seeing the dead parent of a captain, and my inability to give a shit continues.

Janeway immediately denies that he's really her father, despite protests to the contrary by her father. He explains Janeway died in the shuttle crash, but she says it's not possible... even after seeing her own death happen. Come on. I don't believe in alien visitors, but if I suddenly found myself surrounded by funny-looking grey men sticking probes in my ass, I'd at least consider the possibility that they were aliens. Likewise, even if you don't believe in life after death, seeing yourself die and walking around like a ghost has to leave you open to at least the possibility that you really are dead. Skepticism is not about disbelief, but about disbelief until sufficient evidence proves otherwise.

Anyway, Janeway eventually is open to the possibility that that's what's happening, and she says she'll continue trying to contact the crew. Towards what end? There's really only two explanations: either this is a hallucination (in which case trying to contact the crew is irrelevant), or Janeway is dead. What's she going to do, captain them from beyond the grave? That's Harry's worst nightmare, I'll bet.

Well, I'll let you in on this: she's not dead, it's just in Janeway's head as she lays dying. Projections gave us an insight into the Doctor's mind, that part of him was resentful of his own nature, confined to one room and artificial. This gives us a similar insight into Janeway's mind, specifically that she is incredibly full of herself. This is shown at the fake memorial service she creates in her head, where we see the crew gushing over her until I'm just left there, sitting on my couch, playing with a loaded revolver. Seriously, words cannot do justice to how over-the-top this shit gets, until you just expect the crew to douse themselves with gasoline and throw themselves onto Janeway's funeral pyre. Tuvok you understand, being her friend, but Torres' speech... I have to wonder what was going through Dawson's mind as she had to recite all that drivel. This memorial, of people yammering on and on about how awesome Janeway was and insignificant they are by comparison goes on for over four minutes. To give you some idea of the time of that, Spock's memorial in Wrath of Khan was at most two minutes, if you want to include the time showing the Genesis planet after his body has already been fired off. More than twice the time devoted to a cultural icon is dedicated in this episode to someone who stranded her crew thanks to her own personally idiocy. If I seem to be dwelling on this, well, just realize that 10% of this episode was devoted to this thing of the crew adoring Captain Janeway... in her own mind! The jokes just kind of write themselves sometimes.

Janeway finally considers that she may be dead, but thinks maybe she'll stay around anyway. Her father starts pushing her to leave, but she resists, until finally we get a POV shot of the Doctor working on her on the planet, with Chakotay and Tuvok watching. I think the last time this happened, Neelix was put in charge, so returning to life may not be the most attractive picture for her any more. Janeway realizes that this couldn't be her real father trying to lead her to the afterlife, because he doesn't act like him. "He never tried to shield me from life," she informs us, and that's definitely produced a well-adjusted, pleasant individual, hasn't it.

We get another flash to reality, and it's revealed that there's an alien in her brain, which explains who her father really is. This leads to a long and pointless argument about how Janeway needs to go into the matrix (that anomaly thing from before), and her refusal. It ends with the explanation that apparently Janeway's soul (shriveled though it no doubt is) will be his nourishment, and then he kind of skulks away, as she taunts him with the eyeball-rolling: "Go back to hell, you coward." What the beginning of the episode? NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

So with that Janeway wakes up and they explain the obvious to each other, then she gets back to her feet and walks back to the shuttle, because the best thing to do when you're suffering a case of death is to walk it off. And to wrap it up there is -ironically- a coda to this episode that is just as lame as the rest of the episode, with the expected "is this alien what all near death experiences are like" banter and endless praising about how awesome Janeway was with that incredible force of will to say "I'm not going into that flaming tunnel with a creepy man." The episode, oddly enough, has on its own proven as trying for me as a trip through hell likely was for Dante.

Rating: 2

Stupid Neelix Moment: For giving me the impression of a ship-wide orgy, dammit.

Star Trek, and all related characters are property and trademark of Paramount Pictures.
The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not reflect the views of anyone
connected with Star Trek: Voyager, or the staff and management of Paramount Pictures.
All original material copyrighted.

"The space within the forcefield is filling with a neural toxin. It is fast-acting and merciful... Please relax and take deep breaths. It will be over more quickly that way." The Doctor, my hero

Season 1