Manipulations

Story: Maneuvers
Written By: Kenneth Biller
Series: Star Trek: Voyager
Year: 1995

Voyager picks up a signal from a beacon that is seemingly Federation. They decide to investigate, only to be attacked by Kazons…who are being helped by Seska. They are able to beam aboard and steal some transporter technology, which is not good. Feeling Seska is a problem of his own, Chakotay decides to go after her, without Janeway or Tuvok finding out…he was able to override their security and steal a shuttle. Damn…Tuvok sucks at his job.
The fact is the Kazon suck as recurring villains. They look ridiculous (keep it simple, that hair with mushroom or whatever is NOT cutting it), they act like 3rd rate Klingons, and there is nothing particularly scary about that…and with DS9 having both the ever enduring Klingons and the fantastic threat in the Dominion…Voyager is just falling flat with these lame Kazon.

I like Seska as an adversary because she is sinister in her own way and is a bit of a thinker…as much as people are aloud to be thinkers in this series, but I feel she is misused here… no one can make the Kazon a decent villain. In her last scene on the viewscreen she does reveal a nice little secret, she has taken some of Chakotay’s DNA…and impregnated herself. Yikes.

In the end, Chakotay is threatened with being put on report by Janeway. 75 years til they could possible get home and she’s gonna put him on report with an organization they have no contact with and that he LEFT FOR THE MAQUIS. He claims it kinda sucks that he disappointed her, but I just think it was a failing of the producers to not allow the writer to actually have some kind of punishment. She claims she has to punish to maintain order on the ship, but this slap on the wrist sends the message of “be wreckless and I might stomp my feet”. Bad end.

NEXT TIME: Caylem