Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Vis À Vis (1998) User Reviews

Body swapping

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 6 February 2010]

Feeling somewhat bored of his routine aboard Voyager Tom has been avoiding his voluntary time helping in sick bay and has retreated into the holodeck where he is running a program simulating the repair of an old car. He regains interest in real life when an alien ship with an advance propulsion system turns up needing help to repair his engine. Tom asks if he can be assigned to helping Steth, the Alien pilot. The two of them quickly become friends and Steth invites Tom to join him on his travels. There is something strange about Steth though; he keeps changing appearance but only briefly when nobody is looking at him. We learn what he is up to when he is preparing to leave; he does something to Tom which causes them to swap appearances. He then stuns Tom and sends him away on his ship before returning to Voyager where he attempts to take over Tom's life. His friends think he is acting some what strangely but as he'd been somewhat withdrawn before Steth's arrival it is just assumed Tom is just distracted. Meanwhile when Tom wakes up he finds himself in a strange body being confronted by an alien fleet which is chased off by an alien woman claiming that Tom is actually in her body which was stolen over a year before. With this new alien Tom returns to Voyager where he must convince the crew that he really is Tom Paris.

This was a good enough stand alone episode centred on Tom and Steth, you certainly don't have to watch the series regularly to enjoy this episode. For regular viewers it may seem odd that Tom has suddenly got withdrawn when he seemed to happy enough with his position on the ship.

A plot hole big enough to fit the enterprise E in.

[thevacinstaller · 6/10 · 27 November 2021]

In this episode of Star Trek Voyager the crew saves Tom Paris from an alien evil doppelgänger and they use the newly discovered coaxial warp drive to make it back to the alpha quadrant .... .... wait a sec, that didn't happen at all...

That's right folks ---- The alien doppelganger was about to activate the newly installed coaxial warp drive on the voyager shuttle but was stopped and then the Voyager crew all collectively forgot that they had a working coaxial warp drive system installed in said shuttle.

I try to not be a debbie downer about such plot conveniences but the main plot of this show is about getting back home. How in the world was this missed in the writing room?

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The episode itself is alright. Tom Paris is having a midlife crisis and is one step away from buying a Harley when the plot happens and he learns to appreciate the banality of existence when his entire identity is taken away. It's .... interesting (?) to explore a starfleet officer just being totally bored with flying around the universe. Perhaps if it was actual depression I would have found it more captivating? When I was younger I aspired to be a world famous author but after a semester of college, I remember looking around the class room and knowing that at least 62% of my fellow classmates are superior writers to me ------ Do you want to watch a TV show that explores that? No.

Come on Tom, get it together ---- You get to pilot a space ship and you are dating the most consistently good star trek voyager female actresses. Sure, you are responsible for the deaths of 3 other pilots and you did try to cover it up ---- but that's old news man. We haven't even touched upon that since Season 1.

Sort of like a much, much more subtle version of "Turnabout Intruder"

[planktonrules · 7/10 · 23 February 2015]

One of the dumbest episodes of the original "Star Trek" series was its final show, "Turnabout Intruder". In it, a crazy woman trades bodies with Kirk against his will. The idea wasn't bad, but watching William Shatner overacting like a menopausal woman on crack was hilariously bad. Here in "Vis À Vis", however, they took a very similar plot but made it work much better--mostly due to much subtler acting.

When the show begins, Paris is acting a bit like an irresponsible jerk-face. However, when the ship encounters a seemingly nice alien (Dan Butler), Paris makes a new friend--or so he thinks. Soon, however, this alien steals Paris' body and creates all sorts of havoc.

If the alien sounds familiar, it's because Butler played Mad Dog on "Frasier" and you probably heard him there. Overall, well worth seeing though not exactly brilliant.

Once Again

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 2 September 2018]

It's interesting how some people get so uptight in their reviews of the more avant-garde episodes of this series. Yet they rate these tired old things without much hesitation quite hight. Once again, an alien inhabits a crew members body. Once again, a dangerous personage is allowed the run of the ship. Once again, the Doctor seems to have more superhuman qualities and abilities. All the car stuff and some of the byplay are fun, but it's nothing special. Good old Seven smells things out again. Can one imaging what a valuable entity she is on board?

Tom Paris is a dick...

[txriverotter · 6/10 · 27 June 2022]

He's the pilot of one of the most advanced ships in Starfleet (his words), he's got a beautiful, intelligent girlfriend and there is always another adventure in the Delta Quadrant, just waiting around the next star system. Not to mention his adventures in the holodeck.

But that's not enough for Tom Paris. He's booooored. And so slides right back into his bad ol' days of being a completely selfish jerk.

Enter Steth, a shape-shifting, shape-stealing alien that Voyager has picked up when his ship was ailing, who's also a completely selfish jerk. No wonder he and Paris get along so well!

For some reason, Chakotay deems Paris the "best man for the job" to help Steth repair his ship, when clearly that would be B'Alanna or Harry, actual engineers. But I guess that wouldn't have moved the plot along in the direction the writers wanted.

It also seems to me there are several instances that should've tipped the Voyager crew members off that Paris wasn't really Paris, but then again he was acting like such an ass, maybe they chalked it up to that.

This was an okay episode. Not great, but not as horrible as some.

Freaky Friday, Star Trek Edition

[popkiller · 7/10 · 9 August 2013]

Infinitely more interesting than the snoozefest of a two-parter that preceded this episode, Voyager gets super high concept when Tom, suddenly bored with everything except for fixing a 400 year old car, makes a new friend with a hot rod of his own.

That last bit wasn't intended as a double-entendre, but feel free to interpret it however you want.

Steth, Tom's new BFF, thinks he has The Right Stuff, and wants him to come test drive the new 2372's. Tom is nearly in, but Steth starts turning into a woman, and then takes over Tom's body. He's a shape-shifter! Sort of.

The writing's a little sloppy, but this is one of the rare Voyager episodes that is actually about something, even if it is a contrivance. Tom has to learn and grow as a person, and that means spending more time with his gorgeous girlfriend and less time repairing a 1969 Camaro on the Holodeck. Do they have a Dead Man's Curve simulation to test it out on? Also fun are the instant stakes in the audience knowing what's going on (alien posing as Tom), but the rest of the crew just thinking it's classic Tom Paris.

Anyway, this feels way more Star Trek-y than most of the recent episodes. Which is a nice change of pace for a Star Trek show.

Okay Tom Paris episode - never reaches potential

[snoozejonc · 6/10 · 4 June 2023]

Paris has commitment issues that border on a midlife crisis, before having an interesting encounter with an alien.

The sci-fi concept is a good one. An alien with this ability offers so much opportunity for actors to vary their delivery and would make a great reoccurring character that could cause chaos in certain situations. I also like the use of Seven of Nine, who by this point in the show is proving a great addition to the Voyager crew.

Generally I do not think the writers make the most of the opportunity. Paris' whinging in most scenes is annoying, likewise the general arrogance and snitching of The Doctor. There are also some very predictable contrivances that have been mentioned by other reviewers.

To be fair to the actors they do a good job with the material.

Impostor

[tomsly-40015 · 6/10 · 31 December 2023]

Well, Star Trek writers like the idea of an alien species that takes control of someone else's body and possesses it or pretends to be someone else. The good old impostor story, which Philip K. Dick already wrote in the 1950s - a classic in Sci Fi.

In this episode, an alien is able to switch bodies and chooses Tom Paris. Although Tom then acts like a jerk, no one even imagines the eventuality, that something must be wrong with him. Although they just met an alien guy in a high tech ship right before Tom became all weird and the crew has been possessed multiple times before by alien species already. Not eben B'Elanna becomes suspicious. So much for judge of character. Especially on a highly sophisticated star ship with its rules, and regulations - it is amazing that someone that doesn't know Starfleet or how to operate Voyager is able to blend in without anyone noticing that he is an impostor. Of course, the Voyager crew manages to put everyone back in his or her body again, thanks to the doctor that just achieves anything.

What is strange in this episode: They encounter this space ship that can fold space to travel vast distances really fast. But no one seems to be eagerly excited to maybe use this technology to retrofit Voyager and fly home faster. They try to build this technology in one of the shuttles but that's about it. No more word later about this fascinating piece of technology, that could get them home in no time or at least save them a lot of trouble with other alien species on their trip.