B’Elanna has to beta a random’s Voyager fic.
Star Trek has always been self-consciously steeped in theatre. TOS, unable to depend on special effects to tell a story, relied heavily on dialogue — not to mention monologues. More than one TNG episode let Patrick Stewart let loose with some Shakespeare.
The theatricality is still present in the current era — the Prodigy episode “All the World’s A Stage”1 sees the characters encounter a pre-warp society whose culture was radically altered when a shuttle from the Enterprise crash-landed a century earlier.
“All the World’s A Stage” has a lot of “Muse” in its DNA — the crashed ship, the logs used as the foundation for a culture-shifting play. That doesn’t feel like coincidence. There’s a lot of love for Voyager in Prodigy, and deep knowledge of its lore. And “…Stage” feels like an homage, not a retread, because it and “Muse” are ultimately very different stories.
For one thing, “…Stage” is an ensemble story, a love letter to Star Trek as a whole, and a vehicle for introducing TOS to an audience of children accustomed to slicker special effects and completely different styles of writing and acting. (Linking it with stagecraft is, in my opinion, genius.)
“Muse”, on the other hand, is a fairly small B’Elanna episode, more of a character study and an exploration of Voyager itself than the wider Star Trek universe. And that’s not a bad thing! A B’Elanna story which isn’t about her family, her romantic relationships or a weapon she accidentally created and let loose on the world is always welcome, in my opinion.
“Muse” is also maybe about fandom, and not necessarily in a good way. But we’ll get there.
B’ELANNA HAS A BAD DAY FOLLOWED BY A SERIES OF BAD DAYS
I realise that “a character has a really nice day and nothing bad happens” is not the stuff of drama, but I just feel like B’Elanna Torres particularly deserves some sort of spa treatment.
She’s in particularly bad shape when we find her here — injured and tied to a chair, with lacerations on her arm. It’s a nice fake out: it looks like playwrite Kelis has been mistreating her, maybe even torturing her, but in fact he has been providing the finest medical care available to his Bronze Age civilisation.
“Muse” is a story with a lot of small misdirections. Kelis starts off appearing needy and pathetic, but as B’Elanna reluctantly gets to know him, she finds he is a decent man. B’Elanna is vulnerable, until she manifests on stage as a god (or Eternal). Harry Kim is missing, presumed dead, until he turns up and reveals he’s just walked a few hundred kilometres to find B’Elanna’s crash site. (This seems improbable to me, and might be a victim of that issue where Star Trek does not understand the metric system, but I have made it my life’s purpose to learn as little as possible about long-distance walking. So we will never know. Please do not tell me.)
FAN FICTION WILL SAVE THE WORLD
I don’t think “Muse” was intended as a commentary on fan writers, but speaking as a person who has several hundred thousand words of Star Trek: Discovery fic up on AO3, I derive more than a bit of amusement at how Kelis’s works reflect modern fandom. Plot? Let’s try making these characters kiss instead. Faced with a social crisis? No, this story about fictional characters making out will save the world, trust me.
Give this man an AO3 account and send him on his way.
I do think “Muse” is conscious of the audience in moments — like the play in which “Janeway” and “Chakotay” kiss. (Yes, I cheered. Even though it’s not really them.) When B’Elanna calls it absurd, that feels like a dig at the audience who has been demanding such a kiss. By this point, behind the scenes, the Voyager team were claiming that not only was there no Janeway/Chakotay relationship, but there never had been, and this feels like a part of that. Were we all being gaslit by a network television series? Absolutely. But isn’t it interesting that they have to work this hard to deny the relationship?
Less compelling is the fact that Kelis seems to ship Tom/Seven. For the record, of the 4,691 works on A03 tagged “Tom Paris”, precisely 11 are Tom/Seven. It’s hard to ship a rarepair, and I don’t see the appeal of this one, but I support Kelis’s right to have weird ships. B’Elanna absolutely does not, but that just makes it funnier.
KELIS WRITES TUVOK BETTER THAN SOME PEOPLE IN THE VOYAGER WRITER’S ROOM
“They’ll realize that beneath your unfeeling exterior is a heart that’s breaking silently and in more pain then any of us could possibly understand. Because that’s what it is to be Vulcan.”
Mic. Dropped. Outstanding work, my primitive friend.
For the record, this script is actually credited to Joe Menosky, veteran of 36 Voyager episodes — some very good, some very mediocre, for such is the way of television writing. He also co-wrote “Lethe”, the season 1 episode of Discovery that made me go from “I’m enjoying this series” to “I’m obsessed with this series and now I’m going to write 30,000 words of fiction in two weeks.”
THIS SCRIPT UNDERSTANDS HOW TO TELL A STORY
We go from Kelis discussing Tuvok’s dedication to a scene where Tuvok denies himself sleep in order to find B’Elanna and Harry. We go from an overwrought Janeway/Chakotay love scene on stage to an understated interaction which highlights their dedication to each other and their crew.
None of this is radical, but it’s a pleasure to watch a simple craft executed with skill and respect. I’ve complained a lot about the mediocrity of this season, especially in its middle section, but I think “Muse” would be a standout even in a very strong season.
OTHER OBSERVATIONS
- The costuming in this episode is very fine, and so is the detail on the masks used by the actors.
- Star Trek often aims itself at people who perceive themselves to be very intelligent (which I mean as an entirely neutral observation and also include myself in that category) — “Muse” is only loosely inspired by the theatrical traditions of ancient Greece, but there are enough familiar trappings — the chorus, the masks, the amphitheatre — that the audience can tell at a glance what we’re getting at.
- This script respects its characters in the same way “Spirit Folk” didn’t — like, yes, Tuvok falling asleep and snoring on the bridge is ridiculous, but instead of compounding his foolishness by insisting he’s fine, Tuvok realises he’s impaired and removes himself from duty.
- The whole “lead actress is jealous of the playwrite’s muse and attempts to kill her” twist is cliche, but saved entirely by the actress’s little “What did I tell you???” face as B’Elanna beams out.
IN CONCLUSION
The worst thing I can say about this episode is that it’s a bit self-indulgent. And when self-indulgence is executed with competence and heart, who even cares? Four and a half theatrical masks out of five.