OVEG: Sacred Ground

Description: Lisa Klink. Lisa Klink. Did you think I would forget? Did you think I could sit through Innocence, not once, but twice, and not remember? Oh yes... but I'm ready for you, this time. This time I will not be beaten.

Anyway, if you're observant, you might have noticed that, once again, Voyager's been aired out of order really, really badly. How badly? Well, just for starters, there are three episodes that should fall between parts one and two of Basics. Yeah, how's that possible? Well, story-wise, it ain't. I'm not certain, but I'm willing to bet that what most likely happened was one of two things. First, UPN had pushed four season one episodes to season two, so it's possible that these were 3 season two episodes pushed to season three. Second, and the one I think more likely, is that because Basics required such a massive reworking, these episodes were worked on before that episode was ready, and so were done out of order. You'll notice that this one, False Profits, and Flashback all have Michael Piller listed as an Executive Producer, even though he left with Basics Part II. Given that Flashback was part of the 30th anniversary, I think it's unlikely it was pushed back by overfilling season two. So, for this reason, I'm going to do this in order of their numbering rather than broadcast order because, frankly, the skipping around is causing what little episode to episode continuity they do have to make no sense.

So we see the members of Voyager taking a tour of some sacred caves and such, and already the episode is annoying me as Kes and Neelix look at a statue.

Kes: What do you think this means?
Neelix: Hard to tell. A fertility symbol, maybe.
Kes: Or a blessing for good luck, or wisdom.
Neelix: Or happiness and love.

Or bountiful harvests, or low gas prices, or the warding off of Carrot Top... watching two people stand and ramble, that's what I've come to expect from Voyager. Well, now separated from the group, Kes and Neelix head off deliberately the wrong way, and find a shrine. Despite Neelix (who in a rare moment of lucidity is actually discouraging someone from doing something stupid) Kes tries heading inside and gets zapped but good. Torres, Harry, and the tour guide (the magistrate) come running back, and it turns out that they wandered into a sacred place, and now Kes has been punished by the spirits and sentenced to death. Boy, the spirits are sure ornery in the Star Trek universe; they want to sentence people to death for everything.

So Kes gets beamed up and Harry and Torres quickly talk to the magistrate. By the way, there's the most distracting extra to the right of the magistrate; he's standing like he's kind of shrinking back from Harry and Torres like he doesn't want to catch whatever they have. I swear I didn't cheat to catch him in a silly pose for the picture below, the guy barely moves! Anyway, Harry and Torres want to scan the area to try to figure out what happened, but the magistrate shoos them away, saying that they can't violate the sanctity of the place. Uh oh, and if we know Chakotay, there's no way they're violating anything sacred, that's for damn sure. I guess, though, that he's got no say in it, because Voyager is scanning it, at least from orbit since they're not being allowed to go to the site. The Doctor says they need to find out what happened in order to figure out a treatment, but for now Kes seems stable. Neelix begs that he be allowed to actually be useful for once in his pathetic life, so Janeway tells him to do research on what they know about the shrine. It'll keep him out of the way for a while, anyway.

So Janeway goes and talks to the magistrate. He feels bad about what happened, and frankly, he should. What kind of idiot leads people through these caves without warning not to stray from the group since it could mean death? They must just hate tourists on this planet. Pity they couldn't put on the sacred meat vests and swim with the holy great white sharks for a while. Janeway asks to speak with someone about what happened, but nobody wants to talk to her who can give her answers, as the government doesn't get involved and the monks consider the matter closed. The results of the scan are their only clue, as they pick up a biogenic field so strong it's a wonder it didn't kill Kes already. However, as always in the first act, there is little hope, but it does finally arrive in the form of the sacred hedgehog, Neelix, who found an old text about a king who was permitted to go through the ritual the monks use to enter the shrine unharmed so that he could plead for his son. His son did manage to survive and Janeway sees it as a precedent. If they know what the ritual is, they might know how to develop a treatment. Let's just hope it's a mite safer than trying to take a tour.

So Janeway makes the appeal and is soon talkin' with Chakotay. If there's a religious ritual to go through, he's the man to talk to. Well, believe it or not, Janeway says she doesn't believe in the ancient spirits, but the ritual may make some kind of change to her that protects her from the field, so they figure they'll put something under her skin to monitor what happens to her. Janeway figures it will be a series of ordeals that will cause a change to the body, but she's up to it. Chakotay jocularly points out that it could actually be the spirits that are responsible, but Janeway says that if you scratch deep enough you can find a scientific basis for religious doctrines. This is meant to be dramatic irony, and would be if the script didn't fall flat on its ass. Then again, it's a Voyager script from the lady that gave us Innocence. If it didn't, well, that would be the real miracle.

Well, pretty soon they get the approval and Janeway's readied to go down. Apparently it's Tuvok's turn to look like a goddamn idiot this week, because he keeps trying to get Janeway to take a phaser with her. You'd think someone who spent time in a religious retreat like Tuvok would know that it's usually frowned upon to bring something that can blast a hole in the wall the size of a truck into sacred places. The only place I know of where it isn't is the Church of Yosemite Sam, who take turns running back and forth across the room with a stick of dynamite while the high priest tries to lift himself off the floor firing a pair of revolvers, and those have to be sanctified with the sacred moonshine first. So Janeway gets beamed down and finds a lady working on a light. The lady asks Janeway if she knows how to help her fix it, but Janeway says she has no idea, so they talk about the light. This is what I have to deal with... Christ, it's Innocence all over again. So help me, if even one beekeeper shows up, I'm going to snap the disk in half.

Well, it turns out Schneider here (damn, my references are really getting dated; if you're under twenty-five, replace with "Tyrol," the joke should still work - you may need to install a patch if this joke upgrade causes system instability) is actually her spiritual guide, advisor, and generally in charge of spouting the majority of the Wisdom Of The Ancients we need to hear in these episodes. It starts by having some ladies strip her and paint shit all over her body - I guess the audience is in for an ordeal too. After that, she sticks Janeway in a room with two old guys and an old lady. I'm guessing Ms. Klink got paid by the word with this script, because this is yet another long and pointless conversation. In fact, roughly one quarter of all the dialogue in this entire episode is going to occur in this room. This is really like a long uncomfortable visit to a retirement home. "My feet hurt, why do you never come and visit me?" Finally, Janeway knocks on the door and asks the guide if she can continue the ritual, and she is permitted to do so. "What you know from humid?" I imagine one shouts after them as they leave.

So the guide takes Janeway into another, presumably more sacred, cave and Janeway wonders what kind of challenges she'll face, prompting her guide to say that it's all meaningless, that's it's supposed to be about finding her connection to the spirits. Janeway insists she's not here for herself, but Kes, so she's given some challenges, like holding a rock and staring at it. Janeway jumps in with both feet and holds the hell out of that rock, and stares at it like the only Viking fan at Lambeau field. She also gets to do some painting, but laments that she was never an artist - when she was a child, while other children played, she stayed inside doing math problems. And she would watch them, out there laughing and frolicking, and remind herself that one day, they would all be prostrate before her, begging for her mercy, and finding none.

Well, the next step is where things get fun, Janeway puts her hand in a basket with some kind of animal in it and gets bit. She winds up collapsing and is stuck in some kind of tomb or something that's supposed to be ominous and all that. A few days pass, apparently... I'm guessing no one's going to want to be too near the entrance when that tomb opens, since I didn't see a little toilet in there. Up on Voyager, Chakotay, Tuvok, and the Doctor discuss things. Chakotay's worked up, but Doc insists he's monitoring it and everything seems fine, and Tuvok says the captain would want to continue the ritual. Maybe, but even if she doesn't, I'm sure the crew is enjoying having her be the one getting her ass kicked for once. Harry just keeps looking at her empty chair, then laughs maniacally until he falls down, then sticks another pin into the voodoo doll he made.

Janeway now has a hallucination of a beach, and makes an appeal to save Kes. She's told that her request is inconsequential, as she has what she needs to save her. So she's beamed up and the Doctor looks her over and devises a treatment. But... you can see that we've still got a lot of this review to go, and that's right. The cure based on the treatment doesn't work and Kes starts deteriorating until the Doctor stops the treatment altogether. He apologizes and says that it looks like everything she went through was meaningless (ah, the same word used before, see?). She's pretty pissed and goes back to speak to the guide, who tells her that all they did was fulfill her expectations, that she did this to herself. If she wants to, she can try again to look for the way to help Kes, so we start over. Janeway is shoved back in with the old people again and we have another conversation, a bit more substantive, but still drawn out. And this, by the way, is where the episode decides it wants to be a Bold Questioning Of All We Know. It's also the point where it's hard for me to type, because I'm so goddamn frustrated.

I'm going to do something I rarely do, and discuss religion. I have debated this with myself a great deal on whether or not I should discuss this, but I think it's necessary for you to see how this episode fails both coming and going. They're trying to be very clever here, but like usual with Voyager, they don't pull it off, and it stems from the lack of proper understanding of what it is they're commenting on. Please, bear with me, it'll all make sense in the end.

This episode is about religion and science, and that's two areas where I've spent a great deal of my life. I have studied theology as much as I have science, discussed prophecies as much as experimental results, written as many papers on points of doctrine as I have on points of biology. I'm a man who prays every day, yet will mockingly correct the scientific errors of Threshold and Dear Doctor... again, a religious man, making fun of them because they are making fundamental mistakes about evolution, that they clearly know less about it than he does. I am a man who unapologetically believes in God, and who also believes that God would not have given me a brain unless he wanted me to use it. When it comes to my wife's medical problems, I pray that she'll get better... and I speak to doctor's about what I can do to make it happen. Being religious doesn't mean I sit on my hands and wait for a miracle to fix my life, that's not logical, and as I said, I refuse to believe I was given a mind and forbidden to use it.

The episode makes the common mistake of bringing science and religion together and failing to keep them distinct. Science and religion are not the same, at all. Religion is about faith, that's the bedrock principle: I believe. Science is about facts, it says: I know. Believing and knowing are two very different things. Why is my wife sick? Science tells me, "We don't know for sure. The facts suggest it's related to a combination of a genetic condition and environmental factors, and we think the chemistry of the brain may be a bit off, but we're not sure. But we will figure it out some day, because the universe functions on a set of orderly rules, and as rational people we can understand how they work." Religion tells me, "We don't know for sure. Faith suggests it's to ultimately bring greater happiness to you and your family, even though it's hard to see in the moment. But we will know some day, because we believe that in all things our hardships will bring about a greater good." They don't tell me the same thing, but I would never expect them too; it's not religion's job to tell me the proper therapy or for science to tell me who to pray to.

This is where the episode falls apart: like many, it treats science as something believed in. Science is like looking through a dirty window; I don't believe in the things I see, I say "that's a tree" and "that's a house," but the window may get a little cleaner and I'll say "Oh, that was a telephone pole" and "Oh, that was a barn." It's seeking to find the truth. Religion isn't like that at all, not because it doesn't want truth, but because it starts with a truth that is not based on the provable. Religion doesn't seek truth because it already has it, while science is an endless search for truth. While those are two very different things, it's easy to see why they step on each other's toes sometimes.

Now, I don't say all this to try to get you to agree with my religious beliefs or scientific viewpoint, but to understand why I'm about to lambast what happens for the rest of the episode. The approach here is to try to take science and treat it like a religion, that it has failed Janeway, yet she still believes in it. Like a religious person, she has unquestioning faith in it. As a religious person, I'm telling you, that's not the case. Janeway doesn't believe in science, at least not in an applicable way to religion, and so this comparison actually succeeds in paradoxically annoying me from both a scientific and religious viewpoint. Science, like I said, is based on the idea that we live in a rational universe with rational rules and I as a rational person can thus understand them with enough study and examination and asking the right questions. If that, in fact, isn't the case, then science will change accordingly; it's not faith, it's a pursuit of truth. And faith, real belief, isn't something so petty as saying "Oh you can't prove that so you take it on faith," it's something that requires personal committment, which says that the truth you have is still the truth in spite of the pitfalls that come along. I can't prove that gravity isn't going to suddenly stop tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I believe in gravity, that I am having a religious experience. It's the way the universe works, and if it changes my view of it will change, that's all.

And then we get to the fun part:
Old dude: Give her another jolt of that, what do you call it, biogenic field.
Old woman: That would do it.
Janeway: It would do what, exactly.
Old Man 1: There you go again, always looking for a rational explanation.

Would I accept this? Hell no! Not because I don't have faith, but because what I have is faith in my God, not in three old farts in a cave. I have faith, but that doesn't mean I'll do whatever crazy shit you'll tell me to do if you say I need faith. Contrary to pretenses, this isn't about religion at all, it's about whether or not desperation will allow you to try something no matter how crazy, and it offends me that this is the view they seem to have on religion here... and I realize some of you may be surprised at that, thinking this was all pro-religion stuff. It's not, any more than Tattoo was a celebration of American Indians. It's actually more of the same: New Age crap packaged for common consumption. Believe, doesn't matter in what, just believe in something man and be sure to pass the joint. That's the religious equivalent of trying to have sex while wearing a hazmat suit.

Well, Janeway decides she'll try it since she has no other choice, confusing "leap of faith" with "eh, she's f*cked anyway." Chakotay and Neelix try to talk her out of it, saying that after all she's been through she might have impaired her judgment. Really, what makes you say that? It's not as if she's refusing to even think before she does this, right? I mean, if that was the qualification, you should have relieved her back in Caretaker. Still, Janeway does it anyway, and there's a big flash thingie and low and behold, Kes is all right. We come back and the Doc explains how the iridium ions at the shrine allowed Janeway's altered metabolism to protect herself and save Kes, which they would have known if allowed to take the scan in the first place. Janeway reluctantly compliments the Doctor on his scientific explanation for what happened. Oh brother. So Janeway's not happy that it wasn't a miracle? Get used to it, lady.

Rating: 3

Stupid Neelix Moment: Wallowing in self-pity, as usual.

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