The USS Voyager is once again ambushed by history.
“Memorial” is another episode we’ve seen before. It’s season 3’s “Remember”, but without the sex, and with the whole crew remembering the mass murder instead of just B’Elanna. There are also shades of season 4’s “Nemesis”.
But I’m not mad about the repetition, the way I was with “Virtuoso”, because this is also another one of Voyager‘s episodes about the importance of history, and I find the theme interesting. And let’s face it, “what if good people can do terrible things” is a more interesting and deserving story than “the Doctor learns an important lesson about ego (again)”.
I have to open by saying something a bit mean
I knew from the very first scene that this was not a Kenneth Biller script, because we open with four tired, cranky, unwashed characters bickering in a shuttle, and yet they seem to like each other. Then they disembark, and Tom and B’Elanna seem happy to be together. Genuinely radical stuff!
The script is by Robin Burger, aka Robin Bernheim, who was a seasoned television veteran by the time she joined the Voyager team. She was the only woman in the writers room for Voyager‘s last couple of seasons, and “Memorial” is her only teleplay. Interestingly, she also wrote a TNG episode, “The Hunted”, a solid action-adventure episode which was also an allegory for the mistreatment of Vietnam veterans — I feel like she had a knack for military SF.
I don’t love the way she writes B’Elanna in the girlfriend role (it’s cute that B’Elanna builds a TV for Tom; less cute that he’s like, “Oh, and get me a beer,” and she does so without argument), but it’s hard to make a definitive statement about her gender politics from one episode alone. She writes characters who like and care about each other, and that’s enough to make her stand out in this blighted season. I’m sorry that this is her only script, and have decided not to hold her involvement in developing “Fair Haven” against her.
Anyway, mass murder is bad
Huge if true.
We don’t get a lot of background on the conflict that ends in this psychic slaughter. A group of soldiers are sent to relocate some colonists; the colonists are reluctant; fighting breaks out. The soldiers, who are fatigued and stressed, panic and start shooting. It’s a familiar enough story, but one with a missed opportunity — remember that time Chakotay quit Starfleet and took up arms to fight the forcible relocation of his colony? Star Trek: Voyager does not remember!
My main quibble with this episode is in fact its characterisation of Chakotay. Beltran makes the effort to give an actual performance here, no complaints on that front, but the writing is a little off. Why is Chakotay the one arguing for the memorial to be deactivated and the massacre forgotten?Never mind that he’s Native American, although I do think that by this point the writers were burned so badly by their fake “Native” consultant that they aren’t thinking at all about how this affects Chakotay’s perspective. But he’s an historian. An archaeologist, at least. Or maybe an anthropologist, or sometimes a paleontologist, but the point is, if he’s so traumatised by these implanted memories — a legitimate writing choice — then someone should maybe remark that it’s not like him. I shouldn’t have to do all the work.
(Meanwhile, Janeway is like, “I can’t stand by and let a crime happen again,” and I’m like, girl, I get you, but also you yourself were doing a little torture just a few months ago?)
Otherwise, this is a solid episode
It even manages to articulate why history is important, although I would argue that this is easier when you’re dealing with a horrific crime. Those who do not remember history, etc.
But also, it uses the ensemble really well. The Doctor is sidelined, as he frankly deserves to be, and I think Tuvok could have been used a bit more, but I’m not going to complain about Chakotay, Harry and Neelix getting some meaty scenes, all of which the actors carry off nicely. Tom … is less enjoyable to watch, but that might simply be because watching him mope in bed and snipe at B’Elanna is not my personal idea of fun. It’s not a bad depiction of trauma at all, nor is it unrealistic. I just feel like we’ve spent too long watching Tom be a jerk to his long-suffering girlfriend.
Kate Mulgrew also gives an excellent performance, while Janeway is in the rare position of being surrounded by distraught, shouting men. Which is intimidating, yet Janeway seems perfectly safe — in contrast with her own flashback, where she witnesses and does not stop the destruction of the bodies. (I cannot give Mulgrew credit for Janeway’s trauma hair, but I do think the hair and make-up team did some fine and subtle work on that front.)
Other observations
- I am rather tickled by the way everyone assumes that they were brainwashed into fighting someone else’s war. Because … that has happened. More than once.
- We only get a brief scene with Seven, but it’s a sweet one: she brings comfort food she has cooked herself to Neelix, and offers some wisdom about not being paralysed by guilt.
- The final scene is filmed on location, I assume in a Los Angeles park, and it is SO refreshing after the claustrophobia of everything that has gone before.
In conclusion
“Memorial” isn’t groundbreaking, but after recent episodes, it’s just nice to remember that Star Trek can be good. Three tera nut souffles out of five.