OVEG: Elogium

Description: We begin with Chakotay walking up a corridor to a turbolift... ominous. When he opens the door he discovers a Maquis and Starfleet crew member are making out. They quickly head on their way despite Chakotay's scowl; no one ever makes out with him in the turbolift, not even Harry. This is an important point though, you see, because there are three plots going on in this episode. The first is about sex, the second is about sex, and the third is about sex. I suppose this is probably a good example of a time when as a writer you need to close your laptop and head down to the topless bar instead of trying to finish that script.

Tom and Kes come in also holding big containers of cabbage. Neelix scowls at Tom when he arrives in the mess hall because it's only been a year since he lost his lungs and he still hasn't gotten over how Tom smiled at Kes at that time. This is a Neelix-centric episode (and unfortunately, yes, that does tie him into one of those three plots... some days I hate my job) so there will be constant competition for the stupid Neelix moment. However, the teaser manages to squeak out a victory, with Neelix acting like even more of a shithead than normal. He is horribly jealous and treats Kes like dirt, and she gets quite angry with him about it because all she did was thank him for carrying the cabbage. He really needs to knock that shit off; not since Nobby Nobbs hooked up with the dancer Tawnee have we seen someone with a partner they clearly don't deserve. The fact that Kes ever was willing to go out with him at all says just how good a person she is, and his constant jealousy is a sign of what a dick he is.

Neelix then asks if she's helping him in the "airponics bay." It's supposed to be "aeroponics" actually, but given that they still seem to think you'll need soil for any kind of hydroponics (see Parallax) it really doesn't surprise me that they can't get the term right. And they won't... not for the entire series. Why harp on this? Because for once they actually had an opportunity to do what they always crow about; that Star Trek is on the scientific cutting edge and all that, inspiring the next generation. Well, aeroponics is a real thing, actually, and people could actually learn something for once from this show if they took a little time. How pathetic: they will explain their made up nonsensical procedures all the time, with quantum subspatially-inverted subatomic polyphasic resonance particle beams being trotted out to explain why Torres can turn the ship inside out to defeat the bad guy of the week, but not what Kes is actually doing in the cargo bay. There's even a chance of using cool words, like "ultrasonic nebulizer." But it's so much easier to make up your own science than to use real stuff, and since they can't even get the name right, I suppose it's probably for the best that they didn't bother trying... we'd probably find out that airponics involves big fans to dry out the roots or something equally stupid.

Oh, and speaking of which, we get to the second of those three plots, when Voyager encounters a magnetic disturbance and moves in to investigate. It turns out to be a horde of space-protozoa that flagellate (wriggle their tail-like extension) to move about... in space. Maybe keeping science out of their hands is best for all concerned.

Before we actually encounter these space-sperm, Chakotay has to talk with Janeway about what he saw in the turbolift. He wonders whether or not a policy for fraternization is required. Janeway literally laughs at him, and he does come off as having the sexual repression of an elderly nun. He does, however, make a point about intimate relationships being a factor for a ship on a long journey, and he doesn't have to expand on it, and it's nice for once not to be beaten with the obvious (that it may cause lapses in judgment or, if a relationship turns ugly, you're still stuck with that person for the next seven decades). But Janeway points out that, for the same reason, they... well... need to f*ck sometimes. She believes coupling is inevitable on a journey this long, for once showing some kind of coherent thought.

Back down in the aeroponics bay (screw Voyager, I'm calling it what it is), Kes is placing beetles on the leaves of cabbage to help cross-pollinate them. Then, for some reason, she takes up a handful, not even thinking, and eats them. Nummers!

Incidentally, we've only now passed the opening credits. I'm really starting to believe that the longer the teaser, the worse the episode. We're over seven minutes in already, if anyone's wondering.

And back to plot C, which shows Kes in her quarters devouring huge amounts of food, only to be interrupted by Neelix. He came with flowers to apologize for, you know, being a shithead and all. He finds the remnants of her meal and sees she had mashed potatoes mixed with dirt (sounds like the cooking at my house). He's also visibly horrified when she tells him about the beetles. It's kind of funny, actually, because in the majority of human cultures, bugs are seen as a good food source, very rich in protein (entomophagy is the term for eating insects); I'm rather surprised that someone with Neelix's so-called survival skills wouldn't recognize that fact. It's almost as if, you know, he was completely full of shit. Neelix picks her up and carries her to Sickbay while she shrieks at him (this is probably close to how their sex-life plays out), eating the flowers on the way.

Back to plot B, and Voyager is getting a little too close to the space herpies (bless you if you get that reference). They try to back off, but as always when encountering a non-sentient lifeform, the swarm can make Voyager their bitch, and pull it towards them. And of course, the same thing that pulls them in makes the shields not work. The power is flickering now too because the field is messing with that. The Doctor is unaffected by this, of course, just like when the systems all shut down but he was still fine and dandy. Whatever makes the Doctor run, they need to use that for the whole ship, because Voyager could probably still fly on without the saucer. Anyway, Torres comes up with the idea of using an inverted magnetic pulse to push them out of the way. Please try to think of a way for this to make some kind of sense, because I'm at a loss; it either sounds like the pulse would travel backwards into the deflector dish, or else it's like a flashlight that shines darkness instead of light.

Down in Sickbay Neelix is busy getting in the Doctor's way. He literally pushes the Doctor out of the way to look at readings that don't make sense to him. This was a close contender for stupid Neelix moment this episode, but it's so very satisfying when the Doctor throws him out of Sickbay as an obstacle to treatment. Of course, because he's a self-absorbed shithead, he goes straight to the captain in the middle of the current crisis, because being thrown out of Sickbay for acting like a douche is more important than their pending destruction. He goes so far as to say that a mere hologram should have no right to throw out a flesh and blood person. What a dick. Then when Janeway's ears perk up because he says there may be a connection between her condition and the aliens, all he does is keeps pointing a finger at how mean the Doctor was for throwing him out. This is our self-appointed morale officer, stomping his feet and whining like a child who didn't get the last Twinkie.

The Doctor asks Janeway to come down, and we discover that Kes has locked (via a forcefield) herself in the Doctor's office. She's currently kneeling on the desk panting and covered with sweat, kind of like every scene T'Pol is in on Enterprise. Neelix tries to talk her out, but naturally that doesn't work; Neelix couldn't talk Mr. Rogers off a ledge. However, she does let Janeway in (those holodeck sex programs have obviously given her a lot of practice) and Kes starts explaining what's going on. Apparently she's going through the Elogium, which is her body's way of becoming ready to conceive a child.

The Ocampan biology ranks as perhaps the most ill-conceived one in all of Trek. Let's start at the beginning: a species with a short life span will tend to develop large numbers of offspring. A species like the Ocampa who live for half the age of a frickin' dog should be having litters, and yet the entire episode Kes refers to having only a single child. Not very likely, but fine. Except, we then find out that Ocampa can only conceive a child once in their entire lives. Even if we take this to the most bizarre conclusions and assume that both males and females can become pregnant, that still would require every member of the species to reproduce in order to maintain zero population growth. How could a species that unfit to survive have evolved?

Taking that aside, the entire issue of Kes undergoing this change doesn't make sense either. Why? Because she has boobs, that's why, which is a problem for two reasons. One, because it's very likely that swollen breasts in humans exist because we are fertile year-round, that they exist as a sign of a mate that is ready to produce a child. For a species that can only reproduce once a lifetime, that doesn't make any sense. The other reason, though, is why is Kes only now growing the sac that will hold her eventual child, but has had breasts -which exist to provide food for that child- for most of her life? So the only two reasons to have breasts don't apply to Kes, and yet there they are.

As we consider that further, it's hard to understand why Kes even is in a relationship with anyone anyway. A species that only mates once in a lifetime and has a single child doesn't seem like one with a need to form any kind of sexual relationship with someone. What kind of sex-drive would a being have who only needs to actually have sex once? And the thing about all these questions is that they all turn on one single fact: that Ocampa can only have a child once. This forces the drama: if Kes ever wants to have a child, it must be now! This plot depends on it. And what's even worse -since this is Voyager I know I'm not spoiling anything- there's always the magic reset button, so we'll find out in the end that this time doesn't actually count, and she'll likely have it happen again. So not only does this plot point come up that makes no biological sense in an evolutionary, biological, or sociological way, but it also exists to create false drama. If I were to sum up this kind of typically idiotic and lazy thinking in one word, by God I know exactly what word that would be:

Airponic.

Oh, back to plot A again, involving Chakotay, suppressor of all sexual thought. However, discussing Kes, Chakotay points out that children may not only be an inevitability, but a necessity. In a few decades, they're all going to be too old to be running all this stuff; they'll need a new generation to carry on. Janeway lays out all the issues that relate to that, from the change the ship would need to accommodate them, to the ethical question of what such a life would be like for them. Of course, because this is Voyager, these issues are merely being given lip service; nothing will ever actually come from them. This series was supposed to be all about pushing the boundaries, but instead we see them just making a nod and then staying the same as always, like the power problems that show up and are gone next week.

We cut down to Kes and Neelix in Kes' quarters. Neelix is pacing back and forth anxiously while Kes explains the situation. "You have to decide quickly because I would want you to mate with me," she says. I put that line in there because it's unfair that I alone should have to experience that horror. At least before now we could always pretend that they were just very friendly towards each other, but now we know... now we have stared into the abyss even as it has stared into us. As I stare at my monitor, looking at the frozen image of Neelix, I see not the annoying character any more. No, I see the lord of the flies himself. I am, even now, tumbling towards the open maw of hell itself. This episode is beyond the realm of being bad now... indeed, Voyager has gone to a place where even it has never gone before. This is not bad, this is a conspiracy to remove happiness from existence. It seeks to wrap its hedgehog hand around the still beating heart of the personification of good and squeeze until it is stilled.

Because of the horror of this scene, I'll give you the upshot of Neelix's actions here: he's a shithead. To elaborate, he makes a whole lot of excuses why she shouldn't have a baby... because he's a self-absorbed shithead. Kes starts to get fed up with him too, but she still seems to want to... to... shit. And to compound this, she holds up her hands to reveal she's been playing with mustard packets, I mean, that she's forming the bonds on her hands that will make the mating possible. The two would be bonded together for six days... You know, this species was boned long before the Caretaker showed up.

Anyway, Neelix leaves to think about it and goes down to the mess hall to see if there's anyone left he hasn't made miserable today. Yup, he screwed up someone's order, and the poor bastard is left wheezing from excess pepper sauce. Maybe they really do need to put some holoemitters in here. Then Tuvok comes in... Lord knows how important it is for Neelix to annoy Tuvok every day. He decides to ask Tuvok a simple question: What's it like being a father? Tuvok points out that it's an absurdly broad question, so Neelix gives a little prompting, hoping that Tuvok will tell him that parenting is more trouble than its worth. His prompting of this point shows just how self-absorbed he is, and not just because I loathe Neelix; I think even the staunchest Neelix fan (who is sitting somewhere crying because he's all alone) would have to admit that he was being a complete prick. Finally we just get into some of that hackeneyed "It's all happening so fast, am I really ready, blah blah blah" that always come up in these situations.

The funny part of this is that this is supposed to be a Neelix-Kes character building episode, but really the only one who gets any character development is Tuvok. Kes just eats everything in sight and seethes and Neelix is a dick, which was something we already knew anyway.

Oh and back to the swarm plot. Torres has the magic magnet in place, so they start trying to find their way out, but a bunch of the creatures start turning blue and attaching them to the hull. And then a huge one shows up and makes aggressive gestures at Voyager. Well, since this is Trek, this means one of two things: they think Voyager is its mother, or something to f*ck. Since this is an episode all about sex, you can be sure it's the latter. It's affecting the key systems now, and for some reason this has caused some bizarre transformation in Torres. She suddenly turns into a character out of Dr. Strangelove, repeatedly demanding that they attack the swarm. I don't know the behind the scenes stuff, but I'd hazard a guess that this was Jeri Taylor's work, as this dialogue pretty much exists solely to make Janeway look good.

Well, Neelix shows up, all primed and ready to tell Kes the news. He asks what it involves by way of preparation. I'd assume gathering water and having a good BM, 'cause once you start you're stuck for six frickin' days. Kes says one of her parents should rub her feet until her tongue swells... okay, Kes, now you're just making shit up. Could this stuff be any more absurd? This kind of stuff reminds me of Bajoran applause on DS9, which is the same as regular applause except instead of palms together it's palm to back of the other hand. Except try it... it's very easy to just plain hurt yourself because that's not the part of your hand that's padded. Any logical being is going to see it's easier and comfortable to do palm to palm; the only reason not to is to be deliberately different, and deliberately different doesn't make someone alien, it makes them an obviously poorly-thought out alien. The Ocampa in any true universe are such an evolutionary dead end it's unbelievable... at this point it would honestly make more sense if they were delivered by storks.

So we cut to a scene of the Doctor giving Kes a foot massage. At this point I officially give up; the moment I have to type that sentence I know we're stranded on an island of absurdity from which the only escape will be the end credits. Anyway, now Kes is the one having second thoughts, so naturally she seeks parenting advice from the one person on the ship who is both younger than her and has no genitalia. The Doctor points out that the urge to reproduce is a strong biological need to keep the species alive, and Lord knows the Ocampa need every bit they can get. So Kes asks a bunch of questions along the same line as Neelix before of the being ready, etc. etc. which just fills out screen time because it won't go anywhere. Neither she nor Neelix will have to live with the consequences of this because of the reset at the end of the episode, so those questions don't matter, just like the ones Janeway raised that will just be ignored. It's a sign of just what a bunch of pussies there are running this show, they say they want to push the boundaries, but every time they get close they scurry away. There's like seven minutes left to this episode and I can barely find it in myself to continue in the face of this cowardice and tedium.

On the bridge they are busy dealing with the swarm; more of the same, with Torres demanding they fight back, but of course this must be handled in the standard "act like the ship's another animal" tactic, in this case like that creature was an alpha beast they need to roll over for. What an appropriate tactic: Voyager is now its bitch. Anyway, it works and they leave, Kes reveals to Neelix the reset button, and Ens. Wildman shows up to tell Janeway she's pregnant, so like it or not there will be children on board. Not that anything will change around Voyager, of course.

Rating: 2

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