“Counterpoint”
Written by Michael Taylor
Directed by Les Landau
Season 5, Episode 10
Production episode 204
Original air date: December 16, 1998
Stardate: unknown
Captain’s log. Voyager is flying through a large region of space controlled by the Devore. Their space is too massive to fly around in order to get home, so Janeway is going through, which means being subject to regular inspections. Telepathy is outlawed by the Devore, so they are searching for rogue telepaths.
Everyone steps away from their stations and stays visible while Inspector Kashyk and his team check over everything. The inspection teams all beam on board to various decks—Kashyk himself beams directly to Janeway’s ready room and summons her, having the computer play Mahler’s “First Symphony” throughout the ship to relax the crew.
Kashyk is friendly, if firm, expressing interest in certain aspects of Voyager’s cultural database. He also has studied the crew manifest and questions the two Betazoids and two Vulcans in that manifest. Janeway says that Tuvok, Vorik, and Jurot died in a shuttle crash, while Suder died fighting the Kazon.
Prax, Kashyk’s second, says Voyager made two course deviations. Janeway says they were to investigate ion storms, which Kashyk is willing to accept, though Prax says that such an offense usually gets the ship impounded and the crew relocated.
Once the Devore leave and are out of sensor range, Kim activates the transporter. Voyager has held twelve Brenari refugees (telepaths, all) as well as Tuvok, Vorik, and Jurot in transporter stasis to avoid being detected by the Devore.
Voyager is taking the Brenari to meet up with people who will escort them through a wormhole out of Devore space. However, they’ve changed the rendezvous point to a nebula that is way off their stated course. They risk being hit with another inspection, and there’s a risk of cellular degradation if they put the Brenari and the three Voyager telepaths through transporter stasis again. But they have to risk it.
While Janeway is talking to Neelix, who has been keeping an eye on the Brenari children, sensors detect another Devore vessel—but it’s a one-person ship, containing Kashyk, now in civilian garb. He requests asylum aboard Voyager, and to prove his worth, he says that the rendezvous in the nebula is a trap. The Devore know all about the planned meetup, and the change in location was at the Devore’s urging to lure Voyager into a trap. The wormhole isn’t there—in fact, the Devore don’t know where it is.
The leader of the Brenari, Kir, is willing to take Kashyk with them through the wormhole—but now they have to find it. Kir turns them on to a scientist named Torat, who is the region’s leading expert on the wormhole.
They find Torat, but he’s very reluctant to talk to them. In fact, they have to beam him onto the bridge—effectively kidnapping him. In exchange for some material he can use that Voyager can easily replicate, Torat provides them with all the data he has on the wormhole. One thing he tells them is that the wormhole’s terminus moves. He knows its last three locations, and maybe they can extrapolate from there.
Janeway and Kashyk work together to try to figure out where the wormhole will next appear. After hitting several brick walls, Janeway gets a notion from the music she’s got on in the background: Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony #4.” What if they find a subspace counterpoint, like the counterpoint in the musical piece? Checking subspace harmonics, they find a pattern, and predict that the next appearance of the wormhole will be in the Tehara system.
They have to get through a Devore scanning array first, and while they attempt to make it through undetected, an antimatter surge gives their position away before Torres can do anything about it. They warp away toward Tehara, but now they’re on the clock, as two Devore warships are closing in on them.
Kashyk volunteers to fly to the Devore ships and take over the impending inspection, promising to make it quick and painless. Janeway is willing to stay and fight, but Kashyk insists that Voyager would be toast against two warships. She acquiesces, and before he goes off in his ship, they share a passionate kiss.
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Fugitive Telemetry
The Devore ships arrive and they go through the same rigamarole as they did at the top of the episode, complete with Kashyk beaming into Janeway’s ready room and piping classical music over the ship’s PA. Once Janeway and Kashyk are alone, Janeway assures Kashyk that the Brenari are safe and also that they’ve pinpointed the exact location of the wormhole. They have to detonate a photon torpedo to open the aperture.
As soon as he hears that, Kashyk tells Prax that there are Brenari refugees in the cargo bay transporter buffer. Kashyk has betrayed them, and all of this was a long con to get the location of the wormhole and destroy it.
However, the coordinates Janeway gave Kashyk are false, the items in the transporter buffer are barrels of vegetables, and two shuttlecraft are missing. The Brenari went to the real coordinates of the wormhole in the two shuttles and escaped.
Prax wants to confiscate the ship, but Kashyk would rather not have this failure on their record, so he lets Voyager go. Janeway tells Kashyk that she never lied to him when he was on board previously, the asylum offer—and the offer to take him with them on their journey—was genuine.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Just keeping someone in the transporter buffer was established in TNG’s “Relics” as dangerous.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway takes on the task of trying to figure out the location of the wormhole herself, along with Kashyk, having apparently forgotten that there’s an entire science and engineering staff on board.
Half and half. Torres tries to keep Voyager emissions-quiet when they’re being scanned by the Devore en route to the wormhole, but a surge is beyond her ability to fix in time. Once again, Torres seems to be the only Trek engineer with a plurality of failures on her resumé.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix tries to tell stories to the Brenari children, but they know what’s coming in every story by reading his mind, which the Talaxian finds rude.
Resistance is futile. At one point, Prax asks Seven if the Borg implants that allow her to communicate with the Collective make her a telepath. She assures him that it doesn’t.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Janeway and Kashyk have obvious chemistry from the nanosecond we see them together, and that only strengthens as they work together. The kiss when Kashyk leaves to return to the Devore ship feels genuine—but so does both Kashyk’s betrayal and Janeway’s anticipation of same.
Do it.
“I was planning on asking you to stay with us once we got through the wormhole. I wouldn’t mind having someone around who appreciates a bit of Tchaikovsky now and then.”
“Generous—but something tells me I wouldn’t fit in any better on Voyager.”
“Well, you wouldn’t be the first wayward soul we’ve folded into our ranks…”
Janeway making Kashyk an offer, Kashyk refusing, and Janeway reminding him of Neelix, Kes, Seven, Paris, and Chakotay, Torres, and the rest of the Maquis crew.
Welcome aboard. Mark Harelik manages an impressive balance of smarm and charm as Kashyk, while Trek veterans J. Patrick McCormack and Randy Oglesby play, respectively, Prax and Kir. McCormack was last seen as an admiral in DS9’s “Dr. Bashir, I Presume?” and will return as a Romulan in Nemesis. Oglesby played one of Riva’s chorus in TNG’s “Loud as a Whisper,” Miradorn twins in DS9’s “Vortex,” and a Cardassian lunatic in DS9’s “The Darkness and the Light”; he’ll play a Xyrillian in Enterprise’s “Unexpected,” and have the recurring role of Degra in Enterprise’s third season.
Alexander Enberg gets guest-star billing and presumably a full paycheck for standing next to Tim Russ for three seconds. (He doesn’t even appear in any of the engineering scenes.) Randy Lowell plays Torat and Jake Sakson plays Adar.
Trivial matters: This episode makes it appear as if there are only two Vulcans on board, Tuvok and Vorik, plus one Betazoid, Jurot. The crew manifest Kashyk reads also lists Suder, whom Janeway correctly identifies as having died fighting the Kazon (in “Basics, Part II”). However, in “Flashback,” Tuvok mentioned the other Vulcans, plural, on board, and Janeway will similarly refer to other Vulcans on board besides Tuvok in “Endgame.” In addition, there’s no mention in Kashyk’s crew manifest of Stadi (a Betazoid) or the ship’s nurse (a Vulcan), who both died in “Caretaker.”
While Jurot is only seen from behind when she’s rematerialized in the cargo bay, the character later appears in the videogames Elite Force and Elite Force II.
This is the only appearance of the Devore onscreen, but the Devore in general and Kashyk and Prax in particular are seen again in the post-finale Voyager novels Protectors, Acts of Contrition, and Atonement by Kirsten Beyer.
Michael Taylor’s script was based on a pitch by Gregory L. Norris and Laura Van Vleet, which focused more on Seven and had Voyager hiding refugees in their landing struts.
Kate Mulgrew listed this as her favorite episode for the Star Trek Fan Collective: Captain’s Log video set.
Voyager loses two more shuttles in this episode, though in this case it was done with malice aforethought, as it were, as the shuttles were given to the Brenari so they could escape through the wormhole. Voyager has now lost nine shuttles.
Neelix tells the Brenari children a Flotter and Trevis story, the characters introduced in “Once Upon a Time.”
Set a course for home. “We’ve been through three inspections, please explain why another is necessary.” This is a very well executed episode, with a clever plot that unfolds skillfully and delightfully. I like that we jump right into the middle of the story, with Voyager having already gone through the tedium of a Devore inspection.
Michael Taylor’s script reveals new layers slowly like a flower blooming. First we have the surprise that it isn’t just Tuvok and Vorik and some other crewmember being hidden in transporter stasis: there are also a dozen telepathic refugees.
This is, honestly, my favorite part of the episode. Of all the Trek shows, Voyager is the one that most often loses track of the fact that our heroes are supposed to be, well, heroes. They sometimes (only sometimes, mind you) are so focused on their journey home that they forget that their first duty should be compassion and helping those that need it. There’s a reason why so many Trek stories start with a response to a distress call.
But it continues from there. Kashyk starts out as the oily, charming bad guy. Mark Harelick plays him perfectly, not so slimy that you don’t buy his asylum request, but not so charming that you entirely buy that he isn’t going to betray everyone. As, indeed, he does.
Kashyk’s asylum request is the next layer that’s revealed, and it’s tremendous fun watching his relationship with Janeway—well, not change, exactly, because the caustic wit and mock-friendliness never really goes anywhere, but it also softens as the episode goes on. Particularly when they’re trying to figure out where the wormhole is, as that’s Janeway’s favorite mode. She was a Starfleet science officer before she was a captain, and Starfleet science officers are at their best when they’ve got a problem to solve.
And then the betrayal. The way it’s played, you’re not entirely sure whether or not Kashyk’s defection was legit or not—at least not until he actually does betray.
Yet the hints are there. For one thing, Janeway never refers to him as anything other than “Inspector.”
Unfortunately, where the episode falls down is at the end. There is no reason, none, why Kashyk shouldn’t confiscate Voyager and take the crew prisoner. Never mind the Brenari, Kashyk now knows that Tuvok and Vorik and Jurot aren’t dead. Voyager is harboring telepaths, Kashyk knows it, and being able to bring the three of them in would more than make up for the loss of the Brenari, I would think.
Instead, we get an incredibly lame, “We don’t want this on our record” excuse that I didn’t buy for a nanosecond. Hell, Kashyk could’ve just beamed over to his ship and opened fire on Voyager and destroyed it in an instant, and then he could easily cover up his screwup, saying he had no choice but to fire on Voyager and killed the Brenari refugees, as well.
But no, our heroes have plot armor, so Kashyk just completely unconvincingly lets them go. It’s too bad, because the episode up until that was so satisfying, but the ending just isn’t plausible on any level. The Devore have proven to be ruthless, and this wimping out at the end is a hundred percent out of character, and is the worst kind of writing manipulation, one that is unworthy of the story that preceded it.
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido has two pieces coming out in March. One is a short story featuring H. Rider Haggard’s Ayesha (from the novel She) in the charity anthology Turning the Tied, edited by Jean Rabe & Robert Greenberger, to be published by the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers to benefit the World Literacy Organization. The other is an essay for BIFF! BAM! EEE-YOW!: The Subterranean Blue Grotto Guide to Batman ’66—Season Two, edited by Jim Beard, with Rich Handley, about “Hizzoner the Penguin”/”Dizzoner the Penguin,” to be published by Crazy 8 Press.
I know I’m the guy that keeps quoting SF Debris throughout the Rewatch, but Chuck Sonnenburg had one beautiful comedic gem from his review of this episode:
Telepath Leader: There is a scientist named Turok.
Janeway: Ooh, I know him!
Telepath Leader: No, you’re thinking of the dinosaur hunter again.
Janeway: Aw, dammit…
Relics established keeping someone in the buffer was thought impossible, obviously Scotty refined his technique between then and Voyager going missing. If he could do the impossible in a cave with a box of scraps wrecked transport ship, then once he got into a real lab who knows what he could do. For all Scotty saying that he couldn’t start over with the textbooks, I doubt that he actually could stay away. Engineers never can, no matter what they say.
An opportunity to bring another subject under her reign of terror and expand her empire? Of course it was a genuine offer.
There will also be a female Vulcan credited in at least one future episode, if I recall correctly, and Janeway said once before that she wished they had a Betazoid on board, which makes you wonder where Jurot was that day. I know Voyager wasn’t huge on internal consistency, but with the limited budget you would at least think that they had a rough breakdown of who was on the ship (X males, Y females, Z humans, A Vulcans, B Maquis, etc) to avoid things like this.
Yea, the ending needed one of two things, in my opinion. Either reveal that Kashyk really *did* want to defect, but now can’t since the other inspectors know the truth, and have him manage to talk them into the “this would be bad on our record” thing, or have Janeway have something clever up her sleeve that backed him into a corner. Without either of those, the ending seems like a bit of a let-down on an otherwise good episode.
One of those other Vulcans, an unnamed Maquis female, will appear in season 7’s “Repression.”
Nor, indeed, of Kes.
Also, in “Dragon’s Teeth” in season 6, Janeway laments the lack of a Betazoid on board, suggesting that Jurot isn’t long for this world.
I remember feeling that this episode was better in concept than execution, for some reason. I think maybe I didn’t find the chemistry between Janeway and Kashyk convincing, or something. Or maybe I just found the idea of Janeway getting romantic with an enforcer from a genocidal authoritarian state to be creepy, even if he was supposedly a defector.
On the subject of transporter buffers, it’s supposed to be fatal to be held in the buffer for more than 8 minutes; past that point, the signal is too degraded to reconstruct. Perhaps Starfleet has learned from Scotty’s “Relics” fixup, though. It is a clever idea to hide people in the buffers.
I didn’t like the idea of Janeway getting busy with that creep either. It bothered me. Seemed out of character for her, and made her look rather naive.
Dang, I like this one but never really thought about how unpersuasive the ending is. Excellent points.
@@@@@ 4 CLB: “Or maybe I just found the idea of Janeway getting romantic with an enforcer from a genocidal authoritarian state to be creepy, even if he was supposedly a defector.”
Gosh, when you put it like that, I remember that Chakotay had basically the same plot in Unforgettable, although granted that enforcer was more about keeping natives in than telepaths out. Dating is rough in the Delta Quadrant, I guess.
@5 In fairness, Chakotay is the leader of a terrorist cell, so it isn’t like he has a lot of moral high ground to stand on.
Is Tuvok’s absence at the end of the episode a matter left up to the viewer? He wasn’t a vegetable and he wasn’t on the shuttles…
Keith, I’m with you on the ending. I remember thinking when I first saw this episode—and I thought of the same thing again when rewatching it—that the betrayal was just a con within a con. That is, Kashyk really was a nice guy and the con was really on his government. Once Kashyk said he was letting Voyager go and ordered Prax out of the room, he was going to smile at Janeway. That would have made more sense than what we got.
Austin: It doesn’t matter if Tuvok is on the bridge or not in the final scenes — Kashyk knows about Tuvok and Vorik and Jurot. He’s at the very least met Tuvok, who even gave him a Vulcan salutation right before he left. For that alone, Voyager should’ve been toast.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@6, it’s rather vague on what exactly Chakotay was doing, but fair enough.
@7 “Is Tuvok’s absence at the end of the episode a matter left up to the viewer? He wasn’t a vegetable and he wasn’t on the shuttles…”
Oddly enough, he’s on the bridge at tactical. The theory being, I guess, that if Kashyk is legit then he’ll just make sure they “don’t notice” the Vulcan they’ve been assured was dead and if it’s a con then the jig is up anyway and best to have your tactical officer at his post.
@9 – “Oddly enough, he’s on the bridge at tactical. The theory being, I guess, that if Kashyk is legit then he’ll just make sure they “don’t notice” the Vulcan they’ve been assured was dead and if it’s a con then the jig is up anyway and best to have your tactical officer at his post.”
But they did the whole scanning thing again. They would have spotted him.
Wholeheartedly agree with you, Krad, this was a terrific episode that would be an automatic 9 or 10 if they hadn’t blown the landing. Dang shame. I saw a DVD extra somewhere where Kate Mulgrew said she loved the script the minute she saw it and begged the producers to let her find the actor for Kashyk. Mark Harelick is brilliant and I could listen to his voice all day, he really was perfect for the role.
This is the only appearance of the Devore onscreen, but the Devore in general and Kashyk and Prax in particular are seen again in the post-finale Voyager novels Protectors, Acts of Contrition, and Atonement by Kirsten Beyer.
Yeah, the Devore could easily have been multi-episode antagonists.
It foes back to what I’ve said before about how, given the nature of its homeward bound premise, VOY would’ve worked better with arc villains rather than a monolithic power like the Borg or the Kazon. You know, more stuff like with the Hirogen or the Malon.
As it is, I did love how Beyer turned so many of these one-shot alien races VOY had pissed off into a, for lack of a better term, Delta Quadrant Legion of Doom during the Full Circle mission.
Good story. There are many elements that make it stand out as memorable in my mind like the prominent use of classical music piping over the ship’s coms, jumping right into the middle of the story in the trailer, and the “is he lying or not?” question pervading most of the episode in regards to Kashyk.
You really feel bad for Janeway in the end because you know she had genuine affection for Kashyk and you so rarely get to see Janeway have a love interest. Mulgrew has great chemistry with the actor Mark Harelik so you’re rooting for the relationship to be real and based in truth while intellectually knowing it is most likely a long con. But it was also enjoyable how Janeway never truly fell for it. She always knew it was a very real possibility that she was being played. Of course, it would have seriously weakened the character if she hadn’t prepared for that possibility. It would have been like the Romulan commander in “The Enterprise Incident” who got thoroughly screwed over by Spock because she went all gaga for him.
I liked Harelik’s voice and it was enjoyable/amusing to me when he would should “Prax!” Prax is a fun name.
When Harelik betrayed Janeway towards the end and then realizes he’s been deceived himself, I was hoping for yet one more layer of the con where he would then state to Janeway he was only pretending to betray her because the rest of the Devore were on to him and so he needed to fool them and then ask Janeway once again for asylum. It would have been like the guy just doesn’t know when to quit and Janeway would call him on it.
As it is, I already felt like the ending with Kashyk just letting Voyager go was a cop-out without thinking of specific reasons why but KRAD’s specific reasoning is definitely valid. It’s just plot armor on the heroes allowing the episode to be self-contained and moving on to the next adventure of the week. I agree that the Devore seemed like such a big threat and power that they could have easily been an arc villain through at least part of the season.
I feel that the lack of internal consistency in regards to crew size and characteristics was actually being tracked but fell by the wayside once Michael Piller left. Way back during his tenure in Voyager’s early days I submitted a question to him through a pre-announced Q&A session that StarTrek.com was hosting and my question was one that was accepted. I basically was asking if the writers were keeping track of every time someone dies because that would have an effect on the ship’s functioning in a situation where the crew couldn’t be refreshed with new members. He replied to the effect that that was something they were absolutely keeping track of. Now my question didn’t get into whether they were also being internally consistent with how many Betazoids and Vulcans and such that they had on the ship but I believe that would have been another thing Piller would have made sure the writers were being consistent about but then he left the series after the “Basics” two-parter.
“For what it’s worth, you made a tempting offer.”
A return to form for both the show and its lead character. Janeway comes very close to admitting to putting what she think is right over adherence to the Prime Directive, which is kind of what she hauled Paris over the coals for last episode, but she has the advantage of being the captain. There’s certainly nothing wrong with seeing our heroes putting themselves at risk for strangers. And the episode pulls a nice game of bait and switch with Kashyk. We kind of go along with Janeway, in that we’re initially cautious and suspicious of his change of heart, but he seems to be so helpful and personable that we almost trust him. And then he pulls the rugs from under us, only for Janeway to pull the rug from under him. Is not wanting to spoil his own reputation his only reason for letting Voyager go? Hard to tell. It perhaps makes the ending a bit more sensible if his fondness for Janeway and/or the rest of the crew plays a part in it.
Neelix’s nice little scene looking after the Benari children is a reminder that he’s quite good with children. Vorik makes his second and final appearance of Season 5, although as is pointed out, he’s only in one brief scene and doesn’t speak: He’ll make one more appearance in Season 7.
Kashyk instructing Janeway to meet him in her ready room prefigures a similar line from Shinzon to Picard in Star Trek:Nemesis (although he only appears there as a hologram). I think everyone else has already covered the massive inconsistencies as to what telepaths have been or will be aboard Voyager in other episodes. Tuvok still being at his post when the Devore beam aboard for the last inspection feels like a mistake, especially that he doesn’t have any dialogue in the scene and only appears in one reaction shot. In fact, it’s not clear where the telepathic crewmembers are actually meant to be, since they’re not dematerialised in the cargo bay and they don’t seem to go through the wormhole with the Benari. I get that Kashyk already knows they’re there, but aren’t they supposed to be allowing for the possibility that Kashyk was on the level and they have to hide from Prax and the others?
For what it’s worth, the Devore do get a name check in “Think Tank” as one of the biggest threats Voyager’s faced lately.
Voyager did a piss poor job of establishing and then developing ship-based reoccurring characters especially compared to TNG and DS9. I think it’s especially unfortunate given the relatively small compliment on the ship. It seems like this was attempted in the first couple seasons with Carey, Hogan, Suder, and Samantha Wildman. But then they were either killed off or just kind of forgotten about. Again, I think it has to do with Michael Piller leaving the show. It’s nice to finally see the oft-mentioned Delaney sisters but then you never see them again after one appearance so what’s the point? It could have expanded the crew to seem like more than just the 9 members of the main cast and even given Harry Kim more to do too since he liked one of the sisters. This lack of developing secondary reoccurring characters also severely lessens the effectiveness of a couple of upcoming episodes that revolve around specific members of the crew that have died but that the audience has never heard of before so we don’t really care as much regarding those deceased officers’ fates.
@14/cap-mjb: I don’t see this as a Prime Directive issue, or at least not as any more than a borderline one. Janeway wasn’t trying to force the Devore to change their system, just granting asylum/protection to some people fleeing from it. I don’t see how that alters the status quo in any way.
You’ve called me out for my interpretations of plot before, Keith, but couldn’t Kashyk maybe have acted stupidly because he actually fell for Janeway and didn’t want to arrest/ruin her? People do dumb things, even ruinously dumb, when sexy-time feelings are involved. So, we read the plot exactly as written. He always planned to double-cross her, but she was too savvy and double-crosses him in turn, but he never counted on falling in love! Oh, but I hear you cry, how does your idiotic love theory work when he was always planning to arrest her anyway? They can’t be together on Devore if she’s in prison. Ha! Yes, but love makes for a lot of dumbness. You may dispute me, but Katherine Heigl, Hugh Grant and many others have made bank on dumber twists. I know you’re likely partisan on the matter, but can we really expect the writing on a beloved serial syndication show to be that much better than major studio romcoms? I think not, no offense intended to a genre and a writer I have enjoyed immensely over the years.
@15:
Voyager did a piss poor job of establishing and the developing ship-based reoccurring characters especially compared to TNG and DS9. I think it’s especially unfortunate given the relatively small compliment on the ship. It seems like this was attempted in the first couple seasons with Carey, Hogan, Suder, and Samantha Wildman. But then they were either killed off or just kind of forgotten about. Again, I think it has to do with Michael Piller leaving the show.
Absolutely. That’s unquestionably one of the cardinal sins of the show even 25 years later. And Piller’s departure was the death knell; I don’t know why Berman, Taylor, etc. were so opposed to developing their cast.
And again, as I’ve said before, Ronald D. Moore’s on the record about his frustrations with VOY’s failure to execute its premise or potential. So we know a lot of that frustration made its way into BSG (supply concerns, irreplaceable equipment and personnel).
It almost feels like the recurring cast BSG built up was partly because of the success DS9 enjoyed with its own ensemble cast and because of VOY’s failure on that score.
I love this episode–excellent writing and acting, and it treats Janeway with respect. Not surprising that she chose it as her “Captain’s Choice” episode. I agree with everything good you said about it. I am also in agreement with cap-mjb @14 and Benno @17 that the ending can be understood in view of Kashyk’s feelings for Janeway. This judgment may of course be a matter of my own love for the episode overwhelming my rational faculties…
I completely love this episode despite the ending, which I admit is a bit thin. I think I like it so much because everything that came before the last few minutes is just so good. Of all of the romance-in-a-hour episodes, this one has some of the best chemistry. More than anything, I love it because Janeway really did have feelings for Kashyk, her offer was genuine, but she still preemptively executed a contingency plan to protect the refugees. It’s a great character episode for her and it exemplifies how a Starfleet captain should behave. It is undermined somewhat by the fact that she seemed to only execute a contingency plan for the refugees while her own ship escaped through pure luck, but I guess you can’t have everything.
I wasn’t bothered with the ending at all. The way I see it, Kashyk was genuinely taken with Janeway, and he didn’t want to hurt her or her crew. The whole “we don’t want this on our record” thing was an excuse to explain his decision to Prax, who either bought it, or didn’t want to confront his superior.
All in all, a very good episode in my opinion.
I’m also of the opinion that he fell in love with the mark. Or perhaps there was also an element of losing gracefully. Regardless that could’ve been properly expressed rather than left to the imagination.
The Devore and their anti-telepath regime are a surprisingly hateable faction and make for excellent villains.
I was confused by how large their space was that it couldn’t be circumvented. That must be an impressive chunk of territory. But Voyager agreeing to hide some innocents in their back pocket was wonderful, and Janeway completely scoping his con and reversing it was wonderful. If she had basically come up with a way to blackmail him or if he had been genuinely smitten it would’ve been so much better. Oh well c’est la vie, I’ll give them credit for doing as well as they did.
I never really stopped to think about that ending. I never had much of a problem accepting that Kashyk would let her and the ship go. He was so well defined as an arrogant proud personality that I wholeheartedly buy the notion that he would want to erase this whole situation from records to save face.
And yes, I think Counterpoint is a terrific episode. One of Taylor’s better efforts. It took them five seasons, but they finally crafted a great relationship story for Janeway (I stated my opinion on Resolutions back then). Her and Kashyk have crackling tension and rapport in every scene. They cast a very good actor in Harelik. Great chemistry with Mulgrew. And the whole cat and mouse spy scenario works beautifully. You’re never sure of his sincerity, but he puts up such a convincing act that the whole plot is gripping.
The Devore rank amongst the more interesting Delta Quadrant societies so far. It depicts a novel and interesting aspect of fascist dictatorships, in that telepaths would very much prove to be a threat to their power. Therefore, any such ruling body would take extra steps to rid themselves of them for obvious reasons. And using the transporter stasis technique from Relics is a sound (and dangerous) option to protect Tuvok, Vorik, the Betazoid, and the refugees.
Maybe rescuing the telepaths was the real cause of Voyager entering Devore space, not telepaths. Whatever the log says. The badguys can be reading the log (if not erased). And could letting Voyager go at the end be… also telepaths?
I know this sounds like that bit from “The Simpsons” “a wizard did it” and isn’t much better than my other habit of blaming Q. It means the story in my head contains different facts to what appeared on screen. To explain inconsistencies, maybe this episode doesn’t even exist! A telepath just made you review it as though it did! Because they want there to be more episodes about telepaths!
When I first watched this I thought this was going to be an Anne Frank allegory in the first ten minutes and there could have been a really interesting story in that, but I lost a lot interest as soon Kashyk “defects” as I never bought it for a second. Once you spot the twist coming a mile off in this type of episode it loses a lot of its appeal on the first watch.
Second time around I can appreciate it for the strong performances of Mulgrew and Harelik who are both really good in this… but that does not rescue the ending which is to be honest totally pathetic. File under missed opportunity.
I’m afraid I’m in slight, slight disagreement with the “No sex, please, we’re Starfleet.” I can see the chemistry between Janeway and Kashyk, but I didn’t see enough chemistry to warrant a kiss. When I saw that kiss, I thought “when on Earth did they actually show feelings for each other beyond respect and friendship?” It felt as strange to me as it would have been to see Ezra and Sabine from “Star Wars: Rebels” kiss.
Just watched this episode for the first time, and I’m with erikm #26 that the kiss didn’t feel earned; it was really too soon in context.
The ending was a little thin, but I found it plausible for two reasons. First, as Eduardo Jenkarelli #23 says, the inspector is established as proud and arrogant, so it is believable that he doesn’t want this loss on his record. Second, I think that the inspector develops genuine respect and affection for Janeway when he sees how brilliantly she conned him. For him, this is largely a game, and she has played it really well. And he can indulge this admiration and respect *because* he knows she’s just passing through the Delta Quadrant.
I was far more troubled by the mystery of how Tuvok was on the bridge in plain sight of the inspectors and somehow escaped detection.
But I really liked this episode overall.
I really hated this episode, because it seemed very unprofessional of Janeway to give a passionate kiss to a greaseball con man like that Kashyk character, even if she didn’t quite have the total picture about him, but perhaps especially considering that. What was she thinking? Honestly I find it hard to take her seriously anymore after seeing that.
A really good episode with an established mood, which Voyager doesn’t always manage. And the use of music (and, hey, folks — they didn’t choose something from the 20th century) worked really well. I had no problem with the ending. It’s ambiguous whether Kashyk didn’t want it on the record or he had a last-minute change of heart. And even if it’s the former, there was just no run time left for the show to get them out of it. They would have had to sacrifice too much good stuff.
I thought the kiss was earned. Hell, the kissing vibes are there when they’re trying to find the wormhole. They’re there when Kashyk wants to invite her in for a nightcap. Hell, I’ve kissed people for less than that.
Anyway, I dug it.
Also, wasn’t Kashyk the Wookie planet in Star Wars?
“(and, hey, folks — they didn’t choose something from the 20th century)”
Trek has often featured music and culture from before the 20th century, frequently Shakespeare. My problem is that we so rarely see 23rd- or 24th-century characters enjoying any human artistic creations from after the 20th or early 21st centuries.
The Wookiee planet is Kashyyyk. Presumably the three Ys affect the pronunciation, although I’ve never understood how Wookiee proper names work when we’ve never heard a Wookiee pronounce a consonant.