Resistance
StarDate: Unknown
Original Airdate: November 27, 1995
By Christina Luckings
The Story
Captain Kathryn Janeway, Tuvok, B’Elanna Torres and Neelix
are out of uniform in an alien market place, looking furtive
and generally behaving very suspiciously. The Captain scans a
vial while trying not to be noticed by any passers by, then tells
Neelix that they need the container filled completely. Cost is
not an issue. He takes the vial and leaves just before the local
police force descend on the group to arrest them.
There is a fight, and weapons are fired, one of which hits the
Captain just as she is calling for transport, wounding her and
knocking her out. Before the officials can take her, however,
a little old man joins in, sending the policeman flying against
a wall.
Voyager’s engineering department is a scene of great tension.
Chakotay and Kim are awaiting the arrival of the vial of tellerium,
which they will need soon if they are ever to be able to use
the warp engines again. In a last attempt to reduce power consumption
Chakotay orders the shields to be lowered. Just then Neelix calls
in with good news, and they use emergency power to beam him directly
to engineering. With the tellerium safely on board, Kim acts
as Chief Engineer, ordering the crew around to get the anti-matter
reaction stabilised and then back up to normal. Voyager is back
in the space-flight business again. Chakotay meanwhile debriefs
Neelix about events on the planet. He had been in the shop getting
the tellerium when they had heard weapons fire. When he had come
out again it was all over. Chakotay wonders who could have tipped
oft the police – the Mokra – that they were there
but Neelix is sure it could not have been his contact, Darod,
as he is a member of the Alsaurian resistance. However, he could
well be under surveillance. The pair go up to the bridge, where
Chakotay orders Paris to bring Voyager out from behind the moon
nice and slowly. Neelix expects the Mokra to start shooting at
them straight away, and is surprised when they are hailed by
third magistrate Augris of the Mokra Order instead. When asked
if they are seeking permission to do business, Chakotay admits
to Augris that they already have crew members on the planet who
are probably being detained. The magistrate tells them that he
will transmit a copy of the regulations to the ship, and look
into the matter of their missing crew. Neelix is amazed and sceptical,
while Chakotay is willing to try pursuing diplomacy for the time
being, but orders scans to search for the Captain, Torres and
Tuvok anyway.
Torres and Tuvok are being held together in a small cell with
a force field for a door. She can see a control circuit but only
gets a shock when she tries to reach it. If they knew that Neelix
had made it back safely with the goods, this imprisonment would
be worth it. As it is, they do not know what happened to the
Captain. She might be dead. Tuvok admits that it is possible,
but it is also possible that she is safely on Voyager. They have
no evidence one way or the other.
In fact, Kathryn Janeway is waking up to the sound of birdsong
and voices in the street below. The little old man, Caylem, has
brought her to his room, tended to the injury on her neck, and
is now bustling around waiting for her to wake up. He thinks
she is his long-lost daughter, Rokana, and that her insistence
that she is the Captain of a starship is some story she is spinning
for his entertainment. He admits that he does not have any communications
equipment because the Mokra do not allow it and side-steps the
issue of anyone having an illegal set by suggesting that he make
her some soup to help her regain her strength. After all, she’ll
need it for when they both return to the detention centre to
free her mother.
Magistrate Augris has come aboard Voyager to discuss the matter
of Chakotay’s missing crew members. He wants to know who
they have been dealing with on the planet so that he can try
and find them. Word has reached them that this is a disreputable
ship, and some think that their story of being from the alpha
quadrant is a lie. Chakotay is not very forthcoming, so Augris
leaves, warning him that without co-operation, the search could
take a very long time. Now the Commander tells Neelix to get
in touch with his contacts again. He doesn’t want to keep
waiting on Augris for ever.
Back in the detention cell, Augris interviews Tuvok and Torres.
They refuse to give him the names of their resistance contacts
on the grounds that they do not know them, and they are not planning
to supply them with weapons as the Mokra believe. These answers
are not good enough, and Tuvok is taken off for interrogation
elsewhere.
Janeway can see the Mokra searching the area from Caylem’s
window. He is happily putting together a bag of things that his
wife will want when they get to the prison. Kathryn tries to
get him to tell her about the defences she will encounter. Everything,
he tells her, forcefields, detector grids, physical barriers
and lots of guards. No one has ever escaped. Happily calling
her his ‘little girl’ he gives her a necklace, one
his wife used to wear on special occasions. She tries to tell
him that he cannot come with him, but he ignores her, and goes
to a chest where he keeps the letters that he has been writing
to his missing wife over the years. The last one is missing,
the one about the cold morning, and it upsets him that his wife
might think he gave up on her so close to gaining her freedom.
Then the search party reach Caylem’s room, and they escape
through a concealed passageway just before the door is broken
down.
Out in the market place, Janeway looks for Darod to see if he
can help her contact Voyager. Instead Augris comes into view,
asking people if they have seen any strangers lately. He accosts
Darod, who denies having seen a woman, but Augris points to two
ladies standing nearby and asks if he can see them. It is clear
to the Magistrate that Darod has something to hide, and is about
to arrest him when Caylem dashes forward and starts a little
act. Behaving like someone slightly crazy yet harmless, he asks
about his hat, then polishes Augris’s boots with his scarf
before dancing with one of the ladies. In all the laughter and
distraction of this performance Darod walks quietly away. Augris
brings the show to an end by putting a bun in Caylem’s
mouth and a hollow piece of fruit on his head as a hat and the
crowd disperses.
On Voyager’s bridge, Chakotay, Kim, Neelix and Paris are
discussing the problem of mounting a rescue in the prison. Sensors
cannot penetrate the rock above the subterranean detention level,
the Mokra sensors are very sensitive and would detect a transport
even if they could get through the shields. Chakotay wants another
way in, offering it as a challenge for Kim to solve.
Back in the market, Janeway and Caylem catch up with Darod again.
His resistance cell’s transmitter was confiscated that
morning, and he is very scathing about Caylem’s presence
there. He calls him a lunatic and tells her that his stories
are fantasies. Going to the prison is suicide, especially with
him along, but he does tell them about tunnels on the north side
that will get them a little closer. However they are guarded,
and weapons are not free. Darod sees the necklace around Janeway’s
throat and suggests she trade it. Caylem says that it will be
all right and she reluctantly agrees. A man in a blue vest will
be there in three hours to make the trade, Darod says, before
telling them that they will need a miracle for this plan to succeed.
Six hours later Janeway and Caylem are still waiting and to
pass the time, Caylem tells Janeway how his wife got arrested.
She was leading a raid against a Mokra supply centre. He had
been against the resistance, wanting to keep their child safe
instead, but eventually he was persuaded to join in. He promised
to meet her but he was too afraid to turn up. She was waiting
for him when they took her. He never told his daughter what really
happened because he didn’t want her to hate him. Then a
man in a blue vest arrives. The pair make their way through the
crowd towards him, but as Janeway casts her eyes down she notices
that he is wearing shiny black boots. She drags Caylem away quickly
and tells him what she saw. It was a Mokra trap. Now they will
have to try a different strategy, she says, watching two laughing
women walking across the street.
Augris returns a very battered Tuvok to the cell, suggesting
to Torres that she could spare him more pain by telling them
what they want to know, then leaving them alone. The state of
the Vulcan convinces B’Elanna that the screams she had
heard earlier had come from him. Tuvok tells her that beyond
a certain level of pain, Vulcans can no longer block it out and
simply have to endure it. This leaves her wondering just what
sort of torture they employ, and how she would cope with it.
Janeway’s alternate strategy is to loosen her clothing
and act like a ‘lady of the street’ in order to distract
the bored guards, lure one of them into a dark corner then knock
him out. It works, and she gets through the force field leaving
Caylem on the other side. Meanwhile Kim has come up with the
idea of firing dozens of radion beams from the main deflector
dish, with the transporter beam on just one of them so the Mokra
don’t know where they are arriving. Paris is ready in the
transporter room, and they send off a test volley which get through
the shields safely. But before they can fire off a second set
with the transporter beam, the Mokra precisely target the source
of the attack and put the deflector dish out of action. Augris
hails them to say that Voyager has two minutes to leave or 85
phased ion cannons will open fire on them.
Underground, Janeway has come to a security grid panel, and
she sabotages it, opening all the detention cells and disrupting
the prison shields. Kim detects it and the rescue team are sent
down while the Mokra are busy coping with it. Chakotay warns
Paris that the cannons will be opening fire on Voyager in thirty
seconds and he doesn’t know how long he will be able to
wait for him. Janeway encounters Darod in the prison and nearly
shoots Caylem as he comes around a corner looking for her, as
he is determined to protect his only child. Then they come across
Tuvok and Torres who are taking advantage of the confusion to
try and escape like good officers. Caylem insists that they go
and find his wife. Janeway hesitates for a moment then gives
the others directions to the passageways out of the area. Then
Augris turns up.
He knows Caylem of old, and is surprised he has gotten so far
this time. Although Caylem’s wife has been dead for 12
years, he still comes on occasional rescue missions, and they
just turn him around and send him home as a lesson to others.
His daughter had got as far as the tunnels before she was shot.
Augris orders the guards to take the others away. He wants to
interrogate Janeway himself. Caylem launches himself at Augris
to protect her, there is a fight in which a guard shoots Caylem,
then Augris stops and slowly slides down the wall with Caylem’s
knife in his chest. The Mokra guards silently melt away into
the darkness leaving Janeway to comfort the dying hero of the
hour. She assures him that Augris was lying when he said that
his daughter had been shot and that his wife was dead, and tells
him that they both forgive him. Tom Paris comes upon the group
after all the action is over. Chakotay is extremely relieved
to hear Captain Janeway’s voice over the comm. telling
him to get Voyager out of there.
Later in her ready room, the Captain is only half listening
to Ensign Kim’s status report. She assures him that she
is all right, and he leaves her holding Caylem’s necklace,
with a distant look in her eyes.
Review:
This Janeway showcase is completely stolen by the wonderful
Joel Grey as Caylem, the sad, slightly deranged old man. He turns
in a wonderful performance that cannot fail to tug at the heartstrings,
and his distraction routine in the market place is an absolute
gem. Otherwise, although it is nice to get Janeway out of uniform
and into personal jeopardy for a change, this would be a fairly
so-so episode. It is also pleasant to have Chakotay and Kim extending
their repertoire. With the Captain off the ship, the first officer
is in total charge and doing a fair job of it, while the raw
young ensign is also doubling up as Chief Engineer – a
role which surely should have been taken by Lt. Carey in Torres’ absence.
Neelix is back in his role of shady trader, doubling as everyman
when the engineering technobabble is being thrown at us by Kim,
and doing it rather well He is far more acceptable like this
than the annoyingly cheerful chef.
Once again, Voyager’s reputation has preceded them to
this isolated, fascist dictatorship of a planet, most likely
courtesy of the Kazon rumour machine. One has to wonder what
they were trading for the tellurium, given that it is highly
unlikely that Voyager would be carrying enough local currency
for such a precious commodity. It could be argued that whatever
they gave for the element was aiding and abetting the resistance
and thus breaking the Prime Directive, but given the imperative
of keeping Voyager's warp engines working I suspect that can
be quietly ignored.
The story moves along nicely, with good performances from Dawson
and Russ as their characters face and deal with torture. There
is a total absence of Lien and Picardo from the story, as the
sickbay never gets used and the whole plot line is far too violent
for sweet Kes to be involved in any active way. After her Cold
Fire story, she seems to have been given some shore leave to
recouperate recently. Tom Paris is becoming awfully concerned
with Torres welfare recently, as evidenced in his keenness to
get down to the prison and save her. Is a love/hate relationship
developing here? The look of total delight on Chakotay’s
face when he hears that the Captain is back and safe could be
interpreted in two ways as well. Either he is pleased not to
be the one in command anymore, or he is pleased that Janeway
is safe. We shall have to wait and see which one it is.
On the whole, this is an above average offering, with interest
all the way through.
Grade: 7/10
Cast:
Kate Mulgrew as Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran as Chakotay
Roxanne Biggs-Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
Jennifer Lien as Kes
Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips as Neelix
Robert Picardo as The Doctor
Tim Russ as Tuvok
Garrett Wang as Harry Kim
Guest Cast:
Joel Grey as Caylem
Alan Scarfe as Augris
Tom Todoroff as Darod
Glenn Morshower as Guard #1
Creative Staff:
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Teleplay By: Lisa Klink
Story By: Michael Jan Friedman & Kevin J. Ryan
