3x13 Fair Trade

[7.0/10] Here’s the weird thing about Neelix as a character. He’s played by an actor who was forty when the show started, but he’s kind of a giant kid. He has a childlike exuberance. He has a very paternal relationship with Captain Janeway. And for much of the crew, he’s a lot like a pesky kid brother. Ethan Phillips is a talented enough performer to fill in the loose ends there, but you have to almost consciously remind yourself that, however old Philips is or Neelix is supposed to be, we’re basically dealing with a young teenager here.

That perspective makes me a little more tolerant of an episode like “Fair Trade”, which tackles some big and interesting ideas, but approaches them at a level just above After School Special. What could be a morally complicated exploration of conflicting loyalties and the interplay of a checkered past and a hopeful future, is delivered more as a heavy-handed aesop about the importance of honesty that would feel like a better fit for, say, Wesley Crusher, than for a theoretical grown-up like Neelix.

And yet, taken in its own terms, as a story about someone taking their first, tenuous steps into a more complicated world, with different values than the one he’s used to, “Fair Play” succeeds at what it sets out to do, and deserves credit for that.

The setup sees Voyager about to enter an ominous region of space known as the Necrid Expanse. They stop at a trading post nearby to negotiate for gear and supplies before braving the dangerous terrain. Only, once there, Neelix gets tangled up with an old Talaxian friend who gets him mixed up in some unsavory business.

There’s not much to the premise. It’s nice to see the Voyager crew have to worry about practical things like getting needed material before embarking on an isolated stretch of their journey. The curt operator of the station where they start is a little generic, but has a presence as an overworked functionary focused on his mission that makes him interesting. And the station itself is one of the more memorable locales from the show to date, with elaborate aliens, a creepy bazar, and miscreants offering narcotic crystals that help give the whole thing a sense of place. But on the whole, there’s not much in the way of major stakes here.

Instead, the stakes here are purely personal. The big reveal is that we’re reaching the edge of Neelix’s knowledge of the Delta Quadrant. He’s needling Tuvok, pestering B’Elanna, and desperate to find a reliable starmap for further along the way so that he can maintain his usefulness. The poor guy worries that if he doesn’t, Janeway will have no more use for him and kick him off the ship.

I like that! Let’s be real, Voyager has more or less jettisoned much of its original premise by this point. They’re pretty much done looking for help from another Caretaker-type. We haven't heard from the Kazon in some time. You don’t get much in the way of Maquis vs. Federation grousing anymore.

But part of the story that’s still here is that Neelix is on board as a guide to this unknown region of space. It’s fair to suggest that despite his worldliness, he probably doesn’t know the ins and outs of the whole damn quadrant. So asking what role Neelix plays, what value he brings to the crew, when he’s no longer a reliable guide, is one worth asking.

His insecurity about that lends itself to my favorite aspect of “Fair Trade”, how exceptionally well-motivated Neelix is here, and how complicated those motivations are. On the one hand, he’s desperate to avoid being shunted off the ship because he loves being aboard Voyager. But on the other, he’s internalized the values of honest and decency in his time with the crew that make it hard for him to step outside the lines to get maps or resources that might shore up his credentials on board.

On the one hand, he’s leery of his old friend, Wix, who knows his past as a smuggler of contraband and is still in that game. On the other hand, he feels guilty because Wix took the fall for him in a prior deal gone bad, and still seems to be paying the price for it. Neelix has been successful, finding a place in a top-of-the-line starship, while his old friend is still having to scrape by doing odd and not-strictly-legal jobs to get by. The blend of his guilt over the inequality of their landing spots, and Neelix’s desperation to hold onto his, makes for a meaningfully conflicted Talaxian who’s not sure what to do.

“Fair Trade” comes up with a solid scenario to test that conflict. Wix promises Neelix that he can get him a map if Neelix can help him sell some medical supplies. Of course, nothing is so simple, and it turns out that Wix has tangled Neelix up in a drug deal gone wrong, to where now he’s forced to choose whether to be loyal to Voyager, and tell the truth about what happened, or loyal to his friend, and help skirting the rules to try to keep Wix out of trouble.

The problem is that Voyager gets extraordinarily hamfisted and cheesy about most of this. As someone who lived through the 1990s, the depiction of drugs is hilariously alarmist in a way that makes you think the production may have gotten some extra funding from D.A.R.E. The unnecessary complication of Chakotay and Tom being arrested for the murder of one of the drug-dealers on basically zero evidence is a silly thumb on the scale for Neelix’s dilemma.

Worse yet, we get some painfully corny scenes of Neelix talking to Tom and to Taurik, a young Vulcan officer in Engineering. Paris gives an on-the-nose speech about how his criminal history could have been avoided if he’d just told the truth. And the scene with Taurik involves a saccharine (by Vulcan standards, at least) exchange about how lucky Neelix is to be there. They’re plainly meant to dramatize the competing impulses within Neelix, but they come off like silly aesops. It’s part and parcel with the over-the-top approach the episode takes to what’s otherwise a strong psychological story.

That said, I like where this one lands. In the moment of truth, Neelix comes clean, but concocts a plan to make everyone whole by catching the drug cartel members who’ve been operating on the station. His stand-off with them is pretty damn cool. As I’ve said before, there’s always something heartening when bumbling, affable Neelix shows himself to have nerves of steel. When he confronts them, his leverage is a leaking plasma container that ensures neither side can use weapons lest they ensure some mutually assured destruction.

Most notably, when the cartoonish villain tells him he may take Neelix down with him, Neelix tells him to go ahead, because he has nothing to lose. In Neelix’s mind, he’s already forfeited his place on Voyager with his sins. You believe that he means it. Being on the ship has given him purpose and acceptance, and without that, you can buy that he’d rather die than go on. It speaks to how much this experience and home has meant to him. (Though...uh...query how he never bothers to talk or even seem to think about Kes in all of this.)

Naturally, things work out, and despite the big green explosion (which matches the one from the last episode) he survives long enough to get a dressing down from Janeway for his actions.

And as blunt as that scene is, I kind of love it. Because Neelix thinks that between his lack of knowledge beyond the Necrid Expanse, and his errors in judgment, he’s about to be excommunicated. It speaks to his experience as a smuggler where your value and ability to hang around lies only in what you can do for the powers that be.

But Voyager is not that. It is, as Janeway tells him, a family. That means people aren't simply jettisoned when they’re not as useful as they once were. Instead, they’re held accountable, but still very much a part of the community. It is a stern talking-to, but also a reassurance, that even when you mess up, you still have a place here.

I’ll take that sort of thing every time. I may roll my eyes a little at the bluntness of an episode like “Fair Trade” now, but I was a kid when I watched Voyager. I needed my hand held through some of those lessons. And having a stand-in who teaches you that your place among your friends and family is not dependent on the transactional value you provide, that you still have a home and place of support, even when you screw up royal, is the sort of thing more kids should get to hear. It’s a little strange to get that lesson from the adventures of a forty-year-old alien furball, but then, that’s the beauty of Star Trek.