[7.8/10] “Once Upon a Time” is not a fan favorite episode, and I get why. Neelix is the main character, which is a recipe for instant skepticism from most viewers. The other protagonist is a little girl, which probably doesn’t align with Voyager’s target demographic. And the episode begins with the extended, Zoobilee Zoo-style misadventures of elemental sprites in a Thousand Acre Wood-type setting, which however good at setting the tone, probably doesn’t appeal to most Star Trek fans.
But I’m a fan of this one. I like Neelix more than most, especially when the show focuses on him as a well-meaning caretaker rather than a jealous romantic. I appreciate the sweet precociousness of Naomi Wildman, who’s sympathetic as the only child aboard a stranded starship. And as silly as the “Flotter T. Water” interludes we get are, as someone who grew up watching 1990s Trek, I can appreciate them as a device to examine how we get to try big ideas on for size through fiction when we’re younger.
I especially love it, though, for how it explores two big ideas: the sense of how hard and anxious a duty it can be to convey challenging ideas and bad news to children, and the equal and opposite notion that kids can be far more resilient and discerning than adults give them credit for.
The vehicle for those themes is a story where Ensign Wildman is stranded in the Delta Flyer alongside Tom and Tuvok, while Neelix looks after young Naomi in her mother’s absence. The episode expertly builds on two twin pillars of narrative tension: whether Voyager will be able to rescue the away team before they run out of oxygen, and when and whether Neelix will tell Naomi how much danger her mom is in.
The former is a little perfunctory. It’s not implausible that Voyager would kill off sporadic guest star Ensign Wildman, but the presence of Tom and Tuvok makes the rescue feel inevitable. The script does give Wildman a unique injury that requires immediate medical attention, to where maybe she won’t make it even if the ship arrives in time to save the members of the main cast. Still, it’s hard for the situation to feel as dire as the script wants it to when savvy viewers who’ve been watching for four seasons can probably divine how this one goes.
What helps is how the episode makes it real for those trapped beneath the rubble of a nameless planet. Fibs about how serious certain injuries are, recordings to loved ones in case you don’t make it, all help give the Flyer’s situation some emotional force, even if the peril isn’t quite there. In particular, Tuvok’s ostensibly cold but ultimately stirring reassurance to Ensign Wildman -- about how she need not fear because she’s instilled worthy values in Naomi and put her in the care of people she trusts -- is one of the episode’s high points.
That;s the benefit of having writer Michael Taylor behind the pen on this one. Taylor wrote superlative episodes of Deep Space Nine like “The Visitor” and “In the Pale Moonlight”. “Once Upon a Time” does not quite meet those lofty standards, but it means there’s some outstanding character writing and strong speeches, even when the practical challenges of the day aren’t as convincing.
What is convincing is Neelix’s attitude toward Naomi: deeply loving but also deeply fearful for her. I love how Neelix is clearly going above and beyond to look after Naomi in the best way possible while her mother is away, and how he clearly loves her to pieces, but also underestimates her a bit. He has a scale from 1-10 for her anxiety levels, ranging from “mild insomnia” to “full blown panic attack”. He plays with her in the holodeck, replicates a toy of her favorite character, and gets her ready for bed. He feeds her dreams of becoming the “captain’s assistant” while secretly being worried about how she’s coping with her mom being in trouble and how much to tell her.
It’s all well-observed in a way that I absolutely did not pick up on when I was closer to Naomi’s age than Neelix’s. I’m lucky enough to have some precious but sensitive little kids in my life, and the balance between wanting to answer their serious questions about things, without scaring them or giving them more than they can handle, is startlingly real. Recognizing that having an aptitude for the facts and details of the world is different than being able to emotionally handle it all is no less authentic and kind of scary. And the notion that you are a bridge for these kind, vulnerable young souls to the complexities and occasional harshness of the world at large can be a lot.
It’s easy to sympathize with Neelix here. He does, in my estimation least, the wrong thing here. He keeps the truth from Naomi. It isn’t easy, but there’s ways to give children age-appropriate versions of tough news. But he does so for understandable reasons. He’s trying to protect Naomi, to shield her from one of the worst things that can happen to a child when everything is still uncertain, to let her hold onto hope and normalcy for as long as she can. As I’ve said before, characters who do the wrong thing for comprehensible reasons are some of the most compelling in all of fiction.
Neelix’s choices are comprehensible because he’s gone through the same kind of thing. The character is often made to play the clown, which makes it easy to forget that he is the product of tragedy. Seeing him relive the nightmares of losing his family, still feel the pain of those close connections that have been severed, do everything in his power to spare Naomi from the anguish he still lives with, makes you understand why he does what he does. He sees himself in his goddaughter, and knows all too well the emotional difficulty that she would have to face if he comes clean.
It’s why I love the scene between him and Janeway in this one. Neelix’s spirited defense of his keeping the wool over Naomi’s eyes may be the most animated we’ve ever seen him, which is saying something. Trying to draw lines, as a caretaker, as a guardian, as a victim, is something you can understand from Neelix, even if he oversteps. And I particularly love how Janeway stays unruffled, understanding that reliving all of this is as much a trauma for Neelix as what he’s trying to avoid for Naomi. Her calm but firm empathy shows the great leader that Janeway is, especially in episodes like these.
Of course, Naomi finds out anyway, despite Neelix’s best efforts. And that is one of the realities of looking after precocious kids -- they figure things out, by chance or by the same wunderkind perceptiveness. And then, you’re not there to cushion the blow, to help them understand. Instead, they just have to sit with the full weight of it.
Worse yet, they could lose their trust in you. I’ll admit to finding Flotter and Trevin pretty silly, even in the context of a kids’ holonovel. But there’s something striking about how they essentially become Naomi’s guards within her safe space, somewhere she retreats to when she feels like she can no longer trust the people who are supposed to look after her.
What follows is lovely. Neelix apologizes. And when asked why Naomi should believe he’s telling the truth now, he shares his own pain with her rather than hiding it. He tells her about his own family, about his reasons for trying to spare her the worst sorrows he’s had to endure, about remembering what it felt like to be in her position. Neelix is honest with her, not just in the sense of offering facts rather than eliding them, but in terms of being up front about the ways that universal difficulties and pains are not so inscrutable to young listeners. That type of honesty can open doors for young minds that need a sympathetic ear.
More to the point, Naomi can handle it. I don’t want to overgeneralize and neither should Voyager. Different kids have different abilities to handle different things. There’s no one-size-fits-all, especially when it comes to something as grave as the prospect of losing a parent. But I appreciate “Once Upon a Time”’s implicit message here: that even though Naomi is scared of Seven, even though she still has nightmares and other youthful phobias, even though death is a specter that chill most grown-ups, she has the mettle to be told the truth about something so important.
Kids are vulnerable but not helpless, even the sensitive ones. It’s easy to be cautious and even overprotective. It’s easy, natural even, to want to shield young souls from the cruel realities of this world. In some ways it’s harder to be honest, to answer the tough questions asked, to be open about the things that are difficult for even grown-ups to countenance, like the hurt that lingers in the wake of losing those we love. But it’s also the kind of act that builds trust, and can reveal a strength in those young souls, an ability to understand and persevere despite the scariest risks we all live under, in ways that can surprise you.
Growing up, I watched Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland and the other kid-friendly stories “Once Upon a Time” pays homage to here. But I also watched a lot of Star Trek when I was around Naomi’s age. Plenty of it was above my head. Plenty of it scared the bejeezus out of me. But what I appreciate about the franchise now, and why I think my parents had few qualms about letting me watch with them, is that these shows never talked down to their audience.
Sure, Natasha Yar might give a heavy-handed speech about not using drugs, or Captain Sisko might teach his son the occasional life lesson, or Seven might be a stand-in for an unruly teenager getting a shape-up speech from her surrogate mom. But for the most part, the series embraced the complexity and rougher edges of real life, as much as a show could in the confines of 1990s network television.
It was a safe place for a young mind to explore scary things like death, like loss, like being alone. Fiction is no substitute for real life (or real parenting, for that matter), but it is a place where a kid could experience these tough ideas and emotions at a distance, to be more ready when grim things might darken our doorsteps in the real world.
You don’t have to like Neelix stories, or Star Trek episodes focused on young kids, or goofy holodeck programs. But episodes like these made a big impact on me when I was Naomi’s age. And as a crusty old grown-up, seeing the inner tug of war within a caretaker like Neelix, to want to protect the young people in our lives without patronizing them leaves an impact on me too. I’m glad “Once Upon a Time” and its ilk are a part of Voyager’s own collection of stories.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-05-11T02:27:03Z
[7.8/10] “Once Upon a Time” is not a fan favorite episode, and I get why. Neelix is the main character, which is a recipe for instant skepticism from most viewers. The other protagonist is a little girl, which probably doesn’t align with Voyager’s target demographic. And the episode begins with the extended, Zoobilee Zoo-style misadventures of elemental sprites in a Thousand Acre Wood-type setting, which however good at setting the tone, probably doesn’t appeal to most Star Trek fans.
But I’m a fan of this one. I like Neelix more than most, especially when the show focuses on him as a well-meaning caretaker rather than a jealous romantic. I appreciate the sweet precociousness of Naomi Wildman, who’s sympathetic as the only child aboard a stranded starship. And as silly as the “Flotter T. Water” interludes we get are, as someone who grew up watching 1990s Trek, I can appreciate them as a device to examine how we get to try big ideas on for size through fiction when we’re younger.
I especially love it, though, for how it explores two big ideas: the sense of how hard and anxious a duty it can be to convey challenging ideas and bad news to children, and the equal and opposite notion that kids can be far more resilient and discerning than adults give them credit for.
The vehicle for those themes is a story where Ensign Wildman is stranded in the Delta Flyer alongside Tom and Tuvok, while Neelix looks after young Naomi in her mother’s absence. The episode expertly builds on two twin pillars of narrative tension: whether Voyager will be able to rescue the away team before they run out of oxygen, and when and whether Neelix will tell Naomi how much danger her mom is in.
The former is a little perfunctory. It’s not implausible that Voyager would kill off sporadic guest star Ensign Wildman, but the presence of Tom and Tuvok makes the rescue feel inevitable. The script does give Wildman a unique injury that requires immediate medical attention, to where maybe she won’t make it even if the ship arrives in time to save the members of the main cast. Still, it’s hard for the situation to feel as dire as the script wants it to when savvy viewers who’ve been watching for four seasons can probably divine how this one goes.
What helps is how the episode makes it real for those trapped beneath the rubble of a nameless planet. Fibs about how serious certain injuries are, recordings to loved ones in case you don’t make it, all help give the Flyer’s situation some emotional force, even if the peril isn’t quite there. In particular, Tuvok’s ostensibly cold but ultimately stirring reassurance to Ensign Wildman -- about how she need not fear because she’s instilled worthy values in Naomi and put her in the care of people she trusts -- is one of the episode’s high points.
That;s the benefit of having writer Michael Taylor behind the pen on this one. Taylor wrote superlative episodes of Deep Space Nine like “The Visitor” and “In the Pale Moonlight”. “Once Upon a Time” does not quite meet those lofty standards, but it means there’s some outstanding character writing and strong speeches, even when the practical challenges of the day aren’t as convincing.
What is convincing is Neelix’s attitude toward Naomi: deeply loving but also deeply fearful for her. I love how Neelix is clearly going above and beyond to look after Naomi in the best way possible while her mother is away, and how he clearly loves her to pieces, but also underestimates her a bit. He has a scale from 1-10 for her anxiety levels, ranging from “mild insomnia” to “full blown panic attack”. He plays with her in the holodeck, replicates a toy of her favorite character, and gets her ready for bed. He feeds her dreams of becoming the “captain’s assistant” while secretly being worried about how she’s coping with her mom being in trouble and how much to tell her.
It’s all well-observed in a way that I absolutely did not pick up on when I was closer to Naomi’s age than Neelix’s. I’m lucky enough to have some precious but sensitive little kids in my life, and the balance between wanting to answer their serious questions about things, without scaring them or giving them more than they can handle, is startlingly real. Recognizing that having an aptitude for the facts and details of the world is different than being able to emotionally handle it all is no less authentic and kind of scary. And the notion that you are a bridge for these kind, vulnerable young souls to the complexities and occasional harshness of the world at large can be a lot.
It’s easy to sympathize with Neelix here. He does, in my estimation least, the wrong thing here. He keeps the truth from Naomi. It isn’t easy, but there’s ways to give children age-appropriate versions of tough news. But he does so for understandable reasons. He’s trying to protect Naomi, to shield her from one of the worst things that can happen to a child when everything is still uncertain, to let her hold onto hope and normalcy for as long as she can. As I’ve said before, characters who do the wrong thing for comprehensible reasons are some of the most compelling in all of fiction.
Neelix’s choices are comprehensible because he’s gone through the same kind of thing. The character is often made to play the clown, which makes it easy to forget that he is the product of tragedy. Seeing him relive the nightmares of losing his family, still feel the pain of those close connections that have been severed, do everything in his power to spare Naomi from the anguish he still lives with, makes you understand why he does what he does. He sees himself in his goddaughter, and knows all too well the emotional difficulty that she would have to face if he comes clean.
It’s why I love the scene between him and Janeway in this one. Neelix’s spirited defense of his keeping the wool over Naomi’s eyes may be the most animated we’ve ever seen him, which is saying something. Trying to draw lines, as a caretaker, as a guardian, as a victim, is something you can understand from Neelix, even if he oversteps. And I particularly love how Janeway stays unruffled, understanding that reliving all of this is as much a trauma for Neelix as what he’s trying to avoid for Naomi. Her calm but firm empathy shows the great leader that Janeway is, especially in episodes like these.
Of course, Naomi finds out anyway, despite Neelix’s best efforts. And that is one of the realities of looking after precocious kids -- they figure things out, by chance or by the same wunderkind perceptiveness. And then, you’re not there to cushion the blow, to help them understand. Instead, they just have to sit with the full weight of it.
Worse yet, they could lose their trust in you. I’ll admit to finding Flotter and Trevin pretty silly, even in the context of a kids’ holonovel. But there’s something striking about how they essentially become Naomi’s guards within her safe space, somewhere she retreats to when she feels like she can no longer trust the people who are supposed to look after her.
What follows is lovely. Neelix apologizes. And when asked why Naomi should believe he’s telling the truth now, he shares his own pain with her rather than hiding it. He tells her about his own family, about his reasons for trying to spare her the worst sorrows he’s had to endure, about remembering what it felt like to be in her position. Neelix is honest with her, not just in the sense of offering facts rather than eliding them, but in terms of being up front about the ways that universal difficulties and pains are not so inscrutable to young listeners. That type of honesty can open doors for young minds that need a sympathetic ear.
More to the point, Naomi can handle it. I don’t want to overgeneralize and neither should Voyager. Different kids have different abilities to handle different things. There’s no one-size-fits-all, especially when it comes to something as grave as the prospect of losing a parent. But I appreciate “Once Upon a Time”’s implicit message here: that even though Naomi is scared of Seven, even though she still has nightmares and other youthful phobias, even though death is a specter that chill most grown-ups, she has the mettle to be told the truth about something so important.
Kids are vulnerable but not helpless, even the sensitive ones. It’s easy to be cautious and even overprotective. It’s easy, natural even, to want to shield young souls from the cruel realities of this world. In some ways it’s harder to be honest, to answer the tough questions asked, to be open about the things that are difficult for even grown-ups to countenance, like the hurt that lingers in the wake of losing those we love. But it’s also the kind of act that builds trust, and can reveal a strength in those young souls, an ability to understand and persevere despite the scariest risks we all live under, in ways that can surprise you.
Growing up, I watched Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland and the other kid-friendly stories “Once Upon a Time” pays homage to here. But I also watched a lot of Star Trek when I was around Naomi’s age. Plenty of it was above my head. Plenty of it scared the bejeezus out of me. But what I appreciate about the franchise now, and why I think my parents had few qualms about letting me watch with them, is that these shows never talked down to their audience.
Sure, Natasha Yar might give a heavy-handed speech about not using drugs, or Captain Sisko might teach his son the occasional life lesson, or Seven might be a stand-in for an unruly teenager getting a shape-up speech from her surrogate mom. But for the most part, the series embraced the complexity and rougher edges of real life, as much as a show could in the confines of 1990s network television.
It was a safe place for a young mind to explore scary things like death, like loss, like being alone. Fiction is no substitute for real life (or real parenting, for that matter), but it is a place where a kid could experience these tough ideas and emotions at a distance, to be more ready when grim things might darken our doorsteps in the real world.
You don’t have to like Neelix stories, or Star Trek episodes focused on young kids, or goofy holodeck programs. But episodes like these made a big impact on me when I was Naomi’s age. And as a crusty old grown-up, seeing the inner tug of war within a caretaker like Neelix, to want to protect the young people in our lives without patronizing them leaves an impact on me too. I’m glad “Once Upon a Time” and its ilk are a part of Voyager’s own collection of stories.