“State of Flux”
Written by Paul Robert Coyle and Chris Abbott
Directed by Robert Scheerer
Season 1, Episode 10
Production episode 111
Original air date: April 10, 1995
Stardate: 48658.2
Captain’s log. Chakotay leads a large away team that also includes Carey, Kim, and Seska to a planet Neelix led them to because it is a great source of food. Paris detects a ship in orbit that’s hiding itself well from Voyager’s sensors, but Tuvok is able to pick it up when Paris gives him a specific spot to aim sensors at. Tuvok somehow recognizes the configuration as belonging to the Kazon-Nistrim, even though we’ve never seen that sect before.
Janeway orders the away team to beam back. Chakotay gathers everyone, but there’s no sign of Seska. Chakotay tells the others to beam back while he looks for her. He finds her in a cave, and then also finds two Kazon, who fire on them. Chakotay is wounded, but Seska takes out the Kazon and gets Chakotay to the transport site and back to the ship.
The Kazon ship got away. Seska has some fellow Maquis distract Neelix so she can steal supplies to make Chakotay mushroom soup. When he realizes that they raided Neelix’s kitchen, Chakotay docks everyone involved two days of replicator privileges—including himself. Seska then hits on Chakotay, but he resists her advances, as their relationship didn’t really work last time.
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Voyager receives a distress call from the same Kazon ship they encountered earlier. Neelix warns them that the Kazon-Nistrim are violent and not above tricking people, but Janeway can’t turn her back on someone in need, and they might even be able to make friends with the Kazon.
They arrive and beam over to find everyone on board but one dead—and he’s unconscious. Several people were fused with the bulkheads, and there’s a ton of nucleonic radiation, which is being contained by a force field.
The damage seems to have come from a device on the bridge that Torres identifies as a radically different technology than everything else—and it has elements that are only found in the Federation that they haven’t yet seen in the Delta Quadrant.
Tuvok proposes three possibilities: the device is local, and the scan showing Federation material is a coincidence; another Federation ship is in the Delta Quadrant and gave it to them; or there’s a traitor on board.
Suspicion is already on Seska because she was found in a cave with the Kazon. She’s not happy about that, and she goes to sickbay to see if the Kazon is conscious (he isn’t). Kes is searching for compatible donors, as the Kazon’s blood needs to be completely replaced. There’s no blood sample on file for Seska. She never got around to donating, as she has a childhood ailment that means she can’t donate blood. The EMH tartly reminds her that that’s all the more reason they should have her blood on file.
Torres and Carey develop a plan to retrieve the device without dying from nucleonic radiation, but it’ll take the better part of a day to implement. Seska has an alternative idea that Torres had shot down as too risky, but she beams over and tries it anyhow, almost getting killed in the process.
This does nothing to take suspicion off her, as she could have been beaming over to destroy the evidence. Plus, the EMH has examined her, and he believes she’s a Cardassian altered to look Bajoran.
First Maje Culluh of the Kazon-Nistrim arrives and demands to see the survivor and also take custody of the ship. Janeway refuses the latter until they know for sure what caused the explosion, but she does allow Culluh and another Kazon to beam aboard and see the still-unconscious survivor. Janeway asks the EMH privately if they can keep the survivor on the pretense that it would be dangerous to move him. The EMH assures her that it would be no pretense.
But then Culluh’s aide sticks the survivor with a needle before Tuvok can stop him. It has a poison that kills instantly. Janeway has Tuvok escort them off the ship.
Torres retrieves the device, and it turns out to be a replicator from Voyager. They didn’t shield it properly, and the radiation leakage killed pretty much everyone.
There’s definitely a traitor on Voyager. Tuvok has tracked a communication from engineering during a maintenance cycle to Carey’s console, but Carey denies it, and also mentions that Seska was in the cave with the Kazon, so maybe it was her?
It quickly becomes clear that Seska and Carey are the best suspects. Chakotay confronts her with the EMH’s findings that she’s Cardassian, and she explains that she had Orkett’s Disease as a child, like many Bajoran children during the Occupation, and was given bone marrow by a Cardassian woman who took pity on her.
Tuvok and Chakotay mention to both Carey and Seska that they’re gathering evidence. The computer manifest is then clumsily altered by someone using Seska’s code. Torres thinks this means Carey did it, trying to frame Seska, but Tuvok traces the alteration to sickbay, where Seska is still under medical care. Chakotay and Janeway confront her, along with the EMH who explains that Orkett’s was ruled out before she even mentioned it—she’s definitely Cardassian.
Seska finally admits it, and says that she’s trying to build alliances in the Delta Quadrant, to try to salvage the mess Janeway made of things. Then she beams away to the Kazon ship. While Culluh wasn’t willing to challenge Voyager by himself, his reinforcements have arrived, and Janeway is forced to let them get away, as they’re now outgunned.
Chakotay is annoyed that he had two infiltrators in his cell. Tuvok reassures him that Seska had him completely fooled as well, which makes Chakotay feel better, to Tuvok’s confusion. “Misery loves company,” Chakotay explains.
Can’t we just reverse the polarity? Nucleonic radiation is yet another new kind of radiation in the 24th century that does nasty things required by the plot.
There’s coffee in that nebula! Janeway makes it clear that she isn’t going to take any shit from the Kazon, though she’s forced to back down when two other ships show up.
Half and half. Torres proves she’s not Montgomery Scott, as she makes it clear that when she says she needs a day to do something, it means she really does need a day and she can’t shave the estimate because the captain says so.
Mr. Vulcan. Tuvok is apparently really good at gin rummy, to Chakotay’s chagrin. He also reminds Chakotay that controlling one’s emotions and balancing the needs of Vulcan society to not lie with the realities of life in Starfleet is not always easy. “Do not mistake composure with ease,” he says, a great summary of what life is like for a Vulcan.
Everybody comes to Neelix’s. Neelix informs Carey and Chakotay in graphic detail the violent allergic reaction people will have to kaylo fruit. They just take his word for it, even though the species from the Alpha Quadrant might react completely differently to it, and also Carey has a tricorder that should tell him if something is poisonous. Neelix instead recommends leola root, which is a great source of vitamins and minerals, but which tastes awful.
For Cardassia! Seska goes on at great length about how a Cardassian ship would deal with the situation. First she points out that they’d be home—Seska having apparently missed the memo that the Caretaker’s array needed to be reprogrammed to send them back, which would have taken time the Kazon would not have given them—and then she explains how they should be forming alliances and exchanging technology for protection and building a power base.
No sex, please, we’re Starfleet. Seska and Chakotay were a couple, but it didn’t work out. Seska tries to reignite the spark by bringing him his favorite soup and generally hitting on him and reminding him of the limited options on Voyager now.
Do it. “You know, I’m really easy to get along with, most of the time. But I don’t like bullies, and I don’t like threats, and I don’t like you, Culluh. You can try and stop us from getting to the truth, but I promise you that if you do, I will respond with all the ‘unique’ technologies at my command.”
Janeway talking smack to Culluh while calling back to his earlier reference to Voyager’s fancy tech.
Welcome aboard. The three main guests in this episode are all recurring regulars: Josh Clark as Carey, Martha Hackett as Seska, and, debuting this episode, Anthony DeLongis as Culluh.
Trivial matters: This episode establishes that Seska—like Boone in DS9‘s “Tribunal” and Iliana Ghemor in DS9‘s “Second Skin,” and later Dukat in DS9‘s “Penumbra“—is a Cardassian surgically altered to look Bajoran and go undercover.
This is Seska’s last first-season appearance—she’ll next be in season two’s “Maneuvers,” also the next appearance of Culluh.
This is also Carey’s last appearance in the present until the seventh season’s “Friendship One”—his appearances in “Relativity” and “Fury” are both in flashbacks that predate “State of Flux.”
Tuvok mentions the possibility of another Starfleet ship being sucked into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. In the season-spanning two-parter “Equinox,” it will be established that another ship did come through the array. Voyager will encounter them five years hence.
Set a course for home. “Was anyone on that ship working for me?” One of the most common tropes of mystery fiction is the red herring. The person you suspect from the beginning turns out not to be the person whodunnit because of misleading evidence.
As a student of police procedure, and as a writer and editor, I find the tendency tiresome. Most of the time, the first person detectives suspect really is the person who did it, mostly because working detectives are generally good at detecting patterns and such. Plus, it’s such a common trope in fiction, that it’s never the first person they suspect, and that becomes much more predictable than the story would be without it. I will, therefore, respect any cop show in which they don’t do that more than one that does.
For that reason, I really like “State of Flux.” Yes, we also have Carey along as an alternate suspect—and we just last episode saw him willing to toss Federation principles out the window to get his hands on the Sikarian trajector. But generally, Seska is our first suspect, and because of that, TV watchers are trained to think it won’t be her.
Which is why I love that it is her.
Watching it now, twenty-five years later, when I know full well that she’s the traitor, it’s also fun to watch as an acting exercise for Martha Hackett, who really sells the notion that she’s an innocent Bajoran who’s being singled out. She’s very convincing in her denials, right up until the EMH pours cold water on her Orkett’s Disease cover story, which probably would’ve been good enough for whatever mediocre medical treatment she might have gotten in the rough-and-tumble world of the Maquis, but doesn’t pass the smell test for a hologram programmed with all the medical knowledge available in the Alpha Quadrant.
And as soon as she’s exposed, Hackett does a wonderful job changing her mode. She’s been a fairly typical Bajoran—brittle, cranky, cynical, but generally friendly, if prickly—but once the jig is up, she goes full Cardassian—arrogant, high-handed, snotty.
Voyager’s status as a ship all alone ties Janeway’s hands here, unfortunately. Her trash talk to Culluh is less effective than it might be because they back off as soon as Culluh’s reinforcements show up. Culluh’s aide commits murder right in front of her and all she can really do is toss him off the ship. Sure, she could imprison the pair of them, but then she’s responsible for feeding him and letting him take up space and resources on a ship that can’t really spare it. But there really isn’t much else she can do.
Instead, they lose a crew member. Poor Robert Beltran is stuck playing the idiot here, as Chakotay is made out to be a fool a second time, having let, not one, but two undercover operators into his cell. The episode is effective because both Carey and Seska have appeared in enough prior stories to establish their personalities, and make you not a hundred percent sure which one of them might be the traitor. (Seska’s romantic history with Chakotay is a bit out of left-field, but it works, and helps keep Chakotay doubting things.)
Warp factor rating: 7
Keith R.A. DeCandido will be a guest at Pensacon 2020 this weekend, spending most of his time at Bard’s Tower alongside fellow scribes Brian Anderson, Kevin J. Anderson, Jim Butcher, Michelle Cori, Phil Foglio, Charles E. Gannon, JB Garner, Andrew E. Gaska, Marion G. Harmon, Kevin Ikenberry, Megan Mackie, and Jody Lynn Nye.
Agree that Hackett did a great job here as Seska. Although this is my first watch of the series, I knew she was the guilty party from reading previous spoilers– but that didn’t diminish from watching her try to convince otherwise.
I hope Tuvok got a dressing down for the lax security. I mean they had Seska pegged as the probable culprit for a while, and when they walked into that room to finally confront her they knew she was the one. Yet somehow they don’t take precautions for a possible escape attempt?
Ironically, I didn’t much care for the Seska character until this episode, when she finally became interesting and intriguing…So of course, we won’t see her again for the rest of the season. Ah….well
And on a personal note, I watched this last Friday at 4 a.m. trying to distract myself from the excruciating pain of what I later learned, after a visit to the ER, was a gallstone attack. So although I learned to appreciate the character, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think of Seska again without wincing. :)
I like this one too. Seska/Martha Hackett would be a fun dose of reoccurring villainy to be a thorn in Voyager’s side for years to come and a more personal affront to Chakotay as well.
I liked Carey too so it’s a shame the writers forgot/didn’t use him in the present tense until one last time in the 7th season and then I found what happened to him in that episode to be disagreeable.
Seska does have to be really naive though thinking that her excuse of the Bajoran child malady with donated Cardassian bone marrow would somehow explain away sensor and tricorder readings that clearly show she has Cardassian anatomy! I find it pretty incredulous that that would fool the Maquis as well given that a lot of them are former Starfleet officers much less the advanced level of 24th century technology people have access to in general to detect such things.
I don’t much remember what I thought of this specific episode, but it’s an example of a thing I liked about early Voyager, the way it tried to set up recurring background crew members who would go on to be significant in later episodes, like Seska here and Durst and Hogan later on. It helped give the show a stronger sense of continuity than past Trek shows that tended to introduce important guest crewmembers out of the blue. Although the show was intermittent at continuing the practice over time.
I would guess that Tuvok learned of the Kazon-Nistrim’s markings from Neelix’s ship’s database. It was established later that Neelix was aware of them.
“Nucleonic radiation is yet another new kind of radiation in the 24th century”
No, it’s a real thing, though the term is nonstandard. Nucleons are protons and neutrons, the particles found in atomic nuclei. So nucleonic radiation would be protons, neutrons, maybe alpha particles (helium nuclei). Heavy stuff, harmful at high energies, but pretty easy to shield against, so the Nistrim must’ve really messed up the installation. It also makes sense that a replicator, which reassembles atoms and molecules into a desired form, might leak stray nucleons if it were damaged.
“They just take his word for it, even though the species from the Alpha Quadrant might react completely differently to it”
Why would it? It’s all one galaxy, made of the same stuff swirling around for billions of years. And all life in the Trek universe tends to be based on the same DNA and the same molecular chemistry. The fact that they can eat the local food at all proves that. Sure, there can be differences from species to species, but there’s no reason it would be on a quadrant-scale level.
“Plus, it’s such a common trope in fiction, that it’s never the first person they suspect, and that becomes much more predictable than the story would be without it. I will, therefore, respect any cop show in which they don’t do that more than one that does.”
I think it depends on how it’s done. On Castle, routinely, they would go through a whole string of suspects one after the other, clearing each one after one interview and moving onto the next, and the killer would frequently turn out to be the first person they interviewed and quickly cleared, who wasn’t seen again for the rest of the episode, so that by the time they were revealed as the killer, you’d forgotten who they were.
@3 / CLB:
I don’t much remember what I thought of this specific episode, but it’s an example of a thing I liked about early Voyager, the way it tried to set up recurring background crew members who would go on to be significant in later episodes, like Seska here and Durst and Hogan later on. It helped give the show a stronger sense of continuity than past Trek shows that tended to introduce important guest crewmembers out of the blue.
Right. It made complete sense that the series should have a more active recurring cast given it’s a single stranded Starfleet ship we’re going to follow for multiple Seasons. Any Redshirt that dies can’t be replaced from the nearest Starbase.
But of course, as with so many things, the show never really capitalized on it, or at least it stopped trying to after Piller was ousted at the beginning of Season Three.
And I think Ron Moore felt the same way given how much BSG built up its own recurring cast in the similar predicment.
This is a marvelous episode for the reasons you stated Keith, especially the direct repudiation of padding estimates by Torres. I always hated the notion that Scotty inflated his repair estimates– the captain is relying on his crew giving him accurate information. If the engineer screw around to look like a miracle worker, then you could cause people to get killed if the captain isn’t aware that, say, you could have the transporters back in two hours instead of six. I wish Seska had stuck around. Way more interesting if she’s a Cardassian traitor and outed, but the crew essentially has to take the position that old loyalties don’t matter now and they can sort it out when/if they get home. Also, it belatedly occurs to me that Seska has a hypertechnical claim to being the first Cardassian we know of to serve in Starfleet!
It’s also great that both suspects were previously established characters. Contrast with “In the Hands of the Prophets” where the very existence of O’Brien’s assistant we’ve never seen before instantly makes her guilt obvious.
The last third bugs me. Once they extract the console, there’s really no compellingly good reason to stick around. In theory they could have tried to extract data from the disabled Kazon ship’s computer or something, but no attempt is made to do so, so why are they even staying? Once it becomes certain that there’s a traitor on board working with the Kazon, then just warp away, there’s obviously numerous ways this could go sideways and they’ve already said that reinforcements are on the way. But, even if there’s some reason to stick around– say they’re hoping to improve diplomatic relations with the Kazon by explaining what happened– the way they confront Seska is crazy. It’s obviously better to revoke whatever computer access she has, beam her to the brig, then confront her. That her script at the end worked also means that Janeway didn’t even have them at yellow alert because, if she did, the shields would have been up and the beam out wouldn’t have worked. A string of bad decisions here are the root of every problem they’re going to have with Seska going forward.
@1: >I hope Tuvok got a dressing down for the lax security. I mean they had Seska pegged as the probable culprit for a while, and when they walked into that room to finally confront her they knew she was the one. Yet somehow they don’t take precautions for a possible escape attempt?
There’s a particular kind of weak writing in which the writers don’t take certain features of the world into account when trying to create drama. It tends to be even worse in science fiction and fantasy, because the features of the world are both more fully in the writers’ control, and generally other than what’s possible in the “real world”.
Voyager suffered throughout its entire run from this sort of problem, and it only gets worse from here.
@5/dunsel: I always assumed Scotty was joking about inflating his repair estimates in The Search for Spock. It was a mistake for TNG: “Relics” to have him offer it to Geordi as genuine advice.
And Seska was not the first Cardassian sleeper agent in Starfleet that we know of; that was Raymond Boone from DS9: “Tribunal,” who replaced the real Boone in 2362, although he was later drummed out of Starfleet.
“Contrast with “In the Hands of the Prophets” where the very existence of O’Brien’s assistant we’ve never seen before instantly makes her guilt obvious.”
Actually Neela debuted the previous week in “Duet,” though it was a small part. And she was originally supposed to be the same character as Anara from “The Forsaken,” giving her two episodes to become known to the audience before she was exposed, precisely to avoid the perception you mention. But they decided that actress wasn’t right to play an assassin, so they recast and renamed the character. Although there’s a bit in “Hands” where O’Brien and Dax break Neela’s code and you can see the letters “A-N-A-R-A” on the screen, I guess because they created the graphic before the character was recast/renamed.
@5, 7
In both those instances, in Search for Spock and Relics, it was during regular operations that Scotty would inflate his estimates. I don’t think he was suggesting to do it during an emergency situation, too.
@3 – Yes, Castle was pretty predictable like that. I started guessing the killer based on the early part of the episode. It was usually someone casually shown and then forgotten about. A lot of the times it wasn’t even a suspect, but rather a witness, family member, or friend who was incidental to the investigation.
I mostly remember this episode for Chakotay’s line about Tuvok and Seska.
CLB: The thing with “Castle” was that it got too predictable. At some point I could tell who the killer was because he/she showed up in an early scene and then never appeared again until the end. One reason I eventually gave up on the show, even though Nathan Filion was Good (and Stana Katic was hot, although I read they hated each other by the end).
@7 / CLB:
And Seska was not the first Cardassian sleeper agent in Starfleet that we know of; that was Raymond Boone from DS9: “Tribunal,” who replaced the real Boone in 2362, although he was later drummed out of Starfleet.
Yeah, and I’ve always liked how Tuvok acknowledged the events of that episode (albeit as exposition without specifically naming “Tribunal”).
Actually, you reminded me…I wonder if the Cardassians cosmetic alteration tech. was done on DS9 specifically to set up Seska or if they realized they’d given themselves a springboard months later during early VOY.
It’s almost certainly the latter, but I can’t help wondering.
Scotty’s line is a perfectly good example of a safety margin. If you say you’ll have something done in six hours, but a complication turns up that makes it take eight, people will be angry with you. Say you’ll expect it to be done within eight hours from the start – or hope and pray you get a commanding officer who understands error bars.
Martha Hackett is one of those Star Trek actors, like Marc Alaimo, who I wish was in more things. Always gives a good performance. She can really spit out those words like venom like no other.
@10/John C: Yes, that’s exactly my point, that Castle too predictably had the killer be the first person questioned and then forgotten. I gave up on it eventually for much the same reason as you.
The other thing that makes TV mysteries (Castle included) predictable is that the killer is almost always the most famous guest star. Although shows like Murder, She Wrote and Diagnosis: Murder tended to avoid this by having a number of well-known or veteran guest actors in each episode.
There’s also the Columbo method: show us how the murderer did it, then watch the famous guest star try to worm their way out of it. The “howcatchem” has its charms.
7: Shoot, I forgot about Boone. Thanks for the reminder.
Agreed about the Search for Spock/Relics distinction, it was fine when it could be interpreted either way but as actual advice it’s terrible.
In re Castle at 3/9: Also, for something like 20-30% of the episodes, there’s a very easy way to narrow down the killer to two suspects: Early on, there’s some scene where they interviewed two people when one would have been just fine (say, two lawyers who work for the same company the victim did). This inevitably meant that one of them did it without the knowledge of the other and it will be 45 tedious minutes to find out which.
“and they might even be able to make friends with the Kazon.”
The Kazon were a missed opportunity. For once, we had an advanced spacefaring culture that lacked a single unifying government. You could have had the small-time barbarian Kazon sects Voyager usually defaulted to, peaceful trading sects, mysterious sects, all kinds of Kazon. That way, every time the crew ran into them, you’d have no idea what to expect. But instead, we just got Chaotic Stupid most of the time. What a waste.
Nice ships, though.
What I enjoyed about the Nero Wolfe Mysteries show was their use of the same group of actors to represent entirely different people – except for Archie and Nero, of course.
@13/JFWheeler – Agreed. From the couple of Star Trek roles I saw her in, Martha Hackett imbued her characters with dramatic villainous flare. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like her brief role as the Romulan T’Rul, I think the character was called, in DS9’s “The Search” 2-parter was originally supposed to be a reoccurring role. Pity that didn’t happen.
@17/Almuric – I’ve stared it before, but Voyager was like one long list of missed opportunities including its basic premise of exploring a whole big mysterious quadrant of the galaxy on its way back home. So the Kazon are just one more thing to add to the list.
@19
Yeah, it is a pity she wasn’t a regular on DS9. Would’ve been interesting to have a regular Romulan character on that series or Voyager. Strange it’s taken so long to get a deep dive on Romulan culture.
Molehunts can be harder, though. It can take years just to discover that there is a mole, and even longer to develop any suspects at all.
@17 / Almuric:
The Kazon were a missed opportunity. For once, we had an advanced spacefaring culture that lacked a single unifying government. You could have had the small-time barbarian Kazon sects Voyager usually defaulted to, peaceful trading sects, mysterious sects, all kinds of Kazon. That way, every time the crew ran into them, you’d have no idea what to expect. But instead, we just got Chaotic Stupid most of the time. What a waste.
Yeah, we know now that the original intention with the Kazon was they were initially inspired/meant to be commentary on then-contemporary Los Angeles street gangs.
It’s not an inherently bad idea, but yeah the problem lay in the execution. The were Naussicans Lite and anything that could’ve made them unique got diluted or underplayed. It would also have been better in hindsight for Voyager to have left Kazon space behind after Season One instead of trying to stretch out Voyager’s trek through Kazon space.
@19 / GarretH:
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like her brief role as the Romulan T’Rul, I think the character was called, in DS9’s “The Search” 2-parter was originally supposed to be a reoccurring role. Pity that didn’t happen.
Yeah, I’ve also always assumed T’Rul would’ve gone on to be a recurring DS9 character had Martha Hackett not had scheduling conflicts after filming “The Search”.
It’s a pity she wasn’t because the recurring presence of T’Rul could’ve done needed world-building with the Romulans (and the type we didn’t get until Picard).
They’ve should just then introduced another Romulan observer. It got ludicrous that the Star Empire would be fine wiht the Feds operating one of their cloaking devices unsupervised after a while or even later during the Dominion War while the non-agression pact was still in effect.
The DS9 Writers Room definitely wrote itself into a corner there.
I remember thinking this was a missed opportunity. How much more interesting would it have been if Carey had been the traitor even after Seska was exposed as a Cardassian spy?
Having a Cardassian as a member of the crew interacting with both Starfleet and Maquis would definitely have made for more compelling drama.
I have to agree with all and sundry — Seska exposed as a Cardassian and remaining on the ship would’ve been fantastic.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Actually, heh, following upon my own point at @23:
It would also have been better in hindsight for Voyager to have left Kazon space behind after Season One instead of trying to stretch out Voyager’s trek through Kazon space.
One big regret with the rebooting of the post-Nemesis literature, or at least the VOY Relaunch, is that we won’t get a chance to see the Full Circle Fleet make its way inland, as it were, through the Delta Quadrant back towards its starting point.
Would’ve been hysterical to see the Kazon try and make another go at acquiring Starfleet tech, only to realize, heh, that Voyager’s packing Transphsic heat and would like to ‘thank’ the Kazon for the fun times of Seasons One and Two,
19. GarretH – Yje problem with having a Romulan regular on DS9 is that they’d have painted themselves into a corner when it came to the cloaking device. They were on;y supposed to use in the the Gamma Quadrant according to the agreement the Federation signed with Romulus. So they’d either have to live up to that or be confronted by T’Rul every time they cloaked int he Alpha Quadrant and, since they were going to use it regardless, turned her character into an impotent parrot, complaining about the violation of the agreement and being shot down each time.
It would have been interesting to have T’Rul call them on it and then put the use of the cloak in jeopardy but that would lead to consequences which is something that Star Trek doesn’t really deal with very well.
One of the most important episodes of the first season, even though we don’t see Seska and Cullah again until Season 2. The Kazon make their second appearance, establishing them as one of the major antagonists for this first part of the show’s run. (I agree that presumably Neelix gave Voyager a rundown on the sects and their ship types off screen for them to identify the Nistrim so quickly here.) We don’t really see them again in the first season though: Their next “real” appearance is in “Initiations” and, depending on which running order you’re using, a hologram of one in “Projections” is either before or after this. Interesting that Paris is the first one to spot the hidden ship.
Given that Seska and Carey were the ones willing to ignore Starfleet protocols in order to get an advantage last episode, it’s a smart move to make them the two suspects here. So it’s a shame that there’s pretty much no doubt who did it: Seska gets far more screen time than Carey, to the point it’s almost impossible to think it’s not her. (As already mentioned, we don’t see Carey again in the present day until Season 7.) Cullah tends to be overshadowed by her but gets a strong debut: Having one of his own men killed just to stop him talking to Voyager marks him out as ruthless.
Something I’ve only thought about since reading the comments on this rewatch series though: Why make Seska a Cardassian? It’s as if the writers didn’t believe a Maquis member (let alone career Starfleet officer) from one of the “nice” races would be in league with the Nistrim, so they made her one of the bad guy species. The show has another go in Season 2, although that simply results in an awkward situation where some of the Maquis still see Seska as an old friend and colleague rather than one of the people they were fighting.
I’ve heard it argued that Janeway seemed a lot more willing to bend rules on sharing technology in later seasons: If she’d met the Kazon then, she might well have given them a food replicator herself and called it a gesture of friendship! Her description of Seska and Chakotay as having been enemies of the Federation for the last two years doesn’t tally with the fact the Maquis were only formed about a year ago.
The way I’ve heard is that T’Rul was dropped from DS9 because it was decided there was only a limited number of things they could do with the character.
This is another one of my favourites. Nice character work all around. I don’t agree that Chakotay comes across as an idiot, more as a hapless man. But then, I like Chakotay.
@14/Christopher: “[…] the killer is almost always the most famous guest star.”
That’s how my mother solves TV mysteries. She has the highest success rate of the family.
@21/JFWheeler: Diane Duane took a deep dive into Romulan culture in the 1980s. Quite a few people were disappointed when this wasn’t taken up in TNG.
@24/Philip Lenton: Keeping Seska would have been cool. But I’m glad that the traitor wasn’t Carey. It would have felt mean-spirited to me – first give his job to Torres, then make him a bad guy.
Seska could have stayed even though she was the traitor. They could have put her in the brig until some talent of hers was needed a few episodes later, then allow her to become a part of the crew again.
@29. Jana: You mean like this one: The_Romulan_Way ?
Couple interesting things: supposedly Duane and her new hubby wrote this in a couple weeks on their honeymoon (though I couldn’t find the reference). Also, the two ships on the cover attacking look like colonial Vipers from BSG.
@krad: “Janeway makes it clear that she isn’t going to take any shit from the Kazon, though she’s forced to back down when two other ships show up.”
Voyager in STO under the command of Admiral Tuvok is seriously underpowered and undergunned. I’ve had to save it’s damaged listing hulk leaking radiation a number of times. My ship doesn’t start to sweat till 8+ ships show up. (Of course the game scripts Voyager that way and it is a science/exploration vessel, not a battle cruiser.)
Regarding Scotty’s padding to his miracle worker reputation: Doesn’t he use that as coded communication with Kirk in WoK while the captain and his party are stuck on the Genesis planet? He says “two days” for repairs, knowing Khan is listening, when he means two hours. STO (again) so values Scotty’s expertise that Daniels actually brings him to the future on the Enterprise J to help stop the Sphere Builders in the “Ragnarok” mission. Scotty says something about how he wrote the code/protocols the E-J is still using. He could’ve said, “How quaint.”
I’ll also add my vote to “they should’ve kept Seska on board.” A Cardassian would’ve added some spice.
@30/Sunspear: Yes, that one and its predecessor, My Enemy, My Ally.
“Regarding Scotty’s padding to his miracle worker reputation: Doesn’t he use that as coded communication with Kirk in WoK while the captain and his party are stuck on the Genesis planet?”
No, that was Spock, and it was painfully obvious. “Admiral, if we go by the book, like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days. […] Restoration may be possible in two days… by the book, Admiral.”
@Jana: guess I misremembered that one. Some bad dialogue there… Between that and the lack of thinking in 3-D while piloting a starship makes Khan look bad.
@30/Sunspear: “(Of course the game scripts Voyager that way and it is a science/exploration vessel, not a battle cruiser.)”
In the show, that was true of every Starfleet ship except the Defiant (and that was nominally an escort vessel, since Starfleet didn’t officially do battleships). Naturally I assume that would’ve changed somewhat during the Dominion War, but I’ve never cared for tabletop or computer games that take Star Trek in a primarily combat-oriented direction, so that battleships are the rule rather than the exception.
I love this episode. Just about everything is done excellently here and those points have been well made already. I do agree that it certainly can be viewed as a security flaw in the episode’s finale by not automatically placing a force field around the sick bay bed where Seska was. They almost certainly would anticipate an escape of some sort wouldn’t they? But of course, the plot calls for her to escape so that she can become an antagonist the following season – a good plan in itself that worked out great in future episodes.
It hasn’t been mentioned here yet, but something that caught my eye on this rewatch took place during the scene where Seska has brought a pot of mushroom soup to Chakotay’s quarters. When Neelix contacts Chakotay to report the theft of food from the mess hall, Chakotay immediately subsumes guilt over the incident while Neelix is reporting it – but Seska just casually continues to eat the soup! It suggests to us the type of character she is (callous, self-concerned) and it’s a nice touch to the scene.
Kazons have really terrible hair.
@34/darrel: Chakotay did order the computer to override Seska’s transport, but it couldn’t because Seska had programmed in a security lockout. Presumably she would also have locked out any attempt to raise shields and block her escape. She was a spy who’d been embedded on the ship for months, so she would’ve had plenty of time to program in an escape route in case she were discovered. I doubt they could’ve done anything to stop her.
@35/roxana: In defense of all the weird hair decorations that various Delta Quadrant species wore (the Kazon, the Baneans, the Sikarians), I suspect the producers and art staff were getting tired by this point of just sticking bumpy foreheads on everyone and were trying to experiment with different ways of making them look exotic. It didn’t really work, but I can’t blame them for trying something novel.
@36 / CLB:
Naturally I assume that would’ve changed somewhat during the Dominion War, but I’ve never cared for tabletop or computer games that take Star Trek in a primarily combat-oriented direction, so that battleships are the rule rather than the exception.
Uh, heh, I have to confess that Armada II was a guilty pleasure of mine while in college.
I had too much fun playing against my roommates and going nuts with the Romulan fleets and their cloaking tech. :D
Meant to respond to this sooner…………
Quoth Christopher: “Why would it? It’s all one galaxy, made of the same stuff swirling around for billions of years. And all life in the Trek universe tends to be based on the same DNA and the same molecular chemistry. The fact that they can eat the local food at all proves that. Sure, there can be differences from species to species, but there’s no reason it would be on a quadrant-scale level.”
Humans on this planet are based on the same DNA and have the same molecular chemistry, yet they all react differently to different foods depending on sensitivities and allergies and such. The notion that kaylo fruit would have the exact same symptoms for everyone strains credulity to the breaking point. (It didn’t help that the information was delivered in the usual overbearing Neelix fashion that is trying to be humorous and failing. Ethan Phillips was so incredibly badly served by the writing of his character…..)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
@38/krad: Well, sure, of course, but my point is that it would break down on a species-by-species basis, not on a quadrant basis. If most species in the Delta Quadrant were affected the same way by the fruit, it follows that most species from other quadrants would be as well.
@31: Duane wrote five Rihannsu novels, loosely using ancient Roman culture as a model for the Romulan civilization, and they’re fairly well-regarded. Also see Spock’s Planet for her take on ancient Vulcan and the origin of the Romulans.
Never cared much for Seska, but mostly because she was with the Kazon, which are boring. It would have been better if she put together her own crew of pirates, with some disgruntled Maquis and people from the Delta Quadrant.
Agreed that T’Rul was a missing opportunity, not to mention a giant plot hole.
@36 – Chris: Yes, Seska should have had ample time to prepare for her escape, but they should have written the episode to show how the good guys take precautions and she evadeds them, beyond the security lockout.
@33. CLB: yeah, I agree with you to some degree. STO overdoes the space combat sim aspect of the game. I’m currently doing the Dealta Quadrant content and fighting the Vaadwaur (the main enemy of the overall arc) is already boring. The fights just last too long. The overall story in the Delta drags, as opposed to the post Dominion story centered on DS9. Maybe that’s a reflection of their respective shows.
The best parts of STO happen when there’s good storytelling, integrating the ground and space parts of a mission. My favorite mission so far is the Ferengi heist aboard an Iconian ship, “Quark’s Lucky Seven,” which had no space combat at all. I haven’t gotten to two of the best arcs (supposedly) in the game, one of which involves your Romulan character discovering the true nature of the Elachi. Don’t know if they were ever named on screen, but they’re the “silent enemy” or mutes attacking Archer’s Enterprise. (Think you wrote about them once.) The best story arc according to some is the return of the Fek’lhri, where your Klingon character actually goes to Klingon Hell.
Having said that, I enjoy the shipbuilding aspect of the game, combining the engineering, science, and tactical aspects. I suspect that if I were alive in the ST universe, I’d be an engineer. I tend to build tanks in the games I play, so I’d design the most durable ship possible, while still also being highly dangerous. My favorite onscreen battle is when Sisko uses the Mirror Defiant to defeat Worf’s flagship.
@40/melendwyr: Strictly speaking, Duane did only four Rihannsu novels: My Enemy, My Ally; The Romulan Way; Swordhunt; and The Empty Chair. But those last two were meant to be a duology and TEC was delayed several years, yet the publishing slots for the duology had already been assigned, so Swordhunt was originally published in two short volumes with the second being called Honor Blade (and beginning with Chapter 7 or something, so it was clearly just the second half of a single novel). When TEC finally came out a few years later, the previous three books were re-edited and collected in an omnibus, The Bloodwing Voyages, that restored Swordhunt to a single novel.
Also, her Vulcan novel was Spock’s World, taking place between TRW and Swordhunt. Plus people tend to overlook her first novel in that series, The Wounded Sky, because it isn’t Romulan-related. But it’s easily my favorite of the bunch.
@42/Sunspear: Yes, I featured the “Silent Enemy” aliens in my first Enterprise: Rise of the Federation novel, A Choice of Futures. I didn’t give them a name like “Elachi,” since how could a mute species have a name for itself? (I hate it when sci-fi does that. “It calls itself the Horta.” How, when its voice sounds like grinding rocks?)
Thank you for that correction – updated comment appropriately.
@40/melendwyr: I wasn’t entirely happy with her later Rihannsu novels. I’m not overly fond of war stories, and after the long fight to overcome oppression, putting a queen on the throne was a bit disappointing.
Spock’s World was really nice, though, not just the history, also the speeches and the voting process. And I liked Kirk’s Irish holiday spot.
@43/Christopher: The Wounded Sky is my favourite, too. And then there’s Doctor’s Orders, where the Enterprise truly explores a new planet in-depth, and one with some wonderfully quirky life forms. That’s probably my second favourite, although it gets a bit religious in the end.
What, you wanted the Romulans to adopt democracy and start voting on rulers?
@46/melendwyr: They’re loosely based on Romans, so why not have a republic?
That didn’t last very long before being taken over by a dictator who became Emperor. The Romulans are far past their ‘republic’ days.
@48 – Actually, while never a democracy, the Roman Republic lasted for almost 5 centuries. Half of what we consider Roman history occurred under the republic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Republic
@melendwyr: “The Romulans are far past their ‘republic’ days.”
That’s an unknown. The remnants of the Star Empire are in a state of flux. It depends on where they go with the rest of the story. There have been elements of the season so far that borrow from STO (currently at 2410 in the timeline). If they continue that route, they may very well end up with a new Romulan Republic, with the Tal Shiar and other reactionary forces opposed to it. But maybe that will spill over into season 2.
Incidentally, the game also posits a deliberate explosion of the Hobus star.
I’m of two minds regarding State of Flux.
On one hand, it’s an effective, well-developed whodunit episode. Martha Hackett makes the most out of the expanded role. The investigation is cleverly handled. It doesn’t go for left-field twists and it has what I consider to be an interesting ending, one that creates a ton of possibilities.
On the other hand, I’m retroactively annoyed by this episode. State of Flux effectively jumpstarts what I consider to be the worst long-term story arc in Voyager’s run (if not all of the franchise).
There’s a reason the Voyager writers stopped trying to develop long-term serialized stories after the first two seasons (with the exception of the underdeveloped Hirogen arc in season 4).
And it’s because the Kazon made for terrible antagonists. It certainly didn’t help that the writers had multiple possibilties for Seska, and ended up instead doing soap opera level shenanigans for a full year, wasting any chance of a good story (and ruining Chakotay right alongside).
I can understand Seska bailing on Voyager when she gets caught. I can even understand her desire to form alliances in order to find another way home. Which is why she should have gone to anyone other than the Kazon. The Vidiians would have been a better choice. Even the Sikarians from Prime Factors. Caretaker established the Kazon as underdogs who lacked technology and the means for doing anything remotely on the level of what Seska was hoping to achieve. At best, they’re third rate Klingons with less advanced tech. Their strength is merely in numbers, and the fact that Voyager is only one ship.
And let’s face it. Seska is not Elim Garak when it comes to subterfuge. She got caught because she was stupid enough to trade a replicator to an alien race not remotely qualified for handling it. Seska would have been better served as more of morally ambiguous antagonist. One that challenges Janeway’s starfleet approach. Making her a Cardassian spy takes that nuance away. The rebellious Bajoran Maquis was a better facade.
And realistically speaking, Janeway could have easily solved this Seska/Kazon problem afterwards by ordering Voyager to warp 8 for a month towards Earth. The Kazon would have been left way behind, and maybe we could have seen a side story with Seska struggling to survive in her own means, having to let go of any starfleet ideals in the process. It would have made for a better story than getting pregnant for no reason other than attempting cheap emotional blackmail on Chakotay.
But, as we’ll see in the second season, spatial geography goes out the window for the sake of keeping the Kazon around.
@51, Yeah, as I said earlier, I agree it was definitely a mistake to make the Kazon a mutli-Season antagonist. They should’ve passed out of Kazon space by the end of Season One or early Season Two.
It’s certainly a great production What If: Would VOY have tried more extensive story arcs from Season Three onward if the Kazon hadn’t bombed so badly?
Yes! A new KRAD commentary! And I’m only a few episodes behind! Seriously, having used your TNG and DS9 rewatches as a handrail to my own Netflix-aided 0400 viewings (usually with one of my baby daughters feeding/sleeping on my lap), I am delighted that you’re back.
I am also torn on this episode…
Pros
+ Seska is played wonderfully – at first I wondered if it was bad acting/writing that made her so, well, odd, but I now realise that Hackett played her ambiguously and it is a success. She’s sassy, snarky but weirdly vulnerable. I agree with earlier comments, both on the strength of that performance, and the wasted opportunities.
+ I agree with KRAD; the whole premise, of shifting focus away, is a good one. My minor quibble is that it was never going to be Carey (the man has the charisma of a wet weekend) but it is neat writing.
+ For some reason this, as a 13 year old Star Trek obsessive when this first aired, was the moment where I really started to like the Torres character. I like how she carves her own style, very different from Scotty or LaForge. We had seen glimpses of greatness in earlier episodes, but the focus on day to day business in this episode is wonderful and shows that it isn’t all about the Bridge team.
Cons (and they’re nearly all about bad acting)
– Ah, Chakotay. This may, actually, be about bad writing, but for me Chakotay’s naivety is not just remarkable, it’s incredible. The evidence is there, even Tuvok (more on him in a moment) gets it, but you still deny it. This could have been done very, very well; the slow dawning of realisation that his former comrade is bad, but it is poorly acted (IMO) by Robert Beltran.
– Tuvok. I disagree with KRAD that Tuvok is compelling. I like the idea of the character, but for me all Tim Russ does with the character is pout and look down, haughtily, grumpily, at all he surveys. This was the episode in which my frustration became full-blown disliking. It is odd that in a yearning for TNG I picked up an on/off rewatch of TNG that I have been enjoying for a couple of months, and by chance watched “Sarek”, just after I watched this episode. Compare Mark Lenard to Tim Russ – there is no competition. Based on what I have seen from Tim Russ so far in this rewatch, Rocco Sisto has a rival for “worst portrayal of a Vulcan”.
– The Kazon. I echo the prevailing view. If Tim Russ is a bad Spock rip-off, same same for the Kazon and the Klingons. They should have been quietly left behind (and surely this was one of the perceived benefits of the VOY premise?).
The episode is therefore very confusing. But as a gawky 13 year old I remembered this typifying my VOY season 1 experience; there is lots to like, but some of the storylines, and characters, feel like a “DS9 second eleven”.
@51: I think the Kazon were really the only credible option for Seska. The Vidiians would have cut her up for spare parts. The Sikarians would have been fine if she just wanted to lounge around and drink wine. It makes sense for her to placate an easily bought major threat and I think the second season shows that the Kazon can be potentially effective (without giving too much away, they achieve so much in the second season finale with proper co-ordination that they could have wiped out pretty much the whole Voyager crew if they wanted!). The fact that they committed to proper long-term storytelling instead of just bringing the Borg back in sweeps week is one reason why I think the first four seasons work better than the later ones.
The Seska’s pregnant plotline was a bit dumb though. Even more so when Seven tried to pretend it was significant a few seasons later.
cap-mjb: In their defense, they were stuck with Seska being pregnant because Martha Hackett was pregnant…..
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
So? The decisions they made to incorporate that pregnancy were still poor ones.
I think the real problem was that they made no long-term plot arcs, not between seasons, not even for a season. So they’re stuck improvising episode-by-episode, yet simultaneously they feel tied to continuity.
The result was… well, there are episodes of this series that I’ve always found compelling, but regarded as a whole I have to consider Voyager a failure.
There are ways to incorporate pregnancies or even avoid them, DS9 embraced Visitor’s. TNG managed to avoid it with McFadden, and Voyager mostly covered Dawson’s own bump during season 4 (and they still managed to make some use of it thanks to clever Holodeck role-playing during the Hirogen arc).
There’s no reason they couldn’t have worked a better story around Hackett’s pregnancy, or if not, work around it instead. The Seska pregnancy arc was a weak manipulative story in itself, and it had zero long term consequences for Voyager.
@@@@@ 36 Christopher: “@@@@@34/darrel: Chakotay did order the computer to override Seska’s transport, but it couldn’t because Seska had programmed in a security lockout. Presumably she would also have locked out any attempt to raise shields and block her escape. She was a spy who’d been embedded on the ship for months, so she would’ve had plenty of time to program in an escape route in case she were discovered. I doubt they could’ve done anything to stop her.”
This just isn’t true. First, if you have a traitor working with a hostile ship, then you should put some distance between you and that ship. Being out of transporter range would have solved that problem. They shouldn’t have had to raise the shields, they should have already been at yellow alert with their shields up in this situation. What’s more they shouldn’t have confronted her in sickbay, they should have either beamed her directly to the brig (which has forcefields to prevent beamout) or, if that’s not possible, hit her with a phaser set to stun or a sedative, chain her to a gurney, and wheel her to the brig. The brig, in turn, should not offer her any computer access or respond to commands from a brigged person. She can be confronted when she wakes up.
If Seska is such a badass that she can, from the brig, access the computer, execute a prearranged program, have the ship close the distance with the Kazon, drop the shields, and beam herself out, then I give up. Just initiate the self-destruct sequence on your way out the door because this ship is clearly hopeless.
@55: Wow! Okay, you learn something new, I never knew that. (There must only be about one or two episodes where Seska is visibly pregnant though, couldn’t they have shot around it?)
To be fair, I think the storyline may have been a casualty of behind the scenes changes. Martha Hackett recalled the ending of the third season opener being rewritten rather late in the day.
@59/cap-mjb: Technically both parts were written and filmed during the second season. I believe Seska was originally meant to remain alive. But the powers that be chose to break away from anything resembling her or the Kazon, preferring to start the following season with a clean slate.
Jeri Taylor at one point gave an interview claiming the writers’ desire to “regain some sense of fun and adventure on Star Trek“. I see that as an admission of how Seska and the Kazon didn’t pan out the way they expected.
@60: Yes, I heard similar. (Ironically, we do see Seska again in the third season, albeit without any link with the Kazon.) Jeri Taylor certainly wasn’t a fan of the Kazon, which reached almost childish levels at times (see Seven’s comments on them). That does seem to put her in the majority but I must admit to having a bit of a soft spot for them.
@60/Eduardo: “Technically both parts were written and filmed during the second season.”
But were shot four episodes apart in production sequence, with “Basics, Part II” being the last one shot in the production season. So it could still be that the ending was rewritten late, as Hackett said.
If anyone’s curious, what happened was that UPN decided to postpone airing the last four episodes shot for season 1 (“Projections,” “Elogium,” “Twisted,” and “The 37s”) so that they could premiere season 2 a month early and get an edge over the competition (so “The 37s,” meant as the first season finale, became the second season premiere). They then decided to repeat the practice a second time, but this time the last four episodes shot in the season 2 production block (in shooting order, “Sacred Ground,” “False Profits,” “Flashback,” and “Basics, Part II”) were written from the start to be in season 3.
Late to the party, but had to comment on this one…
“…But I don’t like bullies and I don’t like threats, and I don’t like you Culluh.” That was the moment Janeway became my captain. You can’t know what hearing that meant to 15-year-old me having a hard time in high school.
Great episode, great performances all around, with special praise to Martha Hackett, who goes from sympathetic Bajoran to snotty Cardassian very effectively, and its wonderfully jarring. Easily one of my favorites, and I’ll add my vote that I wish Seska had stayed on Voyager. I read once that Martha Hackett was given this role since T’Ruul on DS9 didn’t work out as a recurring role. IMHO, this was the more interesting role, though much of the potential was wasted in putting Seska with the Kazon.
Speaking of the Kazon, I recently learned they were a commentary on LA street gangs, complete with weird hair and all. I…wish I didn’t know that. I never cared for the Kazon; even to teenage me, they were dollar-store Klingons.
@63/Dante: Oh yes, that’s a wonderful quote. I wrote it down when I rewatched the episode because I meant to mention it in my comment, but then krad quoted it, so I didn’t. But it certainly deserves to be quoted twice!
@Jana@64, that quote is one I’ve lived by for 25 years (!) and counting. It’s the first of Janeway’s Moments of Badassery:)
@65/Dante: I love that. Being older than you are, I’ve lived by things Kirk did and said, plus I’ve always liked Janeway and Voyager. It’s great to hear that they are just as inspiring.
@51:
And let’s face it. Seska is not Elim Garak when it comes to subterfuge. She got caught because she was stupid enough to trade a replicator to an alien race not remotely qualified for handling it. Seska would have been better served as more of morally ambiguous antagonist. One that challenges Janeway’s starfleet approach. Making her a Cardassian spy takes that nuance away. The rebellious Bajoran Maquis was a better facade.
Actually, bringing up Garak reminded me…
I know it was never established on-screen if Seska was an operative of the Obsidian Order or the Central Command — though I know off-screen that Keith established she was an Obsidian in his Brave and the Bold duology.
So in that instance, to play devil’s advocate (or, heh, I guess technically devil’s nestor if we’re going by Cardassian justice)…Garak was the first Order operative (active or otherwise) that we met on-screen. He (and, to a somewhat lesser extent Enabran Tain) set the standard by which we judged the agency and its personnel.
Furthermore, Garak was both Tain’s protogee and the pinnacle of that generation of Cardassian tradecraft and espionage. So not everybody can be, to use a Bond analogy, a 00 Agent and so it’s not surprise that Seska is merely compent and average in comparison.
@67/Mr. Magic: “Furthermore, Garak was both Tain’s protogee and the pinnacle of that generation of Cardassian tradecraft and espionage.”
Honestly, I always thought Garak was a terrible spy. I mean, every single thing he ever said was spoken in a devious, secretive tone that invited people to be suspicious of him, and he went out of his way to be coy and cagey and make people wonder what he was hiding. That seems like a pretty dumb way for a spy to act. I think Seska was a much better spy, because she never made us suspicious.
@68:
Okay, yeah, I’ll concede that’s valid.
The whole ‘Hiding in plain sight’ approach is intrinsic to his character, but…yeah, it did get overdone in comparison to Seska playing it quiet.
(Actually, I’ve got issues with the post-exposure characterization of Seska, but I’ll hold off on that until the Rewatch hits Season Two.)
I think also….with Garak, our frame of reference for his behavior is during the time period his exile. We never saw Garak in his prime on-screen. And I haven’t read A Stitch in Time in 20 years, so I can’t remember how Andrew Robinson wrote his personality in the flashbacks and if pre-exile Garak was more restrained or if he’d always dialed it up just to annoy everyone.
@69. mr magic: this may refresh your memory a bit:
star-trek-deep-space-nine-reread-a-stitch-in-time/
But Garak wasn’t a spy any longer. He was a former spy with no prospect of returning to Cardassia. And as interesting a character as Seska was, Garak was a lot more entertaining.
I remember when I saw this episode back in the day, how grossed out I was at the Klingzon, err I mean Kazon fused into the bulkheads; It was pretty visceral.
It’s too bad there wasn’t any new material with Carey after this episode, until season 7. I liked the character and his family man, nice guy personality. I wonder if the reason he wasn’t on the show for a while was because he was almost a Miles O’Brien clone only less cranky.
I had no idea Martha Hackett was pregnant. It’s interesting to think where the writers would have taken her character had she not have been. Would they have held onto Seska for longer? And like others have suggested, would they have attempted to integrate Seska into the Voyager crew?
I liked this one, but I wish that Seska had remained on the ship, rather than going off with the Kazon. She could have been an interesting irritant.
I am cherrypicking Voyager episodes as I trace connections between them, thanks to Lower Decks’ Voyager splurge recently. Wound up here to learn about Seska. I guess nobody said it, so I’m saying it ~ One of my favorite earlier things about The Orville was the double-crossing sexy girlfriend who turns out to be a haughty judgmental enemy in disguise, and like so many Orville ideas, now I learn it was basically lifted from OG Star Trek.
I still love and miss The Orville, but I had to register my disappointment that it was yet another copycat plot line, though I do love (most of) what each show did with it, and it’s not the same.
@75/jofesh: “One of my favorite earlier things about The Orville was the double-crossing sexy girlfriend who turns out to be a haughty judgmental enemy in disguise, and like so many Orville ideas, now I learn it was basically lifted from OG Star Trek.”
Of course it didn’t originate with Trek. Love interests turning out to be enemy agents in disguise is a trope that probably dates back to antiquity. Betrayal and deception are among the oldest themes in fiction. Every plot has been done countless times over history. There are only so many coherent ways to put a story together, just like there are only so many coherent ways to put a sentence together. The reason stories have meaning to us is that they have recognizable patterns that resonate with human experience. The originality is in how they’re executed.