Ryan – So considering I missed the fact that Chakotay was the one messing with the navigational systems of the Voyager earlier, this little plot detail might have slipped past me as well… but how exactly did he know the way out of the nebula and to arrange the stones to replicate a star map?
Seth – You know, I have no idea. Maybe when he and Chakotay encountered the nebula earlier they ventured in a little ways? I don’t know if they addressed that.
Ryan – I think that mysterious detail sort of segues nicely into a discussion about Star Trek’s treatment of the potential afterlifes and/or the spirit world.
Tim – Hrm, aye. The other possibility is that maybe he was hovering over Possessed Tuvok’s shoulder? The main reason they couldn’t just back out was because Tuvok was deleting the route as he went, right? It’s not clearly explained, so I could be just filling in the gaps the writers never considered.
Ryan – Yeah, that’s a good point, Tim. So far Voyager’s been very welcoming to those kind of religious ideas. We’ve had two episodes where spirits or souls were observed scientifically and played a part in plot.
Tim – And you’re very right, Ryan- Voyager seems to take a stance that spiritual beliefs like the soul are very much an observable and almost explainable (to a degree) event/thing. This in contrast with my favorite show to contrast Voyager to, Battlestar Galactica- where religion and spirituality is very much a part of the show but still treated with far less scientific veracity.
Seth – Yeah, Voyager treats this sort of thing like a real phenomenon that is just not fully explainable, as opposed to something truly unknowable or merely hallucinatory.
Ryan – I think my assumption along these things was that Chakotay, in spirit form, was a… not exactly more powerful, but less limited sentient being, that was able to do things and know things that his corporeal form couldn’t sense, do, or even remember.
Tim – I’m not sure if it’s just the time period, but (for example), observing the energy forces in Emanations seemed to be treated with a lot of sentimentality and awe, whereas I feel like a similar thing in BSG would result in half the crew joining a cult while Colonial Tigh takes a swig of whiskey and mutters about “damned idiots.”
Seth – Speaking of references to other science fiction shows, when Janeway found out that the Komar were after the crew’s neural energy and she said “We can help you find some other source” I thought “That’s a total Doctor Who move.” Acknowledging, of course, that this predates the current run of Doctor Who.
Ryan – In the sense that she’s willing to aid, even empathize with alien species whose initial approach to her is aggressive, even hostile?
Seth – Exactly, and that optimistic sense of “Here, let’s remove the problem that’s putting us into conflict and then we don’t need to fight each other at all”
Ryan – Speaking of Janeway, how about that holonovel choice at the beginning of this episode?
Seth – I really enjoyed it, but then I have a fond appreciation for 19th century Gothic novels
Ryan – Why do you think she went with that particular work, especially that era? I mean, this could be an interesting chance for us to psychoanalyze Janeway. It could also be nothing. I hadn’t made up my mind yet.
Seth – I go back and forth about what it might mean for Janeway as a character. I mean, if you look at it from one angle, it could be a metaphor for the Voyager’s situation: Her stuck in an unfamiliar setting with strange secrets lurking and other people in her care.
Tim – If I could slip in with Memory Alpha trivia, methinks that’s exactly the intended route here. The original idea had been for her to be using a western holonovel where she was a pioneer heading west and forced to fend for herself. Memory Alpha doesn’t elaborate as to why they changed it TO Gothic, but I think your reading compared with their Western Intentions makes a strong case to read it in that particular direction. This might be just a bit of a surface and totally non-scientific correlation, but I thought it fit simply because so many strong and intelligent women I know enjoy Jane Eyre and other such novels, so that vibe totally fit for me.
Ryan – Yeah, I was watching the episode with my wife and she pinpointed the time and tone of the novel instantly.
Seth – Looking at it from another angle, Gothic fiction often deals in stark moral contrasts, so it might be an opportunity for her to indulge in a story where right and wrong are obvious, as opposed to the moral challenges of being a Starfleet Captain. It’s worth noting that, for all their tendency towards swooning, Gothic heroines often end up being highly competent. On a complete side note, when they transferred the command codes to the Doctor, was anyone else temporarily fooled into thinking this was going to be another opportunity for him to raise to the occasion and save the ship?
Tim – I had had high hopes with regards to the Doctor, yes, but I think this was a case of the writers viewing him as something of an obstacle to get around. That solution was proposed so early that I didn’t really think there was a chance it would have that much of an effect on the end.
Ryan – Yeah, I sort almost assumed we were in a rise of the Doctor story arc
Tim – How well do you guys think this held up in comparison to other episodes, I suppose? Personally I put it in the middle of the pack- it wasn’t nearly as egregious as others, but it also didn’t feel as tight as some of the better ones we’ve seen.
Ryan – No, that covered everything. And I thought this episode was one of the stronger, though I’ve certainly been more critical of some of the middle season episodes then the rest of the group.
Seth – I liked following (or not following) the twists and turns of the episode. It’s not my favorite of the season so far, but it may make it onto my top however-many-we’re-doing list somewhere.
Join us next week for another installment of Roundtable Voyager! We’ll be discussing Star Trek: Voyager s01e14 “Faces.” If you would like, watch the episode ahead of time and contribute your own thoughts in the comments of this post! We’d love to have you help shape our discussion! Or, if you’re more interested in “Cathexis”, was there anything you feel we missed, or theories about the episode that you would like to share? Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments section below!
I thought their inclusion in this episode, like a lot of their attempts at inclusion, was hamfisted. “Hurr, it’s the nineties, if we scream ‘WE LOVE EVERYONE ALL WAYS’ at the top of our lungs, it will make it true!” Art, like life, doesn’t work like that. I kind of want to time warp and strongarm the writing staff into a room with Meg Jayanth and say, “Look. Cultures. There being different kinds. You’re doing it wrong. This girl will explain it to you so I don’t have to pretend I like you long enough to have a conversation.”
With regard to why Janeway went the route of the gothic novel, this:
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Levine also points more specifically to the role of the monster in this link to later Realism in
Frankenstein, as “the monster is also kin to the oppressed women and children of
Victorian fiction: like Oliver Twist, Pip, Florence Dombey, and Little Nell, like Jane
Eyre and Lucy Snowe, like Daniel Deronda, Henry Esmond, and Jude Fawley, the
monster is an orphan, rejected by his father, uncertain of who he is or where he belongs. Naïve, well-intentioned, in danger of being led astray” (“The Pattern” 20-21). According to Levine, the “monster represents a kind of Dickensian reading (almost Carlylean, but that Carlyle could not believe in man’s natural goodness) of the French Revolution. Abused, abandoned, maltreated, deprived, he turns, unlike good Victorian children, in vengeance on his master and his master’s world” (“The Pattern” 21).
Within the context of the humanistic and scientific realism of Frankenstein, it is
Victor’s irresponsibility concerning his failure to fully consider the implications of his actions in his creation of the monster, as well as his failure to communicate with those around him as a result of his self-isolation, that stands as the moral to the story. Such transgressions on humanity and human fellowship will become consistent themes in the social concerns of the Realist novel later in the century. As Hammond observes of Shelley’s novel, “Frankenstein’s ‘being’ is produced under and into particular socionatural relations. Surely it is those relations, mixed, weaved, messy, that should catch our attention in Frankenstein, and prompt us to ask questions about what kind of socionature we want produced by whom, for what purposes and under what conditions” (195)
From this dissertation: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1087&context=englishdiss
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I would say an isolated, self-contained ship (even its _air_ is separate from the rest of the world) in the middle of spacey nowhere counts as “particular socionatural relations” that are “mixed, weaved, messy,” and that should catch our attention. But the show cleans everything up, places everyone into a neat little box. “You’re the Native American so we’re going to put you into an episode where we get to advertise how spiritual you are. You there, you come from two different peoples, so we’re going to have an agonizingly trite episode about where we draw each race out of you into two different people and explain as if two four year olds why the real you is the best you!” It’s hamfisted. It’s nineties. It thinks that by embracing all categories it exonerates itself from its time, but this is not the case! It is the very categorization that does damage! And they weren’t bloody well thinking that way in 1995. “Let’s stick our smart capable captain in a Victorian novel written by a smart capable woman in an age when those traits didn’t necessarily count for much when held by women AND IT WILL BE SUBTLE, GUYS, IT WILL BE REAL SUBTLE.” Oh wait. Nope.