star trek voyager bliss

Bliss (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 1.6 Act Five
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Continuity
• 4.2 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest Star
• 5.4 Special guest star
• 5.5 Co-star
• 5.6 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.7 Stand-ins
• 5.8 References
• 5.9 External links

Summary [ ]

Qatai screams defiance at the creature

A small ship fires at an unseen object before it. Lightning-like bolts strike the ship from the direction of the object. Piloting the ship is a crusty, very animated old humanoid alien. He shouts defiant taunts at the thing he is attacking. The thing is revealed to be an enormous cloud-like entity, with a vast opening on its surface. Inside is ominously foreboding. Lightning-like bolts can be seen within. The old pilot, still shouting in defiance, flies through the opening, into the entity.

Act One [ ]

On USS Voyager 's bridge , Captain Janeway discusses with her chief tactical officer , Lt. Commander Tuvok and her executive officer , Commander Chakotay , the sudden appearance of a wormhole seemingly leading directly back to Earth . They all agree that it seems suspicious, as secondary scans of the wormhole show the presence of bioplasmic discharges, indicating a lifeform and a possible deception.

The senior officers are pleased about their "wormhole"; Seven, however, is doubtful

Meanwhile. Tom Paris and Seven of Nine , accompanied by young Naomi Wildman , are returning to Voyager on the Delta Flyer after an exploratory mission to find deuterium , the matter in the matter/ antimatter reaction that powers the ship's warp engines and other systems. The mission was unsuccessful, but Seven notes in her personal log that it was educational for Naomi.

On their arrival, Paris takes the sleeping Naomi to her mother, crewmember Ensign Sam Wildman , while Seven goes to the astrometrics lab to do the mission report. Entering the lab, she finds the captain , Tuvok and Chakotay, there along with Ensign Kim , the ship's operations officer . The Human officers excitedly tell her about the discovered wormhole, which they now believe is genuine. The Vulcan Tuvok, of course, displays no emotion, but he too is pleased.

Bemused, Seven points out the sheer unlikelihood of finding such a phenomenon, as well as its distance of just 300 million kilometers away, which means that it should have been detected days before. The officers, however, are unconcerned, telling her that they have scanned it and found nothing unusual. Lt. Torres , the Chief Engineer , has already downloaded transmissions, believed to be from Starfleet , from the probe they sent in. Capt. Janeway suggests to Seven that she run a diagnostic of the astrometrics sensors , and the officers leave. Seven begins running the diagnostic.

She finishes, goes to Captain Janeway in her ready room reports to her that the diagnostic showed no problems with the sensors. However, the wormhole's neutrino levels are erratic, which makes her concerned. Captain Janeway, who has ordered the ship's course to be altered to head for the wormhole, dismissively replies that a Starfleet communication she received from the messages downloaded by Lt. Torres assures her that these erratic neutrino levels are no cause for concern. Seven insists on caution, but the captain will not hear of it, suggesting that Seven's sense of unease is simply due to her fear of going to Earth.

Chakotay then enters with more messages. Seven watches and listens as Janeway and Chakotay happily discuss their contents. Both contain very positive news: Chakotay has been granted a full pardon for his Maquis activities, reinstatement to Starfleet and a professorship in anthropology at the Academy . Janeway's former betrothed, Mark , who had gotten engaged to another, thinking Janeway dead, has broken off his engagement ( VOY : " Hunters "). Seven watches them both, concerned about their lack of concern about the possibility that the wormhole may not be what it seems.

She returns to her quarters ( Cargo Bay 2 , where her alcove is located), hacks the computer and accesses Captain Janeway's log entries for that day. In three consecutive entries the Captain goes from suspicion of the supposed "wormhole" because of anomalous sensor readings to sudden enthusiastic acceptance of it at face value, in spite of the said anomalous readings. Her concern growing, Seven goes to the mess hall and finds several members of the crew excitedly discussing letters they have received from the downloaded communication; they are all convinced the wormhole is genuine.

Seven tells The Doctor about the danger.

On the way, she encounters Neelix , who is as excited as everyone else, and who gives her a letter "from an aunt of hers on Earth."

In the mess hall, she finds Ensign Paris and voices her belief to him that the whole thing is a set-up; the crew is being deceived by false telemetry and "overly-optimistic correspondence". Paris responds that he too has gotten such correspondence: an offer from an old friend of a position as a pilot at a new Starfleet test-flight facility in Australia . At first, Seven gets the impression that he is also suspicious of what is happening, but her hopes are quickly dashed.

Now convinced that it is indeed a set-up, Seven goes to sickbay and urgently voices her belief to The Doctor , the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram and chief medical officer . She is surprised to learn that he has not been told anything about what is happening. She asks him to search for any physiological reasons for the crew's blind acceptance of this "wormhole" despite compelling evidence that it is a deception. Just then, she is called to the bridge.

On the bridge, the first images of the wormhole are put on the viewscreen . Chakotay informs Seven that the first images from the probe they sent in are coming through: images from the other end of the wormhole. The images are put on the viewscreen; they are images of Earth. Everyone stares in rapt attention. Captain Janeway orders the course maintained, and, when Voyager emerges from the other side, that they land right at Starfleet Headquarters . Seven looks around at everyone, her sense of alarm growing ever stronger.

Act Two [ ]

Qatai confirms Seven's suspicions

Returning to the astrometrics lab, Seven twice runs gravimetric scans of the wormhole. Both times, the computer tells her the results are consistent with what it appears to be: a class 1 wormhole. However, she notices an object in the scanning grid and has the computer magnify it; it appears to be a ship. She asks for confirmation, but the computer reports that sensors do not detect any vessel. Not trusting the sensors, she sends out a hail and gets a response: an old humanoid alien pilot. He gruffly asks who she is. She identifies herself and Voyager , and informs him that they are on a course to come across him from 3.4 light-years away. His ominous response confirms her fears: " Turn around. You're being deceived. "

She asks for elaboration, but just as he begins, the connection is cut; power is being lost from the lab. She tells the computer to identify cause of the power failure. Tuvok enters and informs her that the captain has ordered power to be rerouted from the lab to the main navigational deflector for the duration of their passage through the wormhole. Seven informs him of her contact with the alien and his warning that the wormhole was indeed a deception, but, on checking the communication logs, Tuvok finds no such communication listed. Seven insists that the communication took place; the alien was warning that the wormhole is a trap. Tuvok will not listen. Seven tells him of her belief that he, like the rest of the crew, is being manipulated; someone or something is compromising his logic . He responds by restricting access to the lab "until further notice." Dismissed, she leaves.

She returns to her Cargo Bay 2 quarters, where she finds Naomi Wildman hiding; the behavior of the crew, including her mother, has frightened the child. She tells Seven that her mother keeps smiling in an unnervingly happy manner and incessantly talking about Earth. Seven notes an important fact: she and Naomi are the only two people who are unaffected by what is happening. This is because both of them are without a desire to reach Earth; Seven out of apprehension as to how she, a former Borg drone , would be greeted; and Naomi because she was born on Voyager , and thus it is the only home she has ever known.

" It's perfectly natural for you to resist the unknown. But you're in good hands. Resistance is futile. "

Instructing Naomi to remain where she was, Seven goes to sickbay to get a report from The Doctor, only to find that he has been taken off-line and Ensign Paris, a trained medical technician, has taken over his duties. Paris explains that Starfleet sent a message though the wormhole that The Doctor's program could be adversely affected by the passage and that he should be taken off-line for his safety. Leaving sickbay, she is greeted by Chakotay and two security officers. Chakotay tells her that, according to Starfleet, the wormhole passes through a region of subspace that the Borg monitor, and that her neural transceiver may attract their attention; she is to be put in stasis in her alcove for the duration of the passage. She sees that 'resistance is futile' and goes with them peacefully.

Act Three [ ]

Voyager being consumed by the telepathic pitcher plant

On the bridge, Captain Janeway and the duty officers, including Ensign Paris, who went to the bridge after meeting Seven in the sickbay, are very jovial about finally leaving the Delta Quadrant behind. Seven, meanwhile, is escorted by Chakotay and the security officers back to Cargo Bay 2. They are only 2,000 kilometers from the alleged wormhole. However, on the pretense of needing to adjust her regeneration parameters before going into stasis, she erects a Borg force field through which she can pass, but which prevents the others from reaching her once she moves away from them. On the bridge, Kim tries to remotely drop the force field, but Seven has Naomi enter a code to block the attempts.

Getting a phaser rifle from storage, Seven initiates a site-to-site transport to engineering , where she stuns Torres and the engineering staff. She then instructs the computer to erect a level 10 force field around engineering and then proceeds to shut down the engines. However, on the bridge, Janeway sends an EM pulse to the console Seven is using, which stuns her. The captain then returns to her seat and orders the ship to proceed on impulse into the wormhole.

The "wormhole" is revealed to be the same creature that the old humanoid alien was engaging. As the ship enters, the opening closes like a giant mouth. The ship flies deeper inside, struck by lighting-like discharges from the inner walls of the entity. But on the bridge, and all over the ship via view ports and monitors, what the crew sees is the inside of the "wormhole" they are convinced they are in, on their way to Earth, completely unaware that they are, in fact, on their way to death.

Act Four [ ]

As the ship moves deeper inside the entity, the entire crew is rendered unconscious. Their minds are locked in a dreamworld. Neelix believes he is meeting Starfleet Admirals , who have an ambassadorial position for him. On the bridge, Captain Janeway and the duty officers believe they have passed through the wormhole and Earth is now before them. Tuvok believes he is reunited with his wife, T'Pel , touching fingers with her . None of them are seeing the hideous, alien environment Voyager is now trapped in and being drawn ever deeper into.

Seven and Naomi watch a scan of Voyager in the creature's gullet

Naomi emerges from hiding. Frightened, she walks nervously through the corridors of the ship, strewn with the bodies of the unconscious crew. Peeping into engineering, she sees Seven lying unconscious as well. She tries to get to her, but is painfully stopped short by the force field Seven had the computer erect. She calls to Seven. Seven awakens, rises, returns to the console she was using, drops the force field and Naomi joins her.

Seven then runs a scan and finds that the hull of the ship is being broken down on a molecular level; hull integrity is dropping. She and Naomi leave Engineering and head for astrometrics, where Seven hopes to at least partially get power back and use the sensors to get a better handle on the situation. On the way, they pass along a corridor lined with windows and see the horror outside. In astrometrics, a sensor scan shows that the ship is inside an immense anomaly, over 2,000 kilometers wide, that is giving the readings of a lifeform: bioplasmic discharges, organic compounds and neural networks. Remembering the old alien she had spoken to, Seven contacts him again. When she does, he angrily asks her why they did not listen to him and stay away. Seven responds that the crew believed that it was a wormhole that would take them home. The alien, whose name is Qatai , asks her if getting home was what the crew always wanted. Seven confirms this. " He deceived them, " Qatai replies.

Seven proposes that he join them aboard Voyager and work with them to find a way to escape. She tells him to drop his shields so that she could beam him aboard. He is reluctant to do this, since his ship's hull, like Voyager 's, is losing its integrity and his shields are the only thing holding it together. He concludes that they are a hallucination, but Seven impatiently tells him that her scans predict the failure of his shields in 15 minutes; he can join them or die. He joins them.

"Anomaly? It's a beast!"

Once aboard, he explains to them the true nature of the entity; it is in fact a telepathic creature that feeds on starships and their crews, using a neurogenic field to telepathically induce illusions in the crew's minds that make the creature appear to be what they want most, deceiving the crew into bringing their ship to it and entering its maw, passing into its digestion chamber. The bioplasmic discharges that are intermittently hitting the ship are causing the hull to break down molecularly; this is how the creature digests the ships and crews it consumes.

Qatai reveals that he had been hunting the creature for 40 years. He has become largely immune to its telepathic manipulation, but he still falls prey to it at times, such as in his most recent attempt to kill it. when he believed that by allowing the creature to swallow his ship, he could reach its neural plexus, a weapon shot on which would kill it. But he was deceived; the creature made him believe he was approaching its neural plexus when he was, in fact, entering its belly. Naomi, remembering a botany lesson The Doctor gave her, compares the manner in which the creature's mode of feeding to a pitcher plant catching insects, a comparison with which Qatai agrees.

Act Five [ ]

"Please state the nature of the medical emergency…"

"Your ship is being devoured. I'd say that's an emergency."

Seven reactivates The Doctor and fills him in. The Doctor is confused; the last thing he remembers is Ensign Paris telling him about the wormhole and how he had to be taken off-line before they entered it. Qatai informs him that the creature deceived the crew into shutting him off when he began to suspect something was amiss, since he was a hologram and therefore immune to the creature's illusion inducement. Seven tells him to retrieve any bio-scans he has of the creature, while The Doctor attempts to wake up the crew.

The Doctor tries to use a cortical inhibitor to break the neurogenic field's hold on the crew, starting with Lt. Torres, but the attempt fails dismally, as she was thinking that she was seeing her Maquis comrades alive. As he studies the creature further from Qatai's bioscans, Qatai studies Voyager 's weapons manifest, looking for a weapon that can be used to kill the creature from within its belly. He recounts to The Doctor how his family was lost, along with thousands of others, on a colony ship, the Nokaro , looking for a planet to settle on, when they encountered the creature. It deceived them into thinking that it was a paradise, a perfect, uninhabited world. By the time he reached them, all that was left were fading engine emissions.

He then finds a possible weapon: a class 9 photon torpedo , and discusses how to use it to kill the creature with Seven. The Doctor is loath to kill a lifeform and asks for a few hours to study the creature to find a non-lethal weakness, but Seven and Qatai firmly respond that there is no time; the ship's hull is degrading too quickly.

The Doctor suggests another course of action: every organism will attempt to expel a foreign body. He suggests they find a way to make Voyager "taste bad." Seven considers and suggests that they vent antimatter from Voyager 's warp core and Qatai fire his tetrion -based weapons at it; this would cause an electrolytic discharge that would feel like a bad "stomach-ache" to the creature, causing emesis, expelling them. Qatai agrees.

Voyager and Qatai's ship escape the telepathic pitcher plant

Qatai returns to his ship and, in engineering, The Doctor, on Seven's mark, vents the antimatter. Qatai fires on it, causing violent contractions of the creature's digestive tract that hurl the two ships back up to the mouth. The sensors tell Seven that they have been expelled and are 3.9 kilometers from its mouth, but The Doctor finds it strange that only one burst could have brought about emesis in such a large creature.

His suspicions are confirmed when Seven hails Qatai and he agitatedly tells her that they are still inside; it deceived her. She is reluctant to accept this, insisting that she is immune to the creature's telepathic manipulation, but The Doctor corrects her, telling her that she was immune when the creature was giving the illusion of being a wormhole to Earth; since she did not share that desire, she was unaffected. However, she most certainly wants to escape the creature, and thus it is now preying on that desire. Seeing that they are right, she orders a second discharge of antimatter to be released and ignited, which really does cause the creature to expel them. They beat a hasty retreat once outside. Seven offers Qatai help in repairing his damaged ship, but he declines as the creature is already chasing after them, telling her not to worry about him. " Just get your ship home. And watch out for…'pitcher plants', " he chuckles.

Qatai is ready to try again to kill the creature

Seven, who has routed all bridge controls to engineering, clears Voyager out of the area at maximum warp . Once out of range of the creature's neurogenic field, the crew awakens, confused, and very much surprised to find themselves still in the Delta Quadrant. On the bridge, Janeway orders Paris to scan the wormhole to find out what went wrong; of course, he finds no wormhole to scan. Kim tells her bridge controls have been rerouted to engineering. She contacts engineering and Seven responds. Janeway orders an explanation. Seven responds that The Doctor will fill her in. Meanwhile, she will file a complete report in the morning… after she has regenerated.

The next day, Seven finds Naomi in astrometrics studying Earth. They both agree that they find nothing remarkable about it, but, given the crew's determination, they both expect to see it for themselves someday.

Later, Qatai engages the creature for yet another attempt at its destruction.

Log entries [ ]

• " Daily log, Seven of Nine. While we failed to locate a new source of deuterium , our mission had educational value for at least one member of the crew. "
• " Captain's log, stardate 52542.3. Long-range sensors have identified a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant. Unfortunately, secondary scans have revealed that it's some kind of elaborate deception. The question is, who's attempting to deceive us and why? "
• " Captain's log, supplemental. We've begun to receive faint telemetry from our probe. I don't want to get the crew's hopes up, but B'Elanna thinks it may be a message from Starfleet. I am beginning to wonder if my earlier skepticism was justified. " (dated 52542.4 from the graphic on a computer screen)
• " Captain's log, supplemental. I've set a course for the wormhole. With any luck we should be back in the Alpha Quadrant in a matter of days. " (dated 52542.5)
• " Captain's log, stardate 52542.3. We've deployed a series of beacons to warn other vessels about the bioplasmic creature and resumed a course for home – our real home. "

Memorable quotes [ ]

" A direct route to Earth's doorstep out of the blue. What's wrong with this picture? "

" The odds of finding such a phenomenon are infinitesimal. "

" Computer, activate EMH. " " Please state the nature of the medical emergency. "

" Resistance is futile. "

" Voyager's my home. If we go to Earth, I'll have to leave the ship. I'd miss my room, Neelix. You and I wouldn't be able to play Kadis-kot anymore. "

" My mom says two heads are better than one. Isn't that the Borg philosophy, too? " " Simplistic, but accurate. "

" I believe we should work together to escape this anomaly. Lower your shields and I'll beam you aboard. " " Shields are the only things holding my ship together. I'd be destroyed. " " I will enhance your shield emitters. " " You won't fool me that easily. " " I assure you we are not a deception. " " Oh, how convenient, an enormous starship comes to my rescue. You might try a more subtle approach. " " My scans indicate that your shields will fail in approximately fifteen minutes. Join us, or you can remain on your vessel secure in the knowledge that you were not deceived. But that knowledge will do you little good when you are dead. Decide now. " " All right. All right, I'm taking my shields down. "

" Anomaly? It's a beast! Cunning, deadly. " " What does it want? " " You. Your ship. Antimatter, biomatter. He consumes it. "

" Turn around. You're being deceived. "

" Please state the nature of the medical emergency. " " Your ship is being devoured. I'd say that's an emergency. "

" And who might you be, the local monster expert? "

" This is a sickbay, not an arsenal. "

" I'm a doctor, not a dragon-slayer. "

" It is unremarkable. "

" The intelligent always survive. "

Background information [ ]

• The story pitch that initiated the writing of this episode had a botanical basis. Supervising Producer Kenneth Biller explained, " Bill Prady , who pitched and wrote the story […] had this idea about the pitcher plant, a plant that sends out false pheromones to attract its prey. " ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 45)
• Naomi Wildman actress Scarlett Pomers relished how much this episode emphasises her character. Consequently, she remarked, " It was a really awesome episode to do. " ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 179 , p. 65)
• According to the unauthorized reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 286), the windowed corridor through which Seven of Nine carries Naomi Wildman was actually the mess hall set, and the interior of Qatai's vessel contained many "bits and pieces" from stock, including the distress beacon from the previous episode (" Gravity ").
• In addition, Delta Quadrant (p. 286) proposes that the hallucinatory views of the "wormhole" interior seem to reuse stock effects footage from DS9 : " Emissary ".
• The creature that stars in this episode is similar to a creature – described by Worf in the earlier-produced TNG : " Where Silence Has Lease " – that is said to "devour entire starships ." Another creature similar to the one in this episode is Bevvox from the episode " Think Tank ", which prefers a variable-gravity environment. The plot of a starship and crew almost being "Devoured" by a creature was used before in TOS : " The Immunity Syndrome ". The Moby Dick plot of a man being obsessed with "destroying" the creature that wronged him even at the cost of his own life is seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan .
• Seven of Nine says that the spaceship eater is the largest organism she has ever seen, at 2,000 kilometers in size. This is orders of magnitude smaller than the nucleogenic cloud being Voyager entered prior to her presence on the ship. It is also orders of magnitude smaller than other space organisms the Federation has encountered.
• Ken Biller perceived this episode to be reminiscent of Star Trek: The Original Series . " It's kind of like old-fashioned Star Trek , " he observed. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 45)
• The creature gives a false letter to Janeway that supposedly came from Mark, saying that he had broken off his engagement to another woman. Yet from an actual letter Janeway receives in the fourth season installment " Hunters ", Mark was already married to another woman.
• Ken Biller did not hold this outing in high esteem. " 'Bliss' was not my favorite episode [....] A big monster in space that eats starships has the potential for being silly, " Biller opined. ( Cinefantastique , Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 45)

Continuity [ ]

• This is the second time that a ship's emissions are modified to have an unpleasant taste to a creature that wishes to feed on them. The first was TNG : " Galaxy's Child ", in which " Junior "'s milk is soured.
• The Doctor tells Qatai that his wide range of skills make him "something of a renaissance EMH." The Doctor went on to feature in the seventh season episode " Renaissance Man ", in which he must impersonate multiple crew members.
• Harry Kim references Delta Quadrant species in this episode when he says "no more Hirogen hunting parties, Malon garbage scows". Voyager encountered these species for the first time in " Message in a Bottle " and " Night " respectively.
• Naomi Wildman is seen carrying the Flotter toy, introduced in " Once Upon a Time ".
• The game of kadis-kot , introduced in " Infinite Regress ", is mentioned by Naomi when she lists things she would miss by leaving the ship.
• When Seven reviews Janeway's log entries, the stardates begin at 52542.3 and advance up through 52542.5. At the end of the episode, however, Janeway's final log entry again has the stardate 52542.3.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5.7, 5 July 1999 .
• As part of the VOY Season 5 DVD collection.

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway

Also starring [ ]

• Robert Beltran as Chakotay
• Roxann Dawson as B'Elanna Torres
• Robert Duncan McNeill as Tom Paris
• Ethan Phillips as Neelix
• Robert Picardo as The Doctor
• Tim Russ as Tuvok
• Jeri Ryan as Seven of Nine
• Garrett Wang as Harry Kim

Guest Star [ ]

• Scarlett Pomers as Naomi Wildman

Special guest star [ ]

• W. Morgan Sheppard as Qatai

Co-star [ ]

• Majel Barrett as Computer Voice

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Christine Delgado as Susan Nicoletti
• Andrew English as operations officer
• Larry Fine as illusory Starfleet admiral
• Sylvester Foster as Timothy Lang
• A. Margellon as illusory Starfleet admiral
• Erin Price as Renlay Sharr
• Kimber Lee Renay as T'Pel
• G. Roland as illusory Starfleet admiral

Stand-ins [ ]

• Brita Nowak – stand-in for Jeri Ryan
• Stuart Wong – stand-in for Garrett Wang

References [ ]

adage ; anthropology ; antimatter ; Australia ; beach : bioplasmic energy ; bioplasmic organism ; bioscan ; botany ; Cardassians ; class-5 probe ; class 9 torpedo ; cortical inhibitor ; Delta Flyer ; deuterium ; digestive chamber ; dopamine ; duty shift ; Earth ; electrolytic reaction ; engagement ; esophageal aperture ; Federation ; Ferengi ; Flotter ; foreign body ; garbage scow ; gravimetric scan ; Hansen, Claudia ; Hansen, Magnus ; Hirogen ; hunting party ; impulse manifold ; Johnson, Mark ; kilometer ; Lan'Tuana sector ; logic ; Malon ; Maquis ; Moby Dick ; monster expert ; navigational array ; neural pathway ; neural transceiver ; neurogenic field ; neurotransmitter ; neutrino ; Nokaro ; odds ; organic compound ; part time job ; phenomenon ; pheromone ; pitcher plant ; primary neural plexus ; psychogenic manipulation ; Romulans ; second opinion ; Sector 001 ; Starfleet Academy ; spatial turbulence ; stasis ; subspatial contortion ; photon torpedo ; pitcher plant ; Qatai's vessel ; quadruped ; security alert ; spatial gradient ; " steady as she goes "; survey report ; telepathic pitcher plant ; telepathy ; temporal variance ; test flight center ; tetryon ; transkinetic vector ; tummy ache ; warning beacon ; weapons manifest ; welcome home party ; Wildman, Sam ; wormhole ; yellow alert

External links [ ]

• "Bliss" at StarTrek.com
• " Bliss " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Bliss " at Wikipedia
• " Bliss " at the Internet Movie Database

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Star Trek: Voyager – Season 5, Episode 14

Where to watch, star trek: voyager — season 5, episode 14.

Watch Star Trek: Voyager — Season 5, Episode 14 with a subscription on Paramount+, or buy it on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Cast & crew.

Kate Mulgrew

Capt. Kathryn Janeway

Robert Beltran

Roxann Dawson

B'Elanna Torres

Robert Duncan McNeill

Ethan Phillips

Robert Picardo

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http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS5E14Bliss

Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 14 Bliss

Edit locked.

With nobody to stop the crew, Janeway orders them to enter the wormhole, unaware that it is actually a giant energy creature that is psychically manipulating them so they can pilot the ship straight into its digestion chamber. At Naomi Wildman's urging, Seven awakens after most of the crew is rendered unconscious, and they set out to find their way out of this mess. They activate the Doctor, and discover one more life sign in the creature's digestive tract - a crotchety old hunter named Qatai, who's been matching wits with this creature for literally decades.

Qatai is beamed aboard after some back & forth, and they all band together to figure out how to get themselves out of the energy creature (which is referred to as the "telepathic pitcher plant"). It's not long before they put The Plan together - fire one of Qatai's tetryon-based weapons at some antimatter released from Voyager's warp core. During their first attempt, the creature was psychically manipulating Seven to make her believe that Voyager escaped when it didn't - the first time the creature actually had Seven's number. Qatai talks her into one more attempt, and Voyager and the alien ship are able to escape, and the crew awakens to find that they are still in the Delta Quadrant and that the wormhole is gone.

This episode provides examples of

• Action Prologue : Captain Ahab...sorry, Qatai going up against the Great White Space Monster.
• Apologetic Attacker : Seven says sorry to B'Elanna before stunning her. Given that these two never get along, it's quite noticeable.
• Artistic License – Gun Safety : Before beaming over to Engineering, Seven hauls a compression phaser rifle out of a crate in Cargo Bay 2. Such weapons should be kept in an armoury (or in arms lockers dispersed around the ship, given the number of times that Voyager has been boarded).
• Artistic License – Physics : The writers' room having apparently learned nothing from Demon , Voyager is out of "deuterium" again.
• Bittersweet Ending : Everyone on the ship is okay, but they all had their hopes up and it was ripped away from them. To say nothing of Qatai, who will probably be fighting this creature indefinitely, or until it finally kills him.
• Bookends : The episode begins and ends with Qatai flying his spaceship into the creature's maw.
• Borrowed Catchphrase : Seven walks into sickbay and calls for the EMH, but Tom shows up instead with the Doc's usual line. Shortly after that, Chakotay wants to shut Seven down too, and insists that "Resistance is futile".
• Brainwashed : The Voyager crew under the influence of the telepathic pitcher plant. The creature gets everyone except the three people who don't greatly wish to be back on Earth - Seven, Naomi Wildman, and the Doctor (the latter of whom is taken offline anyway).
• When Seven tries to warn the crew, they put it down to the reluctance to go to Earth she showed in "Hope and Fear".
• While hiding in Cargo Bay 2, Naomi is carrying the Flotter doll Neelix made for her in "Once Upon A Time".
• B'Elanna's fantasy has her Maquis comrades still alive, a reference to her Heroic BSoD over their deaths in "Extreme Risk".
• In the TNG episode "Where Silence Has Lease", Worf mentions Klingon legends of a creature that devours entire starships. Given its vast age, it could well be the same one. Likewise the Iruhe in the novels by Diane Duane also created the illusion of a habitable world to lure in spacecraft.
• In Janeway's fantasy, Mark is single again, referencing the "Dear Janeway" Letter she received in "Hunters".
• Cassandra Truth : Seven of Nine gets evidence of what the "wormhole" actually is, but the crew is too brainwashed to believe what she has to say.
• Cave Mouth : What the alien's maw looks like (when it's not giving the illusion of something else).
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome : Samantha Wildman is mentioned, but once again is not seen.
• Cut Phone Lines : Qatai is trying to warn Seven about what Voyager is flying into, when Tuvok cuts off the communication.
• Deadpan Snarker : Doctor: Please state the nature of the medical emergency. Qatai: Your ship is being devoured . I'd say that's an emergency, wouldn't you?
• The Determinator : Qatai has spent almost 40 years trying to destroy the creature. The episode ends on him flying his spaceship into its maw for another go.
• Do Not Call Me "Paul" : Seven of Nine tells Neelix "there's no one by that name" when he calls out for Annika Hansen, saying that he's got a letter for her from her aunt.
• Eat Me : Qatai once had a plan to destroy the creature which involved flying into its maw and attacking the brain. However the creature fooled him by making him think he was doing that, when he was actually flying into its digestive chamber.
• Father Neptune : Qatai is a crusty old sea dog IN SPACE! with all the Large Ham that entails. He even has a Sea Dog Beard .
• Foreshadowing : The Doctor is something of a Renaissance EMH .
• Hates Being Alone : After the crew is put to sleep, Seven orders Naomi back to her quarters. Naomi, understandably, asks to remain with Seven, saying she doesn't want to be alone. Seven hesitates, then accedes to the request.
• He Who Must Not Be Named : The creature is never actually given a name, referred to alternatively as an "anomaly", "beast", "telepathic pitcher plant", "biogenic lifeform", or "monster".
• Qatai invites the Doctor to join his quest, as the creature would find it difficult to manipulate an Artificial Intelligence. EMH: I'm a doctor, not a dragonslayer.
• A variation when Qatai asks to see the ship's weapons manifest and the Doctor snaps, "This is a sickbay, not an arsenal."
• Immune to Mind Control : Subverted with Seven and Naomi. They aren't immune, but they were unaffected by the creature's influence because they're not interested in returning to Earth. Seven because she was a former Borg drone and afraid of how she would be treated. Naomi because she was born on Voyager and has never seen Earth. Seven then nearly falls victim to it when the creature fools her into thinking they've escaped , because that is what she currently wants. Qatai has learned to resist the creature's illusions over the decades, but finds he's still capable of being fooled. The Doctor is the only one who is truly immune because he is a hologram.
• I Need a Freaking Drink : Or at least a good nap; after Seven and the Doctor get the crew out of the creature, Janeway wants to know what happened to the "wormhole." Seven tells her the Doctor will explain it to her. Seven: I will file a complete report in the morning, after I have regenerated.
• Insignificant Blue Planet : Seven and Naomi agree that Earth seems unimpressive.
• Insult Backfire : The Doctor taking in Qatai. EMH : And whom might you be? The local monster expert? Qatai : As a matter of fact, I am.
• Is That the Best You Can Do? : Qatai's initial response to Voyager turning up is to lambast the creature for not thinking up a better delusion than an advanced spaceship that's arrived in the nick of time to save him. Seven points out that his shields are failing anyway, so trusting that she's real is the only option he has .
• It Can Think : The telepathic pitcher plant. EMH: Judging by these bio-scans the organism's been devouring life forms for a bit longer than thirty-nine years. I'd estimate it's at least 200,000 years old. Qatai: The intelligent always survive. EMH: I wouldn't go that far. It appears to operate on highly-evolved instinct. I haven't detected any signs of sentience. Qatai: Oh, he's intelligent, all right. Smart enough to fool your crew into taking you offline.
• Kid Hero : Averted. Naomi does help Seven, the Doctor and Qatai save the ship, but never outright saves the day by herself.
• Layman's Terms : Averted; the Solution of the Week essentially involves making the creature vomit them up, but for some reason this simple analogy is avoided .
• Lotus-Eater Machine : The creature appears as a wormhole leading to the Alpha Quadrant, and creates further illusions in the minds of the crew once they are inside its maw to keep them pacified while it consumes them.
• Master of Illusion : The creature creates false messages from Starfleet to manipulate the crew into shutting down the Doctor and Seven, and messages from family and friends to whet their urge to go home.
• Moby Schtick : Alien humanoid in a years-long quest to destroy a telepathic pitcher plant. Even after his ship and Voyager escape from it, he goes back to get one more try at destroying the creature. The Doctor even likens Qatai to Captain Ahab.
• Negative Space Wedgie : Or perhaps Killer Space Whale . The exact nature of the creature is debated but never confirmed .
• One Woman Army : This episode shows that any concerns about Seven acting against the crew were justified: when properly motivated, she's able to do an end-run around most of the ship's security measures, and is only stopped because she's too focused on her goal.
• Not Himself : Seven finds that Janeway and even Tuvok brush off her concerns. Eventually Chakotay and two security mooks appear to take Seven to her alcove for some technobabble reason; all of them are carrying phasers for this routine task.
• No Time to Explain : Weary after everything that's happened, Seven tells Captain Janeway that the Doctor will explain, while she regenerates.
• Renaissance Man Qatai: You seem to know a little about everything. Medicine, exobiology, shield harmonics... EMH: I’m something of a Renaissance EMH.
• Resistance Is Futile : Seven discovers that the Doctor has been taken offline, then an armed security team arrives to escort her to her regeneration alcove. Seven is not happy when Chakotay jokingly tells her to relax because, "Resistance is futile."
• Revenge : Qatai seeks to avenge his family who were on a Colony Ship seeking a new world; the creature obligingly appeared as such.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale : Early in the episode, the wormhole is described as 300 million kilometers away. note  About the diameter of Earth's orbit around the sun, or 15 light- minutes . Later , Seven states that they are 3.4 light- years away from it.
• Seen It All : When Janeway is called to the bridge she leans against the doorframe of the turbolift and wryly asks what Too Good to Be True way home she's being briefed on today. (She falls under the creature's illusions quickly, however.)
• Shock and Awe : Janeway incapacitates Seven by causing an electrical surge to be emitted through a console in Engineering that she was using.
• Slow Motion : B'Elanna getting stunned, and the crew's Lotus-Eater Machine fantasies.
• Some Kind Of Forcefield : Seven uses the Borg tech in the cargo bay to cut herself off from the security team by erecting a Borg forcefield, which she can walk through with impunity because of her implants.
• Standard Female Grab Area : Subverted; Chakotay urges Seven to her alcove this way, but it's a sign he's Not Himself . Seven doesn't resist because there are two armed security officers behind her, until she has a chance to put up a forcefield between them.
• Stepford Smiler : Naomi says she's freaked out over how her mother keeps smiling.
• Swiss-Cheese Security : Seven wants access to the Captain's Log . The computer tells her it's restricted. She yanks out an isolinear chip and fixes that .
• That's an Order! : When Naomi helps Seven evade the security team. Chakotay: Naomi, I'm giving you a direct order. Step away from the console.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill : The Doctor refuses to help kill the creature because it's against his programming .
• Too Good to Be True : When Janeway first sees a wormhole leading directly to Earth, she immediately comments that she's not about to be taken in by such an obvious trap. The level of trusting giddiness she later displays at the idea is an early sign that something's not right. When letters start coming through, telling everyone exactly what they want to hear, Seven quickly becomes suspicious.
• Yank the Dog's Chain : A rough one for the crew. Not only was the "wormhole" to Earth a monster but all the messages from Earth (Janeway's fiancé being single again, Chakotay getting a pardon) were all part of the illusion.
• You Know Too Much : The crew take the Doctor offline and try to do the same to Seven when they try to investigate what's happening. They are incredibly fortunate that they failed.
• Your Heart's Desire : The alien creature lures in its victims with inviting hallucinations.
• Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 13 Gravity
• Recap/Star Trek: Voyager
• Star Trek Voyager S 5 E 15 Dark Frontier

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Star Trek: Voyager – Bliss (Review)

Bliss is a textbook example of Star Trek: Voyager doing textbook Star Trek .

The episode feels like a stew composed primarily of leftovers, the residue of past meals thrown together to serve up something lukewarm and familiar. Bliss is not necessarily a bad episode of television, per se . It is rather lifeless and generic, but it is hardly the weakest episode of the season or the series. Instead, Bliss is the kind of episode that fades gently from memory, a hollow confection that doesn’t taste particularly nice, but which at least offers something to chew over.

Good Sheppard.

Qatai exists in opposition to this malign entity, caught in an immortal struggle with a force more vicious and more powerful than he could ever be. The EMH compares Qatai to Ahab, acknowledging the debt that Bliss owes to Moby Dick . Of course, the Star Trek franchise is populated with stories built upon that classic template; Obsession , The Doomsday Machine , Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , Star Trek: First Contact , Star Trek: Nemesis , Star Trek . It is hard to think of a more generic source of inspiration for an episode of Star Trek .

The show could use a shot in the arm.

The result is something the feels very much like a representative distillation of Voyager , the statistical mean of the series derived to a decimal point. Bliss is perhaps the perfect encapsulation of Voyager as a television show. It is neither truly great or truly awful, it is merely there .

Coming down to Earth.

On paper, Bliss should be a great deal of fun. It is an episode in which Voyager gets eaten by a giant space monster that has been messing with the crew’s minds, and the ship’s only hope of salvation lies in the hands of an insane old monster hunter played by W. Morgan Sheppard. That should at least be entertaining and exciting, pulpy and ridiculous. It is a very silly idea for a story, but there is nothing wrong with a little silliness from time to time. After all, this is a television series that only recently produced Bride of Chaotica!

To be fair, Morgan is very clearly the highlight of Bliss . Morgan is a veteran character actor, with a host of high-profile and memorable screen roles across a host of science-fiction franchise. Morgan has appeared in everything from Babylon 5 to Doctor Who . More than that, he has popped up across the length and breadth of the Star Trek franchise, having appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation , in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and making a small appearance in the JJ Abrams reboot.

Voyager is a lot like the Delta Flyer’s course: so simple that even a child could plot it.

Yes, I love having to stretch, like Soul Hunter in Babylon 5, Qatai in Star Trek Voyager… Klingon fans like my Commander on Star Trek VI because Nick Meyer, a marvellous director, let me play the character. Max Headroom got me to the US and Blank Reg is one of my favourite roles. … It’s never ‘just another job’. I really enjoy the Star Trek challenges, as you have to play characters a little larger than life, and find an empathy for their alien selves.

Sheppard certainly rises to the occasion. It is telling that Sheppard is such a memorable and essential part of the Star Trek canon, despite only playing a handful or roles years apart from one another.

… there is nothing I shall want.

W. Morgan Sheppard works particularly well with Robert Picardo. Part of this is just the juxtaposition of the two characters; Qatai is a very serious man who very earnestly believes in what he is doing, while the EMH cannot wait to offer a snarky one-liner to puncture that earnestness. However, there is also a sense that Picardo and Sheppard bounce well off one another because they have very similar performance styles. Both Picardo and Sheppard are very good at broad and exaggerated banter, while plays well in the context of an episode about giant space monster.

Qatai: Monster Slayer. Now, there ‘s a spin-off.

In some ways, the episode’s handling of Qatai is a major problem. Most obviously, Bliss is an episode that could use a lot more of W. Morgan Sheppard. The teaser opens with Qatai charging into battle against the space monster, but the character is largely absent from the first half of the episode. He only reappears once the crew have gone into their coma. Even then, Bliss does not know how to properly use its guest star. Qatai banters well with the surviving crew, but the script moves him off the ship at the climax, which means putting Sheppard at a remove from the action.

The beast below.

The issue is that Qatai clearly belongs in the “outwit a giant space monster” story, and so he has to sit out most of the conspiracy thriller. However, the fact that Bliss is trying to be these two different stories means that neither story has any time to breath. Both halves of the episode feel very generic, because there simply is not time to properly develop these storytelling templates into something more nuanced or sophisticated. The result is that Bliss feels like two very generic half-stories crammed into forty-odd minutes of television.

“We’re just looking for plot holes.”

The struggle between Qatai and the entity is one of obsession and revenge. Qatai blames the organism for the death of his family on a colony ship, ascribing intelligence and intent to the anomaly. Much like Ahab projects this sort of canny intelligence on to the white whale that crippled him, Qatai treats the entity as a familiar acquaintance. He refers to it as “the beast” , and more intimately as “he.” Qatai knows it. “It appears to operate on highly evolved instinct,” the EMH states. “I haven’t detected any signs of sentience.” Qatai responds, “Oh he’s intelligent, all right.”

Once more unto the beast, dear friends.

( Bliss even goes so far as to reinforce this comparison during the sequences in which Janeway pilots the ship into the entity. The organism is filmed in such a way as to suggest a gigantic space whale. Its jaws seem to close around Voyager like those of the whale from the story of Jonah. Qatai talks about the entity as something more like an animal than the living nebula in The Cloud , referring to its “primary neural plexus” and its “digestion chamber.” The literal belly of “the beast.” )

All’s Melville that ends Melville.

At the same time, there are other influences at play on Bliss . Most notably, the first half of the episode owes a very clear debt to The Odyssey . Again, this is not a particularly deep cut, given that The Odyssey is one of the cornerstones of western literature. More than that, The Odyssey is obviously thematically resonant with Voyager . Both are stories about crews that find themselves stranded a long way from home, engaging in a series of episodic adventures under a leader who promises to get them home no matter what the cost.

Janeway dreams of a world in which Favourite Son never happened.

The first half of Bliss evokes the tale of the lotus eaters from The Odyssey . While journeying home, Odysseus finds an island populated by people who eat and drink of the lotus. This addictive compound traps them in dreams and threatens to ensnare his crew. The entity in Bliss does something similar, luring passing ships and using fantasy to subdue their crews. Indeed, the repeated slow panning shots of the unconscious crew in Bliss evoke W. Heath Robinson’s illustrations of the lotus eaters from Jeanie Lang’s adaptation of The Odyssey .

Resting in peace…

The Star Trek of the 1960s may quote non–Star Trek myths, but a popular culture mythology based around the series itself had not yet begun. By contrast, the Star Trek of the 1980s and beyond is aware of its own place within the history of popular culture, an awareness activated whenever it quotes itself. Within such a context, to retell a story appropriated from an outside source is to simultaneously and necessarily retell the Star Trek story in a new guise. When the Star Trek of the 1980s and beyond quotes an external myth, it is automatically at the very least a twofold endeavor, because it is aware not only of its source material, but also of its own status as (and deliberate construction of ) a form of popular mythology. Star Trek not only contextualizes outside myths within Star Trek’s fictional realm, but also attempts to contextualize its own mythology through that quotation.

As such, this dual framing in Bliss serves as another expression of the pop nostalgia that was beginning to take root in the Star Trek franchise of the nineties, a variation on the mid-life crisis of Star Trek: Insurrection or the retro charm of Bride of Chaotica! After all, when Bliss quotes Moby Dick , it is also quoting The Wrath of Khan and The Doomsday Machine . When Bliss quotes The Odyssey , it is putting Voyager in a consciously mythic framework.

Admirable Admirals.

The fantasies in Bliss tease the crew with the possibility of reset buttons and do-overs. Chakotay is offered “a full pardon and reinstatement to Starfleet” , even though there has never really been any indication that Chakotay would actually want a reinstatement to Starfleet. When the EMH revives Torres, he discovers that she is living in a fantasy world where her life has been reset to what it was before Caretaker . She gasps, “The Maquis, they’re alive!” She confesses to them, “Starfleet thinks you’ve all been killed.”

Holding a wake.

Bliss arrives at a point where the nostalgia is clearly building within the Star Trek franchise. In many ways, Voyager would be the last Star Trek series to push the franchise forward within its fictional universe. Appropriately enough for the last Star Trek show of the nineties, Voyager was perhaps the end of (future) history for the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek: Enterprise , the JJ Abrams reboot and Star Trek: Discovery would all attempt to take the franchise back to some idealised nostalgic past.

Carry on carrying on.

Indeed, the closing scene of the episode seems to reinforce this idea, suggesting that the only reason why the crew would want to return to Earth is out of some sense of nostalgia. Having apparently learned nothing from almost being eaten by a giant space monster, Samantha Wildman orders her daughter to look at pictures of Earth and learn to love it. “Does studying this image increase your desire to go there?” Seven asks. “Not really,” Naomi responds. Seven nods. “I concur. It is unremarkable.” There is nothing to recommend Earth beyond its familiarity.

Homeless alone.

Characters are haunted by the memories of previous lives across the fifth season. Tuvok remembers his awkward teenage years in flashback in Gravity . Seven of Nine recalls her assimilation in Dark Frontier, Part I and Dark Frontier, Part II . Janeway takes a trip down memory lane in 11:59 , remembering a distant relative. Voyager has always been a show about moving backwards, but the fifth season in particular appears to have its eyes locked on the past. It feels like the nostalgia that will soon take over the franchise is gestating, and Bliss is very anxious about that.

Getting past it all.

It’s been building for a while; many of the developments I look at in Retromania can be traced back to the ‘90s, even the ‘80s. But the 2000s was when everything came to a fruition: as the decade proceeded, there was a mounting sense of crisis and deadlock. In some ways Retromania is a history of the Noughties as a “like name, like nature” decade where “nought” happened: there was a bustle of micro-genres, a steady turnover of new artists, but no major new movements in music on a par with punk, hip hop, or rave. Instead, all the real innovative energy was in the way musical data was distributed, stored, shared, archived. From YouTube to file-sharing, it’s simply possible now to drown in the past, without any financial cost, in a way that it never was before. So you get young fans and musicians who have heard a staggering amount of music by the age of 20, the kind of learning that would have once taken a lifetime of listening to absorb and a small fortune to pay for. Knowledge that was once hard to come by, scattered across books that were often obscure or out-of-print, is now out there for everybody to access. The question is whether this generation has been able to process all this music and knowledge, to digest it or even feel it in any kind of meaningful way. Much of this decade it felt like music culture has been shell-shocked by this sudden “affluence”. But perhaps the generation that has grown up knowing nothing else but the digiculture conditions of super-abundance and atemporality, perhaps they’ll be better placed to cope with it and make something out of it?

The Star Trek franchise played out these anxieties on the cusp of the new millennium, with Insurrection and Voyager both alluding to a recoverable cast that would be fully explored in Enterprise and the Abrams reboot.

“Well, Paris will never make Lieutenant at this rate.”

Seven tries to raise her concerns with the rest of the crew. She grows increasingly concerned that something happened while she was away from the ship, hacking into Janeway’s log entries in order to find some answers. She approaches Paris in the mess hall, bluntly inquiring, “Have you noticed anything unusual about the crew’s behaviour since we returned?” Although it initially seems like Paris might also have noticed how ridiculous the situation has become, it quickly becomes clear that he has been affected by whatever is going on.

This cargo bay is secure Seven ways from Sunday.

Why did Americans’ belief in ever-more-implausible conspiracy theories grow steadily in the 1980s and especially the ’90s — decades when Americans had less to worry about than at any other point in the country’s modern history? Context matters here: The ’90s was the decade of Oliver Stone’s J.F.K., The X-Files and late-night Roswell documentaries — the decade in which conspiracism, safely removed from the exigencies of the Cold War and domestic upheaval, became a form of kitschy entertainment. It was an antipolitics well suited to a cultural era that favored irony and disillusionment and put quotation marks around words like “believe.” Richard Linklater’s 1991 film, Slacker, one of Generation X’s founding documents, has a very funny scene in which an awkward young man buttonholes a woman in a bookstore in what appears at first to be a pickup attempt, but turns out to be a numbing disquisition on Kennedy assassination theories. It’s perfect — a conspiracy theorist might say a little too perfect — that Alex Jones began his career in the mid-’90s from the same Austin cable-access facility where Linklater edited Slacker. (Linklater, a fan, later cast him in two movies.) Jones may have risen to prominence with his post-Sept. 11 claims that the United States government blew up the World Trade Center, but his worldview really belongs to the conspiracism of the previous decade, with its comic-book universe of black helicopters and New World Order eugenics plots. In this universe, the Clintons constitute a galaxy of their own: Jones insists that Hillary is a “quadruple international spy,” a “demon” incarnate and a gravely ill epileptic whose handlers are trying to keep alive long enough to win the White House for Tim Kaine, a “puppet” who will “cover up for all the previous crimes the globalists have committed.”

This interest in conspiracy theory permeates Voyager , with its recurring interest in manipulated cultural memory and secret histories in episodes like Remember or Distant Origin and in more intimate stories like Latent Image .

Down the rabbit hole.

Appropriately enough, Bliss is the archetypal conspiracy theory narrative, in which “the beast” has tricked people into living in an imaginary world while it devours them. This is a recurring motif of a lot of nineties conspiracy-tinged narratives like The Invisibles by Grant Morrison or The Matrix by the Wachowski siblings. The idea is that the entire world is a lie designed to trick people into conforming, turning even the most brilliant minds into food for the system. Only truly special individuals can see through that illusion.

Logging her concerns.

Bliss hits upon another recurring trope, positioning Seven of Nine as the character with the ability to see through these deceptions. Voyager routinely suggests that Seven of Nine has a very paranoid and cynical world view, perhaps the cast member who most pointedly reflects the values and the world view of the nineties. Perhaps this is because Seven of Nine was a late addition to the cast, making her more up-to-date. Perhaps it is because Seven of Nine was once a Borg drone, and her processing power makes her an ideal stand-in for the paranoia of the internet age.

“Janeway on the bridge, mofos!”

Bliss feels like Voyager in a microcosm, a veritable smorgasbord of the show’s interests and storytelling. It is a lot of stock ideas, recycled and thrown together in such a way as to fill forty-five minutes of television in a way that is relatively inoffensive. It is an episode that doesn’t say anything new, so much as reiterate a number of plot and thematic elements from other Star Trek stories. In its own weird way,  Bliss seems to provide a justification for the nostalgia of which it is wary. Certainly, it doesn’t seem like the future is full of promising and exciting ideas.

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Filed under: Voyager | Tagged: anomaly of the week , bliss , conspiracy theories , naomi wildman , nostalgia , seven of nine , star trek , the odyssey , voyager , W. Morgan Sheppard |

4 Responses

I just like that “telepathic pitcher plant” is used repeatedly, not just in this episode, as a term on Voyager. With no irony.

It’s odd to see Sheppard called a “legend” in the sci fi world. Which he undoubtedly is. But he was given such thankless roles to play; especially compared to his son Mark.

I think that’s maybe what makes him a legend.

The Schizoid Man and Bliss are not good episode, but Sheppard is one of the franchise’s most memorable guest stars. It is one thing for an actor to shine with good material. It is another to make that sort of impression with… nothing, really.

“It is rather lifeless and generic, but it is hardly the weakest episode of the season or the series. Instead, Bliss is the kind of episode that fades gently from memory, a hollow confection that doesn’t taste particularly nice, but which at least offers something to chew over.”

Experiences may vary, I still remember watching this episode when it was originally broadcast. By no means a masterpiece, it was a fun way to kill an hour on TV. I get a kick out of stories where the cast end lured in via hallucinations and slowly digested. Not enough shows can justify that premise. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is X-Files’ Field Trip, where Mulder and Scully, plus 2 guest stars get digested by mushrooms, and you get to question reality and see absurd scenarios play out. Overall, a fun, silly hour of television, something that the show Enterprise would really struggled with.

Heck, Archer is so irrational that I think it would be difficult to notice a difference between normal Archer, and hallucinating Archer. That and the crew is so undeveloped, I don’t think the writers could have even come up with a lure for the Enterprise crew. What’s Reid going to see? A giant floating pineapple cake in space? Is Tucker going to see a deep fried catfish? Is Archer going to see the Xindi homeworld?

I just found it dull, and always have. Which is a shame, because the episodes leading up to it were fun and interesting.

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Star Trek: Voyager

Cast & Crew

Scarlett Pomers

Naomi Wildman

William Morgan Sheppard

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• Star Trek: Voyager

After five years, discovering a wormhole leading directly to Alpha Quadrant and Earth elates the crew beyond belief, but Seven Of Nine remains unconvinced that this is real. She suspects there is something wrong with how quickly and easily the  Voyager's  crew accepts the appearance of the phenomenon. To help her cause, she recruits Naomi Wildman, the Doctor, and an alien pilot named Qatai to stop the ship from entering and from being digested by a large bioplasmic space-dwelling lifeform.

Scarlett Pomers

William Morgan Sheppard

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Cast appearances.

Kate Mulgrew

Robert Beltran

Roxann Dawson

Robert Duncan McNeill

Ethan Phillips

Robert Picardo

Garrett Wang

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The Ending of "Bliss"

Discussion in ' Star Trek: Voyager ' started by marlboro , Oct 10, 2016 .

marlboro Guest

Good episode, but I was a little confused by the very last scene. Do you think that Qatai was intentionally flying into the maw of the "pitcher plant" or had the creature cast another illusion and tricked him again?  

Finn Bad Batch of TrekBBS Admiral

Um. I don't think it was one of those confusing endings/scenes (like that line Tom said right before they shot out of the borg sphere in Endgame). It's pretty clear Qatai is Ahab and the creature was his white whale. I believe that Qatai said he hunts the thing earlier. It was intentional.  

Sophie74656 Commodore Commodore

I think the point is that it's unclear. That man will spend the rest of his life fighting that thing until he dies of old age or it actually eats him  

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Our episode database profiles every episode of Star Trek: Voyager . Each episode features background information (plot • trivia • interviews • behind the scenes info • shooting script) and DVD screencaps.

Jump to Season : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 View Season Overview : 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

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Bliss Stardate: 52542.3 Original Airdate: 10 February 1999

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Screen Rant

Star trek's biggest year what discovery's callback to 2371 in tng's era means.

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Star trek: discovery reveals seven of nine's surprising legacy, star trek: discovery proves ds9's dominion war still matters 800 years later.

Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 7 - "Erigah"

• Star Trek: Discovery season 5, Episode 7, "Erigah," references the monumental year 2371 of the Star Trek universe.
• The year 2371 featured significant expansions in the Star Trek franchise with multiple TV series and a movie.
• References to Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager enrich the storytelling in Discovery season 5.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 7, "Erigah" calls back to the year 2371, which is one of the most monumental time periods of Star Trek: The Next Generation 's 24th century era. Written by M. Raven Metzner and directed by Jon Dudkowski, "Erigah" sees Commander Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp), Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman), Ensign Adira Tal (Blu del Barrio), and Cleveland Booker (David Ajala) team up to determine the location of the fifth and final clue to the Progenitors' ancient treasure: a novel titled "Labyrinths of the Mind" written by Betazoid scientist Dr. Marina Derex in 2371.

2371 is a milestone year that marked a major expansion of the Star Trek franchise. In the real world, the events of 2371 in Star Trek equate to the years 1994 and 1995, which saw Star Trek Generations , the first Star Trek: The Next Generation movie, arrive in theaters in November 1994. At the same time, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was in its third season, while Star Trek: Voyager launched in January 1995. For the first time, two Star Trek TV series were on the air while there was a Star Trek movie in theaters. Star Trek 's year 2371 encompasses 50 combined episodes of DS9 and Voyager as well as Star Trek Generations . And now, Star Trek: Discovery 's final clue to the Progenitors' treasure points to a book written during that fateful year of 2371.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 is a sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation 's season 6 episode, "The Chase," and contains more references to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager than ever before.

As Burnham seeks the universe's greatest treasure in Star Trek: Discovery season 5, she'll need help from a host of new and returning characters.

What Happened In Star Trek Generations In 2371

The first star trek: the next generation movie saw captain kirk meet captain picard.

Star Trek Generations is set in 2371, months after the end of Star Trek: The Next Generation . In Star Trek Generations, Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) discovered Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), who was believed to have died in 2293, was alive in the interdimensional reality called the Nexus. Kirk joined Picard in returning to 2371 to stop Dr. Tolian Soran (Malcolm McDowell) from destroying the Veridian sun. Tragically, Kirk died in the effort to stop Soran and was buried by Picard on Veridan III.

Captain Kirk's remains were moved into storage at Section 31's black site, Daystrom Station, as seen in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

Another significant event in Star Trek Generations was the destruction of the USS Enterprise-D. The Galaxy Class flagship of the United Federation of Planets saw its stardrive section destroyed by a Klingon attack, and its separated saucer section crash-landed on Veridian III. In addition, Worf (Michael Dorn) was promoted to Lieutenant Commander while Data (Brent Spiner) activated his emotion chip and struggled with his rampant feelings. Captain Picard also learned his family in La Barre, France, died in a house fire.

The USS Enterprise-D was restored by Commodore Geordi La Forge (LeVar Burton) and saved the galaxy one last time in Star Trek: Picard season 3.

What Happened On Star Trek: Deep Space Nine In 2371

The seeds of the dominion war were planted on ds9.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3 took place in 2371, and it set the stage for the Dominion War that would alter the fate of the galaxy as the Federation becomes aware of the authoritarian threat coming from the Gamma Quadrant. Commander Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and members of Deep Space Nine's crew time-travel to the 21st century where Sisko took the place of Gabriel Bell in the infamous San Francisco Bell Riots. Lt. Thomas Riker (Jonathan Frakes), joined the Maquis and posed as Commander William Riker to steal the USS Defiant, which led to his imprisonment on Cardassia.

The Federation learns that the Dominion's shapeshifting Founders have infiltrated the Alpha Quadrant.

Later in 2371, Benjamin Sisko is promoted to Captain, and he and his son, Jake (Cirroc Lofton), sail to Cardassia on a solar ship like ancient Bajorans did. The Bajoran-Cardassia Peace Treaty is signed as Shakaar Edon (Duncan Regehr) becomes First Minister of Bajor. The female Changeling (Salome Jens) sets a trap to force Constable Odo (Rene Auberjonois) admit his love for Major Kira Nerys (Nana Visitor). By the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine season 3 , the Federation learns that the Dominion's shapeshifting Founders have infiltrated the Alpha Quadrant, and the Cardassian Obsidian Order and Romulan Tal Shiar are severely crippled after a failed attack on the Dominion.

What Happened On Star Trek: Voyager In 2371

Year one of the uss voyager's journey home from the delta quadrant.

Star Trek: Voyager season 1 and the first episode of season 2, "The 37s" (which was originally intended as Voyager season 1's finale) take place in 2371. Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) assembles the crew of the USS Voyager to find the Maquis ship Val Jean in the Badlands, but both starships are transported 75,000 lightyears into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker. Joined by the Talaxian Neelix (Ethan Phillips) and the Ocampan Kes (Jennifer Lien), the USS Voyager absorbs the Maquis into its Starfleet crew as a measure of survival, and the Intrepid Class starship begins a long journey home to Earth.

The USS Voyager's first year in the Delta Quadrant saw them encounter the villainous Kazon. Ensign Seska (Martha Hackett) reveals herself as a Cardassian spy and joins the Kazon, while Ensign Samantha Wildman (Nancy Hower) learns she is pregnant with her daughter, Naomi Wildman (Scarlett Pomers). To kick off Star Trek: Voyager season 2, the USS Voyager discovers the missing 20th century pilot Amelia Earhart (Sharon Lawrence), who was abducted and brought to the Delta Quadrant by the Briori. But while all that and more happened in Star Trek in 2371, Dr. Marina Derex published "Labyrinths of the Mind" , and she would hide her clue to the Progenitors' treasure in her original manuscript stored in the Eternal Gallery and Archive for Star Trek: Discovery to find.

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager are streaming on Paramount+

Star Trek Generations is streaming on Max

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Episode list

Star trek: voyager.

S5.E11 ∙ Latent Image

S5.E12 ∙ Bride Of Chaotica!

S5.E13 ∙ Gravity

S5.E14 ∙ Bliss

S5.E15 ∙ Dark Frontier

S5.E16 ∙ The Disease

S5.E17 ∙ Course: Oblivion

S5.E18 ∙ The Fight

S5.E19 ∙ Think Tank

S5.E20 ∙ Juggernaut

S5.E21 ∙ Someone To Watch Over Me

S5.E22 ∙ 11:59

S5.E23 ∙ Relativity

S5.E24 ∙ Warhead

S5.E25 ∙ Equinox

S6.E1 ∙ Equinox, Part II

S6.E2 ∙ Survival Instinct

S6.E3 ∙ Barge of the Dead

S6.E4 ∙ Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy

S6.E5 ∙ Alice

S6.E6 ∙ Riddles

S6.E7 ∙ Dragon's Teeth

S6.E8 ∙ One Small Step

S6.E9 ∙ The Voyager Conspiracy

S6.E10 ∙ Pathfinder

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Den of Geek

Discovery Season 5 Just Brought Back a Lost Piece of Star Trek Voyager Canon

The Breen have really taken over Star Trek: Discovery at this point, which is why it might be time to revisit Deep Space Nine.

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This Star Trek: Discovery article contains spoilers.

Since its inception in 2017, Star Trek: Discovery has been compared to various aspects of the Star Trek franchise. But, perhaps the show it most closely resembles, at least tonally, is Deep Space Nine , the gritty ‘90s spin-off of The Next Generation . And, with its fifth and final season, it feels like Discovery knows it’s the Deep Space Nine of modern Trek , and has leaned into that feeling more than ever.

The series has also taken on the mantle of being the new DS9 by simply making a ton of references to that series, as well as continuing huge storylines from that series. In the 7th episode of season 5, “Erigah,” Discovery makes a ton of references to the breadth of the Trek canon, with a specific focus on DS9 . Here’s all the best easter eggs and shout-outs you might have missed.

The Return of Nhan 

At the top of the episode, we get the first appearance of Rachael Ancheril as Nhan since season 4 episode “Rubicon.” Nhan’s journey is unique within Star Trek , and Discovery specifically. Originally a part of the crew of the USS Enterprise under Pike, Nhan joined the Discovery in season 2 during the search for the Red Angel. She stayed with the crew when they jumped to the future in season 3, making her seemingly the only Enterprise crew member from the 23rd century who now lives in the 32nd century . Nhan is from Barzan II, a planet established in the TNG episode “The Price.”

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Dominion War Medical Research 

Culber says he’s doing a deep-dive into Dominion War medical research, in order to learn more about the Breen, noting, “We don’t know much about Breen physiology.” This is accurate since, although the Breen appeared for the first time in DS9 , they never took their helmets off in that series. Culber’s deep dive into Dominion War research is also interesting in light of Star Trek: Picard season 3. It was in that season that we learned Starfleet was secretly experimenting on Changelings. Did Culber stumble on any of that research?

“Never Turn Your Back on a Breen”

Reynar reminds President T’Rina of the Romulan saying, “Never turn your back on a Breen.” This comes from the DS9 episode “By Inferno’s Light,” and was uttered by an unnamed Romulan prisoner. Although T’Rina is seemingly Vulcan, the Vulcans and Romulans are essentially the same people in the time of Discovery . As revealed in season 3’s “Unification III,” all Vulcans and Romulans live together on the planet Ni’var, previously known as the planet Vulcan.

Breen Attack on the Federation 

In this episode, we’re reminded that “the last time the Breen paid a visit to the Federation, they destroyed an entire city.” This references the Deep Space Nine episode, “The Changing Face of Evil,” in which the Breen attack Starfleet Headquarters on Earth, directly, and nearly destroy all of San Francisco. Most of the city was rebuilt by the time of the Picard flashbacks in season 1 of that series, and certainly, is fully rebuilt by seasons 2 and 3 of Picard . But, it seems like the Federation has not had a direct battle with the Breen in Federation space since the DS9 era.

Tilly Is Worried About Her Cadets

In another reference to DS9 and “The Changing Face of Evil,” Tilly expresses concern about her cadets safety if the Breen attack Federation HQ. In the DS9 era, Starfleet Academy was still located in San Francisco, though now it’s at Fed HQ. That said, the upcoming show, Starfleet Academy , set in the Discovery timeline, will move the Academy back to Earth, and San Francisco.

We learn in this episode that the next piece of the Progenitor puzzle is a book called Labyrinths of the Mind , a Betazoid manuscript written by Dr. Marina Derex. “Marina” is almost certainly a reference to Marina Sirtis, the beloved actress who has played the half-Betazoid character Deanna Troi in all of The Next Generation and Picard , a few cameos on Voyager , and the Enterprise finale.

The book was also written in 2371, which is the same year that the USS Voyager left space station Deep Space 9 for the Badlands. It’s also the same year that Thomas Riker stole the USS Defiant from the same station. It’s also the year that the USS Enterprise-D crash-landed its saucer section on Veridian III in Star Trek Generations , which also means it’s the same year that a time-displaced Captain James T. Kirk was killed. Big year!

Seven of Limes 

Reno mentions a cocktail called “Seven of Limes.” This can only be a reference to Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan), the former Borg drone turned Fenris Ranger and Starfleet Captain. Because Discovery is set several centuries beyond Picard Season 3, we can only assume that Reno and the crew now have knowledge of events well beyond the early 2400s.

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“A Holodeck Adventure for the Littles”

Reno jokes that the entire premise of the current clue—connected to a library card—makes everything sound like “something out of a holodeck adventure for the littles.” The most prominent holodeck adventure for children that we’re aware of in Trek canon is The Adventures of Flotter , which first appeared in the Voyager episode “Once Upon a Time.” In Picard season 1, Soji had a Flotter lunchbox.

The Badlands 

By the end of the episode, the Eternal Gallery’s location—and thus the location of the book  Labyrinths of the Mind —is revealed to be in the Badlands. This is an unstable area of space that was first mentioned in…you guessed it… Deep Space Nine ! Although the Badlands is most famous as the area where the USS Voyager went missing in its 1995 debut episode, “Caretaker,” the concept of the Badlands was introduced about a year earlier in 1994, during DS9’s second season, specifically in the episode “The Maquis Part 1.”

The Badlands is located near what used to be Cardassian space, so in its next episode, Discovery will literally be traveling directly to the neighborhood of Deep Space Nine . We have no idea if the wormhole is still there in this time period, or if that old station is still kicking. But, as Discovery continues to drop surprises in its final season, we can all keep our fingers crossed for a glimpse of a very special space station.

Ryan Britt is a longtime contributor to Den of Geek! He is also the author of three non-fiction books: the Star Trek pop history book PHASERS…

Star Trek: Voyagers Paris & Torres Relationship Almost Didnt Happen Says Robert Duncan McNeill

• Tom Paris and B'Elanna Torres might not have become a couple if a Star Trek: Voyager season 3 episode had turned out differently.
• "Blood Fever" was originally meant to feature Tuvok more heavily but was changed to Tom at the last minute.
• The episode accelerated Tom and B'Elanna's romance and solidified their relationship, leading to their love confession in season 4.

Tom Paris actor Robert Duncan McNeill revealed that Star Trek: Voyager almost didn't make his character and B'Elanna Torres (Roxann Dawson) a couple in season 3. After their official get-together at the beginning of season 4, Tom and B'Elanna became the only stable couple among Voyager 's cast of characters for the rest of the show's seven seasons. Their relationship ended up going further than most Star Trek couples , culminating in their marriage and the birth of their daughter in season 7.

While the seeds of Tom and B'Elanna's future romance were planted as far back as season 1, any explicit hint of their relationship wasn't cemented until Voyager season 3, episode 16, "Blood Fever." During the episode, Ensign Vorik (Alexander Enberg) infected B'Elanna with his Vulcan Pon Farr, causing her to choose Tom as he mate while the two were trapped in a system of caves on an alien planet. However, "Blood Fever" almost forwent setting up Tom and B'Elanna as a couple in favor of a different storyline.

Every Voyager Character Who Has Returned In Star Trek (& How)

Star Trek: Voyager's beloved characters have returned in Star Trek: Picard, Star Trek: Lower Decks, and especially Star Trek: Prodigy.

Robert Duncan McNeill Explains Why Blood Fever Wasnt Supposed To Start Tom And BElannas Relationship

Another character was supposed to feature more heavily in "blood fever".

In an interview with Star Trek Monthly , issue 28 around the time of the episode's airing, Robert Duncan McNeill revealed that "Blood Fever" was originally supposed to star Tuvok (Tim Russ) and B'Elanna as the episode's duo , but that it was changed to Tom at the last minute. According to McNeill, Voyager 's creative team decided to replace Tuvok with Tom almost on a whim, but the decision ultimately had huge implications for Voyager 's storyline due to it fully cementing Tom and B'Elanna's future relationship. Read McNeill's full quote below:

"Originally that episode was written for B'Elanna to go into Pon Farr and to be trapped in the caves with Tuvok, who would help her go through this and deal with it because he's Vulcan and he's been through it. At the very last minute, literally like the day before we started shooting that episode, they thought, 'Why don't we make it Tom Paris and B'Elanna trapped, and let's see what happens with that.' So they made this change."

Logically, having Tuvok be the one to help B'Elanna in "Blood Fever" would have made sense. As McNeill pointed out, Tuvok had experienced the Pon Farr and was equipped to help B'Elanna manage her symptoms if not alleviate them. Tuvok was still a big presence in "Blood Fever," and was the first person to realize what was wrong with B'Elanna as well as Voyager 's source for Vulcan knowledge about Pon Farr. However, the decision to jump-start Tom and B'Elanna's relationship was a good one, as the romance might have never come to fruition otherwise.

Would Paris And Torres Still Have Become A Couple Without Blood Fever?

Tom and b'elanna's future as a couple might have been more rocky.

Although it's possible Tom and B'Elanna would still have gotten together had "Blood Fever" played out differently, the chances would have been much slimmer. The Paris/Torres relationship had been teased subtly in earlier seasons, but "Blood Fever" brought their feelings out in the open and was arguably the catalyst for the two finally admitting their love for each other at the beginning of Star Trek: Voyager season 4 . Tom and B'Elanna's love confession coming so quickly on "Blood Fever's" heels seems like no coincidence when looked at in hindsight.

Ultimately, Star Trek: Voyager made the right decision to feature Tom more heavily in "Blood Fever" and the episode was the perfect beginning to Tom and B'Elanna's love story.

It's impossible to say exactly how Tom and B'Elanna's relationship would have evolved without "Blood Fever." However, the development of their romance would likely have taken much longer , which may have cheated audiences out of seeing nearly as much of their relationship progression or resulted in the creative team getting bored and dropping the storyline entirely, leaving a lot of unresolved potential. Ultimately, Star Trek: Voyager made the right decision to feature Tom more heavily in "Blood Fever" and the episode was the perfect beginning to Tom and B'Elanna's love story.

Source: Star Trek Monthly , issue 28

Star Trek: Voyager is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Voyager

The fifth entry in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: Voyager, is a sci-fi series that sees the crew of the USS Voyager on a long journey back to their home after finding themselves stranded at the far ends of the Milky Way Galaxy. Led by Captain Kathryn Janeway, the series follows the crew as they embark through truly uncharted areas of space, with new species, friends, foes, and mysteries to solve as they wrestle with the politics of a crew in a situation they've never faced before.

Cast Jennifer Lien, Garrett Wang, Tim Russ, Robert Duncan McNeill, Roxann Dawson, Robert Beltran, Kate Mulgrew, Jeri Ryan, Ethan Phillips, Robert Picardo

Release Date May 23, 1995

Genres Sci-Fi, Adventure

Network UPN

Streaming Service(s) Paramount+

Franchise(s) Star Trek

Writers Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Showrunner Kenneth Biller, Jeri Taylor, Michael Piller, Brannon Braga

Rating TV-PG

Where To Watch Paramount+