Warlord

Kes has her body possessed by the consciousness of a vicious warlord.

This is an unoriginal episode, but is worth watching for the performances.

The story is as clichéd as Star Trek gets and the contrived nature of the technobabble makes the writing feel lazy. Making Kes the central character though does make it work reasonably well.

Much of the positivity comes from seeing Jennifer Lien playing a vastly different character. I think she does great work here and makes it feel real. Tim Russ is also very good, particularly in his scenes with Lien.

There is a bit too much of Neelix in annoying mode for me and the relationship between him and Kes still lacks plausibility. I disliked the opening scene in the holodeck immensely.

The production values are reasonably good, with some short but well made action sequences.

A truly breath-taking acting performance here by Jennifer Lien.

Normally her Voyager character Kes is underplayed, sympathetic and innocent (and she is always very effective, if rarely exciting as a goody-two-shoes).

This episode, however, turns the angelic Kes on her head, and she really sells an entirely different and conflicted character with a combination of incredible energy and nuance.

The story itself isn't anything special (which accounts for the good-but-not-great 8/10 rating), but in my opinion this is one of the best performances by any regular cast member in any Star Trek series.

When the show begins, Voyager discovers a ship that's about to explode. Naturally, being galactic goody-goodies, the ship swoops in to rescue the three person crew--even though they were at serious risk for being killed in the process. One of them seems beyond help but the other two are fine. What Voyager does NOT realize is that the dead crew member is a megalomaniac jerk who is a disposed despot. In his dying moments, he secretly places his consciousness into Kes. Soon, Kes and the two survivors steal a shuttle and head back to the home planet to take over and take revenge on everyone. Soon authorities who are seeking the despot arrive. When they hear what has occurred, they want to work with Voyager. Voyager wants to rescue Kes and the authorities just want to kill her...just in case.

It's nice to see Kes behaving like a sociopathic jerk--it was a welcome relief to her usual nice persona and must have been fun for Jennifer Lien. Her husky voice, promiscuity, nasty demeanor and overall yechiness was a nice change of pace, that's for sure. So is the show worth seeing because of this? Yes, but logically, I would have just shot Kes/despot in the face and points to the usual problem with "Star Trek: Voyager"--they cannot ever make a sacrifice and they always wait to have a magical solution. Additionally, seeing Kes and the despot arguing with each other inside Kes' head is pretty dull--and very talky. But, on the other hand, the blood out of the eye socket and fun over-acting was pretty cool and on balance it's pretty good.

In this episode of the range of the actress is stretched to her utter limits.

It also changes the character irrecoverably.

The whole thing is kind of a shock, because we don't know what's really going on and then all of a sudden Kes starts doing some very uncharacteristic things.

She even takes Tuvoc's teachings and uses them against him. Nothing can be taken for granted in this episode, things that would have worked before, will not work now.

But the real battle is going on within Kes herself.

This episode also changes her relationship with Neelix for the remainder of the time the character appears in the show. She is now a mature woman, at three years old. And it's also possible that this encounter gives Kes access to some of that incredibly dark stuff from "Cold Fire", because after this point she really starts coming into her mental and telekinetic abilities.

But there is no other way to say this: Kes has been violated, there was a stronger word that I can use but I'm pretty sure that bean counters at IMDb rejected my original review because I used that word. it is the most appropriate word for what has happened to Kes. But she does not accept the role of "victim" willingly, and in the end she proves to be the one who is stronger.

I'm sure my previous review had all kinds of spoilers in it, I don't really want to do that this time. But I am pretty sure that there were a few insights in that old review that were pretty important, which is why I want to see it back, thank you. Nothing makes me angrier than when I come in here to look over an episode that I had previously reviewed, and my original review has magically disappeared without any notification.

I got a chance to see Jennifer Lien at the Las Vegas convention August 2010. Seeing her with the crew reminded me of my favorite Voyager episode, "Warlord". The episode was well written. The music and camera angles were fabulous. The scenes were right out of our typical everyday struggle within ourselves....shall we fall to our desire to control others or shall we compromise with the good within us. Each scene stretched her talents to massive audition proportions. If only the directors could watch this episode. We'd see her on the BIG Screen with consistency. The scene that hit me personally was when "Kes" and "Nelix" were discussing, "..her desire to make friends without his involvement". The, "Kiss with Tuvok", scene was very surprising! The "Warlord" episode showed her to be a great convincing talented actress. It also showcased her then as she is still today...a beautiful, talented and versatile actress. I hope to see her in some major movies.