Repentance

This episode can be understood as a criticism of today's legal and justice systems. The parallels to the US system in particular cannot be overlooked. Unfortunately, the episode tries to raise the warning finger a little bit too often:

On the one hand, it examines the question of whether a civilized society should use the death penalty to punish crimes. According to the biblical motto "an eye for an eye". Another line of thought revolves around who should actually administer justice. Judges? Jurors? Or the victims' families? When the doctor essentially cures the felon, it raises the question of whether there are any mitigating circumstances for crimes. E.g., due to a mental or genetic illness (or even due to a problematic childhood). But the episode doesn't stop there. It also puts the finger in the wound of minorities at court. Especially here the criticism of the USA is very clear, because it is the minorities, the black community, who are punished and in prison at an above-average rate. And last but not least, the episode also wants to point out the unequal treatment of defendants. Wealthy and influential people often get away with a black eye, while the petty crook often feels the full force of the law.

All interesting questions, but too many to give them enough space in one episode.

This isn't a bad episode of "Star Trek: Voyager" although it is undermined by how preachy the plot becomes. When the show begins, Voyager comes upon a stricken ship. Aboard are a bunch of prisoners and their jailer. Captain Janeway agrees to take them to their home but problems develop when the crew starts identifying with some of the prisoners. In particular, Seven becomes friendly with a man who is a murderer. But, she understands that his medical condition is responsible and not the man himself--much like her not being guilty for what the Klingons made her do when she was a drone. It's an interesting dilemma but it's also one that is very obvious and one that seems too preachy at times.

...was actually the most predictable -- the number of reviewers upset that the episode chose to approach the issue from multiple tangents rather than just present it in the way the reviewers wanted.

Make no mistake (though, of course, angry narrowly-focused viewers will inevitably do so), this episode included a variety of perceptions and a variety of reasonable (if occasionally conflicting) arguments. From Seven's analytic counterpoint to the Doctor's programmed lack of objectivity, from Neelix's embracing of the issue of social inequality to the prisoner's behavior showing that sometimes people are guilty regardless of social problems, from the Neelix's argument for absolute objectivity to his concession to the logic of the prisoner's argument for subjective punishments (which he doesn't actually agree with, just concedes that the argument can be made), from the question of mental illness relative to the question of the safety of society, from the difficulty in imposing one's own system in cases of divergent justice systems, this episode brings them all to bear, and never settles resolutely on one side of any of these debates. The only real absolute is that the Federation opposes capital punishment in its own jurisdiction, and if that upsets a viewer, that viewer should probably have done more research on the history of Star Trek and the world-building that has been done since the original series. If you were surprised by *that*, you haven't been watching closely.

While this episode wasn't particularly profound, it definitely took great pains not to be preachy, making sure most of the conflicting opinions were allowed to go straight to the viewer without an attempt to compel one opinion or another. It's clear that most people getting upset are upset that the alternative views were presented as lucidly and free of excessive preachyness as the ones they themselves held. Like everyone else, I have my views on all the issues presented, and when the episode was over, I didn't feel in the least like the show confirmed or dismissed my own perspective, which is a nice accomplishment on such loaded issues.

Too many echo chambers atrophy our ability to see things clearly, and that's a real shame.

A number viewpoints on the nature of guilt and approaches to corrections are explored here in cursory, but thoughtful ways that needn't be reiterated here. What is interesting is that the A and B stories present us with two types of inmates to present these ideas, the first is a sociopath who is definitely guilty of his crimes, and the second is a model prisoner whose a member of an ethnic minority that is over represented within the society's penal system. The former explores neurobiology as it relates to culpability when it comes to violent crime, while the other introduces the idea of structural inequality in the criminal justice system.

The episode gives addresses the A story with an acceptable amount with intellectual rigor, while kind of unforgivably punting on the subject of bias in corrections in the B story. What makes the latter so infuriating is that idea is treated as naive by beloved characters whose skepticism serves as foreshadowing for a not terribly unpredictable twist. Systemic inequality was then and is now a far more pertinent subject for this type of allegory, and deserved better treatment than what happens in this episode.

Crime hawks will not be entirely satisfied with this episode. Abolitionists will be let down entirely. But those who never find themselves thinking about these issues at all may find themselves engaging with some new ideas here.

Solid performances, and parts of the script are predictable, but it is a decent treatment of several ethical dilemmas. Yes, they've been addressed elsewhere, numerous times, and some of the issues are handled with all the subtlety of of a framing hammer. But the acting is good, the script is solid, and the end isn't nearly as preachy as others have suggested. All in all, it's a better than average episode, and worth watching.