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

Okay, this is a review of Star Trek Voyager episode "Resolutions." It contains many spoilers and is solely intended for the delectation of Voyager fans, whether they want to see this couple do the dirty deed or not. Those who don't know a hologram from an empty cracker really should find something else to do.

How about E!? (There's no way to punctuate that to look right.)

Anyway, if you're still here, let's get to it.

INITIAL VIEWER EXPERIENCE
Right on schedule, it's time for Janeway and Chakotay to bond big-time...if I sympathize with Kim so much, why do I still want to punch him in the nose?...Let's see, Chakotay makes her a bathtub, headboards, a shoe tree, and a towel rack. Aha! He must be from the Ethan Allen Tribe...Are we really (groan) going to have sexual tension in our command structure?...well, not really, I guess...What a great story, and possibly the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

PLOT
On a lovely-looking planet, Janeway and Chakotay awaken from stasis chambers. They've been waiting for the Doctor to figure out a cure for a disease they've caught from an insect bite. The Doctor's news, however, isn't good. He's tried everything, and all that's left is to contact the Vidiians on the chance that they have a cure. Janeway and Chakotay talk over this option, but neither wishes to put the ship in that sort of danger. No, the only thing for Voyager to do is leave them here (something in the atmosphere protects them from the disease) and continue on the journey home.

At an extremely strained briefing, Tuvok explains that they will leave the basic home-away-from-home equipment and a type nine shuttle craft for Janeway and Chakotay. Paris objects that the top speed of such a shuttle is warp four [Nitpickers, take note]. This is abandonment, plain and simple.

Janeway and Chakotay unpack their gear. She's particularly interested in her scientific stuff, believing that with a little elbow grease she can lick this disease. Chakotay tries to keep things light and starts erecting the shelter. Janeway complains about the lack of a bathtub and tells him to call her Kathryn, and he asks for a few days to get used to that.

Kim tries to get Torres to help him come up with some way to help Janeway and Chakotay, but she tells him either to come up with a plan of his own or leave her alone.

Janeway checks insect traps for a specimen like the one that bit them (no dice), and Chakotay is mysterious about something he's building in the woods. Tuvok contacts them and says Voyager is leaving communications range. Janeway says goodbye to her crew and Tuvok says goodbye to Chakotay. Stiff upper lips and moist eyes all 'round.

Time passes. Janeway takes a bath one night and sees something. She calls for Chakotay, but it turns out to be a monkey in a tree. She holds out her hand and talks to it, but the monkey isn't interested. Chakotay NOTICES Janeway in her towel and there's an awkward moment.

It doesn't disturb Janeway for long, however, as she becomes excited about the possibility of studying the monkey's immune system. It has to deal with insects, after all. Chakotay, possibly suppressing irritation because she finds the monkey more interesting than him, asks her if she couldn't focus more on enjoying their life here instead of working non-stop on the cure. Not yet, she says.

Six weeks have passed and the crew is, if anything, even more depressed. Tuvok senses their mood, but cannot think of anything to do about it but keep a steady command. When Kim finds a Vidiian convoy and suggests a little too strongly that they should ask the Vidiians for a cure -- against Janeway's direct orders -- Tuvok has to relieve him of duty to get him off the bridge.

Hogan and Kaplan talk to Kim in the mess hall.

[Julia here. At great personal risk I've stolen the Orb of Time so that I could come back to warn you not to get too attached to either Hogan or Kaplan. I really did like Hogan, and was therefore horribly annoyed when he becomes snake food in "Basics Part 2." Kaplan buys it in "Unity." I have taken a personal vow not to like any more secondary characters on this show and urge you to do the same. Whoops! What's this orb doing now? What's my mother doing here talking like some strange, non-linear being? Look! there's my college roommate who would never do the dishes! Oh no! It's my high school gym teacher! I'm so sorry I stole the orb! Oh, have pity on meeeeeeeee!]

Kaplan and Hogan agree with Kim that they should rescue Janeway and Chakotay, and the trio ropes in Torres, and then Neelix. This all ends with Kim going to Tuvok's quarters and formally asking him to contact the Vidiians and trade some of Torres' DNA for the cure. Tuvok says no and once again Kim steps out of line by insisting. Tuvok gives him the Vulcan version of "get out of my room, you little creep."

Chakotay makes headboards because he's noticed Janeway could use one. Janeway says she's worried he's focusing too much on the present, instead of working towards getting them off the planet. He responds that he has to enjoy his life in the here-and-now, not in the uncertain future. They make a sort of truce and she goes to check her traps. The monkey shows up again and seems agitated. In fact, he may be trying to warn her of a coming plasma storm. The sky turns furious and the ground shakes. Screaming "Kathryn," Chakotay appears and helps her get back to the shelter. The storm wreaks havoc on the camp and equipment.

In the ready room, Kes kisses up to Tuvok in a major way and gets him to realize that everyone on the ship wants to contact the Vidiians. He goes to the assembled bridge crew and explains that he will take full responsibility for disobeying Janeway's orders. Set course for the Vidiians!

Janeway picks through the remains of their stuff and tells Chakotay, "I guess that's one way of letting go."

Voyager speaks to Denara Pel, who still looks just like me after I've slept on my face, and she tells them the Vidiians do in fact have a cure for the insect bite. They set up a trade and a rendezvous.

Chakotay talks of making a log cabin, and Janeway complains about her childhood memories of camping, unconsciously saying the first nice thing about life on this world. The monkey returns and Janeway holds out her hand. He looks her over and scampers off.

All that physical labor leaves Janeway with a stiff neck. Chakotay gives her a neck rub that quickly becomes a little too much rub and not enough neck. She scampers off herself.

Voyager finds the Vidiians have, in fact, laid them a trap.

Unable to sleep, Janeway comes back to Chakotay -- currently working on handicraft #189 -- with the need to "define parameters" about their relationship. Chakotay doesn't like her terminology, so he tells her an "ancient legend," about an angry warrior who could only find peace in the midst of battle. This made him Big Man on Campus among his tribe, but he was still very discontented. One day this warrior's tribe was conquered by a neighboring tribe led by a woman warrior. This woman was brave and very beautiful and wise. [If you haven't figured out by now that he's talking about himself and Janeway, maybe you'd be happier at E! after all.] She called on him and his tribe to join her, because her own tribe was too small to protect itself against all its enemies. The angry warrior swore to himself that he would give himself completely to this task, and that her needs would come first for him. And in this way, he began to know the true meaning of peace.

Janeway sheds a few tears and asks, "Was that really an ancient legend?"

And he responds, "No, but that made it easier to say."

Voyager gets into a dogfight with three Vidiian ships. Denara dials the Doctor direct and tells him she had no idea her people were going to attack. She has the cure with her. The Doctor contacts Tuvok, and in a nicely logical but really suspense-killing fashion Tuvok explains the battle plan. Voyager drops shields, the Doctor beams aboard the cure, Torres ejects some anti-matter, Kim sets it off, and Paris gets them out of there quick. (Now that, kids, is what we call "cooperation.") The Vidiians are disabled.

Janeway tends her tomatoes and Chakotay talks about building a boat to explore the river. This Norman Rockwell moment is forgotten when Tuvok's voice comes over the combadges they've placed on a shelf. Voyager has the cure, he informs them, and they'll be back soon.

Janeway and Chakotay have packed. She says goodbye to the monkey and they beam out. The monkey, seeming distressed, puts out his hand to where Janeway was standing.

On the bridge, Janeway calls Tuvok's decision to rescue her and Chakotay "emotional" and then settles back with great comfort into her chair. Chakotay looks equally contented as he prepares to face his old duties.

CHARACTER
Well, it really was time for us to have this episode. The captain/first mate relationship is arguably the most important one in the show. They've maintained a healthy respect and light banter towards each other before now, but that won't cut it. It's fun fun fun to watch them move from polite attempts, "Maybe you should call me Kathryn," to genuine intimacy, "There'll be no place [in the boat] for your bathtub." In their final scene on the planet before they're rescued, they're quite chummy.

More to the point, the story encourages us to like them as well. Both Janeway's and Chakotay's approach to their situation is completely in keeping with what we've seen of them so far, and the sensible way they deal with what is, after all, a pretty sucky situation is admirable. Janeway's motherly friendship towards the monkey is also a hoot, without seeming remotely like sort of copy of Picard. Picard would only talk to the monkey if it showed some signs of wanting to talk to him first.

I have more to say about the importance of this relationship, but it will have to wait until THOUGHT.

As for the other characters, I'm really dismayed that Kim, who should command our respect with his insistence that they do something to help Janeway and Chakotay, completely irritates me. I've liked Kim's character a lot before ("Emanations", "Non Sequitur"), but here he whines when he should be forceful, and looks overly pleased with himself when the others agree with him.

Tuvok's character works better as the unwilling bad guy. Both logic and Janeway's orders dictate that he stand firm. When he finally states that he cannot ignore the feelings of his whole crew, he seems almost relieved by the whole thing. He certainly stops scowling so much, but maybe that's just because Kim leaves him alone.

THOUGHT
Now it's time to tackle the big question of the episode, a question which, for some fans, is threatening to become the main issue of the show: the need for the first officer to be devoted to the captain.

Look at any movie or TV show with military vessels, from Hunt for Red October to Mutiny on the Bounty to Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and we see that the first officer's attitude about the captain determines how we feel about that captain. Staying in Star Trek territory, we admire Kirk in large part because Spock admires him. Moreover, the more we admire the first officer, the more we'll admire the captain on his behalf as long as we believe it.

This last part is harder than it sounds, and became fodder for many a good moment on TNG when Riker realized that for some reason he'd rather play second banana to Picard than command his own ship.

Back to Kirk. Spock could do huge calculations in his head, had the strength of ten puny humans, only needed to get some once every seven years (instead of every seven minutes or so), and often got more fan mail. Eventually the question has to come up: Why are you cow-towing to this guy when you could be your own boss?

The answer TOS gave us was a Vulcan disregard for ambition. Spock said several times he had no desire to be captain simply to be captain, and, since he's mostly not human, we could believe that. Ambition, as Macbeth can tell us, is hardly logical. Why wouldn't Spock want stay with his best friend? Watching Kirk kiss women and beat people up was certainly more fun than anything Spock could find on his own. (I mean, these days he's living on Romulus, so what does that tell you?)

Fast-forward to Picard again. Riker wanted his own ship. He still does. But he also sees Picard as the good father he never had. So the writers had to do some work to keep the character in the rumble seat without making him look like a wuss. What would TNG be, after all, without Riker standing behind Picard and staring at the light coming off the top of his bald head?

So we got to learn about Riker's love of his job and how comfortable he is on that ship. He doesn't want to leave Troi and Data and LaForge, and who could blame him? Well, he blamed himself, if you recall, until "Best of Both Worlds" proved that he could make all the tough decisions he needed to. Saving the earth made him confident that there was no cowardice in his career choices. So now he takes pride in being the number two guy to Picard The Great, certain that one day he'll get the best command chair of all: the one that has "Enterprise" stenciled on the back.

Going forward now to DS9, we had our first man/woman, captain/first mate relationship, which could have caused us some trouble. The writers solved that problem rather nicely (though it took them a few seasons to work it all out) by having Sisko be a religious icon to Kira. She'd lay flowers at his feet if he asked, but she doesn't dream about him at night unless it's in connection to some prophesy. In the beginning, Sisko kept her at arm's length because her beliefs made him uncomfortable, but these days they've worked out a nice relationship built on several cross-cultural factors.

Okay, on Voyager we have a situation where the woman is the captain, the man is the first officer, and they're both very human and very available. A lot of people want them to get together, and doubtlessly see this episode as the beginning of a romantic relationship. I cannot begin to express how much I do not want this to happen, any more than I wanted a Kira/Sisko romance, or a Kirk/Spock, for that matter.

I have a score of reasons -- but I'll try to keep away from asking whether people think a woman can't command without using sex, and stay simple.

Primarily, it's a case of been there, done that. We have romantic relationships all over television. Voyager offers us a chance for something different. A romantic relationship, in other words, is a cop-out to figuring out a way to make Janeway and Chakotay's relationship as interesting as the captain/first mate ones we've had on Trek so far. The question of how Chakotay will attain the appropriate lay-down-my-life-and-forego-my-personal-ambition admiration of Janeway could really be fascinating. Having them just fall in love doesn't come close.

Let's face it, according to Star Trek's track record -- with the absolutely singular exception of Keiko and O’Brien -- once the couple has sex, the interest is drained right out of the relationship. I'm including here the boring romances between Sisko and Yates, and Kira and Shakaar. And even without that record, I don't believe I'm alone in thinking that Janeway and Chakotay having romantic difficulties on the bridge would seem less than military, professional, or terribly adventurous.

So take sex out of the question and we need to have something in Chakotay (it must be located in the first officer, not in the captain) that makes him happy being the number two guy. I like the idea this episode gives us: peace through service. This may have been the desire that sent him to Starfleet in the first place. I'd like to know more about that.

I'd like to know more about a lot of things. Does Janeway understand his desire to serve? How will their eventual captain/first mate bond affect her dealings with Tuvok? Since she's basically the mother of the crew, will Chakotay take on the paternal role?

Now, let's throw into the pot that this is a show that's trying to make good ratings in 1990's America, and we can see that romance is still a bad idea. Chakotay's contemporary manliness is sometimes in a lose-lose situation playing second fiddle to a woman. Oh, we can all pretend this isn't the case, but I've seen too much anti-Janeway stuff for that. The gender issue doesn't have to take center stage, however, as long as Chakotay stays strong in the viewer's eyes. This hardly seems an impossible feat, as long as he never shows any 24th century discomfort in having a woman for a boss. And why should he?

This episode does a great job with that, shoving Chakotay's service to Janeway right in our faces. He makes headboards, he cooks...he practically begs the chauvinists among us to say that Janeway wears the pants in the relationship. And many have obliged him.

Yet, is this really so different from what Riker went through? Starfleet got quite impatient with him for not wanting to leave Picard. Riker himself could only accept his lack of wanderlust once he had complete confidence that it was not caused by fear of being on his own.

Isn't Chakotay offering us something similar here? He's been on his own. He's even been in command (none of the other firsts can say that). He's found something better for himself in choosing to return to being second in command. This strikes me as just right for Chakotay, calling up his spirit guide without apology, using Maquis tricks with pride, and making Janeway a bathtub simply because she'd like one. His service to her has none of the toady quality of Neelix's little treats. In serving Janeway, he seems simply to have found, after a deeply conflicted life, Something Worth Doing. And that's a more interesting base for a relationship than any roll in the hay could ever hope to be.

As for Janeway's side of things, she still seems to remember Mark, and she must feel that sleeping with her first officer is rife with complications. There's no doubt that she likes Chakotay very much, but since she didn't tell us a story about what the brave and beautiful woman warrior thought of the new angry warrior in her tribe, we'll have to wait for another episode to find out more.

SPECTACLE
Nice battle with the Vidiians.

Pretty planet.

Cute monkey.

DICTION
"Maybe you should call me Kathryn." "Give me a few days on that one, okay?" -- Janeway and Chakotay.

But the winner is:

"Feel free to use the house." -- Janeway saying goodbye to the monkey.


SONG
Terrific to hear a real orchestra and not some canned junk. Keep up the good work!

And now for the baggage.

STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) LOVE
Thinking about the relationships between captains and first mates, I do wish Picard would be a little nicer to Riker every now and then. But maybe his gruffness is all Riker can really handle after his own father was such a...whoops, this really belongs in a TNG review.

Watching the crew unite is great. The Maquis-Starfleet tension is always there when we want it, and we're not sure how many primarily want to go rescue Janeway, and how many would leave her there and just rescue Chakotay if they could. It's a powerful moment to see so many extras gathered on the bridge demanding that Tuvok do something.

STAR TREK ELEMENTS WE (OR I, ANYWAY) HATE
Those silly tomatoes grew too fast, Talaxian or not.

Overly technical terminology is irksome in the extreme. Do we have to call every lightning storm a "plasma storm?"

Well, that's another one in the can!

Star Trek Voyager Reviews

Or go ahead to Star Trek Voyager Reviews -- Basics Pt 1.

Or go back to Star Trek Voyager Reviews -- Tuvix.