Recap / Star Trek Voyager S 3 E 23 "Displaced"

Every nine minutes, this happens. Maybe Tuvok can rethink his security measures while he's elsewhere.

Voyager's crew start to disappear, replaced by members of an alien race.

This episode provides examples of

• Achilles' Heel: The Nyrians are extremely sensitive to the cold. So are Klingons, which isn't good for B'Elanna, who gets stuck in a frozen wasteland with Tom.
  Tom: I would have thought all that hot Klingon blood would have kept you warm.
  B'Elanna: Shows how much you know about Klingons. They have much less tolerance for the cold than humans do.
  Tom: Really? I thought that was Cardassians.
  B'Elanna: No, they just complain about it more.
• Air Vent Escape: The requisite clambering through Jeffries tubes.
• Aggressive Negotiations: Janeway gives the shivering Nyrians a choice between surrendering so everyone can be returned to their native ships and worlds, or freezing to death. They don't hold out long.
• Alien Abduction: One that looks like the result of a Negative Space Wedgie until the truth comes out.
• Aliens Speaking English: Which Janeway and Tuvok use to their advantage, by hacking into the Nyrian database via the English translation algorithm.
• All Planets Are Earth-Like: Downplayed; the Nyrians' planet is around a red giant star so, while they can survive on the Voyager, it is uncomfortably cold and bright for them. Also, each alien species kidnapped by the Nyrians is hosted in an enclosure with a different environment. This becomes a plot point when the Nyrians are threatened with imprisonment in the coldest environment on their ship.
• Beamed Mid-Sentence: Tuvok and Janeway.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: The Nyrians appear confused and harmless at first.
• Blinded by the Light: Chakotay brings the lights up to full strength to blind the Nyrians (who are sensitive to light) in Engineering.
• Call-Back: From "Distant Origin" where B'Elanna loses a Side Bet with Tom, which means she has to try out his Klingon workout program.
• Character Tics: Tom finds B'Elanna subconsciously copying his Badass Armfold and changes it to hands-behind-back.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Nyrian sensitivity to cold is introduced quite early.
• Critical Staffing Shortage: Crewmen keep disappearing while aliens appear in their place. Before too much longer, they're down to a skeleton crew, and then it turns out it's a ploy to take over the ship, beaming crew members off one at a time and replacing them with their own people.
• Deadpan Snarker: The Doctor is in rare form in this episode.
  EMH: Welcome to Sickbay. Take a number.
  later, as B'Elanna adjusts his optical sensors to scan for portals.
  EMH: Then I can begin my new career as a tricorder.
• Die Hard on Voyager: But only briefly. Chakotay does as much damage as he can, then surrenders.
• Double Meaning: "Things were pretty chilly there for a while. It feels good to be warm."
• Evil All Along: As soon as B'Elanna starts to catch on to the whole scheme, the Nyrians show their true colors and get much more aggressive with their hostile takeover of Voyager, starting with B'Elanna being beamed off the ship as soon as possible.
• Facial Dialogue: Usually in response to P/T shenanigans.
• Food as Bribe: Janeway barters food for information from Jarleth. Fortunately human food is to his liking.
• Forgotten Phlebotinum: The Nyrians' translocator technology can move people up to ten light-years in an instant, through shields at least as advanced as Voyager's, but Tuvok and Janeway quickly realize such long distances greatly reduce its capacity (which is why the Nyrians translocate people one at a time), thus removing any possibility the crew could use it to help shorten their journey.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Tuvok constructs an improvised energy weapon from replicator and sonic shower parts.
• Gilded Cage: The Nyrians have prepared an environment suited for each alien race, with replicators, entertainment, and other amenities.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: The security mook guarding Rislan is standing too close and peering into the warp engine. Rislan knocks him out and takes his phaser.
• Happiness in Slavery: Jarleth has been imprisoned for years and likes his Gilded Cage. When Voyager's crew have a serious chance of breaking out, he becomes quite alarmed and quickly surrenders to the Nyrians.
• Hoist by Their Own Petard: Janeway uses the Nyrian teleportation system against them.
• Intimate Healing: Tom breathes on B'Elanna's hands to warm them.
• I Resemble That Remark!: B'Elanna is NOT HOSTILE!
• I Will Only Slow You Down: A hypothermic B'Elanna tells Tom to keep going without her. Tom orders her to keep moving.
• Just One Man: Chakotay finds himself the last man on Voyager. He does as much sabotage as possible so the Nyrians can't make off with the ship, then downloads the Doctor into his mobile emitter and surrenders so the Nyrians will beam them both to the others.
• Kill It with Ice: When Voyager's crew is trapped in a prison with different environments for different species, Tom and B'Elanna dispose of two Nyrian mooks (from a very warm planet) by luring them into a subzero habitat. Later Captain Janeway beams the rest of the Nyrians there, and threatens to keep them there until her ship is returned.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Chakotay is confronted at gunpoint and puts down his own phaser, saying, "Alright, I know when to quit." Subverted however as he's a Play-Along Prisoner.
• Moral Myopia: The Nyrians put their prisoners in a Gilded Cage and bitch about their ingratitude.
• Not What It Looks Like: B'Elanna and Tom get beamed back to their colleagues, holding each other tightly because of the cold. Everyone smirks.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: The Nyrians play dumb and confused when they first appear on Voyager, at least until they execute their plan.
• One Bullet Left: The improvised phaser only has one shot left in the power cell. Fortunately one of their two pursuers has already collapsed from the cold.
• P.O.V. Cam:
  • B'Elanna when she gets beamed to the Nyrian ship.
  • The Doctor when his vision has been modified to see the portals.
• Playing Cyrano: The Doctor keeps chiming in with advice when B'Elanna and Tom are trying to argue. He's not helping.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Chakotay hopes that maybe he's just being paranoid. He isn't.
    Chakotay: I want access to all systems restricted to authorised voice prints only. Seal off any part of the ship that we're not using and place security forcefields around sensitive areas. Warp core, armoury, torpedo bays. And let's hope I'm just being paranoid.
  • Earlier in the episode, Chakotay expresses that the Nyrians seemingly haven't done anything wrong, but Janeway has a bad feeling...
    Janeway: Chakotay, I don't care how they seem. All I care about is that I've had a knot in my stomach since the first Nyrian arrived. Something about this is wrong, I can smell it. Look at us, running around the ship, checking sensors and spinning theories, while the Nyrians slowly replace our crew. Consider this. There has been a consistent interval of nine minutes and twenty seconds between these exchanges. At that rate, our entire crew will be gone in eighteen hours. Tell me that doesn't put a knot in your stomach.
• Red Herring: A wormhole with one end inside Voyager appears to be the culprit, until B'Elanna realises the sensor readings have been faked.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: With Tom and B'Elanna wearing the appropriate red and blue outfits in the Klingon holodeck program.
• Remonstrating With a Bat'leth: B'Elanna waves around her bat'leth while venting over a Klingon martial arts program Tom has roped her into. Tom tells her to stop before she puts his eye out. When the first Nyrian unexpectedly beams on board the ship a moment later, B'Elanna gesturing at him with a giant curved blade does not reassure the Nyrian that they mean no harm.
• She Knows Too Much: B'Elanna discovers the wormhole data has been planted in their computers. Rislan knocks out the security mook and prepares to beam B'Elanna off the ship.
  B'Elanna: What are you doing?
  Rislan: Moving you to the head of the line.
• Ship Tease: Loads of Belligerent Sexual Tension between B'Elanna and Tom.
• Starts Stealthily, Ends Loudly: Our heroes are able to quietly sneak through the Nyrian ship, until Janeway and Tuvok set off an alarm.
• Swap Teleportation: The crew of Voyager are being swapped with aliens one by one. The aliens pretend they don't know what's going on, but this is actually their method of taking over a ship.
• Take a Number: When the Doctor welcomes yet another Nyrian.
  "Welcome to Sickbay. Take a number."
• Technical Pacifist: The Nyrians prefer guile over violence; even when resorting to the latter, they never kill anyone on Voyager.
• That's an Order!: Taleen when her mooks balk at following our heroes into a frozen environment. Then Tom to B'Elanna, who complains that Tom only has seniority by two days.
  Paris: On your feet now, Torres. That's an order.
  Torres: You can't give me orders. We're the same rank.
  Paris: I am a bridge officer, and I have seniority.
  Torres: Oh yeah, by two days!
• Training from Hell: Not that Vulcans boast of course, but Tuvok can't resist explaining how Starfleet tactical training was nothing compared to the Rite of Tal'oth, involving four months in the Vulcan desert with only a knife.
• Tranquil Fury: Janeway, in the climactic scene, uses a phaser to corner the Nyrians in charge, and tells them to surrender or she'll leave them in the subzero habitat to freeze to death. Janeway, understandably so, couldn't give two shits about the well-being of these crooks.
• Try and Follow: B'Elanna and Tom go into a subzero environment, knowing the Nyrians won't follow. They do, but collapse from the cold.
• Tsundere: B'Elanna is hot and cold, and not just in an artificial environment.
• Walk and Talk: The episode opens with B'Elanna and Tom doing a Walk And Argue.
• The Wall Around the World: The custom environment is surrounded by wilderness that marks the limit of their environment. Fortunately a friendly alien called Jarleth has already found out how to pass between the environments for trade purposes.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: Having kidnapped the Voyager crew and stolen their ship, the Nyrians expect them to be grateful for sticking them in a Gilded Cage instead of killing them. Shockingly, they aren't.
• Weaponized Teleportation: The Nyrians conquer other colonies and seize passing vessels by teleporting their people in one-by-one, at long range so no-one suspects teleportation is involved. Then Janeway and Tuvok use it against them.
• You Are in Command Now
  Chakotay: How do you like your first day as Chief of Security, Ensign?
  Ensign Lang: It's everything I dreamed of, sir.
  Chakotay: Who says there's no room for advancement on this ship.

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