Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Distant Origin

Hello there, and welcome to my spoiler-heavy review of Star Trek Voyager's episode, "Distant Origin." This is intended expressly for the enjoyment of my fellow Voyager fans -- and there are more of us than people seem to think -- and also has a few thrills for those of you who didn't get enough paleontology from Jurassic Park.

For those of you who can't even be interested in Voyager when it's got sentient dinosaurs on it, well...frankly, I don't know what you'd like. Hmmm. Wait, I know something that just might work. He's my favorite, anyway.

Why don't you try a Steve Martin Quote ?

No? He really is the Love God...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Oh! I recognize this planet! It's where those idiots killed off Hogan! And they're not even satisfied with that -- now they've got some lizardmen messing around with his bones! Oh, the indignity!...Hey, actually, this is the best use Hogan's ever been put to...Courting behavior: expected; such an interesting guest character: not expected...Well, maybe one day the Indigo Girls will write a song about Gegen too.

PLOT
We find ourselves back on that volcanic hunk of rock on which the Kazon left the Voyager crew at the beginning of the season. In a cave, two heavily scaled, three-fingered lizardmen, Professor Gegen and his faithful sidekick, Veer, find the tattered remnants of Hogan's uniform, along with some of his bones. Gegen and Veer click at each other for a while before we're allowed to understand them. It seems there's some sort of "genetic match" in these bones, and that this will help prove some sort of scientific theory.

In Gegen's lab, they put the bones together into an incomplete (and three-fingered) skeleton. They study their find, and realize that the creature was warm-blooded and therefore non-Saurian. Gegen and Veer are Saurians (though not the brandy-making kind), but they share 47 distinct genetic markers with this strange endotherm, and must be distantly related to it. They study the Marquis markings on the uniform fragment and conjecture that this creature must have been part of a social group, and doubtlessly was part of a ship's crew.

Gegen is overwhelmed by the scientific weight of his find and picks up Hogan's half-eaten skull (more indignity!) before pronouncing, "Alas! poor Yorrik! I knew him, Horatio!"

"No!" screams Veer. "Not another Star Trek Shakespeare reference!"

Gegen agrees that the Bard has gotten somewhat tired on the show and is about to launch into some Sylvia Plath when a group of angry high school students enters and beats him mercilessly. Eventually, the director steps in and order is restored. Gegen shakily picks the skull back up and wonders what this creature's home planet was like. Were there nine moons in your sky? he asks wistfully. None?

Self-consciously, Gegen puts the skull back down, telling Veer, "He appears to be at a loss for words."

Veer nods, privately grateful the high school students didn't turn on him.

Gegen can tell that the creature died about a year ago, and knows they must hurry to find the ship he was on. Veer suggests mounting a sort of local campaign, but Gegen wants official support, so they go to the Cityship (which is really, really big) and plead their scientific case before the Voth's ruler, a Matriarch with no sense of humor. They show her the bones, the genetic markers, and their three-fingered, green-skinned computer extrapolation of the creature's living appearance. However, she's mighty touchy about doctrine, and mighty displeased with Gegen's work.

It seems the Voth believe strongly that they are not only indigenous to the Delta Quadrant, but that they are the First Ones to have evolved. Their resultant doctrine gives them domain over this section of space. Gegen's theory that the Voth are related to these creatures, and therefore evolved on a world of distant origin [Hence the title!], really rocks the doctrinal boat (a vessel even larger than the Cityship). Gegen's work is therefore heresy. The Matriarch pooh-poohs his distant origin theory, but Gegen stands strong. She retires to "consider" things, like how best to torture him until he doesn't know Hogan's skull from a grapefruit, and Gegen tells Veer he's afraid things didn't go very well.

Veer leaves to fix up a meeting with Gegen's scientist supporters, nodding along the way at Gegen's daughter. She comes up to Gegen with great concern, more aware than he of the danger he's putting himself in. Gegen is only concerned with learning the Truth.

Veer enters Gegen's lab to warn him that their work is being seized and that Gegen will be arrested for heresy against doctrine. Gegen tells Veer to go home in safety, but Veer instead will go with him as they go to find the creature's ship. They know its name from a microscopic code in Hogan's uniform: Voyager.

Overhearing a letter Gegen writes to his daughter, we learn that he and Veer spend weeks tracking down any sign of Voyager, and eventually run into a trader on a station at the edge of the Nekrid expanse -- Quick! Name that episode! -- who tells them about the "Voyagers." They call themselves "Human" and they're trying to get home to their world across the galaxy. The trader even helps them with that computer extrapolation, adding two fingers and changing the skin color to tan. They also find a com badge and a tricorder and some warp plasma from a familiar-looking alien I can't place. With the warp plasma, they are able to scan for Voyager's specific energy signature.

Veer enters just as Gegen is finishing his letter. There's some talk (punctuated with a long-tongued eating of a bug!) about how Gegen knows that Veer is interested in his daughter because his scales change color when she's around. Gegen gives his consent to their match, but the happy moment is interrupted by a signal from the conn. Seems they've found Voyager. Now all they have to do is get out of transwarp drive, phase themselves into invisibility, and then go aboard the ship to observe the primitive endotherms in action. "Eyes open," Gegen tells Veer.

That Asian guy Torres once saw in his underwear walks down the hall, not seeing the two Saurians who observe him. "Curious," says Veer, nose crinkling, "I didn't expect the smell."

"Well," says Gegen patronizingly, "they are mammals, after all."

Obviously, these two are due for some serious political correctness training, Star Trek-style, and who better to give it to them than Paris and Torres? The pair emerges from a turbo-lift right after Gegen has taken half a second to download Voyager's entire computer database. They're arguing about whether "it" is due to a problem with the anodyne relays or a plasma conduit. Relay, says Paris. Conduit, says Torres. "I'll bet you," says Paris, as they move off down the hall.

"Male and female interacting," says Gegen. "Let's observe."

Yes, let's!

In Engineering, as the Saurians watch, Paris proves to Torres that it is, in fact, a relay, and then demands that she pay up on the bet: Klingon martial arts program in the holodeck.

"Courting behavior?" Veer asks Gegen, who agrees, even though the human's skin hasn't evolved sufficiently to change color and the primitives have to rely on crude verbal communication.

Little do the Voths realize that a martial arts program on the holodeck is the Klingon version of getting to first base.

Veer and Gegen check out the bridge next, and we get to watch Janeway talk about some tetryon field or other. While Veer deduces that the social order here is a matriarchy, Kim finds something not right on the bridge, and eventually locates the invisible intruders on the bridge. Janeway goes to confront them, phaser in hand, but Gegen manages to by-pass Tuvok's forcefield around the bridge. The Voths end up in the messhall. When Kim reports that the intruders have changed locations, Janeway tosses her phaser to Chakotay, who goes with Tuvok and a well-choreographed security detail to Neelix's greasy spoon.

In the messhall, Chakotay and Tuvok disrupt the cloaking technology of their uninvited guests. Veer panics and shoots Chakotay with a little dart. The first officer falls down, unconscious, and Tuvok stuns Veer. Gegen grabs Chakotay and beams out of there.

In Sickbay, the Doctor scans Veer, and Janeway tries to question him, but Veer goes into a protective trance. (Not so impressive a feat, really. My students do it all the time.)

Chakotay awakens on a table in Gegen's lab. Gegen at first treats him like your ordinary lab specimen, but the first officer's charm quickly wins him over. Gegen releases him from the table's forcefield and they exchange names and information about Earth.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has also found those 47 genetic markers and realized their importance. He and Janeway go to the holodeck for some dinosaur show-and-tell, where they realize that Humans and Saurians have a common ancestor (whose name I don't remember, "thopolopagis" or something). Somehow, dinosaurs evolved into the Saurians and left Earth millions of years ago when conditions for dinosaurs got bad. But why, Janeway wonders, is there no sign of Saurians in Earth's fossil record?

[Well, it's a relief to know we humans didn't come directly from the dinosaurs themselves. Hmmm, what would that sort of human be like?]

Chakotay and Gegen are working along similar lines, and decide that Saurians must have evolved on an isolated continent which was destroyed in one of Earth's many natural disasters. Chakotay finds this all pretty fascinating, but he's anxious to get back to Voyager. Unfortunately, Gegen explains, he needs Chakotay as Exhibit A at a science conference he's secretly called.

Tuvok and Paris use the phase-thing from Veer's equipment to make an apple disappear. Before David Copperfield can add it to his Vegas show, however, the Cityship shows up and beams Voyager inside its belly. This disrupts power on the ship and causes general concern on the bridge. Janeway orders the crew to arm themselves. Paris and Tuvok creep down a dark passageway and head for a Jefferies tube, but after a strange clicking noise Tuvok gets darted and falls to the floor, ordering a reluctant Paris to run away. Paris scurries down a tube and a Saurian comes up to Tuvok, hopefully not with thoughts of Vulcan tartar on his mind.

With a dampening field knocking out the phasers and tricorders as well as the ship's functions, the bridge crew can put up little defense as the Saurians finish boarding Voyager. The head Voth dude interrogates an unimpressed Janeway. She talks about how Humans and Saurians seem to have the same home address, and he accuses the absent Gegen of already spreading his "lies."

Paris pulls off one of his famous one-man rescue attempts with the phase-thing, and manages to arm a spread of torpedoes. He contacts Janeway, who tells him to go ahead and fire, but the Saurians don't have to lift a finger to disrupt the firing protocols, and the whole thing falls flat. The head Voth dude calls for an interrogation surgeon to help him get Janeway to talk, but learns that Gegen has returned to the Cityship on his own.

Aboard the Cityship, the real interrogation begins, as the Voth Matriarch wants Gegen to recant his Distant Origin Theory. She says the 47 genetic markers are just a coincidink, and Gegen's intelligent and scientifically sound speeches don't help him out at all. The Matriarch even gets Veer to come in and recant (obviously under great duress). Gegen stands strong. Chakotay comes to his aid with a nice speech of his own about brave the Voths were millions of years ago, going on their own through space until they made it from Earth to the Delta Quadrant. The Matriarch frowns at all this and calls again for Gegen to recant. He stands strong.

Okay, then, if that's how you want it, she says. You're under arrest for the rest of your life.

Gegen stands strong.

Oh, yeah, she adds, all the Voyager crew is under arrest too. Their ship will be destroyed and the crew will spend the rest of their lives on a penal colony, etc, etc.

You can't do that! Gegen says.

You got a better offer? asks the Matriarch.

And so, Gegen recants. The Matriarch says that's just great and reassigns him from paleontology to metallurgy. She also says Voyager can go on its way, but had better never show its face around her neck of the woods (or lizard words to that effect) again.

Alone in Gegen's lab, Chakotay praises the scientist for his courage -- so similar to his migratory ancestors'. Gegen in turn calls Chakotay a friend. Chakotay then gives him a glass ball replica of Earth.

One day, Gegen says, all Voths will know that this (taps the ball) is home.

Chakotay agrees. "Eyes open."

And he beams out.