Now Voyager
The Official Newsletter of the Kate Mulgrew Appreciation Society
Volume IV Number 2


Editorial Buzz

	I've never liked saying goodbye, so I'll make this brief.
	I'm resigning as president of Now Voyager, effective February 15,
1998. By that date, our form seeking tax exemption should be filed with the
IRS, so KMAS Inc. will be fully established as a self-sufficient entity.
Mary Taylor (who has been our business secretary for the past year) will be
taking over, by vote of the board of directors and with the approval of
Kate Mulgrew. Along with Joan Testin, who will remain vice president, I
will still be working on the newsletter.
	The biggest consequence of this change will be that the club's
address will be moving from Bethesda to Chicago. But otherwise I doubt
anyone will even notice the difference. The transfer of leadership should
be painless, since Mary has taken part in most of Now Voyager's business to
date. She has been in fandom for a long time and has done a lot of work
with Patrick Stewart's fan club; Kate has also met her several times. I am
personally indebted to Mary for getting most of our incorporation and tax
paperwork done.
	As to "why now," the new year seemed a good time to make the
change. I've been very busy with work and kids, and as the club has grown,
so have the complications. I've found it difficult to balance publication
and administration demands. I wanted to stick around through the completion
of the legal paperwork-the incorporation papers, the 1024-but now that the
end is in sight, I feel secure in leaving this corporation to a new
president. As the incorporator, I will remain on the board of directors,
but without an office.
	Now Voyager has several thousand dollars in the bank and several
items available for an auction to raise more, so our publication schedule
and charity fundraising should proceed smoothly. It takes a lot of work to
generate the kind of fan interest and enthusiasm which Now Voyager benefits
from. If I may say so, with gratitude to the people who have worked to
build it, I'm proud of this fan club and I hope you all are too. I know
that this organization generates a great deal of positive feedback for
Kate. I hope that the people who have been contributing will continue to do
so.
	I have a couple of additional announcements. With the overwhelming
support of all the officers, Beth Schuman has been conscripted to serve on
the board of directors (and I DO mean conscripted!) Anna Shuford sadly has
had to step down as membership director, leaving a mostly-finished guide
which Joan and I will finish by the spring issue.

NEW ADDRESS:
Now Voyager
P.O. Box 64539
Chicago, IL 60664-0539
KateClub@aol.com

I have a few personal thank-yous which I need to say publicly:
Joan: XOs to my XO. This club would not function without you.
Mary: Paperwork's a bitch, isn't it? Best of luck, and much gratitude!
Beth: Thanks for coming aboard, and thanks for staying. <g>
KMAS Board: Much appreciation for work above and beyond the call.
My fellow fan club presidents: For sharing your ideas and your work.
VoyVoy:  The times we joked together, the games on the holodeck...
JetC and Clinic Denizens: I think I'll miss the laughter most of all.
Deborah and Meri: For the lingerie. (Ahhh, let them wonder.)
Sashi, Rach, Alanna, Rhonda, Meisha, Gigi:  Staplers extraordinaire.
Barbara Hopton: A million thanks for a million small favors.
Kate: Good luck with everything, always. Happy new year all.

Michelle


Editorial Buzz, Part 2

	When I was in high school, a friend of mine was in the
"Carpenter's" fan club.  She used to receive newsletters and photos, and
talked about 'Karen' as though they were best of friends.  I used to watch
her with a slightly superior air, and wonder why anyone would ever be a
member of a club dedicated to lauding a celebrity.  My how times have
changed. But much as I love Janeway and am intruiged by the woman who
portrayes her, I wouldn't be a member of this club - certainly not as
active a member were it not for Michelle Green.  So before we allow her to
"ride offinto that good night..." I wanted to take a moment to say thank
you on behalf of all of us.
	Thanks for having the initiative, the time, the interest, and the
insanity to create "Now Voyager".  I'm sure that, when you spoke the fatal
lines "Kate Mulgrew Fan Club anyone?", I'm sure you had no idea of the task
you were undertaking.
	Thanks for developing the format and the high level of debate found
in this newsletter.  We are not a "gushy" crowd (though we do have our
moments), but one made of of folks with formidable intellect and a
committment to the promise of a world that Star Trek represents.  All of
that comes from the top, Michelle, and we will miss your drive, your rants,
your passion for wanting Janeway to be a fully-realized character.
	Thanks for your patience with fans who sent you numerous e-mails
and letters.  I heard some of the complaints, but your mailbox was often
full of folks whining about everything from a late newsletter to Kate's
lack of cons on the East Coast.  I know how often you tempered your
responses (not a natural personality trait by any means!).
	Thanks for taking the time to support Kate and Janeway on the
Internet.  Especially in the beginning, when all I read was flames and
negativity, it was refreshing to read notes of support for a character I
admired.  I know that there are many in this club who found their way here
because of your loyalty and erudition.  :-)
	Thanks for encouraging so many to share their talents with other
fans.  There are many regular contributors to this newsletter who had never
allowed their work out of the closet -- or the dresser drawer.  We have
been treated to wonderful stories, insightful articles, and beautiful
drawings.  And many of them inspired by your positive response to their
first tentative efforts.
	Thanks for the many hours devoted to all of the mundane tasks
involved in this endeavor.  Phone calls, trips to the post office and the
printer, setting up and maintaining a database and checking account, phone
calls to Kate's people to track down rumours of interviews and appearances,
organizing con meetings, creating flyers and business cards .... the list
goes on and on.  This day to day busywork is the real "perk" of running a
fan club and we know and appreciate it.
	Thanks for arranging for an orderly transition of management so
that, even though you are not at the helm, the ship will not founder.
	On a personal note, thanks for your friendship.  Who would have
thought a "boring Jewish housewife"  and an "innocent Catholic school
teacher" would have so much in common? (and no .... I'm not about to ruin
both our images by revealing those commonalities!) It's been lots of fun.

XO - Joan


Katewatch

Call to Action:  Govenor Pete Wilson's Conference for Women
October 30, 1997, Long Beach Convention Center

	Program Note: "Kate Mulgrew has carved out a career of
uncompromising integrity, consistently choosing to play characters of
strength, intelligence, indomitable spirit, deep humanity and unshakeable
self-esteem. While millions of U.S. viewers of Star Trek Voyager know her
as Captain Kathryn Janeway, Ms. Mulgrew is also enjoying great success
internationally, presenting a powerful and inspiring image of women to the
world at large. Recently invited to the White House as a role model for
young women, she was honored this month for her work for the Incarnation
Children's Center, a residential facility in New York for children with HIV
and AIDS.
	Kate first came on the scene as the luncheon hostess, introducing
Governor Pete Wilson (who welcomed everyone and introduced the five
scholarship winners) and Donna Lee Shirley, manager of the NASA Mars
Exploration Program at JPL in Pasadena (that's the Sojourner Mars mission
and the continuing exploration). I was with two non-Star Trek fans
(horrors!), both of whom commented on Kate's clipped, take-charge voice and
her stage presence. Both noted how small she was, and how attractive.
	We saw her later in her own, packed presentation room, where her
topic was "At The Helm But Down to Earth: A Personal Perspective." She was
introduced by Lucy Hood, senior vice president of entertainment publishing
for Harper Collins. My non-Trekker compatriots were duly impressed by
Kate's list of honors and accomplishments, known to most of us who follow
her career. While my position was great for Kate's talk, it was less than
great for taping all of the questions asked. What follows is what I could
pick up from my tape and the best I could decipher and/or piece together
from a faulty memory of the questions.
	Full of energy, Kate preferred to stand for her presentation - but
the microphone failed, and it appeared she'd have to sit. Disappointed, she
and Lucy, with a little perseverance, solved the problem by replacing the
podium mike with the one at Lucy's seat. Kate then took command of the
podium with a smile and frankly admitted to "not being as prepared as I'd
like, after staggering in at 2 o'clock in the morning after wrapping 'the
show'; but, since we're not prepared for life, it's all right. I'll just
speak freely, and honestly, about what's important to me, what I love and
what I hate."
	She did a background sketch: "I think happiness and good fortune
are 70% a roll of the dice. I'm the oldest daughter in a very large Irish
Catholic family. It's a very good position, it's tough, but it's great,
because Mother still has enough energy to talk to talk to you, to empower
you, and to put you in the position of being sort of the surrogate mother
position. She instills you and imbues you with confidence, and shows you
the way. She promises you that if you deliver for her, you will be great.
In an unspoken language between mother and daughter, she says the world can
be your oyster - if you give the children a bath and put them to bed." That
filled the room with laughter, which she enjoyed as much as we did.
	Amidst the agreeing nods, she continued, "...I know it's true
because...much of the drive and passion you're given happens because of
what you're given - when you are in one of the primary positions, in a big
household, that needs you desperately. My mother never told me I was
pretty...I could cry." We smiled with her sentiment. "You can't really
think about being pretty; it's a momentary position. 'First of all, honey,
it's boring; secondly, you're going to be too busy living, if you live the
way I expect you to live - pretty is the last thing you're going to need to
worry about.' My environment and my upbringing in that house, in that
splendid, complex and complicated family, got me ready for a life and a
journey that was well beyond anything I could have conceived of at the age
of ten."
	Kate spoke of the griefs in her family - two of her sisters died at
young ages - and how she wished she was gesticulating Italian instead of
Irish (to much laughter). This got her ready to leave home at seventeen. "I
went to New York City, and went to school at New York University in
conjunction with the Stella Adler Conservatory. I'm afraid...that
my...academic training is...is a bit of a joke - and when I told my father
I was going to go to school at NYU, I was really uptown at Stella Adler's
24 hours a day! And, it was there that it all began to take shape: both my
traditional life in Iowa, and my life as a young actress in New York. And,
I would say that my three life skills came into play for the rest of my
life. Those three life skills are Passion, Presence, and Discipline - with
a fourth, as sort of a p.s., but an important p.s. - that's Absurdity. You
know what I mean by Absurdity? You could be really great, a mover and a
shaker, but, if you're so bloody serious about life, you're just going to
put everybody in a coma, right?" Agreeable laughter again filled the room.
"Life IS absurd! This is a great mystery, is it not? You live, you die, and
in between is mystery! So, my dear parents taught me, it's absurd in the
sense that if you slip on a banana peel, you'd better be the first person
to crack a joke, you know. And if it's not you, conversely, you'd better be
the first person to help that person up. It's just an appreciation of the
beauty and anguish of life."
	Kate said that while one might have thought she wouldn't want
children, coming from so many, she wanted them desperately. "It was the man
I had a problem finding," she quipped, and every woman in the audience knew
what she meant, squirmed a bit, giggled a little, grimaced and sighed, then
broke into great peels of laughter as she continued, "I mean, not that I
was bored!" She married the associate artistic director of the Seattle
Repertory Theatre - "a Marxist, not that I understood much of what that
meant at the time, but it sounded good. Oxford educated." She got pregnant
on her wedding night. "And when I called my agent to tell him this - there
was the longest pause. And he actually said to me, and this is where I
understood the meaning of this conference [balance in one's life], 'I don't
think this is a good time to have a baby.' Now, listen, it gets better. I
asked 'Why is this not a good time to have a baby?' He said, 'Well, you
just did this mini-series which is great; and you just did this film, which
is going to be released; why don't you just take care of it...' and this is
where it's delicate language between an agent and actress [that] takes
place, when there's a baby in the bargain. I certainly understood what he
was suggesting, right? And I said, 'No! I'm relieved. I don't think that's
going to solve it, and I'm going to have this baby, and I'm going to stay
here in Seattle, so I can show my husband that I love him; and it's going
to be the beginning of another trade in life. In no way did I think this
had to preclude my life as an actress, but my agent did. And this was the
first dawning of 'Oh my God, do they honestly think that I'm going to
sacrifice one thing for the other?'" She did accept a play at that time, a
production of <i>Cat on a Hot Tin Roof</i>. When she told the director, he
said, "'We'll just put a big voluminous slip on you, and a hat, and no one
will know.'"
	"I said great, and I went to Syracuse, New York to do this play. I
had to find a doctor there. And I found him, and I went, and he gave me the
blood test, and he called me one afternoon at the theater. He said, 'I
think you should come and see me as soon as you can, there's something
wrong.' So I went over and I worried, Dear God, what was wrong with the
baby, what was going to happen to the baby? He told me, 'It's not the baby,
the reason I called today is there's something wrong with you - it's cancer
of the cervix and before it metastasises, we're going to have to get rid of
the baby.'" There were obviously many in the audience who had experienced
some similar situations. It was a silent, caring and concerned audience who
listened carefully, as the story continued. Kate acted out the next few
lines, drawing her watching audience into the situation as if each were
living it. "I said, 'You're the second one in about a month - it was very
nice talking with you, Doctor, and can you give me a referral?' I left and
found another doctor. And I told him, I-am-going-to-have-this-baby, can
that be understood; and it will all take care of itself. I had a wonderful
baby, and four weeks later I was pregnant again! Yes." Ok, you should have
seen the face she made then, but it had that Kate grin we've come to know
and love. The audience laughed and sighed with her again. The pause
continued and more laughter joined her own as she continued, "No, no, I'm
not a drug addict! Ok, I exaggerated, it was five weeks and I don't
remember how! So, I had both of these chaps, whom I absolutely adore!"
	"I think I am probably the only mother that I know of, although I'm
sure there are some in this audience today, who share an extraordinary
relationship with their pubescent sons. I always hear how difficult it is.
They're remarkable. Of course it's awkward; of course there are taboos and
secrets, and closed doors. But there's a friendship; a growth; there's a
deepening of the love between us. And, the whole thing is extremely joyful
to me. So, I have that always in my mind after my 16 or 17 or 18 hour day.
Now, after that 16, or 17,or 18 hour day, I do occasionally have sons who
are not in tears any more, those were agonizing years, but who will look,
or be rather pale." She said one of her sons was home sick. "I went into
him today and I said 'How sick are you?' He said, 'Well, I have the flu.' I
said, 'Well, I'm supposed to go to this women's conference, you know.' He
said, 'Yes, Mother, you should go; I think you should go and talk to people
because you'd bore me after about half an hour.'" Much laughter. "So I
said, 'All right, honey, I think it's all right.' He has said to me, 'It's
hard that you're not here; sometimes I miss you; sometimes I feel I'm not
getting the guidance that I need' - about which his father is terrific.
We've since divorced, but his father is a lovely, caring parent, and is
very hands-on with them. My rejoinder to my sons, when they feel the
sadness of my absence, is, 'I'm not going to apologize to you guys.' I'm
not going to make that mistake. I think that's a mistake that a lot of
mothers make, and they should button up or not go to work. I love the job
that I do. If you're half as well-loved, when you're my age, I will have
done more than enough."
	Kate said this seemed fair, but hard. "And I say to them, 'You're
going to have to help me, and girls your age. You're going to have to help
me as your mother, get through this transitional period of this age. Do you
understand what the word vanguard means? It's means we're in a place that's
new; we're pioneering. These are new paths and new roads; we have to help
each other: men must be shown compassion.' I think the biggest thing we're
missing now - in our incredible ascendency toward success, power, virtue
and passion - is we have to remember that men, for thousands of years, have
been helped by us at home. That was the job: mind the children, take care
of the house and the husband. Suddenly, in the mad, fantastic rush, we're
in the forefront! And we're asking men, in historical terms, in one split
second, to understand that we are their equals - financial, professional
and personal. And, I think it's too much for them! I'd hate it, if it were
the reverse, wouldn't you? 'Oh, hi, darling, would you get out your
appointment book, let's talk. Now, at 7 o'clock tomorrow night we'll have
dinner, but I can't see you for two weeks; could you take the kids...' It's
just scary, isn't it?" She said this as if she were the man: "'I thought I
was going to get a very pretty, lovely girl, right - what happened to all
my inculturation? I was promised - my mother promised me.'
	"So we have to help them. And they have to help us. I think this is
the greatest problem, the worst sacrifice we're making right now. There's
too much divorce. I know, I'm a victim of it. It's too much divorce,
because it's too hard to - talk. I guess it's too new; but, we have to push
through. We have to find a way to assure each other that, if we can just
navigate through this, rather than divorce, we will come to the shore.
That's my greatest concern about this equality. Not that women will rise.
Women will always rise, have always risen. Women are just great. Men are
just great. My greatest concern is that we don't let go of one another's
humanity as we make this journey."
	Kate then spoke of passion. "Never do anything for money. I never
have. I've been very lucky. My mother told me ' why don't you try to be a
great actress; and that means you're going to have to study hard, require
discipline, you're going to have to be true to your passion, and you are
going to have to be present to your life.' Present to your life, what does
that mean? That means, I'll give you a small but daily example, if I have a
sick child in bed, with the flu, and I have to get up and go to work, at
5:30 in the morning and I have to do nine pages of dialogue that day, and
then about 10:30 at night, when I am so tired, and so angry at the way it's
going - so slowly - knowing my child must be, by now, really sick in bed,
right? Has the housekeeper taken care of him, what is going on, has anybody
overseen the homework? I take a deep breath and I say, well, I have no
options. What are you going to do? Drive yourself nuts? Frantically run
from this to the phone, from the phone to the other, and back. Well, you
can't do it all. Do the scene. You're here, do the scene; and do the scene
like it's never been done before. Give it every single particle of your
being and, believe it or not, that completely relieves the urgency of that
anxiety - because you are so present. You're giving so utterly of yourself.
So passion and presence are very, very important. Discipline, probably, is
the key. The discipline to do it all. I think you are taught this. I don't
think it is a gift. I think my mother taught me this - how to get up, how
to stand on my feet, how to take some blows. And, I was not spoiled. So I
was very, very fortunate in that regard."
	"To my mother, I raise a glass. I'm a bit sorry now I didn't have
more [children]. And, I wonder, now, if I had had more, could I actually
have done all of this? And it wasn't like I wanted to stop, I just stopped
having them, you know what I mean. Just stopped. Oddest thing--maybe God
was telling me something. Friendship is very key; one of mine is here to
today - I don't have many deep friendships, but I value them as much as I
probably would any love affair, because they feed me. It is the community
of women: to learn, grow, share, compare, love and fall down - tomorrow is
another day. I'd say I have five great friends. It is terribly important to
me to maintain these friendships, so I'll get together with Barbara, who is
my assistant, at the beginning of the week, I'll say, 'When can I see Kate?
It's desperate that I see Kate.' Not just once a month, it's regularly that
I must see them. So I'd say friendship, mothering, [and] the family, the
whole family, [are] very important."
	The world is scary, Kate went on. "The world threatens, now, to
take me a little bit away from my last voice, which is my spirit - my
spirit for life, and I don't like that at all. You're all witnesses to
that, you know about this morning. I can get too tired, I can get too
tapped out, and then I'm no good for anything. But the problem is, every
year or so, this happens. So, you just keep going. I think we all just
become sort of passable human beings. The first thing to dry up is your
soul; the first thing you stop thinking about is other people, and that's
what you see when you think of that awful cliche of the actor, the movie
star, who gets too big, 'get me this and you do that,' who becomes
overwhelmly into it; there's nothing else to envision, because they're so
hungry. So there are a lot of women today who say 'I don't know how to
balance my personal life with my professional life.' I'd say, that's not my
big concern. Women have been doing that for thousands of years.  Quite
successfully. My concern is the balance between my worldly life and my
spiritual life, because it will all be for naught, if at 75, I'm Joan
Crawford. And I mean that, you know: 'Mommie Dearest.' It's only of value
to you, and to me, to the media, to television, to the numbers - if it's
genuine.
	And you'll be the first people, as my viewing audience, to
recognize when it becomes not genuine. In order to keep it genuine, I have
to stay real. I have to stay with it; I have to stay blessed; I have to
stay joyful. I have to go to Mass on Sunday. And for that 45 minutes,
remember, what Christ on the cross represents to me. The Holy Trinity, Life
everlasting, life is about God. I have to get out of myself. Then I have
enough to get on with the next week. But that is the greatest challenge to
me right now; and, this week is a very good example. It's a good day to
meet you all, and a good day to have your questions because I will not lie."
	She concluded her talk by saying, "I have a remarkable life. I love
Kathryn Janeway. I don't know any other actress, with the possible
exception of Meryl Streep, who can honestly say, 'I have lived my life,
looking for this character.' And this was, in my heart, a match made in
heaven. So I get to go to work, and meet up with somebodyI'm in love with.
It's not bad. This is a window in my life that's very precious -Where all
good things have come together. I'm cognizant of that, and I want to give
back. I want, not only to enrich myself, but my boy's lives, and the lives
of the people who watch me; so [when they watch me they can] look at me and
have some confidence in the fact that I will continue to try to be good, be
passionate and to be present, to be disciplined, and to be."
	Questions were next and there were many. Mikes were set up, but the
audience was reticent to use them. So, I'm going to paraphrase some and
I'll quote those I got clearly. Sorry about the gaps, but they were
unavoidable - small tape recorder and all that.
	"Why do you only send the main Bridge officer's off on away teams -
isn't that dangerous?" Kate laughed and said it was "an oft-discussed
question, but they are the leads! Yes, it seems like they are only a crew
of 4-9 people, but with that size cast, they HAVE to be the ones to move
the story forward. No one would watch if it was the supporting cast." She
used the following example: "Robbie is always complaining that Seven of
Nine is commanding the shuttle when he's the pilot. The answer: She's
better looking, brings in more viewers. That's the answer - ratings.
Ratings! It was a huge gamble for Paramount to take. A noble one, and a
bold one, and I (kisses blown) thank them. It was Roddenberry I think. I
think he probably said, 'You know what, it's time; when you guys have
enough guts, and there's enough money in the bank, go for the girl. And
let's just see, because I believe, in the 24th Century it will be
appropriate. So, it came to pass. Seven of Nine - well you've seen her."
[Laughter] Ok, we could go on and on, but we need, and we need very much, a
large male, young male demographic. And, I have a little theory about this:
I think they like Captain Janeway very much, right, and I know the women
and their daughters do, and I think the older men do - geriatric boys
[laughter - it was, after all a conference of women and we were allowed to
make a little fun of the guys ogling the girlies!] But the young boys look
and me and go 'I don't want to look at my MOTHER in the Captain's seat.' So
they thought they'd put some really beautiful, provocative, smart, scary
character in - the Borg. She's beautiful, and she is smart; and it's a
ratings draw. It has to be in order to let go of one of the other major
characters, which they had to do. Good, but tough on us, very tough on me.
This is where I don't do well in the corporate world. Not my cup of tea to
watch it, or suffer through it. But I hope that this change will be good."
	Why did Kes have to leave? "It'd be too many in the company. It's
an ensemble of 9. And we shoot 26 sequences in a year. In order to service
every one of those characters to some degree, you're lucky if, for some of
the characters, they get two shows a season. The Captain has to run the
ship, and the rest have to be fit in. It became a situation of urgency.
And, I think Kes was confusing to a lot of people; certainly her
relationship with Neelix."
	Mentors? "I think I'm the only actress who's truly passionate about
her craft to say there is no other actress that I look up to. I look up to
my mother and I look up to my teacher, Stella Adler. She believed in one
word, and the practice of that word, and that word was Epic. She used to
make me get down on the floor and grab me by the hair. It was quite
violent, great, and she'd say, 'you know you're from Iowa. We have to take
the mediocrity out of you and put the epic back in. So, I see my world as
Epic. I think that's why they picked me for the Captain. You know I was up
against the foremost, talented actresses in the business for the part. In a
audition situation, you have 10 minutes to show your stuff and that's it.
It's like a prize fight. I think they probably just saw 'Epic.' She'll
stand on those feet, by God, and she'll do it."
	Does she feel guilty leaving her children? Kate first asked, how
many women in the room felt guilty. Several hands wentup, along with some
chuckles. "Guilt is human, isn't it; it'll probably be stamped on our
caskets. I periodically visit the abbess in a Trappestine convent, because
she's very lovely, and she's a contemplative nun, so I have to make an
appointment. I went to see her in June to talk about secular issues and
spiritual life and feeling guilty. She looked at me - she looked at me,
quizically, and she said 'guilt is a mortal sin, don't you know that. Let
it go; thank you very much, have a great day.' Baggage. It's unnecessary
baggage, and if you are filled with guilt, stay home! Make a choice! Save
yourself a life of agony."
	Do she get any input into story lines? "Compliments to Rick Berman
and the very good writing staff, it's hard to come up with epic ideas.
They're hearing that word every week, and they are very receptive to our
pitching ideas. The closer we come to a real harmony with our characters
the more responsive they are to it. I get more involved in character
development: if I feel they've made an inappropriate choice for Janeway,
I'll jump on it. I have to watch my interpersonal relationships on board.
You really want to watch this relationship with Seven of Nine. I know when
we have a turkey, because usually they are so good."
	Spiritual life and secular life conflict? "Well, yes; and I've been
put to the test. Let's see, when I was offered the role on "Heartbeat" [she
explained the part - founder of a woman's clinic, doctor, for those not
familiar with the series]. I was so excited. I'd signed the contract; she
was a wonderful woman; she was a pioneer; she had courage, she was kind;
she set a tone...the first episode came to my house, and it was me
performing an abortion! Thank God for absurdity. I had to laugh. At my own
stupidity! 'Kate, what made me think they wouldn't write about this; she's
the founder of a woman's clinic? Now you've got to go an resign!' So I
went, in my new car, to Shapiro's house, and I said, 'I'll be very frank;
you're going to have to get another woman...I'm very, very sorry, but I
can't; we didn't discuss this and...' She looked at me; you know who Ester
Shapiro is - a mover and shaker in the business, and a smart woman! And our
paths are very different She said, 'Wait just a second, we can work it out'
- and - in my entire tenure on that show, I was never asked to compromise
my principles. And that was great luck; but that was Luck. It could have
easily have come out differently."
	I didn't get the whole of the next bit, however, it amounted to a
nude scene being written into an otherwise great script, where she was
asked to come out of the water naked. "Do you want to make money on this
picture?!" Kate laughed and the audience laughed with her. Then she said
she told them, "I'm sorry, I cannot do this; but my mother just won't let
me do this!" Much more laughter - with her. "So it does happen, fame and
celebrity need equal scrutiny. Everything in moderation is probably not my
way; I have to keep very vigilant here. It's extremely odd about fame and
celebrity, isn't it. It threatens to make me somebody I'm not...like
Captain Janeway - financier!"
	Any plans for a movie? "They're making another TNG movie right now.
I think Stewart made something like $55 million. It depends on longevity,
and our success. At the end of the sixth season they'll decide where we
are. If we're given a seventh season that would be a very good sign there
would be a movie. I'm not sure how I would feel about a movie. Could I kill
the previous Captain in my movie? [Laughter] I think it would be fun to do
one of those movies."
	Anything off-putting about fandom? This was all very difficult to
hear, but Kate was very complimentary of the fans, considering them smart,
involved in their lives as well as the show, and otherwise normal. She did
have concerns for the obsessive fans, as a part of the psychology of fans
she doesn't understand. She has been put off by stars who won't acknowledge
their fans - "why did you come to Hollywood; why did you make that film?
That's the relationship!"
	Weight regime, diet? "I'm bad, very bad, I hope no one read about my
'fitness routine.' White wine; white wine; white wine. [Laughter galore -
and nods - and applause] I do jump in the pool as often as I can. I'm very
fit. I'm blessed with a good constitution. I don't eat very much. I never
eat sugar. I eat salt, what I want, fat [moans and laughter]. I live! You
have to live, don't you! Then, but I have to squeeze into that spacesuit!
Monday mornings are the worst, you know."
	What do your sons think of Captain Janeway? "My oldest son thinks
she's a sort of geek. And my youngest son really digs her, because he
watches it, criticizes, and he's very involved. But, Ian is 13; and he may
be giving me another message: this is great, and I'm proud of you mom, but,
you are my mother, let's not confuse it around the house. So when I hear
'Voyager's on,' and I hear doors slam - well!" [Laughter]
	Would you like it if your sons became actors? "I'd be very pleased
if they attempt that - as long as they are good at it. I don't want them
to...go to Hollywood right off; I want them to be trained, to be educated.
I want them to read, to think, I want them to suffer, right. I want them to
be good actors. I want them to think of and add to the culture. I think
Alexander may, my young one... I'd be proud to see it. I often hear from
parents, [paraphrasing: negatives about the life in the business] I ask
'aren't you happy being an actress yourself? Then why did you choose it?
Why would you choose something where you're miserable?' I wouldn't mind if
mine did."
	What about missing things like pot lucks and plays and parents'
nights? "I don't go to them. I go [to the school] and explain this is
what's going to happen. I'll go to parents' day, but I skip the pot lucks,
I'd always get the salads anyway. But I don't miss the big ones, not so far
anyway. [The powers that be are] very good about it. They understand they
have a captain that's a mother. It's a first for them. They've had two guys
there, right. They've never had these concerns, and I'd say, they're very
good. Rick [Berman] is a father, and a good one."
	What do you do in the off season? "I hunt! [laughter] I only have
about six weeks. I spend 2 weeks on a trip with the boys - had a great trip
last time - when we got back on the plane, this is the moment a mother
waits for - oldest son, very self contained - looked at me with tears -
'it's over, it won't come again'. But, this year - safari! Africa! That's
what we do, for two weeks, I take them somewhere special, just us. Then, if
I'm lucky, I get to take a week with my sweetheart - to have a ridiculous,
fun filled - well. [sly smile] Then, I take a week for myself, and then I
come home just to a normal life. I love the domestic life."
	Have you met the other captains? Did they give you advice? "Of
course I've met them, and Of COURSE they've given me advice! [Laughter]
They're nice guys, but there tends to be a little paranoia [more laughter]."
	A young woman asked about becoming an actress. "Are you in college?
Is theatre your major? Live in L.A.? Parents supportive. Very lucky! Go to
the theater and train. Go to Julliard or one of the other fine schools.
Learn the trade, the craft, and make you way in the theater. Because that
has something you'll never be disappointed in, if it's your life. The
greatest tragedy, the greatest sorrow in Hollywood, is when you hold up
fame and celebrity and gain and notoriety as your only accomplishments, you
will be disappointed. You are going to get old and overlooked. The world is
going to change...and if you can't stand on a stage, and say Shakespeare,
you're going to be one those 'what happened to...' people."
	The next question had to do with Kate's spiritual choices where she
replied she was Catholic, but it was everyone's personal choice. The woman
continued to speak of Kate's movie of Elizabeth Seton as her favorite. Kate
explained who Seton was - America's only female saint, then she continued:
"I was very fortunate to play her. I think I was too young to play her, I
was 23, right after Mrs. Columbo. Wasn't that odd, from Mrs. Columbo to
Saint Elizabeth Seton? Life's incredible. I'd like to play her again, now.
She was my age now when she died. I think it requires some depth to play
that role, but it's a fascinating story. They didn't want me. ABC Circle
Films, the producers, particularly the executive, did NOT want me. They
wanted a BIG star. I was very low on everyone's list - except the
director's, a good man; he said, 'you don't want her, you don't want me.'
It was sort of a mystical experience from beginning to end. I loved playing
that role. I loved playing Rachel Manion in Manions of America. But, mostly
it comes from the theater. I love playing them."
	Three of us tried to get this question - no luck, but here's what
we got of the answer: "Why would the men not have a problem after thirty
years of a man in the Captain's seat?! In comes the tiny, bossy woman...I
had to really seduce them, in the best sense of the word."
	Responsibility? "At no other time in my life have I ever felt the,
overwhelming responsibility of the whole world for myself and as Captain
Janeway. I know that there is immediate, and sometimes important concerns.
The outcropping and by-products of the fame are so cultural - and I'm
grateful for those, for instance at the White House three years ago,
honoring women in science from all over the world, and they had chosen, and
it has to do with today, because these were women at the top of their
fields, and they were being honored. One of them came up to me and said, 'I
just wanted you to know, I switched my major because of you, and now I'm in
physics.' And that's just intense; so, I have to do what I do well, because
it's serious!"
	Does she ever want to direct? "No; I fall in love with directors.
[Laughter] I don't think I want to be one. You know what spatial sense is.
I lack it. If I speak to you, although I see the women around you, I really
focus on you. A director is paid, no only to see you, but the scenery and
unseen reaction in back, the whole scene and be a 'jack of all men."
Anyway, I love to act so much. It's quite enough."
	About Throw Mamma From the Train: "Actually that was a great
program! Things were not going particularly well in my career at that time,
I don't think, and certainly, not in the field of comedy. I was well
regarded as a serious dramatic actress, and not regarded for comedy - and
that was high comedy, playing Billy Crystal's wife. Danny DeVito, as you
know, directed it. He had the auditions, and the first time we'd ever met;
he said 'why don't you just lay down on the couch and give it a whack.' So
I did, and he said 'so, I'll see you Monday morning 8 o'clock.' I said
'What?' He said 'Done.' Great, huh! He's an actor, right, and it was great
fun to do it, but hardly earth-shattering."
	What Shakespeare role would she most like to play? "Lady Macbeth. I
feel like her already. [Laughter] There's a lot of Shakespeare I'd like to
play. Time is marching on, isn't it."
	Question: "One of the things I love about your role as Capt.
Janeway is that you have instigated the feminine side of yourself into this
very powerful, traditionally masculine role. Have you had an influence in
that or was it written into the part?" Kate said, "Early on, it was quite
clearly left out of the part. And I tell you this, I wasn't expected to do
this. It happened. I can't avoid it. I happen to BE a woman, and in my
meanderings I will have feelings; I'll be with them; there will be
laughter. Kate Mulgrew is Janeway, what is real and what is true, and they
were very nervous about that, and that's different than the other Captains.
I mean, let's face it, Captain Picard was hugely successful, and for good
reason; but, he was not the most tactile. He wasn't the most passionate.
And so that is what is different about my approach that is different, from
the beginning. [I am] kind and honest, and they see that. Everybody is
concerned about one thing only, and that is 'will she or won't she.' And I
can have my thoughts, and my talks, and I can have my long looks at
Chakotay." [Smiles and laughter]
	Did she ask for the relationship with Seven of Nine...is it
mothering or nurturing? "Truth day, again, I'm 42 year old, and I have been
running this ship four seasons. I've had been loved for four seasons. In
walks a beautiful, provocative, impulsive, talented, radiant Borg.
[Laughter] I had to get over myself a little bit. A daily challenge. I like
her enormously! She's good as gold, Jeri Ryan. And, I think she'll be good
for the series. It's all about change. I think - I'm a Taurus, you know -
change is hard for us. But I think this one will be very good. I just have
to open myself up and let go a little bit; but, I think I think it's good,
quite appropriate. It changes daily for Janeway too. I mean, let's face it,
this girl is moving in."
	"You didn't mention your father. Did he have any influence on you?"
Kate looked shocked. "I was in love with him! I really do love my father. I
think my father doesn't have the drive for life that my mother has. My
father is a poet. My father wondered how he had eight children. [Laughter]
My father's a deep poet; but I think my mother is more life-oriented. And,
today, he's happy now with my decisions. But, if anything, I suppose he
gave me my soul. He certainly gave me my livelihood. And I love my father
very much. I love men! I had a lot of brothers. And I never had that
problem who I suppose girls who didn't have brothers, or who were only
children, had problems - I think men are just great! And highly
underestimated."


Christmas Parade, Hollywood
November 30, 1997

	Christmas Parade...the El Nino version. It poured on the souls that
participated and watched. I almost went...glad I didn't.
	Kate and Tim were on the Budweiser/Muscular Dystrophy float that
was pulled by the world-famous clydesdale team. Didn't see too much of Tim
and Kate never once surrendered the microphone to him so that hosts Leeza
Gibbons and Bob Eubanks could talk to him.
	Kate mentioned something about there not being horses in the Delta
Quadrant and then when Leeza said something about her (Kate) being the
first female captain of Star Trek and Kate said "yes...mumble mumble
mumble...will be assasinated, the first female captain." I don't know, I've
replayed the tape a few times now and it doesn't make sense. Bear in mind
that Our Kate was trying not to fall out of the sleigh as it jerked around
when the horses stopped and then started back up. Between trying to grab
the driver's seat, holding onto the umbrella and trying not to drop the
microphone, she definitely had her hands full. She did stumble once and
Leeza told Tim to hold onto her.
	Fashion: Black beret that looks like the one she wore to the con
that her mother attended with her, taupe colored long coat, black scarf, no
gloves (brrrrrr, cold hands!) and gold dangle earrings that I have seen her
in many times. Maybe we should all pitch in and buy her a new pair of
earrings for Christmas.  Oh, yeah, Tim had on a brown jacket.
	Reporting to you live from the West Coast, this is Annmarie signing
off and
wishing you and yours a warm and happy holiday season
and remember, Don't Drink and Drive.

BE:  Happy Holidays you guys!

K:  Hi you,  we're great!  You know we don't have horses in the Delta Quadrant.

BE:  Isn't this fun?

K:  it's so much fun

BE:  But aren't you the first captain aboard ship?  The first female captain.

LG:  Yes. You know, we were all cheering.

K:  The first female captain. You'll be assassinated. The first female
captain. Aye!  (nearly falling over) Merry Christmas!  (she waves)

LG:  You need somthing to hold onto there. Tim, hold onto her there, all right?

K:  I will (waving and laughing)

BE:  Hang on Tim.  Happy Holidays!

--Annmarie Daneker


United Fan Con, Springfield, MA
November 1-3, 1997

	The main guest at United Fan Con was Roxann Dawson, who plays
B'Elanna Torres on Voyager. Dawson is warm, funny, vivacious and much
prettier without her Klingon ridges. As she dashed on stage, you could
hardly tell she was pregnant until she patted her belly and introduced us
to her daughter-to-be. Dawson has the same due date as Robbie McNeill's
wife, who is expecting a boy. With her hectic schedule, she rarely watches
TV but manages to find time for Mad About You because of the baby
storylines. When asked whether she'd picked out a name for the baby, she
mentioned that Worfette and Janeway were suggested. Voyager's producers
decided to hide her pregnancy, because they decided that an accidental
pregnancy in the 24th century would seem both irresponsible and
implausible. To hide her condition, the producers have given her an
engineering smock and she's learned to thrust her hands into her pockets at
certain times. She'll also be spending a lot of time in Sickbay as her
pregnancy progresses.
	At the beginning of each session, Roxann took out a notebook and
proceeded to give us answers to the most commonly asked questions. Just to
test our knowledge, she quizzed us on day two! In case you don't know this
already, her makeup takes 2.5 hours, most of her love scenes have been a
dream except the ones with Robbie, a J/C love scene in an upcoming episode
was written out, Kate is the most prompt but Garrett is always late,
Beltran flubs the most lines, Ethan moons them, and Tim Russ plays the most
practical jokes. In fact, Tim recently pulled a prank that made it to a
final take. There is an upcoming show where Tuvok is in a dream state and
appears on the bridge without a stitch of clothing. Although we are led to
believe he is naked, Tim is actually wearing underwear. According to
Roxann, Tim visited the makeup department and acquired a a fairly large
prosthetic which he wore to the bridge. The bridge crew's stunned reactions
supposedly made it to film, so look for this in an upcoming episode. Tim
has also hinted that he might show up with his Afro wig and boombox playing
the Shaft theme.
	I asked Roxann if she had any favorite episodes and she told us
that Faces was her most challenging role since it came so early in Season
One. She also liked The Thaw and some of this season's early episodes. On
the Paris/Torres front, she is real happy with the way things are going but
she wants to see many different facets of their relationship explored.
Their path will have some bumps, and she wants to see how a strong,
independent woman reacts to this relationship. Dawson had many nice things
to say about Robbie, but she was especially happy with the way he's reacted
to her pregnancy. As for her fellow actors, she likes to work with all of
them. She'd like to have more interaction with Kate, and she's had a lot of
fun working with the Doctor. Picardo said if he and B'Elanna had a love
child, it would be one giant forehead. Numerous people asked her about
Jennifer Lien's departure, and she gave the company line about a mutual
decision between Lien and the producers. Someone asked why Kate changes her
hair so often and Roxann said they have a great salon on Voyager and that
comments on Kate's hair could fill a book in itself. Jeri Ryan's character
adds a lot of spice to the show and Roxann enjoys sparring with 7 and says
it's too bad she has to wear such baggy clothes. She told us a particularly
amusing tidbit that revolves around her pregnancy. In their effort to hide
her belly, Roxann can no longer wear her heels and must hide behind
convenient consoles. In one scene where she was standing next to Jeri, they
asked Roxann to lean further forward because Jeri's breasts were blocking
her mouth when she talked!
	When Roxann first auditioned for her role, she didn't know what
Klingons looked like and she wasn't a Trek fan. Once she landed the role,
she watched some TNG episodes and read some Trek books. The makeup we see
now is not the original design. In fact, one of the earlier designs was a
cross between Elvis and Worf. Dawson looked so thoroughly Klingon that she
cried when she saw herself in makeup. She was one of the first people to
audition for the role and one of the first people cast. When she went home
to describe the character's amazing temper and habit of destroying things
to her husband Eric, he said it sounded just like her. Technobabble used to
be difficult but now makes sense when she says it. She is not afraid to
approach the writers about her character and has managed to change things
she disagrees with. Dawson has also pitched stories and is part of the
director's program. Because of her pregnancy, she will postpone her
directorial debut till next season.
	Roxann's biggest idol is Katharine Hepburn, but she tries not to
have too many favorites. During her stint on Broadway in A Chorus Line,
Hepburn attended and Roxann remembers that her performance suffered because
she was so self-conscious and knew just where Hepburn was seated. She also
co-starred in Nightingales, a show about nurses who spent more time  out of
uniform than in them. Although she loves playing B'Elanna, she doesn't like
to watch herself because she's extremely self-critical.
	Since the audience was mostly adult and Roxann's character has
become romantically linked, she talked about sex, especially on the second
day. She somehow got involved in a discussion about the Voyager crew and
their sex lives, and says that so far, everyone must either be a saint or a
eunuch. Love scenes are easier to do with guest stars, because they come
and then they leave. After laughing over that double entendre, she went on
to explain that it's difficult to do love scenes with the regular cast
because the guys are all like brothers to her. Her love scene with Beltran
in "Persistence of Vision" had a lot of takes because they couldn't stop
laughing.
	With the long, tiresome hours spent on the Voyager set, you'd think
Roxann would have little time to spare, but she's managed to co-write a
science fiction trilogy and add her voice to John DeLancie's Alien Voices
series. Along with Leonard Nimoy and John, she performed Lost World in
front  of a live audience, and it should be released soon. Dawson also
wrote a play that was performed at the University of Minnesota and was
nominated for an award. In summary, Roxann Dawson was a wonderfully
spirited and enjoyable guest, and I highly recommend her to anyone who
hasn't seen her.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz


Reviewzzzzzzzz

SCIENTIFIC METHOD

	Love 'em or hate 'em, the Voyager writers get your attention, don't
they?  "Scientific Method" is bound to be one of those episodes that splits
fans  down the middle. For example, the Paris/Torres relationship has never
worked for me, but some people think they're just too cute for words. And
what about Janeway? Has she ever been such a bitch? I suppose I should cut
her some slack. If someone was sticking porcupine needles in my head, then
I'd be hell on wheels, too. Still, everything she did was extreme, from the
way she dressed down Paris and Torres to her overly Kirkian order to shoot
for the stars. Her challenge achieved the intended result, but it was
wildly out of character when compared to previous seasons. If Janeway's
ultimate goal is to get her crew home, then why does she constantly put
their lives in jeopardy? Extreme behavior is sometimes necessary, but she
seems to be falling into a disturbing groove this season.
	As for the crew's new faces, mutant Chakotay makes a great
companion piece for mutant Tom, don't you think? And have you ever seen a
more boring scene than that snoozefest at the very end? Paris and Torres go
from mauling one another in public to acting like an old married couple
who've learned their lesson. I really wished I liked them together, because
as individuals, they are fine. I guess we should be thankful they've called
off the J/C relationship. If you remember those treacly sentiments from
"Coda," then you know what I'm talking about.
	Although the idea of turning Voyager  into a giant petri dish is
intriguing, the TNG writers have been there and done that with much more
finesse. We have yet another nameless pack of pointy-eared aliens with
malicious intentions, and you just know that KJ will triumph. Yawn. Voyager
has turned into Trek Lite. In their ongoing quest to lighten the mood and
embrace the adventure, they've subverted the characters we grew to love in
Season One.  Only Tuvok and the Doctor have remained consistent; the rest
of the crew have multiple personality disorder. This is all rather sad, but
the excuse that there's too much Trek is wearing mighty thin. The main
problem is the Voyager writing staff, namely Brannon Braga, and I hear that
he's taking over when Jeri retires. His cavalier attitude is insulting and
offensive and he discounts the intelligence of the viewing audience. In a
recent interview, he admitted that he could not care less about continuity
and seems convinced that serious Trekkers ignore Voyager. As for the rest
of us Internet whiners, we know what they think of us. Lisa Klink may have
penned this, but I ultimately blame Braga for messes like this one.
	On a purely superficial and moronic level, this was enjoyable. Jeri
Ryan continues to grow as a character, and teaming her up with the
Emergency Medical Hologram provided lots of fun. To give credit, I have to
admit that Kate Mulgrew did a fine job with what they gave her. In one of
this week's few good moments, she chastised people who spend too much time
on the holodeck. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! In summary,
Voyager's writing takes a definite step down in this oh-so-forgettable
drama.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	This was a great Halloween episode! The eerie feeling of being
watched and the wonder of the unexplored kept me tuned in as the story
unfolded. Aside from that, the makeup for our mutated crew members was very
well done, as usual. Poor Chakotay reminded me of Tom Paris in "Threshold,"
in one of the stages of his transformation.
	Not only was this a great episode in time for Halloween, but it was
simply good Trek, which means there's a moral to the story. Isn't it
amazing how Janeway felt about her crew being tested? Well, no. Not really.
If today's lab rats could communicate with us, they'd surely react in a
similar way. This episode taught one great lesson -- the phrase "do unto
others as you would want done unto you" was wisely used.
	 I wasn't thrilled with Janeway's "reckless" plan to ward off the
aliens, but on the second viewing, I realized that this was her way of
letting the visible alien know how much these experiments did affect her.
After all, how many of us would gently forgive and forget someone who was
inflicting stress, insomnia, and headaches intentionally and without
permission -- for experimentation? No real need to take a poll, is there? I
most certainly would feel violated by being a lab rat.
	"Scientific Method" is a great new episode to lead us into November
sweeps month. From what we've had thus far, season four is a knockout! I'm
sure we have some remarkable things in store. Here's to next week!

--Charlynn Kate Smith

	"Scientific Method" is certainly in good company. It's one of those
Trek episodes where nasty aliens manipulate the crew in the name of
scientific experimentation, like TOS's "The Empath" or TNG's "Where Silence
Has Lease" or "Voyager's" "Faces." It also involved an invisible threat
which altered people's personalities and perceptions, like TOS's "Day of
the Dove" or TNG's "Schisms" or DS9's "Dramatis Personae" or "Voyager's"
"Persistence of Vision." Seven got to use her nifty technology to see
things no one else could, like Data did in "Phantasms," and Janeway got to
threaten to fly the ship into a star, like Kirk did in "Operation:
Annihilate" --
	Have I made it clear yet that "Scientific Method" is so derivative
as to be utterly uninteresting, other than from a perverse desire to see
what nasty things would happen next? The directing made good use of the
sets and lighting, the effects were interesting (though not as much fun as
having a crew member turn into a cake), and the costumes and makeup were
sublime -- I particularly liked seeing the Doctor in leggings, not to
mention Janeway in a towel. And it was a relief to know that Paris and
Torres were not kissing open-mouthed, as the mid-osculatory alien x-ray
proved. But the
plot -- well, it was drivel.
	As Tom said, maybe the aliens tricked him and B'Elanna into making
out in public, but maybe they wanted to all along, considering that they
did practically the same thing when they first kissed. And maybe the evil
aliens did turn Janeway into a shrew with a nasty case of PMS, but
considering that she acted similarly in "Persistence of Vision," maybe it's
the show's writers who did that to her. They're obviously worried enough
about her gender being a problem that they won't let her have a love life.
When are they going to realize that they can't keep making her look
incompetent, even if they blame aliens who take over her ship or her brain,
if they want people to take her seriously in command? I think hysteria is
her true personality once that wall of repression comes crashing down. My
favorite moment in the whole episode was when she growled to Tuvok that
crew members were spending too much time on the holodeck, then in the next
breath announced that she wanted a vacation there.
	That's this season's Kathryn, demanding that everyone else give
110%, yet insisting that she needs to hide herself in ancient history for
some down time. She tortures herself enough that I have to believe she
enjoys it. She tests her own tolerance for misery all the time, refusing to
bond with her crew, getting backrubs from her EMH instead of her Angry
Warrior. She was reasonably tough gambling all their lives on a game of
intergalactic chicken, but we've seen Kirk and Picard make similar
decisions without having to be half-crazed. This woman scares me -- I
expect her to crack up at any moment. And that makes me furious. If the
writers can't give her a life, can't they at least give her a break?
	In this episode, the fearless first officer was mostly wasted on
dreadful comic relief which reflected the series' condescending attitude
toward age -- no one in that universe is allowed to have decalcified bones
or spotted skin. They're all supposed to look like Seven of Nine. Seven was
not only curvaceous but quite good here, as she has been all season, but I
am starting to resent the fact that she seems to have gotten all the brains
and control which Janeway and Torres have lost, not to mention the Special
Power which enables her to save the ship, just like Kes in "Persistence of
Vision." I realize that Seven's the hot new babe whose body is supposed to
bring in the ratings, but (I reiterate for the hundredth time) I miss the
old characters, and I suspect that not even Seven's figure will keep
viewers watching without strong stories.

--Sara Unger

	"Scientific Methods" felt like filmed fan fiction, and what bad
fanfic it was, too. I spent most of the episode laughing hysterically at it.
	I do NOT like this Janeway. I don't care what the aliens did to
her. I thought she was trying to make the ship a family. Now she's gone
ramrod military, no fraternization, no way, no how. This is not the Janeway
who wanted to play pool with the crew. (You know, I just had a flash from
The Empire Strikes Back. Another pointy-eared critter, with a weird sense
of humor, saying, "You are RECKLESS.")
	Back to ticked-off Janeway. (Hey there's a new action figure for
you.) Someone needs to tell her that to clothesline someone you must put
your arm under the chin against the neck, thus cutting off air flow.
Pressing your arm against the breastbone won't get you anywhere, unless
your opponent is nice enough to walk backwards and press himself against a
wall.
 	On to another hot topic this season, Seven of Nine's outfit. It's
amazing what a fabric change will do. This is  the EXACT same pattern as
the silver. The heels are the same. The corset boning is the same. The
boobs are the same. It's just brown velour. Babe camouflage?
	I said this back when "Real Life" aired and I'm seeing more folks
agree with me that there is NO chemistry between Robbie and Roxann. None,
zilch, nada. Please, somebody break them up and let them be "just friends"
real soon. (During the x-ray kiss, I was sitting there going, "Ew ew
ewwwww.")
 	The Old Fart vs. the Spotted Skunk scene I found mildly amusing,
mainly because I play the same game of malady one-up-manship. (Hey my
vision's worse than Chak's and I've got a fused spine. And I'm not even 30
yet.)
 	This was an "eh" episode overall, brought down by juvenile antics
and out-of-character characterizations. But it did have the Doctor in
tights, so I guess it can't be all bad.

--Rachel Wyman

	Sensors are showing that we have new episodes once again, with the
Janeway drought officially ending.  Sprinkles currently falling with a
chance of full showers in the near future.
	Aliens who leave their mark with little scan-able UPC symbols on
DNA?  Janeway snapping and snarling at people?  Turning her back on
celestial phenomena?  This was an excellent episode... up until the
anti-vivisection debate.  Then it became just a good episode.  But, with
Star Trek being Star Trek, I guess you have to learn to accept these little
things.
	Jeri Ryan looks like she might be a little more comfortable these
days with Catsuit #3.  It seems as though the Doctor has removed those
wicked-looking implants from her stomach, so now she can sit and squat with
the best of them.  And speaking of the Doctor and Seven of Nine, I'm glad
they haven't forgotten him as they find ways to make her a contributing
part of the community.  The writers must have made themselves aware of
fans' concerns with the changes.
	There were some nice bits of interaction between crewmembers.
Torres chomping at the bit to rip into Seven of Nine before she sobered was
great.  But that was until Chakotay and Neelix, as the grumpy old men,
tried to outdo each other.  A friend of mine remarked, "Just whip it out,
boys."
	As much of a Paris/Torres fan that I am... as cute as they were...
okay, as really cute as they were... and even though Janeway was under an
extreme amount of external stress, she was absolutely correct to discipline
her officers.  As the ship's Flight Officer and Chief Engineer (two
important positions), they were acting way irresponsible.  Dangerous
site-to-site transports, nooners in Engineering, and "beaucoup" PDA!  Of
course, with all of the damage that the ship incurred as a result of
Janeway's recklessness, the couple's dinner date will probably be their
last chance to get together for awhile.  Giving Torres work to do is one
way to solve the problem.
	[Voyager figured out how to write its episodes.  It figured out how
to take full advantage of the talent available.  Now if it can just figure
out how to match the episodes with the calendar, thus decreasing the need
to arbitrarily throw in rebroadcasts so that the Halloween-like episode
airs near Halloween and the big two-parter gets used for sweeps month, then
all will be right throughout the kingdom.]

-Rhonda E. Green

	Ah, an eerie episode for Halloween.  Didn't we already see this in
"Persistence of Vision"  --  Janeway irritable and snapping at everyone,
senior officers neglecting their duties for sex, invisible aliens "doing
what they do," and the doctor and the newest crew member saving the day --
again?  And through it all, a giddiness that seemed out of proportion to
the seriousness of what was really happening.
	Granted, the kind of pressure Janeway was under would drive anyone
to the edge, and I watched in horrified fascination as her self-control
slipped away.  Kate Mulgrew did a marvelous job of convincing me that
Janeway was losing it, and the makeup people made her look realistically
frazzled and even sickly.  The alien experiments certainly explain why she
was too tired and distracted to even pretend interest in an anomaly that
could endanger the ship (And what's with her first officer doing nothing
more than giving her a puzzled look?), why she was sharper with Torres and
Paris than she
needed to be (Although they deserved it!), why she was rude to Tuvok, and
why she was so desperate to get those aliens off her ship that she'd risk
everything to do so.
	The experiments do not explain this apparent interest in making
Janeway look like an emotional wreck who doesn't know how to take care of
herself. The idea of driving her to the brink and seeing how she responds
is intriguing, but the way it was executed made her look awful.  I wouldn't
be so quick to follow a captain who doesn't know when it's time to remove
herself from command for a while.
	I'm also not buying this Paris/Torres relationship.  A hypospray
has more chemistry than they do.  They would make legendary best friends,
but they just don't cut it as giggling lovers.  Sneaking off for a quickie
in engineering?  Come on!  These are senior officers, not rabbits.  Even
the thrill of new love, however unbelievable, doesn't excuse their
behavior. At least Janeway called them on it.  Maybe they can just cool
things off now and say the aliens made them do it.
	Aged Chakotay looked more like Tom Paris in "Threshold," when Tom
was halfway between human and mudpuppy, than an elderly human.  Comparing
scars is one thing, but he and Neelix had just undergone drastic, painful
physical changes that the doctor couldn't explain and didn't know if he'd
be able to reverse.  I find it hard to believe they'd be able to sit there,
dispassionately cracking jokes about what was happening to them.  It was
cute, but not appropriate.
	I did enjoy Tuvok's one-liners -- it's about time he showed some of
that dry Vulcan humor we know he's been hiding.  I was going to say I
didn't like the fact that his humor came at Janeway's expense, but it did
stop her in her tracks and lead to a very nice scene between them.  It
would have been nice for her to have had that little chat with Chakotay
instead. Actually, Chak and Tuvok could have traded roles for this episode
and it's unlikely anyone would have noticed.
	And Seven of Nine -- if B'Elanna is giving her the "teamwork and
hierarchy" lecture, that puts her about where B'Elanna was at the beginning
of the first season.  Yes, she's bright, but I find myself trusting her
just weeks after she joined the crew and that seems too fast.  I don't want
to see her take B'Elanna's place as tech-nerd.  Janeway and Torres had such
great chemistry in season one when they clashed and then found a common
ground, and in "Maneuvers" when B'Elanna pleaded for Chakotay.  Leave that
in and
let Seven find her own place.  She made a good covert operative this week.
It was very creepy seeing the aliens clustered about the crew members; I
wondered why none of them seemed to sense the aliens poking and prodding
and staring.
	There's got to be a message about conducting potentially harmful
tests on unknowing (and unwilling) subjects, but before I could get into
figuring it out, Janeway was flying Voyager into that pulsar. That was neat
-- reckless, but very neat.  I'm not crazy about a Janeway who'd put her
crew at risk like that, but desperation is an amazing source of ingenuity.
At least that was an honest and proactive response to the problem of the
unwelcome aliens.  Given a choice between the two, I'd take that Janeway
over the sniveling one who complained about the crew getting too cozy any
day.

--Meredith Antonelli


YEAR OF HELL PART ONE

	I admit it. I'm thoroughly impressed! A year ago at this time, I
thought that "Future's End" was the best two-parter Trek could do. I may be
pleasantly proven wrong, if  next week isn't a disappointment. This
season's quality  has been on a constantly good level, so I'm optimistic.
	One of the questions I've already heard repeatedly is: "Why doesn't
anybody remember when Kes saw an alternate future with the Krenim?" Well,
the words "alternate future" pretty much explain it. Many of the elements
we recognized from "Before and After" are technically brand-new things for
the Voyager crew to piece together.
	The Krenim are a very interesting people. With such advanced
technology to manipulate time, it's hard to imagine them being defeated by
other races. Something must have driven them to use their technology the
way they do. Or, to them, it could be the most efficient means possible for
regaining their territory. Either way, they're a clever and dangerous
adversary. I'm very interested in how the Voyager crew will either outsmart
or come to terms with them.
	One of the things I noticed in "Year of Hell" was the emotional
state of everybody as the conditions became worse. Janeway was one of the
most obviously affected on an individual basis. From her happy face at the
astrometrics lab celebration, to the stress of negotiations, to a bitter
and worn-down captain, Janeway went through a lot in one hour. One
complaint I've often heard is that Janeway was too harsh about refusing her
birthday present. I disagree. Chakotay was certainly hurt, but imagine how
Kathryn felt. With a very beat-up ship, edgy crew, and constant attacks,
she had no choice but to focus on survival and nothing more. What made it
worse, though, was the fact she was pretty beaten up herself. All of these
experiences essentially numbed her.
 	So far, we have the adventure of  "Future's End" and the suspense
of "Scorpion." What more could we ask for except an equally good Part Two?
I'm excited. Part Two has much to accomplish, and I can't wait to see it
all happen.

--Charlynn Kate Smith

	Our intrepid space travelers have been in the Delta Quadrant three
years and this is the first time they've been ripped to shreds. People die,
decks are blown apart, and Janeway's crew is about to abandon ship by the
end of Part One. For this grim reality alone, I applaud the writers for not
resorting to the Trek Reset Button. Voyager, like TNG, has always been far
too shiny and artificial for my tastes. While it may be in line with
Roddenberry's utopian views, it has no basis in reality.
	Despite the fact that I really enjoyed this episode, it has some
MAJOR flaws. Remember when Kes aged forward and backward in "Before and
After"?  It wasn't that long ago and it was one of season three's best
outings. The most striking element of that episode was the sequence with
the Krenim and the chronoton torpedoes. Yes, I know it was an alternate
reality, but she warned Captain Janeway about the Year of Hell. So, here we
meet -- the card please -- the Krenim. Major red alert klaxons should be
screaming in Janeway's brain about now. Kes was the one who originally
crawled down that Jeffries tube and figured out the frequency of that
torpedo. Don't you think she would  tell someone about it? Oh yeah, I
forgot, Mr. Uncontinuity's name is on this script. Brannon Braga is so
sloppy and so contemptuous of fans that he not only ignores and reviles
Trek history, he also forgets established Voyager story threads. too. So,
we get to see yet another high-heeled blonde crawling down a Jeffries tube,
and she solves the mystery!
	My other beef is with Janeway. What are they doing to her
character? Stern and forbidding are perfectly understandable -- they're at
war! But for the life of me, I could not fathom her glacially cold behavior
in the scene where Chakotay gives her the watch. Her reasons for refusing
the present were perfectly sound, but the WAY she refused the present made
no sense whatsoever. Here is the man who has all but declared his love for
her. From the way they've written Chakotay, we know he's overly sensitive
and especially vulnerable when it comes to love, and love her he does.
Still, he should have had the common sense to realize that KJ was NOT in
the mood for trifles.
	The writers and producers should take most of the blame for these
gaffes, but Beltran and Mulgrew also made some poor acting choices. Their
scenes together were strongly similar to "Scorpion I" and "II." Janeway
makes a choice and Chakotay disagrees with it. His approach here is much
softer than the last time they butted heads, however, and when the captain
puts her foot down, he backs off with a wimpy smile. Grrr! It turns out
that she ends up following his advice at the end of Part One. Too bad he
isn't there to say "I told you so!"
	With all that said, there was still a lot to like about this
episode. I thought the special effects were especially dramatic and added a
great deal to the story. The alien commander was sufficiently interesting,
and when he asked about a certain colony, I figured it to be the underlying
reason for his temporal attacks. I especially appreciated the touches of
humor and camaraderie: Harry and an injured B'Elanna playing trivia games,
Tom showing Janeway and Chakotay his plans from the Titanic, the
introduction of the new astrometrics lab, and Seven helping Tuvok in his
time of need. Is it just me, or do Kim and Torres have far better chemistry
than Paris/Torres? Even if they're just friends, it seems far more real to
me
than the romance they're forcing us to swallow. Most important of all was
seeing a sweaty, unshaven Beltran with his normal hairstyle. Man, he's hot!
Even while I was dissing Janeway for being a boor and Chakotay for being a
spineless wimp, my tongue was hanging out to dry.
	If I ignore the watch scene, then I can honestly say that everyone
gave great performances. And I may be in the minority, but I like Janeway's
new 'do. If they reduce the hair spray and make her new helmet a little
more natural looking, then she'll look just dandy.
	In summary, "Year of Hell Part One" was a wild romp marred only by
a rather large plot hole and some bad acting. The CGI (Computer Generated
Image) sequences were spectacular and the Krenim threat has given the show
a much-needed dose of reality.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	The Krenim, who made a brief appearance in last season's "Before
and After," make wonderful villains. Get in their way, and they can wipe
your entire species out of existence. It's obvious from the first seconds,
though, how Part Two is going to end -- the ship's a wreck, half the crew
is dead, the only way they're going to get through this is to hit the reset
button. Isn't it convenient that they're dealing with a species that has
the capacity to alter timelines? Like "First Contact," they're clearly
going to alter the future to repair the past. As if the reuse of
time-travel as a device weren't annoying enough, "Year of Hell" had to go
and make reference to that film. Are sales of the videotape not up to spec,
or is this an attempt to plug Voyager by association with the successful
film, the same way Kate Mulgrew and Jeri Ryan were used to help The
Sentinel's lackluster ratings by plugging it throughout commercial breaks?
	There were some interesting character moments, like the Doc waxing
poetic about the crew in one scene, then having to let two crew members die
in the next, and Janeway turning down a birthday present from Chakotay
because they can't afford to waste replicator matter. Paris and Torres were
less adolescent and more human this episode than last.  I liked Chakotay
offering Janeway what he knew would be an unpopular suggestion -- of which
even he wasn't enamored -- for surviving the crisis, and which Janeway was
finally forced to accept. Once again, Seven got to do far too much saving
the day, and once again Janeway wasn't involved enough in the solutions.
	For the most part, I enjoyed this episode. The pacing was terrific,
the new astrometrics lab looked gorgeous, the shots of the battered ship
were very effective. The continuity with last season's Krenim threat
worked, even if one did have to wonder why Kes didn't leave a report
somewhere containing the information she learned about them, and why no one
seemed to remember any of that incident, and why her non-presence wasn't an
alteration of a timeline in the first place since she never would have come
into contact with the chronoton particles since she wasn't on the ship to
-- never mind. Like Janeway says, time paradoxes cause headaches.
Unfortunately, like last season's sweeps-month time-travel two-parter
"Future's End," the denouement will surely leave Voyager where it started,
passively watching the stars go by.

--Sara Unger

	I loved it!  It was excellent.  And to all the people who
complained about Voyager's pristine condition after all of her terrible,
horrible, crippling battles resulting in extensive damage... this episode's
for you.
	Her screentime was no more than other cast members, but her
influence could be sensed.  Therefore, I consider the Janeway Drought as
being OVER!  And as a bonus, the writers figures out how to write her as a
powerful and commanding captain.  Up until now, in my opinion, Janeway's
power and presence came from what Mulgrew created for her and imbued her
with.  With this episode, I realized that I never bought Janeway being a
commanding officer as much as I accepted Mulgrew playing in the role of a
commanding officer.  A talented actress did her best with the material she
was given.  Watching Janeway in this episode, though, watching her actions
and listening to her words, made me [finally] love, not just like Janeway,
instead of loving her potential.
	The little bits of characterization were wonderful in illustrating
Janeway's continued statements of the crew being a "family".  I missed the
banter between B'Elanna and Harry, so it was great seeing it again.  Also
nice was hearing that Seven of Nine previously had offered to help Tuvok in
the morning and then, having her [messy] roommate greeting her in the
corridor.  Especially cute was Seven of Nine answering the Phoenix
question.  These things are why I like Star Trek.
	I thought that the writers gave a nice touch to the changed
timeline with Janeway and Torres losing Chakotay and Paris instead of vice
versa.  And, I have a couple stupid little nitpicks.  One, considering
that it would've taken energy to turn the pocketwatch into energy, wouldn't
it have been easier to just take the watch and say "thank you"?  But she
could've just been stressed.  Two, they started with a 70-year journey.
Kes knocked off 10 years.  They themselves knocked some years off.  So, why
is the current number 65 light-years?
	Next week will tell me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking that some
temporal thing or other will send the crew to a timeline where some or none
of this happened.  Tuvok can't stay blind.  Paris/Torres fans have missed
months of the relationship.  Most of the ship is uninhabitable.  Much of
the hull is gone.  This isn't stuff that can be fixed in a month or
continue to be allowable for the continuing series.
	Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky have stated in interviews that they
could care less about the continuity of the original series, a show from
the 1960's.  It seems as though they could care less about the continuity
of Voyager also.  The whole episode went by without Kes being mentioned
once.  I could have sworn that Tuvok and Janeway asked for a report from
her including all that she could remember about the Krenim, about
chronotons, about this "Year in Hell" thing, etc.  You would have thought
that someone would have mentioned her.

--Rhonda E. Green


YEAR OF HELL PART TWO

	In a literally blistering two-parter, Voyager and Janeway are on
their last legs, only to be saved by the infamous Reset Button. Am I the
only one out here who feels cheated? "Year of Hell" had the potential to
bring us some amazing storylines. Imagine Voyager going begging like the
Cataati of a few weeks ago, limping along with gigantic holes in their
hull, trying to find their lost crew members, critically short on food and
other vital stores. And with all this talk about family and community, it
was a prime opportunity to show the crew pull together and patch up their
ship. Of course, we all KNEW that the writers would chicken out. I'm sick
of making excuses for this show, one that drew me in because of some
initially terrific characters. But with one character assassination after
another, there isn't much life left in the "Voyager" universe.
	On a positive note, I do concede that all the acting was terrific,
especially Beltran and Mulgrew. I also liked how Robbie McNeill played off
Beltran. There has always been tension between them, and it served the
story well in this instance. This  Tom Paris is the one I remember; brave,
loyal, a bit headstrong, and never afraid to say what's on his mind. He was
consistently written throughout both parts, and I applaud the writers for
that. I also liked the parallels between Annorax and Janeway -- did
everyone catch the shattered teacup in Part One and the broken hair shrine
in Part Two? I'm sure the bond between Annorax and Chakotay was also
deliberate, because whom did Annorax resemble but Kathryn Janeway? Both
commanders were driven -- Annorax to restore his home and Janeway to get
her crew home. They both threw their people skills out the nearest airlock
in their obsession to achieve their goal.
	Before I get to more nitpicking, I also wanted to comment on two
very nice little scenes. The first had Janeway and Neelix rooting through
the wreckage in Chakotay's quarters. It was nice to see Janeway show a bit
of emotion as she recovered the watch she ignored in Part One, putting it
on her belt. The other emotional scene was the farewell between Tuvok and
Janeway. Although The Powers That Be have trashed the J/C connection, they
are attempting to restore the original friendship between the captain and
her security chief, and are doing a good job with it.
	Let's move on to Janeway and Chakotay. What on earth has happened
to their characters? I know they're going through hard times, but I'm sick
of Janeway's stubborn, foolhardy stance. She keeps saying she wants to help
her crew, but she keeps putting them and herself in extreme jeopardy. And
why have they turned my favorite Maquis into such a mush head? Why must he
always capitulate to the nearest authority figure or turn into a -- barf --
collaborator? He has turned into what he used to revile, and for what?
Peace, love, and understanding? Sorry, Chak, but this ain't the swinging
'60s, and your New Age philosophies don't cut any ice with this viewer.
	As for the Janeway 'do, lay off with the hair spray, guys. When she
stood up with that fright wig in Sickbay, it made me wish for the bun of
steel.  To give credit where credit is due, I must once again applaud those
amazing FX mavens at Foundation Imaging. Tremendous CGI (Computer Generated
Image) sequences did much to save a fairly predictable episode. Without
Mojo, Braga and Menosky's story would have gone down with the ship, just
like Janeway.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	Since many figured out, somewhere in the second act of the previous
week's episode, how the "year in hell" would end, some of the excitement
was missing from the conclusion.  A friend summed it up perfectly... "Part
1 was dramatic and part 2 was melodramatic".
	This is not to say that I didn't enjoy the episode - because I did.
I really enjoyed seeing Chakotay and Paris go up against each other.  Not
since Michael Piller came in with that story arc for Paris have these
characters really bristled.  I like seeing proof that people do disagree
and that their personalities do clash without it becoming a serious problem
to their relationship.  [Ask any sibling.]  I felt, though, that having
Chakotay "sense" that Kathryn was still alive was a bit much.
	The special effects were as much a part of this episode as any
character.  And they were great.  From seeing pieces of Voyager's hull lift
off and drift into space to seeing Voyager crumple against the hull of the
Krenim weapon ship.  Janeway showed herself to be demanding, commanding,
confident... and a smart a-- as she disobeyed the Doctor on two occasions.
Despite my ambivalent feelings toward Tuvok, it would have been wrong for
he and Janeway to not share something before they separated.  It was moving
seeing this strong woman start to relax for just a moment and catch herself
before she lost control.  I also liked the might that Janeway carried as
she piloted her ship into battle and the power that exuded from her as she
flew to her death.  The writers and directors are starting to tap into
Mulgrew's talent on a regular basis.
	And, I am still in love with Janeway.  I always liked her the best
of the Voyager characters, but that is as far as it went.  I was in love
with her potential to be an outstanding character in the Trek universe.
And for me, for the first time, I didn't find myself comparing her or her
actions to other captains.  Good or bad, her actions were her own.  I hope
this keeps up.
	There was some wonderful character development in this particular
installment that, unfortunately, never happened since the chronometers
rolled back to DAY 1.

--Rhonda E. Green


This is most definitely my favorite two-parter to date. My goodness, what a
thrill! A great mix of emotion, action, and fabulous acting makes the
conclusion of "Year of Hell" a winner.  The one thing I enjoyed most about
this episode was the intense emotion. We saw just how strong the bonds are
between ship and crew, and they absolutely sparkled. They are what
"Voyager" is really about, and even "Star Trek" in general. I particularly
liked Janeway's scene with Tuvok before he leaves. What was said in that
part of the show was so beautiful and so true that 	I was nearly in
tears! Janeway sitting in her respective chair with nobody else aboard gave
the same effect. Kudos to Kate for doing such a superb job.
	One thing I was interested in was the Krenim's motivation. I wasn't
surprised to find that only the commander of the ship was the motivation
for 200  years' worth of time changes and his reason why. What I didn't
expect was just how Annorax viewed time. His thoughts reminded me of how
Soran in "Star Trek: Generations" perceived time. For both, time was an
enemy  to deal with if they were to achieve the goal they were striving
for. His goal of restoring Kyana Prime has driven him to this conclusion.
In a way, I agree with Annorax. Time does have moods.
	As for Chakotay and Paris, it was only natural that their opinions
conflicted. They both had very valid arguments, though, with points that
needed acknowledgment. Chakotay, a diplomat first and foremost, listened to
Annorax and understood him to a degree. Paris, on the other hand, made
friends aboard the Krenim ship. With both methods, they came to know their
enemy's weaknesses and find advantages to use in attack.
	I'm still as delighted with "Year of Hell" as I was the first time
I saw it; I've already watched it three times on tape. The story is just
phenomenal, the special effects dazzling, character moments shining, all
topped off with the brilliant talents of "Voyager's" wonderful actors. What
really says it all is "What a show."

--Charlynn Kate Smith

	This is an episode about two crazy captains. One of them is
Annorax, leader of the Krenim. The other is Kathryn Janeway of the starship
Voyager, who makes James T. Kirk in "The Naked Time" sound sane. Annorax
and Janeway are both chasing windmills across the decades. He wants to get
back in time, she wants to get back in space. They're both obsessed, and in
love with their mechanical monstrosities that they use to try to make the
galaxy do their bidding. At the end of the episode, we're led to believe
that the insanity of Annorax isn't an inevitability, that his destiny can
be altered through the agency of people who love him. One can only hope
that this is true of Janeway, too.
	I suppose I should talk about the curious decision to structure an
episode on the model of a war between Captain Nemo and Captain Ahab but I'm
too disgusted to do that, too bogged down in the predictability of the
plot, the heavy-handedness of the symbolism and the unoriginality of the
ending. I'm going to ignore the ways this reminded me of a dozen other
Reset Button Trek Tales, including  "Voyager's" own "Time and Again." I'm
not going to ask why no one ever mentioned the timeline in which Kes
encountered the Krenim -- has she been wiped out of history, or just out of
the fourth season? OK, maybe I can't really ignore those things, but
they're not what made this episode irredeemable for me. Janeway did that.
I'm with the Doc: that woman was not fit to command. I suppose she saved
the galaxy, but it was sheer coincidence, because she didn't understand
anything about the temporal problems she was dealing with.
	If she had, she would have kept her ship in that nebula for a few
extra days. As Annorax said in last week's episode, the ability to alter
time makes its linear progression irrelevant. Whether Janeway pursued him a
day, a week, a decade later would not have mattered in the end, if she
realized that resetting the clock would wipe out whatever came after the
moment of incursion, and possibly what came before as well. She didn't have
to risk her ship and remaining crew in her haste to engage the Krenim. If
anything, her doing so could have led to their deaths before she stopped
Annorax, thus permitting his timeline to succeed. Chakotay may have flunked
quantum mechanics, but Janeway is the one who doesn't seem to have a clue.
	I'm not even going to wonder why this Janeway didn't evacuate
non-scientist Neelix and blind Tuvok along with the rest of her crew.
Couldn't she have made better use of a couple of engineering ensigns? I do
have to ask why she didn't deactivate the Doc  after he treated her.
Keeping his program running just to fight about her competence seems like a
waste of energy which HE should have noted. In fact, it makes no sense that
Doc was functioning at all, considering that Sickbay and the holodecks had
been destroyed and most of the computer was off-line.
	Even though Trek is dependent on contrived science and
technobabble,  that can be tuned out when the people are compelling enough.
So instead of worrying about plot holes, let's stick with characterization,
which is what always makes or breaks an episode for me.
	In "Year of Hell's" alternate timeline, Seven sounded a lot like
Tuvok being logical, and Tuvok sounded a lot like Chakotay slobbering over
the captain. Chakotay sounded like himself, by which I mean pathetic, a
pre-"Scorpion" version who still worships Janeway for reasons which
momentarily escape me, who can be talked into anything by anyone in a
position of authority -- even a genocidal maniac who kept him imprisoned
for months. Paris sounded like the old Paris, too -- he was angry, he was
rebellious, yet he had principles and was competent in a crunch. Hmm, that
last part also sounds like the new Tom Paris, the guy who can pilot the
ship while running sickbay and engineering single-handedly. All his
girlfriend B'Elanna can do lately is miss him. The characters were close
but not quite there, which could be clever writing to tell us it's not our
universe, or it could just be that the writers never get them consistent in
the first place.
	Ah, the heck with the cast. We're in an alternate timeline, so none
of it counts, right? Maybe. Regarding that watch about which Janeway was so
cold-hearted last week and so nostalgic this time: Is it supposed to
represent linear, old-fashioned time, which is here portrayed as "natural"
while manipulation is supposed to be unnatural, even though we've learned
from other Trek episodes that multiple timelines always exist
simultaneously? Or, since it was a gift of affection from one person to
another, is the watch supposed to represent the connections between people
which transcend time, like Annorax's love for his wife? Chakotay said it's
a replica of the watch of a British captain who brought his ship in after
everyone had stopped knowing or caring that he was still out there. That's
not what he said, of course, but that's what I heard. I doubt the
single-mindedness of Captain Cray would make an interesting subject for a
serial television show. (Annorax, on the other hand, would fit right in on
"Sliders.")
	The watch can't possibly represent the connection between Janeway
and Chakotay, however, since he doesn't seem to register on her emotional
radar at all except when he's not around. She generally prefers holograms
to live people. Maybe that's why she's so in love with her ship. Though
Janeway keeps declaring that her crew is a family -- she used that word
about a half-dozen times in the two parts of this episode -- she never
shows that feeling. There are no subtle, compelling bonds between her and
any other character. Oh, there's occasional chemistry between her and
Chakotay when she's not playing the Ice Queen, and occasional warmth
between her and Tuvok when he's not ridiculously over the top. Hugging on
the bridge? And he's supposed to be a full Vulcan? If Chakotay's crush on
Janeway seems misguided, Tuvok's actions are just embarrassing.
	It's sad that Starfleet captains have to resort to a family analogy
to indicate interpersonal feelings which transcend crew loyalties. But I
don't believe it anyway. If there's one thing this episode makes amply
clear, it's thatJaneway loves nothing more than Voyager, even when the ship
has no crew, no soul. I wonder what she'd think of Kirk blowing up the
Enterprise in  "The Search For Spock," giving up his precious machine, and
his Starfleet position, in a quest to save his best friend.
	At the end of the episode, the "real" Janeway doesn't violate
Krenim space. But she did similar things in "The Swarm" and "The Raven" and
various other episodes, so I can't say she was out of character in last
week's episode when she tried to punch her way through. Maybe I should be
pleased with how she held it together rather than worrying about her crazed
devotion to her mission. We never saw Kirk or Picard get beat up this
badly, perhaps she's really the strongest of the three. But Janeway wasn't
working to restore the timeline for the good of the universe. She wasn't
even working to reverse the deaths of her crew. She was as obsessed with
her personal goals for the ship as Annorax was with a scrap of red hair,
and we've seen her act that way in the so-called "real" timeline.
	Oh yeah. The special effects were superb. Great CGI (Computer
Generated Images), wonderful interior shots. Kudos to the "Voyager" crew,
if not the Voyager crew.

--Sara Unger

	An excellent Part One which concluded with a shaky second part,
"Year of Hell" still continues "Voyager's" strongest season yet.
	The episode had a great many positives. Foremost among them were
excellent performances from a number of the cast, particularly Kate Mulgrew
and Kurtwood Smith. Both played similar characters bent on achieving their
goal at any cost, the difference being Janeway's regard for life and
Annorax's total disregard for it. They were backed up by strong supporting
work all around.
	Also on the positive side were, of course, the special effects. The
scene of Voyager crashing into the time ship is one of the coolest scenes
I've seen in a while.
	As a J/Cer, you know I had to love the two watch scenes, first when
Janeway finds the watch in the ruins of Chakotay's quarters, and then later
when she uses it as a source of support. There was also Chakotay's knowing
that Janeway was alive, with no doubt in his mind.
	Unfortunately, all of the positives were nearly done in by the
negatives. I don't mean the Trek Reset Button, because you could see from
the beginning that there was no other way this show could end. The way it
was handled actually made a lot of sense, although I'm not sure what to
make of the last scene between Annorax and his wife. No, the problems were
more with continuity.
	First, there was no mention whatsoever last week of Kes and her
experience with the Krenim. At first, I figured it was only because the
Krenim had changed the timeline before we saw Voyager and so therefore, Kes
wasn't in that timeline. However, when this episode again failed to mention
her, I knew it was another continuity goof by the writers.
	The bigger negative was the whole way Chakotay acted in this
episode. For someone who has always been set up as having a high regard for
all kinds of life, he fell easily under Annorax's spell. I know that
everything about the time ship ran parallel to "20,000 Leagues Under the
Sea," but setting up Chakotay in the professor role was aggravating, to put
it mildly. Why is it always Chakotay who plays the fool while Paris gets to
be the hero? I can't remember a time, save "Scorpion," where you could say
that Chakotay played the hero role. (Even in "Scorpion," it is unknown who
came up with the plan to stop Seven) If this is Brannon Braga's idea of
giving him more to do, I'd rather he leave Chakotay in the background.

--JoAnne Braker


RANDOM THOUGHTS

	Psst, have you heard about the thriving black market for Internet
rumors? For a small price, you too can start your own fallacious story and
spread it around to all your good buddies and post it on every news group.
The racier, the better; if it even mentions something obscene, then you
could be the next media star to feed public demand for entertainment.
	OK, so I'm kidding, but my concept is no more ridiculous than Ken Biller's
premise for this episode. In fact, I'm almost positive that he based his
ideas on the headlines shrieking at us from every kiosk and TV screen
across America. The Communications Decency Act may have been shot down, but
you can be sure that some other variant will take its place. Censorship has
NEVER been particularly effective, and "Random Thoughts" bears out this
idea.
	For the first time in many weeks, I actually LIKED Janeway. She
wasn't the Janeway who talked and walked like Captain Kirk, and she
certainly wasn't the crazed person who threatened to terminate the Doctor's
program. No, this stranger bore a faint resemblance to the warm, caring
woman I remember from season one. That woman took side trips to improve her
coffee rations and she wasn't afraid to let her hair down once in awhile to
play pool with the crew. She also didn't spend all her play time with a
hologram the way this season's version likes to do.
	This week's Janeway tried to use logic and her beloved Federation
principles to respect the Mari's body of laws, which was wildly divergent
from past episodes. In "The Chute," she blasted her way through to rescue
Tom and Harry. This week, she walked around meekly and seemed perfectly
willing to let these aliens erase part of B'Elanna's memory. Unfortunately
for us, Paris and Chakotay don't fare much better. I know that Tom's
girlfriend was in danger, but was that any reason to act so whiny and
unprofessional? And Mr. Spineless himself was in fine form when he told Tom
to give Janeway a chance and remember that "She's the boss."
	Chief Inspector Tuvok, who leaves no stone unturned, put on his
investigator's hat and saved the day. While this was entirely derivative
and far too similar to "Ex Post Facto," I still enjoyed his part in things.
Tim Russ continues to surprise me with his understated but effective
performances, and for the first time in four seasons, I find that I like
him a great deal. I'm glad they are exploring the relationship he allegedly
has with Janeway, even if it means that the J/C friendship is dead and
buried.
	Neelix was his usual boring self, and I really didn't need to see
his horny visions about a brainless, blond, and very buxom young woman.
Could you really see her stroking a hoary Talaxian's whiskers? Now THAT is
a nauseating thought! This little tidbit is about as titillating as the
effect on a Ferengi when someone rubs their ears. As for B'Elanna, she was
her usual self, and I liked her humorous scene with Tuvok as he admired her
self-control. The only one making any sense these days is Seven of Nine.
Time and time again, her canny observations have proven correct, and she
has become the mouthpiece for Trek fandom.
	In summary, this wasn't a very good episode, and if this is the
best they can offer us during November sweeps, then we have something to
worry about. "Random Thoughts" was a thoughtless, cut-and-paste operation.
Without naming any specific shows which win Hugo awards, I can understand
why the best thing about Voyager is the hair, and these days, that's not
saying a lot.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	Although not nearly as impressive as "Year of Hell," "Random
Thoughts" gave us some great Trek. We saw beautiful character interactions,
a solid story, and the questioning of morality -- all classic elements of
TOS.
	What I liked most in this episode was how differently things were
viewed by the characters. Using the brig as an example, Tuvok explained its
purpose and why it was needed. The Mari security officer, however, thought
it barbaric. I understand both viewpoints and neither is incorrect.
Practical problems like that are loads of fun to debate.
	I was also very interested in different viewpoints concerning
B'Elanna's arrest. Tuvok naturally pursued the truth, while wounding the
Mari leader's pride in the process. B'Elanna naturally thought that the
whole thing was ridiculous, and Captain Janeway had to find a defense while
still abiding by the Prime Directive. Seven believed that B'Elanna was
guilty, while Neelix defended the argument. They're all correctin their own
beliefs.
	I was satisfied with the story's ending, which states the main
theme of "Random Thoughts": No matter how much something is controlled, a
small part of it will always remain. This is exactly why our laws for
drinking, drugs, and weapons aren't working as well as we'd like. Not
everybody is going to care about rules. Not everyone will respond
positively to treatments. Those who want something will usually find a way
to obtain it. If people's beliefs fit within the law, then no problems will
exist. For some people, though, the law itself is reason enough to break it.
	Seven is most definitely learning to express her opinions. I
particularly liked her closing scene with Janeway; the way she so bluntly
stated her opinion shows that she's still naive, but well-intentioned. Her
side of the argument is something fans have pondered since the series'
beginning. Janeway's response ought to take care of that. I tend to agree
with the captain; it would be an incredibly boring journey without meeting
new races and cultures. I couldn't help but chuckle at her saying  "I dread
the day the entire crew agrees with me." How amusingly true and
in-character.
	Although this episode lacks the energy I grew accustomed to in
"Year of Hell," I am pleased with "Random Thoughts." Tuvok was put to good
use, as was the concept of tackling practical problems. Classic Trek
elements were also in check. Not bad for this week's Trek.

--Charlynn Kate Smith

	Let me get this straight. The Voyager crew comes to the end of
three days visiting a matte painting, and a man crashes into Torres in the
marketplace and ticks her off. When she thinks momentarily about whomping
him, her thought is picked up by one of the locals, who then beats the heck
out of an innocent man. Though Tuvok has been bonding with the chief
investigator, only now he learns that violent thought is a crime on this
planet?
	Torres is sentenced to have her memory purged of her violent
impulses. Janeway objects strenuously for at least two seconds, then she
suddenly recalls that it's their obligation as Starfleet officers to obey
local laws. Tom wants to devise a jailbreak, but Teacher's Pet Chakotay
advises him to obey the captain's decisions. Tuvok engages in some
thought-swapping with one of the sleazy local violence-purveyors, zaps the
guy with the Power of the Dark Side, and stops Torres' brain-wipe --
unfortunately -- before they can make her forget that she's now a fluff
chick who giggles at insults about her Klingon side.
	Then, at the end of the episode, Seven protrudes into Janeway's
ready room to tell the captain that she finds Starfleet's mission of
seeking out new life and new civilizations incompatible with getting home
as quickly as possible. But those needles in her head from "Scientific
Method" are still there, or else we're in an alternate timeline from "Year
of Hell," because Janeway says -- I am not making this up -- that meeting
new friends is the most important part of a Starfleet officer's job. Hey,
she sounds almost like First Season Janeway, one of my favorite action
figures! But First Season Janeway has been dead for more than two years!
Who is that woman commanding Voyager? Tune in next week for the further
adventures of the Deconstruction of Trek's First Female Captain. (Compare
"Babylon 5's" "Deconstruction of Stars," a study in character assassination
of historical figures.)
	I have to get something off my chest before I go on. I have violent
thoughts. Sometimes I have six or seven a day. When someone cuts me off on
the highway, I fantasize about shooting her tires out. When someone drives
a grocery cart over my foot, I think about knocking several cans of
Spaghetti-Os directly in his path. I am clearly unfit to be a Starfleet
officer. I'm not even sure I'm fit to be human. The Voyager crew, however,
spent three days on a planet without having ONE violent thought, even
though they weren't aware that they had to be on the lookout to repress
them. Nobody thought about beaning a local for taking too long to tell them
where the bathroom was. Nobody wanted to punch a crewmate for telling the
same joke for the third time in an hour. This so comically unrealistic as
to make the whole crew seem like comic book pollyannas.
	What's most bizarre about it is that some of the crew members
seemed more ill-behaved than usual. I could handle Neelix dating a
1-year-old because Kes always had a lot of smarts and strength, but I am
starting to wonder if he's a pederast who always falls for very young blond
girls. Paris got some of his old personality back -- he tried to sneak
behind the captain's back to devise a plan with Chakotay, and he complained
about her decisions while she was in the midst of negotiating. He didn't
even run engineering in B'Elanna's absence. I am terribly disappointed to
learn that Torres has lost a couple of violence  engrams, though -- she's
already lost most of her bite.
	Janeway kept her butt-kicking side under firm control, which might
explain why she was preaching her philosophy from first season's "The
Cloud" rather than this season's "The Raven." I guess it's a good thing she
didn't think about phasering the aliens to get Torres free, but one really
has to wonder how she ever got to where she is without any violent impulses
whatsoever -- what happened to the woman who threatened the Vidiians, the
Akritirians, the Swarm? I agree with Seven: it's time for Janeway to figure
out what her goals really are. And she might want to check with her crew
every once in awhile. In "Scorpion," she seemed certain that getting home
was as important to everyone else as it was to her; this week she seems
sure that nobody really cares how long it takes, as long as they meet some
cool aliens. I like this Janeway better than the one we've had for the past
couple of years, but she sure sounds like someone gave HER a memory purge.
Maybe the writers could dig up "The '37s" Janeway, who let the crew make
their own choices. I loved her.
	Detective Tuvok also reprises his role from first season's "Ex Post
Facto," in which he had to save Tom not from a memory-wipe but a memory
implant -- nearly identical probable consequences, and he used the same
technique, a mind meld, to solve the case.  I guess Janeway must have
lifted her "no unauthorized mind meld" rule from "Meld." Gee, I had better
stop citing past episodes or even thinking about them, since it's obvious
that Trek writers don't.
	Things I liked: The directing was OK, if workmanlike, despite the
cheesy backdrops. The marketplace reminded me too much of  "Prime Factors,"
and so did Janeway's speech about following local rules -- oops, that's a
past episode. Paris was fun to watch sitting in the captain's chair once I
got done shrieking. The alien from "Nemesis" popping up in Tuvok's
bad-thoughts montage was nice, though to him the Kradin were the good guys,
so -- never mind, see above, I will repeat that until I have persuaded
myself to take every episode as it comes and forget all previous history.
	Duras sister Gwynyth Walsh was wasted here as the sniveling,
incompetent alien cop. Wayne Pere fared better as the sociopath who gets
off on violent images -- the expressions on his face as he did the nasty
with Tuvok were wonderful. The main cast was OK. Garrett wasn't in this
episode and wasn't missed, Robert looked like he was going to fall asleep,
Jeri was too emphatic, Kate seemed to be playing two different characters.
Oh wait, Kate WAS playing two different characters: they just both happened
to be named Kathryn Janeway. I wish someone in the franchise would insist
on quality material. But maybe, like the crew of Voyager, the producers
lack fighting spirit.

--Sara Unger

	"Why?  Why are you beating that man Santie Claus -- I mean Frane?"
	"Welllll, because SOMEBODY forgot to tell you nice visitors that we
have no compunction about plucking thoughts out of your unsuspecting little
brains, that's why!  You guys have been walking around here for three days
thinking the most disgustingly pure thoughts.  Blandest buncha aliens I've
ever seen.  Sheesh.  Soon as I sensed a little excitement, I jumped on it,
of course."
	Uh huh.  And NOBODY on Voyager's crew had a problem with these
supposedly enlightened people just reading their minds? That's as bad as
Seven's observation about the way Starfleet seems to march on in in the
name of peace and friendship and assume all will be well. One would think
that part of diplomacy training would involve sending down a small
first-contact party to review local customs and laws and the possible
implications of societal differences when alien cultures meet for the first
time, before sending down the rest of the crew.  And it only makes sense
that the responsibility for ironing out differences would have to fall on
both sides.
	I suppose in a telepathic society there'd be public thoughts and
personal thoughts, just like in our society where we have public personas
and private lives. But we can't control which thoughts flit through our
minds the way we can control our facial expressions or body language.  It
was obviously too smooth a plot device to pass up, though.
	I did get past the irritation of the privacy issue, the obvious
mistaken assumptions on both sides, the hokey dialog, the feeling that I
was seeing another incarnation of the holodeck/street scene set (doesn't
ANYBODY else in the universe have marble steps and brick or wooden
buildings?) the same crowd and market kiosks from "Prime Factors,"
"Resistance," and "False Profits," the feeling of deja vu over Chief
Inspector Tuvok and rabble-rouser Tom Paris (whom I really like but what
WAS he thinking of, marching onto the bridge and addressing his commanding
officer by name only?), and the certainty that someone must have taken
control of B'Elanna's mind or she wouldn't have been so placid.  For that
matter, why did it have to be B'Elanna who precipitated the problems? Of
COURSE she's the obvious target.  Why couldn't it have been someone we're
less likely to suspect immediately of having violent thoughts? I did like
the brief interplay between Chakotay and Paris.  Chak was almost Mr. Boring
Yes-Man as usual, but I sensed some of that old Maquis feistiness
underneath that calm, superior officer exterior.  Sensing is one thing,
however. Incontrovertible proof that he IS capable of intelligent,
independent thought and effective action would be nice for a change.
	I was on my way to making a positive comment, before I got
side-tracked. It's those pesky random thoughts again, now where was I?  Oh
yes,  on a really superficial level, I had fun watching this episode
because I just couldn't take it seriously.  AND because I love this
Janeway.  Warm, open, respectful of the alien du jour even if it's not
quite well-deserved, fascinated with exploration and learning new things,
and apparently enjoying her job -- where has she been for the last two
seasons???  I've missed her!

--Meredith Antonelli


CONCERNING FLIGHT

	I'm clueless as to why UPN showed the dreadful "Random Thoughts" in
the middle of sweeps month, and saved this gem for the night before
Thanksgiving when no one was home to watch. I'm not sure if it's possible
to attribute a direct relationship between byline and quality since this
show's written by committee, but Joe Menosky has his name on several
terrific Janeway stories, and this one was no exception (I don't think it's
a coincidence that Ken Biller, who wrote "Random Thoughts," bears the
writing credit on my three least favorite episodes, either).
	This wasn't a flawless outing by any means, but it reminded me of
both first season "Voyager" and first season "Star Trek" -- the real one,
which "Concerning Flight" made fleeting reference to, when Janeway noted to
Tuvok that James T. Kirk professed to have met da Vinci himself, though she
doubted his claim. I love it when the writers do their homework. This was
Janeway circa "Time and Again" or "Ex Post Facto," unafraid to lead the
away missions herself, intent on exploring even when there was work to be
done on the ship. She was touchy-feely, she had a sense of humor and a
sense of wonder, she glowed despite the dowdy clothes they stuck her in.
	This is a much stronger captain than the brittle dictator of "Year of
Hell" or the tough-as-nails leader from "The Swarm." I still wish she'd
have relationships with live people rather than holograms, but there was
nice subtlety to her interaction with da Vinci. One could hear the
scientist and the philosopher, the leader and the student, the person and
the captain, without any incongruity among the roles. She was smart and
dignified and lovely, much more so than Seven of Nine in the numerous
gratuitous butt shots. Please, put this Janeway on the bridge.
	I liked Tuvok less -- he's always overly paternal towards Janeway,
it seems, almost smarmy. Chakotay sometimes objects to her risking herself
but rarely confronts her so condescendingly. Tuvok, who's gotten way too
much air time this season considering how boring he is, did get some funny
moments, like when da Vinci asked if he'd been to Vulcan -- an island off
Sicily -- but he doesn't seem very smart for a security officer. I did like
Chakotay fretting over Janeway in danger, though I raised my eyebrow when
he called her Kathryn in absentia on the bridge! He had a fairly strong
showing, dealt pretty firmly with the uncooperative alien they questioned
about where to find their goods. The rest of the cast was mostly
perfunctory. H arry comes across as a caricature of hormonal idiocy around
Seven, Seven comes across as a caricature of snippy efficiency around the
Doc. Thank god she merely described her little catfight with Torres instead
of acting it out.
	John Rhys-Davies gave a wonderful performance as da Vinci, though
in a turnaround for "Voyager," it wasn't as over the top as it could have
been. I was hoping for a little more glimpse into the manic genius Janeway
described, the historical figure who secretly dissected corpses against
Church law, who questioned scientific limits, and who loved to look at
handsome young men. Well, Janeway probably left that detail out of her
holoprogramming, to keep him kissing her hand. I expected him to get a lot
more excited at being shot with no consequence, and at the sight of the
transporter. If the New World of the planet excited him, think what
Voyager's technology should have done! Hopefully he'll be back to continue
some philosophizing with Janeway, and hopefully next time she sees him,
she'll bring some human companionship along to appreciate the experience.

--Sara Unger

The Grewpie Twins' Shallow Episode Report:
	Having read the many thought-provoking, well-contemplated, thorough
reports of various episodes offered by the articulate and enterprising
members of this fan club over the past few years, the Grewpie Twins (B.
being the elder and N. being the younger) noticed that there was a certain
element missing from most of them - the element of pure, unadulterated,
shallow lust. After much discussion, they decided that this needed to be
remedied, and thus was born the Grewpie Twins' Shallow Episode Report: If
it's shallow, we'll discuss it!
	*B. leads the fray with a brief, yet accurate, synopsis*:
	Excuse me ... but was there an actual EPISODE here??   All I
remember is Kate with wet hair, Kate in a cute dress, Kate's hair blowing
in the wind, Kate in flat boots (!), and Kate's hair.  Have I mentioned her
hair?  :)
	I'm sorry; maybe I need to watch again to catch all the subtle plot
points I may have missed as I filled my drool bucket.  Hmmm, on second
thought... <eg>
	*Now, let's break it down into each drool-inducing moment*:
	B: I LOVED "Concerning Flight," but I think it was only because it
was all Kate, all the time. The wet hair had me rewinding. The brown/purple
dress had me positively DROOLING!!! And that hair! I think she was wearing
velour boots!
	N: The wet hair had me in pain. My saliva glands dried out before
the first scene was over. And the way she rubs it with that towel...Mmm mmm
mmm. *slurp*
	B: Agreed about the wet hair.  I was rewinding that vcr pretty damn
quick!
	N: Do we even need to mention the way her hair blew in the scene
where she and Leonardo took flight? :P~~~~~~~~~~ And the way she turned and
smiled at him as her hair blew in wisps about her face... SCREAM!
	B: I have to rewatch the tape - - I missed this part!!  AAARRGGHH!!!
	N: The dress absolutely ruled, especially when I noticed that it
had two slits up the front to reveal her legs! :D
	B: The brown/purple dress had me positively DROOLING! She should
wear that in real life.
	N: Well, overall, I give it a three drool bib rating: one for the
dress with the slits, one for the wet hair, and one for the flight scene at
the end.
	B: I would also give it a three drool bib rating: one each for
dress, one for the boots, and the last one (which will need to be cleaned
and dried frequently) for the hair.

	Formerly known as "da Vinci's Day Out," "Concerning Flight" is a
boring and slowly meandering episode. Space pirates with superior
technology manage to break through Voyager's shields and steal essential
equipment as well as other high tech goodies. Among items such as the
ship's computer, the bandits also grab the Doctor's holoemitter and suck
the maestro out of Janeway's fantasy program and install him in a lab on
the surface of the planet.
	I've said this before and I'll say it again. Janeway should be
spending time with REAL people, not with holograms. If she wants to learn
new things, then she should invite other members of the crew along for the
ride. In TNG, most of the holodeck adventures involved numerous characters,
and when they didn't, they were there for fun. Picard WAS Dixon Hill -- he
didn't need to take advice from any patronizing old farts. I had a hard
time listening to da Vinci chastise Janeway for pulling rank on him. This
program does nothing except make her look weak and antisocial, and the
writers do her a disservice. And what's with the wet hair? Did the
holographic water drops automatically fly from her head when she left the
holodeck? Her helmet looked perfectly rigid when she arrived on the bridge.
	As for her away mission, she should have taken one of the Maquis,
who might actually have had some crafty ideas on how to recover their
computer. Instead, she takes Tuvok, who has been in our face for the past
few weeks. While I admit that his character has grown on me, I'd like to
see some of the others get some screen time. I used to be a diehard J/Cer,
so I appreciated the look of concern on Chakotay's face as they tried to
get the captain back. Still, after all they've been through and after the
shabby way she's treated him, you'd think the poor guy would move on.
	I hated Lord Burleigh, and I'm afraid that da Vinci is no better.
I'm sick of listening to him and I'm tired of looking at his silly hat. I'd
much rather see Janeway shoot pool at Sandrine's and fight off the advances
of greasy gigolos. Since I know I won't get my wish, I'll have to turn to
my favorite fanfic authors to fill in the gaps left by these writers.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz


MORTAL COIL

	Neelix is not my favorite character on Voyager (obviously, since I
belong to this club), although I do like the character. Yet "Mortal Coil"
had my attention and kept it throughout the show.
	I came home after midnight from work, tired, weary of proofreading
pages thrown at me at deadline. I wanted to watch "Voyager," but also
looked forward to sleep. The hour flew by, and I was surprised when the
credits rolled. "Mortal Coil" did not seem like an hour episode. Even my
husband, who is normally highly critical of Voyager's writing though he
likes the show, praised it for its writing, delivery, and acting.
	Regarding Neelix, for some time now the creative minds behind
"Voyager" have been attempting to reverse his image as the comedy relief
for the show. They should. The interstellar scavenger who wheeled and
dealed his way through the quadrant long before he met Voyager would never
have survived had he been the inept person, the butt of jokes, the cute
little alien portrayed in so many episodes.
	In "Mortal Coil," Neelix emerges from his Rodney Dangerfield role
to get some respect, and this time the respect does not seem forced. He is
taken along on the mission to siphon the energy source because of his
knowlege and experience. He is the knight in shining armor who chases away
monsters from Naomi Wildman's room. He is the cook and host, but also the
center of the celebration of a Talaxian holiday which the crew has
apparently joined in before and enjoyed. And this time, they warmly
celebrate Neelix and his return from the dead.
	As for exploring the afterlife, this is not the first time Trek has
tackled the topic; "Voyager" did so in first season's "Emanations," when we
saw the belief system of an alien culture shaken by Harry Kim, who died
briefly and was brought back to life. Indeed, tackling difficult topics
through the eyes of an alien and making us examine ourselves was integral
to Gene Roddenberry's original concept.
	But this time, it was a little bit different. This time, the person
who died and came back was not a one-shot guest. This was Neelix. This, to
use a term batted about frequently in "Year of Hell," was family. And so we
cared a little more about him and his struggles with his Talaxian
spirituality.
	It was in the exploration of that spirituality that we also saw
Chakotay in the counselor's role so many have envisioned for him. It was
very like Chakotay to offer to help Neelix on a vision quest, and Neelix's
choice of items for his medicine bundle, including the flower from Kes'
garden, was quite poignant. It was very unlike Chakotay to "order" Neelix
to report to discuss his dreams -- after all, spirituality is not something
you can order about -- but it would be true to form as a counselor.
Counselor Troi on TNG would not have hesitated to order someone to an
appointment if the individual needed it. Chakotay's role in this episode
was subtle, but used to good effect to guide the episode along.
	Seven of Nine was used to good effect, as well, by drawing upon the
Borg knowledge to save Neelix. Perhaps she should be assigned to sickbay
part-time to upgrade the Doc's knowledge. However, using Seven as a "deus
ex machina" to suddenly appear and put things right is something "Voyager"
should avoid doing too often. It should be remembered that Wil Wheaton bore
a large amount of very unfair criticism when Wesley Crusher saved the day
once too often for fans, who felt that he made the Starfleet officers look
incompetent. It would be unfortunate if the writers were to make Jeri Ryan
fall victim to the Wesley Crusher Syndrome.
	Granted, Seven has a large amount of knowledge at her disposal.
(Her comment about the Kazon not being worth assimilating drew forth both a
chuckle and a smugness that the Federation was apparently worthy of this
"honor.") Yet she must not be relied upon too often as an easy plot device
to save the day. That leads to lazy writing.
	In other matters, finally Ensign Wildman's child was given a name,
a detail ignored since the babe was born in "Deadlock" during second
season. No more kidding about "Spike"! It was good to see that an
explanation was given for Naomi's rapid growth compared to human children.
Such efforts at continuity and tying up loose ends are appreciated.
	All in all, a very satisfying episode. It made us care about
Neelix, it made us look within ourselves, and it gave us a look at the
human side of several characters.

--Donna Christenberry

	"Mortal Coil" is an entry from a new writer named Bryan Fuller.
Knowing what I do about the script revision process, it is doubtful that
many of the original lines remain, and entire concepts may have shifted
from the author's original intent. While I am always happy to see new
writers, this episode left me as cold as Neelix's cadaver in Sickbay.
	On the plus side, we have Ethan Phillips's acting. He is my least
favorite character, and yet he managed to transcend the limits of his
character and give a fine performance. We are allowed to see beyond the
happy-go-lucky facade of the morale officer to the faith and beliefs of the
Talaxian race. As with Janeway in "Sacred Ground", Neelix's entire belief
system is tested. Death, as Chakotay says, is one of our greatest
mysteries, and who hasn't wondered if the other side is a plane of
emptiness? Throughout Neelix's entire ordeal, I felt for him keenly. When
they mouthed the platitudes of 'his father's father's sister' during the
celebration, I saw the hollow stare and it reminded me of myself. I have
often questioned my faith, and I too think about the Great Void. Without
some kind of faith, where would we be? I have friends who are atheists, and
yet they lead normal and happy lives, so they must have found some way of
dealing with it. It seems that Neelix will deal with it by making himself
useful to others, like he's been doing all along on *Voyager*.
	I also liked seeing Ensign Wildman (Nancy Hower) and her daughter
Naomi, whose physiology is the only explanation for her rapid growth. By my
reckoning, she would only be 2 years old right now, not a 5 or 6 year old.
She is a cute little girl, and the scenes between her and Neelix worked
fairly well and weren't too cloying.
	Under other circumstances, I would certainly have welcomed the
return of Chakotay's wayward medicine bundle, but Chakotay was written so
poorly and seemed so alien to me that I was happy when the so-called vision
quest ended. Who can blame Neelix for avoiding it? I *would*! From the
beginning where Neelix dies and Tom nearly cries over him, Chakotay is
glacial and distant. Instead of showing a little compassion, which I
certainly would have expected from the XO that I know, we get this "Tom, I
need you up here' stuff. While they had a task to do, it wouldn't have been
hard to acknowledge Tom's feelings before getting back to work. Later, when
Chakotay lends his support in the form of his akunah, he seemed emotionally
vacant. Robert Beltan rarely gets this much screen time, and he is a fine
actor with the right material, but he was going through the motions on this
one.
	Once again, 7 saves the day and makes everyone else look bad. Don't
get me wrong, I *like* 7, but can't we have someone else be the hero for a
change? Paramount is making too much of this character, and the media is
buying into this by thrusting Jeri Ryan's....face at us from every magazine
cover. I honestly don't see what the big deal is, folks. Yeah, she's a good
actress and a beautiful woman, but it's time to move past that and get on
with the show.
	"Mortal Coil" was a superficially enjoyable hour of television
marred by an unfulfilling plot and saved only by Ethan Phillips's stellar
performance.

--Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	Yay! Neelix got some long-overdue depth to his character! Overall,
I'm happy with how it was done. Neelix was the perfect cantidate for this
kind of story. Life and death is a *very* heavy topic, but it flew well
with Neelix. Typically, he's the happiest guy on Voyager, but that wasn't
exactly the case this time.
	Those who are religious would very likely feel the same way as
Neelix did when he came back from death. Seeing that lifelong teachings
have been nothing more than jibberish would make us all question things as
big as the meaning of life. In Neelix's case, he was essentially
questioning his religion, or pondering whether a better place exists from
physical reality. I don't necessarily believe that the writers were
promoting Atheism. After watching this episode for the first time, I
believed that they were, but an important fact leaves the door open: The
Talaxian death ritual lasts a week, but Neelix was dead for less than a day.
	It wasn't surprising to see Neelix turn to Chakotay for guidance. I
agree completely with Chakotay in what he said to Neelix both after the
vision quest and before Neelix is about to transport himself into the
nebula. Neelix's vision quest had very much to do with his feelings on
coming back to life. He was told exactly what he wanted to hear. In the
transporter room, I thought that Chakotay did a nice job of bringing Neelix
back to his senses, with Ensign Wildman's help, but with one exception: He
shouldn't have just stood there and talked with Neelix. That was stupid.
Nevertheless, the dialogue was written well.
	Seven really made me crack up. Her comment that the Kazon were
unworthy of assimilation made me giggle quite a bit. It's a hilarious but
true fact. Seven also gave ma a couple of good laughs during the Talaxian
celebration of family. I couldn't help but smile when Janeway asked her if
she was having fun and she responded bluntly, "no." Then, later, I couldn't
help but laugh when she joined into a conversation quite directly, leading
to a hilarious response from the Doctor about conversation skills being a
low priority to the Borg. Socialization is probably irrelivant, especially
to a collective of billions of drones.
	This was an enjoyable episode that explored a rather broad topic
and did a little bit of something Trek normally avoids, which is
contemplating faith. Most of the time, this is a topic that isn't written
about due to all the controversy surrounding it, but I think that a little
something was here for us all to relate to, religious or not. Even without
religion being involved, the meaning of life is one of the many things we
will always ponder. For the length of one hour's time, I think that the
writers did a good job of writing an episode like this.

--Charlynn Kate Smith

	Chakotay asks Neelix for help obtaining some protomatter - you
know, that unstable stuff David Marcus put into the Genesis torpedo in "The
Wrath of Khan" which destroyed the planet. But Voyager's crew apparently
never read about that incident, because Chakotay goes to get the
protomatter without even bringing an engineer. At least he's got Tom Paris,
who's a super-genius and also a medic. So when the protomatter zaps Neelix,
the pilot declares the Talaxian dead despite Chakotay's stream of
lifesaving advice (he had a lot of experience resuscitating Kathryn in
"Coda," after all). Janeway sniffles, but Seven assures her that she can
bring Neelix back to life with Borg nanoprobes. Neelix revives, realizes
that while he was dead he didn't enter the Great Forest, and has a crisis
of faith. He decides to commit suicide. Needless to say, he doesn't succeed.
	I have two good things to say about this episode: Ethan Phillips.
He should win an Emmy, because I really felt for Neelix despite the
terrible, horrible, no good, very bad writing. Neelix is the most
believable heavy-makeup alien Trek has ever had. This is entirely
creditable to Phillips, since the character has been wildly inconsistent;
the writers can't decide whether he's comic relief or a fully realized
person of deep feeling. In this episode, he was the latter, and he carried
the show in spite of its flaws. He had lovely chemistry with both Samantha
and Naomi Wildman, and his quirks were considerably more charming than
Seven's know-it-all prissiness.
	If Voyager's producers wanted to make a travesty of Gene
Roddenberry's show and do a holiday episode, I wish they'd gone all out and
given us Christmas (with Neelix as Santa Claus, and Janeway and Chakotay
smooching under the mistletoe). This "First Night of Prixon" came off as
one more excuse for characters to babble about how the crew feels like a
family - as if telling us will make us believe it even when they don't show
it. The only positive is that we didn't have to see last year's First Night
celebration, where the captain got a little tipsy - though Drunk Janeway
would only be slightly more embarrassing than Pushy Mama Janeway. At least
at a New Years' masquerade, she could have pretended to be Catherine the
Great.
	There were lots of references to first season episodes in here,
which should have been a good thing. Chakotay remembered that he has a
medicine bundle! And Baby Wildman, who is now Greatly-Accelerated-Growth
Child Wildman, got a name. But most of the continuity devices were awful.
Chakotay's speech to Neelix about dying was a straight ripoff of Janeway at
the end of "Emanations," on how what we don't know about death is far
greater than what we do. In fact, "Mortal Coil" was a thematic rerun of
"Emanations," which wasn't even a great first season episode. If the
writers wanted to do a show about death, they should have ripped off TNG's
"Tapestry."
	Chakotay, who got decent air time if not decent character
development, parroted hislines from "The Cloud" to send Neelix to the
spirit world. This makes sense, since it's a ritual, but he also recycled
the ugly clothes from "Remember." The first time we saw the First Night
party, in "real" time, was altogether too reminiscent of "Remember," and
the second time, during Neelix's out-of-body-experience, had me laughing
out loud because the people in vision quests look EXACTLY like the Prophets
on Deep Space Nine! The camera work was derivative at best and silly at
worst, especially the shots of people pretending to have a good time at the
party.
	Alas, poor self-sacrificing Kathryn. As in "Year of Hell," she
looked less like a captain than a mama bear trying to keep her cubs snug.
I'm sorry to be shallow enough to observe this, but if the camera is going
to do close-ups of Seven's chest and track around her pert young behind,
then the costumers should lengthen Janeway's hair and go back to stuffing
her bra. She looks years older in "Mortal Coil" than she did in identical
costume in "Remember." Considering that she's acting like everyone's
mother, it's quite irksome to see her matronly image reinforced by her
costumes and lighting. Kate Mulgrew is a dynamic, sexy, multidimensional
woman; Kathryn Janeway used to be as well. Someone please make the
producers watch "Resistance" and "Resolutions" until they notice this.
	But who needs an interesting captain when you've got a hot Borg
babe who can bring back the dead? I'm getting tired of jokes about Seven's
Borg social ineptitude, especially since they're all recycled versions of
jokes about Tuvok's Vulcan social ineptitude. And I'm VERY tired of Seven
getting more air time than any other character. So her pneumatics brought
the ratings up: great. Now stick her in the background where she belongs.
Profile shots work just as well when someone else is talking.
	Neelix's crisis of faith seemed rushed, and his recovery too. I bet
he forgets any of this ever happened, just the way he seems to have
forgotten the events of "Jetrel" - his biggest character-building episode
to date. I wonder whether we'll ever get a reference to his body possessing
Borg implants again. I never liked the Kazon, but the suggestion that they
had nothing worth assimilating is ridiculous - an obvious slap at former
executive producer Michael Piller, who kept the Kazon on the series over
the current executive producers' protests. I miss the Kazon. They were, at
least, consistently written - more so than the Borg, who would certainly
have assimilated some of that strength and tenaciousness in the old days
before the Great Rewriting. This series is shuffling off its mortal coil
fast enough to kill the entire franchise.

--Sara Unger


Kathryn Janeway, Feminist Heroine

WHO IS KATHRYN JANEWAY?
by Sandra Necchi

	Who is Kathryn Janeway? Is there a clear answer to that question?
Is there more than one answer? Which version of her do you accept? Which do
you prefer? How clear is your answer in comparison to "Who is James Kirk?"
Or "Who is Jean-Luc Picard?" Or "Who is Benjamin Sisko?"
	In the entire history of Star Trek, among all its actors, writers,
directors, producers and all others involved with it professionally, no
person has had, nor continues to have, a more difficult job than Kate
Mulgrew in the role of Kathryn Janeway. Broaden that statement to include
television in general and, at the very least, she is among a very small
number of professionals with that distinction.
	To borrow a phrase used by James Kirk in reference to the
Federation, for all its "high-sounding words," the world of Star Trek has
not been especially tolerant of the notion of a regular female character in
a leadership role. She must always be weighed down with stereotypical
traits, or ultimately conform to the audience's desire for reassurance that
she is still warm and sweet and beautiful and sexy and young. And if she
isn't, then she is disliked or, at the very least, criticized for lacking
in those essential qualities used to define women.
	From the beginning, Kathryn Janeway as a character has not been
allowed thefreedom to develop free from these heavy, artificial, political
constraints and expectations imposed upon her. She has swayed and veered in
various directions because of the writers' constant insecurities about
audience reaction to her. The demands put upon her have been so
inconsistent and so numerous that these demands are ultimately unable to be
fully satisfied. We have all done this to her, from the closed-minded
sexist males on the net calling her all sorts of horrible names to the
feminists among us (myself included).
	To a degree not shared by any other character, the writers have
been deeply concerned about making her acceptable, thus changing her
according to their perceptions of audience response. To their credit, they
have also tried hard to keep her strength and authority intact, and not
capitulate to the more retrograde impulses of the audience. But she has
been an ongoing experiment, a political tool, a first for Star Trek and
unique for television. The job that Kate Mulgrew has done with this
situation has been nothing short of remarkable. She never loses her grace,
her understanding, her strength or her nerve. I am of the firm belief that
it is she and she alone who is responsible for making the character as good
as she is, despite all the second-guessing, the writerly tampering, the
experimentation that the character has weathered by multiple and discordant
creative heads. If you have a strong, clear response to the question at the
start of this article (good or bad), it is because of Kate.
	I began thinking more deeply about these and other issues covered
in this essay while watching "Year of Hell" Part 2. For me, that episode,
more than any other, reinforced this difficult and often frustrating
reality about Kathryn Janeway.
	First, let me say that I generally enjoyed this two-part episode
and thought it had wonderful character moments. It was exciting, had a
strong guest cast and a blessedly complex and interesting villain. It
managed to blend action with characterization in a seamless, powerful mix,
which reinforced my belief that Voyager, not TNG nor DS9, is the true
successor to TOS. And through it all, Kate's Janeway was riveting. However,
there were things about this episode that concerned me, and they all
involved Janeway.
	The writers of this episode felt it necessary to hit us over the
head with the notion that Janeway is the Great Matriarchal figure, the head
of a family, a ferocious lioness protecting her cubs. This was certainly
not the first time such a reference has been made. In fact, this is one
notion that has been with the show from the start and, for me, has always
been the one point I do not like about Kathryn Janeway. Not because it
exists per se--but because of the degree to which it is stressed. It is
clear to me that this notion--and the strength of its depiction--exists
because of the issue of acceptability, and not only among the viewers, but
also among those behind the scenes. Kate herself is strongly behind it.
	Apparently, the only way a woman can be accepted as a leader is if
she is a den mother (and Janeway is THE den mother of all den mothers),
with never any thought for her own needs and desires, utterly selfless, no
personal hopes of her own, no individual identity of her own,
unapproachable in any intimate way other than as a nurturer and care-giver
and protector. Yet, for a time during the series, this notion was placed in
the background and I was glad to see it become less emphasized. More
emphasis was placed on the crew working together as more of an equal
professional and friendly partnership, with Janeway always as its head, but
not as an overpowering matriarch.
	For male starship captains, their chosen career is a tacit
rejection of the commitments inherent in the domestic family realm.
However, for Janeway, the traditional female realm of home and children
must be transplanted into space. She cannot be seen to reject it but must
bring it along with her. It is a compromise, designed to blunt the radical
notion of a female starship captain. Her ship and crew are substitutes for
home and children. Eight is Enough in space. Some may ask, "what's wrong
with that?" Doesn't that show the superiority of women over men? Whereas
men flee from commitment and care-giving, women welcome it and take it on
with gusto. Perhaps. Yet this transference of home and hearth into space
has disturbing consequences for Janeway's development as an individual in
her own right. (And note the remarkably outdated adherence to the notion of
the Mother as pure and unsullied by romance and--dare I say it?--sex).
	Many of us chafe at the writers' (and Kate's) refusal to allow
Janeway a personal life, and the hypocrisy of allowing such a life for a
male captain yet not a female one. Yet some of us are willing to accept
this because we fear that the writers are simply not capable of presenting
this sort of storyline in an intelligent, adult, subtle fashion. It is a
kind of devil's compromise we make, a realistic one, though not a pleasant
one. We leave our real hopes for Janeway to the intelligence and talents of
fan writers. I am one such viewer who has reluctantly accepted that Janeway
will probably never have any sort of romantic (never mind sexual) intimacy
on screen. However, neither do I want Janeway to be some unhallowed
Maternal Goddess, obsessively single-minded in her all-consuming purpose of
protecting her ship and crew, living 24 hours every day of her life
thinking only of her "children" to an extreme far exceeding a male captain
were he in her place.
	Yet this season, and especially in YOH, this notion of
Janeway-as-the-Great-Mother has come back with a vengeance, louder than
ever, to a degree that reaches the level of absurdity, overkill and
unsubtlety. Her relationship with Seven of Nine has been posed grandly as a
mother-daughter one. The nature of this depiction is amazing in its extreme
necessity, its assumed and unexamined inevitability, as if there is
absolutely no other possible kind of interpretation, no other (and equally
significant) layers to their relationship.
	There is a price to be paid for all this. The intense depiction of
Janeway as an overpowering matriarch also has consequences for the
depiction of her crew. The attendant requirement for such a portrayal is
that those whom the Great Lioness protects become quiescent, unchallenging,
submissive. While there are positive benefits to such an explicitly
rendered family in space, there are also signs of the more dysfunctional
aspects of the family being recreated aboard our picket-fenced starship.
	Almost from the start, internal conflict is something the writers
have tried to avoid. Voyager started out with a promising, exciting
premise, and a unique one for Star Trek: that of conflict among its two
different crews. Unfortunately, the show became like TNG very quickly and
enforced, unnatural harmony soon reigned. Real sources of conflict were
glossed over in favor of half-hearted, superficial attention to what could
have been fascinating, complex drama about Federation and Maquis ideals.
This artificial harmony also extends toward the professional relationship
between Janeway and her command crew.
	It is true that we have seen certain members of the crew question
or disagree with Janeway. At one time, Tuvok even disobeyed her orders
behind her back. However, even these moments have been few and generally
muted. And in decline. By the time of "Resolutions," we saw a command crew
utterly cowed, with only Ensign Kim showing any gumption to express the
proper outrage over Tuvok's slavish adherence to Janeway's orders to
refrain from contacting the Vidiians. Harry initiates a campaign to
dissuade Tuvok from pursuing his course of abandoning Janeway, knowing full
well that those were her express orders. He goes to Torres and Paris --
supposedly the two most obstreperous crew members among Janeway's command
staff -- and they are merely satisfied with pouting and brooding. In fact,
they are annoyed with Harry for his insistence on not forgetting the
captain. Each time I watch this episode, I am astounded at their
complacency, their utter passivity. It is as if only the Great Mother moves
this engine along, only she initiates, takes action. And Kim is being
impossibly rebellious. I can't imagine Kirk's command crew behaving in the
same fashion had McCoy or Scotty approached them for their help in
persuading Spock to go back for the captain. Neither can I imagine Picard's
command crew, nor Sisko's, being satisfied with just deserting their
captain, regardless of the latter's orders.
	In YOH Part 2, while she and Torres are on the bridge, Janeway is
busy seeing to repairs and fending off the Doc's complaints. The camera
briefly rests on Torres. I was struck at how she looks intimidated, afraid
to say anything less she earn Janeway's wrath. It is remarkable how
occasionally Janeway's crew appears to be cowed and silenced out of fear
and apparent intimidation.
	In YOH Part 2, Janeway is near to collapse, and not just in the
physical sense. She's dangerously close to a mental and emotional one.
She's barely holding it all together. As I watched her manically driven to
repair the ship, getting herself badly injured in an admittedly heroic act,
unable and unwilling to hear the voices of logic and rationality around her
(Tuvok, Seven and the Doc), I wondered if she was wrestling with some deep
feelings of guilt and responsibility for getting her ship and crew into
this mess. I wondered if she blamed herself. She seems to be holding in
some profound, unexpressed and unexamined emotion. (Interestingly, at the
end of the episode, when the "reset button" is pushed and time is brought
back to what it was before, Janeway heeds the Krenim captain's sensible
advice and avoids their space, thus avoiding danger. In YOH Part 1, she
arrogantly dismisses the weaker Krenim captain's demand and prefers to side
with the then more powerful Zholl, who are helpful and friendly to her
purposes).
	What we see in YOH is Janeway the Failed Mother. She has failed in
her one and only purpose in life: to protect her ship and crew. And she has
failed badly. It has been the worst disaster for Voyager. And Janeway faces
the worst scenario possible for her: the destruction of her home and the
death of her children. And she is totally consumed in her obsession to
right this wrong. According to this iconic matriarchal notion imposed upon
the character, YOH shows us the classic ferocious maternal guilt, the
single-minded mania of a mother whose home and cubs she is no longer able
to protect, the end of her very reason for existence, the end of her life,
heart and soul. She has no other identity other than Mother and Homekeeper
	While watching Janeway in YOH Part 2, I was also struck at her
deteriorating hold on reality and on herself. She is clearly out of control
and desperately needs to be reined in. She is obsessed, desperate,
dangerously impatient, perhaps repressing and acting out deep guilt. In
fact, I was concerned that her mania would soon cause her to do something
that would seriously endanger the ship and crew even further. A
countervailing voice of reason is clearly called for and in steps our
blessed Doctor, the only one among the crew (save one other) with the
courage and objectivity to speak up. Not only the courage, but the ability
to act on his belief that she is incompetent for command per Starfleet
regulations. Some may think that this is the worst and unlikeliest time to
act on such regulations, but I would argue that it is precisely the right
time. The situation has never been more dire. The crew and ship are in a
shambles, as is their captain. The last thing they need is a captain who
cannot get beyond her overpowering super-maternal hysteria and her guilt.
They need a commander who will keep her head, not endanger herself or her
ship irresponsibly. The Doctor does exactly as he should according to his
duties.
	Unlike TOS, however, there is no strong countervailing force
powerful enough to make the captain stop and listen. In "Obsession," Spock
and McCoy talk among themselves about the captain's increasingly
obsessional behavior and consider relieving him of his command. They bring
their concerns to Kirk who is forced to confront his behavior and comes up
with a way to mollify them. In "The Deadly Years," Spock and McCoy relieve
Kirk of his command because he is no longer competent. In the awful
"Turnabout Intruder," the only good scene is that of McCoy and Scotty
conspiring to mutiny against the captain (not knowing that their captain is
really Janice Lester).  And McCoy was always there to prick Kirk's
conscience and challenge his decisions. I don't wish to overstate the case
because certainly Kirk was allowed to run roughshod in many episodes.
However, in contrast to Janeway, Kirk had at least one, occasionally two,
powerful, consistent and mature voices alongside him that he was forced to
listen to. Janeway has experienced very little of this. A wonderful
exception is in the recent "Scientific Method" in which Tuvok stops her
with a very pointed and wry "Shall I flog them as well?" in reference to
her increased irritation about the crew. Unfortunately, such moments are
rare.
	When Janeway is challenged, the challenger's position is portrayed
ineffectively, or is reprimanded. In YOH Part 2, Seven challenges Janeway
in front of the remaining crew. Tuvok later reprimands her with a totally
illogical and unVulcan "the Captain is always right." No Vulcan worthy of
the name would go along with such a notion. Further, it is totally contrary
to Starfleet tradition, which clearly makes room for occasions in which the
command crew have the right and duty to challenge their executive. Indeed,
one of the more progressive things about Starfleet as laid out by Gene
Roddenberry is precisely this point: the Captain is not inviolate, not
irreproachable. And most certainly not "always right." Seven is absolutely
correct in her position, though she did not express it under the right
circumstances. Yet Tuvok silences her, even thought he admits the captain
has made a wrong and illogical decision. And yet, as acting
second-in-command, and as a Vulcan, it is he who should be performing the
role Seven has. In fact, it is his duty to point out the illogic and flaws
in the captain's reasoning, as Spock sometimes did with Kirk.
	There is one person whom we've seen challenging Janeway rather
frequently in recent episodes, and that is Chakotay. Unfortunately,
Chakotay's challenges have been portrayed with weak, mixed results. Janeway
rarely seems to consider them seriously. And his positions have been proven
wrong, or mostly wrong. He is not portrayed as an equal counterbalancing
force but as someone she is ready to shoot down. And since he is constantly
portrayed as a man easy to manipulate, easily led down the wrong path,
neither she nor the audience are ready to take his opinions very seriously.
	Further, Chakotay's opposition to Janeway in "Scorpion" showed her
greatest flaw, and I believe it is directly related to the deeply personal,
intensely maternal portrayal of Janeway. All of us recall how, in
"Scorpion" Part 1, her response to Chakotay's opposition to her strategy
was a childish sense of betrayal, a rather neurotic belief that opposition
from him meant that she is "alone." Personally, I was astonished at her
response. Chakotay's position was perfectly reasonable, intelligently and
fairly argued. He acted precisely as any true Starfleet First Officer would
have. He brought his concerns to his captain privately, backed up his
position with realistic arguments, expressed his opposition and nonetheless
declared his loyalty to her. He acted as a professional officer should. For
a man who did not complete his Starfleet training, this was one moment in
which Chakotay demonstrated his genuine command abilities.
	And how does Janeway respond to him? Unlike the sensible and
objective response of a Kirk, Picard or Sisko, Janeway's reaction is
intensely personal, for she cannot separate her identity as captain from
her identity as Kathryn Janeway. She regards his opposition as a rejection
of both her leadership and her person, because they are tied up together so
deeply. (I do not claim this is untrue of othercaptains; I claim that the
degree to which this is true of Janeway is unique). In subsequent episodes,
she seems to have distanced herself emotionally from Chakotay. Chakotay may
be, to her, a sort of father figure to the crew, and thus her supportive
anchor. And, apparently, she wants him to back her up totally, in the face
of any possible disagreement from the crew. If he challenges her, then in
her mind, she is indeed entirely alone. This response on her part does not
speak well of her leadership style. There are limits to the benefits of
such an intensely personal, deeply maternal and passionate leadership. In
many ways, it is certainly welcomed, given Picard's and Sisko's cooler
command traditions. However, there are drawbacks. And I find myself wishing
to see Janeway "lighten up" a bit.
	The requirements of portraying an overpowering matriarchal figure
include the fact that she cannot be questioned in any substantial, credible
way by an equal because there can be no mental equals around her. Her crew
constitute her "children." Her relationship with her crew becomes a
caricature of what it should be. While it is typical, even expected, that
any ship's crew view their commanding officer as a mother or father figure,
particularly in times of crisis, the degree to which this is done on
Voyager has grown far too extreme, hokey, even neurotic and comical. In
point of fact, Janeway is a professional Starfleet officer surrounded by a
crew of professional equals and military subordinates. They are not her
children. And it is the duty of her command crew to bring their concerns to
her, to disagree with her, to express their qualms, even their opposition.
This duty becomes even more critical because, as Starfleet's and the
Federation's only representative in the Delta Quadrant, Janeway's
accountability becomes even more of an issue than that of any captain
patrolling the Alpha Quadrant. She should be under greater scrutiny because
her actions in this part of space have far-reaching ramifications.
	This entire slant on Janeway has accelerated and intensified this
season. The only reason I can imagine is that the writers felt that she was
in need of greater acceptance by the audience. She still has not satisfied
them in that regard. And one way she can acquire that acceptance is to make
her so overpowering, so decisive and determined and driven, so right about
everything, that she cannot be questioned effectively, less she seem weak
and unreliable as a leader. Because she is a woman, she constantly has to
battle this perception of weakness in her leadership skills, and this
season the writers have chosen to rack up both her matriarchal identity and
her "kick-ass-super-decisive" points, allowing little room for her crew to
show that she too is human, imperfect, subject to error.
	What I appreciated about the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triumvirate was the
partnership they had in solving problems. There was a clear leader, but
they were also professional equals consulting and advising each other and
disagreeing with one another. In TNG, Picard was obviously the one in
command, yet I was always struck by how even more of a partnership that
command staff seemed to be. On DS9, Sisko is clearly the military leader
but there too, I see a partnership among military and scientific
professionals. I have seen this occasionally on Voyager but not to the same
degree, and not so much this season. And Janeway's excessively personal
investment in her crew as "family" with her as leader and mother precludes
the development of a more participatory command crew.
	It is sad to see Star Trek reach into this utterly predictable,
simplistic cliche of Woman-as-Great-Matriarchal-Leader because it leaves
too little room for the character to grow. Nearly all personal development
is barred for Janeway. In a way, she becomes even more iconic than Kirk and
the other TOS characters, who were all grandly archetypal. Kate has said
that Janeway is more hands-on, more accessible and approachable, which is
overtly true. Certainly she is warmer and more accessible than Picard, and
I don't claim there are no benefits to Janeway's command style. But,
perversely, because a very critical part of her personality is artificially
ignored, she can also be seen as the least accessible captain. She is
allowed moments of interaction with her crew but the overwhelming,
ever-present super-maternal nature of her relationship with them,
particularly this season, limits her interaction with them to a level that
is warm, genuine and intimate on one level, yet restricted, incomplete and
alienated on another.
	We need to see more scenes such as the one in her quarters with
Tuvok in "Scientific Method." We need to see more of her command crew
making her stop and reconsider her decisions when her behavior veers into
the obsessional and almost irrational as it did in YOH Part 2. Sometimes
Janeway seems to make decisions and solutions inordinately quickly, with
very little discussion or consultation. She doesn't need a hologram
character for guidance or advice -- she has a very capable command crew
right in front of her for that purpose. She needs to have the freedom to be
occasionally wrong, and still be viewed as strong, reliable, powerful. The
male captains have this luxury. Apparently, females still do not. The
pressure of audience prejudices imposed upon the character continue to
define and limit possibilities for her. And while there is still plenty to
appreciate, there is so much more to explore that we may very well never
see.
	I began this essay by asking "Who is Kathryn Janeway?" I did not
mean to imply that there is no definite character out there called Janeway
that we can grasp, that there is no clear answer to this question. It
depends on each viewer's preferences, as with any character. And if you
accept MOSAIC as the definitive version of Kathryn Janeway, then you have
an even clearer idea of her than what we've seen on screen (personally, I
prefer to ignore that novel). Nor did I mean to imply that she is less
clearly defined than the other three captains. I don't have a clear
response to that point, actually. I meant it entirely as an open-ended
question and can provide no certain answers. I have my own notions and
preferences about who she is.
	However, I must admit that, in comparison to the three male Trek
captains, I find that my ideas of who Janeway is are mostly in flux,
sometimes clear and sometimes vague, often polarized and conflicted, full
of admiration and hope and full of doubt, full of acceptance and negation.
Which I suppose says a lot about her complexity.

A WOMAN'S PREROGATIVE...
by Michelle Erica Green

	You all know by now my stand on J/C, right? How it's about time
that Trek gave us a substantive, committed relationship between adults, how
I think it would do wonders for women get the message that lovers and
starships are not an either-or?
	Well, guess what? I take it back.
	I wish we always saw the Janeway Kate embodies with a good script,
the woman with great passion for science and adventure. But Janeway has
also been presented as a woman who spent her youth trying to impress men,
who prefers the counsel of holographic patriarchs to lively debate. It's
time for us to see her as a take-charge person who deals with her personal
needs via action instead of repression. I'd rather see her decide that she
doesn't love Chakotay than watch her torment him and herself. I'm even
tempted to encourage an off-ship love interest for Janeway. Not because I
want to see this; I imagine it would be even more embarrassing than Kirk
and the Green-Skinned Geisha. But I'd rather do without a meaningful
relationship between the captain and first officer than watch it degenerate
to the point where I can't stand either character.
	I'm quite unhappy about this conclusion--at this point, J/C is the
main reason I watch Voyager. I survive episodes like "Nemesis" and "Mortal
Coil" for fifteen seconds of engaging interaction between Janeway and
Chakotay. I wish Janeway alone held my interest more often--and she should.
When Kate has something substantive to do in a show, I can usually sit
through a mediocre plot. But just watching the captain give orders or aim a
rifle doesn't do a thing for me, and watching her play mommy to Seven and
the rest of the crew just makes me scream. With the departure of Jen Lien,
who was terrific even in awful shows like "Warlord" and "Cold Fire," I have
one less reason to tune in. Jeri Ryan's okay, even given the most
embarrassing sexual dialogue in the history of television, but watching
Seven save the ship with her nifty Borg equipment is getting tired, and
listening to Janeway lecture her about getting more friendly sounds way too
much like Janeway lecturing Tuvok about getting more friendly...for that
matter, it's way too much like Kirk lecturing Spock on getting more
friendly..
	Janeway needs a friend more than she needs a lover...maybe even
more than she needs consistency. "Scorpion" brought home to me that she's
coming across as a negative example of a woman with power. She expects
Chakotay to cater to her whims on and off duty, to give her whatever
support she needs, day by day, around the clock--when he tries to act as
First Officer, she accuses him of not really caring about her, though she
demonstrates little regard for his professional opinions and evinces a
preference for a hologram--a grotesque image of a partnership. "Year of
Hell Part One" made that even more clear, when she pretty much slapped away
his birthday present without even so much as a thank-you. If he were any
other subordinate officer, I'd say her behavior was inexcusably rude; it's
only because we're supposed to believe that they're friends, in spite of
the way she treats him, that she can get away with this at all.
	It's a woman's prerogative to change her mind, right? Janeway does
it all the time, on matters from whether to pursue the Vidiians with the
deadliest of force to how important the Prime Directive should be in the
Delta Quadrant. Do these discrepancies represent change, or compromise?
Let's just say that, after three years of my rationalizing Janeway's
behavior to anyone who criticized her outside a circle of passionate fans,
I am finding it difficult to tolerate let alone explain her contradictions.
The fact that she defines her committment to her ship by her chastity is an
issue on which Janeway has never wavered. I hate it, but at least she's
never wimped out on that committment. Heck, she did get them lost in the
Delta Quadrant and she does manage to screw up every opportunity she has to
get them home. Maybe she should just have given Q what he wanted and
demanded a return flight in compensation, if that's her goal in life. Maybe
she doesn't deserve a lover. Maybe she doesn't even deserve a friend. But
why in heck would I want to watch a show about such a character?
	I read some interviews recently with some of the men connected with
the show. Robert Beltran's theme for the season seems to be, "Poor Chakotay
needs to get laid." After three years in space, a man gets a little stiff.
Harry Kim gets more women than Chakotay does. Janeway keeps turning
Chakotay down, so he must not have any genitals. Sounds an awful lot like
the high school attitude that if she loved him, she'd put out--and that is
NOT something I want any girl in the audience to hear from Star Trek, god
knows they hear enough of it anyway. Maybe the actor merely wants more
quality screen time and is speaking in terms he thinks the male demographic
will relate to--Robert's always a lot of fun in interviews because he's not
afraid to curse, nor to diss the writers and the fans. But I don't get the
feeling he's kidding when he says he wishes Chakotay could meet some nice
alien babe. If his attitude starts showing up in Chakotay's behavior, it's
going to be ugly.
	Our new executive producer Braga told Sci Fi Universe (that bastion
of young male Janeway-bashing) that Chakotay would make as good a captain
as Janeway. Brannon thinks there should be more conflict between Janeway
and Chakotay. Brannon thinks Chakotay would make a terrific hero, and he
has been severely underutilized. Why do I have a feeling that we could get
Dueling Captains next season, with Brannon at the helm of the show? Voyager
needs a strong Chakotay, but it does not need a first officer acting as the
equal or opposite of its captain--not unless TPTB think she's incompetent
or irrelevant in the eyes of its viewers. Two years ago, debates like the
one they had in "Scorpion" would have been wonderful; now, since the
subtext of their argument is entirely personal, they both look incapable of
putting the best interests of the ship above their private power struggles.
If they were unified romantically, that wouldn't matter so much because
we'd all know that Chakotay wasn't going to run off with Barbie of Borg and
Janeway wasn't going to snivel on the holodeck, but as things stand, they
make a pretty unimpressive team.
	I can't stomach the idea of seeing Janeway as a woman scorned, nor
as a woman with so little passion that she won't care if Chakotay settles
down with someone else. I'd like to see her get on with her romantic life.
At this point I'm not worried about anyone thinking that Janeway's a tramp
if she has a fling with an alien; I'm a lot more concerned at the number of
men who think she's frigid (like Sci-Fi Universe editor Mark Altman).
Janeway needs connection in her life, and if Chakotay can't be that for
her, then I think it's time we see her with someone else. Not a grand
passion which could interfere with her devotion to the ship--I'd like to
see her have a happy, uncomplicated relationship, chosen freely and
understood to be temporary, so we'd all know that she's capable of romance
yet won't have to deal with loneliness of command misery afterwards. Of
course Janeway can't screw around the way Kirk did, but I don't think it's
a good idea for her to hold herself aloof the way Picard did, either--I'd
much rather her be a little too comfortable with her sexuality than keep
broadcasting that good girls don't ever do such things. We all know better.
	Of course the glaringly obvious alternative would be to do what
Kate's been saying all along, and give Janeway and Chakotay a substantive,
committed relationship, though I'd do it without all this phony virtue that
makes them both look silly. I'm not suggesting onscreen sex scenes. Verbal
confessions, more of the touching we get now but would lose if either were
involved with someone else, the tension of being involved in a relationship
that can't ever come before duty...it wouldn't be so hard to stop trying to
force them into 20th century standards of sexual behavior, to recognize
that there's opportunity for greater professional conflict if they're
committed on a personal level. I bet the boys would have a much easier time
with Chakotay waiting for a woman who loves him than one who takes him for
granted. In an ideal universe, I'd want Chakotay to remain loyal to
Janeway. It would be a lovely message to send the viewing audience--that
people DO make sacrifices for love, that sex is not the sole means of
gratification in relationships.
	But we don't live in an ideal universe. We live in a universe
dictated by marketing concerns and audience demographics, where Star Trek
is not written with sophisticated dialogue and long relationship arcs but
in choppy episodes without a long-term plan. Given the atrocious dialogue
Paris and Torres have been given to spout and the adolescent attitudes
about sex betrayed by Seven,'s characterization, there's no point in hoping
for a mature relationship on this show, is there? So in the interests of
salvaging Trek's first woman captain, I'm leaving the jaycees. I'm jumping
off my jetskis. I'm bailing from the estrogen brigade. I'm voting
Sheridan/Delenn in 2000.
	Excuse me, now. I'm going to go watch The X Files.

NEW BEGINNINGS (in the midst of new beginnings)
by Cyclonewoman

     Ah, yes!  The New Year has begun.  So, too, have the wonderfully
dreaded lists of things I resolve, beyond a shadow of a doubt, to do
this year:  do well in college, write-write-write, and continue to watch
the progression of our favorite controversial collage, "Voyager."
     As I awoke this clear, snowy morning, I was curiously reminded of
the importance of the ensemble and stung by a pressing thought speeding
through my mind:  "What if 'Voyager' had no Janeway?"  This thought was
like a curse.  It jammed every nerve in my brain until I was forced to
respond:  "I couldn't keep watching the show."  At this, I was sharply
awakened.
     I began to think of why this thought has occurred.  Realizing that
I was sourly lamenting this issue, I decided to stop dwelling on it and,
instead, tried to picture what would happen if I did turn on "Voyager"
only to witness a "real" memorial service for our favorite Captain in
Societal Arms.
     At this point, another thought pierced through:  "Profit, power,
business cycle."  Ouch!  There was a downer.
     Or, was it?  Recently, someone mentioned to me that the changes
taking place on our favorite show have occurred due to the supposed need
to run "Voyager" like any other business.  Of course, we've all seen the
results:  the ratings are up (for an obvious reason), and "Rolling
Stone" magazine put the women of both Trek shows as reason #37 out of
101 to watch TV this year (two above the "X-Files").
     I am still left with the annoying question of:  "What happens when
the bombshell appeal runs out?"
     I know why certain decisions have been made.  I am irritated that
others may be made at whim, simply to keep raking in "profits."
     The fact is that when the stories run out for Seven-of-Nine, what
will "Voyager's" producers do, cancel the show?  The more episodes they
can produce, the more money they make, right?  This path, then,
obviously makes no sense to follow.
     So, what does?  Remembering that "Voyager" is an ensemble cast, the
old addage remains:  "A star is not a star without its galaxy" (author
unknown).  In other words, it's great that the producers wish to write
for the money makers, but unless they can improve the writing and
continue to write for the rest of the cast, it won't matter what they do
with their stars (I still happen to think Kate Mulgrew is a bigger draw
in the long term to the show).
     It is hard to be, or not be, in some cases, the center of any big
project -- especially in Hollywood.  A good lesson, then, for those
involved:  no matter what happens in the short-run, if "Voyager" is to
continue turning in the big numbers (not to mention the dollars), those
involved in writing the show must continue to write for the characters
who have been there all along.
     The most logical progression for "Voyager" is to develop the
relationship between Janeway and Chakotay.  *They* are the reason why so
many people have started to, and continue to (if recent additions to the
viewing audience) watch the show.  Captain Janeway represents a dream
for both women and men, alike, not just in the eyes of her creator(s),
but in the millions who watch the show, and attempt to write about it
every week.
     So, what's the answer to keeping "Voyager" on the air more than,
say, just another season?  Simple:  write for ALL the characters, and
the masses will be pleased (not just the new viewers who tune in in
response to TV guide cover stories).
     To the producers:  If you want more ideas, all you have to do is
ask.

Sincerely yours,
Cyclonewoman


CARDBOARD CUTOUTS AND THE RATINGS GAME
by Meredith Antonelli

	It's just a TV show, that's all.  Really.  I figure if I say it
enough, one of these days maybe it'll finally sink in.  Hasn't happened
yet, though, and that's why I'm writing this.  It came to me while I was
drying my hair this morning (I have a lot of hair, so there was plenty of
time to think about it) and now I'm attempting to put it in some place a
little more permanent, where more people can read and maybe appreciate it.
	Basically, I'm feeling very sad about Voyager.  The feeling started
as mild panic earlier in the season, then turned to anger, and now I'm up
to resignation and disappointment.  Like I'm losing a dear friend.  Why?
Well, maybe I'd better start from the beginning.  from the moment I tuned
in to Caretaker just over two years ago, I was hooked.  I hadn't been
paying much attention to the news about another Trek series-I'd never
managed to watch enough of DS9 to figure out who the characters were
supposed to be and I only tuned into TOS or TNG when I remembered or had
the time.  I've always liked the Trek universe and premise, but none of the
characters ever appealed to me on an emotional level.  Not so with Voyager.
I was immediately entranced by Captain Janeway.  A woman character on
television [get comments from note to Michelle on cliched woman] who wasn't
a cliché--both an awe-inspiring captain and an interesting woman, but not a
cliché.  And on a Trek series to boot.  I felt an immediate connection with
Janeway, and through her, the rest of the crew.  She is why I kept watching
each week.
	It was an exciting time, that first season.  Everything was new
again, fresh and exciting, and the Trek fans were hoping that maybe TPTB
would re-think some of the things that hadn't worked so well before and
make them better for this new series.
	So, why does it feel like I don't know her?  Like I don't really
know any of them?  Maybe it's because it feels like someone took Voyager
and turned it upside down and shook it to see what would fall out.
	Thirty years of Trek.  What's kept it alive so long?  It's one of
the few shows on television that gives us an optimistic view of our future,
a glimpse into a brighter future and the hope that someday things WILL be
better.  Another centennial is almost upon us.  Ninety-seven short years
ago, life was an awful lot different than it is now.  There have been so
many changes that it's mind-boggling-social, economic, scientific,
medical-many of the things we take for granted today would be almost
impossible to explain to someone living in 1901.  It doesn't matter which
things come fast and which ones take more time, because if we've made this
many advances and discoveries in the last hundred years, just think of
where we'll be in another hundred, or in another four-hundred.  Maybe
someone in the 24th Century will be studying 20th Century history and
thinking of us as barbarians for judging people based on their race,
religion, and sexual preference even though we claim to be more enlightened
than that now.
	And maybe there will be a Captain Janeway.
	So, what exactly is Star Trek:  Voyager, that it has such power to
?  Besides a TV show, that is.  A bunch of people go to work every day, do
their jobs, and help a company produce a product.  I do that too, only my
company doesn't make a television show that's based on one of the most
popular premises in history
	I read books to be entertained, to learn things and meet new
people, to escape.  That's why I watch television too.  And when I can get
emotionally involved with what's going on, that makes it much more powerful
for me-THAT's what I look for in the books I read and the television shows
I watch.  The power in that intangible story to move me, to make me feel as
though there's more to my existence here than just what goes on where I can
see.  I have to remind myself of that when I start getting so upset about
the direction Voyager has taken this season.
	I must remember that it's not a sci-fi/soap opera, it's a dramatic
series with action and interesting characters.  Or at least they used to be
interesting.  Even the action is feeling forced this season.  It's like
TPTB are saying "See here!  We can deep-thinking shows about holocaust and
coming to terms with one's faith, and we can do action shows with big guns
and explosions, and we can do shows about sex and violence, and even
violent sex.  We can even an emotional show about the command team, but if
we do that, then we just have to do a show a couple weeks later that proves
one of them is really no different than many who've gone before him and the
other one look like a tragic figure for having any sort of feelings for the
guy--just like those who've gone before HER."
	The plot devices feel like superficial, gratuitous hand-outs some
weeks.  Novelty items.
	If I want violence, I'll watch Walker:  Texas Ranger.  If I want sex
appeal, I'll watch Baywatch.  (I watch neither.)  If I want real, honest,
interesting characters set in exciting stories and realistic relationships,
I'll watch X-Files.  (Which I do.)  I wish I could get the same thing from
Voyager. Hollywood seems a little obsessed with instant-gratification
all-action plots these days.  Sure, shows like Independence Day and True
Lies and Asteroid are fun to watch, but they're here and gone in less than
three hours.  What do you remember from them?  The predictability of the
plot, the boring, stereotypical characters and the big explosions.  Nothing
that's very emotionally engaging, unless you start to wonder what happens
after the movie ends.  Sure, the aliens, bad guys, and aliens are gone, but
the events that brought about those changes are going to have some effect
on the lives of the people who are left to deal with the consequences and
THAT's what leaves the lasting impression, and engages my mind long after
I've forgotten the specific big-draw plot points.  A
	And that's what I think is wrong with Trek these days--we're
getting all action and no character growth.  What little character content
there is has been inconsistent and in some cases, immature--especially in
the relationship department.  If Janeway's going to play Lonely At The Top
and hide behind her damned parameters, then let's see Chakotay shaking
things up a bit rather than tiptoeing around like she's going to reach out
and bite him with poison fangs if he takes a stand.
	Maybe that's what we need to try to focus on--the parts that are
good.  We what they're going to do in the name of ratings, and we know
they're going to do it no matter what anyone says, unless it comes from
above them.  It's not going to make me happier to watch Chakotay and
Janeway become like Kirk and Picard, but I'd rather watch Voyager while
it's on the air and get what enjoyment I can out of it than make myself
miserable by LOOKing for all the bad stuff.  It's not like there's a whole
lot (short of writing the show the way we'd like it to be written) would
come a surprise at this point.  Oh, I'm sure we'll keep complaining about
things we don't like, and offering suggestions for things we'd like to see.
And maybe the fans will make another dent at some point, but it feels an
awful lot like trying to prevent the ocean from washing away your
beach-front, cliff-side house.


KATHRYN JANEWAY VS. ANCIENT ROME - ATTEMPT AT A SPEECH FOR THE DEFENSE
By Ute Koberstein
With heartfelt thanks to Anneke Apperloo and Joan Testin for pointing out
and correcting errors and inconsistencies in the earlier version

	 Over the last couple of months, some vivid discussions have been
going on about the private life of Captain Janeway in general, and her
relationship with Chakotay in particular. Personally, I initially found it
rather difficult to follow Kate's reasoning concerning her character's
celibacy. Consequently, I decided to look for some information on the
concepts of celibacy and leadership through the ages, and I've come across
some interesting findings which cast a rather different light on Kate
Mulgrew's attitude. Although I still feel a bit uneasy about Kate's
reasoning, I have finally begun (!) to understand its cultural background.
Her arguments concerning the bleak sexual future of Captain Janeway bear a
remarkable resemblance to various historical and religious texts I have
discovered
	 Our culture has formed over millennia and its influence is
apparently almost impossible to shake off, even though it affects each
individual in a slightly different manner. Therefore, it is neither my
intention nor my right to judge Kate's opinion or her "Voyager" character's
actions. Nor is the following text supposed to be a truly academic essay or
an exhaustive scientific analysis. I'm merely hoping to present a summary
of some important or interesting facts (plus some of my own comments) for
the benefit of anyone else who would care to have a closer look at this
topic.
	 1) The Roman Republic and the Roman Empire
	 Whereas the ancient Roman civic code of the first century B.C. stated
that marriage was one of the duties of the citizen, the transformation of
that republic into an empire went hand in hand with a change in the moral
code: "The members of the ruling class, formerly citizen-soldiers, became
local notables and loyal subjects of the emperor. The Greco-Roman ideal of
self-discipline and autonomy was associated with the desire to exert power
in public life. ("No one is worthy to govern, who cannot govern himself.")
Under the Empire, sovereignty over oneself ceased to be a civic virtue and
became an end unto itself. Autonomy secured inner peace and made a man
independent of Fortune and the power of the emperor. This was preeminently
the Stoic ideal, and Stoicism was the most widespread of those sects of
wisdom, or 'philosophy', that enjoyed as much influence with the Romans as
religious ideologies with us" ([1], p. 36). Marriage and sex were no longer
a duty but merely an option. Hence, the need arose to justify existing
marriages and sexual intercourse. The answer was rapidly found in the
concept of procreation for the good and the perpetuation of society.
	 This change in the moral code also had two further important
consequences: abortion and contracep~tion became illegal, and celibacy
suddenly met with approval. While public honours and offices had only been
granted to founders of a family in the Roman Republic of 100 B.C., the
Empire came to regard bachelors as more devoted to their duties, due to the
very absence of a family.
	 2) Jewish and early Christian communities
	 Stoicism as such was, however, not necessarily part of the Jewish
or Christian philosophy of that time. Hence, the question arises why these
two groups should also adhere to the ideal of celibacy. II~Baruch 85;3 and
4 may offer an explanation:
	 "But now the righteous have been gathered, and the prophets are
fallen asleep, and we also are gone from the land, and Zion has been taken
from us, and we have nothing now save the Mighty One and His Law. (...)
	 If, therefore, we direct and dispose our heart We shall receive
everything that we have lost."
	 (Note the remarkable similarity between the "Voyager" crew's
situation and Jewish exile!) We are dealing with a society that cannot
build its communal life on the same foundations as the Romans. The ancient
Jewish community was held together by a religion and its rules only; it no
longer possessed a country of its own. In order to ascertain the survival
of this community it was vital that each and every single member devote an
important part of his time and efforts to public life. However, a person
who founded a family would probably soon feel the need to settle down
somewhere. He might leave the community and thus contribute to its gradual
dissolution. (Everyone remembers the last ten minutes of "The 37s", I
presume...!?)
	 The very same arguments were also valid for the then still rather
small group of Christians, a Jewish sect really, whose beliefs were yet to
spread around the globe. "What emerged from these centuries of anxious
concern for the solidarity of a threatened group was a sharp negative sense
of the private. What was most private in the individual, his or her most
hidden feelings and motivations, those springs of action that remained
impenetrable to the group ... were looked to with particular attention as
the possible source of the tensions that threatened to cause fissures in
the ideal solidarity of the community. (...) The starting point was the
heart, presented as a core of motivation, reflection, and imagined
intentions, that should ideally be single, simple - translucent to the
demands of its neighbours. The heart of course was more habitually observed
to be double. The double-hearted cut themselves off from God and their
neighbours by retiring into those treacherous zones of negative privacy
that screened them from such demands. (...) This is the vision of
solidarity and, consequently, of the total permeability of the private
person to the demands of the religious community that came to haunt the
ancient world in its last centuries." ([1], pp. 254 ff.)
	 It follows that a community leader who did not commit himself
almost entirely to public issues, was looked upon with a certain degree of
suspicion and mistrust. Unlike the Romans, early Christianity came to
regard celibacy not as a mere additional virtue of man, but as THE sign of
true righteousness and the capacity to offer moral guidance. (As a matter
of fact, this belief seems to be deeply rooted in Christian minds even
today: Strangely enough, a priest who sexually abuses another person is
often considered morally even more corrupt than for instance a butcher who
is guilty of the same crime.) The Christians tried to justify their
attitude by proclaiming the needs of the community to be the Law of God:
	 "I say therefore to the unmarried and the widows, It is good for
them if they abide as I." (I~Corinthians 7;8) "He that is unmarried careth
for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may praise the Lord" (7;32)
"But if any man think that he behaveth himself uncomely toward his virgin,
if she pass the flower of her age and need so require, let him do what he
will, he sinneth not: let them marry." (7;36) It is interesting to note
that marriage is once again perceived as a necessary "evil" which serves to
legalize man's craving for sex, and which is subsequently justified by
eventual procreation (and the creation of a new community member...).
	Marriage - a short digression
	 Even though marriage was (and is) indeed a means to legalize the
intimate relationship between a man and a woman, it would be too one-sided
to ignore all other aspects of this institution. It should for instance
also be noted that, until recently, marriages were for the most part
arranged by parents and usually had little to do with love between the
parties concerned. Nevertheless, even though physical passion is regarded
with suspicion, and sexual activities should ideally be indulged in for
procreation only, a good marriage according to the Church is one where the
two partners - even in the absence of love - have friendly feelings for
each other and respect one another. **********
	 By the end of the third century A.D., the Christian church had
"caused this new morality to undergo a subtle process of change by
rendering it more universal in its application and far more intimate in its
effect on the private life of the believer. Among Christians a somber
variant of popular morality facilitated the urgent search for new
principles of solidarity that aimed to penetrate the individual ever more
deeply with a sense of the gaze of God, with fear of His Judgement, and
with a sharp sense of commitment to the unity of the religious community".
([1], p. 263) Whereas Judaism, by means of circumcision and the observation
of a number of dietary laws, already allowed its adherents to clearly
distinguish themselves from other religious groups, Christianity "tended to
make their exceptional sexual discipline bear the full burden of expressing
the difference between themselves and the pagan world". ([1], p. 263)
	 Furthermore, as time went on, the Jewish rabbinate as well as the
new Islamic leaders gradually came to accept marriage as a wise choice,
thus easing the moral pressure on the members and leaders of their
communities. In Christianity, on the other hand, Pope Gregory VII (1073 -
85) made celibacy compulsory for all priests, and that ideal would not be
overthrown but only shaken in parts of society with the arrival of Johannes
Calvin (Jean Cauvin) in the 16th century: "From the very beginning, the
Lord has given to man a woman, that together they be complete. So he who
refuses a woman has torn off one half of himself. (...) A man who lacks a
woman is only half a man." ([3], p. 422) To be sure, even before then, it
was possible to be a king, mayor, or an important merchant and to be
married at the same time. As far as kings or other wealthy people are
concerned, marriages were even desired, since the title or fortune needed
to be passed on to their respective heirs. Nevertheless, a source from 10th
century Byzantium states that the emperor Nicephorus II Phocas (murdered in
969) was "an ascetic who was repressing a monastic vocation. In observance
of periods of abstinence prescribed by the church, he slept outside the
imperial bedchamber. His murder took place during Advent, and the murderers
were forced to wander through the palace, ... finally locating him asleep
on a bearskin." ([1], p. 574) Taking into account that byzantine emperors
also took part in liturgy - they were in fact regarded as the
representatives of Christ on earth, their symbol in church was the organ
([7], entries "Byzantinische Musik"/"Byzantinisches Reich") - and that
monks at that time were frequently asked to pray for the state, it is
hardly surprising that the Church and the rules it laid out had great
influence on the rise and fall of a state's leaders.
	 3) Western Europe
	 One consequence of the Church's unwaveringly repressive attitude
was the subtle transformation of eroticism into a kind of courting which
never quite crossed the borderline between friendship, devotion and
admiration on the one, and physical desire on the other hand: the time of
minnesingers had arrived. Since the actual fulfillment of a couple's desire
was hardly an issue with this new, "romantic" kind of love, the Church of
Rome not only tolerated the latter, but even tried to use it for its own
purposes - this was the beginning of the adoration of the Virgin Mary. Yet
the Church's influence on political matters did not decrease with this
apparent liberalism:
	 As far as western Europe is concerned, the example of Henry VIII
of England (15th century) clearly illustrates that even sovereigns could
ignore the doctrines of the Church of Rome only at the cost of considerable
diplomatic conflicts. It should however be acknowledged that the structure
of western society had of course undergone some radical changes since the
arrival of Christianity. The latter was by then the most widespread
religion in Europe, so the relative importance of private life had been
constantly increasing. Celibacy was no longer required to ascertain the
continuation of public life and social cohesion.
	 Sexuality had by then become a social taboo, "selfenforced,
independent of all outer agencies, and the punishment is believed to flow
automatically from the breach" (Marg. Mead, quoted in [8], p. 95). Society
had hence gained automatic control over events that were usually hidden
from the public eye. The famous "Malleus Maleficarum" ("The Witch-Hammer",
written by Heinrich Institoris and Jakob Sprenger, two 15th century
Dominicans) mirrored in a rather detailed manner the evil and the dangers
that were assumed to be connected to sexual desire and activities: evil
spirits were supposed to interrupt or prevent intercourse, Satan himself
was said to turn into a man or woman and wreak havoc among human couples.
	 Generally speaking, physical love was officially regarded as a
necessary evil as well as a threat to reason and rationality. This was also
due to the then prevailing anthropological model of mankind, which stated
that man, because of his capacity to think, belongs to a higher sphere of
existence than his natural, animalistic drives would suggest. Once again we
can find here the underlying assumption that man ought to use reason in
order to conquer his own nature and thus to better himself. It was not
before the appearance of modern psychoanalysis that these different spheres
of human existence were actually recognized as belonging together ([2], p.
23), although Johann Baptist Hirscher (Unknown - 1860), a theologian from
Freiburg, had already published several texts that supported a similar
point of view. However, as far as the link between moral / religious and
political issues is concerned, the Church still exercised considerable
influence even then. In Germany for example, till the end of the 19th
century teachers were required by law to be celibate. As far as Great
Britain is concerned, the example of King Edward VIII (1894 - 1972), who
had to abdicate as King and head of the Church of England because he had
married Wallis Simpson (an American, previously divorced lady), clearly
shows that non-conformity with the Church's moral leads to a loss of power.
Even as late as the 1990's, two British ministers of Parliament stood back
from their respective offices because the press had found out and made
public that they had each had an affair.
	 4) Final comment
	 The aforementioned events lead to the assumption that the rules
laid down by the Church over the centuries are not merely imposed upon
society but actually meet with approval - be it due to personal conviction,
social convention or a combination of both. It is generally expected that a
person who is entrusted with power over other people should be a perfect
role model. Justified as this expectation may be to a certain degree, my
personal opinion is that each of us still has his or her own conscience and
reason to go by. Putting one person in power should not mean that his or
her followers, subjects or subordinates may safely abandon their own moral
guidelines. Moreover, it appears important to me that even leaders, whether
religious, political, military or other, should be allowed to remain normal
human beings and make their own (legal) personal choices without being
overburdened with their followers' values and expectations. If - for
whatever reason - these personal choices include celibacy and chastity,
then so be it.

	 Bibliography
	 [1] P. Aries, G. Duby (general Editors): "A History of Private
Life", Vol. 1 - 5, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press,
Cambridge/Massachusetts, London/Great Britain 1987
	 [2] A. Bagel-Bohlan, M. Salewski (Editor): "Sexualmoral und
Zeitgeist im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert", Leske + Budrich, Opladen 1990
	 [3] G. J. Bellinger: "Im Himmel wie auf Erden. Sexualitaet in den
Religionen der Welt", Droemer Knaur, Munich 1993
	 [4] H. Benedikt: "Das Zeitalter der Emanzipationen 1815 - 1848",
Boehlan, Cologne 1977
	 [5] J. Hergenroether: "Katholische Kirche und Christlicher Staat",
Vol 1+2, Scientia Verlag, Aalen 1968
	 [6] R. Lautmann: "Der Zwang zur Tugend. Die gesellschaftliche
Kontrolle der Sexualitaeten", Ed. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt/Main 1984
	 [7] "Meyer's Lexikon in drei Baenden", Bibliographisches Institut
& F. A. Brockhaus AG, Mannheim 1995
	 [8] H. Schelsky: "Soziologie der Sexualitaet", Rowohlt, Hamburg 1955
	 [9] V. Sigusch: "Kritik der disziplinierten Sexualitaet", Campus,
Frankfurt/Main 1989


Voyager #14: MAROONED
Author: Christie Golden
Reviewer: E. Klisiewicz

	Christie Golden wrote "The Murdered Sun", easily one of the best
*Voyager* books in the series. With "Marooned", she has topped that earlier
effort. Golden is obviously a big fan of the show, and her intimate
knowledge of each character lends a richness to the story's tapestry that
is missing from most Trek books.
	In "Marooned", Kes is abducted by a long-lived alien named Aren
Yashar. The brevity of her life is in stark contrast to his own, and he's
determined to make her love him by making her gilded cage as comfortable as
possible. Unfortunately, his 'little bird' doesn't appreciate having her
wings clipped and he cannot squelch her overwhelming desire for freedom.
The *Voyager* crew launches a rescue attempt and most of the story revolves
around these efforts. Janeway leads an away team that meets up with some
friendly aliens who lead them towards the pirate's encampment. One of their
party is killed by some alien quicksand, and Tom Paris nearly dies from an
insect bite. Neelix goes off on his own and befriends a telepathic alien
who saves his neck. On *Voyager*, Chakotay and many of his former Maquis
crew (Chell, Henley, and Dalby) work together to rescue the away team when
it becomes clear they're in trouble.
	"Marooned" is filled with wonderful character moments. For example,
Paris and Torres clearly have something going, but Golden handles their
relationship with a subtlety that the *Voyager* writing staff is incapable
of achieving. Both Janeway and Chakotay are portrayed as capable leaders
who care about their people and aren't afraid to take risks to achieve
their goals. And finally, Kes is wonderfully drawn and has a substantial
role to play. Yes, she *is* nurturing towards her alien captor, but she
also shows a keen intelligence when she cracks into the pirate's computer
system.
	To summarize, this is an enjoyable book with a believable story
line and clear, concise writing. I highly recommend it.

Reviewer: Sara Unger

	I am delighted to report that I have found a way to fix everything
wrong with Voyager, and it's simple. Paramount needs turn the series over
to author Christie Golden. Golden has turned her talents to these
characters before, in her 1996 Voyager novel The Murdered Sun - by far the
best of the series novels to date. Though she did a terrific job with the
characters in that effort, I didn't want to get hopeful about whether her
second outing would be as enjoyable, in part because the producers have
wreaked havoc with the show since Golden last wrote for it.
	Yet Marooned is every bit as good as The Murdered Sun. It's a
compelling action story, beginning with an abduction and a sophisticated
ruse to cover it up, followed by an interstellar chase and an alien
conspiracy. There's something for everyone in this novel: space battles, a
technobabble-filled shuttle disaster, a mystery involving an ancient
civilization, a rescue in which the rescuers wind up being saved by the
endangered party. There's even a love story or two. It's a terrific tale,
entertainingly told, with a good balance of science fiction, adventure, and
humor.
	That is not, however, what I liked best about this novel. Marooned
singlehandedly restored my faith in the premise of Voyager, and reminded me
of everything there is to love about its crew. I don't know whether this is
a good thing or a bad thing for the TV series, since the superb
characterization in the book reinforces how sloppily these people have been
written on the series. Golden deals with major issues which the show
ignored; she demonstrates how just a few lines of dialogue could greatly
improve consistency and continuity, in terms of Neelix and Kes's breakup,
the slow development of fellowship between Paris and Torres, Tuvok's
interest in horticulture, Chakotay's animal guide. She also brings back the
Maquis crewmembers introduced in "Learning Curve," who are an integral part
of this story. Golden's smart enough to keep them in the background,
retaining her focus on the main crewmembers, but the presence of these
missing links makes this novel a rich an interesting tapestry which ties
together several seasons of Voyager and creates patterns out of what looked
like random events on the series.
	The tale begins with the kidnapping of Kes by Aren Yashar, a
near-immortal pirate who's taken up residence on an inhospitable world
protected by an artificially-generated ion storm. When the crew pursue,
Janeway and most of the bridge officers are stranded following a shuttle
disaster. Chakotay struggles against automated planetary defense systems
that damage Voyager and hinder his attempts to contact the away team. While
engineering crews work to take over patrol ships in space,  the captain
teams up with some friendly natives and sets off on a dual mission to
rescue Kes and contact Voyager before the ship can inadvertently set off a
disaster by causing the ignition of a plasma leak.
	"Kidnapping" suggests that Kes is a sort of damsel in distress, but
nothing could be further from the truth. She's resourceful and
self-reliant, refusing to let either Janeway or Neelix speak for her even
when they believe they're representing her interests. She manipulates her
captor without resorting to cruelty or seduction, ultimately rescuing her
would-be emancipators by covert use of the alien technology which Aren
never suspects she could use against him.
	The Doctor, who's by far the weakest character in this novel,
paternalistically fears that she could surrender to "Stockholm Syndrome"
and fall in love with her kidnapper, but Kes is a lot tougher than that.
She recalls having been held prisoner before by the benevolent Caretaker,
the cruel Kazon and the mind-controlling Tieran, and discovers that she's
strong enough to maintain her instinctive empathy for Aren's suffering
while still fighting to escape. If we'd had a Kes this multidimensional on
the series, her loss would have been devastating.
	Janeway, too, is very strong in this novel, taking initiatives
without indulging in unnecessary personal heroics, though conveniently she
is also the least-injured member of the landing party. She copes gamely
when the crew encounters aliens they can't communicate with, depending on
gestures to bond before she can rely on her technological wizardry. She
manages to be both captain-like and accessible, a combination not mastered
by the writers of the show, where she tends to be one or the other but not
both at the same time.
	Janeway and Chakotay make a wonderful team in Marooned - he can
guess her orders by the inflection of her voice, and she's completely
comfortable leaving the ship under his command as she's rarely been on the
series. There isn't any suggestive intimacy between them like in Golden's
previous novel, where an off-duty Janeway sat and chatted in her nightgown
with her first officer, but the relationship is warm and affectionate,
trusting and balanced. Golden has an eye for the visual detail of the
series as well as the facts: her comments about Janeway's eye contact with
Chakotay, her suppressed laughter and the way she lifts her chin when
angry, sound much more accurate than do descriptions of Janeway in many
Pocket novels which seem to be based purely on publicity stills.
	Chakotay isn't in this novel as much as he was in The Murdered Sun
- with Janeway missing, he's stuck on the bridge, dependent on the
engineering teams to provide options for him. He does have one great moment
of decision, when Aren threatens the life of Tom Paris and Chakotay, having
determined that the alien is bluffing, tells Aren to go ahead and kill the
lieutenant. Paris takes a lot of abuse in this novel - Aren calls him dull,
Torres picks on him when he's tired, then he gets bitten by an alien
insect, developing a horrific infection which Janeway must cut away without
anesthesia.
	The best thing about Paris is that he's not the superman he's
become on the series, pilot and engineer and medic all in one - quite the
opposite. When he's injured, Janeway must doctor his wounds, and Torres
carries him over great distance. She comes across much stronger than he
does, making one wish Christie Golden rather than Jeri Taylor had written
the Paris/Torres romance on the series. Here, it's subtle and witty, more
like a Hepburn/Tracy movie than the heavy-handed, sappy material we've seen
onscreen. Golden also creates wonderful warmth between Neelix and Kes,
explaining their breakup in more detail than the series bothered and having
Neelix attempt unexpected heroics to rescue his former love.
	The descriptive scenes are lush and vivid - there's a comparison of
a shattered biosphere to a broken snow globe early on, and a colorful tour
through an arboretum. The pacing isn't always even - we don't see quite
enough of the ship for my tastes while the action was heavy on the planet -
but Golden keeps up suspense quite well, and the ending is satisfying.
There aren't any simple good guys or bad guys, and she introduces some
wonderful alien species.
	I'd rate this book better than any of the previous Voyager novels
except Golden's own, and better than the vast majority of episodes on the
series. It's a wonderful glimpse at what this show could be like.

Voyager #15: ECHOES
Authors: Dean Wesley Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, and Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Reviewer: Sara Unger

	I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Echoes, like its immediate
predecessor Marooned, is a terrific read. The first series novel by Dean
Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Escape, was the first original
Voyager novel published: the writers knew nothing about the show or
characters beyond what information they could glean from the writers'
guide. Echoes, on the other hand, has solid storytelling and
characterization, borrowing some of the former from the excellent TNG
episode "Parallels" and the some of the latter from the excellent Voyager
episode "Deadlock." Ironically, the series itself no longer depicts the
characters the way this novel does; it really made me miss Kes, and Janeway
before her latest rewriting.
	Like "Deadlock," Echoes (also written with newcomer Nikki Hoffman)
features multiple Voyagers and multiple Janeways. A planetary transporter
opens a subspace rift which causes all the inhabitants of the planet to
shift into a parallel universe, where things are slightly different from
before. 2,410 universes over, however, the entire planet has ceased to
exist, and when a population of several billion people is suddenly
transported into that universe, they die agonizingly in the vacuum of
space. The rift reopens every two and a half hours, sending another three
billion people to their deaths. While the Janeway in the universe where the
planet is missing works frantically to prevent any more bodies from joining
the growing mass where a planet once was, the Janeway from the series
universe tries to unravel the mystery of what is causing the rift between
universes to open and why only half the universes seem to have Voyagers in
them.
	As a result of the phenomenon, an away team beamed down to the
planet which experiences a shift winds up in the wrong universe, leaving
one Voyager with two of Chakotay, Torres, Paris, and Kes, while another
Voyager must contend with inexact duplicates. This allows some really nice
character work in which we get to see the myriad of inconsistent
characterizations from the series all working together: a ferocious Klingon
B'Elanna working with a science-obsessed counterpart, a Janeway who wants
to rush to a solution plus a Janeway who seems overly cautious given the
number of lives at stake. Some of the characters are given new
idiosyncracies, but with the exception of Harry Kim, whose voice shakes far
too often, they're all pretty believable.
	Moreover, there's nice continuity with series events, both in terms
of plot incidents and relationships. Janeway and Chakotay are lovely here,
particularly when "our" Janeway realizes that she has the wrong Chakotay on
her ship but wants to reach out to him anyway. I also loved the captain's
interaction with Torres: the various incarnations of the chief engineer
come up with most of the answers to stop the phenomenon and reset the
universe, yet she still has a lot of bite and doesn't always play by the
rules. There's a really nice scene where the four doubled characters must
sit in a briefing together. The two Chakotays are all business, the two
Parises compete for attention, the two Keses work well together, and the
two Torreses sit on opposite sides of the room scowling. Sounds about right.
	The novel gets a little predictable towards the end - over nine
thousand Janeways come up with the same solution simultaneously and send it
out to the other Voyagers, clogging communications, then all fall silent to
let the Janeway in the universe missing the planet make the final call. A
lot of the description of the phenomenon reminded me of "All Good
Things..." and indeed much of the conception of time-travel and alternate
universe structure seems to have been borrowed from TNG, where it was
substantively different than on Classic Trek and Deep Space Nine, which
seem to have a more limited perspective on how many parallels are possible.
	Of course, we only hear about a few thousand parallel universes, so
the physics here should be more mindboggling than they are - there should
be universes where Voyager never encountered the shock wave for whatever
reason or where the ship was destroyed by the Kazon or where Chakotay's in
command or...well, you get the picture. Was there a parallel set of
universes where the breach was not sealed at the end...and if the shifts
kept happening, albeit in fewer universes, eventually all the people would
shift into a universe where it would...
	Well, I'm not Hawking, and the temporal theory here is ultimately
irrelevant to enjoyment of the story, which is much more about the people
than the events. The writers did a good job making the mindboggling numbers
of people caught in the disaster accessible, and in showing why the Voyager
crew would feel obligated to get involved rather than turn away from a
horror of such magnitude, seemingly unsolvable. The solutions devised both
to try to save the Birsibans and to close the rift sounded plausible, and I
liked the way Janeway implemented them even though she knew she was killing
several thousand variations on her crew.
	I'd rank this one pretty highly on my list of Pocket Books overall;
I enjoyed it more than any of the TNG novels dealing with time travel or
universe-hopping.

Reviewer: Elizabeth Klisiewicz

	You remember in Future's End when Janeway says that time anomalies
give her a headache? Well, I totally agree with that statement. One
universe is hard enough to keep track of, but this triumvirate of authors
with three names each decided to describe three parallel universes out of
thousands. Lucky for us that they write clearly and have a good handle on
the characters, otherwise this would be a nightmare of gargantuan
proportions.
	Using the "Deadlock" episode as a backdrop for *this* anomaly,
Voyager encounters a series of subspace waves along with a distress call.
As expected, they go to investigate and are caught up in a series of time
shifts that threaten billions of lives and manage to transport the away
team to the wrong universe. In one universe, the away team is doubled up,
which leads to some rather amusing moments between Torres One and Torres
Two.
	In each universe, hairstyles, tattoos, alien markings, and uniforms
change, but the characters are essentially the same. We also get to sneak
around inside Kathryn Janeway's mind, and that makes "Echoes" a real fun
ride. In recent months, TV's Janeway has been portrayed as a foolhardy
person who endangers both herself and her crew to satisfy her obsessive
drive to get her crew home. Here, each Janeway is drawn as a strong and
compassionate leader at the end of her rope, one who relies heavily on her
ersatz crew to come up with a workable solution to their problem. *This*
Janeway stresses teamwork, and knows she can't do this alone.
	In summary, although this novel treads the same old ground, its
writers manage to do so with enough finesse to keep it interesting. A
worthy addition to a mediocre series of books, and one which surpasses many
of the recent Voyager episodes.


Copyright Violation Corner

CRYING WOLF
by Diana Kornfeld


Disclaimer:  Paramount owns all--so they don't really need this.


	"All right, Chakotay," Kathryn Janeway smiled at her first officer.
"You've looked like the proverbial cat that swallowed the canary all day.
What are you hiding?" She looked up at him expectantly.
	"You win," he grinned. "I have been hiding something.  But now it's
time to talk about it.  I need to preface this a little bit. Hear me out
first?"
	Kathryn sat down facing him, one foot on her coffee table and
motioned him to sit opposite her. He started pacing, however, and looked
sideways at her. Was he nervous? She was intrigued.
	"You know," he began, hands clasped behind his back, "we've been
through a lot together out here in the last few years." Kathryn nodded,
puzzled. Just where was this going?  "..and we've found that it's been
necessary on occasion to stray a bit from Federation protocol.  Do things
that might be considered a little unusual by Alpha Quadrant standards."
	"Yes, I suppose that's so," Kathryn began. But Chakotay continued,
finally taking a seat across from her, leaning forward earnestly, fingers
interlaced, forearms on his knees.
	"I know you've been lonely, Kathryn. We all have," he said softly.
	She stirred uncomfortably on the couch and sat up a little
straighter. She felt the blood start to rush to her cheeks, but tried to
calm the warnings that were starting to sound in her mind.  Surely he
wasn't going to just march in here and talk about their relationship.
	"That's something I've had to learn to accept, just as everyone
else has," she said.
	"It upset you to leave Davalia.  I felt it.  It was a little breath
of home."  He looked at her briefly, his brows gathered, his eyes dark.
She opened her mouth to reply, but he was looking at the carpet, again
avoiding her gaze.
	"Now I know you're going to say this is going too far afield of
what should occur on a starship." He was up again, pacing in front of her.
God, he couldn't be saying what she thought he was about to say?  She
really wasn't ready for this.  They'd just spent a pleasant two weeks of
shore leave on a class M planet that was so much like Earth it had hurt
again just to leave. The inhabitants had been hospitable and the closest to
Earth humanoids they'd encountered yet. Even the plant and animal life had
been hauntingly familiar.  Was that what had precipitated this?
	He was right.  Her mood had been a little wistful when they left
the surface a few hours earlier, and she knew her first officer had sensed
it, had looked at her with concern just before they had beamed back aboard.
At one point, she thought he'd been about to speak to her about it, just as
they exited the transporter room, but Neelix had caught sight of her and
run enthusiastically forward, chattering about some disturbing looking
bulbous vegetation that he held lovingly in one hand.  Chakotay had given
her a sympathetic smile and disappeared until just a few minutes ago,
catching up with the usual chores required before they left orbit she had
supposed.
	While on Davalia, she and Chakotay had been able to spend some time
alone together, and she had to admit she had enjoyed it, enjoyed it far
more than she should have perhaps.  It had been so comfortable to escape
from the round of official receptions to walk aimlessly with him through a
scented forest.  To sit on warm rocks overlooking a rushing creek and talk
companionably.  Or to just sit and enjoy the sunshine and not talk at all.
There had been the usual undercurrent, though.  When he took her hand to
help her over a rough spot in the path, or she'd laid her hand on his arm
at the minister's gala, she'd felt it.  Occasionally he'd place his hand on
her waist while leading her to their table or escorting her to the lift.
Little things. Ordinary motions in the social dance of courtesy.  But there
was something about his touch that wasn't ordinary, that sent a very
uncaptainlike thrill through her.  She thought she had covered it well.
	"Chakotay, I really don't.." but he cut her off.
	"Just hear me out, Kathryn, and then you can decide."
	"All right," she said hesitantly, hoping her cheeks weren't as red
as they felt.
	"We all need companionship. And who's to say we shouldn't try to
make Voyager just a little bit more like home, even if it means some minor
inconveniences and breaking a few rules.  We're evidently going to be here
for awhile, and I think it's time we were willing to take a few risks.  We
could find the benefits far outweigh the potential problems."
	Was he ever going to get to the point?  She looked at him still
avoiding her gaze.  He *was* nervous.  But he was smiling a little bit as
well.  What was he going to suggest?  Her heart, she noticed, had starting
beating a little harder.  What was she to say to him?  And why was he still
halfway across the room from her?  She looked at his dark face fondly.  She
knew every line of it.  She could close her eyes and see it.  Did she know
every expression that could cross it?  Well, maybe not every expression,
she thought, blushing even more.
	"I know Q tried this, and you weren't ready even to consider it,
but. . ."
	 Q?  What could Q possibly have to do with this?  she thought, he
couldn't mean...
	"Now, I know you're going to think of ten, or maybe thirty, reasons
that this will never work," he smiled, " but I think we can work out the
details.  I'll help you.  It might be a chore at first, but we can do it.
And I really think the crew will be very accepting.  Well, they might even
be a little jealous."  He chuckled and glanced around her quarters.  "And
with just a few minor adjustments in here, I think you would really be
quite comfortable."
	Minor adjustments in here?  Goodness, how far had this man thought
this thing out?  Was he moving in already?  And the crew might be jealous?
She couldn't quite follow his reasoning on that one.  She still didn't know
what to say.  This wasn't exactly the way she had pictured this.  Had she
pictured this?  She realized what she was thinking with a bit of a shock.
Indeed, it seemed she *had* thought about their relationship changing one
day, as much as she might have denied it to herself.
	"Chakotay," she said softly, smiling and trying to appear utterly
calm and soothing, "maybe you'd better tell me just what it is that you're
proposing."  She bit her lip as she realized her choice of words, but he
seemed not to notice.  He was looking at the door to her quarters.
	"You're right," he laughed.  "I guess I have been rambling on a while."
	"And you haven't even told me an ancient story of your people," she
laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
	He grinned.  "To tell you the truth, I got you a little gift," he
said.  "I'll be right back."
	Kathryn stared at him in amazement as he dashed toward her door.
Had the man gone entirely mad?  A *little* gift?  He couldn't mean.... But
then why didn't he have it with him?  She was too dazed to think properly,
and had just sprung up from the couch to pace the room herself, when she
heard the door to her quarters swish open.  She knew she had to turn
around, but...
	"Turn around, Kathryn," she heard him say softly.
	At the sight of him, her hands went to her face and her eyes
glowed.  "Chakotay, you didn't," she gasped, but she was grinning with
delight.  "I can't believe it, " she ran toward him, her arms outstretched.
	"I know how much they mean to you," he smiled as she took the puppy
>from his arms.  "I hope you'll keep her."
	The little dog wriggled excitedly in Kathryn's arms and pushed up
towards her face, trying to lick her cheeks in an excited canine kiss.
	"Oh, she's beautiful, Chakotay.  I don't know what to say." She
smiled lovingly at her new companion and stroked the glossy red fur on its
head.  It looked like a cross between an Irish setter and a wolf, strange
but familiar at the same time.
	"Say you'll keep her," he replied.  "Say you'll take a risk."  He
smiled.
	They walked slowly back to the couch and took a seat.  Chakotay sat
beside her this time, much more relaxed but still anxious to hear her
decision.  The puppy romped on their laps, refusing to lay still.
	"Calm down, little one," Kathryn said playfully, stroking its silky
stomach.
	"How could I resist you?" she said to the bouncing, panting bundle
on her lap.  She leaned back against the couch and noticed Chakotay had his
arm along the top of it behind her.  He didn't move it.  She sighed.  It
felt very comfortable sitting there beside him, the dog calming now and
stretched across both their knees.  She felt warm and content.
	"But, assuming I do keep her," she sighed, "how would I manage? And
wouldn't she be lonely, too?  It seems cruel to separate her from her own
kind forever?  And what if it didn't work out?  We'd be trapped here
together.  I couldn't just drop her off at the next port."  Her questions
tumbled out, leaving Chakotay no time to address any of them.
	"I know," he finally inserted.  "I've thought about the same
things.  And here's what I've come up with.  We've got the holodeck where
she could get plenty of exercise. And if you don't have time, I know we'd
have plenty of willing volunteers to help out.  As for separating her from
her own kind, well," he grinned, "we're not out of orbit yet.  On the
chance that you'd say yes, I made arrangements to have a male transported
up.  I wouldn't mind having one of these myself."  He scratched the dog
under her chin, calming her down and making her eyes close in pleasure.
	"As for it not working out, well, I guess, that's where some of the
risk comes in.  We'd just have to work hard at it.  And, actually, the
Davalians told us about that station we'll encounter in about six months.
They trade there.  I suppose we could leave her there if we had to."
	He looked hopefully at her, and Kathryn knew he'd put a great deal
of time and thought into this, trying to please her.
	"Thank you, Chakotay," she said, smiling up at him, and then,
deciding to take a small risk herself, she impetuously kissed him on the
cheek.  As soon as she did, she felt his surprise and she felt something
else, a spark that passed instantly between them.  She was only inches from
his face now and couldn't help looking into his eyes, they were so warm,
and they held something else, something that both frightened her a little
and drew her closer to him.  She could feel his breath on her face and
suddenly the puppy was all but forgotten in the intensity of his gaze.
They moved imperceptibly closer to each other, and she couldn't help
glancing at his lips, they were so near.  Her heart was beating faster once
again, and she felt his arm encircle her.
	Suddenly the small dog was springing in between them, lavishing
Kathryn's face with warm swipes of her tongue, in an ecstasy of puppy love.
They both laughed, breaking the tension of the moment.
	"Are you jealous, sweet one?" Kathryn asked peering into her
puppy's brown, liquid eyes as the dog continued giving her kisses.
	"Yes," laughed the man beside her.  "I think I am."

END


Since the only thing Voyager's producers seem willing to let Janeway get
excited about is java, Laura and I figured we should give the poor captain
what she wants and never seems to get on the series...

COFFEE TALK
by Laura Williams and Em Wycedee

J: That was the best coffee I ever had, Chakotay.

C: You're just saying that.

J: No, really. The coffee I've had with other men seems meaningless now.

C: I've done this with hundr-- uh, many other people, but it was just
drinking. With you, I feel like I've had coffee, really had coffee, for the
first time.

J: I know exactly what you mean. It was never like this before. Mark used
to serve me coffee in bed. Sometimes it took hours. I used to like to make
him beg me for some in return.

C: Did you?

J: Really, I pretended I was enjoying myself much more than I was. Too much
routine can make coffee breaks a little unexciting.

C: That's for sure. I've had very good coffee in places where I knew I
shouldn't even be thinking about it. So much depends on individual quirks,
too. B'Elanna likes to use her teeth when she has coffee.

J:  Her teeth?

C:  Yes. She likes to chew chocolate-covered espresso beans.

J:  Sounds like a poor substitute for the real thing.

C:  Well, when you're in the Maquis you learn to take your coffee however
you can get it.

J:  That must have been difficult for you.

C:  It was. Sometimes a quick cup of instant in a Jeffries tube was all you
could manage, but you had to learn to be satisfied with that.

J:  Did you ever have coffee with B'Elanna?

C:  No. I think the invitation was always there, but it would have been too
weird. I think of her as my little sister. That wouldn't make for a very
satisfying experience.

J:  Vaguely incestuous.

C:  Yes.

J:  So how do you know she likes to chew espresso beans?

C:  She, uh, suggested them to me once.  She said she could see how tense I
was after that mess with Seska, so she suggested I go back to my quarters
by myself and get a handful of my own.

J: Did it help?

C: A little. The last time Seska tried to get me to have coffee with her,
she wanted it scalding hot and added something very bitter to the mix. All
I could think about the whole time was how eager you'd been to explore that
nebula so the whole crew could have coffee...

J: I learned an important lesson that day about not making coffee such a
priority that it could make me forget my other responsibilities. And I've
always felt that I couldn't have coffee with subordinates if I wanted to
maintain professionalism with the crew.

C: Seventy years is a long time to do it all by yourself. It's not
something I'm sure I could accept. Kathryn...there's something I've been
meaning to confess...

J: Oh, Chakotay, don't tell me. You had coffee with Riley Frasier.

C: You knew?

J: Of course I knew. I could smell it on your breath the minute you came
back on board. Seriously, you came back with a guilty look on your face
that went much deeper than being betrayed by her. I knew you'd had coffee
with another woman. It's all right, I forgave you a long time ago.

C: Then you won't mind if I ask you something...?

J: What is it?

C: On that shuttlecraft, while Paris was morphing you at Warp 10. I know
you said you don't remember a thing. Just please, tell me, whether you had
coffee with him before the transformation was complete...

J: Absolutely not. I would never have coffee with Tom Paris in anything
like my right mind. I'm surprised at you, Chakotay.

C: I'm sorry. It's just been so hard...Kathryn, sometimes I wonder whether
you have coffee with Leonardo Da Vinci on the holodeck.

J: Leonardo doesn't drink coffee with women. I'll tell you the truth,
Chakotay, I've had coffee on the holodeck a few times, but holographic
fluids with holographic companions aren't very satisfying.

C: Did you ever have coffee with anyone who served under you?

J: I did with Tuvok once, a long time ago in an emergency. But it wasn't my
cup of tea. Vulcans like it fast and flavorless, and Vulcan coffee is quite
thick. A little hard to swallow.

C: I think I'm jealous.

J: Don't be. Vulcans only crave it once every seven years, and then they
become a bit indiscriminate about who they'll drink with.

C: I heard Kes broke up with Neelix because of the coffee.

J: Really? I'd have thought Kes wasn't that shallow. Though I remember that
lumpy, viscous better-than-coffee substitute he offered me once...ugh.

C: Neelix likes it frothy with a lot of spice. But I hear Kes wanted it
straight-up, and dark. It surprised me that someone as young as Kes knew so
much about coffee.

J: I don't think Seven has ever tried it. Though Harry seems interested in
introducing her to the joy of java. Maybe one of us should have a little
talk with him about remembering that even though she looks like a woman, in
some ways, she's a child.

C: No experience with caffeine.

J: Precisely. Too much at once could be traumatic to her system. She's
still not used to human physiology. I'd hate to see her get hurt.

C: B'Elanna told me she and Tom are having problems because she likes
coffee after dinner, but Tom could drink it all day long...

J: I think far too much emphasis is placed on coffee in a relationship.

C: Oh, I agree completely. But when the coffee is really good, it can make
up for a lot of things.

J: Actually, I have a confession to make. Sometimes I don't enjoy the
coffee as much as I enjoy the process that leads to the coffee.

C: Oh really?

J: Oh yes. I like to have my beans handpicked, for one thing. And then
roasted carefully, ground gently, and brewed very, very slowly. Makes for a
much more satisfying cup of coffee, when you get to it. You appreciate it
more.

C: You're right, of course. Though it's been a long time since either of us
has had the luxury of indulging in that process.

J: Have you ever tried coffee with synthehol?

C: Of course. I once had it with peach schnapps--the flavors didn't quite
go together, but I was having such a good time that it didn't really matter.

J: When was this?

C: At the Academy. With a professor.

J: Really.

C: You have to understand that my parents were always very serious about
coffee--they taught me all about its historical and spiritual significance,
but neglected to mention that among most human cultures, coffee is often
just for pleasure.

J: My parents never talked to me about coffee at all. The first time I had
it was with my high school boyfriend, Cheb. His coffee was just about his
only redeeming quality.

C: What was it like?

J: Creamy, not too thick, a little sweet. Though it left a bad taste in my
mouth - usually after we had coffee, we'd get into an argument. He was
always trying to get me to try more exotic kinds, or have coffee with him
in a cornfield or something.

C: Did you have coffee with your fiance?

J: Justin? He was very earnest. I remember once we were having coffee
together and my dog burst in and started licking our faces - he got so
upset!

C: Sounds like he was a little fastidious.

J: He was a romantic. He wanted only the best for me. Though now I suspect
that he might have been a little too much of a perfectionist about coffee -
sharing hot, creamy cappucino is wonderful, but there's nothing wrong with
wanting a quick coarse-ground cup every once in awhile. How old were you
the first time you had coffee?

C: Too young. I ended up spilling most of it all over my pants. I should
have waited to do it with someone the experience would have meant something
to.

J: Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if we had coffee
together on New Earth. Maybe we were being too careful.

C: Or maybe we were conserving something we knew would be precious later on.

J: I almost asked you if you wanted to have coffee after the champagne the
night we went sailing on Lake George.

C: I think I would have preferred the coffee *with* the champagne, actually.

J: I wasn't sure I was up to it. My chest still hurt from being
resuscitated, and I was feeling a little vulnerable.

C: Coffee always makes me feel vulnerable. But it's worth it, even if I'm
uncomfortable the next morning because I didn't get enough sleep.

J: I didn't want instant coffee with you. I wanted a full-bodied
experience, with time to savor the aroma. You know what it's like when it's
the real thing, that moment when the coffee first crosses your tongue, hot
and bitter, and jolts your tastes awake...

C: The caffeine hits your system a second later...

J: This warmth, this feeling of rightness. Do you know how many chemical
processes take place to produce this reaction? How many different neural
receptors are involved? Do you have any idea how incredibly complex that
reaction is?

C: I must say, I didn't think about it until I started noticing what you're
like at 'that time of the month.'

J: Just what do you mean by that?

C: When you're out of rations and have a days to go before the next month's
round. We go through this every cycle, Kathryn - you burn up all your
rations going to the pot at the beginning of the month, then you're grouchy
as an old bear until the next round comes up. Your moods, your headaches,
your caffeine withdrawal are obvious.

J: What do you suggest I do about it? Don't even mention coffee
substitutes. The last one Neelix gave me was a 'special blend' composed
primarily of seaweed and leola root extract. Tasted like battery acid.
Never mind that it was bright green.

C: Then maybe you should turn yourself on to a slightly less addictive blend.

J: Are you suggesting...decaf? I can't do it, Chakotay. It's just not me.
Not that it's anything to be ashamed of, but decaf always seemed to me to
be about getting a quick fix, without any passion.

C: No, you misunderstand me. I'm suggesting that, instead of trying to hold
off and not indulge with officers of lower rank, maybe you should try
having coffee regularly with someone you trust, so you're not tempted to
binge in private and then feel guilty.

J: Someone like...yourself, I suppose.

C: You did sound like you thought coffee with me was an experience worth
repeating.

J: It was. But if we do this regularly, do you think we can balance it with
our other committments? Will we get the crew evaluations done if we keep
stopping to have coffee? And can we trust ourselves to be impartial?

C: Don't you think that abstaining from coffee could be just as detrimental
in the long run as indulging in occasional serious drinking with a willing
partner who'd do anything for you? Kathryn, the whole crew has noticed how
badly you need coffee. I think they trust us.

J: All right, Chakotay. We're too hooked to back off now. But when we're on
duty, we need to maintain our professionalism.

C: No mocha in the ready room. I understand. But when we're off-duty, I'll
boil your water, and steam your milk.

J: What would you say if I told you I sometimes like whipped cream on top,
and I like to lick it off?

C: I'd say, gimme some sugar.


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