Mortal Coil (17 Dec. 1997)

Neelix experiences a crisis of faith when, after being dead for nearly nineteen hours, Seven of Nine revives him using her Borg technology. On awakening, Neelix has no memory of ... See full summary »

Director:

Allan Kroeker

Writers:

Gene Roddenberry (creator), Rick Berman (creator),

Stars:

Kate Mulgrew, Robert Beltran, Roxann Dawson

Cast

Episode credited cast:
Kate Mulgrew	...	Captain Kathryn Janeway
Robert Beltran	...	Chakotay
Roxann Dawson	...	B'Elanna Torres
Robert Duncan McNeill	...	Tom Paris
Ethan Phillips	...	Neelix
Robert Picardo	...	The Doctor
Tim Russ	...	Tuvok
Jeri Ryan	...	Seven of Nine
Garrett Wang	...	Harry Kim
Nancy Hower	...	Ensign Samantha Wildman
Brooke Stephens	...	Naomi Wildman
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Robin Stapler	...	Alixia

Storyline

Neelix experiences a crisis of faith when, after being dead for nearly nineteen hours, Seven of Nine revives him using her Borg technology. On awakening, Neelix has no memory of experiencing the Talaxian afterlife and begins to doubt everything his culture believes about the post-thanatic experience and their spiritual place in the universe. His crisis is played out with the help of Chakotay's vision quest.

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Plot Keywords:

24th century

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Release Date:

17 December 1997 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Television

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the scene where Neelix goes to talk to Seven in Astrometrics (near the end of the episode), one of the screens displays the well-known and oft-reprinted image of the Eagle Nebula, taken by the Hubble telescope.

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Goofs

When Thomas Paris uses the "spoon and glass method" to get the attention of the gathering in the mess hall, he is holding a tumbler by its rim. This type of glass does not give off the ringing sound heard. Furthermore, any type of glass, held by its rim, cannot give off that kind of tone. (Typically, stemware is used to do this).

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Quotes

Neelix: Dead?
The Doctor: For 18 hours, 49 minutes, 13 seconds. Congratulations, Mr. Neelix - you've just set a new world record.

User Reviews

A crisis of faith

Whether or not you like this episode will probably come down to whether or not you like Neelix as he is the centre of attention. What should have been a routine mission to collect protomatter from a nebula ends badly for Neelix when he is killed. By the time his body has been returned to Voyager eighteen hours have passed; much too long for the Doctor to attempt to heal him. Seven of Nine says that she knows how to cure him using her Borg knowledge. This is successful but when Neelix returns to life he has a crisis of faith because while dead he did not experience the Talaxian afterlife and grows to believe he is not meant to be alive any more. As well as Neelix's faith we get a good insight into Seven's views on mortality and how that has changed since leaving the Borg Collective.

While this episode didn't feature much action it had a decent story and tackled a subject I wouldn't have expected. Ethan Phillips did well portraying the usually jovial Neelix as a more conflicted character than we are used to.