The One Character With No Impetus To, Manages To Get Home Via A “Message In A Bottle!”

The Good: Decent character work, Good acting, Moments of humor, Special effects
The Bad: Continuity issues, Conceptual problem for Star Trek: Voyager
The Basics: When the Doctor is teleported across an alien network to a StarFleet prototype, the viewer gets the first realistic glimpses of hope for Voyager’s return to the Alpha Quadrant!


Somewhere early in the series, Star Trek: Voyager lost its sense of purpose. The show, which was essentially plotted out to be Star Trek: Voyager’s version of Lost In Space, quickly became a rehash of Star Trek: The Next Generation and became forgetful of its own purpose, namely that the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager was attempting to get home. One of the few legitimate statements Seven Of Nine made in her first season on the show was to point this fact out. “Message In A Bottle” presents an episode that refocuses the show on the idea that Voyager is trying to get home.

“Message In A Bottle” presents an episode that gives the Doctor a mission and reframes the rest of the episodes that deal with Voyager’s attempts to get home. It also, unwittingly, reworks the Star Trek universe in a way that potentially weakens it. But on its own, “Message In A Bottle” is an entertaining and solid episode of Star Trek: Voyager and well worth watching.

Taking on more responsibilities, Seven Of Nine boosts the sensors in the Astrometrics Lab. There, she discovers an alien communications network that reaches back to the Alpha Quadrant. Utilizing the network, Seven Of Nine discovers a StarFleet vessel on the edge of the Alpha Quadrant where the network ends. Unfortunately, trying to send a signal through the network leads to a feedback signal because it degrades too quickly. Reasoning that a more complex signal will not degrade as quickly, Torres reasons that a holographic signal might not degrade and could move through the entire network, she and Seven Of Nine send The Doctor through the network.

On the other side, the Doctor discovers the experimental U.S.S. Prometheus. Unfortunately, the Doctor arrives after the crew has been killed and replaced by Romulans. Dealing with the Prometheus’s EMH, mark 2, the Doctor has to thwart the Romulans and try to let StarFleet know the Voyager is alive.

“Message In A Bottle” introduces the Hirogen, an alien race of hunters who will become a major villain for the rest of the season. The network that Voyager is tapping into creates a problem for the series, though. Either it is an ancient network that the Hirogen have simply taken over or the Hirogen are a race that has more territory in the Delta Quadrant than the Borg. Fortunately, the implication is far more the former than the latter.

Aboard Voyager, the crew rightly begins getting their hopes up about the possibility of getting messages to the Alpha Quadrant. To the credit of writer Rick Williams, he seems to get that not all of the characters would be as excited about getting back to the Alpha Quadrant. While the episode focuses on the Doctor, the focus on Paris’s contentment to stay on Voyager, happy to be lost is a nice character detail.

Unfortunately, Williams is somewhat weaker on the continuity for the franchise. Firstly, he has the Romulan Commander Rekar mention that he intends to turn the Prometheus over to the Tal’shiar. In addition to him and his people wearing outfits that look more like the Tal’shiar than Romulan military, it neglects the idea that this episode follows Star Trek: Deep Space Nine’s “The Die Is Cast” (reviewed here!), which essentially destroyed the Tal’shiar.

Conversely, Commander Rekar is a decent villain. The Romulan Commander is a sensible adversary and he is one of the smarter villains in the Star Trek franchise. Played by Judson Scott, Rekar may be dispatched simply, but he is well-rendered.

Andy Dick plays the EMH-2 and this is one of his best-acted roles. He is funny, but he is not the ridiculously crazy performer he usually plays as EMH-2. A decent progression from “Doctor Bashir, I Presume” (reviewed here!), the idea of the EMH-2 is a good one and Andy Dick plays him well-enough to make one almost wish it were a recurring character. Dick and Robert Picardo play off one another exceptionally well. The episode, which could be overly serious is nowhere near as dreary as it might have been because the comedic elements work.

“Message In A Bottle” has the experimental U.S.S. Prometheus and the effects surrounding the ship and its multi-vector attack mode are very cool. In fact, with the way Star Trek: Deep Space Nine frequently reused special effects, it is surprising that the vessel, which could split into three parts for battle, never appeared in that show!

“Message In A Bottle” is a little low on character development, but it is a pretty necessary plot and it is well-executed. Fans are likely to enjoy it, though those just getting into the series are likely to be confused or not appreciate where this falls in the larger series. Even those who are not into Star Trek: Voyager but who love the franchise will likely enjoy “Message In A Bottle.”

For other works with Judson Scott, check out my reviews of:
The X-Files - Season Eight
“And The Sky Full Of Stars” - Babylon 5
“Symbiosis” - Star Trek: The Next Generation
V The Television Series
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Fourth Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the gamechanging middle season here!
Thanks!]

8/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Science Fiction That Doesn't Believe In Anything Else Is Star Trek: Voyager's "Coda."

The Good: Excellent acting, Moments of character development, Fits into larger universe well
The Bad: Mortgages genuine growth for science fiction premise, Plot dull, "Alien-of-the-week" is familiar.
The Basics: In a remarkably simple episode, Janeway experiences near-death only to realize her dead father is not who he claims to be.


There is an episode of Family Guy called "The Griffin Family History" in "Volume 4" on DVD (reviewed here!) wherein Peter Griffin confesses that he does not like The GodFather because "it insists upon itself." One of the other characters says, "What does that even mean?!" I mention this to open my review of the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Coda" because it insists upon itself. What does that mean? "Coda" refuses to be a decent dramatic story, instead degenerating into an obvious and pretty lame science fiction piece. It insists on being science fiction as opposed to the character-driven drama it begins as. When I reviewed "Flashback" (reviewed here!) a few weeks ago, I mentioned that the story degenerated into an alien-of-the-week which would seem to become the pretty generic "out" for several third season plots. Well, "Coda" utilizes a remarkably similar parasite and it's beyond disappointing in its resolution.

Captain Kathryn Janeway has died in a shuttle crash and as she watches her memorial service, she is visited by the ghost of her long-dead father. He attempts to convince Janeway that her time is up and she can let go. Janeway still feels connected to her crew and thus remains, watching them, haunting the ship in her own immaterial way. As the ghost of her father becomes more insistent, Janeway begins to suspect that something more is going on.

Naturally, this is another memory parasite, this one feeding on its victims at the moment of their death. "Coda" degenerates from a character story into pure science fiction and the worst kind at that; science fiction that treads where the series has already tread, just a few episodes before! Sadly, this is almost inexcusable as the writer of the episode, Jeri Taylor, wrote her hardcover Star Trek: Voyager novel Mosaic right around the same time. "Coda" and Mosaic weave together as the novel tells the story of Janeway and her father and their relationship and his death. It's a pretty tight character work and it's vastly superior to "Coda," which robs the viewer of a decent character story in favor of a preposterous science fiction twist.

Outside "Coda's" pretty bad twist of plot and use of an alien-of-the-week instead of simply executing a decent near-death experience story where Janeway learns something about herself or her past, Jeri Taylor teases the audience with hints of what Mosaic makes explicit and it's unfortunate that the show did not attempt to create a more direct tie in. After all, anything that gets people reading cannot be all bad!

"Coda" is a pretty intense episode focused almost completely on Janeway and her predicament as she exists near-death. Until the moment that it turns into an alien-of-the-week story, "Coda" is engrossing and interesting and it leaves the audience wondering why they bothered to make the turn as opposed to making this a straightforward character narrative.

As a result, most of the acting burden is put on Kate Mulgrew as Captain Janeway. Mulgrew provides a decent performance, illustrating the Captain in quiet defeat, contemplative about her own death than combative. It's an excellent choice because it implies the inner strength of Janeway as opposed to making a big show of it. This works very well with Mulgrew as she is able to infuse a number of subtleties with her body language; slightly slumped shoulders, eyes widened with a sense of loss and a quieter demeanor that she is not usually able to explore in her role as the ship's authoritarian presence. Mulgrew makes the episode worth watching.

But even on the acting front, "Coda" cheats its lead. Robert Beltran gives a truly mournful performance that is shocking for its rawness when he discovers Janeway's dead body. His ability to emote is brought through incredibly and he is allowed to act as the usually stoic first officer is not able to. Beltran steals the scene with his emotional performance, even if it is brief.

But overall, the episode falls down. It's not character-oriented enough to lure in fans of drama and it's not smart enough in its science fiction elements to be enjoyable to genre fans. In the end, it is truly mediocre and for an episode that was set up to be more, this is a true disappointment.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the entire season here!
Thanks!]

5/10

Check out how this episode stacks up against others at my Star Trek Review Index Page where the episodes are organized best to worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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