Star Trek: Voyager (TV Series) Innocence (1996) User Reviews

Children destined to die

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 27 July 2010]

Shortly after Tuvok and a previously unseen crewman crash on a supposedly uninhabited moon the crewman dies and Tuvok realises he is not alone; there are three children there with him. The tell him that they too have crashed and that there are no other survivors, they also warn him that there is a deadly monster there which has already taken some of their number. Back on Voyager a group of aliens called the Drayans are being greeted in preparation for requesting their help getting vital minerals. They haven't been there long when they are called away and suggest Voyager goes on its way. The head to the moon Tuvok is on and the children tell him that they will be killed if they are found; they have been sent there to die. After a night on the surface two of the children disappear suggesting that there may be some truth in what they said. Tuvok attempts to save the surviving child after repairing the shuttle, unfortunately the Drayans are keen to ensure they don't leave the planet.

This was a reasonable episode, Tim Russ did a good job as Tuvok and the children were neither overly precocious nor irritating. The story itself isn't as gripping as most stories although there was a nice twist at the end that I won't spoil here. The twist is quite memorable so the story does lose something on repeated viewings.

Star Trek: Voyager - Innocence

[Scarecrow-88 · 7/10 · 3 January 2017]

This episode really touched me, especially the twist ending regarding "end of life". "Curious Case of Benjamin Button" type plot is quite a stunner, and the final scene where Tuvok agrees to the honorable "watch" with little girl Tressa (Tiffany Taubman) really tugged on my heartstrings. The Voyager encounters an isolationist race known as the Drayans, hoping for diplomatic relations. The Drayans have particular crystals of great importance to the Voyager, with Janeway hoping diplomatic trust and ongoing talks can result in prosperity for both parties, jeopardized by a developing situation where Tuvok's shuttle craft crashes on a moon due to the turbulent ionosphere. Tuvok loses a member of his two party shuttle crew due to the crash, and three Drayan children (Taubman, Sarah Freeman, and Tahj Mowry) emerge from the nearby forest looking for his protection. Drayan representative, Alicia (Marnie McPhail), knows of Tuvok's "interference" in keeping the children on the moon "safe from the morok" and commissions a mission to prevent him from doing so. The children tell Tuvok that their shuttle craft also crashed on the moon, with the adult crew perishing and that a monster in a cave comes out at night to kill them (as it has other children).

The novelty of Tuvok in charge of children who misbehave and want to play with his shuttle devices as if they were toys (and be the one who sits closest to him while working on repairs) is the real pleasure of this particular episode. He speaks on how the Vulcan adults hold nothing secret from their children, not keeping secrets from them, believing "make believe monsters" should be discounted, especially teaching them of logic's role in their upbringing. He even sings a folk tale to get them to sleep at a campfire during the night which offers quite a special moment in the episode. His handling of them, and a devotion to protect and rescue them, is a real treat. Meanwhile Janeway must find a way to try and rescue Tuvok as Alicia and her Drayan crew becomes agitated and unsettled by another race disrupting their natural order of things…and the children's fate on the moon is a major part of that. I enjoyed the early exchange between Janeway and her #1 Chakotay regarding diplomatic introductions with new races, as it produces back stories shared between respected colleagues on past mistakes and philosophies, with them meeting the Drayan officials professionally and warmly. I like how a terribly difficult situation is eventually handled proficiently. But this is Tuvok's episode all the way and how he deals with an unexpected situation is quite satisfying. This episode shows that in the Trek universe meeting new races and achieving common ground and respect isn't always an easy road but can be successful when there is understanding. Tuvok's initial resistance towards Alicia's demands to leave the children on the planet, vowing to see Tressa is protected, is honorable.

Holy Benjamin Button!

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 20 August 2018]

I won't give the ending away. Suffice it to say that this is a neat little episode. It is mostly that because of Tuvok's ineptness at babysitting a group of children he finds, after crashing his shuttle on a planet. He is hilarious, maintaining his stoic Vulcaness while trying to placate the little ones. One interesting factor has to do with the secrecy of the inhabitants of the planet. Initially, I thought, "Why don't you just tell them about your belief system" and the uniqueness of your species. Then I thought, the self righteous would come running to try to change things. I enjoyed this and admired Janeway's willingness to be open minded.

Could easily be better.

[wwcanoer-tech · 7/10 · 27 October 2021]

The viewer must always suspend belief for a part of each episode but this could be minimized if they put a little more thought into it.

Ex. 1: "The tricorder can hide us from their scanners." Wow. If tricorders could really do this, then how many plots would be ruined?!

Better: Hide in the cave. It is a sacred place that the search party will not want to enter. There can be a pile of rocks to hide behind that have a special metal that will hide them from the scanners. But a hole to peer through to see the searchers at the entrance. They either stay near the entrance where there are no clothes, or they can find the clothes and then the children will be assured that there is no monster, that their friends died peacefully, but they will still be scared of how they died or where they went.

Ex. 2: Why are the children sleeping outside by a campfire? Since they are scared, they would have all slept inside the shuttle. Tuvok could show them how to open the door when they need to go pee (or they ask Tuvok). The child just says "I need to go", the door is opened, the child goes out but does not return. Tuvok cannot find him, or finds his clothes in the cave. The mystery holds but is more plausible. Maybe even more scary.

Ex. 3: Voyageur can see the Tuvol and child from space, so the aliens can probably see her too. So why even let voyageur see them? It's not necessary for the plot. They would still fly down to the shuttle.

Ex 4: Some things can't be explained away, such as why the searchers leave. Even someone incompetent would leave sentries, or a monitoring device or return several times. It does not make sense to have no searchers return. How do the searchers spend all of the next perhaps 24 hours?

Better: (1) More realistic if Tuvok needs to hide the children one place and then sneak past (or disable) the searchers to get into the shuttle to communicate with Voyageur. Or (2) After they evade the first search party, Tuvok says "They will return. It's too dangerous to stay outside, we must lock ourselves in the shuttle. He can even disable two sentries in order to regain access to the shuttle." Then there's time for the interaction with the kids while Tuvok tries to repair the shuttle. That night, one or two of the kids could even disappear while locked inside the shuttle. This would be even scarier! When Janeway arrives with the alien leader, then the door is opened and everything is explained.

Of course, these ideas need to be flushed out further, but I believe that you can make a better, more believable, coherent story without losing the essential storyline.

Note: Many reviewers describe Tuvok as motherly. This is a sad statement about our society. Tuvok is fatherly. Fathers parent too.

Decent Tuvok episode

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 19 October 2022]

Tuvok finds a group of children who latch on to him.

The premise of the story is pretty good as it provides a good opportunity to develop the character and Vulcan attitudes towards parenthood. I love how he talks to them like adults.

It's all done in an amusing way and is not overly sentimental. The twist at the end is good, but parts of the build up are pretty contrived to make it a dramatic reveal for the audience, and ends up being quick exposition dump this is not very cinematic.

Tim Russ gives a strong performance and has decent chemistry with the child actors.

The production design is reasonably good, but nothing is particularly memorable about the look and feel of it. It feels very much like the Star Trek of old.

Mary Poppins he ain't!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 15 February 2015]

I liked this episode, as it gives the viewer a chance to see Tuvok playing mother to a group of children! It's kind of cute.

The show begins with a shuttle crashing onto a moon. The usual 'red shirt' is killed--leaving Tuvok to try to figure a way off the place. However, he's surprised when he discovers several children running about the place. According to the kids, the adults were killed when their shuttle crashed. So, Tuvok tries to work on fixing the ship while trying to ignore the kids--as they annoy him repeatedly. Surprisingly, he seems pretty chill with this--and is a surprisingly nice, albeit Vulcan, surrogate mother. However, soon the kids start disappearing and they say it's some sort of monster that's eating them. What's really happening?! I really don't want to describe the plot any more, as it would reveal the mystery.

Overall, this episode is creative and charming. Even the downbeat ending manages to charm. Well worth seeing.

Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Vulcan

[Bolesroor · 10/10 · 2 February 2011]

"Eating ice cream and jumping on the bed is illogical..."

So says Tuvok as maternal caretaker to a bunch of children stranded on a lonely planet. This is a nice juxtaposition of character and situation, and the episode never becomes too silly or mawkish. This is an excellent Vulcan premise that might even make the TOS writers jealous... Spock would have been great here.

The other nice thing about this episode is the final reveal: it is as brilliant and original as the best of TOS, giving me the feeling that Star Trek's ideals might very well be alive and well beneath the bleak darkness of Voyager. Good job, guys...

GRADE: A

Skip it

[brianjohnson-20043 · 4/10 · 23 February 2021]

Not my favorite episode. First off, the pacing seems really slows. But more than that, this episode is an example of a story where an important bit of information which is meant to be key to the intrigue of the story isn't revealed until close to the end of the episode. And this information being withheld makes little to no sense within the context of the world they created for the story.

If some key information isn't going to be revealed to the key characters (and the audience) until the end, it's best for that key information to have been concealed for an acceptance narrative story reason. That isn't what we get with this episode. There were many opportunities and good reasons for the characters to reveal the importance bit of information much sooner. And that just makes the episode not seem very realistic or interesting once everyone learns the twist. Instead one just feels manipulated.

It also doesn't help that this episode comes after one of the best if not the best Voyager episode of season 2.

Also, you won't miss any key info for Voyager overall if you skip it.

Beautiful story

[sdonaldson-78042 · 10/10 · 17 October 2020]

I'm a huge Star Trek fan and this is one of my favorite voyager episodes. Not sure why the others disliked it, I found the whole idea and story so touching, I was sobbing at the end. I do have strong beliefs on life after death and do not fear death, so maybe that's where the others differ. But highly recommend! 👍🙏💕

INNOCENCE episode. I gave this a 1. It was a ridiculous concept. SPOILERS.

[DaytonaBob · 1/10 · 30 April 2019]

A civilization where they are born OLD and grow young and die???

Seriously? Science Fiction writers really have a very small amount of clues as to how to write science fiction with children as the protagonists. This story line was just beyond even the ken of science fiction.

There is no reasonable explanation as to how they are born OLD? I mean REALLY? That defies any ability of explanation.NONE. Born with what? Gray hair and wrinkly old body? No teeth and ....just really stupid.

What gives birth to them? AN elephant?

The only interesting thing about this episode is how well Tim Russ played an exasperated Vulcan trying to work with children.

But the episode tugs for all the wrong reasons.

AND what is this about ALWAYS having atmospheric interference when there is an emergency? It does get old.

Further I love the Star Trek shows but ever so often this nonsense about "well we'll never get home if we cannot get these crystals and they won't give them to us or sell them so we'll just have to go".

NO, the moon is huge, go there, get what you need and leave. What are they going to do? File a complain with Federation headquarters on Earth?

Survival of her crew is the ONLY thing that matters. They always seem to have just enough they think to find another planet with what they need.

BUT what if they didn't? Would she let her crew die just to protect some idiot "we cannot break their laws even if it costs us our lives"

BULL.

There was another episode where the people were just plain hostile and she was willing to sacrifice her crew instead of getting what was needed to keep them going and alive. SORRY but her first responsibility is to the crew and ship. IF need be you go in either in secret and just take what you need or if there is no other way, go in guns blazing, take what you need and split.

This also brings up another question. (yes I know he show is 20 years old) BUT they keep running into other races and civilizations wherein they have all heard about the Voyager all over the Delta Quadrant.

BUT no one has heard of the Federation which borders on the quad.

This quadrant if we go by the numbers given as to the size of the Milky Way which is 120 thousand light years across. When they ended up on the far side of the Delta Quadrant that means they are about only 60 thousand light years from the edge of the Federation.

BUT no one has heard of the federation? BUT they have heard of the Voyager no matter where they go?

The Delta Quadrant is a very hostile quadrant. I mean seriously. Danger that would make everyone in the federation lose sleep. NO ONE is very friendly.

Strange Quadrant. I would have suggested they erect a no fly zone that is heavily guarded for light year from the "top" of the Federation zone to the "bottom" of the zone from the edge of the galaxy to the center of the Milky Way.

ANWAY, just thought I'd throw that into the rest of my review.

The only bright spot is how they wrote Tuvok in his trying to handle what he thought were children.

Otherwise not a very good episode with a pretty incredulous story arc.

Another great story.

[twanster-97655 · 9/10 · 18 February 2021]

I enjoyed this episode, tuvok plays the role extremely well. I won't give it away but this is one with another stand out performance. I only wish they'd handled the ending better. Seeing tuvok enter the cave isn't enough, I had hoped to see the scene with him assisting her till the end and maybe a personal log or even a heart to heart with the captain about how the whole saga had left him feeling about his own.

Saving the best part of life for the end.

[thevacinstaller · 8/10 · 4 July 2021]

An interesting examination of Tuvok's paternal skills combined with an exploration of death and resurrection. Quite an interesting combination. I always find enjoyment in episodes that dig into the life and death elements of existence. A childhood friend of mine who has done many, many drugs actually has the belief that this corporeal existence is the warm up to our existence as pure energy. Far out dude.

Sure, there are few conveniences to make this 'end of life' twist work ---- I can buy in.

I do believe I need more clarification on how this evolutionary process works. This society is born old and then goes through the aging process in reverse? Are they intelligent right out the womb? I'm picturing a 10 year old grand parent holding an elderly grand child and it's kind of weird. Moving right along.

This falls into my crazy idea episode and I will always give a firm pat on the back for that.

Despite the acting and the premise it is an abysmal episode

[meritcoba · 2/10 · 21 August 2019]

The most curious thing about this episode is that if Belenna had been in it she would have reversed the plasma stream through the gravitational nodes and then enriched it with antimatter and injected into the teleporter stream to create a window through the electrostatic storm surrounding the moon. Then they would have teleported Tuvok and the kids out of their without issues. Pity Janeway and Kim didn't think of that one.

So now we have to deal with the story.

When rewatching old Star Trek series on Netflix you get to meet the good, the bad, the truly remarkable and the astonishing atrocious. That one episiode can have it all is possibly shown by Innocence.

First the good: Tuvok played by Tim Russ. I find him a believable Vulcan. Tuvok has crashed on some kind of moon where a group of children have been stranded too. We see him interact with these children, thus confronting him with the unruly and emotional. We learn a bit about the Vulcans and how they learn to control their emotions and become logical.

Now to continue I would have to reveal the clue of the episode, there is no other way. The clue is that the species the Voyager meets this time has a reversed aging process. Now this isn't revealed until the very end. In fact this is truly bad because the whole confrontation and what happens in the episode would not have occured if the leader of the species had told Janeway the moment tensions arose.

Now one can argue that they only became aware that the Voyager crew has a reversed aging process as compared to themselves near the end but we never see them go though these motions. In fact: it is just mentioned before at the final confrontation. Oh, they don't know we have a reversed aging process; the kid is 96 years old. Note the sentense? We have a reversed one. This assumes they accept that the norm is different from theirs. But how would a species that deliberately isolates itselfs, so we are informed, assume or know that they are abnormal?

But then we run into various problems. Does this reverse process also entail that they forget everything they learned? The kids act as kids do and show the usual neglect of experience and understanding. In fact they don't even know they come to die because they tell Tuvok that it is a monster who takes them away and the others of their kind are out to kill them. And when Tuvok goes to investigate he finds only the clothes of the kids in the cave they are too afraid to go into. Why did they go into a cave with a monster they feared? So where did the bodies go? I cannot but feel that there is none as to prevent Tuvok from discovering the bodies so he can determine they died of a natural process and not by the hand of a monster. But given the way the clothes are arranged this must have given him that clue anyway. They did not die a violent death.

What is truly bad about this series is that you see them try to make this tale work by bending everything out of shape. How truly convenient to the story that nobody was there to explain things to Tuvok. How interesting that there is apparently no guidance or buildings or anything to make the dying more convenient for the kids and tip Tuvok off? Why is it called dying anyway? How convenient that there is a storm around the moon that prevents everything from communications, teleporting to shuttle craft landing. And no Belanna tweaking the teleporter to teleport them out or in.

The whole episode can only work if the story if things conveniently happen. Too much things. And this is why the episode truly is atrocious, despite an interesting premise and the acting.