4x22 Unforgettable

[3.6/10] I firmly believe that any actor can be used well. Some have greater range and greater talents than others, but if you find a director who knows how to get the best out of them, and a project that suits their strengths, any performer can do great work.

So while I’ve groused repeatedly about Robert Beltran’s prowess, or lack thereof, as an actor, there’s no reason he couldn’t be an asset to Voyager. Yes, he’s a little subdued and flat in his performances, but if you use that to make him a no-nonsense officer, one whose directness and lack of expression serves his devotion to duty, it could work. Chakotay often works best as a sort of disciplinarian, standing firm with subordinates and insisting that they follow orders or fulfill their duty.

“Unforgettable” is not that kind of story. It is, instead, one not only founded on romance, but on a romance between two characters the audience has never met before, that must click nigh-instantly for the story to work. And by god, Beltran is just not up to it.

Neither is Virginia Madsen, who guest stars as Kellin, a member of a species called the Ramora who, through a quirk of biology, fade in the memories of those they interact with, I’ll confess that I don’t know much of Madsen’s work. I enjoyed her voice acting in the D.C. Animated Universe well enough, but the truth is that I haven't seen enough of her filmography to make any broad statements about her talents. Unfortunately, she too is downright awful here, and between her and Beltran, “Unforgettable” is dead on arrival.

The premise is that Kellin is a Ramoran “tracer”, i.e. a bounty hunter. With some undercooked world-building, she explains that due to the Ramoran’s “leave no trace” philosophy, they don’t allow anyone to leave their communities. Kellin was tasked with bringing in someone who fled, tracked them to Voyager, and fell in love with Chakotay in her time aboard the ship, even knowing he would have no recollection of her once their dalliance ended.

Now she’s fleeing, because she wants to rekindle the relationship with Chakotay, and he’s understandably hesitant about this woman who knows all these intimate details about him, while he effectively knows nothing about her.

With that setup, “Unforgettable” runs into a few plausibility problems, but none that are outside the usual tolerances for soft sci-fi like Star Trek. The idea that the Ramorans’ pheromone can affect any alien life form strains credulity a bit, but is probably fair for Star Trek’s loose approach to biology. The fact that they also have technology that ensures they can’t be tracked or scanned is a bit of a cheat (The Doctor wouldn’t remember her?), but the script puts at least a few fig leaves over the idea. And Chakotay only thinking to make a hard copy record of these events at the end of this episode is a bit convenient, but fits comfortably in the realm of poetic license.

Honestly, though, I appreciate the high concept premise. Star Trek should be a canvas for big ideas and grandiose “What If?”s. The notion of sharing a deep love with someone, but knowing they’ve forgotten you, and you’ll have to start over again, is an interesting set of emotions to explore. In the same way, meeting a stranger who makes outrageous claims and has a sense of familiarity with you that’s both alluring and overwhelming is an equally interesting experience to explore.

These just aren’t the performers to do either with. Beltran and Madsen are independently less-than-great in their roles, and together, they have all the sparks of a pair of boiled carrots. I don’t know why the Voyager creative team keeps trying to cast Chakotay as a romantic lead. Sure, he’s handsome, but he’s always so stolid, so subdued, that it’s hard to sense anything remotely approaching passion from him. (Which is, why, I think his understated courtly romance with Janeway works better than any of the explicit love stories the writers throw him into.)

Madsen’s no better here. She too is flat and unconvincing in all of their scenes together and beyond. As with Beltran, every line read she offers seems dry and desultory. The diminished nature of the performances are out of sync with the passionate, emotionally layered nature of the story. But it also means that, for much of its runtime, “Unforgettable” is just plain boring, with long, languid scenes that sap all the energy from the piece and from the viewer.

Now I want to be fair to Beltran. At about the halfway mark of the episode, Kellin comes to Chakotay’s quarters with a big, “I left my people for you; am I chasing after something unreachable here?” speech. And while Beltran’s delivery of the line is as monotone as ever, he does some great nonverbal acting with his eyes in particular, giving the sense of someone emotionally overwhelmed who doesn’t want to let it out. It’s damn good work.

But it’s also too little too late. There’s a high degree of difficulty to a story like “Unforgettable”, because you need your main couple to have nigh-instant, smoldering chemistry with one another to make it work. Kellin has to look at Chakotay with the knowing, longing look of a lover who’d give up everything for the object of her affections. Chakotay has to be reluctant at first but drawn to Kellin in a way he can’t explain, like his body knows what his mind forgot. And when they do come together, it has to have the comfort and catharsis of two people who seem meant to be together.

That’s a lot to ask of any two actors, especially when you only have forty-four minutes in which to pull it off. That Madsen and Beltran aren’t up to it is no sin. Hell, even the fact that they’re pretty terrible is forgivable under the circumstances. But the writers and producers deserve blame for putting them in that position, centering Chakotay in a plot Beltran is unsuited for and casting Madsen in a role she’s not up to. The choice makes them, the episode, and the show look bad.

It also completely neuters the ending. The conclusion of “Unforgettable” is supposed to be tragic in its poetry, with a tracer using an Men in Black-style memory erasing device on Kellin. Now Chakotay’s the one in love, and Kellin’s the one who’s forgotten. And with her mind wiped, she’s not willing to try again.

You can see the bitter irony the show’s going for with that choice. But with a romance that has all the passion of gluten free wonder bread, the loss of their relationship feels like, well, no great loss. Again, in fairness, that’s a recurring problem with Star Trek, that (hot take alert) goes all the way back to “City on the Edge of Forever” from The Original Series. Guest characters aren’t going to join the cast, so any new love interests must be disposed of by the end of the hour. That means the writers have to go into overdrive to sell the tragedy of the loss of a relationship that viewers have only seen for less than an hour. It rarely works out. (See TNG’s “Half a Life” for one of the few times it does.)

The unfortunate result is that we get more labored attempts from Beltran to make Chakotay seem furious, or crestfallen, and again, the performance weakens the noble efforts here. The point seems to be delivered in Neelix’s closing speech: that love is mysterious, not a formula, and that’s part of what makes it so profound. But it’s thin gruel after forty-four minutes of dullness.

Outside of the rare cast departure like Kes, for most shows, chances are that your cast is going to be set from the beginning. The core group of performers are going to have to carry your series come hell or high water. That means learning how to write stories that align with what they do well, that take advantage of their natural talents, and minimize their faults. Whatever his limitations, Beltran’s rarely seen stories are parts that do that for him in Voyager. And while he’s far from my favorite actor on the show, I have some sympathy for the guy as an actor. Because in episodes like “Unforgettable”, the writers and producers are doing him no favors.

(As an aside, I don’t like to write about “Here’s what I would have done instead” because I think that’s an unfair way to review film and television. But halfway through the episode, I thought the turn in the narrative would be that Kellin did visit Voyager in the past and was forgotten, but that this second visit is all just another ruse to try to catch the Ramoran fugitive hiding out on Voyager, and she thought that using her knowledge of Chakotay’s personality to romance him would help get her closer to collaring the culprit. That would at least be a semi-neat twist, and could help account for some of the forced and unsuccessful attempts at chemistry between Madsen and Beltran.)