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Well, hello there, and welcome to my latest Star Trek Voyager review, this time of the episode, "Favorite Son." This review contains many spoilers and is expressly intended for the enjoyment and delectation of Voyager fans. It also gives me a chance to show that two of my long-standing points about the show are once again proven correct: Janeway is a mother to the crew, and the whole show is based on The Odyssey. Those of you who don't care what the show is based on or when Harry Kim is finally going to loosen up should probably find something else to occupy your days.
May I suggest The Yarn Harlot ?
No? Okay, well then, here we go...
PRELIMINARY VIEWER RESPONSE
Okay, this isn't one of my regular sections, but the preview of this episode had me in such a sweat, I want to talk about how worried I was about the whole thing. I mean, did you see that preview? For my part, I was strongly reminded of several dozen grade D Amazon women movies, most especially Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death, staring Bill Maher. This film features some chauvinist pig and a feminist scholar who go to this jungle where the women have sex with men, kill them, and eat them with guacamole dip. It features the immortal line from Chauvinist Jim, who is talking to the men who allow themselves to be served up in this fashion: "Gee, you guys are pretty big, for wimps. Of course, the joke's on you when those broads come back and start picking out ingredients for Chicken McMacho."
I mean, this is great stuff late at night or when you're goofing with your friends, but it's not the sort of film I want to see Voyager imitate, even on a dare. So after watching the bondage-and-babes preview, I was really worried. But I'm happy to announce that this episode is actually pretty good, and bares -- whoops, bears -- little resemblance to The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak.
Stay with us, Harry!
INITIAL VIEWER RESPONSE
Do you ever notice that when Kim is supposed to be one of the gang, he's dull, but when he's the main character, he's interesting?...Hey, his mother sounds like Janeway! What do you suppose that means?...Did Tuvok just call Janeway "sir?"...Wow, the transporter worked just like it's supposed to!...Is Kim never going to get funky?
PLOT
Voyager is mapping space when Kim experiences deja vu (which always means something on Star Trek). A friendly Nisari ship approaches and chats up Janeway, but Kim suddenly takes control of tactical and fires on the Nisari vessel, which fires back. Suddenly it's a battle, and though Janeway may be privately having the time of her life, she sends Kim looks that could kill and replaces him at ops with Chakotay.
In engineering, Torres is hurt by an explosion as Voyager loses warp drive.
Voyager targets the Nisari weapons array and the battle is over. Janeway asks Kim for an explanation, and he claims that the tachyon beam the Nisari were sending out just before he fired was the beginning of a Nisari attack. Janeway is unconvinced and relieves Kim of duty until the truth can be sorted out. Meanwhile, she sends him under guard to Sickbay, so the Doctor can treat the cut on his forehead.
Miraculously, Paris has made it through the battle without injury, though this is only due, I believe, to his not being on the bridge during the attack. In fact, considering what his buddy Kim is going through, he's strangely absent from the first half of the show. I can only assume he's being mugged by waiters in the holodeck, or viciously gnawed by Kes' man-eating plants down in the hydroponics bay.
In Sickbay, Kim guiltily watches the Doctor heal Torres’ burns while Kes fixes up his cut and makes him feel better. He only did what he thought was right, after all.
But that night, Kim dreams of the battle, and of a strange planet, and of apologizing to a somewhat unforgiving Torres, and of having the chicken pox (in Trek language, it's "Mendacan pox") as a child. His mother comforts him in the dream, then fusses at him and rasps out in Janeway fashion, "I'm suspending you from duty."
Kim wakes and washes his face, only to find a strange rash along his hair line. In Sickbay, the Doctor listens carefully to Kim's problems and notes that Kin's blood chemistry is also slightly altered. Kim wonders if this disease might be linked to his strange behavior on the bridge.
Torres wakes up and Kim apologizes to her. She's nicer than in his dream and says his spots make him look like a "speckled targ." Kim smiles, but is greeted at the Sickbay door by his guard. He falters, then turns his steps quickly to the ready room, where he confesses his inappropriate behavior to Janeway and apologizes again.
But Janeway announces that he was right, the Nisari ship was about to fire on Voyager. He saved them all. How did he know? Kim doesn't understand that himself, but he tells her that during the last few days this section of space has somehow been familiar to him.
Three Nisari ships approach Voyager, which is not ready for another battle. Kim points to a star chart and directs Janeway to a planet nearby which he believes will shelter them. Janeway follows this lead and they go to a world which looks just like the planet in Kim's dream. In fact, he knows the name of this world, Taresia.
As Voyager approaches this world, a ship comes from Taresia and fires at the Nisari ships, forcing them off. Voyager is greeted by the Taresian leader, Lyris.
[Thanks to Steven here for telling me the correct names of the Teresian women.]
Lyris claims that Kim is actually a Taresian child who's come home, and welcomes him with open arms...really open.
Janeway, Tuvok, Paris (finally), and Kim beam down to a meeting hall full of beautiful women and one kind of stoned-looking guy, Tamen, who is himself surrounded by more beautiful women.
Lyris tells Kim that his Taresian genes are now becoming dominant as he has contact with his homeworld. When he was just a little embryo, he was taken to Earth and implanted in his Terran mother. Inside her womb [which you might recall he remembers!] Kim took on many human genes. When Taresian children return home in this fashion, they bring with them alien DNA and culture, enriching Taresia.
Lyris adds that Kim's Taresian genes have helped to make him an explorer, and though his journey home may have been sped up by Voyager's little Caretaker accident, he would have had to come home someday. Looking somewhat dazed by all this, Kim nevertheless "remembers" a great deal of Taresian culture, including how to say "Thank you." All this is embedded in his genes.
All the women invite Kim -- oh, and Voyager too -- to stay and celebrate finding his homeworld. Paris learns from Tamen that women make up 90% of the population here, and Paris looks like he's gone to heaven. When he tries to strike up a conversation with one of these women, however, she only has eyes for Kim.
Janeway thanks Lyris for her rescue from the Nisari, and Lyris can't explain why those mean old Nisari keep attacking her world. She says soon they will get tired of waiting for Voyager to leave Taresia and go away. She also explains that Kim's attack on the Nisari was also due to his genetic coding.
Kim learns that his real father died while taking him on that long journey to Earth. Kim wants to learn more about Babeville and stays behind when the away team returns to Voyager. In Sickbay, the Doctor confirms that Taresian genes are now awakening in Kim, and Janeway decides to take advantage of Kim's absence to have a parley with the Nisari and see if she can get them to stop firing at her ship.
Happy as a clam as the planet's stud, Tamen tells Kim all about the great life for men here on Taresia, which will include being married that night to three lovely women. He also tells Kim his Taresian DNA is responsible for his talents in music and math, and Kim feels this explains much about his childhood. In fact, Kim says his parents tried for years to have a child, then spoiled him when he came along. He always felt a little awkward with this, a little unworthy of such devotion. He used to imagine hidden powers as a child. Tamen points out that this childhood wish has come true, and that Kim is very special. The babes agree and try to give their men little mood enhancers. Kim JUST SAYS NO TO DRUGS, but says YES to the backrub from Ellian. Ellian also suggests that Kim might want to stay permanently on Taresia, and gets him some "more comfortable" clothes to slip into.
Janeway's peace talks with the Nisari go well, until she learns from their commander that no one ever returns from Taresia, and that if she does somehow get Kim back on Voyager, the Nisari will fire at it.
Worried by this news, Janeway has Voyager return to Taresia, but a polaric grid has snapped into place around the planet, through which they cannot beam or communicate.
Relying on the knowledge from his genes, Kim participates in Tamen's wedding ceremony, which involves beating a lot of ceremonial sticks while three babes paint creepy red circles on Tamen's face, tie his hands, and blindfold him. Kim doesn't know what to make of all this. When he tries to check in with Voyager and can't even get a carrier signal, he decides to cancel his subscription to AOL.
But Lyris allays his fears that there may be something wrong with Voyager and invites him to spend the night.
On Voyager, Chakotay tells Janeway that even though they've switched from AOL to their own direct communications link, they still can't raise Kim. Moreover, they've managed to poke little holes in the polaron grid, but not big enough ones to get Voyager through. Moreover than that, there's a Taresian ship patrolling the planet under the grid, so they can't send a shuttlecraft.
In Sickbay, the Doctor tells Janeway and Chakotay that with further analysis he's debunked the Taresians' claim that Kim is one of their own. The DNA in his system is not some long-dormant strand now awakened, but some foreign DNA implanted with a retrovirus. The Doctor, looking very pleased with himself, can even determine that Kim was infected on the verrilium-gathering mission Voyager did awhile ago. Janeway realizes this has all been a trap to get and keep Kim. Little flames shoot from her eyes at the notion that someone is after one of her kids, and we all become quite confident that a battle looms on the horizon.
Ellian shows Kim his guest room and gives him some sensual potion and lip action before leaving him to his sweet dreams.
In his dreams, he sees the willing Taresian babes. He sees Chakotay and Janeway wish him well. He sees Ellian and Rinna kiss him in bed, and Kim astonishes the audience by actually kissing them back! When Ellian comes at him with that blindfold, however, he wakes up.
Only to find that Ellian and Rinna actually are in his bed. They tell him he can't fight his genes and that he should choose them for two of his three wives, but Kim stands by his ship. They persist, and he seems to go along with their desires only so he can tie one of them to a chair and bonk the other over the head.
Outside the room, he rushes to Tamen's room, where he finds only a dried-up husk of a man in bed, his blindfold still in place.
Malia enters the room and he holds her hostage with something that I guess looks like a weapon but might squirt whipped cream for all he knows. Anyway, she explains that Taresian women need to use a lot of the male cells to procreate, and that any man should be happy to die in order to have kids. Kim looks horrified by the whole idea and realizes he's not really Taresian at all. Two other babes enter, and when Malia explains that she makes a poor hostage, being so much less valuable than Kim's cells, he runs off.
Voyager punches its way through the grid, but Chakotay can't find Kim's comsignal. He starts scanning as the Taresian ship approaches.
But Kim doesn't make it far. Back in the meeting hall, the hapless ensign is surrounded by babes, including Lyris, who calls for the mating ritual right now. The women beat sticks and come at him, but Voyager beams Kim out just in time to save him from all that peril.
Voyager runs away, and finds that the Nisari ships are coming at them now too. Back on the bridge, Kim assures Janeway that the Taresians and Nisari will be more interested in fighting each other than in hurting Voyager. The ships all meet and Kim is proven correct.
In the mess hall, spots gone, Kim tells the story of the sirens and Odysseus to Neelix, who understands the attraction the planet held for Kim. But he thinks Kim should have kept some of those "distinguished" spots.
Paris, however, hears the wistful note in Kim's voice as he talks about being special and having this secret Taresian identity. He assures Kim that everyone likes him the way he is, but Kim confesses he wishes he were more like Paris. Paris cautions him there may be prison time involved in such things, and then confesses that he has actually tried to be more like Kim. A moment of real friendship passes, and then Paris teases Kim with his good qualities: "You're reliable, hard-working, extremely punctual...did I mention polite?"
"Thanks a lot," Kim replies.
CHARACTER
Well, one thing I want to note before we get to the details is that Voyager's characters and relationships have gotten strong enough now to support an episode like this. The story is less than original or compelling -- though it's really not bad -- but it's fun fun fun to watch the characters react and develop. You may have noticed that I tend to joke about Kim, but he really can be an interesting character when he's given the chance.
Okay, now I get to talk about my being right about Janeway as the mother to the crew. Kim's dream where his mother repeats Janeway's line about suspending Kim from duty is the most obvious but hardly the first time the show has made it clear that, for Janeway, being "more than a captain" to the crew means being their surrogate mother. As I've said before, I think this works really well, and could be just as successful as Picard's paternal relationship to the Enterprise's crew.
But this episode manages to do more than simply make Janeway's mother role clear, it uses that role to exploit one of mankind's oldest desires: the wish for more exciting parents than the ones we were given at birth. This common desire is what psychiatrists call the "family romance." You know, this desire fuels stories where a mercenary finds out that the medallion he's always worn around his neck proves he's actually a prince, or that little piece of cloth tells the prince he's actually a slave's child, or the gold coins tell the maiden she's actually a princess, or the farmer/pilot guy actually discovers he has a father who tromps about in black body armor. Perhaps you've found yourself wondering what life would be like if you found out you're actually the kid of some millionaire or movie star or gypsy king. We think about how much easier or adventurous or more stable our lives would be if our parents came from someplace other than Cleveland or Sydney or East Side Village. And we wonder if our love of spicy foods or model trains might make more sense in this new family, which would love us so much more than our old one does.
The Taresians cleverly use this common desire against Kim, punching all his psychological buttons. The myth of these Taresian genes allows the Taresians to lay claim to all Kim's qualities: his adventurousness, his talents with math and music, even the simple fact of his birth. At the same time they wipe away his parents' pride in him (because he's not really their kid), and his pride in his own "special" qualities (because they're genetically encoded). What before was due to the accident or "miracle" of his birth is now all part of an alien plan.
Kim is attracted by this rewritten history, as his dreams (naturally) reveal when Chakotay says, "We've been lucky to have you, Harry," and Janeway confirms with pride, "You really have been special all your life." Everyone, and especially someone whose parents have doted on him as a child, has felt the pressure to live up to others' expectations, to fulfill the "potential" of childhood.
Let's consider it, as the script does indirectly, from Paris' point of view. Kim's description of his parents' sacrifice and pride in him, while revealing of a loving childhood exactly the opposite of Paris', also shows that, like Paris, he's been raised to fear failure. Now, Paris fears it because his father seems to expect it of him, and Kim fears it because his parents expect only success. It's interesting to consider which is really worse. It also helps to explain how Paris and Kim can be such good friends.
Back to Kim, we can see that the Taresians are offering Kim an alternative to all that worry. Since only 10% of the population is male, Kim can live up to his potential simply by being alive. Moreover, he can be productive and special simply by procreating. In short, he can sleep his way to the top.
Now, honestly, who wouldn't be drawn in by this siren song? Well, Harry Kim, that's who.
It all comes to a head over the question of loyalty. We've seen Kim demonstrate this level of loyalty before, in "Non Sequitur," when he threw away his life with Libby to return Paris and himself to their rightful places on Voyager.
At first, Kim doesn't seem to mind that Taresia's babes are offering him the chance to be loyal only as a stud, and he even lets them lay claim to his gifts for math and music, but Ellian crosses the line when she tries to lay claim to Kim's loyalty itself. She tells him, "You have a responsibility to pass on your genes to the next generation. If there's anything your Taresians genes have given you, it's a sense of duty and loyalty." Kim responds angrily, "My loyalty is to my crew and my family back home." In one line, Kim rejects the Taresians' whole family romance. Instead of the alternative parents who supposedly put him in his "fake" mother's womb as a child, he wants the alternative family, complete with captain/mother, he's already chosen for himself on Voyager, the one that doesn't try to replace his mother back on Earth.
So he no longer finds the babes' sexual advances attractive, and it's not long after this that he realizes the whole family romance has been a lie.
It's great, then, that at the end Paris is the one to assure Kim that he is, indeed, special, just by having all those nice-guy qualities that Kim finds boring in himself. These are, after all, the same qualities that both Kim's "mothers" find valuable as well.
And speaking of relationships, it's nice to see Torres and Kim talk to each other again. They used to talk often in the first season, but lately we haven't seen them so much as exchange a glance. Her comment about the speckled targ shows us what we've been missing.
Watching the Doctor preen as he extols his scientific insight to Janeway is fun, but what's really good is the way he pays close attention to Kim's description of his symptoms, seriously considers Kim's own guess at his illness (a recurrence of the pox), and says cheerful things to Torres when she wakes up. He's been trying hard to improve his bed-side manner, and while he still has some work to do, he is actually getting better at interacting with his patients.
On the other hand, if Kes is going to take over the Troi-counselor role, she'd better start digging up better platitudes.
THOUGHT
The Taresians must have taken some real care over Kim when they infected him with their DNA. Since their genetic science is so advanced, perhaps they could read his love of music and math in his genes. That may be why they selected him for mating in the first place.
And speaking of DNA, I do wish Lynch were still doing Voyager reviews so I could find out if the genetic technobabble really makes any sense. Oh well, it sounds pretty good to me.
And now it's finally time to consider the whole Amazon women theme and what it's doing in Voyager. From the male point of view [We certainly don't get the female point of view in this episode. Perhaps some other day.] Amazons are the anti-women, the strong creatures who conquor men and then mistreat them. Since Amazons can hunt for themselves, they don't need men for anything but sex, so it's easy to see that Amazons are both a male fantasy and a male nightmare (and why they're such a favorite of grade D movie makers).
But what are they doing on Voyager -- apart from boosting the ratings, of course? Actually, I've been waiting for Janeway to interact with a matriarchy since the show started, but Janeway's role in this episode is marginal. Perhaps some other day.
No, this is a Kim episode, and like with all Kim-centered episodes it's more thought-provoking than it at first appears. The whole question of sex is less interesting (well, no more interesting) than the idea of how special Amazons can make men feel. Since men are scarce in an Amazon community, men are a valuable resource. Lots of women will be eager not only to sleep with them, but to cherish them, to wait on them, to cater to each whim and be oh so very happy and pleased to do so. That's the fantasy.
The nightmare is that a man's value comes from nothing about him as a person, but only as a male specimen. This, of course, is the complaint of any sexual object with a brain: "You're only interested in my body." Now, I could go on to say that the ultimate nightmare that Amazons offer men is to be treated like women, but that's too simplistic for the story.
The most nightmarish image we get in this episode is Tamen's dried-out body. Tamen is the ultimate traitor in this story, the drone who lures in the next unsuspecting victim. But Kim is therefore also a traitor to Tamen, participating in his marriage ceremony and failing to save him from the appetites of his vampire-like wives.
This means that whatever separates Kim from Tamen, and thus allows Kim to live while Tamen is killed, cannot be their attitude toward the women. It may be irritating that Kim avoids lovemaking even on a planet full of sexually hungry women, but that avoidance does not, really, seem to be due to Kim's lack of sexual drive. He's eager enough for the women; it's his suspicion of their motives that ruins the mood.
So once again we are led back to Kim's loyalty to Voyager. Kim talks about his crew and family, and Tamen does not. Tamen is eager to leave behind his old identity, Kim is not. Tamen happily gets married, Kim tries to get back to the ship.
Fortunately, we also get Voyager's loyalty to Kim. No one on the ship ever really considers that Kim might want to stay on Taresia, and Janeway doesn't hesitate (of course) to risk the ship to save him.
Even more than that, Paris and Neelix also show that no one holds a grudge against Kim for being tempted by Taresian society. In fact, Kim's discussion of the siren adventure from The Odyssey shows that such temptation is a long-standing part of Terran culture. Now, this is hardly a surprise, but it does help us see how Voyager will ultimately choose to treat this Amazon culture: these women are just another interesting adventure, another society that may remind Voyager's crew of its distant past.
And the Amazons are a part of Voyager's past, and therefore a part of our past and present. Much as the Ferengi are like humans' own corporate greed, and the Klingons are like macho military dictatorships, and the Romulans are like paranoid military dictatorships, and the Pakleds are like the guy I sat next to in fifth grade, the Taresians are like a bunch of sexist pigs (of either gender) who show the injustice of caring more about anyone's body than about their soul.
Now, Star Trek reminders about our society are supposed to teach us something. When the Klingons and Federation make their peace treaty, we think about America and the Cold War. When we see the Taresians, we think about some people's belief that feminists hate men, that sexually aggressive women must be evil, and all that. So if we realize that the Ferengi allow us to laugh (sometimes) at our own greed, and Klingons allow us to admire (safely) our own aggression, then surely the Taresians allow us to realize that any fears about women wanting to sacrifice men for some dark conspiracy really do belong in grade D movies.
In other words, if we want Janeway and Torres in our world, somewhere along the way we're also going to get sinister Amazons and guacamole dip.
SPECTACLE
That glass gong looks an awful like the one Mr. Home used, though it doesn't sound half as nice.
Has anyone else noticed that Paris is losing weight? Perhaps it's part of a stress disorder related to his constant injuries. He'd better be careful or he'll lose his Joel Hodgeson-like appeal.
DICTION
All the best lines in this one weren't so much well-phrased as well-delivered, but I'll offer them up anyway.
"Is this the standard welcome home reception?" --Paris.
"For males it is. They're very rare. Our population is 90% female." -- Tamen
"Really?" -- Paris manages to put about eight different tones into that last word.
"Battlestations." -- Hearing Janeway say this word is becoming the highlight of each show.
SONG
Lovely music played by real musicians makes even the Amazons sound good.
And now for the baggage...
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) LOVE
Literary allusions and interesting friendships.
The lie the Taresians tell Kim about his parentage reminds me a lot about what really happened to Odo, but rather than seeming like a rehash, this similarity only makes it more possible half-way through the show that Kim really might be Taresian. Of course, we all know he isn't going to stay on Taresia from the beginning of the show, but he could have remained on Voyager even if he were not completely human. I thought he looked good in the spots too, and wondered if the writers hadn't decided to change his whole look. Such uncertainty definitely adds to the fun.
STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) HATE
What is it with Star Trek writers and names that end in "a?" Talaxia, Ocampa, Riesa, Aldea, Taresia. Bleh. Find something else to end them with.
AUNTIE JULIA'S CORNER OF THE CONTINUUM
(This occasional section is for readers' comments)
Some kind people have told me that McNeil had the Chicken Pox during the filming of "Rise" and "Favorite Son," which explains his limited screen time and perhaps also his weight loss. I know McNeil probably caught the disease from his kids, but I wonder if somehow the Paris "injury curse" might have had something to do with it as well. His lines, I hear, were primarily given to Tuvok.
Steven has also reminded me of my own dictates about worlds ending in "a." Therefore "Babeville" is wrong, and I should have called it "Babeastria."
Well, that wraps up this review. Think I'll kick off my shoes and settle down with some guacamole dip. Want to join me?
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