3x03 The Chute

[6.1/10] “The Chute” rests on one simple question -- can Harry Kim hang onto his very soul in the midst of a craven and desperate situation? And by god, I just don’t care.

Two full seasons and change in, and I still don’t really care about Harry (or his running buddy and fellow prisoner, Tom Paris for that matter.) He’s still the wide-eyed ensign he was when the show started, without enough shading or hidden depths to make him a more compelling character. That's an indictment of the show, especially as it enters its third season, since that's true for plenty of other characters too. The writers eventually figure out Tom, but Harry is, and remains, an off-the-shelf newbie without much to make him memorable from beginning to end. So episodes that focus him are a step down almost by definition.

But “The Chute” struggles to make him interesting on a single-episode basis either. The plot sees Harry and Tom stuck in a lawless alien prison. They’re trapped with unruly prisoners, deprived of food and medical care, and if that weren’t enough, are subject to “clamps” -- cranial implants that make them more aggressive o “jumpy”, to use Tom’s description.

The situation is supposed to leave Harry at his most desperate. Tom gets hurt. Harry struggles to find a way out. He’s under constant threat from the other inmates. And he’s losing his grip on himself. This all calls for a more maximalist, vulnerable performance from the actor and, god help him, Garrett Wang just isn’t up to it. (Once again, neither is Robert Duncan McNeil, but he’s at least incapacitated for much of the episode.)

That is no sin! Acting is hard in general. Successfully conveying the most raw and vulnerable and primal emotions one can experience is a monumental task. I think back to Patrick Stewart’s performance in “Chain of Command” where Picard was being tortured by his Cardassian captors. In the wrong hands, it could have easily come off as silly or overblown, the way Harry seems here. When you have an actor the caliber of Stewart though, you can make that work. I don’t fault Kim for not being able to live up to that impossible standard, but I never really buy that Harry is in the wits-end mental state necessary to sell this inner battle that's so central to the narrative here.

Not all of it is Kim’s fault though. Frankly, it’s hard to buy the desperation and peril of the whole scenario. Any savvy fan knows that Harry and Tom will make it out of there somehow. But good Star Trek episodes make you feel the stakes by rooting it in the atmosphere and sense of danger in the moment,a dn the charcters’ reaction to it.

That should be easy here, with our heroes stuck in captivity where people fight and scrap over every last resource, and people get killed or beaten for the slightest perceived transgression. But the alien prison feels less like The Pit from Dark Knight Rises and more like the alleyway full of rival felines in Cats.

Again, I don’t want to slight the creative team too much here. Making something like that feel convincing on a weekly television program, especially with mid-1990s production values, is a tricky business under the best of circumstances. But the goons and mad men stuck in this cruel prison do not seem like dangerous cutthroats; they seem like members of a gang from West Side Story. The situation plays more as cartoony and fantastical rather than grim and realistically miserable. If you can’t buy into the situation or its vibe, it makes it hard to feel the emotions that are supposed to spring forth from it.

All of that said, there are parts of this one I like, though they tend to be a part from the prison misery story instead of rooted in it. Even though her screen time is limited, this is a great Janeway episode. To the extent Voyager is merely The Next Generation redux, it’s often at its best when we get to see Janeway engaging in some tough but fair diplomacy. Seeing her negotiate with the alien representatives, strive to hold firm to her principles even when they’re unreasonable, and take a yielding but firm hand with the freedom fighters actually responsible for the bombing that Harry and Tm have been convicted for, really let the Captain shine as someone committed to her principles while sharp in ehr strategies.

Frankly, I wish this part of the episode was the main event. There’s fascinating questions at play here. To what extent do you impose your will on alien cultures when you’re far from home and need every crewmember you have? Does it matter if they’re being unreasonable and even cruel in their justice system? Would you leverage activists trying to strike a blow against that repressive government to serve your interests? There’s all kinds of fascinating questions at play here, and we don’t get a chance to explore them because the focus is on Harry in a cage.

That said, I like Zio, the one calm, seemingly sane man in the prison with Tom and Harry. He’s sort of the Yoda while Harry struggles with his circumstances and tries to decide whether to turn to the Dark Side. The character is a little jumbled in his construction, but his angle -- that he’s found calm in a sea of chaos through self-control -- makes him a unique presence as Harry bucks against his circumstances. His turn toward “kill everyone who might be lost” seems odd, but the performance is good, and he makes a good foil for Harry.

There’s other solid-at-worst elements to the prison setup. The twist that the inmates are not, in fact, underground, but rather stuck on a space station is a good twist that recontextualizes Harry’s predicament in a compelling fashion. There’s some thematic meat to this cruel asylum, with shades of Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature and touches of the Stanford Prison Experiment. And while I might rag a bit on the overdone and unconvincing performances in its midst, the moment where Harry tries to soothe his best friend, holds his hand and tells him that it’ll be alright as they huddle together, is the emotional highpoint of the hour.

Unfortunately, it has a sentimental force the rest of the episode can’t sustain. Star Trek can sell desperation in captivity. It’s done with Captain Picard and Chief O’Brien and plenty others. But you need characters the audience can invest in, bravura performances that can live up to the tall order, and a setting that the audience can internalize as truly harrowing. “The Chute” can’t deliver on any of it.