“Hunters”
Written by Jeri Taylor
Directed by David Livingston
Season 4, Episode 15
Production episode 183
Original air date: February 11, 1998
Stardate: 51501.4
Captain’s log. Voyager receives a garbled transmission from Starfleet Command, being sent through the Hirogen communications network they found last time. Kim is able to clean it up a little, and he also determines that the full transmission is lodged in one of the arrays. They set a course.
Idrin’s ship detects the message and Voyager’s imminent arrival at the array. Idrin orders a course change to intercept, and then puts a stripe of white paint on his helmet.
On Voyager, the bridge crew speculates wildly about what the transmission from Starfleet could be, an indulgence Janeway permits. They’re also concerned that they were already mourned when declared missing a year previous, and now their loved ones have been told that they’re alive again.
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En route, they find a one-person ship with a dead body that has had its skeleton removed. Seven recognizes the technique from past Borg encounters, though they never determined the party responsible.
The array that has the messages is powered by a small singularity, and it’s emitting gravimetric waves that make it difficult to approach. Seven continues to download the messages from the array, which turn out to be letters from home.
Chakotay hears from Sveta, the person who recruited him to the Maquis, who informs him that the Cardassians wiped the Maquis out with help from their new allies from the Gamma Quadrant. He shares this with Torres, who is livid.
Tuvok learns that his oldest son has undergone pon farr and had a child, whom they named after his mother.
Janeway gets a “Dear John” (“Dear Jane”? “Dear Janeway”?) letter from Mark informing her that he has moved on with his life and has married one of his coworkers.
Kim waits not-very-patiently for a letter from his parents. (There is no mention of Libby for some reason.) Neither Torres nor Paris expect any letters, so the latter is surprised to learn that he’s getting one from his father.
Seven also detects a large, encrypted datastream and starts downloading it. She also reports that the message is degrading due to the interference form the singularity. She requests to take a shuttlecraft, which can get closer to the array than Voyager can, to try to stabilize the field around the array. Janeway agrees, but instructs her to take Tuvok with her, saying she isn’t in the habit of sending crew on away teams by themselves. Seven later asks Tuvok if this is really true of Janeway, and Tuvok says that it’s not just her thing, it’s standard Starfleet procedure.
After they stabilize the field, they’re attacked by Idrin, who renders them unconscious, beams them onto his ship, and restrains them. It becomes clear that Hirogen society places a high value on hunting and on worthy prey. The hold where Tuvok and Seven are held is filled with skeletons and weapons of Idrin’s previous prey. Idrin places a streak of blue paint on his prisoners’ foreheads, indicating that they’re relics of the hunt. Tuvok, recognizing that diplomacy isn’t gonna work with these guys, instead adopts an aggressive posture, making it clear that Janeway will kick his ass if the Hirogen don’t free the pair of them. Idrin’s response is to announce that they will be killed, starting with Tuvok, so Seven can watch how she will die.
The Hirogen attack Voyager. Janeway hits on the notion of destabilizing the field around the array, thus subjecting them to the singularity. They manage to beam Tuvok and Seven off the ship. The Hirogen ships are destroyed, as is the array—and the entire network. Their way of communicating with home has been cut off. But at least Starfleet knows where they are and they did promise to work to bring them home.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Janeway uses the singularity that powers the array to suck the Hirogen ships to their doom, using a warp field around Voyager to help protect it from the same fate.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway is cautiously optimistic about hearing from Starfleet, saddened at the news of her fiancé now being married to someone else, and rather devastated when the Hirogen network is destroyed.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok resists reading his letter from T’Pel until after he is done with his work, despite importunings from Neelix (who also read the first couple of paragraphs). He also handles himself very well while a prisoner of the Hirogen, even managing to hurt one of them while bound.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Janeway gives Neelix the task of distributing the letters from home to the crew.
Half and half. Torres is livid upon learning that the Maquis have been wiped out. Her solution is to throw herself into her work, taking over Seven’s downloading duties, making sure to deliver Kim’s parents’ letter to him personally, and trying to get Paris’s letter as well.
Forever an ensign. The look of sheer glee on Kim’s face when Torres delivers his letter from home is delightful.
Resistance is futile. Seven works tirelessly to download the messages, avoiding regenerating so she can continue to work. She is also taken aback by the notion proposed by Janeway that she might have some family on Earth.
Please state the nature of the medical emergency. The EMH goes on at great length about what a hero he is for having made first re-contact with the Alpha Quadrant in the previous episode. However, the person he goes on to is Seven, who bluntly says it’s more likely that he’ll be deactivated and replaced with a newer model when they get home.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Torres teases Kim about his crush on Seven, but Kim insists he’s over it. Meanwhile, Janeway admits that she was holding onto the notion of Mark waiting for her as an excuse to not try to get involved with anyone in the Delta Quadrant. She, of course, has that conversation with Chakotay, ahem ahem.
Do it. “Aren’t you going to read it?”
“Of course.”
“I mean, aren’t you going to read it now?”
“I’m finishing my weekly tactical review. When it’s completed, I’ll read the message.”
“You’re going to wait until you finish the tactical review?”
“Do you have any reason to believe the content of the message will change during that time?”
Neelix failing his saving throw versus patience and Tuvok bringing the sass.
Welcome aboard. Tiny Ron is back for the second week in a row as Idrin, the alpha Hirogen. Roger Morrissey plays the beta Hirogen.
Trivial matters: This episode is a direct sequel to “Message in a Bottle.”
Just as last episode had several DS9 references, so too did this one, most notably Chakotay’s letter from home informing him that the Maquis were wiped out by the Cardassians’ new allies, the Dominion, as established in “Blaze of Glory.” Chakotay also makes explicit reference to the Bajoran wormhole.
Mark’s letter to Janeway was seen being written in your humble rewatcher’s “Letting Go” in the Distant Shores anthology. Mark’s last name of Johnson was seen onscreen for the first time in this episode, one of several items from writer Jeri Taylor’s novels Mosaic and Pathways that were used in this episode, including the names of Tuvok’s mother and eldest son, Admiral Paris’s first name, and the fact that the person who first recruited Chakotay into the Maquis was named Sveta.
Torres’s annoyance over the death of her Maquis comrades will be explored again in “Extreme Risk.” The coded message from Starfleet will be decoded in “Hope and Fear.”
Among those who receive letters from Neelix in the mess hall are the extras played by Christine Delgado, establishing that she is the previously mentioned Susan Nicoletti, Kerry Hoyt, given the name Fitzpatrick, David Keith Anderson, establishing that he is the previously mentioned Ashmore, Kelli Coloma, given the name Dorado, and the female Bolian seen in several episodes, played by various extras, establishing that she is the previously mentioned Golwat. Neelix also has letters for the oft-mentioned Kyoto and Parsons, but neither is present in the mess hall at the time.
Set a course for home. “You were pathetic prey.” Let me start by saying how much I love the Hirogen culture as established in this and the next episode. Writer Jeri Taylor and director David Livingston and the set directors all combine to quickly and concisely create a fascinating culture in which hunting is revered and ritualized. There’s the little touches like dabbing paint to indicate the status of a hunt or the status of the captured prey, not to mention the trophy room full of various skeletons, a striking visual that conveys everything you need to know about how nasty the Hirogen are. (With the added bonus of the corpse Voyager found earlier in the episode.)
On top of that, we’ve got more contact from the Alpha Quadrant. Now that the EMH has let Starfleet Command know that Voyager is out there, their families get to be in touch with them. What we actually get works beautifully, though I’m disappointed in what we didn’t get.
Janeway’s letter from Mark is a strong hit, because Mark has barely been a factor—and yet, he’s also a major part of our first impression of Janeway. One of her earliest scenes in “Caretaker” is the delightful conversation between the two of them about Mollie. The two have a fantastic relationship that was perfectly conveyed in a brief conversation, and the periodic reminders of it, from occasional looks at the picture she has of him to the image of him seen in “Persistence of Vision,” were a nice touch, though there’s been very little of it since season two. And then there’s finally the hope of contact, and she finds out that he’s moved on—except, of course, in a sense, she’s moved on as well, but it’s always nastier when it’s on the other foot. Kate Mulgrew does amazing work here, showing the range of emotions as she goes through Mark’s letter (which starts, based on the abstract we see briefly, with news about the dog and her puppies), all the way to her frank talk with Chakotay about the possibility of pursuing a relationship. (Which is followed by the two of them walking out arm in arm, and we all remember that Taylor also wrote “Resolutions.”)
Paris’s ambivalence about receiving a letter from his father also tracks nicely with both “Caretaker” and “Persistence of Vision,” where it was clear that relations between Paris père et fils are not great. And Paris is in a unique position because he’s thrived more on Voyager tens of thousands of light-years from home than he ever did at home, where he was a spectacular fuckup. Unlike most of the rest of the crew, he doesn’t have any connections to the Alpha Quadrant, or at least not any good ones. Though, as he realizes over the course of the episode, mostly by being kicked in the ass by Torres, there may be a chance with his father.
Speaking of Torres, the letter that hits hardest is the one that folks who were watching DS9 alongside Voyager as they aired were waiting for. By the time this episode came around in 1998, the Dominion War was raging on DS9, but in two 1997 episodes it was established that the Maquis were basically toast, starting in “By Inferno’s Light,” when Dukat declared that one of the Dominion’s first targets after Cardassia joined them would be the Maquis, and confirmed in “Blaze of Glory” that showed that the Jem’Hadar wiped the Maquis totally out.
Chakotay and Torres’s response to this is a reminder that they, too, left something behind, but unlike the Starfleet crew, they no longer have something to go back to. Their cause is gone, their friends are dead, and they’re both devastated. It’s a part of their lives that hasn’t had much of an impact, but it’s also what they were theoretically trying to get home to, and now they know it’s gone.
What’s missing, though, is something that doesn’t really ruin the episode or even damage it overmuch, but it really stands out for me and is something that would’ve made an already strong episode several orders of magnitude more powerful.
There is no acknowledgment at any point in this episode (or in “Message in a Bottle” for that matter) of the people who’ve died. Some of Chakotay’s crew likely didn’t make it through the Caretaker’s array intact (that was never really made clear), but we know that Cavit, Stadi, Durst, Bendera, Darwin, Jonas, Bennet, Hogan, Suder, Martin, Kaplan, and more than half-a-dozen other never-named crew have all died since the last time Voyager was in touch with Starfleet. It would’ve added so much pathos and drama and meaning to the episode to see Janeway composing condolence letters to their families.
(I find myself reminded of Stargate Atlantis‘s “Letters from Pegasus,” which was all about the letters home that the Atlantis crew wrote when they had brief contact with the Milky Way galaxy, and the most powerful part of a very touching episode was when Dr. Weir composed condolence letters to the families of those lost—except for Colonel Sumner, whose letter was written by Major Sheppard.)
Still, even without that aspect, this is a fantastic episode that introduces a nasty new foe and does some fantastic character work.
Warp factor rating: 9
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be one of the author guests at the virtual Philcon this weekend. He’ll be doing a reading, a panel, and a tribute to a friend. Read the full schedule on his blog.
Yeah, the acknowledgement of “Blaze of Glory” was what I was talking about in the “Message in a Bottle” talkback earlier this week.
Keith’s absolutely right about how this was the payoff if you were watching both shows at the time. You knew this was coming the moment they re-established contact — and we’d also known it was coming as early as “Blaze of Glory” since it was inevitable (or theoretically inevitable) that VOY would eventually make contact with home.
So it was another very nice piece of connective tissue between the two TNG spinoffs and definitely gave Beltran some needed dramatic meat to chew on considering how he’d been sidelined. And while I’m glad this was followed up in “Extreme Risk”, I agree with Keith about some of the missed opportunities, but I’ll hold off until we get to Season Five.
I also remember it was confusing that the Chakotay referred to the Dominion was new Gamma Quadrant allies the Cardassians had made rather than as just the Dominion. Starfleet had already made first contact with the Dominion and gained enough intel about the Jem’Hadar by the time the Caretaker pulled them into the DQ. So Chakotay would’ve known in theory.
I suppose you can justify if by what CLB was talking about with the different TV markets and trying to keep it simple for viewers who hadn’t seen DS9 at that time. But considering the War and the Dominion got mentioned last episode, it was a clunky execution.
The Hirogen were an effective addition to the series, though it was kind of odd to introduce them in the comedic “Message in a Bottle” before doing their big debut here. And let’s face it, they’re basically a variation on the Yautja from the Predator franchise. Still, they’re pretty well executed.
I find it interesting that the Kazon and the Hirogen are basically the exact same idea — a far-ranging nomadic adversary that Voyager could plausibly encounter over and over again — yet everybody complains about the Kazon but not about the Hirogen. Probably because we don’t keep meeting the same Hirogen over and over. Also because the Hirogen are just better-handled all around, and feel fresh (at least for Trek) rather than just coming off as bargain-basement Klingons.
I think it was kind of ridiculous overkill to have Voyager destroy the entire galaxy-wide communications net at the end. That’s a pretty horrific act of vandalism to have a Starfleet crew be responsible for, however inadvertently. And it’s implausible that a network that’s persisted for 100,000 years could be so easily destroyed by damage to just one of its modules. Surely in that span of time, other modules have been destroyed, but the network has persisted. It would’ve made more sense if they’d only destroyed the one relay, or maybe a local cluster of relays, so that the next nearest one would be a year or two away. That would’ve achieved the same purpose while giving them something to aim for later, and wouldn’t have been so contrived and exaggerated.
@2 / CLB:
The Hirogen were an effective addition to the series, though it was kind of odd to introduce them in the comedic “Message in a Bottle” before doing their big debut here.
It actually reminds me of what the DS9 Writers Room had done with the Dominion. Behr’s stated the first mention of the Gamma Quadrant power(in the Ferengi comedy episode “Rules of Acquisition”) was intentionally done to misdirect the audience into thinking they weren’t dangerous — at least until the clataclysimic first contact of “The Jem’Hadar”.
So I wonder if that was the same idea here with the Hirogen.
I think it helped that the Hirogen weren’t recurring personal antagonists but were often the consequences of this set of episodes playing out. The destruction of the network has real effects on the Hirogen which informs a number of their later appearances.
Quoth Mr. Magic: “and definitely gave Beltran some needed dramatic meat to chew on considering how he’d been sidelined.”
Except he hadn’t been, at least not yet. Just among recent episodes, “Distant Origin,” “Displaced,” the “Scorpion” two-parter, “Nemesis,” the “Year of Hell” two-parter, “Waking Moments,” this episode, and the next one all had really strong parts for Chakotay. In fact, one of the things I’m realizing in this rewatch is that Chakotay got a lot more to do than he’s given credit for, at least through the mid-fourth season.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Were these different Hirogen than last week? It’s mentioned that Idrin is back from the last episode, but absolutely no mention was made of encountering Voyager before or being knocked out.
What was up with the B plot of Kim not receiving a letter all episode? Was it trying to ratchet up the tension that…what, his parents died? Not sure what was going on there.
Do we ever find out what Paris’ father was trying to tell him? Maybe in outside fiction?
@5/krad: I just checked my notes from the Star Trek Magazine article I did where I talked about how prominent the various characters were, and I found that in the last 4 seasons, Chakotay was in fourth place for the number of focus episodes he got, after Janeway, Seven, and the Doctor. However, I count him getting roughly 7 focus episodes in season 4, 5 each in seasons 5 & 7 (and those are counting 2-parters as 2 each), and only 3 in season 6.
@6/Austin: What was going on was the irony that Harry was the one who felt the strongest craving for contact with home but had to watch everyone else around him get letters before he did. As for Paris’s father, the very fact that he cared enough to contact Tom was what mattered, because Tom had assumed he wouldn’t care. In both cases, what mattered to the story was the emotional impact on the characters, not the facts of what the letters said.
To me, this is Jeri Taylor’s best episode since she wrote Picard’s goodbye to Sarek on Unification I. And just as she’s about to retire….
Taylor has been a good head writer/producer running these last two seasons of Voyager, plus TNG season 6. But as an individual writer, she never quite had the best track record. She’s able to capture the voices of Janeway and the crew better than most (Caretaker; Eye of the Needle; Persistence of Vision), but in terms of plot, her episodes almost always come up short (The 37’s; Alliances; Coda), being mostly inconsistent. Hunters marries both plot and character beautifully. One affects the other and vice-versa. The result is Taylor having crafted one of the most wholesome satisfying episodes in Voyager’s run.
In many ways, this reminds me of season 1’s Eye of the Needle, another Taylor-penned episode. But that episode came about a bit too early on the show. Not the case here. Hunters comes just at the right time. The crew’s been far from home for years to the point where significant others have moved on, assuming their loss. The giddy eagerness to receive letters from home, the anticipation it might all go wrong, the disappointments that come with these messages. Easily some of Voyager’s best moments this season. There’s not a false note. Feels like a culmination of three and a half seasons’ worth of journey.
Chakotay breaking the ugly news to B’Elanna is a gut punch. Voyager truly benefitting from DS9’s bold move to wipe out the Maquis, all motivated by Behr’s late season 5 decision to finish off the Michael Eddington story, since the DS9 writers knew they wouldn’t have time to finish off loose threads in the last two seasons, due to the war. And the way Chakotay breaks the news to her….. Taylor manages to recap the Dominion alliance with the Cardassians in the most succint way possible, without even bringing up their name, but making the consequences loud and clear.
The episode also expertly weaves in Seven’s ongoing arc of testing her limits against Janeway. And puts her and Tuvok in the perfect position to make first contact with the Hirogen.
Not that I have a problem with the episodic, but this is one good glimpse of what a serialized Voyager could have been. It’s almost as if they’re consciously redoing season 2, but actually doing it well. Plus, the Hirogen are a better villain than the Kazon by several AUs. This is a very good multi-episode arc. And the Hirogen work without the need for politics or depiction of needless misogyny and outdated stereotypes. A pure race of hunters with way more character than DS9’s Tosk. It’s all in the details. It helps that we have Livingston directing this one. There should have been more Taylor/Livingston collaborations (we will get one more, on next season’s Nothing Human; an interesting little episode in its own right).
Good episode but I was troubled (and it looks like I’m not the only one) that Janeway and Co. basically violate property that’s not their own, end up destroying it, and end up killing the owners (the Hunters) of said property for daring to defend it. No wonder Voyager’s sullied reputation precedes it!
That said, the Hunters are good antagonists introduced in full here, and lots of great character moments among the crew, and I also liked the tie-in to events that took place or were taking place back on DS9.
This was one of the strongest Voyager episodes. It has everything: Sci-fi concepts and really strong character development and strong moments in the episode.
And loved the Hirogen. They were Voyagers second best villains (after the Borg). And I loved how their arc in the show – 5 episodes and then moved on from them. This is what the writers/showrunners should have done all the way through – meeting a species for 5/6 episodes and then moving on fro their space. Like the Kazon should have just appeared in Season 1 and the ship then moved on from their space. The Hirogen arc was very strong and each episode built on the previous culminating in The Killing Game which really showcased a real Star Trek type of storytelling – a truce with your enemy and then helping them out to survive (sorry jumping ahead a bit!!).
My only problem with this episode is when Janeway tells Seven that it’s not her custom to send an away team of one.
Erm, really, Kathryn? You’re sure about that?
Chakotay – Nemesis
Harry – Non sequitur
Paris – Real Life
The Doctor – Macrocosm (admittedly Chakotay did that), Message in a Bottle (just last episode, woman!) (And yes, I know he was the only possible option for his two. Still.)
@8:
Voyager truly benefitting from DS9’s bold move to wipe out the Maquis, all motivated by Behr’s late season 5 decision to finish off the Michael Eddington story, since the DS9 writers knew they wouldn’t have time to finish off loose threads in the last two seasons,
Looking back, I do think Behr made the right call bringing that storyline to a close with “Blaze of Glory”. Eddington’s capture in “For the Uniform” was really the beginning of the end for the Maquis and, as Keith’s said, Cardassia joining the Dominion pretty much signed their collective death sentence.
And even if there hadn’t been so many loose ends going into the Dominion War, I also think DS9 had taken the Maquis storyline as far as it could. I’m not sure what more they could’ve done with them at that point (which comes back to that old irony that DS9 got mileage out of the Maquis than the intended spinoff, i.e. VOY).
That being said, you reminded me: According to the DS9 Companion, Behr obviously did have to run this by Berman. While he signed off on it, Berman did want “Blaze” to leave open the possibility that more Maquis cells had survived in case VOY wanted to pick up those plot threads down the road.
And for once, I’m ironically in agreement with Berman on that one. It’s the balance and challenge of working in a shared universe.
I do think Behr and Wolfe’s teleplay nicely struck the right balance between leaving that open for VOY (even if the only real follow-up amounted to Season Seven’s lackluster “Repression”) while making it clear within the context of DS9’s corner that the Maquis were finished.
@8:
Was it really, though? Voyager dropped the Maquis storyline almost as soon as the show started, despite it being the premise of the show. At this point in the show, it would be tough to even remember there was supposed to be a Maquis/Starfleet conflict. I thought the “gut punch” was way too late for it to have any emotional resonance on the viewer. It might have worked in season one. Maybe it felt differently back when it aired, especially airing concurrently with DS9, but on rewatch it really doesn’t amount to much.
@13: That’s just it. I made it a point to rewatch DS9 while doing Voyager, scheduling both of them exactly as they aired. DS9’s Blaze of Glory and Eddington’s sendoff were still fresh in my mind when this episode came up.
I agree the Maquis aspect of the show was casually tossed aside too soon. But I still feel the actors, especially Beltran and Dawson, made enough of an effort to keep that aspect of their characters alive and functional. To me, Chakotay’s breaking of the news carries that weight in spite of the show’s bungling the Maquis aspect. It felt like a gut punch enough for me.
Someone mentioned the Predator franchise earlier. So, was that the first time the idea of trophy hunters [in SPACE!] was used in film or television? I’m trying to come up with an earlier example… but drawing a blank.
@15/Blinky: Lost in Space: “Hunter’s Moon” would qualify. And there must surely be others. No way in hell is anything as recent as 1987 the first ever iteration of a science fiction trope. Heck, Predator is basically a sci-fi riff on The Most Dangerous Game anyway.
(16). Thanks! I knew there had to be something earlier.
Indeed, and I would argue the third act of Predator was strongly influenced by “Arena.” Arnold even shows mercy to his defeated opponent in a manner similar to Kirk.
It’s not the same kind of hunting, but there’s a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century episode, “Unchained Woman,” in which Buck breaks a young Jamie Lee Curtis out of a prison planet and they’re hunted by a relentless, unstoppable robotic prison guard — five years before The Terminator came out. Everything has been done before.
“What possible use could you make of my intestines?”
I found this a rather odd one. As in the previous episode, it’s trying to balance the emotional impact of Voyager having contact with home and an action adventure with spaceships blowing up. Unlike the previous one, it doesn’t really get the balance right. I didn’t realise how little the Hirogen appear in it: We get one short scene with them early on, and then it’s two-thirds of the way through the episode before they appear again. (The recap calls Tiny Ron’s character “Idrin” but on screen he’s just “that big guy played by the same actor who was in last who may or may not be the same character”.) Beyond an offhand mention in the opening scenes, Voyager don’t seem to consider the fact that the Hirogen warned them off the relay network. Fine, in the previous episode they thought it was abandoned and they needed to keep access to it in order to retrieve the Doctor. But here, they apparently risk annoying the Hirogen further just to get a message from home. Given their behaviour, it seems likely the Hirogen would have attacked them anyway, but the moral high ground’s a bit shaky. Especially when they then accidentally massacre the Hirogen.
The actual messages from home are kind of intriguing. There’s closure for Janeway, confusion for Paris and bad news for Chakotay and Torres that we already knew about: As in the previous episode, Chakotay feels the need to refer to the Cardassians’ new ally as “a species from the Gamma Quadrant” as if no-one on board’s heard of the Dominion. (Were the Maquis that out of touch? And even if they were, wouldn’t Voyager have records?) Tuvok and Kim, the ones with the stable families, are pleased to get contact but there’s nothing earth-shattering.
One bit of confusing plotting: Torres tells Paris she’s downloading a message from his father some considerable time before they lose the signal, but at the end of the episode she says she didn’t get it and instead has a hitherto unmentioned message from Kim’s parents. Then again, this is an episode whose timescale is so confused that it takes two days at “high warp” to travel two light years.
There’s a nice scene between Paris and Torres, both coming to understand what the contact means to the other. Kim starts to show the first signs of delusional behaviour, being the first one to suggest the message might be a way home and vastly overstating the number of letters Voyager has received. Tuvok’s dry wit gets another airing. (Seven: “We have no communications, no warp engines and no weapons.” Tuvok: “I suspect this was done intentionally by the ship that’s rapidly approaching off our port stern.”)
Susan Nicoletti, mentioned back in “The Thaw” as someone Paris was interested in, finally gets a face to go with the name, although she doesn’t get any dialogue. I actually thought Tuvok did put his work aside and look at the message, he just wasn’t going to give Neelix the satisfaction of seeing him do it. It’s curious that people seem to think the Hirogen are the Kazon done right, because what occurred to me watching this episode is that they’re pretty much the Vidiians, except instead of hunting people and removing their organs for medical reasons, they’re doing it for fun/prestige.
@19:
As in the previous episode, Chakotay feels the need to refer to the Cardassians’ new ally as “a species from the Gamma Quadrant” as if no-one on board’s heard of the Dominion. (Were the Maquis that out of touch? And even if they were, wouldn’t Voyager have records?
Yeah, like I was saying back in @1, from a production standpoint, it was probably to keep it simple for VOY audiences who weren’t also watching DS9 (or for the markets that hadn’t aired those corresponding episodes at the time).
And to be fair, it’s the trade-off of operating in a shared TV universe. Not everyone’s going to follow the entire franchise.
Hell, since Keith brought up Stargate, here’s a perfect example: SG-1‘s Season 10 episode “The Shroud”. The Odyssey now sporting a ZPM comes out of nowhere and is given no explanation. It makes absolutely no sense in-story unless you were also following Atlantis and the events of the then-recent episodes “The Return” and “Echoes”.
But in-story, yeah, Chakotay and Torres not being aware of the Dominion is just weird. The events of “Caretaker” took place at least a few months after “The Jem’Hadar”. News about the Dominion would’ve been public knowledge at that point because of the destruction of the Odyssey and the New Bajor colony (not to mention whatever Starfleet declassified from the Defiant‘s reconnaissance during “The Search”).
So either Chakotay’s cell was too isolated to have seen the general news reports, or it just wasn’t of relevance given their focus was on the Cardassians (and later survival once they were in the DQ).
@@@@@ 2, Christopher
And let’s face it, they’re basically a variation on the Yautja from the Predator franchise.
Oh, doubtlessly so, but I think being recurrent antagonists on a serialized sci-fi show means they have a little more room to develop than I think the filmic Yautja*, or the Gamma Quadrant hunters from DS9’s Captive Pursuit generally got.
*I understand there is some sort of EU novel series for the Predator/Alien franchise, but I’m not familiar with it.
I agree with all the good things mentioned about this episode in the review and the comments, I just want to add, I love the Seven/Tuvok interactions, not just here but in all episodes where they had scenes together. It’s like both reveled in the opportunity to interact with another logical being instead of these chaotic humans.
I don’t know if any one else has mentioned it but it seems like the dominion war should be talked about a lot more by Voyager’s crew.
I had it in my head that the events of this one were in two different episodes, which isn’t atypical for me with A and B stories which are thematically different.
The Hirogen are good antagonists. They’re genuinely menacing and culturally interesting, neither of which the Kazon ever managed. And they’re set up in a way that makes them compatible with how the show operated, which is a nice change.
It’s also good to see the contact with home comes in a more personal way, than a big picture way. It makes what’s happening relevant to Voyager (the show) in a way that having the characters just read off reports of events wouldn’t. And honestly, although I have a fans desire to tie it all in a bow, tying in too much larger continuity would have weighed them down unnecessarily and not really added anything. The biggest pity for me is that they didn’t make more use of this contact, what with the large number of storytelling options made available from Voyagers disconnection from home. The possibilities from those who moved on, those who didn’t, the changes and losses could have provided a lot of good character stuff.
@23:
I don’t know if any one else has mentioned it but it seems like the dominion war should be talked about a lot more by Voyager’s crew.
Yeah, part of me also wishes that had been followed up both here and then later in the final two Seasons in the aftermath of the War. I think I said this back at the end of KRAD’s DS9 Rewatch, but man, I remember it drove me nuts that they couldn’t even sprinkle in tidbits of the post-War recovery from “Pathfinder” onward.
Here at least in the context of “Hunters”, yeah, it would’ve been an interesting avenue to explore: The realization that the UFP and their comrades-in-arms have been fighting for their own survival just as much as VOY and there’s nothing they can do. And even if they make it back home, there may not be a home to come back to should the Dominion triumph.
But again, it’s the trade-off and necessary evil of operating in a shared TV franchise — and especially in the 90s TV market. And really, keeping the focus on character here rather than the larger geo-politics was, at least for VOY, the right move.
I don’t know if any one else has mentioned it but it seems like the dominion war should be talked about a lot more by Voyager’s crew.
@23: That makes no sense. When Voyager launched, the Dominion had been recently discovered by Sisko. Most of his first contact info likely still classified by the Federation, Ferengi and Romulans. They were still holed up in the mostly unexplored Gamma Quadrant, on the other side of the wormhole, and there was no confirmed indication of their size or of how many ships and Jem’ Hadar soldiers they had. They didn’t even know Odo’s people were the Founders until his visit on The Search. Plus, they didn’t cross to the Alpha Quadrant and ally with the Cardassians until 2373, by which point Voyager was long, long gone. So how would they even know there was a war going on?
Adding to that, it makes sense for the Federation to withhold news about the Dominion. They wouldn’t want to burden Janeway and Voyager with that much info. They were already given a burden to try and find a way home. The only reason Voyager got any info about the Dominion threat at all was because of Sveta, Chakotay’s former Maquis ally, who isn’t bound by the same ‘need to know’ mentality of the military. I can see Owen Paris and the Pathfinder folks deciding to keep that hidden for Voyager’s sake.
Also, they didn’t have two-way communications established during the war. By the time Barclay the Pathfinder project team manages to do so, the war is already over.
@26:
Most of his first contact info likely still classified by the Federation, Ferengi and Romulans.
Right, that was even a plot point of “Visionary” — that the Romulans have arrived on the station to receive the classified intel gathered during “The Search” in person…while also seemingly ignoring T’Rul was on that freaking mission and would’ve passed it on to her superiors anyway, but that’s a quibble for another time.
(Then again, the Romulans almost certainly already had all the intel they needed from T’Rul and were just going through the motions to provide cover for their ‘Collapse the Wormhole’ operation).
And you can also bet Zek probably horded any specific intel Quark had gathered on that mission out of a sense of Ferengi business acumen and knowing the value of information.
But like I was saying @20, the general public would’ve at least known about the Dominion’s existence because of the events of “The Jem’Hadar” and the destruction of the New Bajor colony and the Odyssey.
By the time of “The Way of the Warrior” and “Homefront”, then at least more specific details had become public knowledge, such as the Founders being shapeshifters — and that of course was long after VOY got stranded.
I’m surprised no one has mentioned how in these first few Hirogen episodes it appears that they are clearly supposed to be, like, 10 ft tall minimum. So many camera angles were used to make Seven and Tuvok seem tiny. And yet this is dropped later, I suppose for shooting convenience. My memory is a little hazy, but was there ever given an in-universe explanation for this? Hell, even an out-of-universe explanation?
matt: They also cast Tiny Ron (7′ tall) and Roger W. Morrissey (7′ 4″) as the first two Hirogen we met.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@30:
And yet this is dropped later, I suppose for shooting convenience.
Yeah, Joe Menosky’s confirmed that’s exactly what happened:
“When we were casting these guys for the first time…Brannon [Braga] didn’t want to read anyone under 6 foot 7, 6 foot 6. It’s really difficult to find the right people for roles anyway, so when you start hamstringing yourself by saying, ‘We also only want people who are over 6 foot 7,’ it gets really, really tough. If you look at all these episodes, you’ll see a couple of these big guys, but mostly they’re not.”
I was also going to mention the sheer physical presence of the Hirogen, I remember first seeing this episode and thinking how threatening it made them with their over-sized armour. Shame they mostly dropped that going forward but it makes sense why they’d have to.
I think it would be remiss to not mention Tim Russ’ superb reaction shot when he first sees one advancing toward him.
I suppose they could’ve gone the Predator 2 route and cast a bunch of basketball players as very tall extras not required to act much.
@34 They could have seen if Mick Fleetwood wanted a second Star Trek credit!
@33
I was also going to mention the sheer physical presence of the Hirogen, I remember first seeing this episode and thinking how threatening it made them with their over-sized armour. Shame they mostly dropped that going forward but it makes sense why they’d have to.
Yeah, in a sense, it’s another extension of the perennial problem Trek has struggled with from the very beginning: Trying to depict alien lifeforms and hitting the inevitable logistical, technical, and budgetary limitations.
Is this the first time we see Seven’s hair out of place?
For all people talk about Voyager becoming the Seven show, they really got on a roll on the righting in this season, Seven aside. This episode was sooo good on first watch and still holds up.
Neelix always make me feel sympathy for Tuvok, though I do appreciate that Tuvok ends up honoring the deal he made to make Neelix go away.
I wanted more of the Maquis reacting to The Dominion exterminating the Maquis. There’s great tragedy in that. The people striving for independence and freedom annihilated by an even greater evil empire. It’s one of the great losses of the end of this time frame of Star Trek that the remaining Maquis don’t get to see what the resolution of the Dominion War was, how the Cardassians paid dearly for their brief return to glory.
The Hirogen are fantastic and what we learn of their culture going forward is really great, fantastic world building there. Another example of a culture gravitating towards one aspect of their society so much that it becomes a detriment. Klingons and their warrior ethos, and the Hirogen and hunting.
@37:
It’s one of the great losses of the end of this time frame of Star Trek that the remaining Maquis don’t get to see what the resolution of the Dominion War was, how the Cardassians paid dearly for their brief return to glory.
Yeah, that was one aspect of the post-War period I dearly wished had gotten acknowledged from “Pathfinder” onward. You’re absolutely right that there was definite dramatic potential there and it would’ve served as a nice follow-up/conclusion to Torres’ arc here and in “Extreme Risk”.
Would Chakotay, Torres, or any of the other surviving crew of the Val Jean take any satisfaction in knowing their comrades-in-arms had posthumously gotten the last laugh?
Or would even they have been horrified that the cost of that vengeance was 800 million dead?
@20: It creates a couple of headscratchers both in and out of universe in context with the previous episode. In real world terms, anyone not following DS9 wouldn’t have realised the connection between the war mentioned there and the elimination of the Maquis. And in-universe, it raises the question of what the Doctor actually said when they debriefed him: Did he leave out the bit about the Federation being at war because he didn’t want to cause too much of a downer? If not, why doesn’t Chakotay say something like “You know that Gamma Quadrant power the Federation’s at war with? Well, turns out they’re allied with the Cardassians.”?
@38, Would Chakotay, Torres, or any of the other surviving crew of the Val Jean take any satisfaction in knowing their comrades-in-arms had posthumously gotten the last laugh?
Or would even they have been horrified that the cost of that vengeance was 800 million dead?
It would’ve been a mixed bag. Some would’ve been like served them right. Ken Dalby would’ve celebrated until he found out about all the casualties of everyone else in the war. Others would’ve been horrified since they fought to protect their homes not see Cardassia in ruins along with a large chunk of the Quadrant. Many wouldn’t have made it out of mourning. There probably would’ve been shock as well, that in the end the Cardassians joined in against the Dominion.
There may have also been grumbling about the post-war state with the Federation helping Cardassia rebuild, which would likely go over like a lead balloon, especially with those that don’t know their history.
@40:
Others would’ve been horrified since they fought to protect their homes not see Cardassia in ruins along with a large chunk of the Quadrant.
Yeah, guilt is actually another avenue they could’ve definitely explored after “Pathfinder”.
Chakotay’s admission of guilt from “Extreme Risk” — about not being back home to aid their comrades-in-arms and friends in their darkest hour — could’ve led to another follow-up.
As his Maquis Cell’s leader, Chakotay had his own distinct perspective on the conflict in comparison to Dalby or even Torres. So they could’ve had Chakotay reflect on the very argument that Sisko made to Eddington in “Blaze of Glory”: That the Maquis and their guerrilla war in the DMZ helped push Cardassia into the arms of the Dominion.
It would’ve been interesting to see Chakotay reflect on that argument and whether he felt he bore his own share of responsibility for the long-term, unanticipated consequences of the DMZ conflict.
@41:
I think Sisko’s argument was flawed (and I wonder if he was indulging in some sophistry when arguing with Eddington, he’s done that before). It was the Klingons who help push Cardassia (well, actually, Dukat, and since Dukat arrived with a Dominion fleet Cardassia was not really given much of a choice) into the arms of the Dominion. The Maquis were just unintended beneficiaries of the Klingon invasion.
@42/remremulo: “It was the Klingons who help push Cardassia (well, actually, Dukat, and since Dukat arrived with a Dominion fleet Cardassia was not really given much of a choice) into the arms of the Dominion.”
Well, yes and no. It was the Changeling Martok who tricked Gowron into invading Cardassia, in order to weaken Cardassia so it would be susceptible to the Dominion’s overtures.
@42:
I think Sisko’s argument was flawed (and I wonder if he was indulging in some sophistry when arguing with Eddington, he’s done that before).
Okay, yeah, that’s fair.
I mean as Eddington (kinda) argued, Sisko did have a blind spot with the Maquis from the very beginning. It’s the sense of betrayal both because they left the UFP and because Cal Hudson was one of the first defectors (to say nothing of Eddington and Kassidy Yates later on in “For the Cause”). He took it personal and I can’t blame him.
That being said, I don’t think Sisko was entirely wrong in “Blaze of Glory” either. Yes, you’re right about how the Klingon invasion of Cardassia and the economic devastation was the key factor that pushed Dukat into making his devil’s bargain.
But…the Maquis did pour their share of kerosene onto that inferno.
If the Cardassians hadn’t had to keep military assets deployed to the DMZ before and after “The Way of the Warrior”, could they have better resisted the Klingon invasion and occupation? Would the Cardassian economic and humanitarian crises have gotten as bad as they did if Eddington hadn’t hijacked the UFP industrial replicators during “For the Cause”?
Hell, “For the Uniform” immediately preceded the events of “In Purgatory’s Shadow” and “By Inferno’s Light”. We know Dukat was still negotiating with the Vorta that time. Who’s to say Eddington’s biogenic attacks on the Cardassian colonies in the DMZ weren’t the final straw or silenced any private doubts Dukat may have harbored about the wisdom of his endeavor?
@44/Mr. Magic: “If the Cardassians hadn’t had to keep military assets deployed to the DMZ before and after “The Way of the Warrior”, could they have better resisted the Klingon invasion and occupation?”
I doubt the quantity of ships and hardware they needed to put down a relatively small guerrilla uprising on a few border worlds would’ve made any significant difference in the fight against a vast imperial invasion fleet.
“Who’s to say Eddington’s biogenic attacks on the Cardassian colonies in the DMZ weren’t the final straw or silenced any private doubts Dukat may have harbored about the wisdom of his endeavor?”
You’re mistaking Dukat for a sincere and rational actor. He was a narcissist only out for his own power; his patriotism for Cardassia was only the excuse. He surely knew at some point that the Dominion had orchestrated the Klingon invasion in the first place through the Changeling Martok, but he remained allied with the Dominion anyway, because all he really cared about was his own advantage. So he would’ve made that deal no matter what the Maquis did.
@45:
You’re mistaking Dukat for a sincere and rational actor. He was a narcissist only out for his own power; his patriotism for Cardassia was only the excuse. He surely knew at some point that the Dominion had orchestrated the Klingon invasion in the first place through the Changeling Martok, but he remained allied with the Dominion anyway, because all he really cared about was his own advantage. So he would’ve made that deal no matter what the Maquis did.
To borrow from the Cardassian justice system, heh, I was playing Nestor’s advocate….or would that be Archon’s advocate?
But yeah, we know Dukat knew about the Founders’ role in the invasion because he was, after all, Sisko’s ride during “Apocalypse Rising”. He knew they were trying to expose ‘Gowron’ and would’ve learned on the ride home or later that it was actually ‘Martok’.
And you’re also right that with with an ego the size of a spiral galaxy, Dukat wouldn’t have given a damm. The power the Dominion offered and the chance to solve all his problems in one stroke was too good to pass up or cause any internal doubts.
I remember that’s also why I enjoyed the Badlands mini-series that Susan Wright penned 20 years ago and how DS9’s entry showed more of Dukat’s negotiations with Weyoun just before “In Purgatory’s Shadow”.
@46 Mr. Magic: A nit-pick, there was no ride home for Sisko and the gang on Dukat’s ship in “Apocalypse Rising.” Dukat just left them there reasoning that if the mission was successful they could find another way home and if it wasn’t they’d be dead so there was not point to him waiting for them.
@47:
Ah, heh, whoops.
Been a while since I re-watched “Apocalypse Rising” (actually, ironically, during KRAD’s DS9 Rewatch), so I’d forgotten that.
I’ll definitely agree that this was one of the Good VOYAGER episodes (Good enough to persuade me to break my usual habit of waiting to watch the next episode until the most excellent Krad has posted his latest review, because I wanted to see more from the Hirogen – always a good sign with a new antagonist species); I especially liked the scene with Mr Neelix and Mr Tuvok treading the latest measure of their old accustomed “Be my friend?” “No thank you” dance and the reactions to the various messages from Home (Something that amuses me the more I think about it is that Mr Chakotay was recruited into the Maquis by a female; a nice reflection of his tendency to be led headlong into Trouble by strong, intelligent and designing ladies).
It is also a Universal Truth that Seven of Nine & Mr Tuvok play well off each other – one suspects the only reason they don’t get together more often is that somebody got the Dark Suspicion that if Seven got too used to being friends with Mr Vulcan, she wouldn’t want to speak with anyone else in the crew (in all their sentimentality, emotionality & general warm fuzziness).
Oh and Dahar Master Krad? If you were shipping Janeway/Chakotay any harder you’d be driving an icebreaker through Antarctic waters singing ‘Kiss the Girl’ complete with Jamaican accent! (-;
@49:
Oh and Dahar Master Krad? If you were shipping Janeway/Chakotay any harder you’d be driving an icebreaker through Antarctic waters singing ‘Kiss the Girl’ complete with Jamaican accent! (-;
Heh, now you’ve done it.
“Geez, man, I’m surrounded by amateurs!” ;)
The Hirogen were a great adversary and should have been the main recurring antagonist from this point until the end of the series once they had decided species 8472 was too costly. Unfortunately they kept bringing the Borg back with diminishing returns. The letters from home sections of this episode were great, one of the few Voyager episodes that had emotional impact to rival DS9. One caveat on this episode Neelix latest annoyance is he is now reading other people’s personal correspondence.
What I find interesting here (as in every place the two shows’ use of the Maquis gets compared) is how the Maquis were, as I understand it, introduced on Deep Space Nine for the purposes of Voyager’s premise. The latter never seemed to figure out what to do with the “Maquis” part of that premise, while the former made the Maquis a crucial element of not just the series arc but the auto-critique that defined Deep Space Nine. At the time, most viewers likely believed what I did: that the Maquis concept had been constructed primarily for Deep Space Nine, and, specifically, to play that role as the interrogators of “Paradise”.
@52/Truth Alone: More precisely, the Maquis were introduced across both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine — first TNG: “Journey’s End” to set up the Demilitarized Zone, then DS9’s “The Maquis” 2-parter, then TNG: “Pre-emptive Strike” and DS9: “Tribunal.” Richard Poe’s Gul Evek was in every one of those episodes and made his final appearance in VGR: “Caretaker.”
I don’t really care for the Hirojen, at least not here. They seem like a ripoff of the Predator franchise, and I was never very interested in that species, either. I don’t remember enough about the rest of the series to say whether or not the Hirojen actually get interesting later, but my hopes are not high.
People use that term ripoff far too often. Vague, or even strong, similarities do not imply someone stole something from someone else. These type of things happen all the time and are completely innocent. There are only so many basic concepts. What is original is how concepts are “mixed and matched” to tell stories.
I’m a costumer (cosplayer) Since 1982 there has been a convention called Costume-Con. Costume-Con has, since its inception, used a concept first developed by Bjo Trimble called the Future Fashion Design Competition. Competitors submit drawings of designs which are judged and a Future Fashion Folio of the winners is published. Attendees can then sign up to create a design from the folio.
Similar concepts abound in folios. One year we had multiple entries, from different designer, with insect/spider themes. No one was sneaking around “ripping off” concepts. It just happens. It happens most years. This can be a result of various ideas “floating around the ether;” current events, other books published, topics coming up at conventions, and likely other things we don’t consciously perceive.
Unless someone has actual evidence that someone actually stole something accusations or implications of “ripping off” should be avoided.
@55/costumer: Quite right. Even in cases where the similarity is intentional, there’s a big difference between being inspired by something and merely copying it. All creativity is about drawing on prior inspirations and putting them together in a new way, or responding to them with a differing approach to their subject matter or themes.
@56 Christopher L Bennett
Absolutely correct. People forget about inspiration and homages as well. I had a long debate with someone who was outraged that the movie “Cabin in the Woods” ripped off the Cenobites since one of the creatures who could be summoned was obviously intended to be a Cenobite. He could not comprehend that this was a homage, as were all the creatures we saw, to movie monsters from history. It was quite disheartening.
Do the Hirogen and Chakotay’s tribe both believe in warpaint? A “Dear Janeway” letter” – I was thinking that too, Krad! Kim’s obviously moved on from Libby by now but some acknowledgment of it would’ve been nice. Janeway’s “it’s not my custom to send an away team of one” contradicts half a dozen VGR episodes. Janeway shouldn’t entrust someone who reads other people’s mail to deliver it. Does skin with the skeleton removed qualify as a corpse?
If the writers were setting up (shipping) Janeway and Chakotay as a potential couple, why does he wind up with Seven instead? It’s interesting to consider that if Voyager had got home a lot sooner, would Chakotay, Torres and the remaining Maquis continued the fight right where they left off? Was Martin the officer who died in Scientific Method? And yes it would’ve been interesting to see Janeway compose a condolence letter to Jonas’s family, someone who had turned traitor.
2: VGR didn’t try to oversell the Hirogen the way they did with the Kazon (it was the same with the Vidiians). 6: Admiral Paris would have to wait until Pathfinder to tell Tom what we already suspected was written in the letter.
8: Why did Eye of the Needle come much too early? It’s not surprising that Seven is instrumental in making first contact with VGR’s big bad of the season considering what a strong focus on Jeri Ryan’s casting there was in order to boost ratings. And I liked Tosk and the Hunters.
9: Voyager had no choice but to destroy the Hirogen to save Seven and Tuvok. 10: They were probably trying to establish the Kazon’s influence as widespread, except the Kazon were such terrible bad guys. 12: I don’t see how the Maquis conflict would’ve been feasible on VGR (ever!).
18: Harlan Ellison even took legal action against James Cameron, claiming The Terminator ripped off an episode of The Outer Limits Ellison wrote, which is why in more recent prints, it now acknowledges his influence, and that is something Cameron has always resented.
19: I’m pretty sure Tiny Ron is playing the same Hirogen. Like Arturis tells Janeway in Hope and Fear, her selfish obsession with getting home is always bubbling away beneath the surface. It takes Voyager 3.8 light-years to reach the relay station at high warp. Was that dry wit or just Tuvok stating the facts? And we briefly saw Susan Nicoletti in The Swarm.
21: In regards to Tosk and the Hunters, how much room is there for character development when they’re limited to just one episode? Both Scott Thompson and Gerrit Graham did great work with what they had.
25: I’ve always rather liked the idea of Voyager returning to the Alpha Quadrant with the key to defeating the Dominion. 26-27-28: They wouldn’t have known about the war, but the crew’s ignorance of the Dominion has always mystified me. And there was no reason to classify the war once it was over.
29: I always assumed the mission to attack the Founders homeworld was a fallback position in case collapsing the wormhole and destroying the station failed but I’m not sure when the identity of the Founders becomes public knowledge. 36: Apparently it’s difficult to find giant actors who are also good ones.
37: Jeri Ryan’s hair was also out of place in Year of Hell and I also liked that they devoted a whole arc to the Hirogen, one of VGR’s better ideas. 38: What casualty list was that, the Federation, the Cardassians or the Maquis? 45: In Blaze of Glory, Eddington was quite proud of the fact that Cardassia was falling into chaos, but seeing the bodies of his former comrades brought it home to him how everything can turn to ashes on a dime.
48: Sisko and the others just assumed they were along for the ride until Dukat modified their agreement. 49: I don’t know why the writers didn’t push more for Seven and Tuvok to be friends because to quote Robin Lefler, “You gotta go with what works”, and it was obvious Russ and Ryan had terrific chemistry.
51: I’m not sure they could’ve sustained the Hirogen over the next three and a half years – VGR learned that lesson with the Kazon. 52: Are you referring to the DS9 episode Paradise? 53: Was Gul Evek in Pt2 of The Maquis as well? 54: The Jem’Hadar’s cloaking ability, as well as Tosk’s, were obviously derived from Predator as well but I don’t know how original Predator was either.
58: Martin was the officer who died in Warlord.
I love the concession from Tuvok when Seven asks if it’s true Vulcans are incapable of lying, that it’s not true, Vulcans can lie. It always felt absurd to me every time that it was stated they can’t. Tuvok’s answer was perfect, that he never found it prudent or necessary to do so and that he’s only lied under orders. I’m trying to think back to a prior episode where that may have been contradicted, but I can’t remember offhand. Regardless, it was nice to see a character come out and say it directly: “We can lie.”
I enjoyed the Hirogen more this time around than I did when I watched this episode a couple of years ago, since I know that they end up being more interesting, but I still wish they were a culture instead of a race. Imagine how much more interesting it would be if different hunters had different capabilities depending on what species they were. Plus, it would avoid the planet of hats trope.