OVEG: Flashback

Description: We begin with Neelix experimenting on Tuvok with his new fruit juice mixture, which attempts to be played for comedy and, as usual, fails. He then begins preparing Tuvok's breakfast -eggs- and proceeds to give Tuvok the full history of the food despite Tuvok's request that he stop. Apparently it's a Talaxian tradition, and I think just one more reason the attrocities against his world were committed. Mercifully, however, his unending tale of garnishes and whatnot is interrupted by the flames for his oven overloading, thus destroying the meal. The explanation for this, believe it or not, is that there was a power surge caused by a thermal surge from adjustments in the plasma conduits. For those of you not familiar with the obvious, fire is created by burning fuel; the only way this explanation could possibly actually work is if this isn't actually fire, that the device is somehow able to superheat the air in just the right way to imitate flame without being so hot that it'd burn through your arm like an acetylene torch through ice cream. And remember, this isn't standard equipment, because there isn't a galley on board; this is just what Neelix whipped up on his own, a man who, as we've established, can't start a fire on his own, yet was able to put this together. In fact, the more you think about the sight of those flames leaping up, the more you wonder why they cook things using huge open flames, especially on a starship where open flames are generally not a good idea. Anyway, needless to say, Neelix isn't making eggs this morning.

Speaking of gaseous anomalies, we see Voyager has found one, containing sirillium, "a highly combustible and versatile energy source." Combustible eh... Brannon, you're doing this to me on purpose, aren't you. Combustion (again, that's burning stuff) is nothing compared to someone with a matter-anti-matter reactor. Even if this thing was, say, ten times better than liquid hydrogen as a fuel source, it still falls behind a warp reactor by, oh, a mere seven orders of magnitude. To put it another way, if you're trying to pay off your half million dollar mortgage, how excited are you if you just found a penny? Very excited, apparently, if you're the Voyager crew. Oh, and guess what, Neelix's first thought is that he can stick it in his oven to speed up cooking time... And with that, Benjamin Sisko warps himself across the galaxy and begins pistol-whipping Neelix for actually calling himself a chef when he thinks more energy = faster cooking time. Torres instead says it should be used for the nacelles, while Tuvok wants it for the deflector shields. Janeway observes that there's no shortage of good ideas, and with Neelix there, there's obviously no shortage of bad ones either.

Well, as they start checking out the nebula, Tuvok starts having an episode and finally is sent off to Sickbay. On the way, he has a (as the episode title made obvious) a flashback: he sees himself as a boy holding a girl's hand on the side of a cliff and loses grip, causing her to plummet to her death. In Sickbay, Tuvok insists that he has no memory of either the girl or the situation, but it obviously overwhelmed him when he recalled it. The Doctor speculates: "Hallucination, telepathic communication from another race, repressed memory, momentary contact with a parallel reality," I like how the obvious (hallucinaton) is put right alongside the one about the parallel reality - how about throwing voodoo dolls and demons in with the mix too?

For the moment Tuvok's free to go, but he has to wear a neck thingie because there's no way you come into Sickbay with an unexplained problem and leave without a neck thingie. Tuvok goes back to his quarters to meditate by playing with Vulcan lincoln logs, though the way it's done is less like meditation and more like an exorcism ("THE POWER OF SPOCK COMPELS YOU! THE POWER OF SPOCK COMPELS YOU!"). Kes comes in and they banter a little to help pad the scene out, then it's back to the lincoln logs. The next morning he talks to Chakotay, confessing he doesn't know why it happened, so Chakotay offers a suggestion: don't think about it, then maybe the answer will come. This explains why Chakotay has so little to say about all of Janeway's crazy plans.

With this, they figure they'll check in with Harry, to see if maybe technobabble can solve this problem. However, while there's oodles of it, it can offer no answers at this time. Tuvok then suggests that they scan the nebula for cloaked ships, with them being so close to Klingon space. Well, they figure that's loony enough to bring Tuvok up to Sickbay, and sure enough he's starting to suffer brain damage. Turns out he's got a repressed memory trying to surface, except in Vulcans that kind of thing can cause brain damage until the patient lobotomizes himself, kind of like what happens when you've been watching Will & Grace. The only way to treat it is by a mindmeld with a family member to help bring the memory to the surface safely. Tuvok wants Janeway to do it, saying that she's the one on board he trusts the most. This shows just how far the brain damage has spread. Trust Janeway? I wouldn't trust her with my hat, let alone my brain!

Well, Janeway obviously accepts, and he does a mindmeld with her, so that she can help him make sense of the experience and fully accept it. I suppose in a way that does make sense; if you're looking for someone to help you shrug off the fact you let a girl plunge to her death, I'm sure that with Suder gone there's no one better qualified. "Accident?! Pshaw, she's lucky you didn't just push her!" So he tries to take them back, but instead of the cliff they wind up on the bridge of the Excelsior, Sulu's ship, back when Tuvok was a member of his crew. The place is being blown apart and Janeway asks why they were brought here, but Tuvok has no idea. Since they're fighting the Klingons, Janeway wonders if there's a connection, since Klingons were on his mind earlier. He says this all started three days earlier, so we leap back and see three days earlier, when Tuvok's preparing tea for Sulu. Lieutenant Rand (formerly Yeoman Rand from back in TOS) tells them that they're going to be studying a gaseous anomaly, which Janeway says must explain the connection, though not why it has to do with that time on the cliff. She's also mock hurt that Tuvok never brought her tea, but then, she probably knows there's no time in his schedule; it's not easy scrounging up quicklime and digging shallow graves on short notice.

We get to see Sulu without the fight going on, and it is good nostalgia to see George Takei in action again (it is a coincidence that this episode review happens to come up the day after he made news with his wedding plans). This is all based on Star Trek VI, an excellent film that you should definitely see, especially if you plan to watch this episode... actually, see it even if you're not planning to. We have the explosion of Praxis, and it's stock footage away as the wave hits and Sulu's tea cup breaks (every once in a while, Braga catches a detail... if only he could do it all the time). Tuvok explains what happens, about how two days later, Kirk and McCoy would be accused of murdering the Klingon chancellor. Tuvok reveals that Sulu's loyalty to them would compel him to order them to fly to the Klingon homeworld to rescue them, but Tuvok objects at this violation of Starfleet orders. Sulu agrees Tuvok is technically correct, but that doesn't make any difference. Takei's presence sells it, easily earning best moment for the episode. He explains that when you serve under someone, you have to be ready to ignore the regulations. Good advice, given Tuvok's current role.

So they soon approach the nebula and Tuvok flashes back to the girl on the cliff again. Janeway comes out to see the usual Sickbay Drama going on, and Doc says that Tuvok's going to need to be sedated the next few hours before he can try again. This gives a chance for Harry to make an appearance, but as you know it's Harry's job to spit technobabble while next to a diagram, behind his station, or while holding a PADD, so that's what he does here. Aside of having some sirillium, they have nothing in common beyond their shape, but he speculates that maybe just the sight of it did it... although given the fact that it's, you know, a cloud should mean that Tuvok should have had this happen years ago, or possibly when he saw a rabbit.

So Harry asks what Sulu's log might say, but it seems Sulu falsified the log entry for that day. Harry's a bit shocked, but Janeway says it was a different time, and while she gets a bit nostalgic, she says the lot of them would likely be thrown out of Starfleet today, in case you hadn't seen enough signs that things have gone downhill since TOS. Oh, for anyone who feels they personally are the last bastion of Trek, Janeway points out that the ships of Captain Sulu's era are only half as fast as their own, but then, I'm sure that can be rationalized away if you're the last bastion of Trek.

Well, Tuvok finally wakes up and he says that their rescue effort had failed because of a Klingon ambush. He doesn't see how any of this relates to the girl, so they try to go there again through the power of mindmeld, but are back on the damaged bridge of the Excelsior. So Tuvok goes back to when they first approached the nebula to go through events step by step. This leads to him trying to sleep, but yacking with Valtane, who says Tuvok needs to lighten up. Tuvok, though, is unhappy with that thought and lays into him about the problems with the egocentrism of humans, expecting everyone to be like them. Hard to believe this is the same Brannon Braga who turns Vulcans into space jerks five years later. Anyway, Tuvok laments that he never wanted to join Starfleet, and that he was going to resign soon. That's why after eighty years he's still only a lieutenant, a feat that otherwise would have trumped the record for longest period of time as an ensign, currently held by Harry (and if you think I'm just picking on Harry, remember that Harry was beaten to the rank of lieutenant by Nog, who at the same time that Harry was crawling through Jeffries Tubes with Janeway, saying how great he was, Nog was working at a waiter in his uncle's bar. How's that thought, that after he finally returns from his mission Harry'll have to refer to the kid who washed out his glass as "Sir.").

Anyway, the red alert claxons sound, and Kang has found Excelsior. He and Sulu banter a bit, then Kang starts to escort him out. Sulu isn't giving up so easily, but he's unfortunately stuck in a Voyager script, which means the answer has to be technobabble. I particularly like the plan to ignite the serillium by causing a "thermochemical reaction," though it's a toss-up between that and the fact that one of the primary ingredients in the nebula is oxygen. That's silly in so many ways that I'll just leave it. Sulu then follows it up by saying it would be "like tossing a match into a pool of gasoline." Oh, so it would do almost nothing? So much for that plan... However, since this is television, it can do whatever is needed, and Sulu disables Kang's ship. However, there's more Klingon ships flying out of the script, and we get exploding consoles, one of which takes out Valtane.

And then girl on a cliff is back, to remind us what the plot is really supposed to be about. Yes, forget about the era of intrigue where the Excelsior faces down three Klingon warships, please show me more of Kes and the Doctor exchanging technobabble. Turns out the meld is all messed up, and now Sulu sees Janeway as actually being there. Instead of a chance to see something akin to Kirk and Sisko, Spock and Picard, Scotty and Geordi, or Kirk and Picard, we get Sulu demanding she be thrown in the brig and Janeway essentially ignoring him. Way to show that camraderie across the ages, Brannon. Then again, I suppose there's something satisfying about Sulu taking one look at her and wanting to lock her up. Anyway, Janeway also says they need to find a way for her to be less conspicuous, so as not to disrupt the memory of the events. To do this, they travel back to earlier in the day, knock out Rand, and steal her uniform for Janeway. First, if Tuvok can whip them around at will, why can't he just whip up a uniform? Second, this is more of the typical hack stuff you expect from Brannon Braga, like they parodied in Austin Powers. Janeway and Rand are nothing alike in build, and I'm not even including the obvious fact that Rand couldn't take the helm because every time she leaned forward she accidentally fired off the torpedoes. Seven of Nine would have trouble filling out her uniform.

Meanwhile, the Doctor has been trying to technobabble the meld apart, a point so serious we have to advance from a neck thingie to a forehead thingie. In the process of trying to stop the meld, the Doctor discovers a brain virus pretending to be a memory engram. A virus that just sits there, jumping from mind to mind, in absolutely no way like viruses work at all, even a little bit. It's amazing how many ways we can screw up this episode, really. Honestly, if not for the fact that the old Excelsior crew adds so much presence, this episode would be a disaster. The story really works only in spite of itself.

So as they see the memory again we see the "virus" jump to Janeway's mind, and now she's the one on the cliff (I love how even in her memory, she's called "Katheryn" by the desperate girl... it says so much that even as a child she not be called by a nickname). We also see it was in Valtane's, and so on and so on. Just to make sure we get it, the Doc also explains it afterwards, that it leapt from person to person at the moment of death, but now they've killed it thanks to Technobabble Radiation and the Almighty Forehead Thingie! Janeway and Tuvok reminisce about the time of the Excelsior briefly, but only briefly because the credits role up, and no time is left after all the nonsense is over. Still, you can understand watching this why fans were hopeful that we'd get an Excelsior series after Voyager ended. Nope! We got Enterprise... though given how Berman and Braga handled it, maybe it was a blessing they didn't. Sulu with more technobabble might have just ruined him.

Rating: 7

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