1x07 Eye of the Needle

[7.8/10] When we think of the core values and themes of Star Trek, we tend to think of exploration, and openness to new experiences, the value of diplomacy and community over conflict and aggression. But more and more, I think of empathy as at the heart of everything Starfleet stands for. The ability to understand someone outside of your own experience, appreciate what they’ve been through on their own terms, make a genuine connection with them, elevates the best officers and the best characters across the franchise.

Empathy is the subtle theme of an episode like “Eye of the Needle”. Ostensibly, it’s a fairly straightforward anomaly-of-the-week story. Harry Kim detects a possible wormhole that, my stars, could send them back to the Alpha Quadrant! Even when it’s clear that this bridge across space is too small to fit the ship through, there’s technobabble-filled discussions at play over whether they could at least use it to send a message to their loved ones, or even beam the crew through the rift and return home that way.

Some of the material is, frankly, kind of dull. The early part of the episode focuses on the discovery of the anomaly and dry discussions and planning of how to use it. But that all changes when Captain Janeway makes contact with a Romulan scientist on the other side of the breach, and the chance to make contact with their home becomes as much about the connection between people as it does the connection between quadrants.

The Romulan is, true to form, suspicious. He doubts that Voyager is actually hailing him from the Delta quadrant, and assumes it's some sort of Starfleet trick. Suddenly, “Eye of the Needle” becomes as much a personal problem as it is a technical one. It’s centered more on convincing this member of an enemy camp to trust them, let alone help them. The logistical details of the pinhole wormhole, probes running aground within it, and the need to compensate for certain bandwidth factors is all well and good. But the core of the story turns on the arguably trickier business of person-to-person interactions.

I love the scenes where Janeway breaks through the Romulan scientist’s prickly exterior. She asks what to call him, approaches him with vulnerability and honesty. I’ll admit, it’s weird that the creative team choose to have her do this scene wearing just a nightgown with Glamor Shots-style hair. (Frankly, it feels like a Rick Berman choice.) But I appreciate that the return call comes in the middle of the night, when she’s not prepped or poised for it. And yet she nonetheless builds a connection with the scientist on the other end.

She asks what to call him. She sympathizes with his reluctance under the circumstances. She explains their plight and how what her people want most is simply to let the ones they love know they’re okay. It’s the empathy she provides and asks for in return that truly wins the day and makes this potential breakthrough possible.

Empathy is as much the throughline for the B-story here, which sees The Doctor, and those in his orbit, beginning to think of himself as a member of the crew and not just an walking emergency measure. I love the progression of the story, and how once again, it starts with Kes. She sees the Doctor, empathizes with his circumstances, in a way no one else does. Her willingness to recognize his needs and his struggles, in a way the rest of the crew is blind to, prompts an incredible change.

Kes has the gumption to go to the captain. Janeway is understandably a little skeptical at first, particularly in light of complaints about the Doc’s “brusque” bedside manner. But another major theme of Star Trek is extending the franchise of humanity -- recognizing other beings as equal and worthy members of the human family. Whether it’s Spock, Data, or Odo, the notion of an outsider finding their way toward recognition as a kindred spirit is a time-tested part of the franchise, and this is, if not the beginning of that journey for The Doctor, then a first big step.

It requires Janeway to exercise that empathy in an unexpected direction. I love how she changes her mind here despite her initial reluctance. She goes to speak to the doctor. She treats him like a person. She asks him what he needs, what he wants, what will make him feel like a member of the crew given that he’s quickly outstripping his programming and becoming a full-fledged part of this community. The Doctor is taken aback, but affected by this sudden wash of dignity and recognition. It changes his view of himself, and as a result, the sort of treatment he accepts and expects from others.

Simple gestures of respect and, frankly, basic courtesy, like him being able to turn his program on or off, to make requests for the needs of sick bay like anyone else, to have a name, alters the Doctor’s own self image. I love the contrast between the officer who directs all his comments to Kes rather than the person treating him in the first scene, which is what prompts Kes’ actions in the first place, and the closing scene where the Doctor doesn’t accept that level of dismissal and earns more than a few “yes sirs” from his patient.

It’s a lovely tribute to how making someone feel seen, respected, understood, can help them self-actualized. A small recognition from Kes, works its way through Janeway, and eventually back to the Doctor in a way that helps him understand his own value and right to be treated as a person. The story is simple, but powerful in its execution and affirmation of those empathetic values.

The same values spur Janeway to earn the appreciation and understanding of her Romulan counterpart. When she emphasizes the limited window they have before the wormhole collapses, the Romulan gives the excuses that he doesn’t control the Senate’s timeframe for making a decision and he’s a low level functionary who can’t rock the boat. Yet, when Janeway learns more about him -- how he’s on a longhaul science mission that’s kept him away from a newborn daughter he’s never even seen -- she gets him to empathize with their plight of being far away from their loved ones for an indefinite time. That willingness to understand where someone else is coming from turns an enemy into an ally.

Of course, this is Voyager, and while the show was not necessarily averse to changing the status quo, the chances that they’d make it back home seven episodes into the first season were pretty slim. I like the fly in the ointment though. Even when B’Elanna figures out a way to beam matter across the length of the wormhole, it turns out the connection cuts across time, not just space. They would be traveling back to the Alpha Quadrant, yes, but also twenty years in the past.

Candidly, I don’t love how quickly Janeway and company brush off the possibilities. Harry’s right that having to wait twenty years in real time to get back to the present is preferable to a seventy year journey. You can kind of understand Janeway’s reluctance to violate Starfleet protocols on temporal displacement and risk polluting the timeline. But she certainly could have accepted the scientist’s offer to simply advise Starfleet not to conduct the mission in twenty years’ time. The excuse that they’ve already affected some things in the Delta Quadrant seems pretty meager to me.

Even if it requires some handwaving to explain why they can’t use this opportunity to fix Voyager’s largest problem, I like where they land. Janeway may not be comfortable allowing the scientist to change the future, but she is good with him taking their letters home and sending them to their friends and family when the time is right.

There’s one final heartbreaking twist. Once the Romulan scientist gives his name, Tuvok checks the data banks and realizes he died four years before their mission. They’re suddenly in another state of not knowing, whether he tasked someone else with passing on the messages, or if they’re back where they started. It’s a bittersweet ending to a sound sci-fi story, which is the kind I tend to like.

But it wouldn’t be possible at all if Captain Janeway hadn't been able to forge that connection with a stranger, one that stretches across time, space, and cultures. That empathy is something she and her crew badly need in an uncharted region of space where they’re the outsiders, and something all good Starfleet officers, and Star Trek stories, need as much as they do diplomacy, technology, and curiosity.

(SPOILERS for much later in the series: I forgot that The Doctor asked for a name so early in the series. I recall there being some excuse about his indecision over it, but it’s still a little messed up that he never really got one until the tail end of the series.)