It took seven years, but Tuvok finally gets rid of Neelix.
“Homestead” is a funny episode, because I have several conflicting opinions about it:
- I can’t believe we’re choosing now to shake up the main cast, with no time to explore the consequences (this is, of course, intentional)
- I can’t believe we’re shaking up the main cast via Neelix leaving instead of letting the Doctor have a different career
- I actually really like that Neelix finds a different path
- This also feels like Voyager’s fundamental conservatism rearing its head again
Let’s unpack.
Neelix finds his people
I do not hate that Neelix leaves to support and eventually lead a group of Talaxian refugees. He has been estranged from his culture of origin since before we met him, and has always seemed to yearn for a reunification — ideally on his own terms.
But there is something reductive about going, “Ah yes, Neelix has found his people in the biological sense.” Like, yes, shared history and culture, having memories of the same places, those are valuable and a big part of what draws him to this community.
And while this is very far from Voyager‘s worst depiction of a refugee community (that is a low bar), I do think it’s a problem that the Talaxians are so passive and unable/unwilling to defend themselves until Neelix inspires them.
These are fixable problems, and if I may put on my backseat showrunner hat for a moment, I’d make these small changes:
- it’s a multi-species group of refugees — a mini-Federation, if you will
- the Talaxians are largely pacifists, as Neelix was before his home was destroyed, and the community has just recently lost the leaders who were better at the strategic/tactical thing. Maybe some members have potential, but these are learned skills and they’re not there yet
I think I’ve just accidentally turned this episode into a two-parter, but you know what? Neelix’s farewell is worth it. And I can’t remember next week’s episode, but I’m sure we don’t need it.
I suppose I have to actually review the episode that exists, not the better version in my head — although let’s face it, half the joy of being a Voyager fan is coming up with the better version in your head — so I guess I will say that I think the Talaxian community is underwritten and, like the aliens last week, too dependent on The Same Old Star Trek Archetypes.
In fact, they’re such standard archetypes that, 22 years after this episode aired, Star Trek: Picard would dispose of one of its own regulars by marrying him off to a winsome immigrant single mother who works as a doctor and whose adorable son needs a father figure. (Frankly, Voyager did it better.)
When you realise that Neelix and Rios were written out of their respective Star Treks the same way
Is this actually a good ending for Neelix?
I like this ending for Neelix, but it feels like a strange choice for the only character who willingly left his home to travel to the other side of the galaxy. It’s possible that his embrace of every single culture aboard Voyager was an attempt to assimilate, and maybe overcompensation for what he has lost — but while there has always been element of the crying clown about Neelix, he has also been a character who makes his own home.
Perhaps that’s another argument for turning “Homestead” into a two-partner: Neelix’s decision to leave comes up rather suddenly.
And it unfortunately ties in with Voyager’s conservative subtext: we’re not boldly going, we’re going home, and the alien we picked up along the way can’t come.
I love that Neelix’s story ends with him taking on a leadership role, and reuniting with his people, but I don’t necessarily think it was done well.
I don’t actually think Tuvok put the leadership idea in Neelix’s head to get rid of him
But the interpretation did make me smile.
As sweet as Neelix and Dexa are, the real love story in this episode is between Neelix and Tuvok. The episode opens with a status quo which has been familiar for a long time — Neelix pushing Tuvok to dance, Tuvok refusing — but without the undercurrent of irritation which has been there in the past. They genuinely respect and like each other at this point, even if Tuvok is a truly terrible dancer.
Other observations
- This episode marks the final appearance of Naomi Wildman, and I do gotta say, just because a kid doesn’t need to be put to bed anymore doesn’t mean she’s ready for her godfather to dip out of her life forever!
- You know how we know that Dexa and Neelix are meant to be together? In her first scenes, she’s costumed like Kes. Later she dons some outerwear that changes her silhouette, but she is straight up wearing a reproduction of a Kes costume in her first scene.
- (It’s definitely a reproduction, not one of Kes’s original costumes, because apparently ugly fabric is a cultural Talaxian trait.)
In conclusion
I’m not convinced by this episode, but I am also fond of it. And the better version that exists in my head. Three winsome single mothers out of five.