2x08 Persistence of Vision

[6.0/10] What is the point of “Persistence of Vision”? I can discern something approaching three: (1.) to do some good ol’ fashioned spooky shit (2.) to affirm Kes as a Wesley Crusher-style Specialest Boy:tm:, and (3.) reveal our heroes deepest insecurities and longings via a fantastical narrative device.

The value of those goals is debatable. I am always down for some spooky goodness. I could do without another “crew member has secret special powers” arc. And any chance we get to see what’s haunting the main characters is a good one.

But love them or hate them, the goals don’t amount to much when the only thing sewing them together is, “Mysterious alien is screwing with our heroes for...reasons.” The script never gives us any motivations or insights into the methods of The Bothan captain (hello Star Wars fans!) who messes with Voyager. There’s a vague sense of him testing Janeway and company to see if they’re worthy of traversing Bothan territory, but that idea never gets any shading or detail.

I don’t want to be too literal or left-brained about this. (The right/left brain thing is a myth, but bear with me here.) Especially in psychological horror stories like this one, the fact that the cause of the terror is opaque or unknown can add to the atmosphere and success of the work. The Captain’s holo-novel pulls from several inspirations (Jane Eyre being an obvious one), but one of the most prominent here is The Innocents, a 1961 classic film featuring maybe hallucinations/maybe supernatural attacks, without much in the way of firm answers as to the how and why. That's to its benefit, playing in the space of the delusion versus the demonic, where the lack of answers makes the proceedings that much more unsettling.

The catch is that “Persistence of Vision” takes a half measure. We learn that the Bothans use some kind of psionic wave to induce hallucinations in their victims. We have their operative popping up on the ship and basically saying, “I did it all, but I won’t tell you what I hoped to accomplish”. And then (spoilers) we never see them ever again. The antagonist’s actions are too plain to be mysterious and not mysterious enough to be interesting. It’s a tale that amounts to, “Here’s a bunch of weird stuff that happened for no particular reason,” which makes for pretty unsatisfying storytelling.

Beyond that overarching problem with the episode, the constituent parts of the narrative are a mixed bag. I’m a big fan of psychological horror, but Star Trek has gone to that well a lot, so some of the novelty has worn off. It’s not Voyager’s fault that pretty much every character aboard the Enterprise-D had an “Am I going crazy or is there a scientific explanation for this strangeness?” episode. But suffice it to say, Janeway having a psychic episode in a time of stress right when a cryptic alien shows up feels like old hat to the longtime fan.

More to the point, the spooky scenes themselves are nothing to write home about. There’s some mild novelty to Janeway seeing the Victorian characters from her novel outside of the holodeck. It’s an old chestnut, but Janeway trying to relax in her quarters and hearing faint, unnerving whispers of a voice she recognizes but wants to deny is some good stuff. And good lord, the prosthetics team outdoes themselves with Paris’ burning and Kes’ pustules. But for the most part, the scares here are pretty pedestrian. Sometimes, an hour like this one can make its bones on pure craft and scare factor, but veteran Trek director James L. Conway deploys the usual tricks capably but unremarkably.

The Kes material falls somewhere below that “passable” level. Savvy viewers will intuit where Voyager’s going with Kes, but suffice it to say, her budding psychic powers aren’t the most compelling element of the show, and the Bothan declaring “You’re a powerful little thing” is liable to give longtime fans unpleasant flashbacks to the Traveler’s conversations about Wesley Crusher and his Special Destiny.

Beyond that, the plot has an odd structure. Janeway is our perspective character and the anchor of the story for eighty-five percent of its runtime. But in the last act, the captain succumbs to temptation and it turns into a Kes “strength of will” story almost out of nowhere. They set it up a little bit with Kes also being able to see the hallucinations, but it’s a strange last minute switch, with a hint of Keus Ex Machina to the whole thing, if you’ll indulge me.

The psychological element of the whole thing is intriguing, but underdeveloped for everyone but Janeway. It’s cool to witness stoic Tuvok mesmerized by an image of his wife and his home, and there’s some juice to seeing Tom’s fear of failure reflected in a vision of his dad haranguing him. Those moments in particular feel like some of the high concept Psych 101 swings of The Original Series, but they’re largely too glancing to have much impact.

(Spoilers for later in the series: I’d forgotten that they had a different actor play Admiral Paris in these early episodes. It makes sense they might recast when the role got meatier, and the likeness between the two actors who play him is close enough.)

I’m not a huge fan of the reveal that B’Elanna has a crush on Chakotay. It’s not something I need from their dynamic, and the show’s already subtly teased Janeway and Chakotay as having an unspoken attraction. After the Neelix/Kes/Tom debacle, the last thing Voyager needs is another love triangle.

But I do like the one substantive psychological deep dive we get, which is Janeway’s. She loses herself in her Victorian holo-novel, but feels guilty when Lord Burleigh plants a smooch on her. The haunting comes from a vision of her boyfriend, Mark, tormenting her with the idea that she’s been unfaithful to him. In line with The Innocents, there’s a destabilizing undercurrent of guilt and self-torture in that, where she’s torn between her natural human desire for comfort and companionship, but also the sense that she’s betrayed someone who loves her back home if she gives into those desires. There’s no easy answers there, and being willing to explore those feelings in a heightened but uncertain way is the best thing “Persistence of Vision” does, particularly even when the steely and self-assured captain herself falls prey to the same pulls anyone would, underscoring the force of the feeling.

Unfortunately, that feeling is all but squandered on an episode that doesn’t use those elements to much of a purpose. Jumbling spooky business, the latest chosen one du jour, and some genuine psychological material together is a tack with potential, but it needs to be bound to a story and an antagonist with direction and intention and, well, vision. “Persistence” doesn’t have much of either.