I’ve been watching a good amount of Voyager recently and it made me notice how many episodes feature or hinge on faking-out the audience. So I went through the episodes and made a little list.
What I’m considering a fake-out: if the episode or scene itself is framed to make the audience think something is real when it isn’t real, or if the events of the episode or scene are non-real by the end of the episode (e.g. “it was all a dream” or “we went back in time and changed it so it doesn’t count”).
Voyager episodes with fake-outs: S1E3 Time and Again - Whole episode is undone by time travel S2E3 Projections - Whole episode is a fake-out, with a bonus fake-out fake ending S2E5 Non Sequitur - Whole episode undone by the end S2E8 Persistence of Vision - Multiple hallucination based fake-outs S3E15 Coda - Multiple fake deaths framed to be real, then a fake exit to the situation S3E25 Worst Case Scenario - Fake-out mutiny in the beginning S4E4 Nemesis - Almost nothing in the episode actually took place S4E9 Year of Hell Part 2 - Undid all of the episode (and the one before!) by the end S4E13 Waking Moments - Multiple fake awakenings S4E17 Retrospect - False memories presented as real to the audience (and, really, the episode itself does a poor job of “disproving” them in the end anyway) S4E23 Living Witness - Opening scene fake-out with holographic recreation evil crew S4E24 Demon - Fake Tom and Harry S4E25 One - Fake evil alien S5E6 Timeless - Entire episode undone by time travel S5E18 Course: Oblivion - Entire fake ship S5E24 Relativity - Events undone by time travel S6E3 Barge of the Dead - Multiple fake deaths, visions S6E4 Tinker, Tenor, Doctor, Spy - Opening scene fake-out by daydreaming Doctor S6E14 Memorial - Fake memories presented as real to audience S6E23 Fury - Episode events undone by time travel
(Edited with examples)
There were also quite a few episodes I left off that I felt were borderline fake-out. A few of the listed episodes are really good but the majority are distressingly lazy or inconsequential. In fact I remember watching the original run of Voyager and easily predicting when a new scene would be a fake-out after a while. For reference I also did a quick look at TNG’s fake-out episodes and here’s what I came up with:
Yesterday’s Enterprise Remember Me Future Imperfect Conundrum The Inner Light Frame of Mind Parallels Eye of the Beholder
Of which Yesterday’s Enterprise and Inner Light might not count, particularly in light of follow-up episodes (Unification and Lessons, respectively). Furthermore, of that TNG list I’d say they’re all pretty good except maybe Frame of Mind and Eye of the Beholder.
Has anyone else noticed this tendency of the Voyager writers? Or have feelings about how that device is used in the other series?
Some of this probably has to do with writing self-contained episodes. TV shows of this era were built so they could be shown in rerun syndication. You were able to air episodes out of order, or drop in on an episode without having to rely on having watched the one before it (unlike say, modern Marvel movies). There were ocassionally two parters or season cliffhangers, but the majority of eps stood on their own.
It’s a shame we didn’t get full seasons of some of these storylines, like “year of hell” — but that’s the compromise of getting a Star Trek show in that era. Everything has to be wrapped up or undone by the end of each episode.
I like this theory in general and I think modern TV could benefit from more slower paced bottle shows. Maybe the fake-out is just an easy device to write within those constraints. But why does Voyager use it so much more than other Trek shows?
For the plot.
If you play games, think of it as a roguelike. Several random failed playthroughs before barely managing a successful one.
Good metaphor, particularly for Cause and Effect, but that episode doesn’t qualify because every loop iteration actually happened.