Counterpoint (episode) — memory alpha

Real world article

(written from a production point of view)

Voyager smuggles telepathic refugees through Devore space.

Summary

Teaser

The USS Voyager is accosted by two Devore warships, both far larger and more powerful than Voyager. One of the officers, Prax, hails Voyager telling the crew to prepare for an inspection. It soon becomes clear that the crew have already gone through this more than once and, knowing the drill, Voyager and its crew stand by to be boarded by Devore inspection teams and Captain Kathryn Janeway asks everyone to give them their full cooperation. Devore officers then start beaming aboard throughout the ship.

The lead Devore inspector Kashyk takes up residence in Captain Janeway's ready room and calls her in. He plays the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony throughout the ship to "relax" the crew and replicates Janeway some coffee. Prax leaves to conduct the inspection and Kashyk asks her to make herself "at home".

Act One

Throughout the ship, the crew endures a very through and rough inspection at the hands of the Devore officers who are more than disrespectful. Some crew members are lined up and individually scanned, while another deliberately drops one of The Doctor's cell cultures when asked to be careful. In engineering, Prax notices extra power in the transporter systems, but B'Elanna Torres explains it's part of a diagnostic. In the cargo bay, Prax also sees that there is contaminated antimatter which would interfere with their scanning, but takes no action, instead, probing Seven of Nine about her implants, convincing himself she is not telepathic.

In Janeway's ready room, Kashyk engages in small talk, expressing an interest in Human culture. He remarks on the contradictions he sees, such as violence and beauty or science and faith. He identifies with a soldier instead of artists. it soon becomes clear that what the Devore are looking for are telepaths, as he turns to the crew manifest and points out that Voyager has crewmembers with telepathic abilities, namely, Tuvok, Vorik (both Vulcan), Jurot, and Lon Suder (both Betazoids). Janeway responds they were all killed, which Kashyk finds convenient, but doesn't press the issue, preferring instead to present his argument that telepaths are dangerous and can't be trusted. Their conversation is interrupted by Prax, who reports no telepaths found, but he did find two course deviations that would normally result in the ship being impounded, and their crews detained and relocated. Kashyk forgives it, taking Janeway's word that they were simply avoiding ion storms. He says to the Captain that he is a reasonable man and, given their long journey home, she certainly could use a friend like him.

The Devore ships then leave Voyager, after which the crew hurry to release Tuvok, Jurot and Vorik from transporter suspension in cargo bay one, nearby the contaminated antimatter. As well as the three officers, twelve Brenari refugees, also telepathic, are also released.

Act Two

Janeway informs the passengers that the transport ship to pick them up is near, but the rendezvous coordinates have changed. The Doctor and Tuvok also inform her of a bigger problem: due to being placed in transporter suspension so frequently, some have shown evidence of cell degradation. The Doctor says that, if the transporter suspension continues to be used, more serious health problems could develop. Janeway turns to the new coordinates for the rendezvous, which, unfortunately, is a nebula another two days away. They'll have to find the best route they can.

The Captain enters the mess hall to get an update from Neelix regarding the status of the refugee children he has been helping care for. Neelix is telling the children a story when Janeway enters. Neelix dismisses the children so he and Janeway can talk in private. Neelix reassures the captain that she did the right thing by saving the refugees, but expresses mild concern at the stressful situation the children are dealing with. Janeway then asks if the kitchen is still open as she as is hungry and Neelix tells her, with affection, that the kitchen is "always open" to her. As the Captain and Neelix share a meal together, Voyager suddenly detects a Devore vessel. Believing that yet another inspection is in order, Janeway orders all telepaths to go into transporter suspension again. However, it turns out that this ship is piloted by one man alone: Kashyk.

Kashyk is out of uniform and tells Janeway that he knows all about the telepathic refugees, the transporter suspension, the nebula rendezvous, and the wormhole that she plans to transport them to for their escape. Kashyk informs them the nebula is a Devore trap, and that they will eventually find the wormhole. He says that he is defecting and requests asylum on the ship in return for his assistance in avoiding Devore ships. He assures her that he is her only way out of Devore space as only he knows about the ambush.

Act Three

She agrees to grant Kashyk safe passage out of Devore space if the Brenari are amenable. The Brenari leader, Kir, agrees to cooperate. Kir points Janeway to a scientist, Torat, who can help them predict the next appearance of the wormhole. At this point, Janeway begins to cooperate with Kashyk. Torat is reluctant to even talk to Voyager; Janeway has him beamed aboard so she can persuade him face to face. She introduces Kashyk as a fellow professor who doubts Torat's work. To prove himself, and in exchange for mercurium isochromate, Torat provides the two with some data on the wormhole.

Later, Janeway and Kashyk work to pinpoint the next appearance of the wormhole. They simply do not seem to be able to predict a random occurrence. After standard algorithms fail, Janeway, considering the music that is playing in the background, the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony Number Four, suggests that the pattern may be found in a subspace counterpoint: if they could run an algorithm based on subspace harmonics, they could reveal the pattern. Following this approach, the computer analysis finally works, allowing the next occurrence of the wormhole to be predicted in the Tehara system.

Kashyk and Janeway also get into a discussion about their homeworlds and principles and guiding philosophies when Janeway notes that Kashyk is taking considerable risk defecting from his own people and assisting these telepaths. She asks him why and Kashyk explains that three months ago when his team was inspecting a plasma refining vessel, they found a family of telepaths hiding in one of the extraction tanks. There was a child – very young – who had been inside it for days, barely able to breathe. When he lifted her out of the tank and sat her on the deck, she thanked him. He then sent her to the relocation center with the others knowing full well what would happen to her. After that, he could think of nothing else. And when he couldn't stand it any longer, he decided to leave. He tells Janeway that she is his deliverance. While finishing telling his story, they are interrupted by the computer voice that informs them that the analysis is complete.

Janeway accompanies Kashyk back to his quarters who asks her to join him especially because he has been looking forward to trying their replicator. But Janeway tells him that this won't be possible as she had the replicator taken offline in case he decided to replicate a weapon. She wishes him a good night and leaves.

Act Four

Unfortunately, though they are careful to keep their power output low to avoid detection, Voyager is soon detected by a Devore scanning array again. They warp away to the system, and, fortunately, Seven was able to more accurately locate the wormhole's location. Janeway plans to fight the ships with the new information about them she has obtained from Kashyk. Unfortunately, the ships will intercept them just as they arrive near the wormhole.

On the way to engineering, Janeway puts together a plan to fight, but Kashyk tells her she will never survive against two Devore ships and offers to take command of the impending inspection to ensure the refugees remain undetected. She is reluctant, as he could be detected himself, but still agrees. Kashyk promises to make the inspection very short, and Janeway promises to wait for him as long as she can by the wormhole. Right before his departure, they kiss passionately in the shuttle bay and she watches him leave.

Act Five

The Devore inspectors soon board the ship. Janeway meets Kashyk in her ready room, who plays the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony and demands that she cease altering her course and leave Devore space. After sending Prax away, he asks about the wormhole. She tells him it is 20,000 kilometers off the port bow and that a photon torpedo properly calibrated will force open the threshold long enough for Voyager to get through. Kashyk congratulates her, ordering Prax to Cargo Bay One to capture the refugees and ordering two photon torpedoes to be fired to destroy the wormhole. Janeway, who finally recognizes the deception, tells him that he has given a masterful performance. Kashyk says that on the contrary, he is impressed with her selflessness and Humanity that made all this so much easier. She asks him whether his touching story about the little girl was a fabrication as well. He tells her that the story was real but what he didn't tell her was that after wrestling with his ethics he realized that he had done the right thing in order to protect his people from a very real threat. With armed guards he escorts her to the bridge and fires the torpedoes onto the wormhole to destroy it.

Shuttles transport the Brenari through a wormhole

However, he soon realizes that it is he who has been double crossed: the neutrino emissions indicating a wormhole off the port bow are actually antimatter residue signatures, and it is not refugees, but cargo containers filled with vegetables that are suspended in the transporters in cargo bay one. Janeway changes the music to the second movement of Mahler's First Symphony, while the refugees escape through the wormhole via Class 2 shuttles. Prax suggests that Voyager be impounded and the crew sent to detention centers, but Kashyk angrily notes that neither of them can benefit from having this failure on their records.

When they are alone on the bridge, Kashyk congratulates Janeway for having played this so well. She tells him that she had to take some precautions but that she never lied to him because her offer to take him with them was genuine, and it would still stand if he had kept his part of the bargain. Kashyk merely smiles at her and before leaving tells her that for what it was worth, she made a tempting offer. He then leaves the bridge, and Janeway cannot help but be saddened by his betrayal even though she expected it.

Log entries

"Captain's log, supplemental. After weeks of playing hide and seek with the Devore inspectors, our goal is near: a transport vessel that will take our passengers to a wormhole leading out of hostile territory."

"Captain's log, supplemental. It's taken us nearly two days but we've managed to locate Torat, the man who's supposedly an expert on wormholes. Unfortunately, he seems reluctant to share his expertise."

Memorable quotes

"You created false readings!"
"That is the theme for this evening, isn't it?"

- Kashyk and Captain Janeway

"Prax, do you have the telepaths?"
"I have cargo containers... filled with vegetables!"

- Kashyk and Prax

"Federations, Imperiums. Why do you people feel such a need to align yourselves with monolithic organizations?"

- Torat

Background information

Story and script

This episode had the working title "Refugee". ([1]^(X); Delta Quadrant, p. 276)
The original pitch for this episode – written by Gregory L. Norris and Laura Van Vleet, based on a screenplay of Van Vleet's, and entitled "The Hiding" – was focused on Seven of Nine. The refugees were hiding in Voyager's landing struts and, when Voyager was forced to land, Seven risked her life to take the refugees into neutral space in a shuttlecraft, against Janeway's orders. The two pitchers were delighted with the changes made to their pitch by Michael Taylor, in particular the focus on a love story for Janeway. (Star Trek Monthly issue 80) Janeway's romantic stirrings, however, were originally to have been with someone quite different from Kashyk. "The original 'love interest' was one of the people who were being victimized," offered Joe Menosky. "We just turned it on its head." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 41)
Story editor Nick Sagan was involved in the pitching of the original plot concept, which he referred to as "one of the pitches I took for Voyager." He went on to say, "The writers pitched it to me as this story about aliens hiding on Voyager. The big part I think [was] trying to find the hook of it, so I pitched it to [executive producer] Brannon [Braga] as 'The Diary of Anne Frank on Voyager'. I could see at least six different ways of that playing out, and I think creating those tantalizing possibilities is a huge part of pitching for Star Trek." [2]
According to the unofficial reference book Delta Quadrant (p. 277), this installment – although containing only supplemental log entries – originally included a main entry that was ultimately cut for time.
Both Kate Mulgrew and Michael Taylor were of the opinion that this point in the series seemed a fitting time for Janeway to have a romantic liaison. Taylor offered, "It's about time Janeway had a romance, and a romantic partner worthy of her [...] [Kate Mulgrew] had been asking for some sort of romance, and when it came along, she saw that it was right for her character." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 38) Mulgrew herself commented of the episode, "This was, at long last, a story about the woman under the scientist." (Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log)

Production

This episode includes two past DS9 performers; J. Patrick McCormack previously played Admiral Bennett in "Doctor Bashir, I Presume", while Randy Oglesby had appeared as Ah-Kel and Ro-Kel in "Vortex" and as Silaran Prin in "The Darkness and the Light".
According to the book Delta Quadrant (p. 276), the Devore firearms were reused rifles from the fourth season installment "Waking Moments".

Continuity

Kashyk lists four telepathic crew members; Tuvok, Vorik, Jurot, and Suder. Janeway lies that Tuvok, Vorik, and Jurot died in a shuttle crash. She is however honest in saying Suder died in an incident with the Kazon – he was shot by a Kazon in the third season "Basics, Part II".
Janeway's list of telepaths on Voyager includes Tuvok and Vorik, confirming that they are the only Vulcans aboard, and indeed are seen to be the only ones to re-materialize when they are retrieved from the transporter pattern buffer. However, this would seem to contradict the third-season episode "Flashback" in which Tuvok implies there are more Vulcans aboard when he says "one of the other Vulcans on the ship". Although a possible explanation when the episode aired would be that the remaining Vulcans were among the unidentified casualties that have occurred since then, in the later episode "Repression" a female Vulcan can be seen among the crew and in series finale "Endgame", Janeway makes a comment in asking about "the other Vulcans on Voyager".
Janeway's list of telepaths on Voyager seems to exclude Lt. Stadi, the Betazoid helmsman who is killed in the pilot episode "Caretaker", Kes, who was a crewmember until "The Gift", or the (presumably) Vulcan nurse who also died in "Caretaker".
The okudagram depicting illegible personnel files of three telepathic crewmembers on Captain Janeway's desktop monitor referenced details of Tuvok's background from "Flashback", Vorik's pon farr from "Blood Fever", and several art department jokes about an "Ensign Dorik", whose tragic backstory is lifted directly from the lyrics of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. [3]
In revealing that Kashyk knows about the refugees, he says there are twelve of them. In fact, fourteen people are smuggled in the pattern buffer, three of which are Voyager crew. It would seem Kashyk is off by one.
Tuvok is at his station on the bridge when the Devore warships intercept Voyager at the end of the episode, and although presumably visible to Prax while a viewscreen commlink is established, is not noticed.
Normally hidden in the transporter buffer during inspections, the three telepathic crew members are apparently somewhere else during the final inspection, and apparently go undetected to the inspectors (who announce they have completed their inventory of the ship). Tuvok is at his station on the bridge moments before the inspection teams arrive, and it is never made clear where he goes when the bridge is cleared two scenes later.
Voyager loses two more shuttlecraft in this episode, for a total of nine, after having previously lost seven shuttles in "Initiations", "Non Sequitur", "Parturition", "Unity", "The Gift", "Day of Honor", and "Nemesis". In this episode, the two shuttles are gifted to the Brenari refugees for their escape from Devore space.
Two of Voyager's photon torpedoes are used in this episode (one by a shuttlecraft), thirteen having previously been used in "Night". This brings the total number of torpedoes confirmed to have been used by Voyager over the course of the series to 42, a total which exceeds the irreplaceable complement of 38 that had been established by Chakotay in the first season episode "The Cloud".
Though Kashyk says he has given up the title of inspector, Janeway nonetheless continues to address him as that – a subtle sign that she never completely trusts him.
Jurot is neither seen or mentioned after this episode. In "Dragon's Teeth", Janeway states she wishes she had a Betazoid on board, a possible indication that Jurot has been killed in the time between these two episodes.
Neelix tells a story set in the Forest of Forever, a fictional world introduced as a series of holodeck programs in "Once Upon a Time".
When Janeway and Kashyk are in the mess hall, Tchaikovsky's Symphony Number Four, 2nd movement is playing in the background.
The events of this episode are referenced in Star Trek: Prodigy's "Supernova, Part 1". An ensign on the USS Dauntless reveals to now Vice Admiral Janeway that she was one of the Brenari children rescued by Voyager during the events of "Counterpoint." Despite nine years having passed, Janeway is shown to still remember the incident and is pleased to meet the young woman again.
This episode marks the final live-action appearance to date of a Betazoid on Star Trek other than Deanna Troi.

Reception

This episode was selected by public vote in the UK as the best of the "Captain's Picks" (episodes selected by the four series' leads as their favorites) during the BBC's Star Trek Night on 16 September 2001.
Michael Taylor was impressed by Kate Mulgrew's acting in this installment. Taylor commented, "I think it was a great chance for Kate to show what she can do [...] She played the role to the hilt." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 38)
Joe Menosky was delighted with the writing of this episode and the change of Janeway's romantic interest to Kashyk. "How much interesting, if the 'romantic sparks' are between two enemies," Menosky commented. "It was one of those shows where you finish with the break and you just think, this is going to be great. This is where we found out what a good writer [Michael] Taylor is." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 31, No. 11, p. 41)
Kate Mulgrew thoroughly enjoyed this installment. She emotively described the outing as "a terrific episode" and said about the uncertainty of the motivations driving Janeway and Kashyk, "That was wonderful." The actress also enthused, "All of those layers, and all of those nuances and subtleties were terrific to play." (VOY Season 5 DVD easter egg) Additionally, Mulgrew remarked, "Well, I loved 'Counterpoint' [...] because I was so gratified, creatively [...] This was espionage at its best [...] It was a symphony, every scene with Mark Harelik [...] The whole marriage [between the writing, the characters and the actors] was almost perfect. I ran to work, every morning. So sorry when it ended. Every part was wonderful. Deeply satisfying work and that, you know, is everything." (Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log) Subsequently, she chose it as her favorite episode, and it was included as such in Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log.

Production history

10 September 1998: First day of filming, including scenes with Tuvok, Kashyk, and Prax. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3, p. 95)
11 September 1998: Filming of part of scene 52 (Int. Torat's Ship), scenes 51 and part of scene 52 (Int. Bridge), scene 43 (Int. Ready Room), scenes 53 and 54 (Int. Ready Room), and scene 49 (Int. Briefing room.) This is Randy Lowell's only day of filming in Torat makeup. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 94-95)
14 September 1998: Filming of scenes in sickbay, interior of Kashyk's ship, cargo bay, and engineering. This is Alexander Enberg's only day of filming in Vorik makeup. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3, pp. 94-95)
15 September 1998: Filming of scenes in mess hall and bridge. (Star Trek: The Magazine Volume 1, Issue 3, p. 94)

Video and DVD releases

UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 5.5, 7 June 1999
As part of the VOY Season 5 DVD collection
As Kate Mulgrew's episode choice in the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Captain's Log collection