OVEG: Remember

Description: Welcome to another Torres episode. If you don't remember, there are three types of Torres episodes, and because this is not an episode about her anger issues, nor is it about her having to fix something (thank God), it means Torres needs to screw somebody, and that somebody is a man in her dreams, but I'll get to that in a minute.

The episode starts with the captain's log telling us about the Enarans; turns out they're hitching a lift on Voyager from one of their colonies back to their homeworld. In return, they'll get energy conservation technology - maybe it's an off switch for the holodeck. We meet a couple of them down in Engineering, an older woman named Mirell and a younger one named Jessen. Harry is also down there since they can't afford Lt. Carey to guest star. It's implied that Harry might have a thing for Jessen, but I think we all know it's just because he knows they can have no possible future together. Harry's eyes may roam occassionally, but we all know his heart belongs to... Libby, because dammit, there's nothing gay about this!

Well it's getting late, so Harry and Jessen head off for dinner while Torres heads straight to bed to get on with the whole theme of this episode. In the dream she's named Korenna and a guy named Dathan slips into through the window to rock her world. He's an Enaran, and the Enarans are telepaths... so you can see why Torres wouldn't think there'd be a connection between these incredibly vivid dreams and their presence. Her first thought shouldn't have been that she's just having wonderful dreams, it should've been that someone was intruding and using her, but Torres is about as sharp as a rolling pin, so she just grins and goes with it. After all, if she didn't start sweating up the sheets, this would turn into a fix-something episode, and that's the last thing we need.

So it turns out Torres' little romp ran so long she wound up sleeping through her alarm and was late for her shift, a fact Chakotay brings up when he awakens her. She happily confides in him about her dreams, as if it were an obvious thing to share among friends. This story is by Brannon Braga, who gave us a similar conversation in the wretched Sub Rosa, but at least in that case it was between two women, and one of whom who was also speaking as a counsellor; Torres is talking to a male friend whom she didn't even include in her engineering plan and whose counselling skills would probably be relating a legend about two badgers going at it.

Meanwhile, we have Neelix being Neelix, which is a reason to turn back already. He's changed the mess hall into a place to make the Enarans feel at home, including removing the tables and chairs and decorating the place like one of those shops you find by accident where the owner looks like they're annoyed you noticed their open. Everyone's relaxing on cushions and eating, which Neelix feels is much more practical than tables and chairs. I'm sure anyone who's ever been at a party where they've had to try to hold a plate, a drink, and use silverware without setting anything down will tell you that "practical" isn't a word that applies. Comfortable, sure, but unless you're not worried about someone accidentally kicking over your drink a table would be kind of useful.

So Janeway's watching Jor Brel, one of the Enarans, play this instrument, and laments that she always wished she'd learned to play an instrument. He offers to teach her, and does so by downloading lessons directly into her brain. There's a brief brouhaha over it, but it works out because she manages to stop playing like shit. By the way, I wonder why, if Janeway can pick all this up by a mental dump, why he hadn't just gotten a mental dump in the first place to learn instead of spending hours and hours practicing. You'd think that with such an ability everyone in their society would be experts on damn near everything. Maybe they could apply some of that genius towards those crochet hats.

While this is all going on Torres has turned in early, and is dreaming that she's being lectured by her father, Senator Kelly. Kind of says a lot about Torres' sexual thoughts, eh? "Let's get in the mood. Put on my dad's sweater and tell me how I need to get out and find a real job, then I'll mount you like a stallion!" He's concerned about her lover Dathan and the other dirty mutants, I mean, the Regressives, yet another group of space Luddites. That's two Lisa Klink scripts now where we have a group of misunderstood Luddites, though at least there are no beekeepers involved this time. He tells her not to encourage him to talk to her, then leaves, and Dathan sneaks in for some more forbidden fruit. Oh, and you'd think that, if you lounge on cushions while you eat so that it's so easy to nap afterwards, that they would use those same cushions to sleep rather than having an entirely separate bed? I can see why you wouldn't, but if you're concerns are about being way more practical than having a table, not having a redundant bed seems a likely move. Anyway, Dathan suddenly for no good reason turns burned and all that, so that manages to ruin the moment, even for daddy-girl Torres.

The next day she's talking with Chakotay about the upgrades, and she finally confesses that even though she's been having fun, things are getting to be so obvious that even she can't deny it any more: someone's messing with her head. She and Chakotay decide that something should be done about this, that she'll talk to the Enarans in Engineering while Chakotay discusses the matter with the captain. However, before she can get there she starts dreaming in the middle of the hallway. Luckily this isn't the usual dreams or she'd likely make quite a scene, lying passed out in the hall moaning to herself. Someone would think she'd gotten into the tequilla again. Instead of the usual stuff it's dream father giving a speech about how they're going to be the future leaders of their people, helping them move towards expansion and colonization, and then gives Torres an award. Dathan shows up and the two have a small talk away from the others. One thing I will give this episode, it is nice to see Roxanne Dawson be able to do something besides playing Torres, to see her with a bit more range to her character instead of the usual Torres stuff. Anyway, this is still a Torres episode, so it's time to get back to the main theme, so they start planning about the next time they'll do some expansion and colonization of their own.

So Torres finally comes out of it, smokes a cigarette, and asks what happened. Her brain shows signs that memories were being implanted, and Janeway's pretty pissed - nobody messes with her crew's head but her! The Doctor explains that the way it works is that the memories have been implanted, but she doesn't become aware of them until she becomes unconscious. It's also causing brain damage, but the Doctor has fixed it; brain damage? Pshaw! Show me something hard, like baldness, then we'll talk. Doc also pulls out another little round blinking thing to put on Torres' neck to stop the memories from entering her dreams, as a way to prevent the damage. So apparently it's not the planting of the memories that's the problem, it's recalling them? Okay, I bought this in Flashback, contrived though it was, because at least it had a germ of plausibility to it, that a Vulcan's mind could become damaged from emotionally overwhelming memories, but Torres is half human, half Klingon, and all emotion. The only crew member that could possibly suffer brain trauma from experiencing memories of hot heterosexual sex is Harry. Torres isn't happy about losing the chance to dream, but the Doctor points out that curiousity versus brain damage should be an obvious choice, even to her.

So Janeway and Torres go speak with Jor Brel, and he's insistent that they couldn't be doing it. When they fill in the details, he says what might be happening is that her mind is picking up bits and pieces of each of their memories and that when she dreams her subconscious is trying to make sense of it all. Tuvok admits it's a plausible explanation, but Torres isn't so sure. Janeway points out the obvious: that the Enarans have so far been open and honest, shown no sign of hostility or threat, and they'll soon be leaving anyway... thus she plans to investigate immediately! I'll admit, that's the prudent course, and it's nice to see Janeway actually endorsing the prudent course, but as always it's framed in a silly way, as if logic is a last resort after shaking up chicken bones.

What follows is more of the dream/memory/halucination stuff, of Torres talking to her father. It again shows that Dawson can do more besides rant and spew technobabble, especially after her father reveals their plan for the Regressive, which is resettlement. He says that their way of life is so backwards, they refuse to practice hygiene, and risk spreading a plague; honestly, he sounds a lot like Adrienne Monk. Torres then says, "Then it's dangerous to have them living here," but in a way that it's hard to tell whether it's a question or a statement, convincing herself of an uneasy truth or wondering at the legitimacy of the remark. So we see people being rounded up to be sent away, and one of them is supposed to be Dathan, but he's gone, and Torres is unhappy about her father putting his name on the list. Of course, since all the Regressives are going, his name was going to be on there anyway, so I don't see what the surprise is, at least there. The real surprise is the regressive that goes nuts and attacks Torres - that's a bit of irony for you, being on the receiving end of someone going apeshit for once.

So Torres wakes up and realizes it's been Mirrel who's been doing this the whole time, who chose Torres because she won't deny the truth. This plan seems a bit silly - if no one is going to believe the memories, what good is giving them to a non-telepath supposed to do? So she can make a baseless accusation? "I'll give the proof to the person I just met who can't spread it to others!" This doesn't make any sense to me: Either the memories have to be true, or they can be fabricated. If the former is the case, then no one can deny them, so giving them to Torres is pointless. If the latter is true, then Torres has to consider that she is being lied to, and even if she's convinced others can just think she's been duped. I mean, how many times have we in real life heard about someone who says they met aliens? This is even more relevant when we go back to the dream in the next scene, and Dathan says that they believe there is no resettlement, that everyone's just being vaporized. He tries to share his memories with her, but she refuses. So is it because she's afraid his thoughts will be lies, or is it because she's afraid it'll be the truth. Unlike the ambiguity of Torres' remark earlier, this is more significant, as it ties in with the entire purpose of Mirrel's actions.

Dathan hides again as her father shows up, and he tells her that the Regressives are insidious beings who use lies to try to manipulate others to hold them back and stop progress, kind of like talk radio. Torres buys into it and gives up Dathan, and he's executed in the public square before a chanting crowd. We then see Torres telling the story of the Regressives to some children, that they all moved away and then died because of disease caused by being stupid. That's sort of what I told my kids when the goldfish died.

Well, after all that's over, it's obvious the screw part of the plot is done, so pissed off takes over. In the middle of one of Jor Brel's toasts Torres storms in and calls them all murderers. There's a confrontation over what she'd seen, and she accuses them not only of the exterminaton of the Regressives, but also of murdering Mirrel. There is, of course, no evidence to support either, and frankly none that Mirrel died of anything other than natural causes. No one seems interested in her accusations, so she finally meets with Janeway in her ready room. Again, all searches for any evidence have come up empty, and the Enarans are leaving. Because of the Prime Directive, Voyager can't get involved in the matter of exposing the truth (if it is the truth - all we actually did witness was the execution of one man) or of bringing the Enarans to justice. However, Janeway decides to bend the rules, allowing Torres to try to convince the Enarans still down in Engineering. Yes, that's right: Janeway will bend the rules when someone has committed genocide, but won't bend the rules to prevent genocide. The only thing I can figure is that she believes people should get their proper credit.

So Torres heads down to talk to Jessen, and she relieves another engineer, though the way he was acting I'm not too sure that's what he wanted. As she comes in he's standing there and just staring at her in silence with a grin on his face (I'd take a picture but we don't have the both in the same frame); I love extras. Anyway, she talks to Jessen, who finally agrees to take the memories from Torres and we start to see the whole thing starting again (NO!), but mercifully the end credits roll. And since that means the episode is over, I suppose Torres' brain damage just went away.

Rating: 4

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