For those who are new to my episode reviews, you can find the post where I establish my point criteria here.
Overview – Janeway confronts Tuvok over discovering a great secret,
his birthday. As she presents him with a cake, they are called to the bridge. A
ship is approaching, and it is soon revealed to be piloted by a much older Kes.
She requests to come aboard. When they drop the shields, Kes rams her vessel
into Voyager, boards the ship, and cuts a destructive swath on her way to
engineering. She taps into the power of the warp core, killing Torres in the
process, and transports five years back in time. The older Kes assumes a
younger persona and incapacitates her younger self. She then enacts a plan to
betray Voyager to the Vidians. During this, Tuvok experiences telepathic
premonitions of the future, including former Borg crew and a child that hasn’t
been born yet. While Janeway and her crew attempt to bring Voyager through a
Vidian trap unscathed, Kes enacts her plan of betrayal in an attempt to rescue
her younger self from a traumatic future.
Score: 6/10 – I have very mixed feelings about this
episode. I loved the character of Kes, especially her abilities mixed with a
sense of sweetness and innocence. I was very sad when she left the ship and the
show and was excited to hear that she would return in the sixth season. What we
were given, unfortunately, was an angry, vengeful Kes that was willing to kill
everyone she used to think of as family to spare her younger self being
abandoned. While this story does have some promise, and it is quite exciting in
a lot of ways, I couldn’t help but feel that it came up short in the execution
of the story. Lots of inconsistencies (which we will get to later) which left
me wondering what was happening. Normally I found actress Jennifer Lien to be
very good, and she had some great moments here, but there were some scenes that
left me scratching my head, wondering why they made the choices they did.
Mostly, I wanted this episode to bring some good closure to Kes, and in a way
they accomplished that. I would be lying if I said I was satisfied by the
ending, however. When I saw this episode for the first time, I legitimately
felt that I would have preferred “The Gift” as the final goodbye for Kes. I
almost wish that “Fury” had not been made at all. Still, there are good points
in it, and I do find some strengths in the story. There are good acting scenes
with Jennifer Lien, and we get a nice jaunt down memory lane. I would say that
the biggest detractor for me in this episode is the temporal paradox it causes
which just weakens the story for me. If Janeway, Tuvok, and Kes knew what was
going to happen, could they not have prepared Kes better for leaving? That, of
course, would have changed the future, and then Kes would never have gone back
in time, therefor Janeway and the others would not know what would happen, and
then Kes would have left unprepared, come back all bitter and evil, and…oh, my
head spins. I guess the best way to enjoy this episode is to try to not put too
much thought into it.
Relevance – 3 points. When Kes goes back in time, she
encounters the Doctor, who discusses his quest for a name. He mentions
“Schweitzer” as a possible name. That is the name he chooses for himself during
his mission in the holodeck for the episode “Heroes and Demons”. There is also
the case to be made that this wraps up the story for Kes and shows that her
leaving in “The Gift” leads her to a dark place. There are several blasts from
the past, including Ensign Wildman’s pregnancy and Joe Carey. In fact, this is
a nice little trip down memory lane that ties up a few questions. Included in
this is how Wildman’s pregnancy seems to be so long. Naomi being half-Katarian
is a good explanation for it.
Continuity – 0 points. OK, here is where things start
to fall apart for the episode. One of the risks associated with time travel
episodes is the paradoxes that arise from it, and continuity in this episode
seems to have been left by the wayside. Let’s start with character continuity.
Yes, I know that Kes has been gone from Voyager for three years, and things can
happen to cause someone to go into a bit of dark place, but with no explanation
given other than a throwaway line there does not seem to be a reason that Kes
would go from giving her crew a gift of taking a full decade off of their
voyage to causing their deaths. I have to deduct a point for character
continuity for that. Even if that wasn’t enough, there was the opening sequence
with Janeway and Tuvok. Janeway had mentioned that Tuvok would soon hit the
three-digit age (100), and yet in previous episodes it has been established
that Tuvok was already over 100 years old. You would think someone as close to
Tuvok as Janeway is would know his age. Story continuity is also an issue here.
At the beginning of the episode Tuvok was a lieutenant commander, a promotion
he received in the fourth season. Kes travels back to a time during the first
season, and Tuvok is still wearing the commander’s pip. Plus, Janeway tells
evil Kes that she has already traveled back 3 years in time, while in reality
she traveled back 5 years. For universe continuity there is the issue of Kes
being able to transport across Voyager’s shields, which has long been
established as being impossible. Much of these inconsistencies are due to lazy
or careless writing and editing, and therefor could have been avoided. Too bad.
Character Development – 3 points. Since Kes was a fulltime cast
member, and since in the credits she is listed as “Also Starring”, I can
continue to count her towards character development. There will definitely be
strong development for her character as she is run through the gambit of
emotions. It is interesting to see the elder Kes show a conflicting range of
emotions towards her former crewmates. I especially found the scenes with
Neelix particularly intriguing. It is them that she seems to show the most
regret for her actions as she is treated with such kindness that Neelix was
well known for. She shows her own fury as well, though I think she could have
gone more dark-side at times. Janeway and Tuvok both are given some interesting
development, as they have held a secret for several years about Kes (although
why they didn’t try to help her avoid this state of bitterness before I do not
know). I also appreciated the bit of closure they provided Neelix in this
episode. I always felt that he had carried the torch for Kes for a long time,
and this is when he could truly say his goodbye to his former love. So, whether
you like the development of Kes or not, you cannot deny that full marks are
earned for this category.
Social Commentary – 2 points. Kes comes back to Voyager,
blaming them for abandoning her even though it was her choice to leave. She
sends a message to herself reminding her that regardless of whatever hardships
she encountered afterwards, she was the own who made the choice. This reflects
something that is common with many of us. When we encounter hardships, we look
at everything around us for something or someone to blame. What we should be
doing is giving ourselves a close examination to see what our choices have
contributed to the state we are in. This is not to say that when people
experience trials because of the actions of others that it is the victim’s
fault, nor can we expect a person to fully predict the future outcome of all
our choices. For example, I would never expect a rape victim to shoulder the
blame for what happened. Instead, I am talking about blaming people for things
that they really had no control over or intent towards. If Janeway knew what
would happen to Kes when she left (and of course, here is the temporal paradox,
because if she did know, would she not have better prepared Kes before sending
her off?) would she have let her go? OK, the temporal paradox that this episode
leaves us with is messing with this category, so let me sum up with the thought
that we should not always have to find someone to blame for our troubles, even
ourselves. Sometimes, we just have to accept that bad things do happen, and we
should move on from it.
Cool Stuff – 2 points. I did like seeing things back
when Voyager started. A little hello from Joe Carrey, and the last glimpse at
Samantha Wildman in the series was nice. I liked how many of the cast were able
to tap into their earlier selves, and that itself is cool. I also liked the
Viddian captain. If his voice sounded familiar, it was because he was portrayed
by Vaughn Armstrong, one of his hundreds (OK, only a dozen) characters in the
franchise.
Rank – Captain (16 points). Yeah, an episode that I am not too found
of still manages to obtain the rank of Captain. As I said earlier, the episode
has a lot going for it. The frustrating temporal paradox really weakens the
episode for me, but it still has intrigue and suspense. Even though it is
ranked high enough to be a Captain, I get why some may want to skip this
episode. I do it sometimes.
If you would like to read an episode review from any of the Trek series, click the following link to get to the series catalog. If the episode you want reviewed has not been done yet, then feel free to request it in the comments and I will see what I can do.
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