As Star Trek: Voyager turned 30 in the beginning of this yr, I’ve had a variety of enjoyable revisiting the primary season of the present and re-examining what actually works about that debut season three a long time later. I’ve hit my first snag, maybe of many to come back in Voyager‘s decidedly blended run of episodes: the primary one which simply sort of doesn’t actually mesh collectively for me now, all these years later.
That episode is “Ex Submit Facto,” a bizarre however loosely acquainted format for Voyager to dive into simply eight episodes into its run. Primarily set on an unidentified alien planet, house to a folks referred to as the Beneans at warfare with a neighboring species, the Numiri, the episode focuses on the plight of Tom Paris. Accused of a homicide he swears he didn’t commit, regardless of seemingly overwhelming proof towards him, Tom is pressured to relive the reminiscences of his sufferer’s remaining moments each 14 hours—an alien course of that’s slowly however absolutely degrading his mind capabilities to some extent of virtually sure demise.
It’s and it isn’t a sort of tackle certainly one of Star Trek‘s most beloved tropes, the trial episode. The trial itself is over earlier than the episode even begins—there’s a motive I didn’t embody “Ex Submit Facto” in my ranker of Trek trial episodes, as a result of it largely issues Tuvok’s post-trial investigation of the crime to show Tom’s innocence, somewhat than the trial course of. However that in and of itself remains to be a riff on the thought, as a lot as “Ex Submit Facto” itself riffs on different episodes in that style that got here earlier than it. It’s bought components of “A Matter of Perspective,” the TNG trial episode that makes use of the Holodeck to change recreations of the incident that replace in actual time primarily based on witness testimonies. In taking part in with reminiscence itself—the proof towards Tom is that the Beneans can use expertise to withdraw “reminiscence engrams” from the deceased and put them in a technological host throughout felony investigations, letting them present proof in their very own homicide trial—there’s echoes to an identical early DS9 episode, “Dax” the place Jadzia is placed on trial for against the law her predecessor as host of the Dax symbiont, Curzon, allegedly dedicated.
The factor is, whereas aping episodes like that, “Ex Submit Facto” simply sort of isn’t as fascinating. Tuvok makes for an fascinating investigative foil, after all, because the cool and picked up logical arbitrator. It leverages early Voyager‘s clear curiosity in Tom as a focal character on the crew, nevertheless it by no means actually leans into his unorthodox background—that he’s an ex-convict nonetheless making an attempt to show himself—as an fascinating complication throughout the episode. For all of the occasions “Ex Submit Facto” has Tuvok remind Paris that he’s going to show the reality of the case no matter whether or not or not it condemns Tom or absolves him, the episode by no means actually goes far sufficient to make that really feel prefer it’s truly on the desk.
It sort of is aware of you know that Tuvok goes to discover a strategy to show Tom’s innocence. There’s no drama of their relationship right here, pitting them on both aspect of an moral debate, like there may be in Riker and Picard’s debate over Knowledge within the legendary “Measure of a Man”. The surprising opening apart, exhibiting Tom supposedly committing the homicide, “Ex Submit Facto” virtually treats his absolution as a foregone conclusion. Which it could be in most Star Trek reveals—think about how wild it could be if this was one thing Tom and the Voyager crew simply needed to reside with going ahead!—however “Ex Submit Facto” by no means makes it really feel like that absolution is really earned.
It’s an issue Voyager begins to face increasingly more because it brushes up towards some actually nice concepts. An episodic Trek present that has a premise that craves some kind of long-form serialization, there are such a lot of examples of Voyager having a killer concept that simply needs to be placed on the wayside as a result of all the things needs to be again to the established order in time for the following episode. Final week in my anniversary musings over “Eye of the Needle,” I touched on how generally, despite that, Voyager may nonetheless play with expectations and make issues work in that push-and-pull in actually cool methods. Alas, “Ex Submit Facto” is simply sort of an episode that hardly tries to try this, and suffers for it.
So why is its anniversary price nothing then, 30 years later? Nicely, as a result of that is what revisiting a collection is about. Particularly one with such an up-and-down fame like Voyager has—and I say that as somebody who loves it dearly as my first Star Trek! However simply discussing the best hits of it wouldn’t be a good evaluation or tribute to the collection because it passes this main milestone. Not each episode goes to be nice. Some are going to be middling, some are going to be terrible (I’m dreading attending to “Cathexis” in my season one rewatch). However Voyager wouldn’t be Voyager with out these peaks and valleys—and within the grand scheme of issues, “Ex Submit Facto” is a fairly minor bump on that street that’s nonetheless price acknowledging.
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