Waking Moments (episode)
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(written from a Production point of view)
| "Waking Moments" | ||
|---|---|---|
| VOY, Episode 4x13 Production number: 182 First aired: 14 January 1998 | ||
| ← | 81st of 168 produced in VOY | → |
| ← | 80th of 168 released in VOY | → |
| ← | 499th of 727 released in all | → |
 | ||
| Written By André Bormanis Directed By Alexander Singer | ||
| 51471.3 (2374) | ||
The crew begins to experience vivid nightmares, all containing the same mysterious alien.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
The senior staff is asleep. They are each having their own separate dreams, but in those dreams, something unpleasant happens. In Tom Paris's dream, he is flying a shuttle when suddenly it begins to malfunction and he flies into a planet; Tuvok forgets his uniform and arrives at the bridge naked; Kathryn Janeway discovers that the crew are dead because she didn't get them home in time and Harry Kim dreams that Seven of Nine tries to seduce him in a Jefferies tube. The dreams, however, all have one thing in common: a mysterious alien who appears shortly before they all wake up.
B'Elanna Torres arrives at Paris' quarters upset that he missed the breakfast date they had made. Paris apologizes, telling her that he didn't sleep well, and they re-schedule their date. Paris goes to the mess hall to get a cup of coffee. Neelix gets right on it, but pours him a cup of cooking oil instead. Neelix apologizes and says that he has had a rough night. Paris arrives late on the bridge, but Captain Janeway is late too. She and Chakotay each explain that they had a nightmare the night before. Chakotay was deer hunting and while hunting, his father had turned into a vicious-looking alien. Janeway is surprised and says that she had an alien in her dream too. Paris interrupts and comments about an alien in his dream. Janeway asks Tuvok if he had an alien in his dream. He did, so Janeway calls the senior staff together. But Harry Kim is still asleep.
Janeway and Tuvok go to Kim's quarters, with Tuvok's rather guarded description of his dream giving Janeway a silent snicker. Janeway knocks on the door and signals the door bell. No response. Tuvok uses a security clearance to enter the room. They find Harry asleep. They cannot wake him up. After bringing him to sickbay, The Doctor explains that Kim and several other crew members are in a hyper REM state. He cannot wake them, even with direct cortical stimulation. The Doctor advises that everyone avoid going to sleep.
In the briefing room, Torres, Chakotay, Janeway, Paris, and Seven of Nine are each describing the alien in their dreams. They attempt to make a computer generated image of him on the observation lounge viewscreen. Eventually, they arrive at the picture they want, and Seven says that the Borg have never encountered this species before. The Voyager has never encountered them either. They cannot find any starships in sensor range or any trace of alien life with their sensor. Chakotay suggests that they use their dreams to make contact with the alien. He suggests a technique called lucid dreaming in which the dreamer takes complete control of his or her dream so that they can do whatever they want. He says that he can use the same techniques he uses during a vision quest to enter a lucid dream. He will remember an object, in this case Earth's full moon, which will remind him that he is still dreaming. If he taps the back of his hand three times, he can wake up.
In sickbay, The Doctor is ready for Chakotay to go asleep. Chakotay begins using the same words and devices he uses for a vision quest. Suddenly he is asleep and in his dream, he is holding a spear and is deer hunting through the corridors of Voyager. When the deer enters the mess hall, he sees the full moon outside the window and realizes he's dreaming. He now has complete control. A few seconds later, he sees the deer again, but it transforms into the alien. The two men fight, but the alien is beaten and surprised that Chakotay can control his dream. He forces the alien to tell him how the other crew members can wake up. The alien tells him that once they passed their space, they will awake. Chakotay taps his hand three times and is instantly awake.
He heads to the bridge with Janeway and they begin moving out of the alien territory. After they are out of it, the other crew members, including Kim, wake up. Interestingly, Seven of Nine asks Kim to join her in the same Jefferies tube that he had dreamed about being with her, but this time he gives her an excuse to stall for time. Suddenly, the ship is under attack by the same alien responsible for the dreams. The crew of Voyager realizes that they had been led into a trap. The aliens surround Voyager with a dampening field and they suffer a complete power drain. A squad of aliens beams aboard and escorts the crew to the cargo bay. There, Janeway decides that they should make a diversion so that someone can access a Jefferies tube and retake the ship. Seven of Nine punches Kim and explains quietly that she is making a diversion. She shouts that it is his fault that the Voyager is taken over. Janeway pretends to handle it while Torres and Chakotay access a Jefferies tube. While accessing manual control, Chakotay suddenly sees the full moon on the control panel - realizing that he must still be dreaming and that he, in fact, never woke up the first time around. The aliens try to try to restrain Chakotay, but he taps the back of his hand three times and instantly is awake in the real sickbay.
Finally really awake, The Doctor explains that Chakotay has been asleep for nearly two days and the rest of the crew has fallen asleep one by one. Only he and The Doctor are awake. Based on readings The Doctor took, he and Chakotay conclude that all of the crew are sharing the same dream. Meanwhile, in the dream, the senior officers are speculating on what is really going on. Since Chakotay has strangely disappeared, they assume that maybe he was right and that they were all dreaming. The captain says that they should still treat this like it is an alien invasion, so she, Torres, and Tuvok eventually make their way through a Jefferies tube and into main engineering.
Torres tries to shut down the dampening field, but the warp core suddenly turns on. The computer then warns that a warp core breach will occur in sixty seconds. The core cannot be ejected. They surround engineering with a containment field and evacuate. Janeway hesitates, however, and orders them to go out while she stays in. When the breach occurs, the ship shakes, but is not destroyed. Janeway comes out of engineering a few seconds later and concludes that they are still dreaming.
Back with Chakotay, Janeway suddenly appears on the bridge and explains that she woke up the same way he did. The crew gradually begins to awaken. They set a course away from the alien space, but then Chakotay sees the full moon on the viewscreen again. He tries to wake up but cannot. The Doctor says that he is paranoid and sedates him. Just then, Chakotay wakes up on the bridge. The Doctor says that he fell asleep again and that he had to inject him with a powerful compound to wake him up; by scanning for a certain neurogenic field, they are finally able to locate the exact location of the aliens. The Doctor sends him down with a hypospray to keep him awake.
In the dream world, Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres cannot wake themselves, but they know that they are dreaming and are thus in complete control. They grab phaser rifles and come across the aliens near the cargo bay. The aliens try to shoot them, but they cannot be harmed. Janeway orders everyone to stay in control of the dream but the aliens threaten that they will slowly waste away because they are not getting nutrition or muscle stimulation in the waking world.
Meanwhile, Chakotay is on the planet and cannot disable the field that is making the crew sleep. He finds a whole population of sleeping aliens, all who seem to be in a dreaming state. He begins to have trouble concentrating and is about to inject himself when he decides to inject one of the aliens instead because they look weak. He orders The Doctor to target that chamber with a photon torpedo and destroy it if he does not hear from Chakotay in five minutes. Chakotay wakes one of the aliens and orders him to turn off the field or he will start shooting. But just then he falls asleep and enters the dream. There, he tells the aliens that they will all be killed if they do not stop this dream immediately.
- "Chief medical officer's log, stardate 51471.3. With the neurogenic field neutralized, I've been successful in reviving the entire crew. Unfortunately, the experience has produced a troubling side effect for many of them – acute insomnia."
The Doctor is able to successfully revive all the crew members after the aliens deactivate the field. But now everyone has become an insomniac. After Chakotay, Paris, Kim, Tuvok, and Neelix are up early in the morning in the mess hall, Chakotay suggests that Neelix start breakfast.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
"It appears, that in my haste to report to the bridge, I neglected to put on my uniform."
- - Tuvok, after reporting to the bridge naked during a dream.
"Neelix, did you have a rough night or something?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Because you just poured me a steaming cup of cooking oil."
- - Tom Paris and Neelix
"Resistance is futile."
- - Seven of Nine, seconds before kissing Harry Kim rather forcibly
"Tell me more about your dream. Where exactly did you see the alien?"
"As a matter of fact, it was here in the turbolift."
"What happened?"
"The alien simply stared at me, as if scrutinizing my appearance."
"That's what happened in my dream. What did you do?"
"I returned to my quarters."
"Did the alien follow you?"
[His expression becomes unsettled] "He did."
"And then?"
[Discomfort sounding in his voice] "He watched me."
"Doing what?"
[Hesitating] "Getting dressed."
[Does a double take] "Getting dressed?"
"Yes."
[Looks at Tuvok rather oddly] "I don't suppose I should ask why you were undressed?"
"I would prefer that you didn't."
- - Janeway and Tuvok, talking about Tuvok's dream in the turbolift
"Either I've become impervious to antimatter explosions, or we're still dreaming."
- - Janeway, in the shared dream after a warp core breach
"I wonder what a Vulcan nightmare would be like."
"Alone, exiled on a planet, where the only form of communication is laughter."
- - B'Elanna Torres and Neelix, poking fun at Tuvok's "Vulcan dreams"
"And the next thing I knew I was being boiled alive in a pot of my own leola root stew."
"Talk about a nightmare!"
"Well, it was perfectly seasoned."
- - Neelix and B'Elanna Torres
[edit] Background Information
- In this episode, Roxann Dawson first started wearing an over-jacket on her uniform, with tools in her top pocket, as a disguise for her pregnancy. This wasn't the first time the costume department used this trick, as Gates McFadden wore a large lab coat during her pregnancy throughout TNG's fourth season. Dawson's pregnancy would, however, be written into the two-part episode "The Killing Game".
- Chakotay visualizes the moon in its pre-colonized state. In the previously released movie Star Trek: First Contact, Commander Riker states that the moon appears quite different in the 24th century than in the 21st century.
- This is the last episode of the series to be directed by Alexander Singer.
[edit] Video and DVD releases
- UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 4.7, catalogue number VHR 4628, 6 July 1998.
- As part of the VOY Season 4 DVD collection.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Guest Star
- Mark Colson as a Dream alien
[edit] Co-Stars
- Jennifer Grundy as an ensign
- Majel Barrett as the computer voice
[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars
- David Keith Anderson as Ashmore
- Stuart Coleman as a Dream alien
- Marvin deBaca as Timothy Lang
- Tarik Ergin as Ayala
- Kerry Hoyt as Fitzpatrick
- Adrian Tafoya as a Dream alien
[edit] References
2374; 47; animazine; Blain; chief medical officer's log, USS Voyager; Chile; coffee; cooking oil; deer; defense procedure omega; dream; dream species; Foster; isolation door; Jefferies tube; Kolopak; leola root; lucid dream; Luna; neurogenic field; nudity; phaser rifle; shuttle; sickbay; skiing; spring; Swift; warp core breach; Wildman, Samantha; spear
[edit] External link
| Previous episode: "Mortal Coil" | Star Trek: Voyager Season 4 | Next episode: "Message in a Bottle" |
