Jammersreviews

Warning: This review contains significant spoilers for the episode "Course:
Oblivion." If you haven't seen the show yet, beware.


Nutshell: Better than its predecessor, "Demon," but still deeply, deeply
flawed, with a cynical nature that disheartens.

Plot description: The entire ship and crew begin to disintegrate, leading
to a discovery that they aren't what they seem.

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Star Trek: Voyager -- "Course: Oblivion"

Airdate: 3/3/1999 (USA)
Teleplay by Bryan Fuller & Nick Sagan
Story by Bryan Fuller
Directed by Anson Williams

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
Rating out of 4: *1/2

"The 'demon'-class planet--one of our more interesting missions." --
Chakotay, speaking for himself
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To its credit, "Course: Oblivion" is an episode with more implicit ideas
than it probably deserves to possess. I mean that. This show sometimes asks
interesting questions. Unfortunately, the story can't stay focused, the
answers are ultimately not very interesting, and what it takes to get us to
those answers is so dubious that the show ends up coming off as desperate
and meretricious. I wanted to think about some of the consequences of this
episode, but the more I thought about them, the more infuriating the
story's underlying foundation became.

On knee-jerk-reaction terms, I object to the very existence of this
episode. It has the audacity to be a sequel to "Demon," one of the most
ridiculous episodes of Voyager ever made. I'm forced to ask why the writers
would want to remind us of an episode so incoherent and devoid of any
reasonable train of thought as to follow it up with a sequel. (I'd think
damage control--forgetting it ever happened--would be the more appropriate
answer.)

In objective terms, however (I have a duty to be fair to what we have here
rather than complain about what came before), I must say this episode has
about 10 times the substance of "Demon," and manages to be bad without
descending to the depths of utter garbage. If that still sounds like faint
praise, that's probably because it is.

As the nature of the plot began to unfold, I felt a great dislike for this
episode, but it hooked me in with more intrigue than "Demon" or last week's
laughably inept "Disease" could muster. It's clearly better than both. But
all comparisons aside, the story still has serious problems, and I still
think it was a mistake to make this episode considering the large quantity
of nonsense we have to swallow to make the story remotely workable.

For starters, based on how it plays out, this strikes me as one of the most
cynical episodes of Star Trek ever conceived. Here's a plot that builds its
story around a set of people merely so they can be destroyed--and for what?
For some large ironic statement? To pose an interesting "what if" premise
with a tragic ending? There's evidence of an attempt for both, but not
enough effective utilization of either.

The episode opens with a deception that I'm not even sure how to feel
about--namely, the marriage of Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres. Like with
most episodes, I went into "Course: Oblivion" with no idea what it was
about (other than what the trailer told me, which, as usual, was nothing)
and no expectations. Therefore, the marriage struck me as iffy (motivated
by a lot of off-screen courtship, I presumed), but real. Then the evidence
began to appear: This ship was less than two years from home, the dialog
revealed a host of adventures we'd never heard of before, etc.--and it
became clear this was not the Voyager crew we knew.

When B'Elanna suffers and eventually dies from a mysterious sickness, the
investigation begins. Early on (which is decidedly a good thing), the
episode drops the major revelation on us: This Voyager crew is the copy of
the real crew that was created in "Demon." Every individual on the ship
used to be some sort of biomimetic silver fluid that obtained sentience
when Voyager interacted with them in the previous episode. Somehow, the
ship itself was also replicated. Now, enhancements to the warp engines, we
learn, have caused this "sickness" ("Each and every one of you will
disintegrate," Doc says helpfully)--leading to the crew's reversion to
their original biological state where the only hope for survival might mean
returning to their original environment.

The episode's plot holes are massive--full of facts that defy reasonable
explanation and take the sci-fi aspects of Trek into purely arbitrary
fantasy. I like to think I have some imagination and an ability to grant a
few details in the name of drama, but the nonsense presented here goes so
far over the line that we're forced to resign to a story with basically no
rules at all. Correction: The rules are conjured at will to dictate
whatever crazy way the plot wants to go.

For instance, not only did the biomimetic silver fluid (or whatever) copy
the entire crew, but the entire ship and all its technology as well--and
*without the real Voyager crew's knowledge*. That's a stretch I'm not
willing to so easily grant. Are you telling me that this crew had no way of
suspecting for some 10 months that they used to be a metallic fluid? And
that every piece of technology on the ship was replicated perfectly?
There's also the issue of memory, which is cast aside with a casual, "Oh,
apparently we just *forgot* we were copies and resumed our lives as if we
were the real thing." Later, memories of "the metallic past" resurface when
it helps Chakotay form an argument challenging the captain's decision. How
conveeeeeeenient. This all makes me want to utter an eight-letter word that
begins with "bull" (I'll resist that urge, however, in the interests of
maintaining a G-rated review; those over the age of 10 can just pretend I
said it).

This doesn't require suspension of disbelief; it requires willful embracing
of credulity.

If you can grant these ridiculous details, the episode might improve some,
but I still had major problems. First, there's entirely too much emphasis
on technobabble rather than drama. (In that regard, this episode feels like
a throwback to season two or three, whereas season five has generally been
able to maintain focus on the human aspects rather than the technical
junk). It also didn't help to have reminders of other notoriously awful
shows. Not only are there ideas from "Demon," but also aspects
all-too-reminiscent of "Threshold" ("Making the ship go faster will
disfigure and kill you!") and "Twisted" ("The ship is morphing and
deforming!"). This all may be beside the point, but the fact I was too
distracted by the fantasy tech details is a sign the story wasn't working.

Fortunately, unlike "Demon," this episode at least tries to think about a
few issues. The most interesting aspect of the show is probably Paris
lashing out after B'Elanna has died and the truth is learned. Finding out
you literally aren't at all who you thought you were (and further, that
you're going to die), has got to be pretty tough, and Paris' rage and his
shades of nihilism prove somewhat enlightening. Unfortunately, there isn't
enough of it; the issue is raised and then only sort of half-developed.

Instead, the writers rehash the Janeway Decision Theme--with the question
of whether to keep going and risk death ("I promised this crew I would get
them home!") or turn back and head for the "demon" planet in the interest
of survival. While this is more interesting dramatically than the tech
stuff, it's like the millionth time we've seen Janeway agonize over this
issue, as Chakotay offers the reasonable arguments taking the other
position. (Although, here it seems like something of a no-brainer: Either
turn around, or everyone dies. Hmmm...)

Dramatically, I found a lot of the story's twists to be depressingly
cynical. B'Elanna gets a well-played deathbed scene that proves more
affecting than most Tom/B'Elanna scenes to date; both Dawson and McNeill
reveal a genuine chemistry. Unfortunately, I'm forced to wonder why the
marriage is even there. To make us care about characters, only so the
universe can be turned on us in a notion of "things are not what they
seem"? Nothing is more frustrating than good characterization that
technically isn't real.

But let's grant the marriage gimmick as simply a neutral fact for a moment.
The next dose of cynicism comes with the story's dependence on pointless
conflict to ease the ship along to its inevitable destruction--namely, the
Hard-Headed Aliens of the Week [TM]. When Voyager finds a possible
alternative "demon"-class world, it's of course being mined by aliens who
wouldn't think of letting anyone come near it. They immediately open fire
so we can get our requisite dose of weekly camera-shaking and bridge-set
pyrotechnics.

After that failure, the situation becomes increasingly grim. Even with the
warp engine enhancements, it will take weeks to get back to the original
"demon" world, and members of the crew are dropping like flies. Much is
made of Janeway's idea of a time capsule, so if the crew doesn't survive
there will at least be a record of their existence. Well, the crew doesn't
survive ... and neither does the capsule, which is destroyed by a
technobabble problem that is so arbitrarily manufactured that it doesn't
prompt from me a reflection upon tragic circumstances but rather anger for
shameless audience manipulation.

But that's not all. Next the episode will have us believe that while on its
doomed course back toward the "demon" planet, with only minutes before the
ship will be ripped apart, the duplicate Voyager happens within range of
the real Voyager. (I won't even bother questioning the odds of such an
occurrence.) The real Voyager arrives in range of the duplicate Voyager
just a bit too late--or, rather, just in time to see a field of debris and
wonder what happened to the mysterious ship to which they never came close
enough to contact.

So, given all of this, what exactly is the point, or at least the intent?
My guess would be some mix of nihilistic angst and tragedy or something,
but the story doesn't create such emotions fairly; it simply manipulates us
with bland, near-random turns of the plot, creating this duplicate Voyager
crew with a host of contrivances and then putting them at the mercy of a
universe that wants to toy with and finally crush them by way of still more
contrivances. If that sounds cynical on my part, it might be--but I get
these vibes from what I believe the show portrayed through its scornful
treatment of the characters.

Why should we care about them if no one--except possibly those destined to
die--learns anything? More specifically, why should we care when the real
Voyager crew, which comprises the real emotional core of the
series--doesn't make the discovery? And why bother getting so close to the
moment of payoff just to snatch it away? Think of the possibilities of the
logs surviving the duplicate crew's destruction. The real drama could've
been in the real Voyager crew facing the psychological consequences of
learning about this duplicate crew's set of adventures--getting a taste of
who they might've been if given a set of slightly different circumstances.
(The Tom/B'Elanna marriage provides a very good example of such.)

Leaving this all in the audience's lap, in my opinion, is not nearly
enough, and simply ends up being a waste of time. In short: There needs to
be a surviving witness *in the story* for there to be dramatic context
(like Harry's message to himself in "Timeless")--otherwise, what did we
just see and why?

I get the feeling that the writers were going for some sort of thoughtful,
introspective ending, where the real Voyager crew not being the wiser about
the duplicates constitutes some sort of poetic irony. I'll grant that as a
possibility, but I don't find it at all satisfying under the circumstances.
Tragedies work better when you genuinely care about those being tortured;
here the cynical nature of plot--which just jerks us around--all but makes
that impossible.

"Course: Oblivion" is an episode that pretty much rubbed me the wrong way
at every turn. In its defense, I'll admit that it tries to do some things
that are unconventional, and it raises a few interesting issues. And its
title is perfectly appropriate. Unfortunately, the way it goes about doing
it is mean-spirited and false, and all that stands in the hour's wake is a
barrage of technical jargon, weird-looking makeup effects, and a sense of
audience manipulation that is not at all appealing. Unlike the brain-dead
"Demon," this show has ideas. They just aren't very good ideas.

--
Next week: A rerun of "Extreme Risk."

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Copyright (c) 1999 by Jamahl Epsicokhan, all rights reserved. Unauthorized
reproduction or distribution of this article is prohibited.

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