In the ninth episode of the first season of Voyager, Harry Kim is accidentally transported to another dimension, where the people there believe he came from their afterlife. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For extensive talk of death, ableism, and a brief mention of spiders/arachnophobia
I genuinely think this is one of the best written Trek episodes I’ve ever seen, y’all. This could have been done disastrously or in a mediocre way, but Brannon Braga’s commitment to the more uncomfortable and unbearable aspects of this conflict is what makes “Emanations” such a strong showing for Voyager and Star Trek as a whole.
While it’s exciting to get a Trek show that’s got a premise that is radically different from all the other entities, I think Voyager also has a unique problem: there is a lot of Trek canon that’s come before it. Thus, the pressure to tell different stories is a lot higher, even when compared to Deep Space Nine. So, “Emanations” is a Prime Directive episode, and we’ve gotten so many of them over the years that without the context of this specific story, I might have been suspicious of it. Thankfully, the Prime Directive is never even directly mentioned here, despite how integral it is to the plot of the episode. Instead, Braga’s script combines a first contact scenario with a persistent, unnerving existential dread.
Look, let me also start by saying that I am 100% not ashamed by my reaction to the opening scene. I AM ALSO HAPPY TO BE VALIDATED IN MY FEAR OF THOSE COBWEB-LIKE THINGS. Everything about that cave was a literal worst nightmare for me, and I would have begged Janeway to beam me back had I been there. NOPE, I DON’T DO THIS. But hey, Mark, at least it wasn’t some sort of space spider killing people! All those webs were DEAD PEOPLE.
Totally more comforting, y’all. TOTALLY.
Yet very little about this episode is comforting, and I think it’s power lies in the fact that it takes us to such a brutal place. When Harry is pulled through a subspace vacuole and deposited to another world, we learn that Chakotay wasn’t that far off in assuming the asteroid full of bodies was part of some sort of burial ritual. This is how Braga fucks us up: the Vhnori people believe that Harry Kim came back from their afterlife. The culture of these people places death as the most important step a person can take in their existence, since they are then transported through these “emanations” into the afterlife. However, it quickly becomes apparent that Harry’s very presence – though accidental – has disrupted the centuries-old belief system set in place.
It is heartbreaking to watch. We see this existential crisis first through Hatil, a disabled man who was VOTED INTO DEATH by his family, who sees him as a burden since he requires so much care. Granted, this culture sees death as the next step in a kind of spiritual evolution, and that belief is so concrete that until Harry shows up, no one ever vocalizes any doubt they have about the afterlife. Yet Hatil is haunted by Harry’s experience. If there are dead bodies decomposing on a random asteroid, then how can the Vhnori afterlife possibly be true? How can these people have any certainty about this practice?
Even more upsetting is Ptera’s story, since she ACTUALLY DIES, but is revived by the Voyager crew. She has to face this existential fear in a much more brutal way than Hatil does. BECAUSE SHE ACTUALLY DIED. She died, she did not move on to a higher plane, the loved ones she was looking forward to seeing are not around, and her entire belief system crumbles before her eyes. Yes, she was not dead for long, and there’s no real evidence that what she believes doesn’t actually happen, and yet? That doubt gnaws at her. How could it not? These characters all go from certainty to… well, anything less than that. And that’s the problem. Even the slightest doubt can be detrimental to them because they’ve otherwise never had to experience it.
Well, not entirely. I was transfixed by that scene near the end of the episode where Hatil admitted to Harry that he’d had a quiet voice within him the whole time, telling him that he didn’t believe what he’d been taught. And then, Harry showed up, and that voice got louder. I don’t know that I’ve seen this explained so plainly before, but I remember going through the exact same phenomenon back when I was moving away from the Catholic Church. I’d had that soft voice within me since I was a kid, but I refused to listen to it. After all the not-so-great things happened to me and drove me away from the Church, I began to listen to that doubt more and more. Now, I’m not trying to tell anyone to do the same thing; if anything, “Emanations” still argues that this is a personal journey we all need to take by ourselves. But I can see how this episode would appeal to a lot of people, both those who are atheists like I am, but also to those who have ever doubted their faith and found a way to keep going.
This is a tough episode to watch, but it’s worth it. Garrett Wang and Kate Mulgrew repeatedly steal the show with their performances, and Braga finds a way to address a difficult topic with thoughtfulness and respect. Bravo, man. “Emanations” was fantastic.
The video for “Emanations” can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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