[VOY] PF's Review: "Nemesis"
Paul Foley
"NEMESIS"
I like to stress the positive in these reviews, so here it goes:
this episode has a very clever plot twist. Unfortunately, we have to
sit through nearly an hour of boring nonsense to see it. It is most
definitley not worth the wait. There is the kernel of a promising
story idea at the heart of "Nemesis"; but the execution falls flat. It's
a sad disappointment all around.
Chakotay finds himself stranded among a small group of
soldiers. They're mean and they're green, and they subject us to
every war-buddy cliche in the book. In keeping with the male
bonding theme, they have their own soldiers' lingo... an alien
version of the military-sounding banter that adolescent boys of all
ages find so stirring. "Fire in the hole" and all that nonsense,
updated. They're manly men who learn to "wrestle their trembles to
rages."
The writing staff obviously put some work into making up
this dialect; it's a pity they didn't put that enegy into creating a plot
with some substance....
Isn't it silly, watching a bunch of grown men, actors, playing
army? Creeping around with plastic M-16s? Not even getting it
right, either: they're all bunched up so's one shell would kill the lot
of them, taking cover behind a sapling that wouldn't stop a b.b., let
alone a steel-jacketed rifle bullet....
Despite the anti-hatred moral tacked on to the end of this
episode, it actually spends a lot of time trying to make ground
combat seem kinda fun. Like a game of paintball. Or some kind of
X-treme sport. A test of manhood. The new guy, the Novice,
overcomes his fears and becomes a hero. He dies of course, but
cleanly and quietly: a neat hole in his chest, a fine last speech, his
eyelids flutter... and he's gone to his reward. He doesn't get shot in
the mouth and spit out bloody teeth and bits of jawbone while
everyone looks on in horror, or anything like that. That would be
gross, and it would detract from the entertainment value of the
violence.
If they're going to show ground combat, show it. Otherwise,
leave serious subjects alone.
The sad thing is, last year around this time we were treated
to "The Chute", a gritty and hard-hitting episode that explored the
consequences of violence, and didn't try to turn it into light
entertainment. It was disturbing, because it dealt with a disturbing
subject. Doing less is positively immoral. Shame on you, Kenneth
Biller.
Chakotay at first resists joining the fight, until he is
convinced that the enemy really are monsters. Because the writing
staff lack the imagination to make this convincing, they borrow from
history. The snaggle-tooth aliens are shown rounding up civilians,
splitting up families: the able-bodied ones are to be used as forced
labor, the old and infirm go to death camps. This obvious reference
to the holocaust struck me as inappropriate. It just isn't the stuff of
light entertainment. Serious subjects demand to be treated in a
serious manner.
Because it's executed so clumsily, the central conflict of the
story fizzles out. Chakotay is supposed to be transformed by hate,
against his will and his better judgement, into a killer. Then, when
he discovers he has been tricked, he should be devastated, deeply
confused, and have problems re-adapting. ("Rambo", anyone?)
Problem is, I didn't believe it for a minute. He seems like
the same old Chakotay throughout. He mouths the words, but he
doesn't act any differently. He seems fundamentally unchanged.
Part of the problem is with the script. Part of the problem is with
Robert Beltran: he is one stiff actor.
Beltran reminds me a lot of Jonathan Frakes. (What is it
about first officers in Trek!?) The best thing that can be said about
Frakes' acting is... he turned out to be a good director.
It isn't that Beltran does anything particularly wrong. He's a
competent actor. He does what the script asks for; when it calls for
him to look angry, he looks angry; when it calls for him to look
amused, he looks amused. But he doesn't bring anything more to
the part. Complex, mixed emotions? No. Does he make it seem like
the character has an inner life, is thinking, considering, mulling over
what he will say next? No. He delivers speeches. What he says
seems rehearsed. (It *is* rehearsed, of course.)
I've always said the best thing about "Voyager" is the cast.
It certainly isn't the writing. There are several outstanding actors in
this cast who can make limp material sparkle, and it always fills me
with admiration to see them do it. Unfortunately, Robert Beltran is
not one of them.
At the end of the episode, the doctor explains that
Chakotay was brainwashed, that his hatred of the snaggle-tooth
critters was artificially induced. A pity the same means couldn't be
used on the audience, because they were never anything more
than cartoon villains to me. Not really different from the Kazon or
the Cardassians that Chakotay is familiar with. Far from being
especially merciless, they seemed to show a lot of tolerance for
being knocked down and punched by Indian Starfleet officers. So
why is he supposed to be reacting so differently to them?
Explaining character's motivations-- and explaining away holes in
the plot-- at the tail end of the episode is hardly the way to make
compelling drama....
The dialogue in this episode is awful. I thought they were
supposed to be working on the quality of writing over the summer?
"I wish it were as easy to stop hating as it was to start."
That's pretty weak. They end the episode with that feeble homily?
Or how about this bit of cornball dialogue, Paris' line:
"If we run into them, it's safe to say they won't be hanging
out a welcome sign."
Who writes this stuff, anyway?
Compounding its other sins, "Nemesis" is uniformly
humorless and dreary. Even where it's unintentionally funny, it isn't
nearly funny enough. Next week we may be luckier: it looks like
Seven of Nine is planning to deflower Harry. If nothing else, that
should be good for a few laughs....
-----------------------------------------------------------
"I don't want a relationship, I don't want commitment....
I want your sperm!"
--from "Melrose Place", which is beginning
to look like Shakespeare compared to "Voyager"....
--
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