The Good: Moments of performance, Moments where the guest characters are intriguing.
The Bad: Entirely derivative, Poor use of established characters to service a somewhat ridiculous plot.
The Basics: In remaking the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Lower Decks” for Star Trek: Voyager, “Good Shepherd” recharacterizes Janeway as a bully to befriend some neglected crewmembers.
One of the fan-favorites of Star Trek: The Next Generation is “Lower Decks” (reviewed here!), an episode that gave the Star Trek novel readers an episode to fall in love with. While the episodes worked to service the main cast of each show, the Star Trek novel series’ frequently made an effort to incorporate new and completely minor characters into their stories. In the Star Trek novels, there were actually some books that focused completely on original junior officers. In “Lower Decks” on Star Trek: The Next Generation, fans of those style of Star Trek books were given an episode where the focus was a group of junior officers who have a peripheral understanding of an Enterprise mission. “Lower Decks” succeeded, in part, because there was a conspiracy plot that affected the junior officers and presented a story that illustrated just how skewed the work on the Enterprise could be based on matters of perspective.
Unfortunately, “Good Shepherd,” which largely rips off the concept of “Lower Decks” lacks the intrigue or perspective issues that the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode it is derivative of possessed. Instead, “Good Shepherd” is a somewhat bored episode that attempts to replicate the success of the earlier episode, but in order to sell its premise, it has to upend much of what has been established of the main characters.
When Seven Of Nine performs an efficiency report on the crew’s functioning, Janeway learns that there are three crewmembers who have never gone on an Away Mission. She decides that as Voyager passes a Class T stellar cluster phenomenon that is unworthy of diverting course for, she will take the three neglected crewmembers in the Delta Flyer to investigate the phenomenon. Despite Telfer and Harren not wanting to leave the ship and Ensign Tal not being able to qualify for Away Team duty, Janeway takes them in the Delta Flyer to investigate the cluster.
On the Delta Flyer, a bit of plating comes off and leaves the shuttle stranded with only impulse power. As Harren works to repair the Delta Flyer, Janeway and Tal analyze the debris. Tal admits to Janeway that she is not competent and the beneficiary of 24th Century affirmative action that works against the crew. As the shuttle crew labors to find more antimatter to repower the Delta Flyer, the ship comes under attack by a new lifeform that invades Telfer and menaces the crew.
“Good Shepherd” reminds viewers of “Lower Decks,” but also of how Star Trek: Voyager struggled to incorporate Seven Of Nine in the fourth season and often had her doing preposterous activities until they found a use for her with augmenting the Astrometrics Lab. In “Good Shepherd,” the three crew members come to the attention of Janeway through a Seven Of Nine-initiated efficiency report. This is exactly the type of thing that the First Officer is responsible for. In fact, in “Lower Decks,” Troi and Riker spend a portion of the episode going through producing their efficiency reports for Captain Picard. So, why Seven Of Nine is creating, presenting, and getting respect for producing these reports in “Good Shepherd” only serves to diminish the role of Chakotay.
Similarly, writers Dianna Gitto and Joe Menosky seem to have forgotten that Bajoran officers’ second name is their first name. So, while Janeway refers to the men as Mr. Harren, Telfer, and Mitchell, she calls Celes, “Celes,” instead of “Ensign Tal,” which would be her proper designation as a Bajoran. “Good Shepherd” also labors to fill its full running time. An awkward exchange between Janeway and Crewman Mitchell revealed to me that Mitchell was played by Tom Morello, who is part of the band Rage Against The Machine and his cameo stands out in the episode. I don’t blame Morello (hell, it’s cool to get included in a Star Trek episode!), but the cameo was written as filler.
The exchange between Harren and Tom Paris serves to make Harren an interesting character. It’s refreshing to see a character who wanted nothing to do with being in StarFleet and was only using it as a stepping stone to something else. Harren is a jerk to Janeway and he calls Paris on his bluff when Paris tries to b.s. his way through a science conversation. That’s cool and it’s unfortunate he only pops up for this episode.
Despite the derivative nature of the plot and character usage in “Good Shepherd,” the acting is adequate. Guest actors Jay Underwood (Harren), Michael Reisz (Telfer), and Zoe McLellan (Tal) are refreshingly different from the main cast. Reisz bugs his eyes out and looks freaked out exceptionally convincingly and McLellan plays Tal as a kiss-ass very well. Underwood is adept at arrogance and they play off Kate Mulgrew’s professionalism nicely. Even Jeri Ryan uses her brief time in the episode well; when she expresses frustration to Janeway about Tal’s inefficiency, she infuses it with a sense of compassion and concern for Janeway.
Regardless of the performances and the moments of character intrigue, “Good Shepherd” is ultimately mediocre and impossible to recommend.
[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
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4/10
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© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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