Prison Buddies

"The Chute" Plot Summary:

Harry Kim crashes at the bottom of a chute into an alien prison, where he has been sentenced to life. The inmates are about to attack him when Tom Paris steps in, claims that Harry is "his," and punches him - to prevent the other prisoners from doing even more damage. Tom explains to Harry that he's been there for several days, has no explanation for why, and that their only contact with the world outside the prison comes down the chute in the form of food and new prisoners.

Harry and Tom convince a fellow inmate who's been in the jail for years to trade them Tom's boots for a place where they can sleep and devise a jailbreak, though the man warns them that the latter is impossible. The situation becomes critical when Tom is wounded in a knife fight, and Harry works frantically to create a tool with which he can disable the force field preventing people from crawling up the chute. He is successful, but when he climbs up, he discovers that they're not underground as they had believed; they're on a prison barge in space, with no possibility of escape unless a ship comes.

Meanwhile, Janeway negotiates with the Akritirian government that has imprisoned Paris and Kim, but is told that they have been convicted of trading in weapons to aid a rebellion. Janeway determines to find the real culprits, and Voyager tracks down a small ship carrying a brother and sister and the material to make such weapons. When Janeway informs the Akritirian minister that she has apprehended the real criminals, he declares that Paris and Kim's sentence cannot be revoked nonetheless. At this, Janeway demands that the rebels take her to the prison or she'll turn them over to the Akritirians anyway.

Harry is nearly killed by inmates while struggling to take care of Tom, and considers killing his friend rather than wasting his limited resources on him. Janeway drops down the chute just in time to rescue them. Back on the ship, Harry has difficulty facing Tom, but Tom says that what he remembers is Harry declaring, "This man is my friend." The two go off for a meal together.

Analysis:

If I didn't know better, I'd say those two are in love. This episode was a hurt/comfort fan writer's fantasy: two rumpled, sweaty guys in prison together, practically sleeping in one another's arms! I don't expect that we'll see this level of closeness between Tom and Harry again any time soon, and it's a pity, because they really have nice chemistry and it's about time Star Trek admitted that there are likely to be gay people in the 24th century. But fat chance of that on Voyager, especially with their two young bucks.

This was a very well-directed episode, both in the tight, claustrophobic prison shots and in the threatening lighting on the ship when Janeway threatened the terrorists. I do NOT like Janeway this season; she's hard as nails and cold, not very sensitive to her own crew or to alien species. Yes, she was up against a wall in this episode, but her contemptuous treatment of her prisoners, insisting that the teenage girl needed a bath, didn't make a lot of sense. Why didn't she try to play for sympathy before turning nasty? And her slide down the chute with the big phaser rifle made me laugh out loud in embarrassment. Forgetting how moronic it is to risk the captain in a jailbreak, the overcompensation of the big gun with her high heels is just plain comical. Give it a rest.

I take back mean things I have said in the past about Garrett Wang's acting; he was superb here, and totally convincing. So was Robert Duncan McNeill, in the thankless role of suffering victim. A gritty and entertaining episode as a change of pace, but I hope the show isn't going to be this dark on a regular basis.