Roxanne Dawson gives it her all, as always, but can't overcome what is a pretty awful story for her character. The "romance" between her and Tom is finally given an official start, and I'm not sure that anyone was interested. I'm certainly not. They have no chemistry, but more importantly we haven't been given a good enough indication of their feelings towards each other up to this point. They've just hung out and got annoyed with each other once in a while (for what feels like a very long time).
Voyager also meets the most ungrateful alien refugees ever, and Janeway handles them quite poorly. If there's a reason to watch the episode, it's once again Jeri Ryan bringing more depth to the character of Seven than the script would suggest.
Also, I believe this is the first time we've seen a warp core ejection depicted on screen (amazing, the ejection system wasn't offline for the first time in Trek history!), and it's a pretty cool sight.
Jeri Ryan hit the ground running with this role, bringing some real subtleties to Seven. Always enjoy her scenes with Janeway and the difficult scenarios her character presents. Never understood the disdain for the show.
Another solid episode. Again, most credit is due to Seven. But I even like the kitsch with Paris and B'Elanna floating in space. Every ship needs some romances. That's inevitable. And it can't get worse than what they tried to do with Neelix and Kes (or even Janeway and Chakotay). Other than a few scenes, the writers never really bothered to tell the story of Paris and B'Elanna before and thus it might come as a surprise that this is supposed to be genuine love, but I'll take it. Now it's at least official. Thus they avoid to write some bad scripts about how those two lovebirds found each other (they writers have shown time and time again that such stories are not their strength). Now I'm looking forward to watch some fights between the Klingon and Paris. This worked well with Dax and Worf - why shouldn't it work in this show?
Jerry Ryan's owns every scene she's in. It's not that Lien was a bad actress but she never got good material. The, more or less, official start to the Parris/Torres relationship could have done differently. I found B'Elanna's constant whining and self pity really annoying. And, after all, she's only half-klingon and she despises that side. But she is concerned about tradition. That's a contradiction in my eyes.
Those alien refugees were certainly not setting a good example.
But the continuity that keeps getting in makes Voyager a much more compelling show.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParentSpoilers2023-10-10T23:10:33Z
[7.3/10] “Day of Honor” is a title with a suitable double-meaning. But if they wanted to rename the episode, I think “B’Elanna and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” would be a suitable replacement.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but this is another Voyager episode with an interesting pair of concepts at its core, that becomes dull and unavailing for most of its runtime thanks to a tepid execution.
On paper, I love what they’re going for with B’Elanna. At base, there’s a key story shape here that I tend to like. Everything is going wrong. A parade of horribles happens, to where even the good intentions and good works of our protagonist leave them lost and scrambling. Only then, just when it seems like things are at their lowest, they get some sort of reprieve, some bit of redemption, some measure of validation, that makes it all seem worthwhile in its way, like the universe sees and rewards you for what you’ve been through.
If you’ll pardon the somewhat odd comparison, it’s a frequent sort of tale for Spider-Man. The Web-Head’s key feature is that even when he wins, he loses, and so you often see stories where his suffering is given meaning in that way. It’s the essential structure behind Spider-Man 2, which is not only the wall-crawler’s best movie, but one of the best superhero movies to hit cinemas.
“Day of Honor” doesn’t meet those lofty standards, but it’s built the same way. Everything goes wrong for B’Elanna. She misses her alarm. Her sonic shower doesn’t work. Everything in engineering is on the fritz. She messes up things with Tom. Her Klingon “Day of Honor” holodeck program is a bust. An attempt to produce a transwarp conduit goes terribly awry, to where she has to eject the warp core. And when she and Tom go to retrieve it, some testy salvagers attack them and leave them stranded, free floating in space, with dwindling oxygen.
These events are mostly unrelated, but that only makes it easier for B’Elanna to feel like she’s cursed, that she’s somehow inviting this string of bad luck, that she deserves it for being herself. It’s a relatable tack, the way an accumulation of little things, that snowball into big things, can make you feel miserable and worthless. You feel for B’Elanna through all of this, even if the bad outcomes start to feel a little too over-the-top in terms of bad luck by the end.
The problem is that the scene-to-scene writing isn’t very good. The performances are largely fine. This one asks a lot of Roxann Dawson, and while this isn’t a homerun for her, it’s a solid triple. But there’s so little palpable feeling in most of these scenes. The dialogue is tin-eared and unnatural, and you never quite get the full range of human emotions as all of this piles up. Instead, much of it feels like a box-checking exercise of the plot until you can get to the far more compelling section of the story where Paris and Torres are stranded together.
The same largely goes for the B-story, which sees Janeway dealing with some needy Borg refugees and teaching Seven about altruism in the process. There’s a lot of strong ideas in that premise!
I love how the Caatati’s sob story forces Janeway and the audience to consider Voyager’s position -- that even if they’re stranded far from home and in need of certain resources, they’re still comparatively ahead of a lot of local species scraping and scrounging to survive in the Delta Quadrant. The aliens’ scaly, avian design is striking, and the balance of their plea for help and recriminations against Seven for her Borg origins pose interesting moral and psychological questions for the crew.
Likewise, I’m a sucker for stories about people from bad systems learning that there’s another way to live, and different values to live by. Continuing the metaphor of Seven emerigng from a center of abuse, or even a cult, I applaud the idea of her witnessing Janeway model the behavior of kindness and consideration for others in need of help, having never really thought that way before, only to gradually internalize it and practice it herself. It’s not the most robust or lived-in dramatization of that idea, but the bones are there, and I’m here for it.
But again, while from a big picture standpoint, these are both compelling and even moving ideas, a lot of the realization of them is stilted or too direct. And in a world where there’s already tons of skepticism about refugees and those asking for help, I’m not crazy about the Cataati turning out to hold Voyager over a barrel for more resources when they get the upper hand. Voyager doesn’t handle moral gray areas as well as Deep Space Nine, so the aliens just seem malevolent, rather than complicated. And it’s clear they’re mostly a base obstacle through which Seven can demonstrate some growth, rather than unique foils in their own right.
Still, despite the very mixed execution of the episode’s big ideas, I like where they go with B’Elanna once she and Tom are left to float in the vacuum of space and hope for a rescue that may never come. There’s an honesty to their interactions, a truth and warmth in their back-and-forth, once the script dispenses with all the “horrible luck” business, that reminds me why I like the two of them together. Their banter about “first contact” is downright cute, and it’s always nice to see Torres open up. (See also: her downright sweet interaction with a generous Neelix, who’s as endearing as he’s ever been when trying to comfort her).
And there is something clever, even moving, about the twist in the final moments. Yes, it’s a big deal that closed off B’Elanna finally admits her love for Tom. But what’s bigger for me is what it represents. The holographic “Day of Honor” Klingon warrior asks B’Elanna what she’s done to prove her warrior spirit, to earn her place in the Klingon pantheon. She doesn’t have much of an answer beyond a relatable admission that she doesn’t know, but is trying her best.
And yet, there, on the verge of death, B’Elanna engages in an act of great courage. She admits that she pushes people away to avoid getting hurt, and instead she has the bravery to literally and figuratively bring someone closer. To admit her feelings, to be vulnerable like that, is a bold move, one that shows her living up to the strictures of the Klingon Day of Honor, if only in her own characteristically unique way.
The beauty of that idea kills me, because once more, Voyager doesn’t quite know how to build to it or capitalize on it. The ingredients are there to tell a personal, emotional story about both B’Elanna and Seven facing challenges but coming out better for them. Instead, there’s a heap of dullery and uninteresting scenes that serve as the building blocks for an otherwise stellar story. There’s plenty worth saving and worth holding onto from this one. “Day of Honor” is, nonetheless, another episode that makes me wish Voyager could live up to its potential.
(As an aside, I remembered this one pretty clearly from when I was a kid -- or at least I thought I did. In my memory, Tom and B’Elanna spent the whole episode floating together, rather than just the last couple of acts, so it was a bit of a surprise to me that this was that episode. Still, I didn’t remember how cool the visuals were here, with some unique angels that sell the sense of the duo being lost in the vastness of space, and a particularly cool image of Voyager reflected in B’Elanna’s helmet.)