Customer Reviews

Star Trek - Voyager, Episode 8: Ex Post Facto [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

To me, this episode is the best of all the Voyager episodes either before or after. The reason being the interesting method of punishing murder and the Holmesian manner of Tuvok's investigation. Tuvok has never been as good as in this episode and the intriguing cultural differences have never been as imaginative.

As with the DS9 episode "Necessary Evil," there's a good film noir feel to this story. While Tuvok doesn't really come off as a good PI figure like Odo did, there still exists the old noir trademarks like the dispassionate, chain-smoking mystery woman, marital infidelity, and a whole slew of differing flashbacks on what really happened. There's also a good space battle sequence to keep it from getting too mired in the noir genre.

Although I will recommend the new Voyager Complete First
Season DVD THIS is a season highlite.It presents the show in it's more cryptic pre-Seven Of Nine years in a wonderful tale
about an alien race who punish convited criminals by forcing them to relive the final moments of their victems life's.Effective alternative to capital punishment?NO-as you'll
see here it takes a Vulcan mind meld to curb the damage done to
Tom Paris after he's framed for murder.Excellent use of
dream sequences and flashbacks-reminds me of something Orson
Welle's might've done has he been a modern science fiction
television writer.

Tom Paris was in a New Zealand prison when Janeway first met him. Given a chance for redemption and freedom, he accepts the position as pilot for the USS Voyager.

Now, he finds himself guilty of a murder he says he didn't commit. However, he's broken the law before, maybe things just got out of hand. Every 14 hours, Tom must witness the murder from the victim's point of view. Using a mind meld, Tuvok notes Paris height in comparison to the victim's wife and the fact that the dog wasn't afraid of whoever murdered the husband.

The wife and a friend of the victim were lovers and secret plotting against the deceased, who was a scietist on his home world.

Paris is innocent and free. The chip that made him relive the murder is taken out of his brain and Voyager continues on its quest toward home.

At the start of "Ex Post Facto" (Episode 8, Story by Evan Carlos Somers, Screenplay by Somers & Michael Piller, Aired February 27, 1995) Ensign Kim (Garrett Wang) returns from the homeworld of Banean and reports that Tom Paris (Robert Duncan McNeill) has been convicted of murder. What makes this fascinating is that his punishment is to relive the crime from the perspective of his supposed victim every 14 hours. This is done through the use of memory engrams implanted by the Baneans in his rain. What had happened? On the planet Paris and Kim met a scientist, Tolen Ren (Ray Reinhardt), who needed help repairing some equipment. Paris was interested in Ren's young wife, Lidell (Robin McKee). When Ren turned up dead, Paris was the prime suspect and the damning evidence is the murder seen through the eye's of the victim.

The Baneans allow Captain Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) to evaluate Paris (after all, no matter where he goes, every 14 hours he relives the murder) and the Doctor discovers Paris is suffering brian damage from the implant. Tuvok (Tim Russ) plays detective and to gather information does a Vulcan mind meld with Paris. "Voyager" is then attacked by the Numiri, who are at war with the Baneans, and as we all know, even in the Delta Quadrant of the "Star Trek" universe there are no such things as coincidences. Besides having the interesting alien system of crime and punishment "Ex Post Facto" offers some pivotal character development for both Paris and Tuvok. Paris is the hotheaded irresponsible young pilot who needs to be better grounded, and this episode serves as something of a major reality check. Tuvok has had little to do in the series so far and this one gives him an opportunity to actually do some substantial. In the outstanding first season of "Star Trek: Voyager" this is the third first rate episode in a row.

When a new series starts, it always takes a few episodes to complete the settling in process and define the characters. In this episode, Kim and Paris visit the Banean homeworld in a search for technology that will assist Voyager in traveling back to Federation space. The Baneans are at war with the Numiri, a group that is suspicious of the presence of Voyager.
Kim and Paris meet with Tolen Ren, the head of Banean military science and the discussions continue at his home. When Kim meets Ren's young wife, there is a clear and instant attraction and when Ren is murdered, Paris is accused and convicted of the murder. The primary evidence is a set of memories extracted from Ren's brain that show Paris stabbing him. Capital punishment has been abolished so the punishment is to have the memories of the murder inserted into Paris' brain so that he may relive them at regular intervals.
Voyager goes to the Barean planet and they get Paris released, but the recurring memories are slowly destroying the structure of his brain. After further investigation and a mind meld by Tuvok, it becomes clear that Paris has been framed.
The thing that puzzled me was that it took so long for the Voyager crew to decide to use a mindmeld to learn the truth. Once it was introduced in the original series, it became a standard tactic where the decision to use it was quickly executed, even when the subject was an alien. The hesitation here is completely out of sequence to what has happened in previous stories involving Vulcans. The actors also appear a little uncertain and lack the ease in their roles that will come later. Paris becoming involved in any way with the wife of a man from whom they are seeking critical aid is a plot device that should have been left out.

Excellent blending of scifi and mystery. Robert Duncan McNeill shines in this episode as a man wrongfully accused of murder.