Customer Reviews

Star Trek - Voyager, Episode 11: State of Flux [VHS]

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This episode is one of the more important ones from the first season of Voyager, and is important to see because it sets up a couple of very important future storylines.

Before this episode, the character of Seska was merely annoying. But this is the episode where we come to really hate her....and begin to plumb the depths of her evil, manipulative personality.

I think that this is also an important episode, in an odd kind of way, for the character of Chakotay. As more and more of his former Maquis crew reval themselves to have been working for others, Chakotay questions himself and begins to deal with the disappointments of the past.

I'd say that this one is one of the "must sees" from the first season of Voyager.

The relationship between Chakotay (Robert Beltran) and Seska (Martha Hackett) does more than explode in "State of Flux" (Story by Paul Robert Coyle, Teleplay by Chris Abbott, Aired April 10, 1995) Episode 11 of "Star Trek: Voyager." The episode begins with an encounter with a cloaked Kazon-Nistrim ship on a planet where an Away Team led by Chakotay and including Seska is gathering food. Back on "Voyager," Seska is hurt when Chakotay reprimands her for breaking into the ship's food reserves to making something more to her taste. A few days later "Voyager" receives a distress call from that same Kazon vessel, which has been destroyed by what was clearly misused Federation technology. The only conclusion is that someone on "Voyager" gave the Kazan that technology. Seska again disobeys orders to beam aboard the warship and retrieve the Federation equipment, but gets injured. In Sickbay, the Doctor (Robert Picardo) is surprised to discover Seska's blood shows up as being Cardassian rather than Bajoran. Seska explains that this was because of a bone marrow transplant from a Cardassian donor when she was s child, but she is now a suspect, as is Carey (Josh Clark), another chronic malcontent on the ship, and it is up to Chakotay and Tuvok (Tim Russ) to set the trap and discover who is the traitor.

"State of Flux" is of historical importance in terms of the "Star Trek: Voyager" series because of the longrange implications of the information revealed in this episode. It also marks a key turning point in the series because even though the episode raises more questions about who can be trusted amongst the crew, it really marks the resolution of the tensions between the Starfleet and the Maquis. It also shows how important the character of Chakotay was to this series, because it was his integrity and sense of honor that made the uneasy alliance between the two crews forced to work together in the Delta Quadrant, justifying the faith Janeway put in him by making him First Officer. One of the things I especially liked going through the "Voyager" series again was the relationship that existed between the Captain and First Officer, which really was more of a partnership, especially in comparison to Kirk-Spock, Picard-Riker, or Sisko-Kira.

This is a relativly good episode, but I would really not recomend it. It gets incredebly boring after you've seen it two times or so, and it then gets buried. If you want to see it, tape it off TV