Voyager Re-Watch: Flashback

Welp, I'm still sitting here on the sidelines of a family emergency but I found an hour and some wifi and watched my next episode/took screen caps on my phone--which is where I'm also writing this post so, you know, autocorrect. Beware. 

 I spent my life retreating into Trek during tough times and today isn't any different. I was lucky too, that today's episode is the tremendously entertaining (if not very satisfying) episode, Flashback. 

Basically Tuvok starts having some kind of Vulcan fit and passes out when they get all up in some nebula's biz. It occurs to The Doc that this fit might be caused by a repressed memory and recruits Janeway to go inside Tuvok's old timey reminiscences where they encounter both Yeoman Rand and Captain Sulu just before the events of Undiscovered Country. 

 

Tuvok and Janeway go deeper and deeper into his mind until they uncover a sort of endless loop of fake memory and The Doctor gets rid of it with some Theron radiation which is apparently fake memory penicillin. 

At the end The Doctor says something like "we may never know what happened" and that's sort of how this whole episode feels. It seems like the idea of a fake memory virus is a great idea by itself. Like we could've done a whole episode where the memory essentially plays a game of telephone jumping from one crew member to the next, morphing as it goes. OR we could do a whole episode where Tuvok has to resolve some legitimate trauma that's been bugging him since his time on The Excelsior. As it is there's an awful lot of time spent building up this "trauma" for it to turn out to just be kind of a MacGuffin--existing only to set the Excelsior plot in motion.  

Anyway, this episode is actually a lot of fun to watch. I dislike the way the memory virus plays out but I love being able to spend time with Sulu and Rand. I love those old bridge sounds. I love those uniforms. I love seeing young and uncertain Tuvok. I love his relationship with Janeway. All of this is fantastic. 

And, on this day where I'm an honorary part of a family in distress, I am Janeway. I came to this family late. But I feel like I've always been here. I'll follow my Tuvok to the precipice or the past or the or the other side of the country. 

I couldn't help thinking about all this as  Sulu appropriately gave a lovely speech about what it means to be more than a crew--to be a family. I'll just leave that here for you. 

"You'll find that more happens on the bridge of a starship than just carrying out orders and observing regulations. There is a sense of loyalty to the men and women you serve with. A sense of family. Those two men on trial... I served with them for a long time. I owe them my life a dozen times over. And right now they're in trouble and I'm going to help them; let the regulations be damned."
"Sir, that is a most illogical line of reasoning."
"You better believe it. Helm, engage!"