Not an episode I was looking forward to, and one I usually skip, so I haven't seen this one in a while. But, here we go!
"Elogium"
The A-Plot: First off, right off the bat, Neelix is jealous of seeing Paris hanging out with Kes. So jealous that it turns into the beginning of a story arc. Okay, on one level I get it, I understand, but I have to be honest here: Neelix sounds more like an overbearing parent than a jealous boyfriend. "I see the way he looks at you, I used to be the same way!" If Kes wasn't 2, he might as well have said "When I was your age!" and then go on a rant about how "Back in my day... " It's like Neelix is treating Kes like his teenage daughter. I might as well say this now and get it over with: I don't buy their relationship, not as a couple, and I see zero romantic chemistry between them. Zero.
After all this, Kes finds bugs in the vegetables that were picked up from a planet's surface, Neelix angrily tells her to get rid of them, and she does so by starting to eat them. Then her eyes bug out. Cue opening credits. What are we in for?
Lots of food! That's what we're in for! Huge cravings! Just like the space-faring aliens in the B-Plot! Among other things, she's eaten six bowls of mashed potatoes. I wish I could do that and get still away with it. As a teenager, I could eat a ton and still look borderline anorexic. Now, if I eat even slightly too much, I have to exercise or go on a long walk to make sure it gets burned off. Middle-age sucks. Anyway, Kes is eating and eating and eating and eating, so Neelix has to bring her to Sickbay. On the one hand, nice to see Jennifer Lein do something different. On the other hand, it's just so silly and out-of-character for Kes.
In Sickbay, Neelix becomes super-overbearing, not even being an inch away from the Doctor while he examines Kes, constantly distracting him. I'm with the Doctor, "You're making it impossible for me to think, much less treat my patient! I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Then Neelix becomes outraged. "You can't talk to me that way!" The Doctor threatens to call Security. Yup. Neelix would be that irate customer at the store, causing a scene in front of everyone to see. He'd be exactly that type of person...
... and then he goes onto the bridge to make a scene! He's complaining to Janeway and it's the equivalent of "I'm going to speak to the manager!!!" This is just my opinion, but Kes should've broken up with Neelix WAY before the third season! Around now would've been the perfect time, especially with the way Neelix is acting here. "It's a matter of extreme urgency!" Sounds just someone I know who was harassing a friend of mine non-stop at one point about stuff they also believed was essentially of "extreme urgency!" All the detail I'm going to give about that, but the point is Neelix reminds me of toxic people I know in real life. Not a good look!
Then we find out that Kes is going through the Elogium and her body is prepping for fertilization so she can have a child. It only happens once in an Ocampan woman's life, so if she's going to have a child, she says, it has to be now.
Neelix is trying to find any way to worm his way out of it. He never thought his life was stable enough to have a kid, even though his life on Voyager would provide that stability, he asks if she thinks a starship is the right place to raise a child, tries to make it sound like Kes would have to give up her studies in Sickbay, he worries that someone would have to constantly watch over the kid... and Kes correctly tells him that he's just looking for excuses to not have a child. As far as watching over the kid, yeah, Neelix, Kes is right, "That's called being a parent." I'm not a parent and even I know that. He's thought he'll just let Kes do all the work of raising the child. Another reason why I think Neelix is toxic for her!
One good thing to come out of Neelix having to think about fatherhood is asking Tuvok about his own experiences as a father. What it's like to raise them, how much of his mind is occupied by them, and how he's had as much to offer his daughter as he does his three sons. It gives Neelix a lot of insight and is the best scene of the episode.
Then Neelix becomes excited about becoming a parent and Kes has to get her feet massaged for an hour by the Doctor. The massage ritual is weird, but what's not weird is Kes suddenly becoming nervous about having a child because now she's looking at it about to seriously become a potential reality versus just an idea. Then she asks a pointed question, which the scene it's in stops at: "How can I help a child grow up when I haven't fully grown up myself?" Between Kes having to have a child now or never and asking if it's too soon, it's like dealing with teen pregnancy, a young professional, and going into menopause all at the same time. She's going through three very different stages of life all at once.
The B-Plot: Voyager has encountered a space-faring species that loves to eat whatever it can. They call it a swarm. Janeway wants Voyager to pull back a little, give them some distance, then the swarm pulls Voyager in. Eventually, they notice several of the smaller lifeforms attaching themselves to a larger one. Like attaching themselves to a mate. They view Voyager as someone similar, like a mate.
When the larger lifeform starts attacking Voyager, Tuvok recommends they push back and Ensign Wildman (first appearance!) agrees, saying that's what the larger lifeform expects. So, Voyager bumps against the lifeform and it bumps back harder. Then Chakotay suggests that Voyager act submissive, then the larger lifeform leaves it alone and the smaller lifeforms attached to Voyager detach and leave. To quote Tuvok, "It seems we've lost our sex appeal." I don't know if my mind's playing tricks on me, but I remember that being part of the UPN Promo for this episode! Either way, I can see them having it in the preview. UPN, mid-'90s, it was definitely in there!
As far as the aliens and the red nebula they were in: it doesn't look bad for 1995, but it doesn't hold up well today. Some CGI on DS9 and VOY is passable, but this was something where you just have to roll with it.
Back to the A-Plot: While Voyager was trying to lose its sex appeal (never thought I'd ever start off a sentence like that!), Kes decided off-screen that she didn't want to have a child after all. Turns out during a sickbay scene we didn't see, the Doctor figured out that Kes' Elogium wasn't real, it was caused by the energy emitted from those life-forms, so Kes and Neelix can have a child later on if they want to.
Procreation, mating, and having children is the driving force for both the A-Plot and the B-Plot. And this is the first time it's brought up as an issue on Voyager, which brings us to...
Voyager: The Next Generation. At the beginning of the episode, Chakotay having a problem with "fraternization" and brings it up to Janeway after he sees a male and female officer kissing each other in the turbolift. I think Chakotay should realize that in the worst-case scenario (other than being destroyed), Voyager could be away from home for 75 years. Not only is Janeway right that pairing will start -- and people don't want to be lonely -- but, elephant in the room, eventually the current crew would become too old, so eventually they'd need a next generation to crew Voyager... which means pairing off should happen and they should start having babies.
Eventually, Janeway and Chakotay talk about this issue again in the Captain's Ready Room, and that conversation spins out of the possibility of Neelix and Kes having a child. They talk about possibility that Voyager might become a multi-generational ship. Chakotay probably had it in his mind, "I can't think about us being out here forever, we're going to get home as fast as possible! We'll find a way!" And Janeway herself probably didn't pause to think about it until now. So, I think we saw them finally actually realizing this in real time.
The button at the end of this episode is that Ensign Wildman tells Janeway that she's pregnant. She didn't know until now, and her husband is on Deep Space Nine. It's a good thing this is a pregnancy that takes longer than nine months, since the baby (eventually to be Naomi!) is half-alien.
Overall: Even though this episode was held back for the second season, it was produced for the first season and needed to be a first season episode. The first season is the time to bring up the possibility of Voyager being a multi-generational ship. The first season is the time to bring up a woman being pregnant whose husband is in the Alpha Quadrant. It's also the time to find out how serious the relationship between Neelix and Kes actually is and if they're the right pair for each other. I think they're not, and I'm glad Kes eventually realizes this later.
I didn't like this episode when I was 16. There was nothing I could relate to. There's still not much I can relate to, personally, but I can understand it a lot better now. Which makes it both better and worse at the same time. Either way, it's still not my type of episode. Other than Ensign Wildman being pregnant, this episode has a silly B-Plot, and the A-Plot feels too much like wanting to have its cake and eat it too. This episode does make some very good points in some of the character scenes, but they're not helped by what's going on around them. I give it a 4.
Around now, during first run, was when I really began to start noticing Voyager's up-and-down quality. I used to joke that Voyager was a lot like New England Weather. As the saying goes over here, "If you don't like it, wait a minute," and it'll change!
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