I am astonished that only ten months have past as I would have suspected maybe eighteen or so. I don't listen to the stardates that closely. At that rate it would have taken 2184 episodes to get home. How many season's that ?
OK, seriously, this is one of the few occasions where I don't have a "but" when I say I liked the episode. It was a good point to re-introduce the idea of the second Caretaker and even the open end makes sense. That way she might still be the solution to getting them home. We also see that the Ocampa are much more than meets the eye and that they have a huge potential. One could make the argument though, that would only be possible with the help fom Susperia. But that's open for debate at this point.
That's actually an episode that seems embedded into an overarching story line that goes all the way back to episode 1. That's good. Kes is an interesting character. The Ocampa and the symbiosis with the caretaker entity are worth to be explored. Hope Kes gets another chance to meet her people - if they lean to behave. Stakes are high. That's good too. This episode could have been better though. Why not try to earn their friendship after all what happened? Why not explore the Ocampa colony? I mean they still want to find a way to fast travel back to Earth and this entity might have an answer to this. This feels so inconsequential - I wonder if they will ever continue this plot line or if that's the last time we've heard from a caretaker.
I'm quickly learning that episodes which give Kes a lot to do generally benefit from Jennifer Lien's good acting abilities. I also enjoyed this one due to the continuity of picking up plot threads from the pilot episode - the opening montage actually got me excited that something big was going to happen here. Ultimately, it doesn't, but that doesn't detract from proceedings too much.
When all is said and done, it does fall right into the standard Trek storytelling template. The Ocampa which we meet turn out to be evil and manipulative, and the possibility of getting home by means of Suspira goes nowhere. And yet, the episode focuses on Kes' character and manages to make the whole thing mostly interesting. There's also some surprisingly strong moments of horror when Tuvok's blood begins to boil, and we see people strung up in engineering (where are the rest of the engineering crew and Tuvok's security team, though?). I find myself quite interested in what Kes is really capable of.
The most problematic and annoying part for me is that it ends exactly where it begins, with nothing really changed. Gotta make sure to hit that reset button before the credits roll.
[7.2/10] “Cold Fire” has the juice that comes from being the first sequel to the series’ debut episode. The mere fact that we see the rare “Previously On” segment outside of a two-parter signifies this one as a big deal. The lumpy rock that constitutes the Caretaker’s remains is vibrating! There’s another array that bears a striking resemblance to the one that brought our heroes to the Delta Quadrant! It’s populated by some super-Ocampa! And by god, they’re in contact with the Caretaker’s companion, who might have the power to send them home!
Of course, most savvy viewers can probably guess that Voyager won’t be returning to the Alpha Quadrant right now. Still, it’s nice to have an arc episode, one that ties directly into the main premise of the show, and connects with what got the ship’s crew stranded out here in the first place. Seeing those early threads picked up once more, and the tantalizing prospect of a means to get back home, gives this one a boost from the jump.
And when “Cold Fire” is about that, it’s still pretty exciting. B’Elanna figuring out how to use the Caretaker rock as a compass opens up exciting new possibilities of tracking down a being who can help them. The fact that the Caretaker’s companion, named Suspiria (hello 1970s horror fans!), is revealed to take a more active hand in her progeny’s lives and exists in a subspace layer is thrilling stuff. Sure, it’s a little odd that the crew is suddenly using the word “sporocystian” every other sentence, but there’s a certain sense, bolstered by the “ten months later” title card, that most of Voyager’s adventures until now have been building to this.
Bound up in the climactic feel of the episode is the way in which “Cold Fire” is a referendum on those adventures, a means to view them from the perspective of the Gamma Quadrant’s inhabitants. The rub is that most of them, including Suspiria, consider Voyager to have killed the Caretaker, and view it as a “ship of death”, marauding across the galaxy, destroying other vessels, and looting resources where they find it. The reveal helps make the effort to gain the Companion’s help not just a practical challenge, that can be solved with pluck and technobabble, but a more personal and even philosophical one, that comes down to convincing her there’s more to these Federation denizens than the reputation that precedes them. Convincing an all-powerful energy being that humanity is Not So Bad:tm: is classic Star Trek stuff.
The problem is that most of this episode boils down to Kes, her place in the universe, her budding psychic powers, and her vibe as a quasi Chosen One, all of which drags the episode down considerably. Kes simply isn’t a particularly great character, and Jennifer Lien tends to give an alternatingly bland or affected performance that does little to elevate her. Both the character and the actor have their moments. Kes is the first person to see The Doctor as a person, and Lien gives an impressive, vulnerable performance in “Elogium”. For the most part though, the character is just another Wesley Crusher-style wunderkind, and the actress gives it her all, but regularly comes up short, leaving little appetite for Kes to command the spotlight in such a big episode.
It might help, though, if there were any real intrigue as to who these new Ocampa were and what their intentions were. Their leader, Tannis (played by recurring Trek performer Gary Graham), already arrives with a certain sense of menace that comes with his Hugo Weaving-like presence. Watching him answer to a stern-voiced energy being demanding he deliver Voyager and glower his way through interactions with Janeway already affirms the guy is up to no good when attempting to mentor Kes, making his eventual villainous intentions a non-event.
The episode also goes big here and can't pull it off. Every interaction between Kes and Tammis has a “Vader trying to turn Luke to the Dark Side” vibe to it, and Voyager’s not up to successfully channeling that sort of operatic tone. Kes realizing the extent of her powers and dramatic situations leads Lien to deliver a ton of Capital-A Acting, and it detracts from the ability to take these moments seriously. Her sequence with Tamis where they bring the hydroponics bay to life and then decimate it again in one fell swoop is overwrought and cheesy. And look, I don’t want to be too hard on the show’s effects, which are inevitably going to feel dated, but Kes doing her interpretive dance final within a flame-ridden mid-nineties screensaver makes the emotional climax of the piece into something laughable.
The story of her encountering some super-charged, long-lived Ocampa does have a few bright spots. For one, this is the beginning of a bond between her and Tuvok, which pays dividends immediately in the interactions between the contrasting character types. His grace and encouragement despite the fact that she nearly melts him with her psychic powers is lovely, in that understated Vulcan way.
Beyond that, as discomfited as I am by the Kes/Neelix relationship, this may be its best hour. Neelix may never be as heartwarming or likable as a boyfriend than when he beams with pride over Kes’ abilities, tells her to go with the people who can help her hone them no matter one, and, when invited to come, says he’d follow her anywhere. Likewise, it’s an old trope, but when the thing that gives Kes the strength to turn her powers on Tannis ends up being his hurting Neelix, it dramatizes her attachment to Neelix in a way nothing else in the series has. I still don’t love the two of them as a couple, but this is the first episode where you can see rooting for them.
But these are small trifles in an episode that puts its focus in the wrong places. Kes’ special journey is largely a bit of a snooze or a bit of a joke, with only the boost of Suspiria’s involvement and the intrigue of how she’ll treat our heroes to liven it.
That ends up being the most compelling part of this episode. “Cold Fire” delivers some excellent horror when Janeway finally confronts Suspiria in Engineering. It’s an old trope, but the little girl speaking with a gritty, grown-up voice, laced with accusation and menace, is bone-chilling. The same goes for the trickle of blood on Janeway’s shoulder that reveals her crew members incapacitated and suspended in mid-air above her. For Voyager’s best hope for a trip home, the show completely sells this “companion” as a terrifying, different sort of being to deal with, one who bears a frightening grudge against our heroes over misunderstandings of their actions over the past ten months.
It is, of course, a little convenient that Tuvok’s able to construct a god-neutralizing device via the Caretaker rock, just in time for them to use it. But I’ll allow the conceit because it permits Janeway to lean into one of those other oldie-but-good-y Trek tropes. Despite Suspriia’s threats and harm to the crew, Janeway releases the forcefield and lets her leave. Suspiria is amazed to be shown such mercy, a gesture to demonstrate that whatever this demigod has heard about Voyager, it’s wrong. It doesn’t immediately turn into a ticket home. And the 1990s CGI space worm who squirms through the bulkheads afterwards is pretty silly. But there’s still meaning in that moment, to humble a god and yet grant them grace.
With that, “Cold Fire” is a microcosm of the promise and pitfalls of Voyager’s original premise. The business with Kes and the Ocampa is something of a big waste, focused on magic powers and overwrought emotions that don’t land. But the business with Suspiria capitalizes on the promise of that original story, a sign that Federation values travel, and may prove as worthy in the Delta Quadrant as they do closer to home. Frankly, Voyager only improves once it outstrips that premise, but it’s still a pip to watch these early attempts at telling a broader story that began in the series’ earliest hour.
Suspiria and the other Ocampo; loads of unanswered questions... Kes is on a bad path :(
Review by dgwVIP 9BlockedParent2017-12-22T08:47:30Z
Tanis, the Ocampa who hails Voyager and leads the visiting party, looks like he's wearing a Red Bull can for the whole episode.
Of course Suspiria will respond within "forty-seven hours." It's Star Trek, therefore it couldn't be forty-eight hours.
Does anyone else find it odd that "Security, meet me in Main Engineering" seems to have meant "One single yellow-shirt, meet me in Main Engineering"? Something tells me that Starfleet regulations wouldn't have such a small security team confront an unknown threat in the heart of a ship. It just seems really odd. (Also, he only appears in that one short segment. He wasn't with Tuvok and B'Elanna later.)
There are parts of this episode that I really like, such as the fact that Kes really gets to be a person with side interests and not just an assistant to the Doctor. But the hokey writing around Suspiria and her band of Ocampa telepaths bothers me. So much of this plot seems to come out of nowhere, or go nowhere. Especially with regard to Suspiria herself, who has an irrational hatred for the Voyager crew because she thinks they killed the Caretaker, which is kind of resolved but not really (and nothing further comes of this later in the series).
A story like this had to happen at some point, because they did say in "Caretaker" that there was another Nacene out there for Voyager to find—and to leave that thread loose at the end of the series would have been silly. I just wish it had been more…consequential.