Harry Kim and Captain Janeway have it out something fierce, and just you wait 'til you hear the reason why.
Voyager assists the Varro, a rather paranoid and xenophobic species, in repairing the engines of their Generation Ship, while the crew, Harry included, pursue their own excitements aboard. Unfortunately, he forms a biochemical link with the lovely Tal, which causes his skin to glow and an insatiable desire in both of them, resulting in... rather strained relations with the Varro.
This episode provides examples of
- All Species Are Sexually Compatible: Averted with a discussion over the matter.Kim: I've got to be honest, I wasn't expecting something so different.
Tal: Neither was I. Our species look so similar... well, at least on the surface.
Kim: I would've never guessed when it came down to the basics. Well, let's just say the birds and bees would be very confused. - Armor-Piercing Question: Harry asks Janeway if, had she been offered a hypospray that would make her stop loving her fiancé after learning he'd married someone else, she would have taken it. She doesn't seem to have an answer for that (although the conversation is interrupted at this point by the Varro ship starting to break apart).
- Bittersweet Ending: The Varro's Generation Ship, which has been in operation for hundreds of years, separates, and Harry has a long road to recovery, choosing to tough out the symptoms of his heartbreak rather than dull them with drugs. But, the dissidents get their own system where they can be content.
- Boldly Coming: Way to go, Harry! Make that skin glow! Just, um... don't cause an interspecies incident or anything. Ahhh, oops...
- Broken Pedestal: Janeway talks about how Harry came fresh out of the Academy and was the most protective of him, but Harry points out this was five years ago and he's changed: maybe he's not the perfect officer anymore. Ultimately this trope is averted, because Janeway claims that while that might be true, he's a better man.
- Butt-Monkey: Poor Harry. He finally gets some lovin', and is reprimanded for violating regulations and both Janeway's and Jippeq's direct orders. He also nearly gets suspected of being part of Tal's separatist movement. Oh, and the olan'vora leaves him feeling literally lovesick.
- Call-Back: Janeway again recalls Mark when talking about love with Harry.
- Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Harry finally has some luck in the romance department... and it results in a diplomatic incident, an STD in all but name with symptoms that hang around for weeks, a formal reprimand on his record, and a broken heart.
- Come Back to Bed, Honey: Tal says this to Harry after their first time having sex. Harry, however, is too busy fretting over the fact that he violated Starfleet regulations and Janeway's direct orders. So Tal says That's an Order! and he complies (until the antimatter transfer starts and he realises they're both late for their shift).
- Continuity Nod: Janeway mentions that she wouldn't have been surprised if Tom Paris had been the one to have an illicit affair instead of Harry. Understandable, given his track record.
- Crapsaccharine World: According to the stowaway, the Generation Ship is this, enough to foment La Résistance.
- Cutting the Electronic Leash: Tal tears the commbadge off Harry's chest and tosses it aside. His objections stop as soon as she starts kissing him again.
- Deadpan Snarker: Tuvok's in fine form! When explaining how he brushes off Tom so fast, "I wait until his own illogic overwhelms him."
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Seven of Nine clinically dismisses romantic love when first asked, but by the end of the episode she tells Harry, with some grudging respect, that her attitude has changed.
- Did You Just Have Sex?: Paris isn't fooled for a second when Harry and Tal make sure to arrive for duty separately, and Harry claims to have been "checking the plasma conduits in segment 22" — having evidently stopped to take a sonic shower while he was there. He confronts Harry over this as soon as they're out of the room (although he doesn't tell anyone, and even covers for him later).
- Does This Remind You of Anything?:
- Harry having sex and coming down with a condition practically screams "STD."
- This episode could've also been called "Addiction". After Harry gets his first dose of something that makes him feel good, he becomes increasingly desperate for his next fix to the point of breaking the rules. Janeway essentially has to stage an intervention to bring him back to his senses, and he ends up with severe withdrawal when he has to quit cold turkey.
- Double Standard: At the end, Janeway admits that she held Harry to a different standard than the rest of the senior staff because he had always been "by the book" before having relations with Tal.
- Extreme Doormat: Harry considers himself to be this and rules are the feet that walk all over him; he can't break one without feeling incredibly guilty, but he knows being with Tal feels great...
- Fake Static: Not in the most general sense, but Tom cuts off Harry's communication with Tal before he can be discovered.
- Fatal Attractor: Harry's finally hooked up with a girl who's hot and willing and shares his interests! What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
- Geeky Turn-On: Harry and Tal bond over the qualities of a class 3 nebula.
- "Good Luck" Gesture: Janeway introduces the Varro to the concept of crossing fingers. Unfortunately, it doesn't help matters.
- Human Aliens: Played with — the Varro look human enough, aside from some markings on their backs, but physiologically they turn out to be very different, a fact which is lampshaded by Tal.
- Hypocrite: Harry Kim gets reprimanded for intimate relations with a new alien species. Even if you discount Kirk and Riker's many conquests, Chakotay and possibly Janeway herself have exchanged fluids with first contact aliens to varying degrees.
- Layman's Terms: Inverted by Seven:Seven: You're glowing.Kim: Beg pardon?Seven: Your epidermis luminesced.
- Like a Son to Me: Janeway doesn't say it literally, but she does admit she's more protective of Kim than other crewmembers, which is why she was so angry at his indiscretion.
- Love Is a Weakness: Seven argues that this is the case, outright comparing it to a disease due to the physiological changes it causes. She reconsiders this by the end, though, noting that Harry's experiences have actually made him stronger in some respects, as he is determined to face the consequences head-on.
- Love Makes You Crazy: Aaaaand how.
- Mile-Long Ship: The opening shot has Voyager dwarfed by the huge generation ship it's docked to.
- Modesty Bedsheet: A more justified example than most; Tal wakes up naked but wrapped in a bedsheet, to see Harry standing dressed in his underclothes and angsting over how he's breaking Starfleet regulations with his Secret Relationship. Tal of course urges him to Come Back to Bed, Honey.
- My Species Doth Protest Too Much: Tal doesn't share her species' xenophobia, and it turns out that she's not the only one.
- Not Brainwashed: The episode seems to be heading toward the explanation that Kim disobeyed orders because he was biologically compromised by his and Tal's bond, but in the end he's responsible for his own actions.
- Oh, Crap!: Those parasites do their job well, ripping the Generation Ship apart before our eyes... with Voyager still docked!
- The Oner: This episode is, in fact, practically composed of them; though none of them constitute the longest shot in Trek history - no individual shot in "The Disease" is more than two-and-a-half minutes in length - this episode overall arguably represented the most ambitious direction in the franchise up to this point. It's as if David Livingston went far out of his way to avoid using Shot/Reverse Shot whenever practical:
- To open the episode, a rather spectacular one from the outside of the gigantic Generation Ship forms the entire Teaser, scrolling across the lengthy vessel, zooming into and through the windows of an apartment, before twisting around to... Harry and Tal entering and making out.
- Jippeq and Janeway's argument about the level of access Voyager has been given to the Varro ship, and their subsequent conversation about the similarities between their two species, are each a single shot. In fact, if it weren't for an insert shot of a display panel, it's possible that the surrounding Oners were, in fact, an even longer shot put together.
- Though it's relatively short, at least compared to two later Oners, a scene in the cargo bay where Tom grills Harry about his continuing to contact Tal, practically ignoring Chakotay's instructions to the gathered crew in the process, also plays out as a single shot.
- Another one, over two minutes long, full of tension in which Harry tries to convince Janeway that his and Tal's biochemical bond is not a danger as long as they're together, moves from the briefing room, through the bridge where Harry yells at his Captain in full view of everyone, and into the ready room where the entirety of the conversation plays out. There is only, finally, a cut when the Generation Ship begins to decompress.
- Harry's goodbye to Tal, while only just under a minute long, is filmed as a continuous shot.
- The entire scene in Sickbay immediately after, where Harry refuses to take the EMH's medication, and has a gentle conversation with Janeway about his history and growth on Voyager, is also filmed as one shot, and runs for roughly the same amount of time as the earlier argument Oner.
- The very final scene in the mess hall is split into two shots: the first, a dynamic and flowing shot that follows Neelix through and out of the mess hall, shifting its' focus to Seven of Nine at the end: the second, a static medium shot of both Seven and Harry.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Harry disobeying regulations? And the captain's orders? And then yelling at her on the bridge? Lampshaded by Janeway herself, who points out that Harry isn't behaving like himself — and he's actually glad that she noticed.
- Plot Parallel: The solution to the technobabble problem of the week is for Voyager to extend its shields around the Varro ship to save the Varro's people, which uh, mimics the other theme of the episode.
- The Power of Love Glows: The olan'vora!
- The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The revolutionaries have taken to creating parasites to eat their Generation Ship to force a change in the Varro way of life. Too bad the parasites migrate to Voyager...
- Romantic Wingman: Tom Paris, for all his teasing, helps cover Harry's illicit courtship as best he can.
- Running Gag: Harry keeps going after impossible women, with call backs conveniently provided by Tom.
- Series Continuity Error: The episode introduces a (sensible) regulation that Starfleet personnel must have clearance from the CMO and The Captain before the "Boldly Coming" variant of First Contact, due to pitfalls both biological and political. Fans complained how we'd never heard of this regulation before, especially given Captain Kirk's reputation. Of course, the regulation could have been enacted after him (or
because of him). And who's to say that other main characters haven't been making discreet visits to the Doctor before engaging in an Interspecies Romance with the Guest Star Of The Week? Whatever the case, the fact that the rule was retroactively Hand Waved for as much as 15 years of television made some viewers sour. - Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Voyager has, at most, 50,000 light years to go, 40-50 years left if they don't get help, hardly multiple generations' worth. Maybe Janeway was trying to talk Jippeq up and play up their similar aspects.
- Space Nomads: But what happens if some of you are tired of traveling?
- Standard Female Grab Area: As further evidence of poor Harry's chew toy status, Seven does this to him while marching him to Sickbay.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Harry has to face the Captain after the Doctor tells her of his...indiscretion.
- Toplessness from the Back: Done with this trope's version of Rubber-Forehead Aliens. Tal post coitus and wrapped in a bedsheet, shows her back marked by some kind of alien skin pattern.
- Tranquil Fury: After Harry disobeys orders the first time he has sex with Tal, Janeway quietly expresses her disappointment in him. After he does it a second time, however, and follows it up by yelling at her on The Bridge, she looks like she's on the verge of throwing him out an airlock.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Seven again doesn't understand romantic love, equating it to "an attraction based on sexual desire; one that facilitates procreation." Most likely due to the Borgs' very clinical analyses of the attachment rituals of the various species they've assimilated.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Janeway chews Harry out twice for his indiscretions.
- You Owe Me: Tom quietly tells Harry this after covering for him earlier.
