{"id":4862,"date":"2018-06-18T15:18:48","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T15:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/25-Non-Sequitur"},"modified":"2018-06-18T15:18:48","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T15:18:48","slug":"25-non-sequitur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/relivethemajesty.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/18\/25-non-sequitur\/","title":{"rendered":"2.5 — \u201cNon Sequitur\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n

2.5 — \u201cNon Sequitur\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Plot:<\/strong> Harry Kim awakens in San Francisco to discover that his last eight months aboard the Voyager<\/em> have all been a dream. But he doesn\u2019t believe it. Stalwart, he fights to leave his fianc\u00e9 and nice apartment and get back to the living nightmare of being lost in the Delta Quadrant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thoughts:<\/strong> This is an uneven but intriguing episode which borrows a lot of production value from stolen shots of future San Francisco from three Star Trek movies and the dramatic spaceship escape shot from TNG 6.4, \u201cRelics.\u201d After shifting restlessly for the first half, I found myself roped in and won over by the end. It’s quite an end!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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One of the problems is the male guest stars who play Lt. Laska and Cosimo are weak. They matter little to the story, and their business is mostly over in the first half, before Kim gives voice to his predicament after an improbably long stretch of keeping quiet. Jennifer Gatti, who plays Libby, his fianc\u00e9, is much better. \u201cDon\u2019t ever leave me again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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HOWEVER. How dare<\/em> Harry say \u201cjust trust me\u201d to her repeatedly in these circumstances? At that point in the story, subjectively, Harry knows that he is not who Libby thinks he is, and yet he tells her to trust him? How? Why? That\u2019s awful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We see again that Star Trek does not believe in a multiverse. If the world of \u201cNon Sequitur\u201d is an independent reality, not just a dependent one that will collapse once Harry messes again with the timestream, then Harry owes a duty to the beings who dwell there, and I find his actions indefensible. The reality in which he traveled on Voyager<\/em> can exist elsewhere in the multiverse; his only excuse for going back to it would be that he prefers to live there (damn the consequences). Going back leaves behind a reality in which he has devastated Libby and killed Tom Paris (whose company he seems to prefer to hers). But the world of Star Trek only has one reality, one that needs to be \u201cfixed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why though? If there can only be one reality, what moral basis does Harry have for preferring the first reality (if it is even such) to the reality of \u201cNon Sequitur?\u201d It is implied that the first reality is somehow essentially \u201cright,\u201d intended, special, pure. Which implies that some immaculate design must lie behind Kim being stranded in the Delta Quadrant, Libby suffering, and all the deaths of \u201cCaretaker\u201d and subsequent episodes. That\u2019s going rather far for me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Subjectively, in Kim’s shoes, I can understand feeling out of place, and wanting to go back to where the universe makes more subjective sense. He has a strong basis for imposter syndrome. But this doesn’t give him unlimited license to do what he wants. It appears he has a useful role in the reality where he finds himself, and, as is often neglected in these stories, it appears that the research value of what he has discovered in the course of his experience could be extraordinary. His inside information could be instrumental in communicating with or rescuing Voyager!<\/em> These are the interesting questions to me, rather than making it into a “touched by an angel” kind of a story where the mysterious but benevolent Cosimo feigns encouragement for Harry to give into the temptation of accepting unearned happiness, then shrugs, and with a twinkle of pride in his eyes, points the way towards Harry’s magical redemption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The setup does give us cool things to think about, and also the gift of a rollicking chase scene through the Paramount backlot that looks like it must have been storyboarded. That’s both good production value and worthy food for thought in a script which, in its draggy opening half, at first seemed like a premise in search of a story. I will remember this as a worthy teleplay-writing effort from the inconsistent Brannon Braga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But. Hold on. Tom Paris has a hand-held, portable, site-to-site transporter? One that doesn\u2019t have to be connected with a ship\u2019s transporter? That is ridiculously overpowered, dangerous, and I don\u2019t buy it. Braga!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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4 out of 5 views of the Golden Gate Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n

http:\/\/memory-alpha.wikia.com\/wiki\/Non_Sequitur<\/a>