OVEG: The Swarm

Description: Well, we're starting to get the first glimpses of the Paris-Torres relationship that will start next season. Thanks to the shuttle's helmsman's log (really... these people will log just about everything) we learn they're out here checking on some odd sensor readings. Torres is anxious to get back. I figured it was because, you know, it's rather pointless for the chief engineer to come out here so they can look at sensor readings, especially since it's obvious she didn't want to be out here, but Tom has another idea. He says it's because she wants to make time for Ensign Bristow, but Torres insists she cares nothing for him. There's admittedly a good bit of hard-to-get banter to it, which is part of why I think it'll work well in the seasons to come.

Unfortunately it can't last, as the B plot of this episode begins with the usual beeping to warn you to abandon right now. "We must have crossed into a tachyon field!" Tom says, and you know what that means, right? Yup, they're now their own grandparents. Aliens quickly come aboard and blast the two of them for good measure. You know, aliens boarding the shuttle and shooting the crew happens so often I'm tempted to give it it's own special category.

We come back from the teaser to the Doctor singing opera with some holo-lady. O, Soave Fanciulla is nice enough, but personally it's all the same to me unless it's Barber of Seville, and that's probably because I grew up on Bugs Bunny cartoons.

How about a nice close shave
Teach those whiskers to behave
Lots of lather, lots of soap
Please hold still, don't be a dope
Now we're ready for the scraping
There's no use to try escaping
Yell and scream and rant and rave
It's no use, you need a shaaaave!

Yeah, I like Bugs better. Anyway, after an argument with the holo-lady, the Doctor forgets the lyrics, and after she rants some more he deletes her. Good riddance. He's also quickly summoned back to Sickbay to deal with the attack on Paris and Torres. Torres is alright, but Tom isn't doing so hot, and neither is the Doc. He moves an instrument and forgets where he put it, and he forgets that he told Torres to stay when he asks why she's still there. Poor dumb Har-, Doctor.

Meanwhile, Tuvok has picked up a single repeating message, but it's just gibberish. "I'd guess it's a language so unlike ours that the universal translator can't interpret it," Janeway declares, and then follows it up with: "Harry, remodulate the translator, see if we can decipher those sounds." Ah, so the translator can't translate it, but maybe if we remodulate it, it'll work. I can't imagine anything even remotely plausible for that - saying you can remodulate it makes as much sense as telling Harry to pick it up and shake it like an Etch-a-Sketch. Given that Harry sits there in silence, I think he knows it for what it really is: goofy instructions so that he can fail once again. Poor dumb Har-, yes, Harry. There's a reason that's so familiar.

Neelix fills in some info about the aliens, or rather, the lack of info. No one knows who they are, just that they're very territorial; most who encounter them die. The borders of their space indicate it would take fifteen months to go around their space, so Janeway decides they'll find an undefended way to cut across. Tuvok points out that Starfleet regulations expressly forbid that, but she says she doesn't care, that Starfleet is a long way away. Wow, season three should really be titled "Janeway tells Starfleet to screw themselves," as she seems to keep doing this, acting practical instead of blindly following regulations. Don't misunderstand, it's always nice to see Janeway using common sense, I'm just not expecting to see it after her whole speech about why they need to stick with regulations back in Alliances. Maybe being trapped on a world where they had to eat bugs and watch Chakotay act like a video game character woke her up.

Anyway, the Doctor interrupts, saying Tom's suffered some more serious damage than they first suspected, and he'll need to perform a complicated procedure to save him. He starts singing some more of the opera as he gets ready for surgery (don't ask), but when the moment comes he forgets how to perfom the procedure. Oopsie! Well, at least he's not forgetting the lyrics any more. Kes has to talk him through the surgery, and they manage not to kill Tom. Torres and Janeway come down to check things out - turns out stuffs breaking down, and the only thing they can think to do is re-initialize him, but that'll wipe away all his experiences over the past two years - poor Harry probably wishes he could wipe it all away. What I really like about this scene, though, is that the Doctor doesn't even need to think about it, that while he'd rather not lose those years he can't risk the lives of the crew. It's Kes that has to intervene and say they can't just do that without trying to find an answer without resetting him. I like this because I think it reflects an interesting part of the Doctor, that he remains more concerned for those under his care than his own well-being.

Meanwhile, the anti-bad guy plan is underway. Turns out that while it would take fifteen months to fly around their space, there's a spot where it'll only take four days to pass through. Erm, okay, that's technically possible but sure seems like an odd shape for their space to be. It makes the coast of Norway look like a straight line. Anyway, that plan's a go-ahead, along with a special way of bending the tachyons so they don't wind up turning into howler monkeys or something.

Meanwhile, Torres is working on the Doctor, and he's not happy with her bedside manner, but it's about to get worse. They go to the holodeck, and a holographic version of Jupiter Station awaits complete with a holographic Louis Zimmerman. Zimmerman, despite being a hologram himself, treats the Doctor like a non-person and doesn't care about how he's doing beyond the fact that he's malfunctioning. Zimmerman also just repeats what they already know, that the Doctor's memory is fragmenting after running so long, so they're just going to have to suck it up and restart him.

Unfortunately the limp little B-plot starts in again and Torres is called away to deal with the tachyon tricks. They fly in and pick up thousands of ships all massed together... why it's -dare I say it- a swarm, maybe even the swarm! So we've had The Chute about a chute, Flashback about a flashback, Sacred Ground about some sacred ground, and now The Swarm about a swarm. You might be excited to know that we'll soon be seeing Warlord about a warlord. Season 3 seems to be all about very direct titles. Still, the swarm leaves them alone for the moment, but then something starts screwing up their speed, so you can bet it's just the calm before the storm.

Down in the holodeck, Zimmerman identifies the problem as the Doctor's personality growing too massive (insert joke here). He starts rattling some of the wasted time off, and then, amusingly, sees relationships with women. "Do they... find you attractive?" But then it's right back to the diatribe.

Zimmerman: You've filled your memory with nonsense.
Doctor: It was only during my off hours.
Zimmerman: You're supposed to be off during your off hours!

Kes comes in at this point and argues with the Zimmerman hologram that the Doctor wants to be more than just what he was programmed to be, and that makes him a better person. In response to Kes' assertion that he's grown to be one of her closest friends, Zimmerman asks the Doctor about Kes, and he doesn't recognize her. It's a well-played scene, as all the A-plot elements are. It's just a shame they're stuck in with this silly B-plot.

And speak of the devil, we're back to the B-plot. Ugh, and speak of the devil, check out this little vision of hell.

Janeway: When I was in high school I snuck out of the house a couple of times late at night. Had to tiptoe past my parents bedroom. That's kind of how I feel right now.
Paris: You sneaked out of your house? Where were you going?
Janeway: I'll have to leave that to your imagination, Lieutenant.

God damn my imagination.

So they find a seriously damaged ship and they beam the lone survivor on board. It's at this point that the A and B plots really meet, however so briefly, as the normal Sickbay shennanigans that are required have to be taken up by Kes as the Doctor is too far gone to be useful. Picardo skillfully plays the role with expected dementia, hitting the proper balance for the lines to be amusing, yet dark. In him, we see someone slowly slipping away. They awaken the survivor, and he tells the expected story of the swarm, um, swarming them. He tells a little about what happened, then dies. This quickly slips right back to our A-plot (the good one), and the Doctor is getting worse as Kes and Janeway discuss his situation. The Doctor starts playing with delicate instruments, so Kes gives him one he can use and he decides to use it on the dead guy. Funny thing is, in most episodes that would be part of a Very Clever Plan to raise the dead.

So Janeway returns to the bridge and tells them to be on their way, but unfortunately it turns out there's a swarm ship attached to the freighter and it spots them. Well, now they're in trouble, and so Janeway figures this is a good time to put the blame on Harry by asking how he's coming finding a way to communicate with the aliens. All he's able to get is "too late, should have listened," and that's probably just Harry saying what he's thinking. The ship tags them so the swarm will be able to find them, then takes off, so Voyager tries to get the hell out of there with Torres needing to do some tricky thing while at warp that we could care less about. Everyone gets to battlestations, and all the while Kes is dealing with the Doctor, who's slipping more and more into dementia. Kes goes down and talks to the Zimmerman hologram some more and comes up with the idea of grafting his matrix onto the Doctor to try and save him. And then it's back to the B-plot and things are bad, as Harry informs us - the swarm has lowered Voyager's shields. "Each one of those little ships is emitting an interferometric pulse. They're modulating in opposition to our shield frequencies, completely cancelling them out."

Interferometric? Interferometric?!! Look, I have blasted Trek for its technobabble before, but this really takes the cake! You're not even trying any more!!! Interferometric... All this does is just makes the technobabble stuff even more obvious, just pulling back the curtain so we see how they always handle things.

Harry: Captain, they've set up an anti-what-we're-doing field!
Janeway: See if you can remodulate the shields to repel it with a boing-atron burst.
Harry: No good. I also tried having the deflector release a multiphased-knock-it-off pulse, but it didn't work.
Paris: Captain, things are critical. I'm reading 7.23 isocochranes on the we're-f*cked scale; I'm not sure how long we can keep this up.
Janeway: Bridge to Engineering, I need all power transfered to the deus ex machina generators right now!
Torres: But captain, I have Oh Shit! lights coming on all over the place!
Janeway: If we don't do it now, we risk total quantum-sodomization, and that's a risk I'm not willing to take!

This isn't a science fiction show any more, it's kids arguing on a playground. "I've got Hal!" "Well I've got my Anti-Hal!" "You didn't say with no takebacks!" "I did it with a super-secret no takebacks!"

Actually, I kind of like "quantum-sodomization" as a same-vein take on "interferometric," so I think I'll start using it more from now on. I think the meaning is obvious: you've just been f*cked up the ass by technobabble. And yes, Voyager's about to get quantum-sodomized big time: they fire phasers at the swarm, and the interferometric field reflects it right back at them, so that they can't hurt the swarm. Janeway orders Harry to study the interferometric pulses and find a way to overcome them. Watching the scene really sucks any kind of drama out of the room - if you can recall the tension of Best Of Both Worlds when Riker was preparing for a colission course, then that's at the top of a list you'll find this scene at the bottom of. Possibly imminent destruction is greeted practically with a yawn as Janeway prepares to retaliate. "Harry, do a number three: analyze, whip up a solution for some technology you didn't know existed as recently as lunch, and beat them. I'll be in my ready room, picking out swatches for those new throw pillows."

The swarm settles all around Voyager and starts sapping their energy, but they've already begun work on technobabbling their way back out again. They decide to use the shields (you need a flow-chart to figure out what's happening with the shields this episode) to interfere with the interferometrics and one shot has the swarm scurrying off. This scene must be seen to be believed.

Well, with that crap out of the way we can get back to the Doctor's graft, and in contrast to what you might expect, he's not perfectly fine. He doesn't recognize Kes or Torres, but he does recall medicine, and as he does it he starts singing the opera, so some of his memories at least are still there. Interesting... a character is winding up different at the end of the episode. Will it actually stick? Eh, I doubt it.

Rating: 5

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