[VOY] PF's Review: "Waking Moments"
Paul Foley
WAKING MOMENTS,
or,
"In your dreams, Harry!"
My first reaction was, "what boring dreams these people
have!" So rational, so linear, so predictable. As predictable, in fact,
as the dreams-within-dreams plot. I wouldn't mind the
old-chestnut storyline so much had the dreams been a little more...
whimsical. But there were no flights of fancy here. None of the
delightful disconnectedness of the dream state. Nothing even
weird. Here was a chance to explore the characters a little, and
have a little fun with them... missed. What a pity.
Tuvok, Janeway, and Paris all have basic anxiety dreams.
Tuvok's, although a textbook-example anxiety dream, is the only
interesting one. In his dream, he finds himself in a public place,
inappropriately dressed. Or more precisely, undressed. Tuvok's
dignity is precious to him, and becoming a laughingstock-- worse,
making a fool of himself-- horrifies him. His later discomfort at
having to describe his dream to Janeway is particularly well
handled. The expression on Janeway's face is priceless, when the
penny drops and she figures out what exactly happened to poor
Tuvok in his dream. Priceless, too, is the look she gives him a few
moments later as they walk down a corridor together-- a look
bearing a mixture of pity, respect, affection, and amusement that I
found very, very eloquent. That one look went a long way toward
reestablishing a bond between these two characters, a bond that
has been allowed to lapse for far too long. That one look also
confirmed that Kate Mulgrew is one fine actor.
Still, Tuvok's dream of humiliation fits his character a little
too perfectly. It's so predictable. Worse, in that respect, is
Janeway's dream. C'mon, she must have more on her mind than
worry over getting her crew home safely! Paris, the pilot, has a
nighmare about crashing a shuttle (*performance anxiety?!*) Kim is
the only one who doesn't have an anxiety dream, but he has one
that is just as hackneyed: a wet dream. (Well, as close to one as
we're gonna get with TV-PG!) If the writers had any imagination,
the semi-torrid kissing scene between Kim and Seven-- love in a
Jeffries tube-- would've been followed by a cut to *Seven* waking
up, with a "what the hell was THAT!" expression on her face.
Instead, all too predictably, it's Harry's dream we're seeing.
I won't even get into Chakotay the Space Indian's
deerstalker dream....
..
As I watched the by-the-numbers plot unfold, the scales
suddenly dropped from my eyes. "Voyager", and 'Trek in general, is
stodgy. Just plain stodgy and out-of-date. Seeming to pine for the
good old days of 1969 and the original series, the producers
steadfastly refuse to embrace the weird. And until they do, the
program's ratings will continue to remain in the basement-- no
matter how many babes in Spandex they add to the cast. They
continue to give us simple-minded plots that re-hash the struggle of
good versus evil, with good always triumphant. The cut-rate
philosopy of Star Trek is the opposite of cool. The crew are all
earnest to a fault-- and I do mean fault-- and come perilously close
at times to seeming like a bunch of overgrown boy scouts. (The
notable exception being Q... Q the prankster, Q the nihilist. And just
look at how popular a character he is!)
"Voyager" seems geared to appeal more to the audience
that watches "Touched By An Angel" than the "The X-Files"
audience. The show is just too gosh-darned optimistic. Except for
the odd (and exceptional!) episode like "Tuvix", there is little room
for moral ambiguity on "Voyager". For a science-fiction show,
imagination is given surprisingly little play. Its world is so rational
that even the character's *dreams* fit a neat pattern, for cripes
sake!
By an odd programming coincidence, last week's episode
of the cartoon series "Men In Black" was a close parallel of
"Waking Thoughts". Agent Elle (voiced by ex-Kes Jennifer Lien)
had to enter Agent J's dream state... where she found, among other
strange things, his fantasy version of herself. (For a cartoon
character, Agent J has a surprisingly active subconscious!) Too,
the dreamscape was surprisingly Salvador Dali-esque; with the odd
juxtapositions and abrupt scene-changes that make dreams...
well... *dreamlike.*
Now, "Men In Black" is a Saturday morning cartoon, aimed
at an audience of children; still, it has a well-developed sense of
irony; and compared with "Waking Moments," it seems positively
urbane and witty.
Not that "Waking Moments" was lousy; it's just that it could
have been so much better had the writers loosened up a little, gone
for the fun, and embraced the weird. As it was, there was some
good stuff, including a lively scene between Tom and B'Elanna...
who are (finally!) not acting coy around one another. Tom missed
their breakfast date, and B'Elanna goes to his quarters to tell him
about it. Refreshingly, she doesn't rage. Nor is she icy, or pouting.
Her manner is difficult to describe exactly, but it was easy to read.
Their scene together is rich in unspoken communication... and
absolutely delightful to watch. And just like the Janeway/Tuvok
scene mentioned above, it's the way the actors interpret the
moment, not the words in the script, that make the scene sparkle.
The cast do their best with some decidedly un-cool material; and
to their everlasting credit, they often manage to salvage something
good out of it.
* * *
In the February issue of Premiere magazine, Libby
Gelman-Waxner, in her hilarious column, names Sigourney
Weaver the coolest person alive. "Sigourney has a darkly Freudian
relationship with her special effects; you get the feeling that if she
boarded the Starship Enterprise or any of the Star Wars vehicles,
she'd just laugh at how Barbie everything is."
--
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