OVEG: Phage

Description: We begin with the Captain's Log. Ah, what a great exposition tool, isn't it? Janeway exposits that Neelix knows of a planetoid rich in dilithium, which she hopes can help with their power shortage. Back to reality, and a whole different type of exposition, this about how Torres plans to make a refinery out of the impulse reactor, which is in violation of some damn procedure. Why, we're not told, and it's probably better that way, since it not only spares us another technobabble deluge like the last two time travel episodes have given us, but also gets the story moving, because if you know anything about this episode, you know that we are -ho ho ho!- in for a treat this time out! I won't give it away too soon, but for sheer morbidity, this episode is a 9 out of 10.

Janeway banters with Chakotay about the emergency rations they're stuck eating with power being so limited. Oddly enough, there's no mention of coffee, which if I were Chakotay would make me wonder if the captain had been possessed by an alien force, but he just smiles, realizing that that could only be an improvement. She walks into cabin 125 alpha deck 2 -the captain's private dining room- and finds smoke and the even more alarming picture of Neelix wearing a chef hat and apron that looks to have started their lives as part of a set of kids bedsheets. Janeway's unhappy when she finds out that Neelix has turned it into a galley, as you can see by her psycho look below. Do it, captain! Kill him! No one will ever know! Listen to the voices!

Anyway, they show up at the rogue planetoid and the Komedy must pause a moment so we can go to the bridge. There's a lot of dilithium on this Class M planetoid, so Neelix decides to strut about like he's the man of the hour. You should have killed him when you had the chance, Janeway. Instead of pulling out her phaser and zapping him until the power cells run dry, she orders Chakotay to head down to the planet for a geological examination. Neelix assumes he's going along too, and Janeway capitulates. After all, that deep underground.... no telling what kind of accidents could transpire... MWAHAHAHAHA!!!

By the way, all of this, and we haven't even hit the opening credits yet.

Chakotay says that they keep getting a dilithium signature, but that he hasn't found any ore. Harry tries to find some using a dremel that not only can do that but let him do a seriously cool mod on his Gameboy! Neelix announces that he's found a cavern on his tricorder that shows lots of dilithium. Chakotay tells him to stay inside the search radius for the moment, but Neelix says "But it's right here," and goes anyway, winning the Stupid Neelix Moment for this episode. Admittedly it's a judgment call, as we've already seen his annoyance and idiociy this episode, and it's going to only continue. Nevertheless, we're about to discover why this was Neelix's really, really big screw-up. So Neelix wanders off and lo and behold, another false lead. Chakotay orders him back, but as I said, this is less a stupid Neelix moment than a stupid Neelix episode, and Neelix is too busy looking over the tricorder than anything else, including the tall freaky looking dude that's circled around him. The alien shoots Neelix, and though we know little about him, he's proved himself on the side of the angels with this. Chakotay and Harry show up and Neelix is on the ground having a spaz attack, so they beam him directly to sick bay. The Doctor orders a blood gas infuser while he hits Neelix with a hypospray to knock him out. Get used to that, because they're going to be flipping Neelix on and off like a light switch this episode. The Doc says that Neelix only has an hour to live because his lungs have been stolen. BWAHAHAHA!!! Tall stranger, you are the wind beneath my wings.

Apparently this is pretty serious stuff, because they wheel a TV in on an A/V cart you might have had in high school. Chakotay fills Janeway in on what's happened, and she seems distraught, probably because Neelix is still alive and thus she's required to try to save him. Sometimes Starfleet protocols make it so hard to go on a killing spree! The Doctor says that now Neelix only has about 47 minutes to live, and that his lungs are too complex to replicate. The only hope is too recover them. Janeway tells Chakotay to assemble a security team so they can go down there and does some killin'! Sadly, there's nothing there but rock, or so it seems. After shooting the wall with her phaser (again, that's Janeway's solution for everything, see Time And Again) it's revealed it was only a sophisticated force field, revealing the inside of an alien ship.

With time running out, Kes offers to give up one of her lungs for Neelix, but the Doctor says that no one on board is a compatible match. Aw, too bad. The Doctor speculates out loud about how to fix the problem, and comes up with the idea of using the information from the last transport to create a pair of holographic lungs to use instead. Paris questions the usefulness of this, since a hologram isn't real matter. The Doctor illustrates he's solid enough by slapping Paris across the face.

slap

I'm always amused by the odd bitchslap, but it does present a problem when you consider that the Doctor then turns his solidity off to demonstrate that he can be permeable, then turns it back on again... by touching panels. Um, okay. Kes objects to what the Doctor is suggesting unless she knows what's going to happen. He explains that Neelix will die if this doesn't work, but it's his best chance. Damn hypocratic oath. However, he does present a satisfyingly grim picture of Neelix's future, where he's forever held motionless in a restraint to keep the body still, and that he could never leave sickbay without the lungs vanishing. So it's not death, but I guess we've got to take what we can get.

Down on the ship, Janeway and company stumble into a storage facility, where there are livers, lungs, and all sorts of gooey things you might see in a Clive Barker film. It turns out this room was the source of the dilithium readings, which means that not only was this fruitless, but Neelix was completely wrong before they even set course here. What a dink; this is why they'd be better off if they never found those lungs. The crew presses on, having detected a life form. Tuvok shoots the tall alien from before, for all the good it seems to do. All he does is cry out and drop his weapon, then runs away. Apparently Tuvok set his phaser on "Owie" rather than "Stun" or "Kill." The alien ship gets away, and Voyager moves to follow. Meanwhil in Sickbay, the Doctor tries his hololungs, and they work... damn it.

Neelix has woken up and the Doctor fills him in on the grim situation. It's hard to take seriously though, since a) I could give two shits about Neelix, and b) with that thing on his head he looks like some kind of post-apocalyptic Shriner. Neelix, faced with the prospect of living the rest of his life in this restraint, starts complaining about the ceiling and the lights until the Doctor leaves. Paris tells Kes that if she needs him he'll be on the bridge. Naturally Neelix takes this as Paris trying to get into Kes' pants, and hell, he may be right, but frankly Neelix is damn lucky to have someone without an eye patch and a hook, so he should be grateful he had a good thing there for a while.

By the way, all this shows once again why making Paris a medic is such a damn stupid idea. They're trying to pursue this alien ship, and their best pilot is down in sickbay getting smacked around by the Doctor.

Torres starts filling the captain in on the weapon that was taken. Turns out it's also a powerful medical scanner and surgical instrument, a very impressive device. Naturally they'll never bother using it or even trying to use the info they learned to improve their own equipment. Janeways surmises from this thing that the aliens have developed technology solely for the purpose of extracting organs from other beings, but can't figure out why. Meanwhile, they track the aliens into a neutronium asteroid and follow it inside.

Ah, let's cut back to Neelix. Lord knows we can't get enough of him at the best of times, now let's listen to him piss and moan. Let's remember, Neelix, that you're in this position because you repeatedly refused to listen to orders. Neelix complains he's all alone, to which the Doctor says -showing once again why he's fun- "You are all alone. I'm a holographic projection." Neelix starts complaining that he's feeling claustrophobic, wondering what he should do. "There's nothing you can do," the Doctor says, "except lie there and be quiet." It's impossible not to like him, even if he is keeping Neelix alive. Neelix starts getting uppity and demands to be let out of the restraint, demanding that he knows what his rights are. When the Doctor points out he's damn lucky to be alive thanks to this procedure (and the infinite patience and/or masochism of his shipmates) Neelix has a serious hissy-fit and the Doctor has to flip him off again.

The ship continues to pursue the aliens into the asteroid, opening into a large chamber. Unfortunately, the whole area is lined with mirrors, and Voyager has no way of knowing which is the real ship and which is just a reflection. The walls are interfering with their ability to scan anything, but Janeway orders Paris to follow the ion trail of the ship and then tells Harry to continuously scan the area... even though they can't. Poor Harry, once again set up to fail.

Back in Sickbay, Kes is on hand for when Neelix wakes up, but she's showing concern for how the Doctor must be feeling. Good thing Neelix is sleeping or else he'd go insanely jealous of her hitting on him, I'm sure. The Doctor finally laments the situation he's found himself in (unlike Neelix's whining, the Doctor is sympathetic because he's not only useful, but he doesn't go looking for people to dump his feelings on, he needs to be coaxed into it). He's serving as the only doctor on board with no one to assist him, and now he's stuck with Neelix (Lord knows being stuck in this same room with Neelix until they reach Earth is a whole level of hell Dante never thought of), who obviously needs counseling and there's no counselor on board (damn, Troi could actually be useful for once). He was only ever programmed to be a supplement, not a full time caregiver. Kes proves quite a good counselor in her own way, pointing out to the Doctor that he's been remarkable in his work, going beyond what his programming was designed for. The Doctor asks if she's ever considered pursuing medicine (hint hint hint).

Down in Engineering, the warp core lava lamp thing isn't circulating properly and power's being drained. Harry thinks he has the coordinates of the source of whatever's draining the power. Janeway eagerly considers firing phasers at it (see! see!) but Tuvok points out that if the beam hits a wall, it's going to bounce off and possibly hit themselves. Torn once again between her love for living and her love for killing, Janeway reluctantly gives up the plan, but Chakotay demonstrates competency for once and suggests firing at the lowest possible setting so that the beam wouldn't be lethal, but would stop once it hits the real ship. It works and they beam two aliens on board... and my they are ugly with a capital yuck!

Janeway has the two thrown into the brig and begins questioning them. The aliens are Vidiians; they used to be educators and explorers, but they've been hit by a nasty plague called the Phage, and the only way to survive is to steal biomatter from other species. Their immuno-technology is simply not up to stopping this thing (sounds like a nasty, nasty bioweapon; it keeps adapting and changing to attempts to kill it), so the only way for them to survive is to steal organs, killing others so that they may live. Since Janeway basically lives her life by that code, she expresses her sympathy, but demands Neelix's lungs back. Well, turns out the aliens have already surgically implanted those organs into one of them, which means killing one of them. This is truly a moral dilemma for Janeway: on the one hand, she has a great opportunity to kill someone, but on the other hand, she'd then be saving Neelix's life. Tough call.

Janeway goes into a speech here about the moral implications of the situation, and her conclusion is as follows: okay, keep the lungs and be on your way (thus earning the Best Moment for this episode). The first time I saw this, everyone in the room burst out laughing. If this had been anyone but Neelix, I'm not sure what the reaction would be, but under the circumstances, that's funny as hell (especially because Silvermoose had said almost exactly the same thing a few minutes before in jest... let me tell you, it's not easy to mock something that goes out of its way to be this ridiculous).

Here's the moral implications Janeway: these aliens have effectively declared war on all other species, including your own. They take the lives of others away to serve as their own. Sound familiar? They're not much better than the Borg! They have decided that if it's a choice of their survival or other species survival, they would pick themselves. They admitted to do this before, and there's certainly no chance they're going to stop after two millennia of this. By letting them both go, not only is Janeway condemning a member of her crew (even if it is only Neelix) to possible death, but also any other innocent beings out there that these two might kill, which could very well be some other member of her crew. The Vidiians are fighting for survival, and that survival means killing. In a case like that, it's war, and the moral implication is that you have to pick a side (because the Vidiians view any species as a potential target; there's no possibility of being neutral). By letting them go, she is effectively siding with them, because she has to know that whatever threats she might throw at the Vidiians can't be any worse than not trying to get her crew anyway (which we'll see is the case throughout the series). The hard choice is to take the lungs regardless of whether or not it will kill the alien, and at best let the other off with a warning that their people will be shot on sight. Hey, it's rough, but this is war, and no one seems to blink when someone shoots a Borg drone.

Like I said, Janeway goes all "Ho ho, see you again and I'll kick your ass" on them, which is only so much marsh gas. The alien with Neelix's lungs asks to see Neelix. Brilliant! Hey Neelix, guess what, we've got your lungs back! No, ha ha, you're not getting them back! This guy's using them! We just thought you'd like to see how well they're working before we send them on their way. What? Oh, of course we're letting him go, silly man, ha ha ha! What did you think we were going to do, take your lungs back? Just because they're yours? Say, you guys need anything else while you're still here? Heart maybe, new liver? Get an ice cream scoop and have at it!

But they show up in Sickbay anyway, this time to try to help. The tall alien goes around, scanning everyone, then announces that any of them could donate a lung for a transplant (how about giving one of Neelix's own lungs back, huh?). Kes volunteers and Neelix immediately objects. "No, it's too dangerous! Let someone else do it." What?! You shithead, you're lucky you're not getting stuck with two soda bottles and a Y-joint. Kes insists that it be her, and after that, the captain says that Neelix can keep his galley for the time being. And then, of course, since this is late in the episode, everything goes as expected: the transplant's a success, the murdering aliens are given a lollipop and sent on their way, and Voyager heads for home, everyone secure in the knowledge that there's no need to punish people for stealing, especially when it requires killing someone.

Special Kneebler Comments: I just wish once in the many times that Neelix had said to let him die someone had said "okay". Click. "Computer, end Neelix1." Better yet would have been if they had been teasing him. "Computer, end Neelix one.....hundred!" "That file does not exist." "Oo, you're lucky Neelix."

Rating: 6

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