[6.8/10] I don’t know how to give points for effort. Star Trek: Voyager’s heart is in the right place with an episode like ”Extreme Risk”. Trying to tackle depression and suppressing difficult emotions and survivor’s guilt is admirable. The way they try to personalize the story, through a character whose temperament doesn’t lead viewers to expect depression, is a nice way to dramatize a challenging mental health issue that was stigmatized then and in certain corners, remains stigmatized today. I admire what the creative team is going for here, beyond the usual “neat idea for a story” pat on the back.
But the way they realize that concept is problematic to say the least. Depression is not something that gets fixed in forty-five minutes, and it’s certainly not the kind of thing you can (or should!) just harangue someone into getting over. So my desire to give the show credit for its noble aims is tempered by reservations over how the episode actually treats depression.
Let’s start with the good though. I appreciate the way “Extreme Risk” depicts depression not as someone being very sad, but rather as a sort of emotional numbness. I said that B’Elanna’s disposition doesn’t lend itself to an expectation of depression, but in some ways, she’s the perfect character to explore it with, because her reactions, her frustrations, the things that get a reaction out of her, are well-defined. So when they’re shut down and shut off, it’s easy to notice.
Torres has no qualms about putting Seven in charge of a project. She responds with a simple “no” to a boardroom question rather than trying to come up with a creative solution. She doesn’t snipe with Tom or offer a smart remark about Neelix’s cooking. She doesn’t care about the dream engineering job du jour. She’s meeting expectations but she doesn’t care; she’s just listing through life.
Sometimes the episode underlines that fact a little too hard. (Tom’s speech lays it on a bit thick for my tastes.) But the bigger point is that it’s clear something’s wrong. B’Elanna’s lost interest in the things that used to get her going, from resentments of Borg interlopers to thorny technical problems to the fiery personality that occasionally got her in trouble. In a weird way, it’s the opposite of one of The Original Series’ favorite moves. Just like it always made an impression when the typically stoic Spock was suddenly emotional, it makes an impression when the typically emotional B’Elanna is suddenly stoic.
A great deal of credit belongs to Roxann Dawson. It’s not easy to play someone in a state of emotional inertness and make it compelling. But there are subtleties and layers to her performance, where you can see the numbness wear on her, the disinterest wash over her, the evasions that turn into excuses that turn into self-destruction. Her scene with Neelix in particular is raw and sad in a way little on Voyager is. This is arguably the most challenging script the show’s ever delivered for Dawson, and it puts a lot on her shoulders, but it also results in the actor's best performance to date.
My only big problem with the depiction in the early part of the episode comes in the form of the titular extreme risk. Don’t get me wrong, the orbital skydiving sequence is exciting, and there’s still something novel about seeing Cardassians on Voyager (which turns out to be a clue). But this behavior from B’Elanna -- running dangerous holodeck programs and overriding safety protocols -- is a clear metaphor for self-harm, and I have qualms about the outsized depiction of it.
There’s something to be said for the idea of depicting one of the rationales behind self-harm, of wanting control over something, of wanting to feel something through the morass of depression. But representing it through extreme recreational activities feels off, like the show has to make it action-y and exciting because the alternative might be too real or too mundane for a sci-fi adventure series. There’s something cheap about that.
What isn’t cheap is the Delta Flyer. Okay, maybe it’s a little cheap. But still! I don’t know why, but the Flyer is one of the coolest parts of Voyager. As much as I roll my eyes at Tom Paris’ 24th century hotrod-loving sensibility that seems like a hobby transposed from one of the producers, the notion of Voyager having a signature shuttlecraft, one attuned to the environment and distinctive in its design, is one of those neat little features of the show.
The “space race” against the Malon doesn’t do a whole lot for me, though. At least in “Night”, there was some larger moral point to the species' dickishness. But here, they’re just Saturday morning cartoon bad guys, snarling and throwing waste at our heroes in a race to see who can recover a probe first. They serve no purpose but to impose a standard Star Trek ticking clock, and don’t have much going for them beyond that.
That said, as with the storycrafting from Tuvok’s holoprogram last season, it is nice to see the crew going back and forth about what the Flyer should look and otherwise be like. Tom wanting form and Tuvok wanting function is basic, but it’s a nice excuse for the characters to bounce off of one another, including a disinterested B’Elanna.
Unfortunately, the scene where Chakotay finds her passed out after a risky holodeck test of the Flyer is where the real problems start.
Let’s start with the obvious. If someone is in a state of depression, literally dragging them off from their home and otherwise physically imposing yourself on them in the name of treatment is pretty awful. It’s even worse when you are their supervisor. The scenes where Chakotay forces B’Elanna from her quarters and all but pushes her into the holodeck are uncomfortable.
Likewise, if somebody is depressed because they’re reacting poorly to some kind of trauma, forcing them to relive that trauma is absolutely not the answer! Holy hell! Why is this something we have to explain! Chakotay making B’Elanna confront the dead bodies of the Maquis comrades they lost is horrible, even if it’s B’Elanna’s own program.
I get what Voyager is going for here. The idea, and it’s a laudable one, is that Torres is smarting from the enormity of the Maquis being wiped out in the Dominion conflict, but won’t let herself face those feelings. It’s the latest in a long line of losses she’s suffered over the course of her life, and you can understand how that would leave a mark on her. She’s closing herself off from pain and has, in the process, accidentally closed herself off from all emotion. There’s something to that idea, even if our understanding of whether and how to confront grief and loss has evolved since 1998.
But as with the risky holodeck programs, it’s not just enough for B’Elanna and Chakotay to have a charged but empathetic conversation about this. No, we need overblown drama and fireworks because this is an action-adventure show. Everything is so extreme, and it makes Chakotay look downright cruel in how he tries to get B’Elanna over her issues, in a way that seems more likely to make them worse.
Nevermind the fact that Chakotay isn’t any kind of doctor, let alone a therapist, no matter how many of the usual bromides about found families he spouts. And there’s not one scene of anyone suggesting or insisting that B’Elanna speak to the EMH as a legitimate counselor. And the whole episode, even the better-intentioned parts, have the tone of an after school special, which detracts from the commendable project “Extreme Risk” is aiming for here.
The biggest problem of all, though, is the suggestion that this frankly galling attempt at exposure therapy works on B’Elanna. Suddenly, she's awakened enough to join her colleagues on the Delta Flyer mission to retrieve the probe. Now look, as pure action and problem-solving goes, B’Elanna stepping up and jury-rigging a solution to the disintegrating panel is pretty darn cool. But it feels superfluous, at best, to the real issues she’s facing, and it’s mildly insulting to suggest that Chakotay’s hectoring bullshit gave her the kick in the pants she needed.
I appreciate that the episode at least has the decency to suggest that not everything is fixed immediately, and that it will take some time for B’Elanna to recover emotionally, even if it’s unlikely we’ll actually see that. Star Trek trends toward single-serving stories that restore the status quo. So we don’t really deal with Neelix’s hopelessness, or Chief O’Brien’s suicidal ideation, or Geordi’s Manchurian Candidate experience, or Kirk’s pregnant wife dying ever again. That is the nature of the beast, and you have to accept it if you’re going to appreciate this form of storytelling for what it is.
But it’s outrageous to present the idea that one arguably abusive pep talk from Chakotay is all that B’Elanna needs to get her on the right track. Dealing with depression and other mental illnesses is hard work. As the voice of none other than George Takei would later tell the title character of BoJack Horseman, “Every day it gets a little easier… But you gotta do it every day — that's the hard part. But it does get easier.”
Voyager can't or won’t do it everyday. I doubt the show will do it past this episode. I doubt any future outings will see B’Elanna taking advantage of therapy or otherwise dealing with her grief beyond this likely re-traumatizing experience. As noble as “Extreme Risk”’s aims are, the end result leaves me queasy.
And yet, I can't deny that seeing B’Elanna get a bit of relief in the end is heartening. Her desire to eat some banana pancakes, to extract a little of the joy she used to feel as a child, is a familiar one. Depression, and the emotional detachment, is the kind of thing that makes you reach for old comforts and old pleasures, in the hope that they too can jumpstart your happiness -- old comforts like, say, rewatching the Star Trek series you grew up with.
There is catharsis in B’Elanna’s second try at the pancakes, and the smile that washes over her face when she can once again feel the joy she used to get from them. There is nobility in trying to tell a lived-in and committed story of depression. There is hope in seeing one of the most trauma-backstoried characters in Star Trek history seeing a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. I just wish the show did a better job of trying to get her there.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2024-05-07T04:01:08Z
[6.8/10] I don’t know how to give points for effort. Star Trek: Voyager’s heart is in the right place with an episode like ”Extreme Risk”. Trying to tackle depression and suppressing difficult emotions and survivor’s guilt is admirable. The way they try to personalize the story, through a character whose temperament doesn’t lead viewers to expect depression, is a nice way to dramatize a challenging mental health issue that was stigmatized then and in certain corners, remains stigmatized today. I admire what the creative team is going for here, beyond the usual “neat idea for a story” pat on the back.
But the way they realize that concept is problematic to say the least. Depression is not something that gets fixed in forty-five minutes, and it’s certainly not the kind of thing you can (or should!) just harangue someone into getting over. So my desire to give the show credit for its noble aims is tempered by reservations over how the episode actually treats depression.
Let’s start with the good though. I appreciate the way “Extreme Risk” depicts depression not as someone being very sad, but rather as a sort of emotional numbness. I said that B’Elanna’s disposition doesn’t lend itself to an expectation of depression, but in some ways, she’s the perfect character to explore it with, because her reactions, her frustrations, the things that get a reaction out of her, are well-defined. So when they’re shut down and shut off, it’s easy to notice.
Torres has no qualms about putting Seven in charge of a project. She responds with a simple “no” to a boardroom question rather than trying to come up with a creative solution. She doesn’t snipe with Tom or offer a smart remark about Neelix’s cooking. She doesn’t care about the dream engineering job du jour. She’s meeting expectations but she doesn’t care; she’s just listing through life.
Sometimes the episode underlines that fact a little too hard. (Tom’s speech lays it on a bit thick for my tastes.) But the bigger point is that it’s clear something’s wrong. B’Elanna’s lost interest in the things that used to get her going, from resentments of Borg interlopers to thorny technical problems to the fiery personality that occasionally got her in trouble. In a weird way, it’s the opposite of one of The Original Series’ favorite moves. Just like it always made an impression when the typically stoic Spock was suddenly emotional, it makes an impression when the typically emotional B’Elanna is suddenly stoic.
A great deal of credit belongs to Roxann Dawson. It’s not easy to play someone in a state of emotional inertness and make it compelling. But there are subtleties and layers to her performance, where you can see the numbness wear on her, the disinterest wash over her, the evasions that turn into excuses that turn into self-destruction. Her scene with Neelix in particular is raw and sad in a way little on Voyager is. This is arguably the most challenging script the show’s ever delivered for Dawson, and it puts a lot on her shoulders, but it also results in the actor's best performance to date.
My only big problem with the depiction in the early part of the episode comes in the form of the titular extreme risk. Don’t get me wrong, the orbital skydiving sequence is exciting, and there’s still something novel about seeing Cardassians on Voyager (which turns out to be a clue). But this behavior from B’Elanna -- running dangerous holodeck programs and overriding safety protocols -- is a clear metaphor for self-harm, and I have qualms about the outsized depiction of it.
There’s something to be said for the idea of depicting one of the rationales behind self-harm, of wanting control over something, of wanting to feel something through the morass of depression. But representing it through extreme recreational activities feels off, like the show has to make it action-y and exciting because the alternative might be too real or too mundane for a sci-fi adventure series. There’s something cheap about that.
What isn’t cheap is the Delta Flyer. Okay, maybe it’s a little cheap. But still! I don’t know why, but the Flyer is one of the coolest parts of Voyager. As much as I roll my eyes at Tom Paris’ 24th century hotrod-loving sensibility that seems like a hobby transposed from one of the producers, the notion of Voyager having a signature shuttlecraft, one attuned to the environment and distinctive in its design, is one of those neat little features of the show.
The “space race” against the Malon doesn’t do a whole lot for me, though. At least in “Night”, there was some larger moral point to the species' dickishness. But here, they’re just Saturday morning cartoon bad guys, snarling and throwing waste at our heroes in a race to see who can recover a probe first. They serve no purpose but to impose a standard Star Trek ticking clock, and don’t have much going for them beyond that.
That said, as with the storycrafting from Tuvok’s holoprogram last season, it is nice to see the crew going back and forth about what the Flyer should look and otherwise be like. Tom wanting form and Tuvok wanting function is basic, but it’s a nice excuse for the characters to bounce off of one another, including a disinterested B’Elanna.
Unfortunately, the scene where Chakotay finds her passed out after a risky holodeck test of the Flyer is where the real problems start.
Let’s start with the obvious. If someone is in a state of depression, literally dragging them off from their home and otherwise physically imposing yourself on them in the name of treatment is pretty awful. It’s even worse when you are their supervisor. The scenes where Chakotay forces B’Elanna from her quarters and all but pushes her into the holodeck are uncomfortable.
Likewise, if somebody is depressed because they’re reacting poorly to some kind of trauma, forcing them to relive that trauma is absolutely not the answer! Holy hell! Why is this something we have to explain! Chakotay making B’Elanna confront the dead bodies of the Maquis comrades they lost is horrible, even if it’s B’Elanna’s own program.
I get what Voyager is going for here. The idea, and it’s a laudable one, is that Torres is smarting from the enormity of the Maquis being wiped out in the Dominion conflict, but won’t let herself face those feelings. It’s the latest in a long line of losses she’s suffered over the course of her life, and you can understand how that would leave a mark on her. She’s closing herself off from pain and has, in the process, accidentally closed herself off from all emotion. There’s something to that idea, even if our understanding of whether and how to confront grief and loss has evolved since 1998.
But as with the risky holodeck programs, it’s not just enough for B’Elanna and Chakotay to have a charged but empathetic conversation about this. No, we need overblown drama and fireworks because this is an action-adventure show. Everything is so extreme, and it makes Chakotay look downright cruel in how he tries to get B’Elanna over her issues, in a way that seems more likely to make them worse.
Nevermind the fact that Chakotay isn’t any kind of doctor, let alone a therapist, no matter how many of the usual bromides about found families he spouts. And there’s not one scene of anyone suggesting or insisting that B’Elanna speak to the EMH as a legitimate counselor. And the whole episode, even the better-intentioned parts, have the tone of an after school special, which detracts from the commendable project “Extreme Risk” is aiming for here.
The biggest problem of all, though, is the suggestion that this frankly galling attempt at exposure therapy works on B’Elanna. Suddenly, she's awakened enough to join her colleagues on the Delta Flyer mission to retrieve the probe. Now look, as pure action and problem-solving goes, B’Elanna stepping up and jury-rigging a solution to the disintegrating panel is pretty darn cool. But it feels superfluous, at best, to the real issues she’s facing, and it’s mildly insulting to suggest that Chakotay’s hectoring bullshit gave her the kick in the pants she needed.
I appreciate that the episode at least has the decency to suggest that not everything is fixed immediately, and that it will take some time for B’Elanna to recover emotionally, even if it’s unlikely we’ll actually see that. Star Trek trends toward single-serving stories that restore the status quo. So we don’t really deal with Neelix’s hopelessness, or Chief O’Brien’s suicidal ideation, or Geordi’s Manchurian Candidate experience, or Kirk’s pregnant wife dying ever again. That is the nature of the beast, and you have to accept it if you’re going to appreciate this form of storytelling for what it is.
But it’s outrageous to present the idea that one arguably abusive pep talk from Chakotay is all that B’Elanna needs to get her on the right track. Dealing with depression and other mental illnesses is hard work. As the voice of none other than George Takei would later tell the title character of BoJack Horseman, “Every day it gets a little easier… But you gotta do it every day — that's the hard part. But it does get easier.”
Voyager can't or won’t do it everyday. I doubt the show will do it past this episode. I doubt any future outings will see B’Elanna taking advantage of therapy or otherwise dealing with her grief beyond this likely re-traumatizing experience. As noble as “Extreme Risk”’s aims are, the end result leaves me queasy.
And yet, I can't deny that seeing B’Elanna get a bit of relief in the end is heartening. Her desire to eat some banana pancakes, to extract a little of the joy she used to feel as a child, is a familiar one. Depression, and the emotional detachment, is the kind of thing that makes you reach for old comforts and old pleasures, in the hope that they too can jumpstart your happiness -- old comforts like, say, rewatching the Star Trek series you grew up with.
There is catharsis in B’Elanna’s second try at the pancakes, and the smile that washes over her face when she can once again feel the joy she used to get from them. There is nobility in trying to tell a lived-in and committed story of depression. There is hope in seeing one of the most trauma-backstoried characters in Star Trek history seeing a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel. I just wish the show did a better job of trying to get her there.