“Scientific Method”
Written by Sherry Klein & Harry Doc. Kloor and Lisa Klink
Directed by David Livingston
Season 4, Episode 7
Production episode 175
Original air date: October 29, 1997
Stardate: 51244.3
Captain’s log. Torres is in the Jefferies Tube to track down a power issue, only to find Seven working on a junction. Seven decided to do some work to improve astrometrics, but did it without checking with Torres first. Seven’s work messed up a project Torres was working on in engineering.
Torres rips Seven a new one, saying that there are procedures to follow so they can all work smoothly as a team. And if Torres—a crankypants ex-Maquis—can get used to Starfleet procedures, then surely Seven can. Seven actually apologizes.
Paris tells the EMH that he needs to knock off early from his shift to deliver a conn report to Chakotay. That’s a ruse to sneak off and make out with Torres.
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The EMH is giving Janeway a massage. The captain has been sleeping poorly and is even more stressed than usual. Chakotay calls her to the bridge to show her the source of the energy readings they’ve been tracking: binary pulsars. They’re exerting a massive gravitational field, but Paris assures them that they’re far enough back. Janeway is too tired to even get excited about this, and leaves the study of the pulsars to Chakotay.
Paris and Torres have another sneak-off, makeout session, which is interrupted by Tuvok. They hadn’t wanted their relationship to be public, but that cat may be out of the bag—which is confirmed when Janeway asks them to stay after the staff meeting about the pulsars. To the couple’s surprise, Tuvok didn’t rat them out—because he didn’t need to, the entire ship is gossiping about their adolescent behavior. Janeway calls them on the carpet and instructs them to act like grownups instead of teenagers.
Chakotay finds himself with tremors and notices that his hair is falling out. He reports to sickbay, and ages considerably. The EMH determines that his metabolism is being stimulated at the genetic level, causing rapid aging, but he has no idea why.
Neelix collapses in the mess hall, and when he comes to sickbay, his complexion has changed. He has Mylean in his ancestry, and now his genetic makeup has been altered to make him more Mylean than Talaxian.
More patients come into sickbay with similar genetic alterations. Torres and the EMH examine Chakotay and Neelix’s DNA with a special scanner that Torres has built to the EMH’s specs in a lab. They discover that both of them have strange marks on the base pairs that look kinda like barcodes. The marks are emitting a signal, and it’s one that slightly out of phase.
However, when they move to alter sensors to scan at that same phase variance, the EMH’s mobile emitter begins to futz out—his program is being deleted. He moves to transfer himself back to sickbay, while Torres collapses.
Torres is brought to sickbay by Paris, who responded to the EMH’s emergency call: her lungs have stopped processing oxygen. She’s under sedation and being respirated artificially. Meanwhile, there’s no sign of the EMH, and the scanner they were using appears to have malfunctioned.
The EMH communicates with Seven via a frequency only she can hear. He tells her not to say anything to any of the crew out loud, but to come to see him on the holodeck.
The EMH is in the da Vinci workshop, hiding. Whatever is happening, it seems to be a deliberate attack on the crew, and as soon as the doctor and Torres moved to deal with it, they were attacked directly. The EMH is able to adjust Seven’s ocular implant so she can see at the phase variance Torres detected. Sure enough, as she walks around the ship, she sees aliens who are out of phase, and also devices that have been placed on various crewmembers, as well as probes and injections that they give to assorted crew. The EMH urges her to report to the captain.
Tuvok receives a lengthy rant from Janeway on the subject of the poor discipline on board the ship. Seven then arrives to tell Janeway what’s going on, only to see that she has several spikes sticking out of her head, and two more of the aliens pushing them in deeper. Since she can’t reveal herself to the aliens yet, she covers by saying she needs assistance to fix the genetic scanner.
Returning to the holodeck, Seven and the EMH formulate a plan: they can modify phasers to bring the aliens into phase with the ship. However, that may result in retaliation from the aliens, so they need to also remove the markers from the crew’s DNA. Seven can set up a neuroleptic shock to the entire crew.
Unfortunately, Seven’s setting up of the shock is noticed by Tuvok who does not believe that she is performing routine maintenance. Even as Tuvok is ordering her away from the console, she sees several aliens congregate to watch their confrontation. Seven phasers one alien, who becomes in phase.
At this point, the aliens know that they’ve been made. Tuvok puts the alien in the brig, and Seven reveals all. (The EMH can finally also leave the holodeck now.) Janeway questions the prisoner, whose name is Alzen. She and her fellow Srivani are performing experiments on the Voyager crew in order to further their own medical research. Despite being captured, Alzen indicates that there will be no alterations to the experiments. She assures Janeway that fatalities will be minimal, though there may be some deformities. Janeway herself is having her dopamine levels artificially increased, which is why she’s been stressed and sleep deprived. There is some discussion among the Srivani as to how much she can take before she snaps.
The Srivani have altered the EPS relays so that they can’t administer the neuroleptic shock, and sensors have been unable to detect the Srivani. Then Ensign Roberta Luke on the bridge convulses and collapses. The EMH tries to save her, but her entire circulatory system has collapsed.
Luke’s death is the final straw for Janeway. She relieves the conn officer, sets a course, calls for red alert, and then locks out the helm controls to anyone but her. Voyager is heading right for the pulsars.
A Srivani comes into phase and asks what Janeway is doing. Janeway says she’s doing exactly what someone whose dopamine levels have been artificially increased, hasn’t slept for four days, and has absolute control over the ship would do
Realizing that Janeway is not bluffing, the Srivani abandon Voyager. However, the ship is past the point of no return for the pulsars, and their only hope of survival is to power through to the other side.
They make it, barely. The EMH is able to neutralize the genetic tags, and everyone starts to go back to normal. (Except poor Luke. And it’s never made clear how long it takes Chakotay’s hair to grow back…)
Paris and Torres have a dinner date in the former’s quarters, with occasional brief interruptions, and with both of them wondering if their relationship is due to the Srivani experimenting. Their subsequent smooching indicates that it has nothing to do with the Srivani…
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? The Srivani are able to exist slightly out of phase in order to conduct their experiments. They are able to affect matter that is in phase without them knowing it, er, somehow, including altering DNA, adding various devices to people’s bodies, and operating equipment on the ship from the EPS relays to the mobile emitter.
There’s coffee in that nebula! The Srivani’s biggest mistake is stressing Janeway out, as it makes her particularly reckless. Do not stress Janeway out. She will own your ass.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok has the best line of the episode. After Janeway goes on at some length about the poor discipline on board lately, and how he should do something about it as security chief, Tuvok dryly asks, “Shall I flog them as well?” at which point Janeway realizes she’s gone a bit over the deep end.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. The second best lines of the episode are when Neelix and Chakotay start comparing their respective ailments and one-upping each other like a couple of codgers.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH hides in da Vinci’s workshop by posing as an art instructor. He looks very fetching in his poofy shirt, tights, and cunning hat.
Resistance is futile. Seven’s Borg implants save the day, as it’s the only way the EMH can communicate outside the holodeck when he’s hiding there, and her ocular implants can be adjusted to see the Srivani.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Paris and Torres think they’re being discreet when they sneak off to suck face. They are hilariously incorrect.
What happens on the holodeck stays on the holodeck. The EMH hides on the holodeck until the Srivani are revealed.
Do it.
“You’re not behaving very rationally.”
“That’s what you are trying to accomplish, wasn’t it? Hm? Pumping up my dopamine levels to push me to the edge? Keeping me awake for four days straight with the constant pain of your devices drilling into my skull? Well, this is the culmination of your work. And guess what? You’re going to be right here to collect the final data!”
–The Srivani trying to call Janeway’s bluff and Janeway showing quite firmly that she is not bluffing.
Welcome aboard. The only guests are the two Srivani who are played by Rosemary Forsyth and Annette Helde. Helde has also played a Romulan in DS9’s “Visionary,” a security officer in First Contact, a character in the Star Trek: Klingon video game, and Lieutenant Larkin in DS9’s “The Siege of AR-558.”
Trivial matters: A real binary pulsar, PSR J0737-3039, was discovered in 2003, six years after this episode aired.
The aliens are never named out loud; Srivani and Alzen both come from the script.
Despite there being at least two examples of fast aging suffered by Starfleet crews—the original series’ “The Deadly Years” and TNG’s “Unnatural Selection”—the EMH doesn’t mention either case when he diagnoses Chakotay.
In the novel Section 31: Shadow by Dean Wesley Smith & Kristine Kathryn Rusch, it’s revealed that the crewmember on the bridge who died was Ensign Roberta Luke (which is where the name in the “Captain’s log” section came from), an undercover Section 31 agent assigned to Voyager to report on Maquis activities. After Seven was brought on board, Luke—who thought Janeway was insane to let an ex-Borg on board and “make a pet of it”—set a trap for Seven in one of the bio-neural gelpacks, but she was killed in this episode before she could spring it. The trap does get sprung in the novel, which takes place toward the end of the fifth season.
Luke’s death brings the crew complement to 141 (though the crew complement given in “Distant Origin” and “Displaced” would put it at 147). Janeway stated there were 152 on board in “The 37s,” though that wouldn’t have included the EMH, so it was truly 153. Since then, thirteen crewmembers have died and Kes has left, but the Wildman baby was born and Seven joined the crew, so a net loss of eleven.
Set a course for home. “These lab rats are fighting back.” Even if the rest of the episode was terrible, it would be worth it for the borscht-belt schtick that Chakotay and Neelix indulge in. Seriously, it’s like they stepped out of a resort in the Catskills in the 1950s—or a Billy Crystal/Christopher Guest routine from Saturday Night Live in the 1980s. Just a beautiful escalating-complaint bit that Robert Beltran and Ethan Phillips perform stupendously.
And, even better, the rest of the episode is also pretty awesome. There’s a real horror-movie vibe to the whole thing, with both Lisa Klink’s script and David Livingston’s direction keeping the tension building. It’s evocative of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing from Another World, and it’s delightful. I especially liked the Srivani-eye view of the bioscans of Chakotay and of Torres and Paris.
Speaking of the latter, we also get some really nice character development with those two, as their relationship goes from private and furtive to public and embarrassing. I love the fact that they were so worried about Tuvok tattling on them that it doesn’t occur to them that Tuvok doesn’t need to say anything. To quote M*A*S*H‘s Dr. Sidney Freedman, “Hard to keep a secret here in Macy’s window, east, isn’t it?” The hilarious part is that Torres and Paris actually believed that nobody knew they were sneaking off to make smoochy faces at each other regularly.
And speaking of Tuvok, his interactions with Janeway are magnificent, from the flogging line to his calm recitation of how fucked they are if Janeway insists on flying them into the pulsars. As always, Tim Russ nails the Vulcan dry wit.
Not to be outdone, Roxann Dawson is quietly superb here. We get her bitching out Seven for not following procedure; her moment of major self-awareness as she realizes she’s giving the same be-a-good-Starfleet-officer speech to Seven that Janeway gave to Torres herself four years previous; her trying to keep the relationship with Paris under wraps while taking advantage of every opportunity possible to make mad passionate nookie-nookie with him; and finally her very obvious disappointment and shame when Janeway chews her out.
Plus, we get the always-brilliant Robert Picardo and the proving-to-also-always-be-brilliant Jeri Ryan saving the day.
Warp factor rating: 8
Keith R.A. DeCandido urges all and sundry to subscribe to “KRAD COVID readings,” his YouTube channel where he reads his writings. This week is the landmark 75th episode, which is a three-part reading of his 2001 Kira Nerys-focused novella “Horn and Ivory” from Star Trek: What Lay Beyond. He’s also read “Letting Go” from the Voyager: Distant Shores anthology, as well as his stories from the Trek anthologies Deep Space Nine: Prophecy and Change, New Frontier: No Limits, The Next Generation: The Sky’s the Limit, Seven Deadly Sins, Tales from the Captain’s Table, and Tales of the Dominion War, plus a ton of other fiction that isn’t Star Trek!
I don’t remember having a strong reaction to this, at least not a particularly positive one. The main thing I remember is annoyance at the absurdity of bar codes on the individual spherical “atoms” in the screen graphic, as if atoms were actually tiny little ping-pong balls instead of standing quantum probability waves in the energy fields of the universe (or something like that). That was dumb as hell.
Mainly I’m just surprised this wasn’t a Brannon Braga episode. It seems right up his alley, with the creepy mystery and body horror and Things Not What They Seem.
Yeah, I specifically remember the “bar codes on atoms” thing too as absurd. But hey, maybe they were encoded as some kind of “subspace preon wave”.. Or, if you want to put it into the realm of (just barely) reality, the idea that that graphic was not *literal*, but a schematic of the DNA molecule, and the computer got the bar code from sequencing some inserted tag in the DNA sequence. But that’s a stretch. If they *had* put in a line for the Doctor to that effect, it would have fixed it. A little.
Or even have Janeway roll her eyes at it and give the snarky comment (she is a *scientist* after all) of “a barcode on an *atom*? Using *what*?”. And then have the doctor give a line in his “I am *so* much smarter than you” arrogant-but-not-quite-condescending tone of voice, “yes, well that is rendering is of a polynucleotide sequence of a inverted-and-deactivated TATA-box-and-hairpin motif beginning at that particular base pair and continuing for approximately 0.26 kilobases and consisting a numerical tag encoded in base-4 using an Hamming code, followed by another inverted hairpin motif. What you see here is a simplification for the peons and its accuracy should be considered rather ‘lowbrow’.”
I strongly remember Chakotay losing his hair. That was a neat practical effect.
It’s interesting to compare this episode to the last one since now Voyager’s on the wrong end of the “we’re right so you don’t matter” stick. For all of the lovely character moments, the episode still has a sharp criticism of people who inflict suffering on others and claim it’s justified by some utilitarian calculation.
Too bad they hadn’t seeded Ensign Luke in prior episodes to give the death more weight. It’s also nice to see there was at least one spy on Voyager who wasn’t a member of the Maquis.
@1 This episode is one of the few that I remember quite well from Voyager because of the recklessness of Janeway and, really, the Doctor for putting himself into a sneaky situation, yet playing out the possibilities. Seven shines in this episode, too.
Judging by other review sites, not too many people like this one. But I’m with you, Krad–I loved it. The creepy atmosphere as Seven walks down the corridors and we then see those horrific devices on the crew for the first time was a nice, effective touch. And yes, it seems the actors had SO MUCH FUN with this one. An interesting bit of trivia (and I’m not sure if you mentioned it above–if you did, I apologize) was that Kate Mulgrew had just quit smoking while filming this one, so her haggard appearance and frustration apparently came from a very real source of nicotine withdrawal! Anyways, you definitely have to turn off your brain for this one, as you have to with many STAR TREK episodes. The science here is absurd and almost appalling. But it’s a great ride, and for me, worth it not for the scene between Chakotay and Neelix (which I agree was brilliant), but for the confrontation between Janeway and the Srivani on the Bridge at the end. Seeing one of the Srivani ships practically obliterated as it disengaged from VOYAGER was pretty cathartic.
Like Christopher Bennet, this isn’t one I remember having any particular feeling about at all (minus the scene with Chakotay and Neelix, which I loved). To me something about it wasn’t quite atmospheric enough to be really creepy, and the aliens just seemed to be generic villains with an overly-complicated plan (seriously, why would testing on the Voyager crew even make sense? They can’t be all that genetically similar to these aliens, so why would giving Janeway headaches help them? Why aren’t they working in a lab? Is this really the easiest way to collect medical data? Do they just fly around looking for random ships to happen by?). It also was another “Seven’s Borg tech saves the day” episode, which was new chronologically, but once you’ve seen all the episodes just becomes one of dozens of times her ocular implant and/or microprobes does whatever the plot needs them to, and there are other episodes that do it better. There are some good character moments, but it was always a “meh” episode to me.
Tuvok does get the best line, but IMO, it’s “I will join you for a glass of wine.”
DFT: that was a good line of Tuvok’s, yes.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I too enjoy this episode. It’s also the only time Seven is seen wearing this particular shade of brown bodysuit, a colour I preferred to most of the other outfits she wore.
Ah, the tried and true Trek staple of the aliens experiment on the crew and crew fights back. It reminded me of “Schisms” and “Where Silence Has Lease” but also “Threshold” and “Genesis” with the whole genetic manipulation bits. But I really enjoyed this one. Janeway was definitely a bad ass, especially when pushed over the edge. The “villians” were very effective and chilling with their callous superior-attitude behavior. Their comeuppance at the end is very satisfying. And I guess the crew would have been fucked without Seven being there! It’s good to have an ex-Borg drone in situations like this.
@5- Humans are close enough to Delta Quadrant species for Paris and Kes to viably reproduce, and for the Vidiians to harvest organs. Blame it on the Progenitors, the Preservers, or the make-up and prosthetics budget, but there’s a lot less biological variation across the galaxy than one might expect.
@5/10, I wondered about this too, especially since Voyager’s crew is so small. Surely it would be easier to find a pre-industrial planet and start recruiting “volunteers,” who definitely won’t be able to adjust their scanners because they don’t have any. Oh, and by the way, the B’Oma are looking smarter and smarter! It turns out there’s a good reason to scan every inch of your space and, while the timing isn’t clear, it certainly seems like had they made the mistake of letting Voyager into their space, they would have brought some guests with them.
Delightful is very much in my mind when thinking of this one. Scientific Method is one of the better ones. A near-perfect balance of plot and character. It’s great when the story brings out the best in characters like Janeway and Tuvok and integrates them perfectly.
And talk about a plot! That first shot of the Srivani doctors conducting procedures on the crew without their knowledge and consent is one of the most unsettling and disturbing images I’ve seen on any Trek show. That screencap of Janeway sitting facing the camera with the two doctors on either side is another one. It doesn’t take too much to realize it’s a Livingston episode, the director best suited to crafting these shots (other than Rob Bowman). Seven’s ocular implant serves as a great plot solution to uncover and unmask these aliens.
And it has a great climatic final act. Voyager is at its best when it marries these high concept ideas to the characters. It can feel derivative of TNG – Schisms in particular – but I’d argue this is the better one, in this case. It doesn’t get bogged down on the mystery aspect for so long. It would have a frustrating episode if the Srivani had only been revealed during the last five minutes or so. Instead, we get the Trekkian take by having the crew come together to solve the issue, which is always a good thing.
My only complaint with this one is in the Paris/Torres sneaking off to smooch subplot. There’s no reason for them to be acting like teenagers who are grounded. Both have been around the block when it comes to relationships (having recently read Pathways, I can attest to that). It doesn’t feel consistent with their characters. At least Janeway was wise enough to call it what it was. It’s not like Worf/Dax or Worf/Troi were sneaking around when they began dating. Or even Trip/T’Pol.
@1/Christopher: Braga was extra-busy at this point with the Year of Hell two parter. But I imagine he pushed for this story to be made regardless, and more than likely had fun reviewing the storyboards and dailies for this.
@5/wildfyre: “seriously, why would testing on the Voyager crew even make sense? … Why aren’t they working in a lab? Is this really the easiest way to collect medical data? Do they just fly around looking for random ships to happen by?”
Maybe this group of scientists doesn’t represent the way their entire civilization operates. Maybe they’re renegades conducting illegal, unethical research and need to hide it from their government. A ship of aliens from a distant part of the galaxy, just passing through temporarily with no allies or support they can call on, would be the perfect subjects for them to conduct secret unethical experiments on without the authorities finding out.
As always, I think my thoughts on this episode are best summed up Chuck Sonnenburg of SF Debris — or at least his recurring ‘Psycho Janeway’ gag.
@11 It also just seems remarkably inefficient. Space is *huge* and mostly empty, so waiting around for a ship to happen by you isn’t exactly a great way of conducting experiments. You are right, it would make a lot more sense to “recruit” or just plain kidnap pre-warp people- who have the advantage of being unable to fight back, are likely fairly populous, and you could actually conduct real experiments on them (you know, with control groups and more than one test subject per test) in laboratory conditions.
This was one of my favorites. I enjoyed the character beats especially. Good stuff.
Bobby
@12 The show leaves open the possibility that Torres/Paris had been affected by the aliens. While they reject the idea that the aliens are responsible for their relationship, their conduct might have been influenced.
@12
In fairness, Worf, Dax, Troi, and Trip were all members of Starfleet who signed up to serve on the Enterprise/ DS9 and agreed to certain codes of behavior. Paris is a convict and B’Elanna is a terrorist, trapped on a ship of the damned 70 years from home. It’s hardly surprising that they bend the rules a little.
“Flying into a binary pulsar? I’d say I’m trying to crush this ship like a tin can.”
Do NOT fuck with Janeway. Definitely another Moment of Badassery.
I remember being deeply horrified not only at aliens experimenting on the crew, “As if Voyager were one big Petri dish,” but their callous attitude about conducting harmful experiments on sentient beings without their consent! I have to admit, seeing one of the Srivani ships destroyed was indeed cathartic, especially after witnessing the death of poor Ensign Luke.
I did particularly enjoy Chakotay and Neelix’s banter over whose got it worse. And it’s a delight that Tom and B’Elanna apparently forgot that people have eyes and can see them smooching like teenagers. A really good character episode, particularly the scene with Janeway and Tuvok. Wish we got more of that, honestly.
Oh, and honorable mention to, “If your people attempt to incapacitate me, I will kill you.” Jeri Ryan’s delivery is perfect. Lots of quotables in this episode.
@15/wildfyre: As I suggested, this might not be their normal experimental method. I’m thinking it was something more opportunistic — they became aware of Voyager and how alone they were in this quadrant, and realized they were the perfect subjects to exploit for secret illegal experiments. They may have tried abducting pre-warp peoples as you suggest, but if their civilization monitors such planets in their area, there’s a risk they’d become aware of the abductions.
@18: Agreeing on certain codes of behavior is one thing. But their act of sneaking around is premeditated on the notion that fellow officers dating is somehow forbidden on Voyager. Before Torres, Paris was pretty upfront about his desire to date the Delaney sisters.
If it were a situation where a superior officer was dating an ensign, I might understand their desire for secrecy (not unlike Chakotay dating Seska). But Paris and Torres have the same rank. The only thing they should be concerned about is not getting to be on the same away team (because as seen with Worf and Dax on DS9’s Change of Heart – which aired shortly after this episode, coincidentally – that’s the real issue with assigning couples on the same mission; worrying about their significant other affecting command-level decisions).
But smooching around in secrecy? There is no reason to do so. Janeway isn’t a stern mother that forbids her crew from engaging in social activity. If anything, Elogium made it clear that she expected people to pair up eventually (and we all know that’s why the holodeck is so sought).
It might make sense for at least Torres to pursue this relationship under the radar, given her desire to keep her personal life personal, even though the show never made that clear. But Paris? Not a chance. He’s never been about keeping secrets. The one secret he kept, he ultimately came clean, which was the manner on how his flying teammates got killed in the academy. If anything, that’s one more reason the rebellious Paris arc from season 2 fails so miserably. He’s not really convincing when he’s hiding something.
This is also Torres’ third near death experience since the beginning of the season. That’s fanfic-level whump, that is.
We also learned from the episode that Tom and B’Elanna are both into exhibitionism: the sexual fetish of being caught in the act while in public. Nice to know that kink survives into the 24th century!
@21, Eh, lots of people keep a relationship under wraps for a bit at the beginning, even ones that are considered perfectly acceptable by society. I don’t find it *that* strange that they don’t stand up in the Mess Hall and announce that they are dating or act obviously like a couple in public. Considering that they live on the ship, unless people are only allowed to show public displays of affection in their quarters (a tough rule on ships that people live on 24/7, and doubly so for Voyager, considering B’Elanna isn’t on it by choice at all, and Paris is only on board because it was supposed to be better than prison), I don’t find it all that weird that they are sneaking off to Jefferies tubes to smooch on occasion.
“Actually, I was going to suggest a change of outfit.”
The episode begins and ends with Paris and Torres acting as though they’re in a romantic comedy. It’s actually both funny and sweet, if not particularly professional, and I don’t find it particularly unlikely or out of character. Them chatting in the turbolift like a couple of teenagers and Paris firmly shutting the door on Harry when he really doesn’t get the hint are particular highlights. Indeed, as with Janeway being in a foul mood, it’s not immediately obvious that there’s something going on with them.
Of course, in between the episode takes a dark turn, as Voyager find themselves the unwilling subjects of another race’s medical experiments. (There’s probably a parallel there with us experimenting on other species who don’t actually have that much in common with us.) This is quite sinister and leads to a couple of good confrontation scenes for Janeway. Unfortunately, it does have a problem when it comes to ending it. The climax is tense and dramatic, but really, the only reason Voyager aren’t all dead at the end is because they’re the main characters in a TV show and have to be there next week. (Seriously, 5% chance of survival and they come through with just a few dents?) And we get casually told in a log entry that the Doctor’s neutralised the genetic tags, which presumably means Chakotay will be magically de-aged and have his hair grow back for next episode. (The episode doesn’t actually bother to show anyone recovering!) And what happens to the alien in the brig is anyone’s guess. This is probably where those extra crewmembers are coming from. Maybe those alien scientists from “The Thaw” are still on board too.
One of the first signs that, even in an ensemble episode like this, the show can’t resist having the Doctor and Seven be the ones to save the day. I was aware there was a novel where it’s revealed the crewmember who dies on the bridge was a Section 31 agent, but I didn’t know any details. “Shall I flog them as well?” is indeed Tuvok’s best line of the episode, but I’d give second place to his final exchange with Janeway (“I never realised you thought of me as reckless, Tuvok.”/“A poor choice of words. It was clearly an understatement.”).
Just to add a thought on the keeping the relationship secret, the population is small on voyager. Many of the people on voyager presumably have significant others that they are 60 years away from returning to. People in relationships on Voyager may feel guilty about being able to have those relationships and don’t want to rub it in the face of others.
Star Trek, at least before the Kurtzman era, wasn’t exactly known for being on the forefront when it came to progressive ideas of sexuality and romantic relationships. But it’s still unfortunate that Voyager couldn’t take advantage of its unique situation to depict a character aboard, whether Starfleet or Maquis, who was in a devoted relationship/marriage back in the Alpha Quadrant, but decided based on the unusual circumstances to engage in a new romantic relationship aboard ship. It would have presented itself for good storytelling on the character’s conflicted feelings.
I also do not think Torres and Paris sneaked around because it is forbidden for them to date, it’s just that they didn’t want the entire ship to find out right away. We’ve seen in other episodes how much everyone gossip and they probably didn’t want everyone discussing them, especially this early in their relationship.
I liked the episode quite much, for all the reasons stated in the review and some of the comments. I think the first look at the aliens through Seven’s eyes was especially effective.
@26/John: Nobody would be expected to stay faithful to an absent “significant other” for 70 years. Their past relationships are effectively over; it’s pure denial to think anything else. I mean, people back home in the Federation don’t even know at this point that Voyager still exists. They’ve already long since written the crew off as dead and moved on with their lives (though that will change after “Message in a Bottle”). So the people on Voyager would know they need to do the same.
This is why I think, as I’ve said before, that it was a mistake to make it a 70-year journey home. It makes no sense even to try to get home if most of the crew won’t live that long anyway. They should’ve made it 15-20 years so at least it wouldn’t seem like they were deluding themselves the whole time.
@27/garreth: That did come up with both Janeway, who had to decide to move on from Mark and open herself to other possibilities, and Tuvok (notably in “Gravity”), who was committed to his wife back home and thus resistant to new opportunities. (And Vulcan life expectancy meant that expecting her to wait for him in turn wasn’t as unrealistic for him as for everyone else.)
@29/CLB: I was aware that Tuvok remained faithful to his wife despite the situation, and that Janeway also contemplated moving on, but I specifically meant having a regular character having a new ongoing relationship on the ship but still felt guilt or conflicted feelings over it. I think that’s something the writers could have done with Harry, for example.
Scientific Method. 10/10 Episode, I loved it start to finish. And one of the most satisfying resolutions to any Star Trek episode ever. This is one of the very first instances of “Holy Shit Don’t Fuck With Janeway” people call it psycho Janeway, but this was Beast Mode Janeway. The Youtube comments of that Climax are fantastic. Very rarely will you get such unanimous praise for Janeway but that moment earns it. Janeway went HAM and it was glorious.
The Srivani are such perfect villains too. Deeply unethical and supremely arrogant. The opposite of a Starfleet Scientist in every way. I’m again reminded of the wisdom of Mordin Solus, “Never experiment on a species that can develop calculus, simple rule, never broke it.“
It’s good ensemble work here too that while the Doctor and Seven discovered the problem and gave the initial attempt to fight back, it was Captain Kate who drove the win home, literally. There’s nothing about this episode I don’t like, top five single installment episodes in the series easy.
I haven’t re-watched, sorry, but Paris at least is described as ducking his duty shift to spend extra time with Torres. Vice versa I don’t know about, I expect it is more conspicuous if she plays hooky from running Engineering, but also she is in charge of it and presumably can cook the books on her personal timekeeping. But I’d expect the captain to mention this aspect, if they are not doing their jobs full time. That IS her business.
@30, Yea, I think there is also a difference between logically knowing that you likely aren’t going to see your partner(s)/spouse(s)/children again, and actually making that an emotional reality for you. It would have been an interesting thing for the crew to work through, if the show wasn’t so resistant to exploring it’s own premise. I imagine it is also harder on the people on Voyager than the people they left behind to form new relationships. The people back home can reasonably assume that their loved ones are dead, grieve, and move on without too much guilt. The people on Voyager, however, know that their partners are (most likely) still alive and well back home, and that there is at least a slight chance of them making it home to them. There might be some guilt involved in starting to date again after a spouse is declared missing and then presumed dead, but I imagine it is even harder to start a new relationship when you *know* your spouse is still out there. If you are Torres, you might feel a little guilty flaunting a new relationship around when someone like Ayala is still torn up about being away from his wife and kids.
@33: You articulated my exact thoughts beautifully. It would have been a story beat the writers could give to one of the regular characters to work through as an ongoing arc; Harry, for instance, thereby giving him something more to do on the show.
This is one of the only episodes that I remember watching when it aired, and it was formative. I still wonder if aliens are sticking invisible needles in my skull every time I have a particularly bad headache.
Having seen this episode myself, I thought it rather good in exactly the skin-crawling style one would hope for (based on the ‘hook’); looking through the comments, one can only agree with @23. garreth: It’s entirely possible that Torres & Paris aren’t sneaking around because they have to, they’re canoodling on the quiet because that’s part of the fun. (-;
@29. Is it really that delusional, though? Sure if Voyager was set in our own realistic, eerily silent galaxy it would be, but we’ve already seen a Star Trek universe teeming with intelligent life, advanced propulsion, anomalies and godlike beings who can fling starships light years with a snap of their fingers. Seems appropriate to hope for such a thing happening in their ‘odyssey,’ while playing up the high concept drama of accomplishing such a goal. I mean, I don’t think television is built on modest storytelling devices.
@37 I haven’t kept track of how many times they’ve nearly made it home already, though I know they start making regular leaps now that Kes has established a precedent of a multi-thousand light year jump. They do find enough shortcuts that the it takes 11 years (IRRC) in the first timeline they make it home and only 7 years after a meddling time traveler gets involved.
If anything, people who’d established new relationships on Voyager could start worrying that they would get back in time for their loved ones to be still grieving if not still expecting them to show up.
@37/rogerroger: No, it’s not delusional to consider a shorter trip home a remote possibility, but it is definitely delusional to assume it’s going to happen and thereby refuse to make plans for the more likely possibility. As I’ve said, the first thing they should’ve done was not just start off immediately on a 70-year journey, but consolidate — find a safe place to repair the ship and gather supplies and learn about the quadrant, seek out allies and information, etc. The first step in any sane plan is to ensure the crew’s safety and survival. Getting home is a longer-term goal, so it should’ve been a lower priority. They could’ve gotten a solid first-season arc out of that process of settling in, getting to know the quadrant, making allies and enemies, preparing for their journey, and finally setting out on it at the end of the season. That could’ve been more dramatically effective than what we got.
By the same token, part of my problem with the show in its later seasons was the frustrating way that nobody except Paris, Torres, the Doctor, and Seven had any real character growth, like they were all stuck in a rut, too obsessed with the prospective future of getting home to get on with their lives in the here and now. It made the show far less interesting, far more static, than it could’ve been.
I always liked this episode and always thought of it as a better revamp of TNG’s “Where Silence Has Lease”. Rather than another godlike alien, we have slightly more advanced aliens with zero scruples. This episode has no filler and does a better job of keeping the tension up throughout. Most importantly, the climax is far more dramatic and entertaining here. Janeway flying into the stars and destroying an alien ship in the process is more satisfying to watch than Picard’s cancelled auto-destruct sequence. I know there are other episodes where our main characters are lab rats, but this one is by far my favorite.
@35, that is exactly what goes through my mind as well! Chakotay looking in the mirror and pulling out his hair always sticks out in my mind too, but that’s probably because it’s similar to a gory scene in the movie “Poltergeist”.
Personally I would have liked to see the dream of ‘getting home’ slowly fade as members of the crew made friends and connections in Gamma Quadrant. I’d have liked to see people leave the ship and new ones come aboard and the culture slowly change until everybody accepts Gamma Quadrant is now home.
@41/roxana: You mean Delta.
@41 Ironically, I always liked the crew compliment in “Living Witness” where there are Kazon and several other Delta quadrant species are just casually seen as part of the Voyager crew.
For those that didn’t see the episode
https://youtu.be/QrkOXZtjm54
Just catching up. Nobody has mentioned the comedy gold of the Doctor giving Janeway a vigorous back massage?
I’d like to like this episode, but even after having read all the praise, I just cannot.
First off, I really cannot understand why B’Elanna and Tom need to act as if they were highschool kids and not adults who, presumably, have the time off their shifts, each have their own quarters, or could use the holodeck to make out. Watching them make all sorts of transparent excuses in the public is painful.
Second, we have Seven who not so long ago was adamant that she could not tell lies or deceive anyone, and who just an episode before was shooting at the crew. Now, she’s all in on deception, having no issues in the process at all. Wouldn’t she have at least some difficulty or struggle in the process?
But the greatest issue I have with the episode is its title. When I saw the title Scientific Method, I was already cringing at the recollection of how Sacred Ground turned out. Now this episode could be about the line about how one should not jump to conclusions when doing science. The scientific method is the approach of going from an unexplained phenomena to plausible explanations. But instead, we get a bunch of dirtbags whose words are all about how what they do is science and you should all be grateful because it’s making things better, and why can’t you accept a couple casualties and permanent deformities. That’s more about being (un)ethical in what you are doing than the scientific method itself.
And then we finish the episode by gambling everyone’s life in a spectacular way, achieving victory through no actual control or action on any of the crew. Like always, Voyager should be crushed or badly damaged, yet it continues as if nothing had happened.
I must say I’m a bit surprised no one brought up what I consider the very obvious parallel to animal experimentation. Almost everything the scientists say is virtually identical to the justifications used for experimenting on animals. Thus is seems unlikely they are meant to be a rogue group. As for Alpha Quadrant humans having little resemblance to Delta Quadrant aliens, the same could be said for animals used to test many pharmaceuticals, where it is unlikely animals are similar enough to serve even the practical purpose of an early warning system for adverse reactions (as we have seen). Animals are also used to test the potential dangers of cosmetic ingredients, with as little concern for their feelings or rights as the evil scientists exhibit in this episode. Janeway’s line could not have made the episode’s intent more explicit: “These lab rats are fighting back!”
This is entertaining but I always felt it was a little bit of a mash up of ideas from two TNG episodes “Schisms” and “phantasms” The crew members feel a bit off due to secret experiments being carried out by Aliens. And creatures slightly out of phase endangering the crew. I liked the resolution in that at least they evaded another self destruct sequence that I felt sure Janeway was about to set in motion. Looking back and now knowing about Kate Mulgrew’s frustration at “certain elements” of the show at this point in time I wonder how much of that she was channeling through her portrayal of snarky Janeway through much of this episode
Why doesn’t Seven check out her reflection at the first opportunity to see what the Srivani have done to her? Like Revulsion, we learn the names of the aliens through other sources rather than in the episode itself. Perhaps the EMH stimulated Chakotay’s hair follicles like he did Seven of Nine?
I never believed the Srivani were responsible for Paris and Torres because she only started to reciprocate his feelings last season and 10,000 light years back, but here they annoyed me more than usual with they’re adolescent antics. If this had been TNG, LaForge’s VISOR probably would have detected the Srivani. What happened to Alzen after the danger had passed?
2: “A neat, practical effect – nobody loses hair like Chakotay does. I doubt Ensign Luke was really a spy for Section 31. 4: Yep, Kate Mulgrew decided to use her withdrawal to make her irritability more real and may I say – Mission Accomplished! 5: The Srivani probably viewed the Voyager crew in the same way as the Vidiians did – something they can use to make their own people better. Seven’s Borg nanoprobes will be like a quick fix for the writers from this point on.
7: But not as good as “Shall I flog them as well?” 8: I think the catsuits Jeri Ryan sports in S4 are drab. But the blue one is lovely and the red one’s not far behind. 9: Janeway’s solution to the Srivani problem is refreshingly blunt, like Picard’s in Conspiracy or Sisko’s in Apocalypse Rising. 11: I’m not sure when the Srivani first boarded Voyager, but was it before they reached B’omar space?
12: I bet Mulgrew had a hard time keeping a straight face in the Ready Room, during and after her diatribe. 13: The Srivani use cloaking technology which means they definitely don’t want to be found out by anyone. 15: The Voyager crew are made up of several species the Srivani have never encountered before which would make them prime targets.
16: VGR is so much better when it’s character-based (Trek too). 18: A Trek show that flagrantly breaks the rules when it suits them – they’re all guilty of that. 19: I think on some subconscious level, Torres knew the Srivani were watching them. 21: You’re confusing Paris with Nicholas Locarno. Paris got into trouble after he graduated from the Academy.
24: Principal Snyder: “These public displays of affection are not acceptable in my school. This isn’t an orgy people, it’s a classroom”. Buffy: “Yeah, where they teach lunch!” 25: “Shall I flog them as well?” is Tuvok’s best line of the entire series! 29: I think stranding Voyager on the other side of the galaxy appealed to the writers more than the shorter duration of a 15-20 year journey.
30: I would’ve preferred if Kim were given an ongoing relationship rather than a chain of failed ones. 32: By the time of Vis à Vis, Torres knows when it’s time to work and when it’s time to play, but Paris still doesn’t. 33: When did Ayala find the time to be a Maquis and a family man? 35: Those Srivani are tricky, aren’t they?
40: I think Scientific Method’s a better spin on the same idea done before in episodes like Schisms and Where Silence Has Lease. I like the way the Srivani don’t try to abduct anybody or do anything to alert the crew to they’re presence. It’s not until the Doctor adjusts Seven’s vision that the crew even become aware there’s an outside agency involved.
43: I was surprised to see a Kazon in Living Witness (and again in Relativity and Shattered) because they’re the one ST species VGR would love to forget. 44: Yep, that is a great scene. Very Statler and Waldorf. 46: In episodes like Scorpion and The Gift, Seven seems fully versed in the art of deception, which contradicts what she tells Janeway in Day of Honour. And like Section 31, the Srivani believe the ends justify the means.
47: Your argument reminds me of what Krell Moset and the Doctor disagree over in Nothing Human, even though one believes experimenting on people and the other believes experimenting on animals for research purposes are a necessary evil. 48: Yep, Mulgrew probably saw this episode as a chance to vent some of her true vitriol.
I love how Janeway describes her headaches like “hot needles driving into my skull,” and later on we see that’s exacly what’s being done to her by the aliens. I can certainly empathize because I get chronic headaches and I’m certain I’ve used that metaphor too! Hopefully I don’t have some out of phase scientists following me around regularly subjecting me to that…
Thought of this juxtaposition:
Experimentations on the crew by aliens near a pulsar:
Picard: Traps aliens in forcefield.
Janeway: Take the conn and flies the ship, with aliens aboard, toward the pulsar(s).
To all the “they don’t need to sneak around” folks, the episode gives its own justification from the get go. Their schedules are out of synch. So they get it when they can. And sucking face against the warp core would really be bad form, no matter how open you are about your relationship. You can also look at Torres’s own struggles with her emotions, her own difficulty in admitting her love to Paris and herself — let alone to 141 others (give or take a dead ensign).
But, yeah, all in all a good episode. Sure, it’s a retread of other Trek episodes, but there are only so many stories in a universe. Sometimes you just need a plot that takes care of itself so you can let the characters shine. And here they really do.
While there are parallels to animal testing, I thought a lot about the Tuskegee experiment and the Nazi concentration camps — one group justifies experimenting on another group for reasons of a greater good but also to exercise power. At this point they’ve become quite inured to any sense of guilt. The banality of evil and all.