Star Trek Voy - Season 2 - Episode 22
Star Trek Voy - 2x22 - Innocence
Originally Aired: 1996-4-8
Synopsis:
Tuvok crash-lands on a moon. [DVD]
Problems
- The whole premise is nonsensical. We're supposed to believe these people are born fully grown and die as children? I mean come on!
Factoids
None
Remarkable Scenes
- Ensign Bennet's death. A touching death for a redshirt.
- Tuvok babysitting.
- Tuvok singing.
My Review
A good Tuvok episode, but a poor sci fi episode. The science of people being born elderly, their age reversing, and they die as children is just ridiculous. You've got to give the episode props for Tuvok's performance; he did a fantastic job with the children. I also liked the initial diplomatic meetings between the crew of Voyager and our aliens of the week. It's nice for once to see peaceful aliens instead of someone who wants to conquer Voyager or steal her crew's organs and whatnot. Janeway also handled the points of contention between our aliens of the week well too. Good acting is nice, but the premise is just too ridiculous to warrant a high rating.
The following are comments submitted by my readers.
This was a pretty boring episode. It's a shame, because I don't think the premise is necessarily ridiculous.
Some coincidence it is, that I just saw "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" in the cinema a few days ago. The premise is very similar. Benjamin is born with all the signs of old age, and then he grows younger. This episode's idea must have come from the same book as the film is inspired by.
One thing that differs between the film and this episode, is that the film is much more interesting. It focuses on the lives of two people: one growing younger and one growing older. The episode instead doesn't do very much with the premise. We don't get to see what it is like growing younger. Instead, we have a mystery plot regarding some monster, Tuvok babysitting, and some diplomatic discussions on Voyager.
The final moments between Tressa and Tuvok make the episode a lot better than it should have been.
If you overlook the presence of children, which is almost always a bad idea on Star Trek, and the utterly ridiculous plot twist with the reverse aging process, this is pretty solid. As is, it's pretty wretched. I give it a 3.
They should've had Jonathan Winters on this one.
Nanoo, nanoo.