VOY: “Remember” and “Sacred Ground”

Date: October 13, 2020

Season 3, Episodes 6 and 7

Musical Accompaniment: MOAR iTUNES!

Interstellar News: Happy 13th Day of Halloween! Internet went out this afternoon so I went into the office like a real person instead of working from home. Thankfully my building is closed to the public, I have my own office, and almost no one was there.

“Remember” in TL;DR: Voyager has made friends with the Enarans who have telepathic abilities. Kim has a crush, Torres is having super vivid dreams, and Neelix is excited to put on an Enaran night in the mess hall. The dreams Torres has are memories of a woman named Korenna and it’s a story of the Enarans of the past where they had a civil war and Korenna was Juliet to a Romeo. Torres figures out it’s one of the older women along for the ride, she’s passing on all of her memories because she knows Torres won’t let things slide. Unfortunately, the others found out and Korenna is killed. The Enarans leave, refusing to admit that anything happened, but Torres passes along the memories to one of the younger Enarans so they do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

Favorite Quote:

Jessen: Maybe Harry could give us a hand?

Torres: Well, I’m sure he would if you asked him. Harry, you got a minute?

Kim: Sure.

Jessen: Could you help us check the modified power relays? There’s a minor flow problem.

Kim: I’d be happy to help

Kim is always happy to help 🙂

“I wonder how long it’s been since I did anything that surprised you?”: At first I really liked Brel, he was all about consent and ethics and seemed a stand up guy. Then he went and murdered one of his people and that’s just not that cool. I also loved that Torres was super into her dreams but didn’t stop because the sexy stuff turned into political intrigue, she genuinely wanted to see how the story ended. Korenna’s memories are very compelling. You see her as a young woman who is in love with a boy from the “wrong side of town”, her father wants only the best for her but is also sending everyone who wants to live a certain way off world (or maybe even killing them), and eventually she buys her father’s bullshit and turns over her lover to the authorities. She later educates children that the “other people were bad and so they all died” which is totally sugarcoating genocide. The story kind of falls apart for me, though, when Torres busts into the farewell party and just starts shouting as Torres is wont to do. I’m not sure how many others on the ship knew about the dream, given her warning to Chakotay and also doctor-patient confidentiality, so it may have come out of left field for a lot of people at the party. The very end, though, is good because she offers to share the memories with one of the Enarans, who should have had it in the first place. I see a lot of those same topics play out in today’s political arena and it saddens me that we can’t live peacefully with one another all these years later. 5 deep fried vegetable dumplings for this one.

“Sacred Ground” in TL;DR: The Nechani have invited the crew to take shore leave and tour their temple when Kes gets severely injured. There is a clear separation of Church and State here and the monks refuse to talk to Janeway, so Kes is going to die unless they can figure something out. Neelix finds information on a ritual, the monks are pleased and surprised and allow Janeway to complete it. She meets her guide, who is not what she expected, and then three elderly people who ask her to wait. She instead asks to complete the ritual. She holds a rock, paints a wall, climbs a rockier wall, drinks some tea, and gets bitten by a snake to travel to the spirit world. The Spirits say she already have everything she needs to heal Kes, but the EMH can’t get anything to work. She goes back and the three elderly folks tell her what to do, she did all the other stuff because it’s what she expected a ritual to be like… now they are asking her to have faith. She does what they ask, after objection from Chakotay and Neelix, and Kes wakes up. The EMH is able to retroactively explain why Janeway’s decision worked but she’s a bit disillusioned.

Favorite Quote:

Janeway: When other children were outside playing games I was doing mathematics problems.

Guide: Mathematics. I can see why you enjoyed it. Solve a problem, get an answer. The answer’s either right or wrong. It’s very absolute.

Janeway: I’ve always found that satisfying.

Samesies, Janeway. Samesies.

“If you can explain everything, what’s left to believe in?”: First, I am absolutely horrified at the host who didn’t warn the crew that there were certain places that were off limits. Second, he was truly upset by what happened and also super surprised about the reaction from the monks. It was enough to balance out. I am suuuuuuuuuper torn on this one. On one hand, it’s a very compelling episode about the mysteries of the universe and where faith may or may not play a part in it. Janeway’s always been the explorer, always wanting to find out how things work, and in her mind there’s a process you follow to get to an answer. I liked that the Spirits took her on the journey she expected because she wouldn’t have believed them otherwise. On the other hand, I believe there are answers to every question. Some of those answers may not be understood by every single person, or some things may not be readily explained, but there’s an answer out there and it’s not just 42. I liked that this caused Janeway to pause when the EMH was describing why the thing worked when they thought it wouldn’t, because it shows just how little we really know about the universe and it helps the captain to remember she’s only human. It’s one thing to be able to reverse engineer a problem and say why something worked when you didn’t think it was going to, but it’s another thing to walk blindly into the light and have faith that what someone told you was true when someone else told you it’s false. Janeway was willing to walk through not-quite-literal fire for Kes because the crew are her children, just like my advisees are mine. 5 books staring at me, waiting to be read, but I’m so tired.

I also thoroughly felt this line: “Most of the challenges in life are the ones we create for ourselves.”

TA Out!