Changes: Coda (episode)

Revision as of 20:45, 29 July 2008

After her apparent death, Captain Janeway's journey to the afterlife, guided by her father, leaves her with suspicions.

Summary

Janeway and Chakotay are traveling back to USS Voyager on a shuttlecraft when they are forced down by electrical interference from a nearby planet. Janeway is critically injured in the crash and has to be revived by Chakotay via CPR and cordrazine. Janeway activates their homing signal and unknowingly shows the Vidiians (who Chakotay discovers have shot them down) right where to find them. They are then captured and killed by the Vidiians (Chakotay is shot, Janeway is strangled).

Then Janeway finds herself back on the shuttle. They are tracking Vidiian ships on sensors who are on a intercept course. They start having problems with the warp core and it explodes. Janeway and Chakotay are right where they started again; in the shuttle. Then they once again see Vidiian ships on an intercept course when suddenly the ships disappear. They are contacted by Voyager and brought back safe and sound. The Doctor informs Janeway that she has been infected by Vidiian phage and then euthanizes her with nerve gas. Then, once more they are back on the shuttle. They see a strange bright light in front of them that is coming towards their shuttle; suddenly it engulfs them.

Next, she finds herself in an out-of-body experience. She sees Chakotay trying, unsuccessfully, to revive her. Crew members arrive and transport her straight to sickbay, and her "spirit" follows, trying unsuccessfully to contact the crew. The Doctor and Kes get some signs of life, but ultimately, Janeway dies. Knowing Kes possesses telepathic abilities, Janeway tries to get her attention in the corridor until Kes walks right through her. Kes informs the crew about her experience, saying that she has the strongest feeling that the captain was in the corridor with her. Believing that the captain might still be alive in some alternate dimension in subspace, the crew begins to scan for her mind. Tuvok offers to work with Kes in order to help her increase the range of her perceptions.

While in engineering following the crew's activities with respect to their investigations, "spirit" Janeway is encountered by the "spirit" of her father, who is there to transfer her to the "next world", claiming that she actually died in that shuttlecraft. He says that he went through the same thing after his accident: returning home to his wife and children for a long time, until he finally realized it was futile. Apparently, when death is unexpected, ones consciousness is not prepared to let go.

Janeway is not convinced, stating that if he was a hallucination, a part of her, he would certainly know all the things he claims to know about her. However he states that it really does not matter and that eventually she will crossover to that other state of consciousness. And even though her crewmembers and friends are looking for her now, they will give up eventually, accept what’s happened and that she will eventually accept it too. But Janeway is not convinced and wants to help Kes “sense” her again.

In Tuvok's quarters, Tuvok and Kes are meditating in order to be able to sense Janeway again but Kes is just not getting anything. She feels empty and alone, now doubting that she actually ever felt the captain at all. She believes that it might have been her own desire that wanted to believe the captain wasn't dead. Tuvok agrees with her, stating that he also does not sense anything and that after three days, the efforts by Torres and Harry have also been unsuccessful. He suggests that maybe it was time they accepted the inevitability of her death.

The next day, during her memorial service, Janeway is present as B'Elanna and Harry give two rather touching speeches, as they remember Kathryn Janeway, what she meant to them and taught them as well as the great loss the whole crew will experience now that she is gone. Harry Kim’s speech, in particular, brings tears to Janeway’s eyes. Chakotay concludes by honoring the captain one last time with a moment of silence as her pod is released into space. Knowing that the captain would not want them to sit around and mope, Chakotay suggests gathering together and sharing the good times they had with her.

The ghost of Janeway's “father” reappears, trying to convince her that it is over and that there is nothing left there for her anymore. But Janeway is not ready to accept it. Her “father” tries to convince her that all her attempts to deny the reality of her situation will only hurt her more for as time wears on, she will realize how potent and destructive loneliness is; seeing the people she loves move on with their lives without her in it, being forever shut out of their existence. But Janeway is still not convinced, insisting that she is just not ready, that she’d rather be there in spirit than not at all for “a captain doesn’t abandon ship.”

As the ghost of her "father" keeps pushing her into making the decision to finally leave this world behind, she suddenly sees a vision of looking up at Chakotay and The Doctor, still on the surface of the planet, as if they are still trying to revive her. A second and third vision makes it obvious this is all a ruse. She realizes that the person lying on the ground on that planet is the real Janeway, and that in fact all the things she has been experiencing since her alleged death is the hallucination.

The alien being finally reveals his true identity, stating that his species, at the moment of death, comes to help the dying understand what is happening in order to make the crossing-over an occasion of joy. He states that he was being truthful when he said that it was a place of wonder, for it can be whatever she wants it to be. Disguising as her father or generally as someone’s loved ones makes the crossing over a much less fearful occasion.

Janeway doubts that the alien’s real reasons for wanting her in his world have anything to do with everlasting joy and demands to know what he really wants from her. The alien grabs her, telling her that she must go with him, but Janeway realizes that if he could force her to go, he would have done so already. That is when she realizes that he needs her to voluntarily agree to go with him; something she refuses to do. The alien being becomes visibly upset, returning to his own realm but as a last warning states that there will be another time, and that he will be waiting, for eventually she would come into his Matrix and nourish him for a long, long time.

The captain finally wakes up on the planet, revived by The Doctor and Chakotay beside her, who explains that they were caught in a magnetic storm and crashed there. The Doctor and Tuvok took a shuttle down to the planet to begin treating her, but as they were doing so, an alien presence was detected within her cerebral cortex, preventing their attempts to heal her, but that it was eventually dislodged. Janeway tells them about the alien who appeared to her in the image of her father, trying to take her in, but she states that from what she saw, that certainly was not where she would like to spend eternity.

Back on the Voyager, Janeway tries to recover by going back to her routine, when Chakotay walks into her ready-room and gives her a rose. They discuss what she experienced down on the planet and she wonders whether each of the near-death experiences they heard about might be the result of an alien inhabitation. Chakotay finds that hard to believe and Janeway hopes he is right.

Janeway jokes around that, after all, they cheated death which is certainly worth a celebration with a bottle of Champaign and a moonlight sail on Lake George. Chakotay wholeheartedly agrees and off they go to their holo-date...

Log Entries

(Part of Janeway's hallucination induced by the alien) Tactical Officer's log, supplemental. My attempt to help Kes detect the captain's presence has ended in failure. I am forced to conclude that we have, in fact, lost Kathryn Janeway. I would like the record to show that I have lost a good friend as well, one whom I can never replace.

Captain's log, stardate 50518.6. The Doctor has examined me thoroughly and pronounced me physically fit, but I'll admit that it will take a little longer to work through the emotional impact of my experience.

Memorable Quotes

"Maybe I could stand with an apple on my head and you could phaser it off."
"Sounds great. If I miss, I get to be Captain."

-Janeway and Chakotay, discussing the latter's possible contribution to Neelix's Talent Night

"Go back to Hell, coward."

- Captain Janeway

"You can't die!"

- Chakotay

"Damn you! Breathe!"

- Chakotay

Background Information

Admiral Janeway's reference to his own drowning, and to other members of the Janeway family, were taken by writer Jeri Taylor from Mosaic, her own novel about the life and career of Kathryn Janeway up to her time as captain of USS Voyager.
In spite of all the technology available in the 23rd and 24th centuries of the Star Trek universe, this is the second of only three times in canon that any character has used cardiopulmonary resuscitation as part of advanced cardiac life support. McCoy used it in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and Janeway would later use it in the episode "Scientific Method".
Admiral Janeway is wearing not only the incorrect uniform, but also the incorrect combadge. (Since Kathryn Janeway claimed he died when she was a child, he should be wearing a combadge from at least the 2350s; not the Voyager era of 2370s. His uniform should also be from the same era. Or they could just be explained away as errors made by the alien in replicating the form of Janeway's father.)
The word "Coda" is the Italian term for "End".
In musical notation, the term "Dal Segno al Coda" specifies the repetition of a passage until the coda is reached.

Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 3.8, 23 June 1997.
As part of the VOY Season 3 DVD collection.

Links and References

Guest Star

Len Cariou as Admiral Janeway

Uncredited Co-Stars

Tarik Ergin as Ayala
Richard Sarstedt as William McKenzie

References

antigrav thruster; apple; ballet; cerebral cortex; cerebrovascular collapse; chroniton; clarinet; cortical stimulator; cordrazine; dementia; direct synaptic stimulation; euthanasia; evasive maneuvers; fruit; gas flow separator; ghost; gravito-magnetic force; hydrazine; inaprovaline; ion lightning; Lake George; magnetic storm; magneton scanner; Matrix; microcellular scan; neurotoxin; nitrogenase compound; Kashimuro Nozawa; Phage; poetry; Sacajawea; subspace; tachyon; Talent Night; Tau Ceti Prime; temporal scan; temporal field; temporal flux; temporal loop; The Dying Swan; thalamus; thoron; Vidiian; Vidiian warship

Previous episode:
"Alter Ego"

Star Trek: Voyager
Season 3

Next episode:
"Blood Fever"

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+After her apparent death, Captain Janeway's journey to the afterlife, guided by her father, leaves her with suspicions.
-After their shuttlecraft crashes on a world with a hostile environment, Captain Kathryn Janeway and Commander Chakotay go through some stranges occurences, with several time loops, before Captain Janeway dies.  In the "afterlife", however, with what appears to be her father guiding her, the Captain finds that all is not as it seems.
 == Summary ==