Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Muse (2000) User Reviews

Voyager Meets Sophocles

[calibanplayer · 8/10 · 8 May 2007]

The episode starts at an outdoor theatre on a planet resembling Ancient Greece. We see the inhabitants performing a play about B'Elanna Torres in the Delta Flyer crashing on their planet. We find out the play's writer has found B'Elanna and the crashed Delta Flyer. He has mistaken her for an "Eternal" a celestial being similar to the Greek Gods. He agrees to help B'Elanna try to repair the Flyer in return for more information for his next play.

This is a neat episode that shows what a Voyager episode would look like if performed in an amphitheatre. True Trek fans will notice John Schuck (the Kingon Ambassador from the Trek movies 4 & 6), though you have to go by his voice since he's not a Kingon here.

Also featured is actress Kellie Waymire who is probably most notably known by in the Trek World as Crewmen Cutler from Enterprise and non-Trek fans from the HBO show Six Feet Under and several other TV & Movie appearances before her untimely death in November of 2003 at age 36.

A good episode and a glimpse into a career cut far too short.

B'Elanna inspires

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 24 July 2020]

A crash-landed B'Elanna Torres plays the muse who inspires the writing of a Greek style dramatic poet in return for helping her get back to Voyager.

The concept of this episode is fabulous and contains some interesting nods to the impact of art on civilisations. Doing it with a piece of pop culture like Star Trek naturally acts as a homage to the ideals of the original series.

Whether or not the plot itself was the best way to bring the concept to screen is debatable. All that from a ships log - really? How much do we really care about these individuals, the play and the impact it will have?

That being said, there are many other things in addition to the main themes that made me enjoy the episode. For a start this is one of the best episodes for the Torres character giving her plenty to do and she does it well.

The scenes where the poet discusses Voyager crew members are edited to appear right next to scenes that involve those same characters. This is really well done and works perfectly. The sequences with Tuvok are superb.

How drama is structured and the classic elements of the Greek production is excellent and includes a lot of accurate detail.

It ends very cinematically and with emotion, leaving the final image in your head after the episode finishes.

Goofy and campy and fully Star Trek. The new Star Trek writers ought to learn from it.

[ragingrei · 8/10 · 14 September 2021]

"Captain Janeway kissing Commander Chakotay? Tom Paris kissing Seven of Nine? I don't see the point."

Exactly, Picard writers.

It's playtime!

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 2 March 2015]

While on a mission, there's a shuttle accident and B'Elanna is stuck on a planet which is somewhat similar to ancient Greece. Where Harry Kim happens to be is unknown, as he left the shuttle in an escape pod. As for B'Elanna she's unconscious and an unscrupulous playwright has found her. Using the logs and by talking with her with she is tied up by the guy, he learns a lot about her, Voyager and the crew and soon begins writing plays with enchant his people. As long as he holds her prisoner, this guy will be a huge success. However, later he gets an idea--perhaps the stories of Voyager and her friendly mission could help his planet avoid war--but he needs her help to do this.

This is a weird episode. Certainly not a great one but entertaining and different. Worth your time.

B'Ellana the goddess

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 22 April 2010]

This B'Elanna led episode found her stranded on a planet where Kelis, a local playwright, believes that she is a deity and uses the logs on the crashed Delta Flyer to inspire him to write a play about how B'Elanna and Harry got lost while looking for dilithium crystals. His play is a success and his benefactor demands a second play the next week telling more about the adventures of B'Elanna. Unsure about what the new play should be about he returns to the Flyer where he finds that B'Elanna has woken up. In exchange for helping him come up with a new story she gets him to find items that she needs to repair the communication system. When it looks like his patron is going to go to war with a enemy Kelis decides that he can use his new play to counsel him to avoid conflict. When Voyager arrives B'Elanna finds time to make a personal appearance in the play to help Kelis.

I found this story to be fairly entertaining, I liked how a culture similar to ancient Greece has taken B'Ellana as a goddess, or "eternal" as they call them. One of the funnier scenes in Voyager was provided when Tuvok, who had stay up for almost two weeks, fell asleep on the bridge and started to snore.

Remarkable Script that no one seems to "get."

[aciolino · 9/10 · 30 June 2012]

Here is the finest script in the Voyager literature, perhaps in the top 10 of all S.T. scripts. It is about Star Trek, itself, its inception and purpose and Roddenberry's vision for the show.

For those who may not know Star Trek came along when the US was becoming more and more heavily involved in Viet Nam. Roddenberry believed, as did others that great art, theater, etc, when done thoughtfully and meaningfully would emancipate the human race from all it's faults, that faults that bring humans to the brink of war. So much of the original series was about that very point, and here we have it played out beautifully, with B'lanna the ersatz Roddenberry and the play she and the playwright virtually improvise a plea for clear headed thinking that would lead to a peaceful resolution of a military conflict. It's all there.

Please note the beauty of the final image. It doesn't get better than that on television. Well done.

Aeschylus in Space

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 14 September 2018]

Somehow, on another planet, Greek tragedy has been transformed. A play is being performed based on the Voyager story. Torres is at the center of the play as are other Voyager characters. It seems that the shuttle has crashed and B'Lanna is being looked after by a young playwright. There are all kinds of issues, including the usual religious stuff, that complicate things. Well done in some respects, but it again does nothing to help the voyage home.

Classic

[ktsmith-40854 · 9/10 · 27 March 2020]

Had to watch this after it was referenced in the wrap-up of a lecture series on Greek tragedy. The lecturer noted the many accurate reflections of classic tragedy in the episode: the stage centered by the altar, the poet's discussion of tragedy's ritual origins, the chorus and mask of course, and the poet's adherence to mandatory elements of Aristotle's Poetics--the sudden revelation (anagnorisis), turning the character from good to bad in a blink of an eye (peripetiteia), etc.

From this classic structure, the episode's dialogue stands out and the characters have a special luster, such as B'Elanna as Muse, because, as Aristotle put it, all those parts fall into place within a good plot.

On top of the excellent irony, tragedy's transformative power is a touching point at the end.

Really an interesting, well done episode. The kind of bottle episode that is a credit to bottle episodes.

That'll be me then.

[duncancmccann · 24 March 2020]

The other reviewers seem to be regarding this as some sort of Rosetta Stone to Gene Roddenberry's ST intentions.

Sorry, I was just a bit bored. Isn't this show about getting to ship and the crew home? Most of season 6 seems to be dedicated to weak plots and anything that doesn't actually involve the 'voyage'.

One character episodes tend to be dodgy. Whilst this isn't as bad as the Harry Kim solo flights, it is just dull. Back to the storyline please...

The Vulkin in Love!

[create · 6/10 · 25 December 2021]

In a lift of the award winning Shakespeare in Love, B'Elaana crash-lands on a hidden planet (cue the final scene of said movie); and provides inspiration to a local playwright.

It's an okay episode. No, Voyager does not get closer to home. Nor is there character development. If anything, Joe Menosky, Fuller and Taylor focuses most of their messages to the criticism they had been receiving at the time from both fans and professionals.

As actors of the plays struggle with the characters of the shipmates, most of the complaints of the actors mirrored the complaints of the viewing audience.

Not bad. Just okay.

So boring, even Tuvok fell asleep

[gregrickaby · 3/10 · 11 June 2020]

Some of my wife's favorite episodes of Star Trek were the Ferengi episodes from DS9, so you know she has a high tolerance for the absurd.

We understand this one was Gene's vision about the future, as told through Greek mythology. Even still, my wife looked at me and asked, "What is going on here? Aren't they supposed to be trying to get home from the Delta Quadrant?" You know it's bad, when my Ferengi loving wife is bored.

The highlight was Tuvok falling asleep on the bridge, and the low point was this episode adding nothing to the story arc. 9/10 ZZZs

Underrated episode

[zondazombie · 9/10 · 25 April 2018]

This episode is underrated! It is funny and entertaining, while also being clever and resolved. It has serious undertones, showing how inspiring Star Trek really is, and the good messages it inspires, but within a simulacrum that is so ridiculous it's hilarious.

Punch-and-Judy show in space

[tomsly-40015 · 2/10 · 26 January 2024]

Anyone who gives this episode 10 stars has apparently not only lost control of their life but also all credibility. Just because something was produced under the Star Trek name doesn't mean it's automatically top-notch. You should also look at reviews relatively. If this episode is worth 10 stars, then episodes like "Blink of an eye" should be worth 50 stars - at least! But of course there are a few Star Trek nerds who interpret all the philosophical wisdom on earth into this episode and put it on the same level as literary masterpieces like Iliad, War and Peace or Romeo & Juliet.

This episode is basically summed up relatively simply: Torres and Kim crashed onto a planet that is very reminiscent of ancient Greece. There, a poet goes through Torres' logbooks and uses all these scraps of information to put together an ancient stage play in which Torres is the central character. Since he seems to be a bit of a nonentity, he can't think of a meaningful ending (which even his fellow actors complain about). That's why Torres pulls out the old magician's "disappearing on stage" trick and beams away in the final act. The patron is thrilled so that the self-proclaimed poet can keep his head, curtain, applause, tears, the end.

That's it. This episode doesn't have anything more to offer. Except that the Prime Directive was violated again, but no one cares. And that the poet always pronounces "Torres" like "Torreeeeeees".

Voyager's "The Inner Light"

[bgaiv · 10/10 · 3 July 2022]

I avoided this episode for years because "B'Elanna helps a young poet write a play after crashing another shuttle with Harry and awaiting rescue from Voyager"... it's impossible to overstate how boring and stupid this premise sounds.

It's certainly NOT for everyone, but this reminds me of TNG's "The Inner Light" in a very favorable way. It's mechanically similar in that a primary character is stranded in a very different world.

"The Inner Light" is far more serious than "Muse", but "Muse" manages a surprisingly emotional ending.

It was amazing to see Voyager's saga depicted in this Ancient Greek way. These plays actually work! The "gleaming cities of Earth", "shiny Voyager far from home." "Seven" warning the audience to say nothing or they will also be assimilated. Great stuff!

The poet even works in the Delaney sisters as an attempted (in story) plot point. In a meta sense, obviously the sisters were meant as a running gag. But the episode treats it in a plausible way from the point of view of Kellis.

I'm an old TOS and TNG person and didn't always love Voyager, but I would put this one up there as fine as the best of those shows.

It's true, there is a lot of Greek in this episode

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 24 November 2019]

This episode is an episode within an episode.

It is a play based on the episode being created and performed within the episode.

It's not the technical aspects of Star Trek that we need to focus on here, those things never have been important. Doesn't really matter whether the science is correct or not or feasible or not.

The science has always been part of the "wagon train to the stars" which Gene Roddenberry created back in the 60s, instead of a wagon train being drawn by horses across the country to lands that nobody had ever seen other than Native American tribes, The enterprise, voyager, the ships in deep space nine, NX01 enterprise, and even Discovery (Discovery even more so, actually- because they have gone the furthest any Trek has gone before in space and time)- these are the wagon trains that Janeway and her crew are riding. "It's always about the journey".

Kelis the Poet has accidentally stumbled onto a gold mine, as most of the best entertainments in our time are based partially on real events, and all of the best writers for movies and television write from the perspective of things that they had personally seen firsthand: Kelis finds The Delta flyer on a rocky ridge, with one survivor intact.

He listens to the Flyer's logs and is able to piece together the plot of this episode which he turns into a play.

But the ongoing plight of Torres gives him even more material, and they become necessary collaborators.

Kellie Waymire (RIP) plays his GF and co-actor, who gets a little miffed because of the time Kelis is putting into his tale of the "voyager eternals"

"Shining voyager, far from home"

Despite this unusual episode being an episode within an episode, there is a lot of theatrical truth that Kelis gives us. He talks about the power of theatre, and the ability to change the direction of a leader. Which is a good thing. I wish we had an actual leader that could be moved by theater, but in 2019 we don't, perhaps after 2020, we will.

One thing that I've never noticed before (despite the Trivia entry that talks about this) is that the masks that the "Kelis Players" use in the production are pretty fair representational images of the various voyager crew that are being depicted. That is something I had not noticed and I have seen this episode at least a dozen times.

This episode is an important behind the scenes look at the creation of any show and of voyager in general, and how one story is created. We see Kelis discussing his play in a room with his other actors which are also pitching in, this is how any modern show operates as well, they have a room where they pitch ideas back-and-forth. This is generally called "the bull-pen", and it is used in comicbook creation as well. It's a time honored tradition.

Violates the Prime Directive with Impunity

[markbyrn-1 · 3/10 · 13 January 2024]

The muse is a goofy bottle episode in which B'lanna Torres gets involved with thespians from a primitive alien culture. How this happened was a rather dubious scenario of Torres and Harry Kim being sent by themselves on an away mission to get some dilithium. Unforunately, the shuttle on a planet crashes and Torress is alone as Harry Kim took an escape pod and landed somewhere else on the planet, and wasn't seen until near the end of the episode.

Fantastically, only one alien from the planet sees the crashed shuttle and it happens to be a playwright and actor. He somehow manages to play the shuttle logs while Torres is knocked out, and use the information as fodder for a play. One play is not enough though and the playwright returns to the shuttle to get more fodder from Torres herself as he had tied her up. Torres convinces him to help her get some dilithium and this is where the prime directive was violated with impunity to include Toress being transported back to the ship from the stage in front of an aghast audience.

Really clever and enjoyable

[Hughmanity · 9/10 · 22 February 2021]

It's easy to dismiss this lighthearted episode because it's not an epic battle with the Borg or a time travel mind bender. What it is, is a very cleverly written and enjoyable episode that combines the art of Greek plays with the ethos of Star Trek. It's an episode within an episode, with the playwright telling the story of B'elanna and Voyager on the stage while she attempts a real life rescue of herself.

Extremely well done and I even enjoyed B'elanna's character more than usual as she found some nice compassion and creativity in the ending.

Should have had a character named Gene.

[thevacinstaller · 8/10 · 14 February 2023]

I dig it when a star trek episode has a deeper meaning other then what is presented on screen. This has a couple of messages within it --- the clearly obvious one being the transformative power of the written/performed word in bringing about a change in perception. The second is a love letter to TOS, and the episode essentially plays out as one of the classic episodes from the 60's series.

It's one of those episodes that can appear to be boring until you really dig into what the point of it was ----- after that you can see the design and it's quite clever.

I bet Gene would have enjoyed this cerebral episode for sure. I am bumping it up a few points it for creativity and honoring the legacy and ancient stories that inspired Roddenberry and his contemporaries.

"To the gleaming cities of Earth, where Peace reigns, and Hatred has no home..."

[mouzafphaerre · 10/10 · 26 June 2020]

This unfairly underrated episode not only summarizes the gist of true Star Trek in a neat yet unassuming fashion, but -unlike in several other instances- manages to portray a Bronze Age society without repeating the outmoded structuralist conceptions, while elegantly making use of tragic drama not as a device per se but as an in-world element.

Almost fully enjoyable by anyone without a knowledge of Star Trek or Voyager, or a particular affinity with science-fiction at large. Especially recommended for such minds that enjoy exploring the ways to apply Tragic Drama -or ancient cultures in general- within a contemporary framework.

One of my top Star Trek (1965-2005) episodes.

Number One Best Episode of the Series

[godzilla77 · 10/10 · 26 March 2020]

So rare to see sci-fi as smart as this and as compelling on the subject of storytelling. This is what Trek has always been about. Super metatextual and fun, but it's also super satisfying.

Meanwhile, yeah, no big explosions. Definitely one of the last gasps of great Voyager. Joe Menosky's best script too.

Theater drama without the nonsense of cast

[craig_vandertie · 8/10 · 19 March 2019]

Theater drama without the nonsense of people breaking into song and/or dance most captivatingly entertaining, but then the technical aspects took a fake science turn as in Energy Matter Transporters can only beam up and down to transport someone over terrain or the curvature/horizon of a planet would require receiver/emitter stations not to mention just how did that race understand our language and vice versa?

I do wish the science and technical advisors would stick to at least believable scientific and technical principles.