Episode Review - Repentance
Reviewed by Andy Taylor

Synopsis
Voyager responds to a distress call and finds a damaged alien vessel. Two injured people are beamed directly to sickbay, and another nine are put in a cargo bay, where three of the rescued are Nygean guards, holding other people prisoner. They are worried about their weapons not being beamed over, as the men they are holding are dangerous criminals. In sickbay, Iko, an injured prisoner, has been able to capture Seven, demanding a ship and food in return for her safety. However, Tuvok arrives with a Nygean warden, Yediq, who says that he will not negotiate with criminals. Seven is able to break free from Iko - his next target becomes The Doctor, unbeknownst to him, a hologram. Tuvok is able to fire his phaser so that the beam goes straight through The Doctor and stuns Iko, who then falls to the floor.

When the pandemonium has settled, Yediq thanks Janeway for providing assistance. He tells her, Chakotay and Tuvok that the prisoners are being transported back to the Nygean homeworld, as they are due for execution – they have all been convicted of murder. The Starfleet officers are uncomfortable with the knowledge that they are delivering people to their deaths – something they would never do within their own cultures – but the Prime Directive binds them from interfering in other species’ ways of life. Janeway therefore agrees to keep the prisoners for a few days until another Nygean ship can arrive and deliver the prisoners back home. Tuvok arranges for prison cells secured with forcefields and tritanium bulkheads to be erected in the cargo bay. The prisoners are held there, including a disgruntled Iko whom threatens to kill the entire crew if he is not released.

Tuvok offers some rules for Yediq to follow, whilst Neelix arrives with food for the prisoners. Yediq tells him that he should take it back as these prisoners do not deserve it. However, he and Tuvok protest, noting Federation law regarding the treatment of prisoners. Yediq relents and Neelix continues. Meanwhile in sickbay, The Doctor tells Seven of how troubled he feels about the arrangements Janeway has made, as he feels that the death penalty is barbaric.

Back in the cargo bay, another prisoner called Joleg prods Iko into causing a disturbance. When Yediq checks on him, Iko threatens his children, thus provoking him into stepping into his cell and beating Iko – Voyager’s security officers intervene and stop the mayhem. Janeway is infuriated with Yediq and actually bans him and his men from guarding their own prisoners. She puts Tuvok in charge. In sickbay, The Doctor treats Iko and asks Seven to give nanoprobes – he wants to program them to repair the neurological damage to Iko’s brain. This is something Seven sees as pointless – after all the man is going to be executed anyway. Nevertheless, it is something The Doctor wants to do.

Neelix is on another round of delivering food to the prisoners, but this time Joleg tells him that he was sentenced to murder as he was found in vicinity of the crime scene, and was arrested simply because he was Benkaran – a species that the Nygeans believe to always be criminal. Neelix later contacts the Nygean government, saying that he wishes to partake in a cultural exchange – he manages to obtain information on the Nygean criminal justice system. He then tells Paris and Torres that Benkarans occupy quite a large part of the prison space in Nygean prisons, and are ten times more likely to be executed than Nygeans. He also finds that Joleg was convicted only on circumstantial evidence. Despite building his hopes up, Neelix hears from Paris that in prison, everyone has their own story; therefore he should consider that whatever Joleg says would not necessarily be true. Neelix reminds him though that he is already sentenced to die.

In sickbay, The Doctor has given Iko the nanoprobes. He awakes in pain, but is much more calmer than previously. The Doctor also notes that Iko is much more grateful and considerate than before – quite a large difference considering his actions before. Iko complains to The Doctor – he feels nauseous, and cannot stop thinking about the man he killed. Seven says that the discomfort is a manifestation of his guilt of killing a man. However, Iko has never felt guilt before, therefore he blames The Doctor for making him feel so horrible. The Doctor investigates a scan of Iko’s brain, and it becomes apparent that the nanoprobes have created new neural pathways in his brain. As The Doctor begins to gather more information about Iko's physiology, Iko converses with Seven, who is fascinated with his intrigue of stars and constellations when he was a boy.

In the cargo bay, Neelix is teaching Joleg how to play Kadis-Kot, whilst learning himself that the Nygean legal system is based on favouring the victim. This means that the victim’s family is able to determine the convict’s sentence. Neelix feels appalled by this and wishes to help Joleg, but he insists that he does not want to do anything – it would imply that he is guilty. Instead, he wishes for Neelix to simply transmit a letter to his brother.

The Doctor finds that Iko was born with a congenital brain defect that generated feelings in him that made him want to commit violence and have sociopathic behaviour. The nanoprobes that were implanted in him, however, have repaired the ‘damages.’ He tells Janeway of what has happened, and she sees that his conscience has been activated. The Doctor therefore believes that Iko is no longer a threat, with Seven commenting that he is no longer the man he was. They tell this to Yediq, whom is quite sceptical of the findings. They are able to persuade him to work with Tuvok to create an appeal to the authorities. Iko, however, does not want to appeal – he tells Seven that he deserves to die for what he did. He wants to go back to his prison cell in the cargo bay, where he then tells Neelix to give his meal to Egrid – a prisoner he always used to steal food from.

Janeway and Yediq tell Seven that the appeal for Iko was rejected. Seven insists, quite passionately, that more should be done to help him. Janeway sees that Seven has issues relating to this case – she probably thinks that if Iko can be found not guilty, she will be somehow not guilty of the murders and assimilations of countless people that she committed as a Borg drone. However, the debate is interrupted as a ship suddenly fires on Voyager. The attack leads to power being lost in the cargo bay holding the prisoners. All the prisoners except Iko get out of their cells and overpower the guards. The vessel then tries to beam up five Benkaran prisoners, but Voyager is able disable the ship’s transporter array, leaving it no option but to retreat.

Tuvok tries to capture the prisoners in Voyager’s corridors but Joleg is able to take Yediq hostage, demanding a shuttle. Joleg moves back into the cargo bay and another prisoner seals the door. Joleg shoves Yediq to the floor, ready to kill him, but Iko stops him, telling him that, “He’s mine.” As Iko takes a phaser rifle and aims it at Yediq, Joleg laughs – until the phaser moves to shoot down Joleg and the other prisoner. Yediq sees that Iko really is a changed man, changing his perspective as well.

Yediq uses his influence to convince the family of Iko’s victim to hear his appeal – Iko talks to them on Voyager’s viewscreen, and says that he will accept death if it helps them finds peace. However, if they let him live, he will never hurt anybody again. Neelix, meanwhile, finds a recaptured Joleg. He is angry that he fell for Joleg’s ‘note,’ which clearly led the other ship to Voyager. Joleg again tries to manipulate the now weary Neelix, who simply leaves in utter disgust. As Iko and Seven view constellations in Astrometrics, Janeway arrives and solemnly tells Iko his appeal has been rejected. Iko will be detained and returned home for execution like the other prisoners. Seven is devastated, and Janeway sees that she is remorseful for having murdered thousands without the slightest of punishments. She is able to remind her, however, that she lost 20 years of her life to the Borg. That is quite easily punishment enough.

Summary
So, just out of curiosity, how many snooker fans do we have out there? Honestly, the way it clogs a Star Trek schedule you’d think that Star Trek fans are the biggest fans of snooker out there – it always clashes with our favourite, and you'd think we’d be stuck in front of the television come 6.45... Come on BBC2 - surely you could air the rest of the season with no more interruptions? There aren't many more episodes left!

Anyway, I believe someone certainly left the ethics tap running from the last episode. Well, Voyager’s certainly making us sit back and think about stuff this year, it seems, so we might as well sit down for the ride, because this week’s episode was another cracker. Maybe not as emotional as ‘Lineage’ was (blame that on the sheer amount of alien names and guests we had to contend with, as well as three different plots running through the episode), but it certainly made me sit down and think.

So this week, the ethics train moves into (deep ominous voice) capital punishment (cue drum effects.) And not only do we have issues of death to contend with, but also the interesting ‘brain’ dilemma – if we change someone’s brain so much, then how much of the man are we dealing with from before the changes? Again, like ‘Lineage,’ these were interesting issues to raise, giving the episode more kudos than say, one full of CGI action.

So what do I talk about? Well, I liked Seven and The Doctor’s conflict of interests over the death penalty – he saying it is too barbaric, she believing that if the prisoner is dying, there’s no point saving him if he’s going to die anyway. Two dramatically different viewpoints offering interesting viewing, and it seems that this episode actually made a decision for us on where we should stand on the issue. The Doctor’s viewpoint is perhaps something I agree with to a point (of course, apply it to real life and everything’s out of the window). However with this episode, things happened to Iko that were bound to change our perspectives, just like Seven’s. In fact, I liked how Seven had an opportunity to grow here – look at how much her stand changed from her comment on ‘letting him die,’ to the end where she regrets how Iko’s appeal has been rejected. Another nice bit of acting from Ms. Ryan, whilst also giving us our first Seven/Janeway clash since time began! OK, not that long ago, but it’s been a while. In my ‘Shattered’ review, I mentioned that Janeway had been short of scenes this year. Then again, Seven hasn’t exactly been hogging the airtime – this little clash gave us something that whilst seen hundreds of times before, was something I enjoyed watching simply because I hadn’t seen it for a long time. All this non-Seven material this year has paid off!

Moving onto the other ‘issue-of-the-week,’ that of brain surgery. This was something looked at in the old DS9 episode ‘Life Support’ (you know, the one where they dared to kill off Vedek Bareil?) Back then; Kira was lobbying for Bashir to further operate on Bareil’s degenerating brain at the end of the episode to keep him alive. Bashir was of the opinion that he had already gone under too much change – any more and he wouldn’t be the same man that Kira fell in love with (well, that’s the gist – it’s been a heck of a long time since I last saw that! )  Well in this episode we saw Iko going under a radical personality change with those nifty Borg nanoprobes (is there anything that those won’t do? *Tuts* - note to writers – stop using them!! ) Here, I think Iko did have a case about being a different man – he was, literally! I think more time with the victim’s family would have shown them his new personality, and maybe they could have reduced his sentence. Anyway, without getting wrapped up in political issues, it was good from a creative point of view that he didn’t get a reprieve – if he had the episode would have had far too much of a stereotypical happy ending, which would have then cheapened the seriousness of the story being told.

One final thing, speaking of good use of character earlier, I thought it was good how Neelix’s good nature was played against him (it had to happen big-time one episode or another.) Here Joleg manipulates him quite easily, but then finally he is able to be completely angry at the end of the episode when he realises what went on. Two things – 1) hooray for Neelix, finally doing something serious, first time in ages! 2) Thank you very much writers for making Neelix a much more bearable character. I don’t know about you, but some of my favourite Voyager episodes are Neelix-centred ones – ‘Riddles’ and ‘Mortal Coil’ spring to mind – when he gets all serious, he becomes more sensitive and therefore more interesting. However a lot of the time, Neelix is just this goofy comedy character that is one of the most annoying things to hit our screens. But personally, since sometime last season I think (but particularly this season), his character has been able to develop into something more serious. Hopefully, this won’t change.

So, surely this week should get as good a mark as ‘Lineage?’ Well, it did contain interesting issues and developed some of our characters a bit, which was all good. However, like I said this week, we had more guest characters to focus on, several different viewpoints and more than one plot all going on at the same time. The episode was still good, don’t get me wrong, but all in all I don’t think it carried the same weight as ‘Lineage’ did. I don’t know, it could just be personal. But at least I can say this – more episodes like ‘Lineage’ and this, and I’ll be laughing.

Final Opinion
Has everyone got issues this year, or is it just me?

8/10