Episode Review - Nightingale
Reviewed by Oliver Lenz

Synopsis
Voyager has landed on a planet for a major maintenance overhaul, while at the same time shuttles are being sent out to search for supplies. Torres informs Janeway that repairs will take a couple of days longer than expected. Suddenly several consoles blacken out, only to return to normal the next moment. It turns out that this was caused by Icheb, who explains to Janeway and Torres the repairs that he has made. Janeway is impressed and assigns him to Torres, hoping this will speed things up a bit.

Onboard the Delta Flyer, we see Kim, Seven and Neelix, who are searching for dilithium. While they are arguing about whether the same place should be checked for dilithium for the fourth time, they detect weapons fire. A ship is forced to decloak as it is hit by a second ship. The Delta Flyer receives a distress call from the first, Kraylor, ship, that claims to be on a humanitarian mission. Kim contacts the second, Annari, ship but his attempts to persuade the captain to hold down their fire quickly turn out to be futile. The Annari ship now starts to attack the Delta Flyer. The Delta Flyer is not a real match for the Annari ship, so Kim uses a trick. He uses the Flyer’s deflector to damage the Annari ship with its own weapon, which is subsequently disabled, forcing the ship to retreat.

Kim and Neelix beam over to the Kraylor ship to treat the wounded. They discover that the captain has died and that the surviving Kraylor are mostly scientists. After Kim quickly repairs their engine and cloaking device he is asked to pilot the ship to its destination, since there is in fact no one left who is capable. Kim initially refuses, because the Federation prime directive prohibits any interferance with foreign affairs. Then, Loken, the doctor in charge of the research team, reluctantly explains that they are carrying valuable vaccines, with which many lives could be saved. Since the course of the ship will take them near Voyager anyway, and because the cloaked Kraylor ship will provide a safe harbour for the Flyer from the Annari, Kim agrees, but only until they reach Voyager. Seven asks Kim what happened to the Federation’s prime directive but Kim explains that they have already got involved in the conflict because the Annari fired on them. Since Kim is the highest-ranking officer, he becomes the acting captain.

When the ship approaches Voyager, they notice several Annari vessels surrounding the planet. It seems like Janeway and the Annari are discussing a trade of resources. When Kim reports in, the Annari even appear to be able to supply Voyager with Dilithium. After they have left, Kim tells Janeway about his mission and introduces her to the Kraylor people. While Janeway admits to Kim that he has put her into a difficult position, as the Annari and the Kraylor are at war with each other, she is willing to help the Kraylor get home. Kim asks Janeway if he could continue to lead the mission. He explains that he has now been an ensign for seven years now and that while he very well understands that onboard Voyager people are not promoted as fast as back in the alpha quadrant, he wants a chance to prove himself capable of commanding a starship. Janeway agrees, but orders him to take Seven along. Seven holds no Starfleet rank, which means Kim will be in command during the mission. Later, Paris approaches Kim asking whether he can come along, but Kim refuses. For once, he doesn’t want to be the sidekick, the "Buster Kincaid". Were Paris to come along, he would lead the mission due to his higher rank.

In the mess hall, Kim is indecisive towards Neelix regarding what he wants to eat. Neelix explains that a captain always has to be decisive in front of his crew. Janeway never hesitates with her choice of dinner. Kim remembers this and tries to enter the bridge of the Kraylor ship with authority. He renames the ship to Nightingale. After receiving positive feedback, he explains that it is the name of a famous wartime nurse on his homeworld and that it symbolises the ship’s mission. He then orders the pilot to engage. Kim has decorated the ‘captain’s office’ with some of his possessions. Seven questions him why he does so, raising the point that the mission won’t last that long. Kim defends his choice by stating that helps him forging a bond with the ship. Some time later, Seven informs Kim that she ordered the acting helmsman, Terek, to make a slight course correction. Kim immediately heads for Terek, fearing that he may not be capable enough. But instead of showing Terek how to change the course correctly, he does the job himself.

Onboard Voyager, Icheb and Torres have worked together on a regular basis lately and Torres invites Icheb to go rock climbing on the holodeck. Icheb is rather suspicious and asks The Doctor for the usual symptoms of romantic interest. The Doctor mentions various things, such as a desire to work with the other, giving compliments, inviting the other for social activities and a heightened blood pressure when in the vicinity of the other. Check, check, check and… The next time Icheb and Torres are working together in a Jefferies Tube, he uses his tricorder to scan for her blood pressure. …check!

After a while, an alarm sounds indicating that the cloak is destabilising. Kim orders a full stop and together with Seven and crewman Dayla, he repairs the cloak but he dismisses warnings from the others. Seven criticises him for being overly eager to do everything himself and for the fact that he doesn’t trust people with the things they are good at. Kim responds in saying that it is a captain’s job to set the right example and states that they can now safely resume their course. Soon however, the cloak fails again and this time the Nightingale is attacked by Annari ships that appear to have waited until they could seize the opportunity. Seven quickly heads down to the cloak but is rendered unconscious by an explosion. Kim wants to leave the bridge to fix the problem himself but is asked not to by the crew. Instead, he sends Dayla and instructs her over the com. His instructions are not of great worth, so Loken interrupts him and gives Dayla helpful advise and she succeeds in bringing the cloak back online. Kim feels uncomfortable but orders the ship to escape at full impulse.

Later, Loken reports that Dayla is dead, killed by a late explosion. Kim goes to treat Seven and asks Loken what his advice as a medic is. Loken is unable to comply. Kim notes that Loken knows a lot about cloaking devices, as was the case with Dayla, but not about medical things. He questions Loken as to how that is possible, since they should be specialised in biology, not cloaking technology. Loken admits that it is not the vaccines that make the Nightingale special, but the cloaking technology. The Kraylor homeworld suffers from an Annari blockade and that the cloaking technology could help fulfil the dire need for food and medicine on the planet. He argues that in a way, the mission is still a humanitarian one. Kim is angry for having been lied to and orders the ship to immediately reverse course and return to Voyager. The crew however refuses to comply and Kim realises this means the end of his command.

Back on Voyager, Paris jokes to Icheb that he and Torres have been spending quite a lot of time together. Icheb goes to Torres and tells her that she should stop approaching him romantically. Torres is baffled and finds his accusation absurd. No wonder her blood pressure was higher, it was *hot* in that Jefferies Tube! She doesn’t want to argue over it however so she plays along and agrees that they should not be seeing each other for a while.

When Seven wakes up, Kim explains to her what has happened and proposes to return to Voyager with escape pods. She asks him whether he is feeling down about the mission or because of what command is like. Kim feels bad about Dayla’s death, but is eventually persuaded by Seven to help the Kraylor return home.

The Nightingale approaches the Kraylor homeworld, but Annari ships are firing bursts of energy in order to detect cloaked ships. The crew doesn’t know what to do, but then Kim enters the bridge and offers his help.

The Annari ship from before is back, this time to escort Voyager out of Annari territory because they have linked the Delta Flyer’s hull composition to Voyager. As Voyager’s warp engines have not yet been repaired, the trip will have to take place at impulse.

The Nightingale is detected and fired upon by Annari ships. Kim opens a channel and pretends to be negotiating terms. Since the Annari are interested themselves in the cloaking technology, he threatens to self-destruct the ship. He proposes that they will be allowed to safely return to the surface, and that the Annari will get the Nightingale. In reality, he and Seven stay onboard and once the scientists have escaped in escape pods, wait for the Annari ship to lock a tractor beam onto the ship. Once that happens, they reverse the shield polarity of the Nightingale, thereby breaking free. Once again, they have used their enemy’s weapons against them. The Nightingale manages to outrun the Annari ship to the Kraylor defence parameter.

Once they are past the Kraylor defence grid, the Annari have to break off pursuit. Kim orders Terek to take them to the surface and Kim has successfully completed his mission after all. They return in the Delta Flyer and are picked up by Voyager, whose warp engines are back online and who has left behind her escort.

On Voyager, Kim notes in his personal log that even though the mission was a success, not everything went as it should have. Privately to Neelix he admits that he is not ready to become a captain... yet.


Summary
First off, I like the title. It would’ve been even better though if the title hadn’t been mentioned in the episode itself. I like those cryptic titles.

This episode centres mainly on Kim, and is the first season 7 episode to do so. So Kim wants a command, the writers finally noticed that he’s been an ensign for all those years. I don’t blame them for not mentioning it earlier (except for in Unimatrix Zero I), they adequately point out why in this episode. We see that command is not quite what Kim expected and that it is a dangerous responsibility. I’m happy, because responsibility does have it its drawbacks. Yet the writers apparently needed to ruin things, they pulled a “learned your lesson?, then everything will be ok”. I’ve seen it before, it goes something like this: officer makes mistakes -> lives are risked -> second officer tells first officer what he does wrong –> first officer no longer makes mistakes -> they save the day. The bad guys are only a real threat as long as the one in charge makes mistakes. This episode would have been great if the Annari would have succeeded in destroying/capturing the ship at the end. It’s a real shame the writers don’t show more unorthodoxy. I say have the guts to kill mains off! The episodes would become a whole lot less predictable.

On to the B plot. Icheb doesn’t know enough about Humanoid behaviour to correctly interpret Torres’ behaviour. He makes a fool out of himself. Very funny. Not. Is it just me, or are people that embarrass themselves just not funny? They could have easily skipped this subplot.

Now it may seem that I really disliked this episode, but that is not really the case. They showed some lovely special effects and the action was pretty decent. Neelix was funny and so was The Doctor. I have two questions though. First, wouldn’t a trip at impulse to the Annari border take seriously long, as was shown in “A Time to Stand”? Second, why exactly did the Annari commander feel the need to negotiate and why was he willing to let the scientists escape?!

Final Opinion
All in all, this episode was pretty disappointing...

5.5/10