Voyager 5.18 FAQ
What’s it called?
“Course: Oblivion.”
Who’s responsible?
Teleplay is credited to Bryan Fuller (“Dead Like Me,” “Wonderfalls,” “Pushing Daisies,” “Hannibal”) and Nick Sagan (“Star Trek: The Next Generation”), adapting a story by Fuller. (Sagan, who went on to become a sci-fi novelist, is the son of astronomer-novelist Carl Sagan. Nick Sagan’s voice can be heard in the movie “Starman” because it can also be heard on the “golden record” launched with Voyager I and Voyager II, said to be the first man-made objects ever to leave the solar system. The so-far fictitious Voyager VI came to menace Kirk and Spock in 1979’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.”)
What says UPN?
“A mysterious force affects the very fabric of Voyager itself.”
How does it start?
With the wedding of chief engineer B’Elanna Torres to helmsman Tom Paris.
The big news?
This is easily one of the best episodes of Star Trek forged between 1966 and now. I rate it right up there with “City on the Edge of Forever” and “The Inner Light.”
What else is UPN not telling us?
At episode’s start, Chakotay reveals to Janeway that the ship’s new enhanced warp drive will return them to Earth in about two years. Which I think makes the copy of Voyager in at least one way superior to the original.
Copy of Voyager? Original? What in blazes is Herc yammering about?
Until the final three minutes of this installment the crew of Voyager doesn’t show up. “Course: Oblivion,” we come to learn, is a sequel to the “Voyager” episode “Demon,” which aired 10 months earlier. It turns out Voyager and virtually everything aboard the vessel, including the crew, are unwitting duplicates. And the crew members are such good copies that all the crew’s original memories (Janeway’s Midwestern childhood and so on) have replaced any memory of the crew’s true origins. And they’re all now “red shirts” regardless of the colors of their uniforms.
What’s great?
The old-school title, evocative of the 1960s’ “Assignment: Earth” and “Operation: Annihilate.” Some glorious misdirection. The mystery at the episode’s core. The mind-fucking mid-episode reveal. The episode’s ending, one of the best ever engineered for the franchise. Robert Picardo as the hologram. Jeri Ryan as the cyborg. Roxann Dawson as the engineer. Robert Beltran as the first officer. The tiny facsimiles atop B’Elanna & Tom’s wedding cake. Tuvok explaining to Seven she might not want to know the meaning of her catching B’Ellana’s bouquet. The rice falling onto a lower deck, the unnoticed first harbinger of the horrors awaiting the crew. Tom inserting a lost honeymoon into the dying B’Ellana’s hand. The existential conversation shared by the newly enlightened Harry and Tom. Chakotay’s come-to-Jesus conversation with Janeway. “Not garnish them like a roast chicken.” “They’re saving the painsticks for the honeymoon.” “I’ve often wondered what happened to them.” “We’ll be traveling thousands of light-years in the wrong direction.” “I have every confidence we’ll find a way to reverse it.” “But there is another crew out there, right?” “Sorry? What for?” “Hell, she’s not even the captain.” “Wait around till we all disintegrate?” “You haven’t even been alive for five years.” “We’re Starfleet officers; we can’t forget that.” “All our history. Gone.”
What’s not so great?
Neelix outlasts virtually everyone.
How does it end, spoiler boy?
“Aye, sir,” replies Tom Paris, resuming his journey to Earth.
March 3, 1999. UPN.
