Mark Watches ‘Voyager’: S03E04 – The Swarm

In the fourth episode of the third season of Voyager, THIS EPISODE RULES. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.

It’s a rare joy when a Star Trek episode gives us two plots that are equally as entertaining as one another. “The Swarm” is a brutal and vicious episode about entirely different things. And yet, neither story suffers! This is so good!

The Swarm

We never find out much about the “swarm” of ships that attack Voyager, but that’s not the point. The nervous energy of this script comes from the unknown. All that’s confirmed is that the mysterious alien species is perhaps the most xenophobic culture we’ve ever seen in Star Trek. There is no reasoning with them. If you cross their borders, the swarm sucks your ship of energy, boards it, and then murders everyone on board. THAT IS IT. Thus, there’s no Star Trek solution provided. They can’t negotiate with these people, nor can they offer something in exchange for passage. Even tricking the creatures is out of the question. In the end, all they do is use their scientific knowledge to make the Swarm’s lattice net backfire on them. Even then, all it allows them to do is escape. That’s it. There is no friendship established, this culture doesn’t learn anything new, and everything was stressful the whole time. I love a good thriller, and I adored getting to see these characters think of creative ways to get out of this mess.

I don’t have much else to say. I just enjoyed this a lot.

The Doctor

I’m struggling to find a thematic tie between the “main” plot in “The Swarm” and what happens to the the Doctor, but I can’t think of one. That’s okay, and that honestly makes this episode all the more impressive. There is only the smallest intersection between these stories, and it basically boils down to B’Elanna being too busy to help the Doctor with his problem. But oh my god, IT’S SUCH A HEARTBREAKING THING TO WATCH. The tragic irony here is that the Doctor became more of a person over the last two years, and that’s precisely why his memory began to fragment. He wasn’t designed to be anything more than an Emergency Medical Hologram, so his pursuit of knowledge and personhood broke him.

That is gut-wrenching all by itself, y’all, but then we have to watch him slowly lose his memory. This hit me harder than I expected, and it’s because my father had Alzheimer’s towards the end of his life. I’ve seen it happen, from forgetting every day details to the more heartbreaking shit, like when they stop recognizing you or your history with them. Kes is a godsend in this episode, and I don’t know how she so gracefully dealt with such a horrible thing. But that’s Kes, you know?

B’Elanna is also great here, and I loved that she got to interact with Dr. Zimmerman, since the contrast between his personality and the Doctor’s showed us that she did care about him. Plus, as much as this episode follows the experience of the Doctor’s memory loss, it’s very much about the ways in which Kes and B’Elanna are creative and resilient, too. They matter just as much to this story as the Doctor! Of course, Robert Picardo is the scene stealer here, and through the tragic loss of the Doctor’s memory, he gets to play his character with a wide range of emotions. (Well, and he portrays a completely separate character, too!) Anger, loss, grief, panic, terror… they’re all on display here, and it contributes to the portrait we get in “The Swarm.”

I would like to see The Doctor gradually getting his memories back, but I suspect he’ll be fine in the next episode. Regardless, I found this to be an illuminating and entertaining story. Bravo, Voyager!

The video for “The Swarm” can be downloaded here for $0.99.

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