In which white sociopaths get atonement arcs and racialised minorities are dangerous and untrustworthy.
Okay. I counted. Star Trek: Voyager has ten episodes with one-word titles beginning with the letter R.
That seems a lot, and it’s way too easy to get them confused. For the record, “Repentance” is the one about the death penalty. You probably don’t remember it because it’s not very good.
The problem with “Repentance” is that it wants to present a classic Star Trek moral dilemma, but without actually taking a side. Worse, it’s trying to both sides the death penalty, an appalling concept which has no place in civilised society.
I realise that many US states still have the death penalty, and that this was a particularly fraught issue in the late ’90s. It feels less fraught now, not because the death penalty has fallen into disuse (the opposite, in fact!) but because it has been overtaken by the rise in American fascism.
But I’m Australian, and the death penalty was abolished here in 1972 — some years after the last actual execution. Occasionally some crackpot talks about bringing it back, but the concept is way, way out of the mainstream.
Australian law also forbids extradition in any situation where the individual in question faces the death penalty. Such individuals will only be extradited if the receiving government gives an undertaking that the death penalty is off the table — although the UN has noted with concern that such undertakings do not have to be legally enforceable. (The UN has a lot of concerns about Australia, I’m not saying any of this because I think we’re an especially great or moral country, but because the United States is so far outside the mainstream on this issue.)
All this is to say that it’s genuinely shocking to me when Janeway is like, “Well, I’m not especially comfortable with transporting a bunch of prisoners to their deaths, but what can you do? Prime directive, eh?” Ma’am, you and your crew have broken the prime directive so many times already. You are a skilled diplomat and the Nygeans present themselves as reasonable people. There are solutions here.
But this is one of those half-hearted Look At Us, We’re Doing A Star Trek episodes, where the script wants to wave in the general direction of a moral dilemma without actually dealing with it. In that sense, it’s extremely Strange New Worlds coded (derogatory).
We “explore” the issue of the death penalty via two subplots. One is okay, the other is … emblematic of a lot of Voyager‘s problems.
Seven and Iko
In the cold open, Seven is taken hostage by hardened criminal Iko, played by Jeff Kober, who is white. Later, when he’s beaten by the guards and left badly injured, she donates nanoprobes for his recovery; along with healing the damage to his brain, they rewrite his neural pathways, effectively connecting the part of the brain which acts as a conscience for the first time.
Iko suddenly feels guilt for his crimes, and bonds with Seven. She sees herself in him, connecting her life as a drone with his life of violence. They develop a really pleasing relationship — a platonic friendship based on mutual respect. (I sort of ship it, but almost because it is so very platonic and respectful?) She compares the effect of the nanoprobes to Janeway freeing her from the collective.
It’s not a completely effective story — I think the whole “maybe sociopaths can be cured” idea is very 1999 and also a bit half-baked — but it’s personal to Seven, builds her as a character, and attempts to grapple with complex ideas. Which is a big contrast to…
Neelix and Joleg
In the course of feeding the prisoners, Neelix befriends Joleg, a pleasant young man played by F. J. Rio, who is Latino. Joleg is a member of a minority species which makes up ten percent of the overall population, but are over-represented in prisons and on death row. He was caught up in the vicinity of a murder and arrested because, well, he’s probably guilty of something, right?
Neelix is properly appalled, to the amusement of Tom, who is like, “Well, I was in prison and everyone had a story like that.” Which, okay, first of all, if that’s the case the Federation really isn’t a utopia; second, Tom Paris is a Robert Downey Jr Republican this week. (B’Elanna is barely in this episode, but she gives him some heavy side eye for his microaggressions.)
As events unfold, it becomes apparent that Joleg is a liar, manipulating Neelix and even endangering Voyager. Neelix has once again learned the key lesson of Star Trek: Voyager: people in need, especially people of colour in need, are not to be trusted under any circumstances.
the prime directive is about not judging
The episode ends with Voyager handing over their prisoners to be executed, Seven getting reassurance that she does not need to suffer for her “crimes”, and no one is very happy. Least of all me, the person who had to watch this episode.
I suspect part of this script’s weakness lies in the fact that it’s yet another Robert Doherty teleplay. I find Doherty is overall a better writer than Kenneth Biller, but rarely ever actually good — and this is his fourth script of the season. They’ve been steadily declining in quality, so I’m delighted to see that he has two more in the pipeline before this nightmare is over. (He did go on to create Elementary, which is a point in his favour and one of the few redeeming features in his filmography.)
But the biggest problem is Voyager‘s ongoing unwillingness to actually engage with a problem. The script implies that judging another culture is the worst thing you can do, and I’m sorry, but some things — like the death penalty — should be judged. It feels less like a genuinely progressive, or even liberal, position, and more like conservatism wearing a liberal hat.
Other observations
- I’m going to say something good about this script: the pacing, especially of the cold open, is really good
- So are the costumes — I love the little blinky lights on the prisoners’ jumpsuits, and I’m intrigued that they follow a similar design and colour palette to the prisoner jumpsuits in Andor
- Jeri Ryan gives a particularly great performance in this episode
- I will give the script points for remembering that Tom was once in prison
In conclusion
Oh, you can absolutely skip this. Two unjustice systems out of five.
Instead, go watch Star Trek: Discovery‘s “The Examples”, episode five of its fourth season, in which Captain Burnham offers asylum to a group of prisoners whose sentences were motivated by politics and bigotry. Because that is, as it turns out, something you can do.1