Story By: Joe Menonsky
Directed By: Robert Picardo
Rating: *1/2 (out of 5)
Meanwhile I saw �Alter Ego,� an episode which can�t possibly survive on the given premise, an episode that has such a laughable and boring climax that I can�t understand how the writers get away with this. I shouldn�t complain too much though because Season 3 has been mighty strong until now. Hopefully this is only one of a kind.
Harry wanting to learn Vulcan emotion-suppressing techniques isn�t a riveting plot to start off with, and a plot point later dropped and used only to get Tuvok involved! It really surprises me that Harry asking Tuvok for help was not at all needed to get to the same place as the story unfolds anyway. With the Festival in the holodeck it would seem logical to me that Tuvok could still have met Marena with the same consequences, even still having Harry-Tuvok conflict. However if those changes were made to �Alter Ego� I would hope that more time would be given for a better conclusion.
The conclusion involves Tuvok talking to the real Marena, a lone alien on a ship inside the Inversion Nebula Voyager has been studying, trying to convince her that Tuvok cannot be involved with her. Why is this so dumb? First of all it is boring as hell! No life is given to the final scenes by Robert Picardo (Director), Tim Russ, Sandra Nelson (Marena) or the writers. I�m not really sure what the conclusion to �Alter Ego� was trying to say because the dialogue seemed so very hollow. It was tackling loneliness, that much is for certain, but why tackle Tuvok�s loneliness? He�s a Vulcan and such things are irrelevant for him. And why waste time investigating loneliness for a character that never displayed loneliness until the end and even then it was of no consequence to anyone, the Voyager crew, or us the viewers. The other problem, an alien sent to �run� the inversion nebula alone so that it stays there and stays beautiful? That�s also rather ridiculous, even for a Delta Quadrant species.
I�ll admit the episode was fun for a while. Seeing the entire celebration on the holodeck was a nice experience for me because it�s always nice to see all the characters together having a good time. I especially liked seeing our new reoccurring Vulcan Vorik getting in the swing of things! Is it my imagination or does Vorik seem to like B�Elanna quite a bit? But the shallowness of the ending means that this was a waste.
�Alter Ego� is actually baffling me. How are we meant to believe that Tuvok wants to be noticed as being alone as Marena speculates and then believe that Tuvok believes this hologram to be fascinating as a result? It�s illogical for Tuvok to even believe that Marena, a programmed computer generation, can be fascinating to Tuvok after only a few days and a few illogical speculations?
�Alter Ego� tries to be intelligent and meaningful but falls flat on it�s face, in mud, in bad weather, with lots of people looking, including the neighbors, and then when trying to pick itself up again, I come along and push it back into the muck. As we say in Australia, �Not happy Jan.�