Phage (S1E05)
Airdate: 6 February 1995
Written by: Skye Dent & Brannon Braga Directed by: Winrich Kolbe
Running Time: 46 minutes
From its very inception, Star Trek: Voyager established itself as the darkest of all the series produced during what many consider the Golden Age of the Star Trek franchise. The show began with catastrophe — the crew's violent displacement to the Delta Quadrant — and built its central premise around protagonists who would have to spend years, if not decades, dealing with the consequences of that catastrophe while fighting for mere survival the entire time. Stranded in an utterly unknown region of space, they would have to encounter all manner of genuinely unpleasant alien races, and a particularly striking example of this came very early in the run, in an episode titled Phage.
Being tens of thousands of years away from the nearest Starbase, Voyager's crew would have to think carefully about preserving many things that other Starfleet vessels had always taken for granted — food, water, medicine, and other essential supplies. Most critically, they needed dilithium to use as fuel. Neelix, ever the eager guide to the Delta Quadrant, identified a rogue planetoid that was supposed to contain large deposits of the necessary ore. Yet, when he led an away team down to the surface, he was attacked by an unknown alien and subsequently beamed up to sickbay in a state of profound shock. The Doctor, examining him, discovers to everyone's horror that Neelix was missing his lungs — the aliens had apparently harvested those organs while he lay unconscious. The only way Neelix could survive is through holographic lungs projected via emitters, with the Talaxian forced to lie motionless, quite possibly a cripple for the remainder of his life.
Another away mission is promptly organised with the aim of finding whoever was responsible and, if possible, retrieving Neelix's lungs. The investigation reveals that the planetoid contained an alien facility, rendered invisible by a sophisticated cloaking mechanism, which was being used to store organic material — presumably the harvested organs of other unfortunate beings. The aliens escape the planetoid aboard a ship, but Voyager gives pursuit, eventually catches up with them, and captures two of the alien forms. They introduce themselves as the Vidiians, a race that has been ravaged by a degenerative and incurable disease known as the Phage. One of the captured aliens, Dereth (Cully Fredericksen), explains that the only way their people could outpace the relentless degeneration was to harvest organs from other races. Neelix's lungs, it transpired, have already been transplanted into another Vidiian called Motura (Stephen B. Rappaport).
Motura, to his credit, expresses genuine remorse over his people's actions and even offered his own life in order to return the lungs to Neelix. Captain Janeway, however, elects to adhere to the ethical principles of the Federation, and is far more amenable to an alternative: the Vidiians would provide their superior medical knowledge to facilitate the transplantation of a lung from a member of Voyager's crew — a procedure the Doctor had previously considered impossible. Kes volunteers to donate one of her lungs to Neelix, and he is saved.
Phage is described by many "trekkies" as the moment when Voyager truly matured, demonstrating that the series would handle certain things in a markedly different fashion than The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. The principal reason for this is the Vidiians themselves, who emerged as the most frightening new Star Trek race in quite some time. This was attributable not only to their habit of harvesting organs from living beings, but also to their grotesque physical appearance. Make-up artist Michael Westmore designed them as a Frankenstein's monster-like patchwork of other peoples' organs and skin — a visual that was genuinely unsettling and conveyed the horror of their condition with remarkable effectiveness.
Even more interestingly, the Vidiians are not typical villains. Their controversial practice is born not of malevolence but of an actual, desperate desire to survive. If scriptwriters Skye Dent and Brannon Braga had been braver, they might have explored the tantalising possibility of Voyager itself — forced to scavenge for food, fuel, and other resources in order to survive its long journey home — being viewed by the inhabitants of the Delta Quadrant in much the same light as the Voyager crew viewed the Vidiians. The parallel was there for the taking: a crew taking what they needed from others' territory in order to endure. It is a shame the episode did not press this point further, as it would have added a layer of moral complexity that would have elevated the story considerably.
The Vidiians nonetheless proved to be memorable and effective antagonists, and were subsequently used in a number of other episodes during the series' run, becoming one of Voyager's most distinctive recurring threats. Their presence always carried with it a particular kind of unease that other Delta Quadrant races lacked.
On the other hand, the Vidiians, with their advanced medical expertise and their ultimately saving Neelix's life, provide a rather neat and perhaps too convenient way for Janeway to maintain her high moral compass. The episode sets up a genuinely agonising dilemma — a crew member's organs have been stolen, and the thieves are sympathetic figures — but then resolves it in a manner that allows Janeway to remain virtuous without having to make a truly difficult choice. One cannot help but wonder whether a braver script might have forced her hand.
The episode benefits enormously from the decision to have Neelix as the Vidiians' victim instead of Tom Paris, who was originally intended to play that part. Neelix is introduced at the start of the episode as little more than comic relief, enthusiastically converting Janeway's private quarters into a galley. Yet by the end of the episode he has been transformed into a genuinely tragic character, having to contend not only with his frustrating physical situation but also with the fear that Kes might leave him for Tom Paris. The episode plays into this aspect shrewdly, paving the way for Kes to become the Doctor's medical assistant rather than Paris, whose brief tenure in sickbay had been played largely for laughs.
The episode has often been compared with the infamous Original Series episode Spock's Brain, which also dealt with the theft of a vital organ, but the comparison is a favourable one. Where Spock's Brain was campy and absurd, Phage treated its premise with genuine gravity and emotional weight, grounding the horror in character rather than spectacle.
The homage to The Original Series is made explicit when the Doctor declares, "I'm a doctor, Mr. Neelix, not a decorator," obviously channelling Bones McCoy's famous catchphrase. It is a small but delightful moment that connects Voyager to its lineage while also establishing the Doctor's own distinct personality.
At the end of the day, Phage is a very good episode — one that succeeds in establishing the tone and stakes of Voyager's unique situation while introducing a genuinely memorable antagonist. It is not without its flaws, particularly in its somewhat too tidy resolution, but its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The episode demonstrated that Voyager was willing to venture into darker, more visceral territory than its predecessors, and it did so with a confidence and conviction that boded well for the series ahead.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
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