[8.1/10] When I was a kid, “Mortal Coil” scared me deeper than any Star Trek episode featuring monsters or villains or phantoms, because it didn’t just have the threat of death; it was about death. And not in the abstract, feel-good sort of way. It was about the unmooring idea that everything we are and have been can end in an instant, and that the end result could be nothing but oblivion. The end of your life is a tough thing to wrap your mind around for anyone; for an elementary school kid, it’s all but unfathomable, and that much more frightening.
As an adult, one who is more sanguine about the inevitability of the end than I was as a child (at least insomuch as anyone can be), “Mortal Coil” is somehow scarier. Because at its core, the story is rooted in fears that are far more adult, about living a life of purpose that’s suddenly stripped away from you, of intrusive thoughts of nihilism that eat at the human soul, of a trauma that comes when the lodestones of belief that help give your life meaning are called into question, of a worry that the world doesn’t need you.
Death is frightening. It is, in some ways, the fear upon which all other fears are built. But somehow, meaninglessness is scarier, irrevocably broken connections are scarier, a loss of the self you thought you knew is scarier. And on that score, under Bryan Fuller’s pen, “Mortal Coil” may be the most piercing and disturbing episode of Star Trek there is.
And it centers on most fans’ least favorite character.
Despite that fact, Neelix is the perfect character for this story. He is ebullient, gregarious, spirited, considerate, and empathetic. He is the self-proclaimed morale officer of Voyager, one whose sunny disposition makes him a natural to try to perk up the spirits of the crew. He has carved out a place for himself in this found family, lending his culinary expertise to give Harry a caffeinated boost, using his experience as a trader to help Chakotay gather resources, helping to guide Seven through her transition back to humanity, giving Tom a little taste of home, and in some ways, most importantly, helping a little girl keep the monsters away so she can fall asleep. He is as pure and good a character as any in the franchise.
Which is what makes it so hard to see him broken. There isn’t much exploration of faith on American television (too hot button) and consequently even less exploration of loss of faith. So there is a novelty and a potency, amid the secular humanism of Star Trek, to telling a story about someone who not only believes in a blissful afterlife, but whose faith in it helps motivate his cheery affect and inner strength, only to lose all of that in an instant.
I can’t pretend to be able to relate. I’ve never had a near-death experience that shook my view of the afterlife. But that’s the beauty of narrative art, right? It is, as Roger Ebert famously put it, a type of empathy machine. And through the unfolding of this unusual story, and a tremendous performance from Ethan Phillips, it is all too easy to feel the devastation of someone who depended on their faith to get them through the day, to be endlessly giving to others, and to have it shattered in a way that makes them question everything about what’s worthwhile in their existence.
Phillips is electric here, and it’s part of why I could never cotton to the fandom’s hate for Neelix. The character isn’t always perfect on the page, but Phillips is such a stellar performer that I can’t imagine the show without him.
He sells you on the place Neelix has made on the ship, someone endlessly patient and accommodating to everyone from the ship’s first officer to its teeniest passenger. He sells you on the steady mental breakdown of someone who was clinically dead for eighteen hours and doesn’t know what their life is when they wake up, with denial giving way to disaffection giving way to brokenness giving way to anger and guilt and crisis of the self.
And most devastatingly, he sells you on the peace of someone who thinks the solution is to end their own life, convinced that their existence is somehow wrong or useless. He shows the range of these complicated emotions here, convincing and heartbreaking in each of them, and it’s an incredible feat for any actor, let alone one draped in prosthesis and playing a character who’s not often given such depths.
Here, though, he’s made to reckon with the idea that his idea of Heaven is false, and “Mortal Coil” takes it deadly seriously. What I appreciate about Fuller and company’s approach is that the episode is ecumenical about whatever comes next. Yes, Neelix is convinced that he should have seen something in the eighteen hours when he was clinically deceased. But others point out that he might not have been gone long enough, that visions need to be interpreted, that much about the end remains unknown. The story invites the viewer to reflect on these ideas, and examines the struggle to contemplate the afterlife, but leaves room for folks to have different takeaways and considerations for such an unknowable thing.
In that same vein, this is one of Chakotay’s best episodes. As much as I tend to dump on the character, it’s important to recognize when he’s used (and performed!) well. As the most spiritual member of the Voyager crew (give or take Tuvok), Chakotay makes sense as someone for Neelix to confide in, and to help him through this spiritual crisis. The cultural exchange of Chakotay guiding Neelix through a vision ritual, the compassion and responsibility of him insisting that they process what he experienced together, and the courage of him talking Neelix down from the brink all result in the most I’ve ever liked Chakotay.
Likewise, this is a slight but good brick in the wall of Seven’s transition to humanity. Her contemplating the fact that, outside of the Collective, she’s effectively mortal again is an interesting angle to consider on her separation. And Neelix snapping at her in his grief, only to give her his benediction in recognition of how far she’s come, is one of the sweetest shifts on the show to date. There’s a purity and innocence to Neelix, so when he goes from recoiling at the prospect of Borg nanoprobes in his system, to blessing Seven’s future on the ship, it’s easy for the viewer to have the same shift in perspective.
Unfortunately, the thing Neelix needs most is a shift in perspective on himself. His vision is a great bit of work from director Allan Kroeker. Apart from some of-its-time CGI, the vision is an appropriately stylistic phantasmagoria, which takes a DS9 tack toward supernatural experiences, and curdles slowly from the bright and reassuring, to the dark and disturbing. There’s something about Neelix looking for answers and solace, and instead only finding his worst fears realized and his gravest hopelessness fed, that breaks your heart.
What is scarier than that? The idea that the quest for meaning is fruitless, that all our plans and projects will ultimately come to ruin, that the ones we love and lose are gone from us for good. Who wouldn’t be disquieted by that thought? It’s enough to chill on its own.
And yet, what gives it extra force is the way it’s channeled through Neelix’s wounded psyche. He lived his entire life feeling one way, believing one thing, only to have this unique experience undermine it all. Guilt is, perhaps, the wrong term for it, but this sense that he wasn’t meant to come back, that he’s “not Neelix” anymore is the most cutting part of this one. His life is different. What he lives for is different. You can understand why he would come back shaken, and start to wonder if it was wrong, somehow, for him to return.
It’s a peculiar sort of pain, and a strange sort of logic, to come back changed, worry that change was for the worse, and reckon that you were meant to die rather than come back altered. The scariest part of this one isn’t even the looming dread of oblivion; it’s the sudden loss of self.
Or the loss of someone you love. The hardest thing in “Mortal Coil” is witnessing a ray of sunshine like Neelix ready to end it all because of his pain. I won’t equivocate. I teared up at parts of the final act. Phillips is so damn earnest in the performance. That desire to bid farewell and sense of peace some people get when they resolve to take their own lives is vivid and visceral, both as a sign of the connections Neelix has forged in his time on the ship, and as a quietly horrifying prelude to the act which he thinks will end his suffering. Sometimes, amid the artifice of television and storytelling, something real slips through. This is one of those times.
The part that kills me is his speech on the transporter pad. With all of Neelix’s clownish antics, it’s easy to forget that he is the survivor of great devastation to his people and to his family. That he himself still feels survivor’s guilt over their loss. So when he says that part of what kept him going, what kept him optimistic, despite all the horror and loss he’s witnessed, was the idea that he would be reunited with his loved ones some day, and now that’s been taken away from him, you cannot help but feel his pain. It is to lose them anew, once in this life, and once again in the next. The layers to the emotions that lead him to this terrible point are so comprehensible and sympathetic, which is what makes them so heartbreaking.
And yet, there is relief. There is a trusted friend who reassures him what he means to this crew and these people. There is a mother, there to remind him of the child who depends on his comfort and assurance to keep her own monsters at bay. There is so much more light for someone like Neeix to give. To help him see that, to pull him back from the brink through helping him understand what his life is worth to so many who love and depend on him, is a mitzvah.
The catharsis when he accepts that, when he steps off the transporter pad, is immense. Whatever lies beyond that clouded veil, be it bliss or blackness, in the here and now, there are people who need his light. In the shadow of the unknown, it is the most any of us can hope for. Naomi Wildman sitting in the Great Forest may be a sign of the unwitting truth of Neelix’s beliefs, or simply a sign that a kind man remains on this mortal coil, to share such kindness and comfort with those who need it most.
Our fears come from many places, in many forms, both when we’re young and when we grow older. But so too do our blessings, literal or figurative, our connections amid this veil of tears, and our comforts, to once again ward the dark things away.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-11-04T03:33:37Z
[8.1/10] When I was a kid, “Mortal Coil” scared me deeper than any Star Trek episode featuring monsters or villains or phantoms, because it didn’t just have the threat of death; it was about death. And not in the abstract, feel-good sort of way. It was about the unmooring idea that everything we are and have been can end in an instant, and that the end result could be nothing but oblivion. The end of your life is a tough thing to wrap your mind around for anyone; for an elementary school kid, it’s all but unfathomable, and that much more frightening.
As an adult, one who is more sanguine about the inevitability of the end than I was as a child (at least insomuch as anyone can be), “Mortal Coil” is somehow scarier. Because at its core, the story is rooted in fears that are far more adult, about living a life of purpose that’s suddenly stripped away from you, of intrusive thoughts of nihilism that eat at the human soul, of a trauma that comes when the lodestones of belief that help give your life meaning are called into question, of a worry that the world doesn’t need you.
Death is frightening. It is, in some ways, the fear upon which all other fears are built. But somehow, meaninglessness is scarier, irrevocably broken connections are scarier, a loss of the self you thought you knew is scarier. And on that score, under Bryan Fuller’s pen, “Mortal Coil” may be the most piercing and disturbing episode of Star Trek there is.
And it centers on most fans’ least favorite character.
Despite that fact, Neelix is the perfect character for this story. He is ebullient, gregarious, spirited, considerate, and empathetic. He is the self-proclaimed morale officer of Voyager, one whose sunny disposition makes him a natural to try to perk up the spirits of the crew. He has carved out a place for himself in this found family, lending his culinary expertise to give Harry a caffeinated boost, using his experience as a trader to help Chakotay gather resources, helping to guide Seven through her transition back to humanity, giving Tom a little taste of home, and in some ways, most importantly, helping a little girl keep the monsters away so she can fall asleep. He is as pure and good a character as any in the franchise.
Which is what makes it so hard to see him broken. There isn’t much exploration of faith on American television (too hot button) and consequently even less exploration of loss of faith. So there is a novelty and a potency, amid the secular humanism of Star Trek, to telling a story about someone who not only believes in a blissful afterlife, but whose faith in it helps motivate his cheery affect and inner strength, only to lose all of that in an instant.
I can’t pretend to be able to relate. I’ve never had a near-death experience that shook my view of the afterlife. But that’s the beauty of narrative art, right? It is, as Roger Ebert famously put it, a type of empathy machine. And through the unfolding of this unusual story, and a tremendous performance from Ethan Phillips, it is all too easy to feel the devastation of someone who depended on their faith to get them through the day, to be endlessly giving to others, and to have it shattered in a way that makes them question everything about what’s worthwhile in their existence.
Phillips is electric here, and it’s part of why I could never cotton to the fandom’s hate for Neelix. The character isn’t always perfect on the page, but Phillips is such a stellar performer that I can’t imagine the show without him.
He sells you on the place Neelix has made on the ship, someone endlessly patient and accommodating to everyone from the ship’s first officer to its teeniest passenger. He sells you on the steady mental breakdown of someone who was clinically dead for eighteen hours and doesn’t know what their life is when they wake up, with denial giving way to disaffection giving way to brokenness giving way to anger and guilt and crisis of the self.
And most devastatingly, he sells you on the peace of someone who thinks the solution is to end their own life, convinced that their existence is somehow wrong or useless. He shows the range of these complicated emotions here, convincing and heartbreaking in each of them, and it’s an incredible feat for any actor, let alone one draped in prosthesis and playing a character who’s not often given such depths.
Here, though, he’s made to reckon with the idea that his idea of Heaven is false, and “Mortal Coil” takes it deadly seriously. What I appreciate about Fuller and company’s approach is that the episode is ecumenical about whatever comes next. Yes, Neelix is convinced that he should have seen something in the eighteen hours when he was clinically deceased. But others point out that he might not have been gone long enough, that visions need to be interpreted, that much about the end remains unknown. The story invites the viewer to reflect on these ideas, and examines the struggle to contemplate the afterlife, but leaves room for folks to have different takeaways and considerations for such an unknowable thing.
In that same vein, this is one of Chakotay’s best episodes. As much as I tend to dump on the character, it’s important to recognize when he’s used (and performed!) well. As the most spiritual member of the Voyager crew (give or take Tuvok), Chakotay makes sense as someone for Neelix to confide in, and to help him through this spiritual crisis. The cultural exchange of Chakotay guiding Neelix through a vision ritual, the compassion and responsibility of him insisting that they process what he experienced together, and the courage of him talking Neelix down from the brink all result in the most I’ve ever liked Chakotay.
Likewise, this is a slight but good brick in the wall of Seven’s transition to humanity. Her contemplating the fact that, outside of the Collective, she’s effectively mortal again is an interesting angle to consider on her separation. And Neelix snapping at her in his grief, only to give her his benediction in recognition of how far she’s come, is one of the sweetest shifts on the show to date. There’s a purity and innocence to Neelix, so when he goes from recoiling at the prospect of Borg nanoprobes in his system, to blessing Seven’s future on the ship, it’s easy for the viewer to have the same shift in perspective.
Unfortunately, the thing Neelix needs most is a shift in perspective on himself. His vision is a great bit of work from director Allan Kroeker. Apart from some of-its-time CGI, the vision is an appropriately stylistic phantasmagoria, which takes a DS9 tack toward supernatural experiences, and curdles slowly from the bright and reassuring, to the dark and disturbing. There’s something about Neelix looking for answers and solace, and instead only finding his worst fears realized and his gravest hopelessness fed, that breaks your heart.
What is scarier than that? The idea that the quest for meaning is fruitless, that all our plans and projects will ultimately come to ruin, that the ones we love and lose are gone from us for good. Who wouldn’t be disquieted by that thought? It’s enough to chill on its own.
And yet, what gives it extra force is the way it’s channeled through Neelix’s wounded psyche. He lived his entire life feeling one way, believing one thing, only to have this unique experience undermine it all. Guilt is, perhaps, the wrong term for it, but this sense that he wasn’t meant to come back, that he’s “not Neelix” anymore is the most cutting part of this one. His life is different. What he lives for is different. You can understand why he would come back shaken, and start to wonder if it was wrong, somehow, for him to return.
It’s a peculiar sort of pain, and a strange sort of logic, to come back changed, worry that change was for the worse, and reckon that you were meant to die rather than come back altered. The scariest part of this one isn’t even the looming dread of oblivion; it’s the sudden loss of self.
Or the loss of someone you love. The hardest thing in “Mortal Coil” is witnessing a ray of sunshine like Neelix ready to end it all because of his pain. I won’t equivocate. I teared up at parts of the final act. Phillips is so damn earnest in the performance. That desire to bid farewell and sense of peace some people get when they resolve to take their own lives is vivid and visceral, both as a sign of the connections Neelix has forged in his time on the ship, and as a quietly horrifying prelude to the act which he thinks will end his suffering. Sometimes, amid the artifice of television and storytelling, something real slips through. This is one of those times.
The part that kills me is his speech on the transporter pad. With all of Neelix’s clownish antics, it’s easy to forget that he is the survivor of great devastation to his people and to his family. That he himself still feels survivor’s guilt over their loss. So when he says that part of what kept him going, what kept him optimistic, despite all the horror and loss he’s witnessed, was the idea that he would be reunited with his loved ones some day, and now that’s been taken away from him, you cannot help but feel his pain. It is to lose them anew, once in this life, and once again in the next. The layers to the emotions that lead him to this terrible point are so comprehensible and sympathetic, which is what makes them so heartbreaking.
And yet, there is relief. There is a trusted friend who reassures him what he means to this crew and these people. There is a mother, there to remind him of the child who depends on his comfort and assurance to keep her own monsters at bay. There is so much more light for someone like Neeix to give. To help him see that, to pull him back from the brink through helping him understand what his life is worth to so many who love and depend on him, is a mitzvah.
The catharsis when he accepts that, when he steps off the transporter pad, is immense. Whatever lies beyond that clouded veil, be it bliss or blackness, in the here and now, there are people who need his light. In the shadow of the unknown, it is the most any of us can hope for. Naomi Wildman sitting in the Great Forest may be a sign of the unwitting truth of Neelix’s beliefs, or simply a sign that a kind man remains on this mortal coil, to share such kindness and comfort with those who need it most.
Our fears come from many places, in many forms, both when we’re young and when we grow older. But so too do our blessings, literal or figurative, our connections amid this veil of tears, and our comforts, to once again ward the dark things away.