Star Trek: Parallax

Episode: "Parallax"

Series: Star Trek: Voyager

Season 1, Episode 3

Original Air Date: January 23, 1995

via Memory Alpha

Voyager is trapped in a quantum singularity.  The newly-merged crew must learn to work together quickly in order to survive the emergency and resume their long trip home.  

"Parallax" is all about personnel management, finding suitable roles for everyone.  It doesn't help, of course, that the Starfleet and Maquis factions don't trust each other yet.  And just how do Neelix and Kes, the Delta Quadrant natives, fit in to the scheme?  One of the highest priorities is assigning a new chief engineer and one of the candidates, B'Elanna Torres, is already a well-established hot head.  From a technical standpoint, Torres establishes her credentials quickly.  But can Janeway be convinced to trust her with the responsibility, all involved knowing full well that the Starfleet engineers will resent a recent Maquis rebel being promoted above them?

The episode has been criticized by some as dull but I love the human resources stuff.  This is exactly the sort of thinking I often have to do in my professional life and, indeed, I have found that much of my love for baseball, even during the offseason, stems from following all the roster moves.  That said, I'm not so keen on the singularity.  As previously discussed (ad nauseam, I'm sure), I don't like the way Star Trek handles time travel and Voyager goes to that well more often than other series.  I realize, of course, that for the Torres story to work, there needs to be a crisis and being caught in a trap - temporal or otherwise - is a good one.

It's all just a metaphor, Squid.  It's all just a metaphor...

Acting Notes

via Wikipedia

Robert Beltran (Chakotay) was born in Bakersfield, California, November 19, 1953.  He has nine siblings, two sisters and seven brothers.  Big families are a theme so far with the Voyager cast.  He graduated from Fresno State.

Before Voyager, his films included Eating Raoul, Lone Wolf McQuade and Night of the Comet.  He also guest starred in Murder, She Wrote.  During his Star Trek tenure, he remained active in theater.  He founded and co-directed the East LA Classic Theater Group.