I remembered this episode probably more clearly than any other. But I didn't remember the ending, so I was holding out hope that it was clever and well-done. It wasn't. So actually, it was even worse than I'd remembered. Nice. Well, let's get into it.
The crew receives a hail from a planet that has apparently been wiped out from an environmental disaster. There are no life signs. Evacuation would not have been possible due to technobabble reasons. The automated hail warns travelers that there are people in a cryogenic stasis chamber waiting it out, and will be automatically reanimated after 15 years. The only problem is it's been 19 years. So the crew finds them and beams them aboard. The cryo-chamber is more complex than they'd imagined. Their brains are active, and they're linked together in what must be a shared imagined dream world. I guess they figured this would be better than just being knocked out. The thing is working flawlessly, and they can't figure out why the people haven't got up and walked out yet. Well, except the two of them that are dead due to heart attacks. It's obvious why they're just lying there. So since they have two empty chambers, they decide to send Torres and Kim in to ask them. Man, it must really smell in those chambers that they just removed the rotting bodies from.
This is all a great setup. The viewer just can't wait to see what kind of fantastic world resides in the brains and computer banks of the sophisticated system. Are they in an imagined heaven? Are they so caught up in living out their fantasies that they don't want to return to the real world? Well, no. They're on a small set with a bunch of creepy circus freaks. I will admit that the show does get the creepiness factor just right. The carnival folk are menacing enough and yet their level of ambivalence to the visitors strikes a cord and gives chills. The whole thing is just so bizarre and out of place that it actually works at alerting the spidey senses that something is horribly wrong here. Our suspicions are confirmed when all of a sudden Kim is trotted off to a guillotine, as the crowd roars with delight. He's stopped just in time by the alien man that left the automated message. He says that surely the visitors are not alone, and if they kill him the others will shut down the program. The dark clown in charge releases him and looks very disappointed. The scene works, and that's where the creepy carnival bullshit should have ended. But it doesn't.
It turns out that the program was designed to manifest the thoughts of the five inhabitants, so that they could enjoy whatever they wanted to conjure up for the 15 year wait. But what had happened was the computer also manifested their bad thoughts, and it created the character of the clown as a representative of their combined fears. The clown is NOT a virus, but good luck getting the little jingle out of your head that he creates to rebuke this idea. The way that the clown and the others all move in unison and even vocalize together to show that they share a consciousness is one of the touches that works well. The clown knows their deepest fears because it's connected directly to their brains. It knows Torres and Kim's fears now too, which the clown demonstrates by making Kim an old man. It seems Kim most fears being helpless. The clown then ramps it up by making him a tiny baby. Now wait a damn minute! Who in the hell is afraid of being a baby? I mean, I'm not excited about the prospect of suddenly becoming an infant, but this, THIS, is Harry Kim's deepest darkest fear? Being a baby? Really?! I don't get it. The only possible explanation is that it's cheaper to hire a baby than a special effects guy. Anyway, if the clown kills you in the simulation, you die in real life of a heart attack. Because even though you know it's not real, it still scares you to death. Ok, sure that makes sense. Oh and they can't just unplug you from the machine either, because....I don't even want to explain.
So Torres is allowed to leave to share with the crew the demands of the computer simulation. It demands to be allowed to exist. The Doctor is sent in to run the negotiations, and you might think that a parallel would be drawn between the sentient holographic program and the sentient computer, but you'd be wrong. Furthermore, they don't even bother to attempt to explain how The Doctor got there, it's just brushed off as a "miracle of technology." Also the clown can't read The Doctor since he's not on the system. Why exactly? How is he there yet not on the system? The Doctor proposes a simulated brain be linked to the system, allowing the clown to continue to exist after the people are removed. The clown rejects this, because he doesn't think it would be the same. When it's suggested that he could release some of them, he further insists "I need them all!" Which...he's killed two of them already, and before the negotiations are over he kills another. So, he's unwilling to release even one of them, because he needs them so badly, but his only bargaining chip is the ability to kill them. It seems like a losing position to me.Eventually they reach an agreement where all of them are let go in exchange for Janeway agreeing to join him (so much for "I need them all"). Of course it's a trick, and she's not really there, she's just a simulated Janeway or some such gobbledygook using the same technological miracle that The Doctor rode in on. Except Janeway is on the system, just not in stasis. But not the Janeway that the clown is talking to, because that's just a simulation. Got it? Great, cause I don't. As the people come out of stasis, the clown fades to black and he confesses that he is afraid. To which Janeway replies with a very profound "I know." The moral? Star Fleet captains don't easily succumb to...fear. Huh?
The result of all of this nonsense is of course a Horrible show. The only bright spot is the chemistry that Michael McKean as the clown and Robert Picardo as The Doctor share in their brief moments on screen. When The Doctor appears it sucks the joy out of the clown in a way that is comically satisfying. Other than that and the initial creepiness factor, there just isn't anything that works in this episode. Not everyone is afraid of clowns, and while I realize that the clown himself is not what they're afraid of, I still think the show should have moved on from the dark carnival idea and on to other fearful things in order to maintain its edge. Would you still be afraid of the room full of carnival people after fifteen years? And killing the clown, who is just as much as person as The Doctor rather than following through with the computerized brain to keep him alive was not a very Janeway choice.Published June 17, 2017
FIX THE EPISODE, BABY!
ReplyDeleteAfter I published this, I was shocked to discover that most reviewers have nothing but praise for the show. I’m baffled. I think the main mistake the writers made in dealing with the concept of the show is that no one ever actually overcomes their fear. The computer program is designed to be adaptive, to change from fantasy to fantasy to keep their brains engaged for many years. Their brains work the computer. So all they have to do is overcome their fears and the whole scenario disappears. Frankly, Neelix's suggestion to get them all laughing because laughter tends to make fear subside has real merit. It's at least thinking along the right track- the fear must be overcome by those that created it. The only two that deal with the clown on a meaningful level are those that are not subject to his terror- The Doctor and simulated Janeway. Dealing with the clown in this manner skirts the issue at hand. So with these things in mind, I will attempt to fix this mess:
Everything starts exactly as before, except once Harry’s execution is thwarted, the dark carnival disappears. If we want to continue to use the clown as the representation of fear, that's fine, but the carnival is gone because it's no longer scary. And why would aliens on some distant planet in the Delta Quadrant conjure up a carnival scene from Americana anyway?
Torres and Kim are then subjected to their worst fears in imaginative ways, changing from scene to scene as if someone is reprogramming the holodeck. You want to take Harry back to the scene in the hospital from his childhood? Then actually go there, don't just wheel up a gurney within the carnival. You want Torres to resent her mum a bit? Create a scene that features her! When the alien protests, create the scene of the destruction of his entire planet and the loss of everyone he knows. That's scary stuff, right?
Eventually the clown realizes that his situation has changed since someone is out there with her finger on the off switch, and sends Torres out with a message: kill me, and I’ll take them all with me.
But it's not Torres that comes back, or The Doctor, it's Janeway herself. Armed with the knowledge that the only thing she has to fear is fear itself, and a special hypospray from the doc that should help keep her nerves relaxed, she's goes in to deal with the situation. She focuses not on the clown, but on the minds that created him. They have been in the simulation so long that they don't know what's real anymore. The clown has created scenarios where they've awoken from the chamber amid a sea of dismembered bodies and other untold horrors. The only thing they know for sure is that the clown has killed two of them, and so they cower in fear unable to even work up the courage to kill themselves to end this literal hell.
Janeway gains their trust by exhibiting Matrix-like powers in dealing with the clown. She is not afraid of a computer sub-routine, and therefore shows as much dominance over the environment as he does. She is able to still use the program as it was intended, conjuring up whatever she wants.
Yet the clown remains, not because he has become sentient, but because the others are still afraid. She convinces them that there is no longer a need for fear, because they are rescued. Their nightmare is over, and all they have to do is cease their state of despair and return to an optimistic view of the future to end the hold that the clown has over them. The planet is healed, and they have a job to do. It turns out that they are not the only survivors, there are warehouses of frozen folks that only these scientists have the expertise to awaken, which is why they were hastily housed in the only cryo unit with a self-timer.
As they begin to think about the future and the task they were assigned to do, the virtual world begins to disappear, and the clown slowly fades to black. They have overcome their fears. A door appears, and the five of them walk through it.