1.15 — “Jetrel”
Plot: A ship bearing a Haakonian named Jetrel comes looking for Mr. Neelix to warn him he may have contracted a fatal radiation disease. The bearer of this news is the designer of a weapon of mass destruction which was used on Neelix’s homeworld 15 years earlier, killing his whole family.
Thoughts: The usual online sources note that “Jetrel” is an allegory to the bombing of Hiroshima, in which a character representing Robert Oppenheimer is used to shed light on the character of Neelix. The producers were thinking of the far superior episode DS9 1.19, “Duet,” which came at the end of the DS9 Season One and wrestled powerfully with the subject of guilt and forgiveness for wartime atrocities.
Unfortunately “Jetrel” suffers by comparison. The plot setup is farfetched, the technobabble is silly (both in the description of the “disease” and Jetrel’s ultimate plan for redemption) and there is just no groundwork laid to support such an ambitious premise. “Duet” relies on the background of Kira Nerys’ experience during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor; the backstory is not something plucked out of the blue where no inkling was given beforehand. While Ethan Phillips (Neelix) and James Sloyan (“Jetrel”) did a fine job with what they were given, it doesn’t land in the way they were probably hoping.
I spent too much energy thinking about things like. how did Jetrel hear about Voyager, and how does he know Neelix is aboard? How does he even reach them? Isn’t Voyager flying out of the Delta Quadrant at maximum speeds? When Janeway turns around and flies to Neelix’s home system, is that on the way? Or did she just erase all the distance they have traveled up to this point? How did they get there so fast?
It is different and interesting to see things like principal cast member crying, and the scene where Neelix totally loses his composure on the bridge when Jetrel arrives. There have not been main characters in TOS, TNG, or DS9 who were privilege to have this kind of normal reaction. Voyager is bringing new textures to the franchise.
I found it interesting to see the Holodeck used as a pool hall. Is that more economical in the 24th Century than having a pool hall? If we had Holodecks, would a better application be creating communal spaces for realtively ordinary recreation, or the more solitary, exotic production of Holonovels as we have recently seen? How do you allocate Holodeck recreation time among a large crew? Sometimes the peripheral questions are just as interesting as the big ideas.
Should we forgive someone like Jetrel? I believe in forgiveness, ultimately, but I’m not sure full justice was done to the subject. He can do more, I’m sure, than Quixotically chase individual Talaxians across the galaxy with transporter resurrection schemes.
3 out of 5 safety plays.
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