Star Trek Voyager Reviews Written by Someone Who Actually LIKES the Show! -- Fair Trade

Psssst. Buddy. Want a review? I got you a review right here, just don't ask where it came from...Got me?

Actually, it's one more spoiler-filled review from the maker of...well, actually, I haven't made much of anything, except a lot of bad jokes, but people are very nice about reading this page anyway. Today's subject for discussion is the Star Trek Voyager episode, "Fair Trade," which features some heavy-duty Neelix development, proof that bad neighborhoods and drugs go hand-in-hand, and The Look (gasp). But if none of this has enough cultural significance to hold your interest...

Why not stroll on over to Sand World?

No? Well, then...

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Well, paint me happy &^< [Internet Symbol for Sarcastic Face] the show's gonna feature Neelix...Nice dust cloud...Geez, the aliens on this show put the "ug" in "ugly"...Actually, this is kind of interesting, and I do feel sympathy for Neelix...What am I saying? But it's true...Good ending.

PLOT
Tuvok is delighted &^> when Neelix pesters him for a possible position as a junior grade security officer. Then Torres gets to be thrilled when he goes to engineering and tries to ask a lot of questions while she and Ensign Vorik work on the warp thingamajigs. Being ignored and treated as a pain is beginning to dampen even Neelix' spirits, so he's happy when Janeway calls him to the bridge.

There, she asks Neelix to identify a strange and "ominous" dust cloud, which he calls the Nekrid Expanse. Looking a little uncomfortable and hedging a bit at her questions, he explains that this area is mysterious and dangerous, but that there is a station here where Voyager can trade for supplies. He can't come up with the coordinates off the top of his head, but they find the station on sensors and get hailed by a hairy-faced, dread-locked Bahrat. He agrees to let Voyager come on the station if they obey the rules: don't make trouble and gimme 20% of every trade.

Janeway takes Paris, Neelix and Chakotay with her and beams on over to the station. Alone, she meets with the brusque rather than really rude Bahrat, who looks over her list of required items and tells her that the pergium she wants will be hard to find, but that he will do what he can to set up some potential suppliers. She sees that he is a busy man, constantly monitoring the station through a system of sensors and screens. Frankly, he seems a natch as a best friend to a certain Changeling we all know and love.

Chakotay and Paris walk amiably through the trade center of the station, saying a lot to each other with their eyes about how far they are from the comforts of home, when a blue-faced guy (Sutok) comes up and asks them what they're looking for. With regret, he tells them he doesn't have any magnetic spindle bearings, but he does have some really nice blow.

Faced with this pusher on their way home from school, Paris and Chakotay just say "No" -- well, Paris says "No, thank you," but, then, he does have an admiral for a father.

Neelix is hanging around the trade center as well, trying to find a map of the Nekrid Expanse. He is told by a map-seller that such maps do not exist, the territory is simply too vast and dangerous.

Well, in the middle of this up pops Neelix' old Talaxian friend, Wixiban, whom Neelix greets warmly and with great surprise. Over a drink, Neelix talks about his great fortune serving in an important position on the advanced starship Voyager. Wixiban's fortunes aren't so great right now, but he's in the middle of a deal which should get his life back on track. Neelix talks about how grateful he is to his friend for -- I'm guessing, but the hints are pretty strong -- taking the fall for some illegal activities with the Ubeans a long time ago. Wixiban says Neelix would have done the same for him and then prods a bit at Neelix' sudden melancholy. Neelix reveals that actually he's not doing so well on Voyager and may even soon be asked to leave, because they're leaving the territory behind that he actually knows. His usefulness, he fears, is coming to an end. He wonders, could Wixiban perhaps help him to find a map of the Nekrid Expanse?

While Neelix fumbles unhappily in his kitchen, Vorik works on his replicators and Chakotay brings in Wixiban, who, it seems, was able to locate those magnetic spindle bearings. After Chakotay leaves the old friends together and Neelix gets rid of Vorik, he asks Wixiban if the bearings are stolen. Wixiban seems genuinely insulted by Neelix' mistrust and tells him that his life is different now. He's trying to get things back together. Bahrat has impounded his shuttle, and he's trying to make ends meet. He asks, "Do you begrudge me the opportunity to make a fair trade?" [Hence the title!] He also tells Neelix that he's found some pergium and a map, which he can get when he completes his current deal trading in "medical supplies." He wants Neelix to help him, and Neelix is overjoyed to do so. Wixiban says he needs a shuttle and its transporters. Fine, says Neelix. But he also needs this to be done quietly, since he doesn't want Bahrat taking that 20%. ........Fine, says Neelix, looking uncomfortable again.

Oh, Neelix. What a tangled web we weave...

Later, in the shuttle, Wixiban is happy to have the medical supplies and the pergium -- though they got less than they were supposed to -- but Neelix is extremely unhappy with all this deception. He tells Wixiban that he's not what he used to be, and Wixiban responds that Neelix isn't the only one trying to make his life better. He too was once on the dark side, but now he's trying to turn to the light. Can't Neelix sympathize?

This enlightened speech by Neelix' friend, however, is nicely undercut first when Wixiban grabs a phaser before they transport, and then as they sneak onto the station and wait in the shadows for Wixiban's contact. This contact turns out to be none other than Sutok, who enjoys testing the contents of Wixiban's case a little too much, if you know what I mean. Neelix' suspicions increase, but it's too late, as Sutok tries to kill them and Wixiban shoots him with the phaser. A struggle ensues and the Talaxians beam out right before they're going to get nabbed.

In the shuttle, Neelix yells at Wixiban for dealing in narcotics and being up to his same old tricks. Neelix wants to confess all to Janeway, but then his "friend" points out that his shipmates may not care to learn that Neelix used to be a contraband smuggler. And aren't they ready to kick him off the ship?

Neelix' pretense of confidence quickly crumbles and he agrees not to say anything, but this is it: piss off, Wix, and all debts are paid.

Janeway calls a meeting of the senior staff to announce that there's been a murder on the station. Bahrat is there, and he tells them that an energy signature was present at the scene of the crime which matches a Federation-type phaser. An extremely irritated Janeway tells everyone that Tuvok is going to help Bahrat and that they should all cooperate with the investigation, and Neelix looks super-worried now.

He looks even more worried, however, when Tuvok asks him questions about Wixiban, and they go together to talk to the Talaxian on the station. Wixiban makes up nicely smooth lies about his whereabouts and, alone with him, Neelix sneers at him before learning that the drug lords behind his little deal with Sutok, the Collatti, are mad as hell and gunning for both of them. However, they won't get cement overshoes if they hand over three grams of Voyager's warp plasma. Neelix tries just saying "No," but Wixiban says they really will both be killed if he doesn't do what the gang lords want and that they'll meet tomorrow with the plasma at 0900 hours.

And now we get another of those Paris counseling sessions in disguise, Paris is looking for a container for biomimetic gel when Neelix comes in to "help" him and asks him how he got into trouble and landed in prison. Paris says that his real problem was not in the mistake he made, but in lying about it.

Hmmmm, do you suppose that means anything special to Neelix?

Neelix BS's his way past Vorik in engineering, and goes to a warp plasma conduit.

The next morning, Neelix meets with Wixiban on the station, but he couldn't bring himself to steal the plasma. He has a plan instead, but before he can talk about it Bahrat appears with his deputies and they arrest...Chakotay and Paris.

Fanfic writers scream in ecstasy!

Ahem. Bahrat shows his evidence to Janeway, namely, a video (no audio) of the two men talking to Sutok the day he was killed. Janeway calls this evidence proof of nothing, but it becomes apparent that Bahrat needs someone to be responsible for the crime, and Chakotay and Paris will suit the bill admirably. An extremely pissed off Janeway stomps out of Bahrat's office with Tuvok in tow, and Neelix tells Wixiban that he's going to go through with his plan with or without Wixiban. Wixiban surprises Neelix by saying he won't let him do it alone.

So Neelix and Wixiban confess their guilt (though pleading self-defense) to Bahrat, who's ready to give them 50 years in a biostasis chamber. But now their Talaxian manipulation skills work for something besides drug deals, and Neelix and Wixiban point out that Bahrat's war against drugs on the station has been a joke. The Collatti trade in drugs almost every day, and have Bahrat's surveillance system completely fooled. They want to meet with the Collatti to hand over some warp plasma that Bahrat will provide, and then Bahrat can move in and arrest them. Bahrat says they can't have weapons and they're doubtlessly going to be killed, but they can do it, if they want to, in exchange for not being charged.

Once again Neelix and Wixiban are waiting a dark corridor. Bahrat and some of his people watch on the surveillance screen and note that, indeed, someone is tampering with the system when the two Talaxians vanish from the screen. Bahrat decides to give them five minutes before he moves in.

Looking like the biggest bunch of ugly goons for light years around, the Collatti transport into the corridor, Wixiban whispers that the leader is Tosin, who's badder than ole King Kong and meaner than a junkyard dog. Neelix prepares the warp plasma container he's holding and passes it over to Tosin. Tosin checks it for purity and quickly discovers that it's fourth-rate plasma. Neelix counters that Tosin is an Orillian lung maggot and that he and company are under arrest, and that he disengaged the safety nodes of the plasma container before he passed it over. Plasma is now leaking into the corridor, and if Tosin fires his phaser or activates his transporter, BOOM! Tosin tries to decide if Neelix is telling the truth, and Neelix does a very nice job indeed telling Tosin to just go ahead and pull the trigger because, frankly, he doesn't give a damn what happens to him anymore.

In the middle of all this, up pops Bahrat with his posse, and one of Tosin's people fires a phaser, and the plasma explodes, and there's fire and lightning and, I'm scared, Mommy, of the bad men...

And Neelix wakes up in Sickbay so that the Doctor and Kes can have their one line for the show. The Doctor says that Neelix had burns and a concussion, but he's fine now, and Kes says that Chakotay and Paris are out of stir.

Tuvok informs him that one Collatti guy was killed and the others are in custody, and Wixiban took his shuttle and got the hell out of Dodge.

Janeway enters and sends everyone off but Neelix, who lays there looking like he knows that he's been a very naughty boy indeed. Janeway gives him (shudder) The Look and wants to know what he was thinking about. He apologizes, but she's not interested in that. He was one of her most trusted advisors, and now how can she ever trust him again? Neelix says he just took one step, and then another, and then another, and then he was in a situation he couldn't control.

Janeway wants to know what was so important, and then reacts in great surprise and concealed understanding when he explains that he needed a map, because he no longer knows this section of space. Janeway says the first duty [One of the few Wesley episodes I kind of liked...and not just because it had Nick Locarno in it!] of Starfleet personnel is the truth, and Neelix violated that. Neelix responds that he's ready to leave the ship, but Janeway says he's not getting out of things that easily. He's part of a family, and he has duties and responsibilities and obligations he doesn't just get to leave behind.

Neelix looks so happy he's about to bust.

Janeway tells him to report at 0400 in the morning for a two-week duty scrubbing the ship's exhaust manifolds.

Wheeee! says Neelix (with his eyes, anyway) and leaves, and Janeway fights a smile.