In the tenth episode of the third season of Voyager, JENNIFER LIEN IS A GODDESS. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.Â
Trigger Warning: For discussion of queer baiting and homophobia, consent.
I really only have one complaint of this episode, and I’ll save that for the end. Otherwise, this is a vicious and thrilling psychological drama that gives us Kes’s most powerful story yet. Now, possession stories are a dime a dozen in the Star Trek universe. I couldn’t even remotely attempt to recall them all. Indeed, they’re very common in genre fiction, so I admit right off the bat that much of this premise falls in line with the tropes we’ve seen before. In death, and Iluri possesses Kes in order to continue their violent coup of their homeworld. There’s a struggle, some awful things happen, and then Kes gets her body back and the villain is disposed of. Pretty standard story, right?
Exocet it is in Jennifer Lien’s frantic, layered performance that “Warlord” becomes something else. She transforms so completely into Tieren that I was frightened by the result. The irritation and flippant attitude we see of her in that early scene with Neelix was just the start of that transformation. Kes has always been the most outwardly empathetic and sensitive member of the crew, so what happens when she’s changed into the most ruthless one? What happens when she becomes a person desperate for power and unwilling to think of the ramifications of her actions?
Of course, it’s not actually Kes who is responsible for any of this, and the writers draw a clear delineation between the two versions of her character. (And Lien’s acting makes it obvious who is who.) Yet even this is often a common feature of these kind of possession stories. So why does this stand out so much for me? This script’s willingness to rely on psychological tension is what thrilled me, y’all. All of my favorite scenes in “Warlord” are conversations. They’re dialogue. They’re Tieren arguing with others, like Tuvok. Or, in the most electrifying sequence in the episode, I got to see Tieren fight a manifestation of Kes’s consciousness.
Ultimately, this is a battle of identities, and I found the execution of this remarkable. Which is precisely why the clumsy handling of sexual identity frustrates me. There have now been multiple opportunities where Star Trek has had a chance to break with their tradition of binary genders and heteronormative representative. Here, Tieren is now in the body of a woman, and yet, the Iluri are straight. I think. Nori seemed largely repulsed by Tieren. She could have just been uncomfortable with the change, but she’s not given enough lines to express that. Then, Tieren agrees to marry Ameron, yet he quickly assures Nori that it’s just for political reasons. Because ew? Men can’t be married? Except then there’s even that moment where Tieren tells Amerion and Nori to get close, and it’s like this weird promise of a triad, but you know, I can’t bother to count that as a representation. When the only form of non-normative sexuality comes from someone so evil and manipulative, I don’t exactly feel “represented,†if that makes sense.
This episode is so close to being flawless! I just wish the writers would stop dancing around gender and sexuality in such uncomfortable ways. You have the literal universe at your disposal, and you have the means to make up anything you want. I wish they’d just take advantage of that.
The video for “Warlord†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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