Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 1 E 2 "Parallax"

A view of the USS Voyager... from the USS Voyager. Well that ain't right.

B'Elanna Torres has broken the nose of Lt. Carey over a minor engineering disagreement. As Carey gets treated by the Emergency Medical Hologram, Tuvok considers throwing Torres in the brig, but Chakotay overrules him and confronts Torres. Although she refuses to apologize, Chakotay urges her to fall in line so she can name her Chief Enigneer.

At a senior staff meeting, Chakotay brings up his recommendation to promote Torres, but Janeway balks. Before they can argue further, the ship hits a Negative Space Wedgie, and everyone rushes to the bridge. They've bumped into a quantum singularity, and they notice another ship trapped deeper inside. After hailing it produces no results, Chakotay contacts Torres for a recommendation on how to tractor the ship to safety. Incensed at the breach of chain of command, Janeway takes Chakotay aside and accuses him of playing favorites with his former Maquis crew. Chakotay argues that it's unfair to treat the established Starfleet officers as senior compared to the Maquis, who have talents and experience of their own. He urges Janeway to get to know Torres before making a decision on her.

The tractor beam does not work, so Janeway decides to set a course for a nearby civilization mentioned by Neelix for help. In the meantime, she meets with Torres and learns about the prickly engineer. A Starfleet dropout, Torres asserts that she has no affinity for the Starfleet way of life before leaving in a huff. Janeway next takes a call from the Doctor, who reports that his holographic emitters are on the fritz, and many crewmembers are complaining about mysterious headaches. Things get even worse when the ship seems to stumble into a second quantum singularity. But it's actually the same one, and they're somehow right back where they started.

Whenever the ship tries to fly away from the singularity, it winds up in front of them again. Janeway calls a staff meeting, and Chakotay convinces her to let Torres attend. In light of the Doctor's emitter errors, Torres theorizes that a dampening field could help them communicate with the trapped ship. It works, and they receive a message from the other ship, but it's Janeway's original hail to that ship. Through the dampening field, they get a clear view of the other ship, and it's the Voyager. Torres explains that they're looking at a time-delayed version of themselves. She and Janeway figure out that, to escape, they'll need to exit the event horizon through the hole they made when they got here.

Janeway and Torres take a shuttlecraft out to find and expand the hole. Torres takes this opportunity to apologize for her previous behavior, and Janeway notes that her Starfleet professors were more impressed by her than she realizes. After expanding the hole, they see that there are two Voyagers and don't know which one is "theirs," but Janeway figures it out. The ship manages to punch through the hole and reach safety. Torres receives the position of Chief Engineer and is given her first task of fixing the ship. She makes peace with Lt. Carey and gets to work. In private, Chakotay asks Janeway if, positions being reversed, she would have served under him on the Maquis ship, and she playfully refuses to answer. In Sick Bay, the doctor contacts Janeway to once again complain about his emitters, as he's now so small that he can no longer treat patients.

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This episode contains the following tropes:

• A Father to His Men: Chakotay
• A House Divided: Seska and Jarvin tell Chakotay they're willing to back him if he wants to take over Voyager. Chakotay threatens to lock them up for mutiny if he hears talk like that again.
• Armor-Piercing Question: As B'Elanna is storming out of Janeway's quarters, the captain asks her why she resigned from Starfleet Academy. B'Elanna avoids the question at the time, but later admits to Janeway that she didn't think she had what it took to be a Starfleet officer.
• Artistic License – Biology: Chakotay repeats the martial arts' myth about breaking someone's nose and sending the shards into their brain.
• Artistic License – Physics: An event horizon is a mathematical boundary rather than a physical one. You can't just punch your way through. Also, if Voyager is within the event horizon, she's not escaping on sub-light— and given the intense gravitational forces that come into play at that point, if the ship somehow had stumbled into the event horizon without anyone realizing, the crew would very likely have ended up dead before they could work out what was going on. And at any event, a faster-than-light ship is exactly what you would need to escape a black hole's event horizon anyway.
• Attack Hello: After being confined to quarters, B'Elanna pitches a bowl at Chakotay the moment he opens the door.
• Badass Boast
  EMH: I am not just a doctor. I've been designed with the information from two thousand medical reference sources and the experience of forty-seven individual medical officers. I am the embodiment of modern medicine.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: B'Elanna's way of handling a difference of opinion: giving Carey a bloody nose. According to her, the roadblock at Starfleet Academy was a system that didn’t give her a chance to breathe. However, a lot of people at Starfleet vouched for her, so Janeway agrees to roll the dice and make her Chief Engineer.
• Butt-Monkey: Poor Carey; punched in the face, then replaced by his attacker, who not only has lesser seniority but also got kicked out of Starfleet Academy.
• Closest Thing We Got: Paris Got Volunteered to be trained as a field medic (as the Doctor can't leave Sickbay) because he studied two semesters of biochemistry at Starfleet Academy.
• Commonality Connection: Janeway only starts thinking that B'Elanna has the potential to be Chief Engineer when she comes up with technobabble that can match her own (Janeway having begun her career as a Science Officer).
• Conflicting Loyalties: Chakotay is accused of this by Janeway and Tuvok, when he's actually trying hard to integrate his former crew with Janeway's.
• Consummate Professional: After B'Elanna is promoted above him as chief engineer, she asks Lt. Carey if she can count on him to assist with the Starfleet side of the job. Even though you can tell he is not happy with the situation, Carey pledges to her that she will have nothing less than his very best. He even offers her his hand in congratulations.
• Continuity Nod: Seska, a Bajoran, is now a Starfleet officer and conspicuously does not wear her Bajoran earring. It was established in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Ensign Ro" that Bajoran earrings are against Starfleet dress code; Ro only got to wear hers because Picard allowed it as a favor after she helped expose a corrupt admiral.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Chakotay demonstrates what B'Elanna refers to as his "twisted sense of humor" when he visits her while she's confined to quarters.
    B'Elanna: So how long do I have to stay in here?
    Chakotay: Rest of the trip—75 years.
  • The Doctor shows Kes his grumpy side when she asks him for soil samples.
    EMH: So it begins. The trivia of medicine is my domain now. Every runny nose, stubbed toe, pimple on a cheek becomes my responsibility.[...]Now I know how Hippocrates felt when the king needed him to trim a hangnail.
• Death Glare: Janeway gives Chakotay one when he calls Engineering and talks to B'Elanna directly instead of Carey, who's still acting Chief Engineer. Carey can be seen in the background glaring at B'Elanna and later when B'Elanna speaks up at the staff meeting.
• Distress Call: Turns out it comes from Voyager — Janeway's initial hail to the vessel trapped in the singularity was sent back in time and distorted beyond recognition.
• Dr. Jerk: Various characters note the deficiencies in the Doctor's bedside manner, which he exhibits when treating Carey. When Kes shows an interest in him however, the Doctor reveals another side to his personality.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • This marks Seska's first appearance, and she's wearing a Science uniform. Her later appearances would have her serving in Engineering. Since they are still allocating personnel into various departments, Seska may have been transferred to Engineering after this episode.
  • Tom Paris' exclamation of "It's the Voyager!" The ship generally gets referred to as just "Voyager" or "the starship Voyager" in later episodes.
  • B'Elanna says "CHAH-ko-tay" instead of "Cha-KO-tay".
• Eldritch Location: Voyager tries to leave the singularity and somehow ends up flying toward it.
• The Engineer: The winning contestant must speak fluent Technobabble and turn rocks into replicators.
• Facial Dialogue:
  • Neelix looks jealous when Tom stands up to offer Kes his seat. A minute later, he smirks when Tom Got Volunteered to work as a medic.
  • When B'Elanna comes up with a solution to their problem when everyone else is stumped, Chakotay makes a point of pausing as he leaves the Ready Room to give Janeway a Meaningful Look, and she responds with a wry smile.
• Finish Dialogue in Unison: When two women realise that Great Minds Think In Technobabble.
  Torres: If we could find our entry point, we might be able to slip out the way we came in.
  Janeway: So we'd be looking for a subspace instability in the event horizon. What would make it show up on our sensors?
  Janeway + Torres: Warp particles!
• Foreshadowing:
  • Kes meets the Doctor; the start of their Odd Friendship.
  • Seska encourages Chakotay to lead a mutiny.
• Gossip Evolution: We see both Starfleet and Maquis personnel engaging in this over B'Elanna punching Carey, to the annoyance of Tuvok and Chakotay who are trying to keep a lid on things.
• Graceful Loser: Carey takes B'Elanna being promoted over him in a professional manner. It helps that B'Elanna is also taking the trouble to treat him with respect. This is a continuation of a long tradition of troublesome Starfleet officers cheerfully falling in line when no more resistance is possible.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: B'Elanna the Torrid.
  Carey: She's not just out of control, she's out of her mind!
• Hand Wave: The holodeck having a separate energy system explains how they can have holodeck episodes on a ship without Infinite Supplies (though not why the brilliant B'Elanna Torres can't jury-rig a means of transferring power between the two, especially given how often these people can easily integrate parts from entirely different ships).
• Incredible Shrinking EMH: Due to the subspace distortions created by the singularity, the Doctor's holoemitter can't project him properly, so he keeps getting smaller and smaller until he has to stand on his chair just to see Tom Paris.
  EMH: (talking in Helium Speech) I'm sorry, Lieutenant, but whatever it is, you're going to have to take care of it yourself.
  Paris: Oh, it's all right. It's just a scratch, really. [beat] You know, I like you better this way.
• Innocent Flower Girl: Kes suggests setting up a hydroponics bay. When she goes to get some nitrogenated soil from the Doctor, she easily charms the brusque hologram.
• Limited Advancement Opportunities: Chakotay complains that if Janeway only takes into account the crew's Starfleet service for seniority, then the Maquis crew will always be treated as juniors no matter how much alternative experience or talent they have.
• Meaningful Name: The episode title, which references (depending on whether you're talking visual perception or astronomy) either the apparent difference in an object's position depending on the angle and position of the viewer, or using that difference to measure the distance to the object. Both could be considered to apply to B'Elanna's "bottom of an ice-covered pond" analogy she uses to explain how and why they're seeing a reflection of Voyager within the quantum singularity, except that here it isn't just a difference in distance but one of time.
• Mood Whiplash: The Ready Room conference is interrupted by Screen Shake strong enough to knock several people off their feet.
• Mr. Exposition: Neelix explains (incorrectly) to Kes what an event horizon is.
• Mundane Utility: The Doctor is the pinnacle of Starfleet medical technology, and so grumbles when Kes activates him for a routine supply request.
  EMH: Now I know how Hippocrates felt when the king needed him to trim a hangnail.
• My God, You Are Serious!: Janeway's reaction when Chakotay recommends B'Elanna for the position of Chief Engineer.
• Native Guide: Kes and Neelix barge their way into the senior officers meeting, pointing out their local knowledge makes their opinion relevant also.
• Non-Answer
  Chakotay: Can I ask you a question, off the record? If things had happened differently, and we were on the Maquis ship now instead of Voyager, would you have served under me?
  Janeway: One of the nice things about being Captain is that you can keep some things to yourself.
• No-Respect Guy: No one's told Voyager's medical officer that they're near a singularity, and they still haven't got round to fixing his program by the end of the episode. When Kes starts to treat him like a person, he doesn't know how to respond.
• Off-the-Shelf FX: A distortion mirror is used to show the EMH shortened by his holographic projectors.
• Ordered Apology:: Chakotay orders B'Elanna to apologize to Carey and put some serious effort into bonding with the man.
• Permission to Speak Freely: Chakotay during his argument with Janeway in which he stands up for his fellow Maquis.
• Ramming Always Works
  Janeway: In command school, they taught us to always remember that manoeuvring a starship is a very delicate process. But over the years I've learned that sometimes you just have to punch your way through. Mister Paris, full impulse power.
• Resized Vocals: After he's shrunk the Doctor talks in Helium Speech.
• Scotty Time: The trope gets a nod when B'Elanna is told her first task as Chief Engineer is to get the warp drive back online by 1300, despite the fact that B'Elanna immediately declares this to be impossible.
• Screen Shake: Combined with in-the-actor's-face camera work, it's quite effective.
• Spot the Imposter: Janeway and B'Elanna are in a shuttle, faced with two Voyagers. They only have a short time to get back on board before it escapes the singularity, and Voyager's communications are down... so which is the real one?
• Talk to the Fist: The episode starts with Carey in Sickbay, raging over how B'Elanna broke his nose over a difference of opinion in Engineering.
• Tantrum Throwing: When Chakotay visits B'Elanna while she's confined to quarters, she throws something at him when he opens the door. It doesn't make him any angrier than he already is.
• Tastes Like Friendship: When telling Torres to make an Ordered Apology to Carey, he suggests doing over a hot cup of pejuta (a Lakota term for coffee, tea, or medicine).
• Techno Babble: The start of a long, unfortunate tradition on this series.
• That's an Order!: Chakotay orders Tuvok to drop the charges against B'Elanna as he intends to handle it off-the-record. Tuvok obeys the order, but makes it clear he will note the full details in his security log.
• This Is No Time for Knitting: Carey scoffs at B'Elanna's Skewed Priorities when she works out a way to fix the EMH's projector, but both B'Elanna and Janeway realise the same method can be used to sort out the signal.
• Timey-Wimey Ball:
  Paris: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. We were cruising along at warp seven, then we pick up a distress call and moved in to investigate. But now you're saying that the other ship is actually just a reflection of us and that the distress call is actually just the Captain's opening hail. But we picked up the distress call before she sent the hail. How could we have been seeing a reflection of something we hadn't even done yet? Am I making any sense here?
  Janeway: No, but that's okay. One of the more difficult concepts to grasp in temporal mechanics is that sometimes effect can precede cause. A reaction can be observed before the action which initiated it.
• Token Minority: Chakotay tells Janeway he's not going to be her token Maquis officer; if Janeway wants the loyalty of the other Maquis, she's got to give them a chance to advance on merit even if they don't have the seniority.
• To Make a Long Story Short
  Janeway: I finished my study of the spatial distortions coming from the singularity. I can give you a long, boring analysis. Suffice it to say, I don't know what's going on.
• Tsundere: B'Elanna flipflops between a violent temper, and a crippling lack of confidence despite her acknowledged talent.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: Voyager enters a quantum singularity, gets trapped there, and then breaks out through a 'tear' in the event horizon. For those who don't know, the event horizon is not a physical barrier, it's just a mathematical distance from the center of the black hole, and thus rather impossible to make a hole in. It's also impossible to escape an event horizon on sublight drive once you cross it.
• Verbal Backspace: Neelix suggests getting help from the Ilidaria, a nearby species who are quite friendly...most of the time.
• Volatile Second Tier Position: Chakotay is stuck between hot-tempered Maquis crewmembers like Seska and Torres, and his by-the-book Starfleet captain and her security chief.
• Voodoo Shark: This episode establishes that the holodeck generators are incompatible with the rest of the ship. This obviously just raises more questions.
• Wham Line:
  • "This isn't another singularity. It's the same one."
  • "It's Voyager. It's us!"
• What the Hell, Hero?: Chakotay gives Torres a furious chewing-out for punching Carey as well as for sparking tensions between the Starfleet and Maquis crews.
  "So, on the one side, I'm facing a Vulcan who wants to court martial you. And on the other, I'm facing all the Maquis who are ready to seize this ship over this. You've turned this into one lousy day for me, Torres!"
• With All Due Respect
  Tuvok: Miss Torres is not a member of the Maquis any longer. And with all due respect, Commander, neither are you.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Neelix says an advanced species, the Ilidarians, live three light-years from Voyager's current position. When Janeway decides to seek their help, she orders the ship to head there...at full impulse. Full impulse is one-quarter lightspeed, which means it would take twelve years to get there.

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