Star Trek: Voyager — 5x03 — Extreme Risk

Aired 1998-10-28

SpaceOpera.com rating:5

Average reader rating:4.75

Synopsis

Torres heads down a path of self-destruction.

Remarkable scenes

Torres' orbital skydiving and her subsequent conversation with Seven of Nine.
Tom: "Well if we can't transport it out, we'll just have to fly in and grab it." Tuvok: "Perhaps you weren't paying attention when the Malon freighter imploded?"
Tuvok and Tom arguing over "dynametric tail fins."
Seven of Nine spying on the Malon ship.
Chakotay's intervention with Torres.
Torres' MacGyver'd forcefield.
Torres: "Chakotay, what you did on the holodeck today... Thanks. But if you ever do anything like that again, I'll break your neck."

Review

This episode ties up a few loose threads. First we have the return of the Malon, confirming that Voyager has not fully cleared their space, second we have the construction of that new shuttle Seven of Nine alluded to in the previous episode, and finally we have Torres doing some real grieving over the loss of the Maquis to the Dominion. Her grieving is a bit too late, but otherwise credible. This aspect of the story allows for some nice moments between Torres and Chakotay, though surprisingly not between Torres and Tom. The "space race" was a bit forced, but the action was convincing and entertaining. Overall, the episode was another fairly average one.

4 reader comments

I detest the 'Torres' character in Voyager. She reminds me of how Counselor Troi was in TNG. Always having episodes centering around her stupid emotional problems. I never have liked Torres and I never will.
This episode was your standard A/B plot; typical Voyager fare. I was pleased, though, that it featured Chakotay somewhat, something we will see less and less of, to Robert Beltran's displeasure.
Also, Neelix has begun to be phased out somewhat, along with Tuvok. It's really unfortunate that Braga and those assholes decided to start obsessing over the Janeway/Doctor/Seven trio and giving less attention to the other characters. I really thought Neelix and Tuvok were wonderful characters with all kinds of room for development. But then again, that's the story of Voyager: Unrealized potential resulting in infinite mediocrity.
by Pete Miller | 11/13/2006 at 5:38 am

I have to agree with Pete: Voyager never reached its potential despite some powerfully entertaining episodes. It started right at the beginning when the tensions between Maquis and Starfleet personnel were ignored way too quickly, then we have Voyager's hidden factory producing all the torpedoes and shuttles they want completely undercutting the "we are all alone out here with limited resources" basis of the premiere, they continued the mistake by not showcasing the same "background/dayplayer" characters as if the population of Voyager was limited, and then finally they focused all of the attention on Seven of Nine until I was sick to death of the "Borg-implants save the day" plots. However, at least they didn't hand the series' last episode to a different show, i.e. Enterprise!
by Rob Gnow | 04/26/2008 at 11:51 pm

The issue isn't that this is an episode about Torres' emotional problems. That could actually be interesting since it's actual continuity. The problem is that she would have learned the fact of her friends' death long before this episode, but her emotional problems start and end in this episode. She's perfectly normal the week before, and she's perfectly normal again the week after.
If they had wanted to explore this, it would have made a great subplot, honestly. There's like 30 Maquis crewmen on board who have recently received news that all their comrades have died, except for the handful that Eddington managed to save. A lot could have been done with this. Even if they wanted to focus exclusively on Torres, they could have devoted a couple minutes in a few other episodes to showing her dangerous holodeck stunts, letting it build up until this episode when she's so detached that everyone notices. Heck, the opportunity was there-they did that whole "Captain Proton" thing for "Night," which was just a silly scene completely disconnected from the plot of that episode. The focus was on the Captain's emotional issues that episode, but it would have been a great opportunity to hint at what was going on with Torres as well.
by Bronn | 11/24/2013 at 4:39 pm

now THERE's some amazing pacing. this is the voyager i have always wanted. dark mood lighting--serious emotional range that these actors KNOW they are capable of. continuity from previous episodes (seeing tom's boyish enthusiasm about archaic control schemes, b'elanna's preoccupation with her maquis friends/past), not taking huge unnecessary leaps in plot but focusing, honing in on a very simple but compelling scenario: not a merely violent encounter but a race to the finish.
this episode is phenomenal. i am surprised to see that kethinov said t was average, i was really pleasantly surprised by how serious the directing was for this episode, allowing actors more than the standard short shots to show facial responses, depth, etc. this feels like the seeds of what future, more melodramatic scifi would become, like BSG. very happy to see themes of suicide and depression dealt with as well, very real and important things to address.
i also think that while we all know it's a plot device to suddenly introduce her depression, anyone who's experienced or been around trauma knows that it does not manifest itself in obvious ways--and indeed, it can often lay underneath the surface of normal social pleasantries until it starts getting worse. then to others it seems as if it is sudden when it has actually been there the whole time. i thought it was clever of the writers to finally write in a plot point that wasn't a contrived ret-con but was actually plausible: underneath appearances, b'elanna was actually deeply affected by the news. and thank god she was, as other commenters have pointed out, since voyager so quickly scuttled all of the potential that lay in the maquis/federation tension so early. at least here it is mildly, if briefly, resuscitated.
seriously…i think if you watch this episode carefully, you'll see it is directorially much more mature than many of its counterparts. things actually are given time to build up (within the episode, series wise obviously no), we follow the character through each stage, it's not the rush job that many voyager episodes feel like.
anyway i'll take 5 of these episodes over most of the camp any day! here's to the "emotions" that apparently bother folks! cheers!
by parkbench | 09/11/2015 at 7:54 am