“Living Witness”
Written by Brannon Braga & Joe Menosky and Bryan Fuller
Directed by Tim Russ
Season 4, Episode 23
Production episode 191
Original air date: April 29, 1998
Stardate: n/a
Captain’s log. Janeway is having a conversation in her ready room with Vaskan Ambassador Daleth, negotiating terms for how Voyager will fight the Vaskan war on the Kyrians. Voyager will wage their war in exchange for access to a wormhole that will get them home. Janeway’s uniform is absent any rank insignia, her hairdo is different, and she is incredibly violent-minded.
Janeway goes to the bridge and orders the use of biogenic weapons. Neelix—in a Starfleet uniform and serving at ops—reports that the Kyrians are attacking. A smiling Tuvok arms the biogenic weapons provided by the doctor, who is an android hooked directly up to the ship’s computer.
Soon we learn that this is a re-creation of events at a Kyrian museum seven hundred years after Voyager’s arrival on the planet. Quarren, the curator of the museum, is telling the story of how Voyager helped the Vaskans subjugate the Kyrians, who are only now just starting to crawl out from under the Vaskans’ oppression.
A spectator asks Quarren about Voyager, and the curator admits that they don’t know as much as they’d like. They do know that the ship cut a swath through the quadrant, assimilating other species and conscripting them into their crew: Talaxians, Kazon, Borg. He continues the simulation, showing the appalling death toll Voyager’s biogenic weapons are wreaking. Daleth is outraged, as that’s not what he signed up for, and Janeway confines him to the brig until it’s all over.
Chakotay (whose name is mispronounced and whose tattoo covers the entire left side of his face) and Kim interrogate a Kyrian prisoner until he reveals the location of their leader, Tedran.
A Kyrian boarding party beams into engineering. Janeway activates her four Borg drones, led by a fully Borg Seven of Nine, who beam into engineering and take out the boarding party, killing several, and assimilating two to add to Seven’s forces.
A Vaskan comes into the museum and bitches out Quarren, questioning the truth of what they’re showing. Quarren insists that this is close to the truth, based on the artifacts they’ve found, and they recently unearthed a data device that may contain even more insights.
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A History of What Comes Next
Quarren brings the aforementioned data device into the simulation of Voyager, hoping that using some of their tools might make it easier to activate it. Eventually, he is able to do so, and it turns out to be the EMH backup module. The EMH is shocked to find himself seven centuries in the future, especially since he remembers being on Voyager just a few moments ago. Quarren is equally shocked to learn that Voyager’s doctor was a hologram rather than an android as they all believed.
Quarren explains to the EMH that in their society, artificial life forms are treated as people, so he might be liable for Voyager’s crimes. The EMH has no idea what crimes he could possibly be talking about—the last thing he remembers is Voyager getting caught up in a conflict between the Kyrians and the Vaskans, which they were trying to extricate themselves from. They had been providing medical supplies to the Vaskans when the Kyrians attacked.
First, Quarren shows the EMH their re-creation, which starts with Paris, Chakotay, Tuvok, and Neelix all arguing with each other in the briefing room, continuing to a fistfight breaking out between Paris and Chakotay, and ending with Janeway firing a phaser at a display console to shut everyone up. Tedran is brought on board and ordered to surrender. He refuses, and is shot to death by Janeway for his trouble.
Appalled, disgusted, and angry, the EMH refutes every single thing in the simulation (with the exception of Paris’s behavior, which the EMH says Quarren pretty much nailed). Unable to handle this upending of his worldview, Quarren shuts the EMH off.
After taking some time to think it over, Quarren reactivates the EMH. Since they were obviously wrong about the doctor being an android, it casts doubt on the rest of their re-creation. While Quarren is concerned that the EMH is trying to save his own ass from being prosecuted for war crimes, he can’t deny that he is a living witness to the events. He therefore gives the EMH permission to do his own re-creation, which Quarren then shows to council of arbiters, which includes two Vaskans and one Kyrian.
The EMH’s simulation shows that Janeway’s meeting in the ready room was about arranging to deliver medical supplies in exchange for dilithium. Then the Kyrians attacked engineering, taking Seven hostage. Tedran led the boarding party, and it was Daleth who killed him, to Janeway’s horror. That prompted more attacks, which is when the EMH backup module was taken.
The Vaskan arbiter wants to know more, but the lone Kyrian representative is disgusted. She thinks that the EMH is just trying to get out of his war crimes trial, and she calls him a mass murderer to his face. The EMH notices that they have his medical tricorder among the exhibits. It’s possible he can call up the scans of Tedran made after he was shot that will prove it was a Vaskan weapon that shot him rather than a Starfleet phaser.
Later that day, a mob of Kyrians attack the museum, trashing it. In the process, they lose the medical tricorder. Tensions between the Kyrians and the Vaskans have boiled over, and the EMH’s existence is the focal point. Horrified, the EMH is willing to recant his testimony, to say that the re-creations are accurate (even though they totally aren’t). But Quarren insists on the truth, because it matters. Besides, he argues, the tensions between Kyrians and Vaskans were going to boil over anyhow—if the EMH hadn’t been found, something else would’ve done it.
We then jump ahead an indeterminate amount of time to discover that this is a re-creation in the same museum of the turning point in Vaskan-Kyrian relations that finally led to their becoming equals. Quarren died six years later, while the EMH became the surgical chancellor of the Kyrian-Vaskan Union until he decided to take a ship and head home.
There’s coffee in that nebula! In the simulation, Janeway is preternaturally calm in her evilness, as she speaks very quietly and straightforwardly about committing genocide.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok smirks nastily at one point, and it’s probably the single scariest visual in the whole episode.
Forever an ensign. Hilariously, Kim—whose job is as an interrogator, rather than ops manager—is referred to in the simulation as “Lieutenant,” which means even the Kyrians thought he should’ve been promoted at some point…
Half and half. The EMH waxes rhapsodic about Torres, whom Quarren mistakenly believed was the transporter chief.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. The simulation mistakenly has Neelix in a Starfleet uniform and doing Kim’s job of running ops.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. In the simulation, the EMH is an android with blank eyes and a monotone delivery. He takes over the interrogation of the Kyrian from Chakotay and Kim and gets better results.
Resistance is futile. In the simulation, Seven leads a cadre of Borg shock troops that are at Janeway’s beck and call.
Do it.
“This is a reasonable extrapolation from historic record. But if you’d like to point out any inconsistencies—”
“Inconsistencies? I don’t know where to begin! Granted, this looks like the briefing room, but these aren’t the people I knew! No one behaved like this—well, aside from Mr. Paris…”
–Quarren asking for constructive criticism from the EMH.
Welcome aboard. Quarren is Henry Woronicz’s third Trek role, and second on Voyager, having previously played another truth-seeker, Gegen in “Distant Origin.” He also played a Klingon in TNG’s “The Drumhead.”
Rod Arrants, last seen as the holographic bartender Rex in TNG’s “Manhunt,” plays Ambassador Daleth, while Craig Richard Nelson, last seen as Krag in TNG’s “A Matter of Perspective,” plays the Vaskan arbiter. Marie Chambers plays the Kyrian arbiter, while Morgan H. Margolis plays the Vaskan spectator.
And we’ve got a Robert Knepper moment! Timothy Davis-Reed, who was one of the tech crew on Sports Night and one of the White House reporters on The West Wing, plays a Kyrian museum-goer.
Trivial matters: Technically speaking, none of the main characters appear in this episode. Aside from the EMH, the main characters only appear in museum re-creations, both the Kyrian ones and the EMH’s. And even the EMH who appears is, technically, a backup of the original, which remained on Voyager.
The EMH’s backup module has never been mentioned before, nor is it ever mentioned again. Indeed, the lack of any kind of backup for the EMH was a plot point in “The Swarm” and especially “Message in a Bottle,” which makes the presence of one in this episode problematic, though it remaining behind on this planet makes its never being mentioned after this work, at least.
This is Tim Russ’s first, and only, time directing a Trek episode, though he has gone on to become quite a prolific director of TV episodes and short films. He also directed the Trek fan film Of Gods and Men.
Until Discovery’s second season established Gabrielle Burnham as travelling to the 32nd century (and its third season now taking place then), this episode was the farthest forward in the timeline any Star Trek screen story had gone. It’s possible this episode still has this distinction, as it’s not clear how far in the future the final scene takes place.
A sequel to this story appeared in Strange New Worlds IV, called “Personal Log” by Kevin Killiany, which chronicled the EMH’s journey away from the Kyrian-Vaskan union after he decided to resign his position as surgical chancellor and head homeward.
The EMH refers to the many times early in the show’s run when people deactivated him in mid-sentence.
While Torres is discussed by Quarren and the EMH, she does not appear, as Roxann Dawson was still recovering from giving birth.
The EMH mentions that three people were killed when the Kyrians attacked Voyager. This means that at least eighteen crewmembers have died: Durst in “Faces,” Bendera in “Alliances,” Darwin in “Meld,” Jonas in “Investigations,” Bennet in “Innocence,” Hogan and Suder in “Basics, Part II,” Martin in “Warlord,” Kaplan in “Unity,” and nine unnamed crew in “Alliances,” “Basics,” “Scientific Method,” “The Killing Game,” and this episode. It’s “at least” because the number of crew who died (if any) in “The Killing Game, Part II” is not established. The ship’s complement should be in the 130s at this point.
Set a course for home. “I suppose Voyager is what made me fall in love with history.” I have always absolutely adored this episode for any number of reasons. For starters, it’s a vehicle for Robert Picardo, which is almost always a delight. (Caveat necessary thanks to “Darkling.”) The EMH is at his snotty best here, with the added bonus of his chilling performance as the android in the simulation.
Speaking of the simulation, that’s another major part of this episode’s fun. It’s the same fun that derives from the various Mirror Universe episodes, as the actors get to play evil versions of themselves, and they’re all magnificent. Kate Mulgrew’s low-key brutality is spectacularly effective, while Robert Beltran’s earnest imploring of the Kyrian they’re torturing to talk because his people worship peace is hilarious. And the most effective moment in the early part of the episode, when we have no idea what’s going on yet, is seeing Tuvok smile when Janeway mock-plaintively asks why he keeps her waiting for maximum carnage. In his directorial debut, Tim Russ does an amazing job of getting good performances out of everyone, including himself. What’s best is that the acting isn’t over the top. There’s a quiet brutality of this iteration of Voyager’s crew that’s scary as hell, much more so than it would be if they were shouting and cackling all the time.
But what’s absolutely best about this episode is its examination of the volatility of history, of how stories change over the years, of how extrapolating from data doesn’t always lead you to the right conclusion. (My favorite was their assuming the EMH was an android because all they knew for sure was that he was an artificial life form.)
This episode manages to be a discourse on history, a social commentary in the problematic relationship between the Vaskans and the Kyrians, which has obviously remained an issue for seven centuries, and a delightful romp through a fun-house-mirror version of the Voyager crew. Best of all is that the ending is a very Trekkish one of hope for peace and cooperation.
There’s really nothing here not to like. Not just one of Voyager’s best, but one of Star Trek’s best.
Warp factor rating: 10
Rewatcher’s note: This is the final Star Trek: Voyager Rewatch entry for 2020. The folks at Tor.com are taking it easy for the rest of the calendar year, so I’m taking a break from the rewatch until Monday the 4th of January, when we’ll do “Demon.” (However, my reviews of Star Trek: Discovery’s next two episodes will appear on the 24th and the 31st when those episodes drop.)
What started as a celebration of the show’s 25th anniversary turned into something that brought me, at least, a sense of comfort and stability in a year that had damn little of either. Thank you all for joining me on this trip through the third Trek spinoff, and I hope you will continue to follow along as we finish the fourth season and cover the fifth, sixth, and seventh in the coming months.
In particular I want to thank those of you who’ve commented. The comments on this site have always remained blessedly rational and calm and free of the inanity that one finds far too often on Internet comments sections. We don’t all agree, but we do so civilly, and that is a beautiful thing. Let’s hope that continues.
Keith R.A. DeCandido wishes everyone a safe holiday and a joyous new year.
This is one of the few Voyager episodes that, to me, is more than just “good for Voyager,” and rises to the level of “good for Trek in general.” I unabashedly love this one. The mood created on the Evil!Voyager is perfect, down to the little touches like the changes to the uniform, and the appearance of a Kazon crewmate running around. Watching everyone get to ham it up is just delightful, and Tim Russ should get a ton of credit for his directing here. Plus, it’s hard to go wrong centering a story around Robert Picardo.
But beyond all that, this is an episode that I think of as one of the few “good” (IMHO) episodes that makes the case for the Federation’s non-interference policies- without ever really directly addressing it. We get to really see what happens to a civilization after the credits roll and Kirk/Picrard/Janeway blithely move on to the next adventure of the week. It’s unlikely that Janeway and crew ever really thought about this planet again- but they left a huge and lasting legacy on them. Too often Trek’s messages about high-minded ideals come across as, well, getting a lecture, but here we get to see the real impact of an event that got taken out of context and misunderstood. Instead of seeing a planet dying from a disease and being told the Right Thing To Do is to move on because they haven’t developed warp drive, we get to see how well-meaning actions can spiral in ways that you couldn’t possibly have imagined. It really drove home the point that, as Captain, you have to be very, very careful about what you do when you arrive on an alien planet. It makes you wonder about all the other planet’s they’ve left behind, and what effect, if any, their arrival had on them.
I also love that the episode doesn’t shy away from showing that sometimes history is an ugly, messy thing that doesn’t make anyone look or feel good- but that reckoning with the truth matters more than that. Perhaps the Doctor being activated when he did put the race relations on the planet back a few steps, and it spawned further ugliness, but it also made it possible for them to build a future based on actual truths about the past. The Doctor might have had to metaphorically re-break the bone in order for it to be set properly and finally heal.
I never noticed that they referred to Kim as a Lieutenant, but that is hilarious. Poor Harry.
As a trained historian (don’t try this at home!) I too appreciate the delicate nature of historical interpretation. Try as we might, we can only speculate on the true motives behind the people and the vents we study. In my own field, 19th century German naval history, I have to be aware of different worldviews, different personal beliefs, different understanding of language (and how words and phrases can change meaning and usage), and, when dealing with written documents, for what audience was this text intended. I read them and draw one conclusion; another historian might rad the same texts and come to a different conclusion. As I tell students, that’s how historians earn their living, by arguing with each other.
Once again, we have a decidedly negative view of Voyager‘s presence in the Delta Quadrant, the equivalent of Sherman’s March. We’ll see the long-term implications of its presence in “Blink of an Eye” in two more seasons’ time.
I have been on-and-off-again with keeping up with the rewatch, but I did make sure to catch up to Living Witness, because it is such a fantastic episode. As I now work in a history museum that is trying to do justice to history and the living communities whose stories are being told, especially thinking through the events of this year, the episode had a quite a bit of additional resonance for me this time around. And of course, there is nothing I don’t love about the cast clearly having a great time, black gloves and all!
Thanks for another year of the rewatch, krad–looking forward to the next!
Happy Holidays Keith. Your various posts are one of the reasons I have Tor.com bookmarked.
This is “The Great Voyager episode” for me – the one that can go on the list of all-time great Trek episodes along with “Duet,” “City on the Edge of Forever” and “Yesterday’s Enterprise”
I should watch this one again. It’s one of many Voyager episodes I’ve only seen once, at the time of the original broadcast. I often found Voyager disappointing back then, but I remember being impressed by this one.
Since I can’t resist, heh, here’s this episode’s obligatory thoughts from Charles Sonnenburg over at SF Debris).
(Really, Chuck’s Psycho Janeway running gag never, ever gets old).
And on a more serious note, thank you for doing this, Keith. This has been a fun, stabilizing respite from the insanity of the last year and I’ve looked forward every week to the re-watch and the friendly debates with you, Chris Bennett, and everyone.
I did appreciate getting to see the cast do the closest they came to a mirror-verse episode (except Russ, who had a background role in one of DS9’s as I recall), and appreciated the idea of the mutability of history. Plus, agreement with the joy of a Trekkish ending- something a little too rare in many actual Mirrorverse episodes! Happy holidays, rewatcher and fellow readers.
One of my favorites. Picardo is amazing here and I loved the “historical” version of the crew. I have to admit, I like the black undershirt on the uniforms more than the gray.
Happy Holidays, everyone.
Bobby
This episode felt like a mea culpa to the actors for not taking Voyager to the Mirror Dimension during the show’s run.
The Instant Classic. One of the most Trek episodes to ever Trek. Themes, acting, fun, a real social issue, uplifting message, all through the lens of a story that can only fully be realized through science fiction.
The Doctor having to not only defend himself but the honor of his friends from centuries of misinterpretation and ultimately creating a better future through the truth. It just puts a smile on your face.
Happy Winter Solstice to everyone. While Christmas is in a few days, this is quietly my favorite day of the year as the days finally start getting longer again. Thanks for doing these Keith, it was hard to watch Voyager first run because of terrible reception for UPN on the front end and being deployed on the back end. And I never really got to watch them all in order, so having this rewatch lets me get my eyes on it again. It’s good memories. Here’s to hoping you reconsider your stance on the other neglected stepchild of the franchise, especially since a lot of people seem to be revising their opinion of it now.
And thank you, Krad / Keith, for taking us on this journey! I’m sure I’m not the only one who was excited to hear in January that you decided to do a rewatch for Voyager. Looking forward to reading more of these next year!
Have a very happy holiday!
My only real complaint about this episode, and it’s an old one by this point, is that I wish the people in charge of alien make-up were more creative. A limited budget shouldn’t be that much of a hindrance when it comes to creativity.
Aside from the instigating incident (finding an EMH backup module that continuity says shouldn’t exist) there really is nothing to even nitpick about this episode. It’s fun, chilling, and hilarious in the historical Voyager bits, and it’s poignant and thoughtful, and simply true, in the parts outside the recreation. That plus the simulation-inside-a-simulation reveal at the end is great. Really good episode to end the year on.
Yeah, this is also a strong PD episode. Good point, wildfyrewarning.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Roxann Dawson doesn’t appear here and therefore doesn’t get the opportunity to play an evil version of Torres however, I believe that’s made up for in the later episode “Author, Author” where we see a holographic version of Torres that appears fully human being very nasty to the real Torres.
Yep, one of those great episodes. I can’t say much more than that.
But I would like to give a tip of the hat to Henry Woronicz. He does good work here, just as he did in Distant Origin. Another guest actor I wouldn’t have minded seeing as a regular in Star Trek. That’s a long list…
18: “Yep, one of those great episodes. I can’t say much more than that.”
I came here to make the same comment! There really isn’t much to say that wouldn’t be praising the episode or saying how much I agree with the really well thought-out review. KRAD/Voyager, you can’t do such a great job, then there’s nothing left for the comment thread. ;). Happy Holidays all see you in 2021.
“Somewhere, halfway across the galaxy I hope, Captain Janeway is spinning in her grave.”
Now this is how you do a standalone episode. So much so that I’ve heard this pinpointed as Voyager’s last moment of greatness before it goes downhill in the last three seasons. Not that it’s perfect: The initial recreation of the accepted version of events goes on perhaps a little too long and seems to devolve into an excuse to show all the cast (except the still on leave Roxann Dawson) in different costumes and make-up. Still, it gives us that moment where Tuvok gives a chilling smile on being ordered to commit genocide, reminiscent of his emotionally-unleashed self back in “Meld”.
Things really get into their stride though with the Doctor’s arrival and his emerging friendship with Quarren. While Quarren isn’t immediately willing to throw aside the beliefs he’s held all his life, he’s open-minded enough to accept the questions. Ultimately, the two of them make a good partnership in their attempts to get to the bottom of the truth about what happened. On the face of it, it seems to be a case of the Kyrians acknowledging that they’re not the innocent victims they believe they are, which is a slightly odd message given that they seem to be treated as second class citizens. But maybe everyone involved needs to take responsibility. It feels like both sides are happy to lay most of the blame on Voyager. Not only do the Kyrians see their warlike leader as a noble martyr, but the Vaskan ambassador is portrayed as a helpless bystander horrified at what Voyager does in his name rather than the xenophobe who killed an enemy after he’d been disarmed. Both sides need to recognise the past faults they did to each other.
Borderline serious paragraph that I should probably delete to avoid spoiling the mood but haven’t: What can those of us in the real world witnessing continued division do about this? Well, I could get myself into trouble giving real-life examples of those who use past atrocities as an excuse to seek recompense, or those who think past victories make them superior. I think every nation and culture views their ancestors in a sympathetic light. In my country, we still look at the British Empire with a certain amount of pride and a feeling of “Well, we probably weren’t right to rule all those countries, but it’s not like they’ve done that well without us.” Things can of course go too far the other way as we saw earlier this year: The likes of Churchill, Nelson and Wellington weren’t saints and neither were they complete monsters, like the rest of us they had good and bad in them. There seems to be a tendency recently to make Mary Queen of Scots the protagonist of historical drama and portray her as the rightful Queen of England: Personally, I tend to cheer for Queen Elizabeth, despite knowing she was hardly a saint!
Not sure I can add much about the changes in the Kyrian simulation, but Neelix is once more in security uniform (although he’s working Kim’s post): It’s got to the point where there’s so many alternate versions where that happens, the prime version is starting to seem the odd one out! First glimpse of a Kazon since the Season 3 opener, I believe we’ll next see one in Season 7 (ironically in an episode which also features Seven as a full Borg).
And it occurs to me that if the Doctor was reactivated in the 31st century, spent “many years” with the Kyrians and Vaskans and then set off for the Alpha Quadrant…he might end up there, ooh, round about the timeframe of Discovery Season 3..?
This is a good one with all the great ideas Keith mentions, but I was rather bothered by it when I first saw it, because of the cognitive dissonance of the opening scenes and not getting what was going on. Honestly, at first I may have thought that the writers and creators were making a bunch of continuity and characterization mistakes all of a sudden, and it took a few minutes to figure out they were doing it on purpose. Part of it may have been that I had to watch the show over the air from a distant city since we didn’t have a local UPN affiliate, so I couldn’t clearly see the changed uniform details and such.
The inconsistency about the Doctor’s backup module bugged me too, but I figured they must’ve rigged something after “Message in a Bottle” so they’d have a backup in case the Doctor had to go on an extended away mission again. Although one wonders why they couldn’t make another backup later on, since I think the lack of one does come into play again in a later season.
On the question of whether the backup is really the Doctor… if we assume it’s a complete backup of the Doctor’s memories and personality at the point it was taken, then basically that’s the same existential question as whether Tom Riker and Will Riker are the same person. Essentially he is the Doctor, just duplicated, like Will and Tom, or like the entire crew in “Deadlock.”
I am also a trained historian, and working in the museum field, so while I enjoy the performances here, this episode makes me shudder. The Kyrian museum reminds me of Yushukan, the war museum in Tokyo – both are perfect examples of how not to do history in a museum. Americans have shown over and over (in surveys) that they trust museums, they believe what is on the walls – and that is why we have a responsibility to accurate storytelling. If you don’t know something, you don’t make it up – you tell the visitor you don’t know it.
Of course, the Kyrians think they DO know everything, so their historiography is faulty to begin with. But history is never neutral (nor are museums), so their flaw is not in false history, but in not acknowledging their own bias.
Ah, this was the mirror universe episode for Voyager. i definitely remembered an episode where everyone was their evil selves and wearing black gloves, but whenever I researched the mirror universe it seemed like Voyager didn’t have one, and I must have imagined it. I thought the fact that the doctor had a backup module to steal would garner more points lost, since normally they seem more in danger of losing the Doc completely should anyone breathe on him wrong. Maybe they just finally made one after nearly accidentally deleting him for the umpteenth time.
Krad, I want to thank you for doing this rewatch. I’d been waiting for years for you to come around to rewatching Voyager, and this was right on time. I’ve looked forward to each post as a very welcome respite from the madness of this year. Even when I haven’t commented (usually having been sidetracked by the aforementioned madness), I look forward to reading everyone’s comments, even ones I disagree with.
Happy Holidays, to you and yours, everyone! Here’s to looking forward to 2021!
Definitely a very “Star Trek” type of tale with its thoughtful “lesson” on the perils of revisionist history.
I’m sure it was fun for the whole cast (minus Dawson) to play baddie for once.
And I like the twist ending that what we see in the episode was itself a program for viewing for the Kyrians and Vaskans even further in the future.
Also, it’s nice to wonder and speculate about what became of this backup copy of the EMH and what adventures he had on his solo journey.
This was one of my favourite episodes when it originally aired, and remains so now. The exchange between the Doctor and Quarren about just *where* Voyager was going sticks in the mind particularly for me.
One of my favorite episodes. Also, one of my favorite comments. After Quarren reactivated the doctor, the doctor asked him why he changed his mind. Quarren responded with, “Time to think.” Doesn’t sound so earth shattering but something most people don’t do. Questioning what they are conditioned to believe. Classic Star Trek at it’s best.
Didn’t particularly like killing off Quarren at such a young age though.
Quoth Rick: “KRAD/Voyager, you can’t do such a great job, then there’s nothing left for the comment thread. ;)”
*laughs* The comments threads themselves beg to differ, as the 93 rewatch entries prior to this one have averaged around 63 comments per entry, ranging from 27 (“Alter Ego”) to 196 (“Caretaker”), and with a lot in the 50s and 60s and 70s.
Tom W: We don’t know how old Quarren was, nor what the actual lifespan of a Kyrian is….
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@23- I kind of enjoy that theory. After however many close calls, and probably some deep introspection on the Doctor’s part as to what it means that he can be copied and stored, they create a backup… and it’s immediately lost in the next scuffle Voyager finds itself in.
A few years back on this very site there was a query raised about whether there were any good Voyager episodes and this is the one I cited.(though I could not remember the title and had to hope that ChristopherLBennett would oblige, which he did) and I stand by that.
I would also like to add my thanks and appreciation to krad for doing this re-watch when he obviously was not minded to. I’ve been happily following along (thanks to Netflix) and as a result have realised that Voyager is a rather better series than I’d remembered. Still not the best (a tie between TOS and DS9 in my opinion, fwiw) but a good worthy entry to the canon.
Happy holidays, Krad! I’ve enjoyed all the Star Trek rewatches you’ve done, and looking forward to more next year.
This is up there as one of Voyager best episodes. You could say this is Voyagers version of a Mirror episode. Seeing out characters as “evil” versions of themselves was refreshing and amazing. The whole episode worked and seeing how a whole society and their history can be based around a version of events that may or may not have happened. It really shows us how history isn’t always true.
And I loved the final scene. It always makes me tear up a little. Even after 900 years the Doctor still longs for his friends.
Season 4 has been the best season of the series. It has so many strong episodes and didn’t miss a beat which continues into season 5.
This would be a good double feature with “Distant Origin.”
garreth@8 on “The Omega Directive”:
I don’t like Janeway’s hair here. I like it down in general but in this instance it appears flat and lifeless. In later appearances it’ll achieve its true perfection when it looks fuller and poofier like Worf’s!
I love her hair on this ep as the “evil” Janeway. I wish they’d used this short look for the “good” Janeway instead of the longer, fuller and poofier version you refered to..
Re: the Doctor’s this-episode-only backup module: Given the trouble Voyager’s crew has experienced with the unique nature of his holoprogram (*), maybe this device isn’t something they created: Perhaps, like the mobile emitter, it’s a technology they acquired from a third party and cannot duplicate (or didn’t get a chance to, before it was snatched).
(*) By our lights, he’s digital software and should be duplicable, and his holomatrix should just be a puppet — I mean, forget about Sickbay’s holoemitters, he should be able to teleoperate a robotic effector carried to any point in the ship — but we have to take premises as given.
As soon as I saw the picture i knew what episode this was. I think there were a lot of Voyager episodes I really liked but taken together in the order presented it was messy and a lot of inconsistencies. This is one of the ones I liked a lot.
I postponed watching Voyager and considering not even doing so for a number of reasons. One was my seeting hatred because of Tuvix. Another was the inevitable curse of airing alongside a more narratively ambitious show like DS9. I even thought about skipping straight to Enterprise. But I’m glad to have reconsidered it. Voyager, much like TNG as well as the original show, is episodic, so it’s guaranteed to have ups and downs. Plus, Voyager had to claw its way out of those first two problematic seasons in order to find its potential.
While Voyager doesn’t necessarily have the originaility or staying presence of TNG (or an actor even close to Stewart’s level) that doesn’t mean it’s incapable of having superlative episodes of its own. Living Witness is the shining example. Not only one of Voyager’s best, but also one of Trek’s best. A bright spot in a slightly downer late season stretch, one superbly crafted by Braga, Menosky and Fuller, and directed with gusto by Russ (why he chose not to direct further Voyager and Enterprise episodes, following the footsteps of Burton, Dawson and McNeill is a mystery; maybe his musical career?).
And speaking of DS9′s ambitious storytelling (not that their season 6 was turning out that well compared to other ones; VOY S4 was turning out possibly better), Living Witness aired just a couple of weeks after Pale Moonlight. Between Quarren’s misguided recreation of the Voyager crew and Garak’s recreation of a Weyoun/Damar invasion strategy briefing, I can’t help but wonder what if a Kyrian character with the smarts and logical perception of Senator Vreenak had been part of Kyrian society instead. He could have easily pointed out the museum curator’s flaws by calling the whole Voyager scenario a FAKE. Talk about plot similarities.
Living Witness is also the kind of episode that could only work within Voyager’s premise, while at the same time not having to rely on the actual Voyager crew. The EMH serves as a good attorney for the cause, while the episode’s real protagonist, Quarren, is very much a Trekkian character in classic Roddenberry fashion. One who recognizes his flaws and is willing to change and evolve. Braga and Menosky obviously had experience writing this thanks to Gegen on Distant Origin. This is very much a spiritual sequel to that season 3 episode. Plus, it’s great to have a good, developed Delta Quadrant race for a change. Season 4 really struck gold with both the Kyrians and the Hirogen (plus having the ongoing presence of both the Borg and 8472 from before).
And it’s always great to have the actors acting complete different versions of their known characters. Tuvok and Janeway being the highlights, with everyone else getting a chance to shine. And it also lampoons Voyager’s many prior encounters and the perception that it was causing a bad reputation across the quadrant, which was kind of a thing in the early seasons, and which didn’t make a whole lot of sense given how little time had passed back then; now it makes more sense to do this kind of episode.
Something I neglected to mention in the rewatch entry….
In 2007, I wrote The Mirror-Scaled Serpent, a Voyager Mirror Universe novel that was in the trade paperback Obsidian Alliances (along with DS9 and New Frontier MU novels), and Kim’s role in this episode as a brutal interrogator was the inspiration for the MU version of Harry that I wrote in that novel. Basically, Harry Kim is a total badass, and the scariest, most violent person in the Terran Resistance.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Many thanks to you Keith. Your Star Trek columns, as well as some of the great work Tor is doing promoting queer, trans and radicalized means this site is one of the few I still visit weekly for the articles. I’m going to be really sad when you run out of trek to review.
Have a safe holiday and may 2021 suck significantly less.
Tailspinner: That’s a long way off, since I’ve still got three-and-a-bit seasons of Voyager to go, and then four seasons of Enterprise after that. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@42/krad: Let’s see, that’s about 153 episodes at two per week, so that’s nearly another year and a half.
But hey, at that point it will have been nearly 5 years since Discovery started, so you could start rewatching that! :D
On “mirror universe”, there are a few more episodes with alternate versions or simulated versions or alternate personalities of characters. There’s Harry Kim suddenly waking up on Earth and “Voyager” up to now has been a dream. :-) There’s Torres turned just-Human and just-Klingon. There’s “Coda” where Janeway is dead and attends her own funeral. The one where Kes is married to Paris. A number of others. There’s “Deadlock” with two Voyagers, and I do not remember if that episode considered that one of them could be ruthless individualists from the Goatee Beard universe (Memory Alpha says “Van Dyke”)… and what would be the outcome. Or if both of them were?
…now how do I stop imagining Captain Janeway with a beard… maybe that’s how you know.
Is that an actual statement of an Enterprise rewatch? Squeeeeeee!
(Enterprise was my first Trek. I am living proof that NuTrek can make you want to seek out OldTrek.)
@46: Wow, that is reassuring! I can’t imagine my introduction to Trek being Enterprise and wanting to learn more about the franchise. But then I look back and recall my introduction was the premiere of “Encounter at Farpoint” on TNG and yet I was hooked and came back week after week. However, I was also 8 and didn’t know any better!
The EMH should get back just in time, to run into the Discovery Crew.
My frustration with Voyager was always that it wasn’t what I wanted it to be often enough, I wanted it to be the strange very different Trek, and when it was I loved it … but it just didn’t do it often enough, they got it spectacularly right in “The Thaw” and also again here, both episodes were different to anything else I’d seen in Trek and both wonderfully enjoyable. This is brilliant and I agree with every word of Krads review.
I seem to be in a very miniscule minority here that doesn’t like this episode quite as much. I mean, the evil alternate versions of the characters are good and all, Tuvok smirking is especially creepy, but it isn’t that appealing to be honest.I suppose the ‘honesty is the best policy’ message is fine too, if a little on the nose. But where the episode loses me is when they go from “There is great social unrest and the only way to restore peace is for the Doctor to lie and affirm the Evil!Voyager story” to “The Doctor told everyone the truth which became a turning point for us and now we’re at peace and somehow have overcome 700+ years of hostility and discrimination”. I’m not saying that this isn’t possible, I wouldn’t have been a Star Trek fan if I didn’t believe it was possible, but how do we go from A to B? The episode feels like it is lacking a Trekkian speech in between the two scenes, or at the very least some exposition why the Kyrians and Vaskans are now all chummy, when in fact this evidence should have deteriorated their relationship even further. Sure, ‘honesty is the best policy’, but how? How does it help, how does it overcome years of hatred and misunderstandings? Sure, ‘revisionist history bad’, but how? In fact, the episode made a point that this revisionist history is what is keeping riots and outright hostility at bay. So how are we supposed to think it is bad? It may have worked if they didn’t go the whole ‘the oppressed were the ones who fired the first shots’ route, but they did, and nothing wrong with that, that’s just a creative decision, but then make it work! Tell us why the Vaskans, who are shown now to be in power don’t start treating the Kyrians even worse now, now that they don’t have ‘oppressor’s guilt’ to hold them back. Show us why the Kyrians don’t try to discredit Quarren like the Voth did Gregen in order to protect themselves from retaliation from the Vaskans. The episode does neither of these things, and what remains is just entertaining filler at best and a soulless morality tale at worst.
Unfortunately this was a pretty middling episode for me – the goodies as ‘mirror universe’ like baddies is nothing new in Star Trek (and just a bit tired as a trope, especially because it always is a very very shallow trope) and the Doctor being willing at to support outrageous propaganda at the end just to quell the outbreak of fighting really weighed down this episode.
The only good thing about this episode was the reflection on the subjectivity of historical truth, but it was a reflection that wasn’t very deep it has to be said.
This was an idea executed way better on Babylon 5 by JMS in The Deconstruction of Falling Stars in 1997, before this Voyager Living Witness episode (1998). Nobody may be able to say for certain, but in this case imitation was not the sincerest form of flattery.
This episode is one of the best star trek episodes ever made. I absolutely love it. I’m a student of history, I’ve got an undergrad degree in it, and so I love this because it’s pretty damn realistic. People making too many assumptions and getting things wrong, and when new evidence comes out that proves they were wrong all along, they get angry and defensive and try to attack the other historians that debunked them. Academia in past centuries was pretty damn ruthless. You should see what happened with the guy who invented how to measure longitude when on a boat, which had people across the world for millenia, since the ancient Greeks, trying to find out how to measure longitude when on a boat, this enormous riddle that hadn’t yet been solved. The guy who was in charge of approving the new invention that could finally measure latitude and make sailing significantly easier and safer, well he was also one of the guys who was trying to invent a device that measured latitude. So some other guy had invented it, but the guy in charge kept putting it off for decades, claiming it wasn’t good enough. Because he wanted HIS invention to win. So the other guy kept refining his invention until it was the size of a pocket watch, and so eventually he did win the prize the British government was handing out. After like 40 years of trying.
But yeah anyway. People should read the Bill Bryson book The Short History of Nearly Everything. Especially the version that’s out of print now but is easily found second hand, a big bible sized book that has all the text from the paperback, but also has glorious beautiful pictures of science and nature and all sorts. But anyway yeah, this episode is very very accurate. This is how people in academia acted for millenia. These days they don’t really, anymore. But yeah all the stories in that book of scientist fueds is fascinating. One guy hated this other scientist so much that when the other scientist died, the first scientist stole his skeleton and displayed it in his house, which is one of the most evil things imaginable. That’s how vicious and ruthless academia used to be
So yeah, this episode is so accurate to real life. It would have been easy to make the historian just immediately believe everything the doctor says. They made it realistic, by him denying all of it initially, but eventually his academic brain makes him realise that truth is more important than his worldview.
And I just love the whole thing because everyone is having so much fun in this episode. Especially Janeway. She’s brilliantly evil in this episode, I love it. And the little touches like the doctor being a version of Data, basically, Seven still looking full borg, Neelix on the bridge as an officer, I love it
And you’re perfectly right, any episode where Tuvok for some reason got emotions, it’s the scariest thing. He has such a perfectly evil smile. He’s clearly having tons of fun acting in that episode too.
The only other depiction of an evil character that is more scary than emotional Tuvok, is Sisko when Dax did her thing where her past hosts all came out and took over the bodies of the DS9 crew. And then it got to the former host that was a murderer, and Sisko was to be taken over by that host. And God damn, evil Sisko is absolutely pants pooingly terrifying. He is absolutely brilliant in that episode. How he tricks Dax into letting down the barrier in the brig be was in, pretending to be Sisko for a second, and then as soon as Dax let’s the barrier down he begins choking her. But the more scary part was when he was just behind the barrier and was talking in the most calm and polite and gentle voice, which made it significantly scarier
Imagine Tuvok and Sisko interacting. It’s something we could one day see, in Picard, or something. But if they do meet, find another excuse to make both of them temporarily evil, so they can have an evil-off to determine who is the scariest. I guess you’d have to explain how and when Sisko came back to reality after hanging out with gods for years. One day, hopefully, we’ll get a Star Trek: Sisko show, or something. I think that’d be great. But then I think star trek Picard is really great, so I know I’m in the minority there.
I think the final scene is set a further 200 years in the future, so that would be the 24th, 31st and 33rd centuries all in one episode. Isn’t the evil Janeway worried that Seven’s fighting force might try to overrun the ship someday? Kim smirking at the Kyrian in agony is a pretty terrifying visual too.
I would’ve liked to see Tim Russ go on to become the VGR equivalent of Jonathan Frakes. Krad, are you also counting the crew who died in Caretaker? And how many of Chakotay’s people didn’t survive the trip to the Delta Quadrant?
Either Living Witness or Author, Author are the closest VGR has to a Mirror episode. That bit between the evil Janeway and Tuvok on the bridge is so suggestive. It’s like what Vorin told Worf in Homeward, “Stories change with each person who tells it.” Have you seen the similar B5 episode Deconstruction of a Falling Star?
The final VGR review of 2020 – saved the best til last? When I first started reading this rewatch, I wondered if it would be overly hostile, since I knew Krad wasn’t as keen on VGR, but it’s turned out to be a pleasant surprise.
1: I’m glad the Kazon didn’t get too much to do because that way lies badness. Yeah, I love the way Living Witness shows us the consequences caused by the best of intentions. That’s why DS9 is my favourite Trek show, because in Crossover, we got to see the ruinous effects brought about by Kirk’s sweeping reforms.
6: Believe it or not, I didn’t care for Living Witness at first, because I was so dazzled by the episode’s play of ideas, I was left indifferent to what a truly brilliant piece of television it was.
13: A limited budget should really force one to get creative. 18: He was also in the TNG episode The Drumhead as a Klingon secretly in bed with the Romulans, but J’Dan wasn’t anywhere near as compelling as Quarren or Professor Gegen. 19: I think people have plenty to say about Living Witness.
20: Moments of greatness on VGR have always been sporadic. I didn’t mind getting to spend more time with the evil crew because they’re better than the real ones anyway. Queen Elizabeth not a saint?! I wouldn’t say that anymore! And we get a Kazon attack in the S5 episode Relativity.
28: Quarren was no spring chicken! 34:
35: You know Janeway is evil just from a more severe hairdo. 39: The third season was quite problematic too. S6 was DS9 at it’s peak! I like the way Voyager leaves an impact on so many races in the DQ, and in some cases, like the Kyrians and the Vaskans, becomes part of their shared history.
44: I wonder if Krad would be tempted to review The Orville instead? It may not be a Trek show, but it is one in spirit. 45: One of these days, Torres will wake up to find Paris taking a sonic shower and discover the last four seasons were all one big dream. 47: Or that TNG would get better!
50: The Kyrians and the Vaskans are not all chummy, there’s still plenty of bad blood between them and the Doctor’s desire to set the record straight only inflames tensions further. 52: The calm before the storm.
Quoth David Sim: “Krad, are you also counting the crew who died in Caretaker? And how many of Chakotay’s people didn’t survive the trip to the Delta Quadrant?”
No, that was never part of my calculation, because the only solid number we had to work with was the crew complement given by Janeway in “The 37s,” which was of the blended crew, minus Durst and Seska, and likely minus the EMH, since he was still tethered to sickbay at the time. That was the number I was using, though it became clear throughout my rewatch that I gave more attention to how many people were on Voyager during the two years of this rewatch than anyone involved with the show did in the seven years it was on the air……………………
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
I can only join the choir – this is my absolute favourite Voyager episode. And the review here is great as usual, it’s really funny how @krad’s reviews became a must for me for any Star Trek episodes – both old and new. :)
th1_: Aw, thanks!
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Wow! How “ironic” is it, that the evil alter-ego version of Janeway executes the “Borg Activation Sequence!!” Talk about the antithesis of everything the real Janeway stands for! Of all the Star Trek episodes I’ve ever seen, in any version of Star Trek, this scene is my absolute, eminent favorite. Talk about taking 1990s (and 2300s) mainstream feminism, and turning it into 2900s “sinister” feminism. This scene never fails to make me bust my gut with tearful laughter! The stuff of legend!! Cheers.
@Krad/Set a course for home:
Well everything except when the senior officers get into a brawl! But yes, for the most part that was the case and an excellent decision to limit that.
I don’t know if I would say that this is the best episode of Star Trek, but if I ever had to pick an episode that embodied everything that anyone could possibly want in a Star Trek story to a superlative degree, it would probably be this one.
I’m glad I to see that others reported tearing up during this episode. It’s the first time I’ve seen it, and during the first fifteen minutes or so I wondered how they were going to reset it. Mirror universe? Another “Year in Hell” time travel way out? Nope. They invented a brilliant concept and totally ran with it. While so many Trek episodes, particularly Voyager, seem to just wind everything up, this one opened out into the future and made us imagine the Doctor’s adventures afterwards.
Anyone else notice that the mess hall is in Section 31? Is it always? Is Nelix really an operative for Star Fleet’s version of the CIA?
I had a thought… We know that Robert Picardo is reprising the EMH in the upcoming Starfleet Academy series set in the 32nd century. I saw an article mention that and raise the question of whether it would be the original Voyager EMH or a distinct iteration, and it occurred to me, since “Living Witness” is set in the 31st century, what if Picardo is playing the backup EMH from this episode, having made it back to the Federation? It could be nice to get closure for him.