Customer Reviews

Star Trek - Voyager, Episode 60: Rise [VHS]

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Neelix and Tuvok are together in a shuttlecraft, not the ideal place to get to know each other, when their ship crashes onto a planet. Meanwhile Voyager is helping a local race to destroy asteroids that are heading toward their homeworld and coming dangerously close to destroying their civilisation. A much bigger and devasting plot is revealed throughout the episode as these random asteroids look to be targetting certain areas of the alien homeworld, somebody is behind it all.

Less action then you'd expect from this type of story, focusing more on the crime-thriller side of things.

Tuvok and Neelix ended up as the Mutt and Jeff of "Voyager," and Episode 60, "Rise" (Story by Jimmy Diggs, Teleplay by Brannon Braga, Aired February 26, 1997), helps to set that pattern. On their way back to the Alpha Quadrant "Voyager" is taking time out to try and vaporize asteroids that are falling on the homeworld of the Nezu. The shuttle carrying Tuvok (Tim Russ) and Neelix (Ethan Phillips) crashes on the surface and the pair, along with a pair of Nezu, Sklar (Kelly Connell) and a scientist named Vatm (Tom Towles), have no way of contacting "Voyager." Neelix proposes they use a carriage that is tethered to an orbital space station (like in Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars," etc.) to get high enough to be able to contact the ship. But Vatm tries to go up by himself, which means there is more going on here than meets the eye.

What is surprising about "Rise" is that it is essentially a parlor room murder mystery, which is a pretty good twist when you are talking about a "room" (carriage) that is rising on a tether to an orbiting space station. Against that scenario we have the interplay between Tuvok and Neelix, which is still fun even if it is a more understated version of the classic tension between Spock and McCoy with Tuvok perpetually perturbed by Neelix's incessant ideas. Minor point: I know that Neelix calling Tuvok "Mr. Vulcan" is sort of endearing, but given how sensitive the ship's diplomatic is towards the feelings of others, it really does not make sense for him to label someone by their race. I suppose there is not much you can come up to make a ride in a carriage up a tether exciting, but the results are rather mixed in "Rise," especially when you are suddenly reminded of similar scenes in "Where Eagles Dare."

Neelix and Tuvok are together in a shuttlecraft, not the ideal place to get to know each other, when their ship crashes onto a planet. Meanwhile Voyager is helping a local race to destroy asteroids that are heading toward their homeworld and coming dangerously close to destroying their civilisation. A much bigger and devasting plot is revealed throughout the episode as these random asteroids look to be targetting certain areas of the alien homeworld, somebody is behind it all.

Less action then you'd expect from this type of story, focusing more on the crime-thriller side of things.