Story By: Alan Shepard Price and Mark Gaberman
Directed By: David Livingston
Rating: **1/2 (out of 5)
The idea of putting someone�s mind into another person�s body isn�t a new one to science fiction or Star Trek but here we are given a twist that I haven�t seen before. The twist is how the idea of putting someone else�s mind into another�s body integrates with the story that�s been presented. The only problem is the questionable writing decisions that occur. �Warlord� is nicely directed and while the Ilari people are somewhat dull and I hardly felt for their situation their story is interesting if a little cliched. I mean we�ve got a ruthless leader that is powerful, seductive and cruel whom many people hate and yet no one will kill him and we�ve got a power struggle which plays out in a rather typical way too.
However this is a Kes episode. No, sorry, I lied to you; this isn�t a Kes episode and that�s one of the main problems with �Warlord.� We are told many times throughout the episode that Tieran is being tormented by Kes inside his mind and we see one scene as an example to this. What we needed was much more devoted to this mind-play. Too much time is wasted on information about politics which we don�t need to hear and as much time is wasted touching on certain issues, like the issues with Tieran�s wife, that don�t end up having any impact on the episodes conclusion.
Because Kes tortures Tieran�s mind, more time should have been spent on the goings on inside their minds. Like I said above, we got one scene, and that was done quite well but we really needed more to show the power Kes has and to show the torture Tieran goes through. And of course that could�ve been expanded upon to form a new climax. The climax we get is kind of dumb, was there any reason to have Tieran skipping to Ameron�s body? Kes found out who it was immediately. Two better options for a climax would�ve been Kes and Tieran fighting inside the mind, or have every soldier the ability to transfer Tieran�s mind at death so that he keeps jumping from person to person and make things more tense. In fact that would be an interesting story by itself at some stage!
Other than that what point was it having Tuvok captured? What did it really add to the story? Nothing much except to make Kes more reflective at the end. But it just didn�t work for me. Maybe the reason Tuvok being captured doesn�t work because how ridiculously un-logical the plan was. How did Tuvok expect to get out of the building once Kes was cured?
The acting was pretty mediocre this time around. Surprisingly, Ethan Phillips was one of the better performers here. Jennifer Lien tried too hard and made the performance overacted. So of it was superb when she was acting suddenly aggressive but talking when normal as Tieran Jen didn�t succeed too well. The guest actors were nothing special so I won�t go into any more detail for them.
�Warlord� had a nice idea but unfortunately doesn�t know where it wants to go or what it wants to do. It heads in many different directions before settling for a rather wasteful climax. I suppose if there is any change for Kes in the future this would be a little more worthwhile but other than that, I�m giving it a very honest **1/2 stars.