The Trouble With (5.24) "Relativity"

THE TROUBLE WITH (5.24) "RELATIVITY”

I am sure that many of you remember the late Season 5 episode - (5.24) "Relativity". In it, Seven-of-Nine was "recruited" by 29th century Federation time cops to prevent the destruction of Voyager by an illegal time traveler.

In this episode, Seven is recruited by Captain Braxton and Lieutenant Ducane of the 29th century timeship, Relativity, to stop a time traveling sabateur from placing a temporal weapon on Voyager to destroy it. Seven eventually discovers that a future Braxton is the sabateur. Suffering from temporal psychosis, the older Braxton wants to destroy Voyager in order to prevent Janeway and her crew from committing three temporal inversions that he had to fix . . . events that led to his illness.

As much as I found this episode mildly entertaining, there are two about "Relativity" that I found questionable. The first thing I found questionable had to do with Braxton’s memories. He should not have had memories of Voyager's trip to late 20th century Earth in "Future's End". By stopping Henry Starling (guest star Ed Begley Jr.) from accidentally destroying Earth, Janeway and Voyager’s crew managed to change the timeline. When Braxton appeared to take them back to the 24th century Delta Quadrant, he had NO memories of his 29 years on Earth. And the Braxton of ”Relativity” should NOT have had those memories. And yet, he mentioned his time on Earth in this episode.

What really irritated me about this episode was the fate of the Captain Braxton who commanded the ship. To understand what I am talking about, read the following scenes:

BRAXTON [OC]: Seven of Nine, report.
SEVEN: I have located the saboteur.
BRAXTON [OC]: Who is it?
SEVEN: It's you,
[Relativity]
SEVEN [OC]: Captain Braxton.
BRAXTON: Me?
[2372 Jefferies tube]
BRAXTON: More accurately, a future you.

Once everyone realized that a future Braxton was responsible for trying to sabotage Voyager, the following occurred:

[Relativity]
BRAXTON: Can you get a lock on him?
DUCANE: Negative. He's activated a dispersal node. I should say, you've activated a dispersal node.
BRAXTON: Don't be absurd. I have no wish to sabotage Voyager.
DUCANE: Not yet.
BRAXTON: Remodulate the transporters. Find a way to cut through the interference. I gave you an order, Lieutenant.
DUCANE: I'm sorry, sir. I'm taking command of this vessel, and I'm relieving you of duty for crimes you're going to commit.
BRAXTON: I haven't done anything.

For some reason, Captain Braxton’s first officer, Lieutenant Ducane (Jay Karnes) thought it was necessary to arrest him and assume command of the timeship. Why? What was his purpose? Braxton was right. He had done nothing wrong. Ducane should have been more concerned with the future Braxton, not the younger one. The first officer had no excuse to arrest someone who had done nothing wrong. What on earth were screenwriters Bryan Fuller, Nick Sagan and Michael Taylor thinking? As much as I liked this episode, this is sloppy writing of the first kind.

”Relativity” started out well. But once the older Braxton was revealed to be the saboteur attempting to destroy Voyager, the story went downhill. As I had pointed out earlier, Braxton should have never had memories of his 29 years on Earth. Even worse, the first officer of the timeship Relativity really had no excuse to arrest the younger Captain Braxton, who was not guilty of anything. What a waste of a potentially good story.