In the eleventh episode of the fourth season of Voyager, this is a ridiculous episode with a ridiculous premise and I DON’T CARE. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
I don’t know who sat down and thought, “What if Voyager gets mugged and then Janeway goes on a heist mission to retrieve said stolen objects, but it’s with Leonardo da Vinci?” I don’t know who that beautiful soul is, but your mind is a wonderful place. This episode makes virtually no sense at all, has a glaring oversight in the later moments, is full of Janeway begging a hologram to come with her WHEN SHE COULD JUST TEAR THE HOLO EMITTER OFF HIS CLOTHES AND LITERALLY FORCE IT TO OBEY AT ANY GIVEN POINT IN THIS EPISODE, and yet? And yet??? Not a care in the world is given for “Concerning Flight.” No, this episode is going to be full of wacky capers and shenanigans because WHY NOT? Why not, I ask you! BECAUSE.
Theft
The idea of a society built wholly from stolen parts is intriguing and then BARELY EXPLORED, which is probably the only significant form of criticism I’ll level at this episode. It seems criminal (HA! GET IT?) to not delve deeper into this, but I suppose that’s not really the “point” of this episode, but WHATEVER. I still love it, and the fact that da Vinci thought this was America? Oh, well played, Voyager writers, because America is most certainly a nation built on cultural, financial, personal, and social theft. We stole everything since the infancy of our nation, and I am fully in support of dragging us to Hell over it. WE DESERVE IT AND SO MUCH WORSE.
It’s through this that we’re introduced to Tau, da Vinci’s benefactor, and I can’t even try to explain their relationship. Apparently, Tau was clever enough to activate da Vinci, then send him on a mission to… make things? New things? Old things? I don’t think Tau understood that da Vinci’s mind was programmed to interpret the world from a 16th century sensibility because why the HELL would Tau want primitive flying machines when his society possess actual spaceships? But hey, these details don’t matter because JANEWAY GETS TO GO ON A HEIST MISSION WITH HER IDOL, LEONARDO DA VINCI. Who gives a fuck about narrative sense when you’ve got this set up? (You think I’m kidding; I am absolutely not.)
H E I S T
There are maps. How was da Vinci able to make them? We don’t know, da Vinci is a genius, shut the fuck up otherwise. (Seriously, he had no issues drawing topographic maps of COMPLETELY ALIEN WORLDS? Okay, Voyager.) The maps help the two (with Seven and Tuvok’s assistance, which also made no sense) locate the building where the computer processor was hidden, and you know what this episode also needed? Nonsensical character motivation. I have no ability to translate to you, dear reader, the reasons why da Vinci was reluctant to just find the fucking door. He just wouldn’t do it, giving Janeway the chance to be perfect and basically tell da Vinci: hey, fuckface, I’m smarter than you. Which is undoubtedly true and also one of the greatest things this show has ever given us. (Again: not joking, I genuinely loved it.)
There’s a point here where I thought that maybe this story would be about da Vinci realizing he was a hologram, sort of like Moriarty over on The Next Generation. Alas, this does not happen. Why? Because Janeway is smarter than da Vinci and this logic convinces him to stop questioning the fact that a laser beam passed through his body. True story: if I appeared to be invisible and survived a gunshot wound and Janeway told me, “Mark, trust me on this: you are an unevolved motherfucker and you don’t understand this world,” I would listen to her. I would then do whatever she asked because this is Kathryn Janeway we’re talking about. Don’t fight her on this!
Never mind that as soon as they get the processor back to Voyager, the writers conveniently forget LITERALLY ALL OF THE OTHER STUFF THAT GOT STOLEN. Either it wasn’t shown or they didn’t care. Wasn’t that stuff super important? Did Neelix and Tom not get back all the food rations? Will this be mentioned in the next episode when the crew realizes they fucked up really bad? Who knows?
The real question, though: Who cares? Because Janeway gets to fly on a glider with da Vinci because… apparently, the glider is so mystifying to SPACE-TRAVELING THIEVES that Tau and his men just don’t shoot at it? That thing is so slow, they could have shot them down in a second, but they don’t because wonder.
It makes no fucking sense and I don’t care I LOVE THIS EPISODE.
The video for “Concerning Flight†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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