In the tenth episode of the seventh season of Voyager, the Doctor has a moral crisis while B’Elanna bonds. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
This was a neat conclusion! Not my favorite, but it was a decent story. Let’s talk about MY FEELINGS.
B’Elanna
Straight up, she’s the best part of this episode, and all her scenes with Kajal comprise the most rewarding moments of “Flesh and Blood, Part II.” That’s partially because they don’t feel like they’re overflowing with plot. (I’ll get to that criticism in a bit.) Instead, the show examines what it would be like to stick B’Elanna with a Cardassian, albeit one who is a hologram and doesn’t have the same history and culture as other Cardassians. Sort of. See, the episode is bizarrely vague about how these holograms are programmed beyond Donik admitting that he made them so that they could adapt. How much information from Starfleet databases is in these creations? Are they programmed as closely as possible to their Alpha Quadrant counterparts? That seems like such an important (and intriguing) question to ask, and yet it only comes up a couple of times.
In regards to B’Elanna’s story, though, this question hangs over everything she and Kajal do. B’Elanna isn’t uncomfortable solely because she was kidnapped; she’s uneasy about working with a Cardassian hologram because she doesn’t know how accurately Kajal was programmed. This creates a lot of dramatic tension between the two of them, which is why it ends up being so satisfying to watch them come to understand one another. Oh, y’all, I do love this trope so much, but that shouldn’t be surprising. FRIENDSHIP. SO ENTERTAINING TO ME. But in this specific case, both characters challenge their perceptions and prejudices of one another. B’Elanna begins to see how Kajal is their own person, separate from the baggage that comes from being a Cardassian. Kajal has a whole bunch of reasons to be wary around an organic, yet her burgeoning friendship with B’Elanna helps her to see how even the most strenuous biases can be challenged.
I LOVE THIS.
Iden
Part of me understands that Iden needs to be the antagonist for the Doctor to have his moral crisis. And that crisis is interesting to watch! So I don’t know that I want to do an analysis of this episode that criticizes Iden as the villain. At the same time, I’m uncomfortable with two specific aspects of his character. I’m all for shifting loyalties and perceptions, and Star Trek has done a number of episodes that feature “good” characters being slowly revealed as the antagonist. But “Flesh and Blood” does this odd thing where an antagonist we’ve seen before – the Hirogen – aren’t the focus, despite that they very clearly created sentient beings just to torture them. The two-parter starts out being highly critical of them, but then rapidly moves to shifting the blame and focus. I hadn’t written it down in the previous review, but I had hoped that perhaps this half of the story would still address this monstrous thing the Hirogen had done. It… kind of does? It’s not exactly as harsh as it could be, and it certainly isn’t as damning of an indictment as this script is for Iden.
There’s a long-standing trope within speculative fiction (and really, within fiction as a whole) where a character fights against some sort of oppression but goes too far. Inevitably, a character or a line will insist that the oppressed person is “just as bad” as the oppressors, and inevitably, that’s the point where my brain just checks out. Look, Iden is awful. They’re self-centered; shortsighted; creepy; controlling; violent. I could keep going, but I’m sure y’all get the point. I’m not trying to excuse those aspects of him or to avoid criticizing the monstrous things he does. Plus, it’s not like there are no awful people on the left or in radical communities. THERE ARE. I’VE MET THEM.
It’s just that this trope is built on this pervasive, insidious false equivalency. IDEN SUCKS, and that’s a softball statement, but what he does is not just as bad as the Hirogen. This claim ignores the power dynamics at play; it ignores that the Hirogen created an entire system meant to subjugate these holograms after giving them independence, sentience, and the ability to adapt. In essence, it made them even more truly capable of experiencing pain and suffering in a substantive way, and then created an existence where that was all that they did. Even if you examine Iden’s revenge, it doesn’t even remotely approach the level of brutality that the Hirogen created. It’s violent, sure, and Iden’s vindictive belief system has its problems. His murder of the Nuu’Bari folks on that ship is absolutely a horrific thing to watch! It’s an act of spite, it’s a way for him to ignore the messy ramifications of dismantling this system.
Which is why I wish I knew how much Donik’s programming played a part in this character. If Kajal’s plot hinted that she was programmed to act like a Cardassian, are we to assume the same of Iden? Is he a radical fighting against oppression, or is the show saying that the Bajorans have a tendency to slide into extremism? Which is a HOT MESS of a theory, and the implications of that are really, really bad, but I’m convinced that’s more of an accident than anything else.
The Doctor
And on some level, I also appreciate “Flesh and Blood” because it deals with someone getting caught up in something they believe it. Whatever I feel about the details of Iden’s revolution, I can still recognize that the Doctor had a very solid reason for wanting to oppose Janeway. Complicated, sure, and messy? Absolutely. The show isn’t afraid to portray this as something noble that then becomes a mistake, and that’s good storytelling. I wanted to see what the ramifications of this decision were for him. Initially, it’s conflict with B’Elanna, who is furious that the Doctor’s choice led to her being kidnapped. Sure, he didn’t know that Iden was going to do it, but that’s still one of the results of that choice.
The Doctor has been a fiercely moral character throughout his time on this show, and that’s the other satisfying part of this episode. The writers don’t lose sight of this as the situation on the hologram’s ship gets worse and worse. The Doctor feels he’s betrayed his friends and crew, but the idea of getting to live in a world where he can pursue his own self is appealing to him. It’s not the first time we’ve seen him entertain this, you know? Yet he cannot sit by and watch as Iden escalates his ideology further and further, pushing that idea of a hologram utopia away from reality. What cost will be paid to make that new world happen?
And whew, y’all, that final scene was so UNCOMFORTABLE. Honestly, I knew that there would have to be a confrontation between Janeway and the Doctor, especially since his actions nearly cost the crew their lives. But I was haunted by Janeway’s decision to avoid blaming the Doctor for much of anything and instead choosing to blame herself. She saw this all as the end result of letting the Doctor become his own person. Sometimes, those people don’t do what you want them to do.
The video for “Flesh and Blood, Part II” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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