“Persistence of Vision”

I think you're forgetting to ask one very important question: how often do Star Trek characters go to the holodeck to masturbate?

At the end of this episode, Torres is surprised to see the Captain - isn't this the day you go to the holodeck - she asks. Clearly Janeway does this weekly.

Some people find all the role-play etc. unbelievable in a world where you can just call up an image of Jeri Ryan if you're feeling horny. But I like to analogize it to the Internet. Sure there is a ton of porn on the web, a ton of *free* porn, but still: how much of your time on the web do you actually spend on porn sites? Exactly. Not that much.

When this episode aired, less than 10 percent of Americans had access to the net. Today that number is over 80 percent! And the amount of porn on the web is exponentially more. Yet today porn is just about 1 percent of total commerce over the internet. That's right, a tiny, tiny 1 percent.

So it seems perfectly normal that a very small amount of holodeck time will be devoted in the future to masturbation (even by sexually frustrated female captains far from home). So more pool games in France (is there a french pool Facebook app?) and less porn. A starship is, after all, a place of work.

I must admit, I did take delight in seeing Janeway go crazy. Too bad the episode couldn't end with her in a straightjacket-where she belongs.

I liked the aliens, and I liked some of the character moments. I also enjoyed watching Janeway slowly lose her marbles. This episode also gets points for letting us watch Neelix suffer for a few minutes, even if it wasn't real.

HOWEVER, what is up with Janeway's ridiculous British nanny holonovel?!? I couldn't believe they used that concept the first time it showed up, let alone that they've made it a recurring theme! Are we to believe that in Janeway's deepest, most enjoyable, fantasies she is having an affair with some random widower while being a servant to his entitled brat children and facing daily shank eyes from his creepy... What is the other female character in the holonovel supposed to be, anyway? The head nanny? Janeway fantasizes about being the underling of a power hungry 40 year old virgin in the British countryside? Really? I'm not buying any of this.

It's almost as if the writers of this show are trying to say that even the most powerful women secretly want to be motherly types who are kept by rich men. I understand that they wanted Janeway to be more maternal captain than Kirk, Picard or Sisko. But, something about this approach feels vaguely sexist. I don't know; the British holonovel just sucks. Worst concept ever.

The rest of the episode was good though. I felt it was a little better than two and a half stars. But, it wasn't quite up to three either. So, I suppose I concur with Jammer's two and a half stars on this one.

Now now, lord Burly (it's very hard to even type out without laughing) isn't a virgin, he has totally gotten laid at least twice. Also he's a complete douche of a father and I wish Janeway would deck his muttonchopped ass for trying to bone the nanny instead of at least trying to console his daughter.

I guess they didn't go with the hot and steamy affair with an Italian underwear model holonovel because they didn't want to knock the ever-lucrative nerd demographic out of their comfort zone.

Speaking of nerds getting knocked out of their comfort zone: that scene where Kes is doing some science to a console only to suddenly emit a blood-curdling scream and develop gross pestilent sores all over nearly gave me a heart attack for just how quickly and unexpectedly it went from Trekbusiness as usual to things being horribly wrong. Not recommended viewing at one in the morning.

@Matthias: I think Carbetarian was referring to Mrs. Templeton, not Burleigh. I don't mind this holo-novel nearly as much as others seem to--in fact, Voyager's holographic creations number among the only fantasy worlds in Trek I myself might actually like to participate in : this one, Captain Proton, Fairhaven...

The other series' holodeck (or suite) programmes tended to rationalise their existence by their creators too blatantly--Data wants to learn about the complexities of human intrigue, so we get Doyle and Shakespeare; Bashir wishes he were a secret agent, so we get James Bond (more or less); Sisko likes baseball, so we get that dreck of an episode, "Take me out..."

Janeway isn't a secret masochist who enjoys being the victim of Victorian misogyny, she's interested in the quieter drama of household life--something denied her in "real" life.

@Carbetarian : Mrs. Templeton is the head maid. She's in charge of the house. Janeway's character is in charge of the kids, the nurse.

The holonovel feels like a ghost story - the maybe-not-dead mother perhaps playing the piano. And two of the three episodes it's been in so far were supernatural stories of a sort (Cathexis and this). According to Memory Alpha this is the last episode with it, so I guess we'll never know.

It's all very simple, and mentioned in the dialogue: Templeton is the house keeper and Janeway is playing the governess.

I liked the part when Janeway wanted to exit her room, and the door didn't open, and she got panicked!

You guys should have paid more attention in your British lit classes. Janeway's holonovel is a poorly disguised allusion to Jane Eyre: Young governess who works for the mysterious Rochester, who has his crazy wife locked up in the attic. Eyre is a strong female character in a time when females had no rights. The novel appeals to women because there is mystery, romance, fancy dresses, and British accents. Not the same type of fantasy men seek, but educated women love it. It fits Janeway's character.

Unlike most Star Trek fans, I've known many educated women, and they preferred more contemporary literature to masturbatory fantasies in the 19th century.

I am an educated woman (BA, BSc, MA, PhD) in history and math AND a Star Trek fan. However, anyone who would consider works by any of the Brontes merely "masturbatory fantasy" has not read them and is also being offensive. Perhaps you can consider them part romances, but its certainly not fantasy. I do not read them in a British accent, and the central characters (ie Jane Eyre, Lucy Snow, Heathcliff) are usually too poor to be wearing fancy dress. In these novels, usually a person is alone trying to survive in a grim, cruel world. Class conflict and the threat of poverty are front and center, but the writing is beautiful and plots very compelling. Perhaps some cheap gothic romance novels have been fashioned after these worlds, but the Bronte novels are true literature.

Damn! I gotaa say, the comments on this one trump both Jammer's review AND the episode itself!!

Amen, sapira. I have a PhD in literature and I am currently teaching a university summer class on the Brontes' novels and poetry, with a focus on how their plots illustrate the complex interactions between gender and class structure in the 19th century.

Sintek, if you cannot be bothered to actually read literary works, at least read their Wikipedia summaries before making pronouncements about them. Otherwise, you run the risk of appearing very ignorant. (Also, please refrain from speaking for "educated women" in the future. We would rather speak for ourselves.)

Maybe this Bothan does this because he's angry at everyone over his many relatives that gave their lives to bring the Rebels the plans to the Second Death Star...

Awesome telepathy battle. The women rock this episode!

The only thing I could think about watching this is how everyone on the ship must snicker anytime someone goes to the holodeck, because EVERYBODY (ok, every man at least) HAS to be using for sex.
I know I would.

" and is also being offensive."

the hell is this

The mental control war was interesting, but came a bit late for me. I mean, I was already hopelessly bored/annoyed with the silly begining. I am with the ones who think the holodeck world created for the Captain plays out to be ridiculously executed. And for me, the captain-goes-crazy was not effective at all. We do not have the same formal impressions about her yet that we had towards Picard, so it was not strong.

Besides, although I love most of The Doctor plots so far, I am getting sick of him being the only one left: "This is The Doctor to anyone on this ship, if you can hear me please reply".
Not to mention that this episode's plot once again felt like reused plot from older Trek. Blah.

Sometimes, in fiction, it is quite alright to not be given any answers. This is one of those times. I found most of the scenes to be quite effective in slowly building a sense of delusional paranoia. I agree with Jammer in that the spreading of the hallucinations among the crew slowed the dramatic momentum a bit. However, it also allowed for a few interesting scenes. Whether they were necessary additions or not is debatable.

This is a breath of fresh air after the last few clunkers and a pretty good showing in its own right. The whole "only the Doctor can save us" premise (with Kes in this instance) doesn't bother me when it's done as well as it is here. Only downside is the reasons for some of the crew slipping into a catatonic state showed a weaker willpower on their part than I would like to think that they should have.

3 stars.

The question of the quality of this little Bronte-esque holodeck novel is irrelevant. It could be the greatest work of literature imaginable, and it still shouldn't be included in the episodes.

Imagine, if you will, that you bought a novel, say, The Adventures of Joe Schmoe. A couple chapters in, the character Joe Schmoe picks up another novel, say, The Tale of Bob Mcgoo, and starts to read it. So for 5-10 pages or so, you are forced to read the fictional Tale of Bob Mcgoo instead of the Adventures of Joe Schmoe like you wanted to. Then Joe Schmoe's phone rings and it goes back to him for a few chapters, but then he starts up Bob McGoo again.

Does this sound like a book you would enjoy? It doesn't matter what the plot of Joe Schmoe or Bob Mcgoo is; it's ridiculous to try to read a story within a story like that. Oh sure, there are ways that it works out: Joe Schmoe is just a framing device and Bob Mcgoo is the real story, the themes of Bob Mcgoo parallel the themes of the real Joe Schmoe story, the plot of Joe Schmoe reading Bob Mcgoo is highly relevent to the story, etc. But if it's just because the author of Joe Schmoe wanted to tell the Bob Mcgoo story at the same time, it won't work.

And that's what we have with Janeway's holonovel. Ask yourself, do you know what the plot of any of Dixon Hill's adventures were? No! TNG just tossed a bunch of film noir cliches together and called it a day. It was used to introduce us to the holodeck (Big Goodbye), comedy (Manhunt), and to provide the theme of the story (Clues). We weren't supposed to care about the plot itself, and Picard certainly didn't carry a mystery novel across multiple episodes just to fill time. For all of TNG's many uses of the holodeck (and DS9 as well), none of them were to tell an alternate story for THAT story's sake. At worst, it told an alternate story using Trek's characters (like Our Man Bashir or Fistful of Datas).

That was why Janeway's holonovel is dumb. If you need to just show her relaxing, fine, do that. But do it quickly with a few cliche scenes, don't try to build up the whole dumb plot. Because we don't care. Nor should we care. If Jeri Taylor wanted to write a story about a British governess and a maybe-ghost mom, then she should have done it on her own time, not shoe-horned it into Trek. And I would feel the same way about any other holodeck storyline that just focused on the crew member acting out a play for its own sake, not for the sake of a greater episode.

But whatever, time to move on.

I'm kinda the opposite of Jammer here. The first part seemed to drag to me, but the latter half was great. Part of the problem is, looking back, the first part doesn't make as much sense as it should have. What was really happening? Was the alien just trying to make Janeway go insane first in order to get her out of the way? Or was he calibrating his psychic abilities? I don't know, I guess either story makes sense. All I know is, the paranoia of Janeway having hallucinations like that feels like something that we've seen before. The latter half, the war of wills, was new.

I like that they showed quite a few of the hallucinations from different members of the crew. It was cool to see Tuvok be one of the first people to succumb; one would expect him to hold out more. But his role as security officer meant he was probably more concerned with what was going on the screen than most, and thus fell first. I liked that Chakotay disappeared off the bridge filled with purpose, but never made it out of the turbolift. I liked seeing how Janeway and Paris tried to avoid their hallucinations, and did well for quite a while. And then Torres... well, that one seemed to come out of nowhere, but everyone else's temptations were fine.

I liked that Janeway ultimately failed. She wasn't telepathic or whatever or any more powerful than anyone else on the ship. The "iron will" idea is hard to believe, and seeing her human works better.

I liked Kes and the Doctor's team up. Seeing two people not used to technobabble have to deal with it was a nice tough, and it was enjoyable watching them awkwardly fuddle their way through it. And while it might get annoying seeing the Doctor constantly save the day, well, that's the price you pay for a character like that. The same thing happened on TNG with Data. And anyways, the back and forth between Kes and the alien was fun. Sure, we could assume that all her visions were not real, but you could see how Kes might be tempted. And the sores... yow! That was well directed. It got me to jump.

I like that nothing got resolved. I like that the crew nearly lost and had nothing to show for it. They are supposed to be isolated, alone, and stuck in a dangerous environment. If they could nearly all turn into zombies by this one person, and can't even catch him at the end, how are they going to survive? I think it fits the tone of the episode, providing even more paranoia. Would he ever come back? Would they have to live in perpetual worry that they will suddenly become zombies again? Of course, it's just a reset button, but still. Ignoring that, the end worked.

That said, the reset button did annoy me a bit. Neelix's comments at the beginning suggest that this was a pretty large expanse of space, and that lots of ships had trouble. So... is this a whole race of troublemakers? Or just one sociopath? If so many people were worried about this area in space, wouldn't this guy try again to prove himself? A part of me wished that this guy would have eventually been revealed as an Ocampa, as that might explain why Kes could reflect it. And it might have made the revelation quite dramatic and shocking. I don't know, it's just an idea. Either way, something more interesting should have happened in a follow up.

As far as some of the people talking smack about Janeway's "fantasies" is it not possible that this is, in fact, a "holonovel" the way it is portrayed?

Not every holodeck program is a procedurally generated made-on-the-fly-by-the-computer simulation. No, there are HOLONOVELS. Which may actually be written by PEOPLE! I figure Janeway found the novel in the database, and thought it would be a fun one to experience. The name she loads is probably what she titled her "saved game" or something.

Kind of going from memory here, my Voyager DVD's (or my DVD player) are temperamental at times and I could get this one to play.

I remember liking this one. For those that think every minute of an episode needs to be "gripping", you should watch some old Godzilla movies. I LOVED the most recent Godzilla because the didn't show everything the entire movie.

Ah, I remember now, this is the Kes marshmallow-face episode! :-)

I thought the ending was pretty cool. Kes' powers prevail and are remarked upon by someone other than Tuvok. "You're a powerful little thing."

Technobabble didn't save the day, our little Ocampan did.

I thought "and I'd like to be able to accommodate you but you see, I'm not really here." was new and fresh and caught me off guard.

I'll go 3 stars here.

I agree Jammer, we needed a shot in the arm. the most recent group of Voyager episode weren't very good.

This episode was pretty enjoyable, especially the surprise that not Janeway but Kes saved the ship, except for the ending which pretty much declared that the events should and will be subsequently forgotten.

What I don't get is where that Torres/Chakotay fantasy came from? I don't ever recall there being any hint of that. They were close from serving together of course, but sexually? Nah. And what even worse, but not suprising for this show, its never mentioned or plays any part ever again. Torres goes on to marry the helmsman and Chakotay gets to "service the Collective". I think it'd have been more realistic if Torres was hip deep in dead Cardassians or even better, wishing she was the fully human version from "Faces".

An episode loaded with potential that doesn't quite deliver. There are a number of really nice misdirections - eg the possibility it's the Doctor's repositioned holodeck emitters that are causing the problems early on - that builds on a nice slow burn to an off centre climax in which Kes unexpectedly saves the day.

That said, it's all a bit scattergun as it spreads the character focus around thinly. That works for Janeway, who at least gets explored in some depth, but the Torres and Paris themes seem perfunctory. The ambiguous conclusion also slightly undermines the proceedings in my view. "I'm not really here" indeed. 2.5 stars.

I have a hunch that the *real* purpose of this episode was to give a little boost to everybody's character development, and that illustrating Delta quadrant weirdness was secondary. We've got a bit of Paris and his father, Janeways struggle with loneliness and feelings for her husband, Torres' crush on Chakotay, a little glimpse into Tuvoks relationship and desires (which he otherwise can't reply express as a Vulcan), etc.

The quick ending and lack of explanation for the aliens, as well as Janeway and torres' final conversation (focusing on their feelings rather than the aliens), is evidence for this intent. Same with the mostly faceless alien. It's as if the alien was written to be as non distracting as possible, and specifically set up to not have the potential to become a memorable recurring species.

But if that's the case, it still wasn't well done. The problem was that too much time was spent building up the encounter and the hallucinations. The consultations with Neelix were irrelevant as was the aliens policies towards outsiders. We didn't need screen time for that. We didn't need half the episode of the captain in sickbay trying to figure out what was wrong, we didnt need the extended build up, we didn't need kes' dragged out attempt to thwart the aliens. This was all a waste of screen time when it *should* have been dedicated almost entirely to various characters hallucinations and their effects.

Either that or the episode should have dropped the character development completely and gone the direction of developing a new Delta quadrant species instead.

Either way, it didn't do justice to any purpose. Jammer was spot on with the observation that the writing was all over the map.

I didn't dislike this episode, but I do think it was a wasted opportunity because of its lack of commitment to any specific direction.

When janeway's boring holodec program started spilling on to the ship I knew I was going to fall asleep. boring psychological snoozefest

It's kind of funny that in the early seasons there was complaining that the episodes were too much ensembles rather than focusing on a particular character while in the latter years the episodes were criticized for focusing too much on only one character, usually Seven or the Doctor (but to be fair I think Jammer is consistent and prefers and is more positive to the latter style).

I feel Jammer has undermarked this one. It has a freshness and a pace about it not seen thus far in Voyager. This and Projections are the best episodes so far, so for me this at least a 3 star ep. I'm going higher - 3.5 stars.

I think some may be forgetting how this episode appeared when it was first shown. It also leads to other "ship in jeopardy" episodes that is a particular trade mark of Voyager. The references to "delusions" are not coincidental and Voyager remains, to this day, as some kind of underground resistance against the tyranny of the psychiatric pseudoscience that we are still forced to put up with. To many Kes and her psychism may appear to be purely fictional, but Tuvok represents the enlightened acceptance of Psi phenomena as a simple reality in the Universe like gravity or light. So when it comes down to it where are the "experts" saying that the alien is not really using Psi attacks ? No. Kes does her stuff (of course the Ocampa have always been a template for latent human abilities) and the episode gets across it's point about not automatically judging those who "see and hear things". These themes also come up in later episodes such as "Workforce", a criticism of the use of electroshock. This and these other episodes astounded me when I first saw them having had a few tangles myself with oppressive Earth psychiatric pseudoscience !

From the first comment: "I think you're forgetting to ask one very important question: how often do Star Trek characters go to the holodeck to masturbate?"

To whom is such a question important? Some saddo from the internet who wants to get his rocks off to an episode of Star Trek?

I agree with this review in its entirety. A solid, very dark episode with fantastic imagery, reminiscent of TNG-era weirdness, slightly let down towards the end by dragging the whole crew into it. Janeway teaming up with Kes would have been awesome as they literally bounce off each other in this episode. Trek could have done with more creepy aliens whose motives are never explained beyond "I will do these things to you because I can" - that motive is horrible and frightening enough without doing what American writers usually do and dumbing it down with a lengthy explanation.

I enjoyed the one! It's interesting reading the reviews and seeing where tastes differ. Kes performed well and I like that she got to play the hero of the episode. I also think it was better that the alien's motives were left unknown and mysterious. More "weirdness" like this is what Voyager should have been more about. This episode had some TOS vibes to me as well. 3 stars.

NoPoet, aside from the fact that the "saddo from the Internet" that you miserably denounce posted 8 years ago and will almost certainly never see your ridiculously po-faced riposte, did it occur to you that he was joking? Now you may not have found it funny, but then again the correct response to not finding something funny on the internet is to ignore it and move on to more important things in your life.

Personally I would like to know who, in the enlightened 24th century - a time when humans want for nothing and don't have to work for a living - has the job of cleaning what must be absolutely vast amounts of jizz off the walls and floor of the holodeck at the end of every day.

@Zakalwe - The holodeck converts matter into energy and then back into matter all of the time. After a certain number of years 95% of the things in the holodeck are basically made of recycled jizz. Interestingly, this is also why Voyager could never siphon power from the holodecks. The engines can't run on recycled jizz, but you can make an Irish village out of it!

I'll see myself out now.

3 stars

A thoroughly entertaining hour with wonderful atmosphere. The Botha are one of the few interesting races VOY came up with

Since I started on my completionist quest to plow through every Trek episode ever made, it has become my habit to watch one, and immediately come to Jammer's Reviews to see what everyone else thinks. It's amazing to see how far back the comments go in these threads.

My memory of Voyager starts in the latter seasons and were mildly entertaining but this first season is awful. Of course TNG and DS9 started slow, but this is the worst. Tell me it gets better.

By the way, the stupid holonovel seems like an amalgam of Jane Eyre and The Turn of the Screw. I'm hating it.

I feel like a consistent problem (or at least "issue," for a slightly more value-neutral term) with Voyager is this split in episodes, where the story veers off sometime around the halfway part or near the cilmax. Here, the episode was setting up to be a reasonable if a little dull story about Janeway's hallucinations related to the holodeck gradually becoming more intense, then at the last minute veers into the whole crew experiencing very acute hallucinations all at once, and then at the last *moment* becomes a Kes story dealing with same all alone, with only the doctor's help. Any of these would have maybe worked okay, but the episode only barely pays off the Janeway material and gives too little time for the material in the last act and a half.

It's a bit soon after Projections to have a holodeck-related reality-bending episode, but Janeway seeing bits of her holonovel bleeding into her life on the ship is executed fairly well, and at least gives a reason for this holonovel to have been going on. What really struck me is how precarious the ship is; we are introduced to the whole roster of Janeway's duties at the episode's beginning to emphasize how disastrous pulling her from the voyage as a whole would be, so that when she seemingly starts to crack up Janeway *and* we know how important it is that she holds herself together, and it strengthens Janeway's increasing panic about what happens if this is just her going crazy (and the way that seems to worsen what may be hallucinations). Melgrew is great throughout. The gothic tone of the holonovel works here, and I like sense that the (not actually) mystery of the book (i.e. that the mother is alive) is about a "character" who is not supposed to exist (the mother, within the frame of the holonovel) also mirrors the way the holonovel characters, who are not supposed to be real, start to invade Janeway's actual life. And for this part of the story, the underlying idea that she's afraid that she's betraying Mark by...what, responding to the kiss from a man in the holodeck?...sort of makes sense. I don't think the issue is really that Janeway actually takes the holo-kiss that seriously -- this is mostly the equivalent of getting emotionally involved in a book or TV show or video game, after all -- so much as the way her feelings respond reminds her of 1) her own loneliness, and 2) that on some level she has started to let go of Mark. She mirrors the husband, who is married (as Janeway is engaged) but is treating his (apparently living?) wife as dead to have an affair, and that opens up a door for Janeway -- even though Mark is alive, is he starting to be *effectively* "dead" from her, in terms of being completely out of her life? The housekeeper's and children's anger and feelings of betrayal over Janeway-as-Lucy "replacing" the (not actually dead?) mother maybe works as a psychological representation of Janeway's guilt over herself giving up Mark and starting to consider, at least subconsciously, other options, even the option of letting herself truly feel unattached to a man on the other side of the galaxy.

And then things go full on out, with the beam and everyone's fantasies, and they don't really tell us much interesting. Janeway's encounter with Mark is too simplistic for what should be a more complex set of emotions, and by making her feelings "explicit" it actually removes some of the complexity that we could read into the earlier scenes, by implying it's *just* her feelings of guilt about kissing a hologram. Tuvok misses his wife; Paris has disappointed his dad. Thanks for the memos. Based on Non Sequitur, I choose to believe Kim was just lying when he said he saw Libby on screen, and I think he more saw his greatest fantasy, which, as we know from Non Sequitur, is the spacetime continuum being back to its correct alignment after a shuttle accident. The revelation about Torres' feelings for Chakotay feels totally unearned -- yeah, okay, so I detected a certain charge in some previous scenes at times, but the chemistry isn't *that* strong and, more to the point, the way Torres eventually reacts in the scene with Janeway feels overdone; is it that horrifying a revelation? (I forget whether this revelation goes anywhere, so. We'll see.) The Kes stuff was maybe okay, and also reminded me of the end of Night Terrors (where it was down to Data the AI and Troi the psychic when the rest of the crew was very nearly out of commission), but basically didn't tell me anything about her, and nor do I even really get how this "mirror" thing of hers is supposed to work (she...somehow sent the image of the holo-hallucinations back into Janeway's head, and so she could...send the weird burning white stuff back onto Neelix?...but Janeway didn't cause the holo-hallucinations, and wasn't injured by the knife when Kes sent the knife-wielding maniac into her so...wait...what...).

It's a letdown that we don't learn more about this alien, but it's sort of neat all the same that it seems to just be one guy with some powers and a technological apparatus (a Wizard of Oz type) pretending to be a whole territorial species.

So I found the tone okay at the episode's start but mostly wasn't happy with the result. I guess we'll see how the show pays off Janeway's gradual disconnection from Mark. If this were like TNG's Eye of the Beholder, where the whole nightmare about the Worf/Troi romance being doomed ends up being kind of pointless in light of the show never actually exploring it except through various fantasies, I'd feel particularly negative about it, but I guess it's possible there's some real development here for Janeway, in at least starting to realize she's moving away from Mark. I guess I'll say 2 stars. The season isn't really shaping up that well so far. (I haven't written about Projections yet, so I'll say I liked it.)

An ok episode. Better than the last few episodes, which were complete dreck, so that's not saying much.

And the whole thing was a little confusing. Were the Bothan ships real or not? They did real damage to the ship, but they were actually hallucinations? Or what? Was the whole episode only a hallucination by the entire crew? Was the Bothan real and made them think he wasn't at the end? Is there even such a thing as a Bothan? Maybe it's all some trick by a Q or something.

I guess that was sort of the point of the episode. That all this stuff happened with no explanation for any of it, but that seems like sort of a cop out. They went through all this, and what was it and why was it done? Who knows?

2 stars

I also want to say that

@William B

I like what you write, and I appreciate the thought that goes into it, but I think you are seriously overanalyzing the reasons why any of the writers wrote what they wrote. Yours is very much an 'after the fact' analysis of what the episodes are about. Which is fine, but you are attributing far too much to the writers, who I can almost 100% guarantee did not put anywhere near as much thought into the episodes as you do.

I'm not telling you to stop what you are doing, because it's an interesting analysis of Star Trek, I'm only saying you shouldn't defend the writers because of what someone more insightful thought after the fact. :D

Too bad you weren't a story consultant on some of these. It would have helped.

Skinky makes a good point. Sometimes why something was written the way it was would surprise you. In a lot of cases a lot less (or more) thought went into it than you would think, and the reasons were practical (actor availability, for example) rather than artistic. Or the writers simply had other reasons for doing things than what seems apparent based on the screen. Listening to DVD commentary tracks (or Ron Moore's BSG episode commentary podcasts, back in the day) is revealing.

I don't think that changes the critic's job, but it is interesting.

Skinky, thanks for your kind words. And you're right that if/when I talk about "the writers" I'm maybe not being entirely accurate. "The writers" may or may not have thought about the things I'm attributing to them, and as Jammer says, probably they thought of a lot less (and in some cases a lot more) than what ends up on the screen. Voyager's such an uneven series (that's maybe a generous way of describing it) that I think it's worth reading things charitably, at least sometimes. I think that generally speaking, the writers (and directors and actors) sometimes are led by unconscious ideas, of things which "fit well," which means they didn't intend them but they might end up there. And some things are pure happy accidents. I'm not really wed to any particular ideas of what the writers actually had in mind (or believed they had in mind), though sometimes for brevity or out of carelessness I'll attribute whatever I think is going on in the episode under the surface to their conscious planning.

Bizarre and bogus episode that seems to end with some kind of reset. A whole lot of hallucinations created by some alien and questions left unanswered. Definitely unsatisfying and disappointing for me. Thought this was supposed to be a Janeway episode after the 1st half is all about her hallucinations. But a tiny bit about Kes's telepathic abilities plants the seed for the lame-ass resolution.

No idea how it was going to end or where exactly it was going for over 3/4 of the episode and all that BS the viewer goes through ends up with a whole lot of nothing at the end.

It basically came down to Kes's telepathic abilities to reflect back the hallucinations on the alien's image of evil Neelix. Pretty lame stuff. And then Janeway asks the alien why it's doing this nonsense and it replies because it can. We need better than this -- pure and simple. No way to punish the alien or understanding its greater purpose.

So the alien has this ability to know what every crew member's "weaknesses" are and it renders them into a catatonic state -- bit of a stretch; however, an entire crew being rendered useless isn't totally out of the question by Trek standards. Is this alien supposed to be the equivalent of Q?

Barely 1.5 stars for "Persistence of Vision" -- probably 3/4 of the episode is a big WTF for me, just hallucinations and it ends with a BS payoff including a big reset. Pretty much a waste of an hour other than scratching the surface for various crew members' deepest desires/fears/emotions.

Doesn't anyone just want to go to the holodeck to relax on a tropical beach?

Dammit. I loved this episode. It was suspenseful, it was scary. It had internal logic for God's sake. How often does that happen on Voyager?

I think people are focusing too much on the awkwardness of Janeways lusting to the weird holodeck character. I mean, it's nowhere near as bad as that time Geordi Leforge actually fell in love with a woman in the holodeck.

This episode easily gets 4 stars from me.

Oh, the exquisite irony of Neelix (even if it wasn't really Neelix) telling another character, "You're becoming annoying."

I think I was a tad too harsh on this episode -- I think Mulgrew's acting is pretty solid. And the best parts of the episode are the earlier ones with the whole "Janeway's going insane" thing. It gets silly in the end with Kes turning the tables on the alien - like some cheesy horror movie.

A lot the hallucinations / WTF stuff seem to be twists on stuff like "Frame of Mind", some holodeck gone wild episodes, and maybe even a bit of "The Naked Time" with people's past/true natures coming to the fore and being used to make them catatonic.

The ending with some random alien screwing around with people's minds because he can and the crew wondering if any of it happened etc. -- the whole reset bit is a big disappointment. Maybe what the crew get out of it is seeing a side of themselves they know is there but that they'd rather keep under wraps.

And where do things stand with the xenophobic Botha aliens whose space Voyager is trying pass through? Were they just conjured up by this 1 alien?

2 stars for "Persistence of Vision" -- a weird sci-fi episode that doesn't have the substance to back up the atmospheric effects of hallucinations, playing on the crew's past weaknesses - it's all a bit much for some random alien to come up with. Too much suspension of disbelief here and a disappointing ending leaving this as a "who cares?" episode.

Teaser : ***, 5%

Janeway has a busy morning. On her way to Engineering she receives a call from Paris, letting her know they're about to enter Bothan? space. Return of the Jedi joke...we're walking...Neelix accosts her in person about meeting this new alien species. She tells him to fuck off and proceeds to her meeting with Torres and Kim. Apparently, the EMH shared his experience in “Projections” with the crew and they're trying to set up remote emitters for him for real now. Janeway is here to observe their first test of the system. Something goes a bit wrong as Dr Ego Maximus materialises about 4 inches tall. Janeway lays into Kim for wasting her god-damned time and Tuvok calls in to call for for his own pound of flesh. The EMH, despite his stature, decides to pull rank and order the captain to report to the holodeck and unwind. This is basically a Star Trek right of passage.

So Janeway puts on her period dress last seen in “Learning Curve.” Before she departs for the holodeck, she takes a moment with her photograph of Mark, her fiancé, a lovely moment as portrayed by Mulgrew. On the holodeck, Lord Sideburns seems to sense Janeway's loneliness and steals a big kiss before declaring his love for her.

Act 1 : **.5, 17%

We pick right up with the limey little brats entering the room, followed by Malcorian scientist, Romulan commander and stuffy British stereotype #7 Mrs Templeton. Much like in “The Big Goodbye,” we just kind of live in this world for a while. And like that episode or the Sherlock Holmes scenarios, it might be understandable to loathe this break from the 24th century world we are supposed to be watching, but personally, I judge the execution in these matters. The guest actors and Mulgrew do a fine job with this Gothic plot. There's a “Jane Eyre”-ish mystery regarding the dead wife and the fourth floor. Right as she's getting into it, Chakotay calls to inform her that it's time to meet with the Bothans.

So she changes and arrives on the bridge. Neelix fills her in quickly—these aliens are just kind of lazily xenophobic and very mysterious. Maybe THEY know what's on the fourth floor! Hmm? Well, the head Bothan hails—the image on the viewscreen is backlit so the alien's face cannot be discerned. He says he'll send a ship to “evaluate” the Voyager and cuts the transmission. Paris gives his usual quip and the crew speculate on this guy's motivation. Neelix suggests to Janeway that they continue her briefing in the mess hall. She looks around the room to Tuvok and to Kim and to Chakotay, begging for a way out of this nightmare scenario but receiving no lifeline.

The Morale Officer shows off his buffet which includes a tray of cucumber sandwiches identical to the ones in Janeway's holonovel. But he's not done—he serves Janeway her tea in one of the porcelain cups from the programme as well. Well, these may have just been coincidences, but as Janeway is returning to duty, she starts hearing Sideburn's voice and sees little Beatrice in the corridor.

Act 2 : **.5, 17%

Janeway's first thought is that Torres' and Kim's experiments with the EMH are responsible for these images appearing around the ship, but they have to let her down. They decide to humour her and run diagnostics on her programme, so Janeway is sent back to the holodeck to resume the novel. So, we get right back to the kissing. Unwilling to deal with this shit at the moment, Janeway deletes Lord Sideburns.

With the diagnostic turning up empty, Janeway returns to the mess hall to verify her memory of the event. It turns out there weren't any cucumber sandwiches or Victorian teacups. Resigned to troubling prospects, Janeway checks herself into sickbay to be scanned. The EMH's scans turn up empty as well, but something is giving Kes a case of Hokie Pokie. Then, the little girl shows up again screaming at Janeway about her dead mother. The Doctor doesn't see her, but Kes seems to, and somehow causes the image to vanish. They consider the possibility that her mental exercises with Tuvok (c.f. “Cathexis”) have something to do with it.

Janeway is sent to her quarters, where she replicates some ice cream and starts having hallucinations again. She hears a man's voice and a dog barking—Mark and her pet. The voice of Mark gives her shit over her attraction to Lord Sideburns and finally Mrs Templeton enters her quarters with a knife and attacks. Then it's revealed that Janeway has been in the sickbay the whole time, her delusions having taken over completely.

Act 3 : **, 17%

Well, this is pretty serious, so Janeway puts Chakotay in command and briefs him about the laundry list of tasks she had pending. He returns to the bridge and meets with the Bothan, who remains as unpleasant and enigmatic as before. Tuvok cuts the transmission, noting an odd scan and the alien responds by having two other ships decloak and all three begin attacking the Voyager. There's a brief and rather gutless battle sequence that finally ends when the ships surround the Voyager, but just then Janeway returns to the bridge to assume command. This proves to be a less than great idea as the alien steps into the light and reveals himself to be Mark.

Act 4 : .5 stars, 17%

Well, the delusions are spreading—Paris sees his father, Kim sees Libby, Tuvok sees his wife...naturally the second black Vulcan in Star Trek history *has* to be married to the first one...little by little, throughout the ship, the crew are entering catatonic states. Torres explains that there's some quantum whatever happening that's causing the hallucinations. Grand.

Chakotay arrives in Engineering to assist Torres, but it looks like the two of them are the only ones left conscious. This leads to the two of them fucking in her quarters—in her mind of course. Yeah...On the bridge, Owen Paris is berating his son over his endless failures in rather stilted dialogue, propped up only by an inventive score. When Janeway enters the turbolift to go to Engineering, she sees that Chakotay has succumbed to whatever. But Mark is there too now, guilt-tripping her over getting her corset in a twist on the holodeck. This seems to break through her defences and she submits to the delusion.

Act 5 : *, 17%

In sickbay, Kes and the EMH conclude that actually THEY are the only two left. Thankfully this doesn't lead to more ill-advised boning. Instead, the Doctor sends Kes to Engineering to complete Torres techno-whatever solution. Along the way, Kes herself starts hallucinating, seeing Tom badly burnt and pleading for help. She ignores him and makes it to the Engine room. While the EMH brushes up on technical manuals, Neelix shows up—obviously another hallucination. As she tries to save the day, she begins hallucinating these painful growths, but she channels her chi or whatever and reflects the pain back to Neelix, whose illusion is finally disrupted and revealed to be the prune-faced Bothan. She activates the quantum and ends the mass hallucination. Torres seems unruffled for having bee interrupted from her nasty sex dream and calmly points a phaser at him. Janeway arrives as the Bothan expresses his surprise at how powerful Kes' abilities are. She asks him why he did all this...and his only answer is “because I can.” Then he says that he's not really there and vanishes completely.

In the epilogue, Torres confronts Janeway. Obviously her little tryst with Commander Spirit Walker has her wondering whence the motivation for any of this. Janeway concludes that in the end, it's better to confront buried feelings that try and suppress them. Sure.

Episode as Functionary : **, 10%

This episode isn't so much bad as it is a complete mess. There are at least three different stories in here, all of them worth exploring, but trying to tell them all at once creates the sensation that nothing has finished cooking—the ideas are severely underdeveloped.

1. We have the enigmatic alien who, like Loki, pushes the crew out of their established order and forces them to confront deep-seeded feelings.
-Kim misses Libby. That's about as far as that goes.
-Tom feels the shadow of his father in everything he tries to accomplish. This is slightly more interesting.
-Tuvok misses his wife. The introduction of his musical talents is sort of interesting but goes no where.
-Kes definitely has buried feelings for Paris and resentment towards Neelix for the way he treats her. This I'm happy to see, even if it's barely on the screen.
-Torres wants to fuck Chakotay....the less said about this, the better. This is straight-up “Fascination” material.
-Janeway...

2. We have an exploration of Janeway's loneliness, which is very welcome. Season 1 worked pretty well in establishing the big picture conflicts regarding her role as captain, but now we're finally addressing the personal issues. Her longing for Mark and her dogs, and the accompanying guilt that goes along with her escapism in the holodeck all work to create vulnerability in the character, something the producers were loathe to do given their trepidation over how to portray a female captain.

3. We have, I believe, Jeri Taylor attempting to do “Sub Rosa,” but properly. While none of the material on the holodeck is what I would call riveting, it displays a competence and a respect for the protagonist that was sorely missing from the TNG story, and she gets to play around with the Gothic genre.

Any one of this ideas would make for a decent episode, possibly even a great one—and the ideas are connected, I don't want to undersell it—but trying to do all of this at once creates the feeling of being totally ungrounded. Who is the protagonist of this story? Is it Janeway or Kes? What is the message we are to be considering from Prune-face's little adventure? What insights to we have into all the non-Janeway characters with respect to their hallucinations? Because the episode is so crowded, we can't really say, making the whole thing feel like a waste of time. This feeling of wasted opportunity tends to bleed over onto the other elements of the story, which aren't actually offensive in their own right—the Botham's enigmatic non-answer goes from intriguing to annoying, the Gothic characters go from competently executed to distractingly stupid, and Kes' mental powers go from potential character development to plot element. As usual, things are held together by solid performances all around, especially from Mulgrew. And this week, we had an above-average score to boot.

Final Score : **

Strangely compelling viewing, interseped with some laugh out loud moments which makes for great star trek, especailly after reading the comments here.

Way better than the previous few episodes of dross. As someone here noted, I also got 'sub rosa' vibes plus bonus typical American 'this is how we think britsh people really are' squabbling over cucumber sandwiches and what not, dont you know :D.

Lord Sideburns😄😄

Why can Seska be seen frozen when she left the ship in a previous episode? It's a major continuatity issue.

I liked the episode. 2.5 or 3 stars sounds good to me. I particularly liked the ending and the facf that we don't get anything more from the alien than "because I can".

This is one of my favorite episodes. Why shouldn't a busy captain relax with a Gothic novel? It's a fantasy, a chance to live a life she didn't choose. No one complains about what the male characters want in their fantasy life do-overs? Why is a rip-off of classic lit so offensive?

Besides, the whole theme of the show is basically about ghosts indirectly. It's a magic battle disguised as a psionic battle, but this is on all fronts a ghost story.

It would have been more interesting, and more focused, had Janeway and Kes teamed up. Perhaps Kes protecting Janeway, while Janeway takes the dialogue of the doctor? But still, the most satisfying way to deal with a villain is to reflect his energy back at him and turn his strength against him.

I simply see this as a rather fun and compelling ghost story. Not every episode needs to be a rock'um sock'um physical fight & phaser battle.

True, I'm a bit disappointed that we learned nothing about the intruder. Properly dealing with him might've made an interesting final scene.

But on the other hand, if you ignore pent up negative energy and thoughts for too long, sooner or later they will turn on you.

Just consider this a ghost story and everything is fine. And besides, that was a brief, but great, esoteric battle at the end.

Neelix suffered, 5 stars
It wasn't real Neelix, 0 stars

Therefore, 2.5 stars

In a parallel universe, they made a version of Sub Rosa where Neelix bangs a scottish space ghost.

Fact of the Day: Calling someone a "goose" in 18th century England was like dropping an N bomd today.


Good episode. The alien's cruelty and unexplained motivations reminded me of TNG's "Schisms."


Jammer said: "It should have been Janeway saving the ship in the episode's finale, not Kes."


That's actually what I like best about the episode. Everything is totally set up for Janeway to save the day and seeing her fall into catatonia was a real surprise. It was nice to see Kes get a chance to play hero of the day, too.


p.s. I really like Janeway's holonovel hair-do.

"N bomb"

I swear the Kindle Fire has the worst keyboard in history.

Elements of the episode are mainly a re-hash of TOS material + illusion themes occurring in a few of the motion pictures, e.g. Star Trek 5 and Generations (with its Nexus). A short list is as follows:

(1) Tired and irritable captain needs a vacation. From "The Cage"

(2) Illusions mistaken for reality. From "The Cage"

(3) Crew being neutralized by means of illusion with threat of the ship being taken over by an alien.
From "And the Children Shall Lead"

(4) Defeat of up-till-now victorious alien through usurpation/surpassing of its power by member of the crew. From "Plato's Stepchildren"

Greek mythology binds the ideas together. The notion of the mirror image being a key to victory seems attributable to the myth of Perseus and Medusa. Kes is the mirror, and her pain is reflected onto the hideous alien, which is tuned to stone so to speak and defeated (the idea that moral ugliness must be faced to be defeated was picked up already in "And the Children Shall Lead", where Kirk as we know, refers to the enemy as "Gorgon").

All of this material is ably mixed together in an interesting way, which makes for a reasonably good episode. The denoument "I was never really here" was a nice touch. But think of Malachi Throne (Commodore Mendez) disappearing at the end of "The Menagerie". 3.0 / 3.25 stars despite all the recycling.

I feel this episode is underrated, and features lots of great little moments. You have:

1. The idea of Janeway being overloaded with work and responsibility
2. The funny scene with the shrunken doctor
3. Janeway's holonovel, which cleverly lets her act out a domestic life denied to her (and in which someone else gives the orders!)
4. Janeway's melancholic pining for her husband
5. Janeway's mental breakdown scenes, beautifully acted, and one in which she shockingly collapses in sickbay.
6. The gothic, ghost-movie vibe, which only becomes hokey in a few brief moments.
7. The very original alien villain; this is an alien who takes over an entire ship by himself, and creepily hides under everyone's noses. There's a real sense of intrusiveness to this guy. He gets disturbingly up close.
8. And look how clever his tactics are: he takes out the captain first, concocts a fake "first contact" meeting with phony ships, plays to Chakotay's fantasies of being in charge, disables Tuvok and the bridge crew...the guy is very systematic and insidious.
9. The great imagery of the crew paralyzed, standing like motionless monuments.
10. The scene in which Janeway confronts her husband in the turbolift, and powerfully confronts her feelings of loss and (in a sense) marital betrayal.
11. The alpha quadrant finally feels alien and dangerous. Indeed, the villain is a God-like entity common in TOS; The galaxy feels mad and lawless again.
12. The villain offers no explanation as to his methods or aims. This is good. I prefer no closure to trite closure. The unknown is oft more interesting than a rote explanation.

I'd say the only bad thing about this episode - as in most Voyager episodes - is its BOMBASTIC ACTION CLIMAX and ANNOYING-AS-HELL TECHNOBABBLE. This show really is relentless with its hokey techno-jargon. TOS avoided technobabble almost entirely, or would boil its technobabble down into a single line, but Voyager goes on and on, and too often its techno-solutions are plucked out of the air like magic.

This overly perfunctory, deus-ex-machina quality is on full display in this episode. Though well acted by the Doc and Kes, the episode essentially climaxes with Voyager farting out a magical warp bubble. It's silly.

If I had to end this episode, I'd simply stick Janeway and her husband in a room and have them talk it out. If you prefer the more bombastic route, have everyone succumb to the alien, except Janeway, who flies her ship into a sun to suicidally kill the intruder. The intruder then reveals the sun is itself an illusion, and mockingly departs, like some deranged Loki.

Anyway, I think you guys are underrating this episode. It helps flesh out Janeway's loneliness, and has a pretty neat villain. I'd say it's a good dry run for "SCIENTIFIC METHOD", a similar, more successful later episode.

"I'd say it's a good dry run for "SCIENTIFIC METHOD", a similar, more successful later episode."

Where Janeway flings the ship into TWO suns at once to kill the intruder(s)! Bigger! More radiation!

Another one of these stupid episodes where the entire crew gets instantly incapacitated by hallucinations that they obviously KNOW aren't real, and find themselves unable to do what's necessary to save the ship because of it. Seriously Tom can't hit buttons on a panel cause his father is giving him shit? Just as ludicrous as the "children shall lead" TOS episode where Sulu thinks some magic space swords are going to destroy the ship...give me a break. And I guarantee no one in the 24th century would be so obsessed with recreating BS from the Victorian Era and laughably overdone Irish stereotype villages on the holodeck, enough already. Same for Tom's 3 year old captain proton comic book nonsense.

Kes's makeup while she was screaming, "It hurts!" wasn’t at all believable. It looked like she had little dabs of Cool Hwip all over her face.

Imagine the irony of Neelix’s telling another character, "You’re becoming annoying!" That had to be intentional, right?

Oops. It looks like I already made that comment about Neelix's calling another character annoying, about six years ago.

>by hallucinations that they obviously KNOW aren't real<

Not sure how Mr. Miller up there came to such a conclusion; they quite obviously aren't supposed to know any such thing—the experiences are presented as (a) psychic attacks, complete with e.g. agonizing pain, and as (b) more akin to delusions than to hallucinations.

I admit, I'm a bit baffled as to how one can watch the episode, and then conclude "well, their minds are not being affected in any way other than being made to see some imaginary images; they know they're illusions, but don't care I guess—pfff, and the writers expect us to believe that?!"

-------------

Anyway: I personally really liked the episode, and the ending in particular. It is nicely creepy at first, with a good slow burn and rising stakes until the final, unsettling reveal. This is the kind of disturbing strangeness I'd have liked to see more of in a show about the DQ.

It is odd, to me, how many people focus so heavily on Janeway's choice of holonovel. I mean, really, *who cares?* 'Sides, it is neither unmotivated in allegorical/thematic terms, nor in diagetic ones—and makes up only a small portion of the episode, with the basic function of providing a vehicle for the first signs of trouble. But to each their own, *I guess.*

For me, 4 stars.