No one wants to work anymore.
“Workforce” part 2 provides a neat, somewhat satisfying conclusion to the story set up in part 1. Disparate groups come together, evading the bad guys and saving the day. Janeway chooses Voyager and her true self over a life with a boring but pleasant man. The status quo is restored, and no one even has to die for it.
Where “Workforce” fails for me is in pulling its punches. Only some of Quarren’s guest workers are kidnapped and brainwashed, and those who are there of their free will choose to stay. A good police officer goes rogue to bring down the conspiracy. Space capitalism ultimately persists.
I don’t think this is intrinsically bad; you could even argue that it adds a layer of complexity to the story. But I found it a little unsatisfying, especially in a show like Voyager with a long history of being unable or unwilling to interrogate underlying assumptions too deeply.
Speaking of underlying assumptions
In my response to part 1, I said:
On the other hand, we keep coming back to the question of whether the Doctor would even be a doctor if he had a choice. Which he does not. Is Starfleet so different from the Quarren in this regard? Even a post-capitalist utopia cannot abolish work.
So, uh. The Voyager crew are kidnapped, have their memories and personalities rewritten, and are forced to work in jobs they would not necessarily have chosen for themselves.
This is the Doctor’s entire life. Some of that has happened to him this season. (Multiple times!) But no one talks about that. He signals his preference for a command role in this episode, asking Harry to help him create a new emergency medical hologram to take his place while he pursues a new career, but Harry pushes back, and the Doctor apparently concludes — for now — that he should stay in his current role.
Was this intentional? It feels too on the nose to be anything but, and with writers like Bryan Fuller and Michael Taylor doing the script, I cannot imagine that they were unaware of what was happening. But even in its seventh season, Voyager is afraid to take a risk and let the Doctor’s role change.
I don’t think the Voyager crew are monsters; to me, this is part and parcel of the franchise’s ongoing problem with recognising that artificial lifeforms are autonomous sentient beings. It makes sense to me that even a culture as enlightened as the Federation has serious blind spots. But the inability to address them chafes.
Other observations
- I’ve heaped a lot of praise on the costume department this season, but none of that applies to “Workforce”.
- The boxy vinyl and pleather suiting of the workers is ugly (and looks squeaky), and Janeway’s off-duty garb is all neutral-toned soft loungewear — thoroughly fashionable for 2025, but I hate it. In principle I like Seven’s vaguely 1940s suit, but the execution is … cheap.
- It’s notable that all the guest workers we see, other than the Voyager crew themselves, are white. It’s a bit “dystopia is when bad things happen to white people which have been happening to people of colour for centuries”.
- This is entirely coincidental, but honestly, “doctors are misdiagnosing people with dysphoria in order to brainwash them” is a bit on the nose for 2025, and I wish I could go back in time and tell the writers to use another term.
In conclusion
This post is short and a bit sour because all the praise I heaped on part 1 also applies to this. It’s a good duology and you should watch it. Four and a half pancakes out of five.