Posted:
10:13:45 on June 08
By: Steve Krutzler
Dept: Review Voyager
Reviews Ex Deus
Written for TrekWeb.COM by 'O. Deus'.
Touched by a Voyager
It's hard to imagine a Klingon version of Touched by an Angel, but Barge of
the Dead must come pretty close. Star Trek has a history of venerating and
reusing Shakespeare and Greek myths. Up until now though they hadn't touched
heaven or hell because core Star Trek saw religion as an illusion and a
handicap humanity had to move beyond. The last two spinoffs though have been
driven less by any kind of well thought out philosophy than random ideas and
a watered down version of what a few writers and producers think Star Trek
was really about. The result of that kind of philosophy produce episodes
like Barge of the Dead that look good, dash around like mad trying to make a
point and ultimately ending up as a testament to their own inability to
think things through.
Leading with the old stunningly overused gimmick of a crewman thinking
they're back on their ship when in fact they are in the holodeck/an illusory
fantasy world inside their brain or someone else's brain/in the clutches of
evil aliens; Torres returns to Voyager with a Klingon plaque. Soon the
entire crew goes Klingon crazy to support Torres' cultural and spirtual
exploration. While her Klingon plaque bleeds invisible blood all over the
table that looks a lot like red pepto bismol, everyone throws her a party in
the mess hall redecorated for Klingon theme week. However when Klingons
emerge to slaughter the entire crew in slow motion (to prolong the
painfull\enjoyable experience for the viewer) it becomes clear that Torres
is not on a Starfleet vessel traveling to Earth but on a Klingon Barge of
the Dead traveling to hell.
We're not all together clear as to why Torres is indeed going to hell. This
is the second time an episode focused on honor without defining just what
honor means in the current context of Klingon culture. What exactly did
Torres do or not do to deserve going to hell besides not studying Klingon
culture or bring prodded with pain sticks. These of course are irrelevant
questions because after some weak attempts to put up a fight, the real star
of the episode takes over. The main charachter of Barge of the Dead is not
Torres or her mother or Janeway or even Seven of Nine but the Barge of the
Dead itself.
Apparently given the choice of focusing on the story of Torres saving her
mother from hell or designing a really cool set for the Barge, the director
chose the latter. And so in between Torres struggling to figure out what the
viewer allready knows (always a smart way to write dialouge and a great way
to keep the audience interested) we get to study how detailed and realistic
the Barge looks, the dangerous creatures following the barge to seize
deserters (what could they possibly do to them that is worse than going to
hell? Superhell?) and the Klingon version of the ferryman. The Barge goes up
and down, the sky is dark and ominious and the whole thing feels very
Klingon and very hellish.
In hell Torres meets her mother who was doomed to hell because B'Elanna
didn't spend enough time learning about Klingon culture. When the impact of
the wonderfull family reunion aboard the hell barge fades away the
inteligent viewer might find questions on his or her mind. For instance is
Klingon hell the only real hell or are there hells and heavens of all the
religions of all the species in the galaxy equally real. If so, since Torres
is half-human why isn't she headed to a hell or heaven belonging to an earth
religion? Of course in the end watching the Hell-barge go up and down and
appreciating just how much effort it was made to recreate a Klingon hell-barge
and how little effort was made to put together a halfway intelligent script
is far more entertaining.
Of course we actually know Torres isn't going to hell because that would
leave Voyager without an engineer or rather an engineer in hell who can't
fix the warp drive by reinitializing the anti-matter chronoplast relay in a
feedback loop (not that this wouldn't be a Very original way to dispose of a
cast member, far more original than the way Kes was disposed of. And think
about it if Kes had gone to hell, Fury would have made a whole lot more
sense.) So of course the Voyager crew revives Torres. She's surprised, we're
not. Now comes the question, was it all a dream or not. If it wasn't a dream
then B' Ellana's mother is burning in hell because of something she did.
Clearly the only possible story option is to have Torres go back to hell.
After a few filler discussions on the subject, Janeway-- never one to stand in
the way of emotional or spirtual fulfillment no matter how insane it might
be-- agrees. At this point we can be stunned by Voyager's achievement in
making a trip to hell look like a trip to the grocery store. The EMH
initiates a near death experience and soon in 'Flatliners' style, Torres is on
the way back to the Hell-barge where she offers to trade places with her
hell-bound mother. After the expected resolution with her mother sans Roma
Downey but with the Klingon Ferryman doing his best to fit the part, Torres
arrives in hell only to discover that hell is actually Voyager. Many people
who hate Voyager already know this but for Torres it's a revelation. Led
around by the Doctor acting as a sublimely slick devil, she is given the
tour that demonstrates to us how annoying actually living on Voyager would
actually be and demonstrates to her how she must change her life. Without
the wonderful Hell-barge on screen though the whole point of the episode is
gone.
B'Elanna Torres is soon brought back from Voyager Hell to the real Voyager
which is a somewhat less hellish place. Here she has the chance to change
her life and become a better person which wraps up this touching and
heartfelt look at the Klingon afterlife and how it can put you in touch with
your inner... oh wait that's not what Klingons were ever about. As I dimly
recall Klingons were about pain, violence, courage and honor. And not the
kind of nebulous honor that in the spinoffs has become as meaningless as any
other Trek principle. As the fans retire to debate who would win in a fight
of Voyager vs. The Barge of the Dead the curtain dims on yet another episode
of Touched by a Voyager.
Voyager has managed to turn Q, ominious omnipotent Q who twice nearly wiped
out the human race, into a cuddly new-age dad. Voyager has managed to turn
the Borg into wind up Turbo-Zombies led by a horny Borgia queen (though to
be fair ST:FC had a far bigger problem on both counts) and a way for Seven to
get daily lessons on becoming as fully (in)human as the paragon of morality
and greatness, Captain Janeway herself. And finally Voyager comes close to
tying both those achievements when it manages to turn Klingon Hell into another
stop on the "40 steps to getting in touch with your inner-child" book tour.
Step 32 go to Klingon Hell which unlike everything else Klingon is another
holodecky Voyagerverse in which you're stuck with lots of annoying people.
Admittedly the Voyager crew can be annoying, with special emphasis on
Janeway, Chakotay and Seven of Nine, but Klingon hell would probably focus
less on annoying you and more on ripping away the skin from your bones.
There are Star Trek episodes that almost come close to reproducing the
effect of having your skin manually ripped away from your bones. Spock's
Brain, TNG season 1, anything with Vic Fontaine, Ezri Dax or the third and
most talentless incarnation of Ziyal and Voyager's spirtual quests e.g.
Coda, Sacred Ground. Barge of the Dead is not one of them, in the end it's
just a boring episode with really good set design. Ironically enough Barge
of the Dead achieves exactly what it threatens B'Elanna Torres with, infinite
annoying boredom. In her case infinity was only about four minutes, in our
case it was about forty. Somehow that just doesn't seem fair.
