Unforgettable

Virginia Madsen stars as Kellin in this very unusual episode of "Star Trek: Voyager". After she has a brief fight with another ship very close to Voyager, Kellin contacts Voyager and asks for help from Chakotay specifically. Oddly, however, Chakotay doesn't recognize her. Soon you learn why--she's from a species that doesn't want outside contact and they go to very extreme lengths to keep it that way. If anyone leaves the planet, they are tracked down and anyone having contact forgets and their computers are wiped! Kellin insists that she'd spend a lot of time on Voyager and then proves this DID occur. So why, then, does she return? Well, it seems that Mr. Super-Sexy, Chakotay, has stolen her heart and she's here to seek asylum.

The notion of a world that goes to such extremes to keep its existence private is pretty unique. My only complaint is that having a cop whose job it is to bring in runaways then falling in love and wanting to defect is a bit hard to believe. Additionally, she KILLED her own kind in escaping and no one seemed to remember this or care. Odd...but still a good episode.

Well, the story itself sounds promising: A woman claims that Chakotay and her were in love but no one on Voyager remembers her. Then Chakotay falls in love with her again but loses her a second time.

To make this story work though, the writers had to come up with lots of unbelievable explanations. Like the pheromone this species produces which wipes the memory of each other species they encounter. Or the computer virus that erased all evidence of her in the systems.

First: There are life forms on board of Voyager that this species never encountered before: Humans, Vulcans, Klingons... even a former Borg drone. Yet we should believe that this memory erasing pheromone works on all of those species (what a marvelous evolution). Apparently on the doctor, too.

Second, obviously this species messes with the computer, too, to plant a virus there that erases each and every information about them. What sane captain, chief of security, chief of operations or chief of engineering would allow a stranger to tamper with Voyager's systems? And wouldn't Seven of Nine remember something due to her Borg implants or are they suddenly connected with the ship's computer? By the way: this computer virus thing, that has to work on a completely unknown alien operating system was stupid in Independence Day already. And don't even start with other non-digital traces: Written letters, DNA residue on objects etc.

And how comes, they haul the damaged alien vessel in, which is equipped with cloak technology that allows firing under cloak (something not even Klingons or Romulans were capable of) and also has advanced proton cannons that cut through shields, but don't try to investigate this technology and make use of it? Also no one tries to research this species, their pheromones, their personal cloaking ability, their unique culture. Janeway claims that they are explorers but yet, they hardly explore alien life forms in their entirety. Aren't there some xeno-biologists on board, or anthropologists, linguists, bio-technologists...?

As others already pointed out: I also did not feel any chemistry between Chakotay and Kellin and I doubt that both would have fallen head over heels in love with each other.

It also hurts to see how Chakotay just watches when the tracer shoots an energy beam at Kellin. Why didn't he use his phaser or jumped at him?

And Kellin tries to convince Chakotay for several days that they both were in love after the first time they met. She puts quite a lot of effort into it - romantic settings, the right situations, good storytelling. And then, after her memory was wiped by the tracer, Chakotay tries to convince her that they were in love and he takes about a minute or two to do so, just standing there without any romantic feelings at all. Not even an injured dog would have jumped into his arms to be rescued by him after that sort of emotionless of speech. He completely blows it there. But that's Voyager: You can't keep a love interest for more than one episode because viewers are too dumb obviously to remember all those new characters that might play a role in future episodes.

Or stun mode on phasers?

This reminds me of that Riker episode in TNG where he falls in love with someone and also mysteriously forgets about stun mode.

There is a some sort of pheromone that allows these people to interact with others, spend time and even become close. And have that completely fade after a short period of time. It's not made clear why or how this chemical tool was developed or whether it just something evolved. But it serves the purpose of allowing these people to keep their world and their tools completely secret. Apparently Robert Beltran found this to be his favorite episode. Sadly since this is only story, and we don't have that pheromone or devices to wipe memories. I won't be able to put this very weak story from my memory, damn.

This is not a bad episode. Tonally it's on point, dealing with the ephemeral nature of love and attraction.

The problem is the terrible casting of Chakotay's love interest. To describe her as wooden is an insult to forests.

This might be forgivable, but for the fact that she also has all the warmness and charm of a block of ice. The chemistry between Beltran and her registers at around absolute zero. A pretty tough hurdle to get over when they are supposed to fall in love multiple times.

In other words, forget it.