VOY: Mortal Coil Review

[TrueMetis]

Like letting your 5 year old hold the flashlight, except somehow he almost gets himself killed.

[Artabax]

#1 I'm surprised Chuck couldn't take the time out of his Neelix hatred to further explore the implication of his resurrection. He was brought back to life purely from a scientific standpoint, for all we know he is just a corpse with all of Neelix's memories that's being kept preserved and
#2 that the reason he cannot remember anything from the afterlife is that he doesn't have a soul. The real Neelix could very well have died and went there and what we had for the rest of the series is
#3 basically a clone of the equivalent of an android or hologram with someone's memories and personality downloaded into it. If the real Neelix is aware of this in the afterlife, it may be a small comfort knowing that this new Neelix will be there for his friends so he doesn't have to worry about them, so there's no real downside to this.
#4 But the fact remains that unless there's any definitive evidence of anything metaphysical, Neelix was and is still technically dead and what is walking around is nothing more than the product of science.

#5 On another note, if those nanoprobes will be in Neelix forever and keeping him alive, what's going to happen when he dies again, will the probes attempt resurrect him again, and if so to what extent? Neelix could very well be the first true zombie.

#1 Chuck makes a big deal that nanoprobe resurrex Neelix and nevah evah resurex anybody evah again. Spike in Buffy is a devil with the memories and personality of his host and is an exciting and interesting character zombie!Neelix is exactly the same Shithead as living!Neelix and for the sake of saving zombie!Neelix Janeway murders Tuvix the exciting and interesting version of Neelix.

#2 Please present evidence that living!Neelix had a Soul before he became zombie!Neelix. Ifn a man can neither sing nor dance, laugh nor cry, love nor hate, we say he has no Soul. Both living and zombie Neelices could hate so they had 1/6 of a Soul. Does this mean they share 1/3 of a Soul or do they have 1/12 of a Soul each???

#3 Thomas Ryker was the transporter!Clone of original!Ryker. Thomas joins Maquis, Jonathan loathes Bajor. Whatever your POV, one clone chose Evil, the other chose Good. Therefore both Ryker clones have Souls. tlc

#4 Evidence that nanoprobe!Neelix is NOT a zombie: his eyes are not preternaturally blue; he works in a kitchen full of garlic; if he ate brains he would be less stupid. eta I apologize to the politically correct brigade: if Neelix had eaten brains, he would be fewer stupid.

#5 Yes, Neelix is creator's pet, every time he dies, he resurrex. it is known

[Yukaphile]

Wow, some excellent theorizing there. So perhaps the whole Tuvix deal left Tuvok and Neelix without a soul. Scary thought. That, or... transporters really do "kill" you like some fans claim.

[Artabax]

Wow, some excellent theorizing there. So perhaps the whole Tuvix deal left Tuvok and Neelix without a soul. Scary thought. That, or... transporters really do "kill" you like some fans claim.

Yes, Transporters kill you and build a clone with a Soul. Transporter malfunctions kill you and build two clones with two Souls,

Tuvix seemed to have One Soul. If he had lived long enough maybe there might have been stories about the man with two souls. WRONG ifn Tuvix had been uncomfortable with the two Soul thing, then he would have volunteered for execution.

[Mickey_Rat15]

If this series had gone on longer, would they have gone full Ship of Theseus on Neelix?

[Robovski]

If this series had gone on longer, would they have gone full Ship of Theseus on Neelix?

That would be kind of awesome, especially if they replaced the actor after the latest accident where they had to rebuild him.

[Deledrius]

What gets me is that once again, Battlestar Galactica understood the darkness of its premise more than Voyager did. I know in the great enlightened Roddenberry future we're not SUPPOSED to have people contemplating suicide over the possibility of never getting home again, but it feels like the kind of thing that SHOULD have happened, or at least paid more lip service to the fact that this is incredibly depressing and they need a friggin' counselor on board.

I think DS9 shows it was possible to do this within the realm of Trek's rules. It's subjective, of course, but DS9 handled this by... actually dealing with it. It didn't become a persistent problem that overshadowed characters and plots, sure, but at least it was dealt with. I'm thinking mostly about Nog and his injury. It spanned more than one episode, and that gave it some room to examine the matter. It also helped that Nog (by that point in the show) was considerably more likable and engaging as a character than Neelix.

There was an opportunity here (like so much on Voyager) and the fact that there is no follow-up is once again the primary failing of the show. The triumphs never matter because the tests never matter either.

[Shuboy07]

This episode was also released round about Christmas I believe, and I could be wrong but I think Bryan Fuller was going through something (maybe a divorce) around the time writing it. Super cheery episode.

I think Bryan Fuller just loves writing about death. Half of his shows are about death (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal).

Also a quick Google search shows Fuller has never married.

[Deledrius]

This episode was also released round about Christmas I believe, and I could be wrong but I think Bryan Fuller was going through something (maybe a divorce) around the time writing it. Super cheery episode.

I think Bryan Fuller just loves writing about death. Half of his shows are about death (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal).

Also a quick Google search shows Fuller has never married.

That explains the "spore network is a bridge between life and death" line they keep giving Stamets. I wonder what else Fuller wanted to do with it...

[Jonathan101]

This episode was also released round about Christmas I believe, and I could be wrong but I think Bryan Fuller was going through something (maybe a divorce) around the time writing it. Super cheery episode.

I think Bryan Fuller just loves writing about death. Half of his shows are about death (Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, and Hannibal).

Also a quick Google search shows Fuller has never married.

Yeah. A bit of research and it turns out that what I was thinking of was him being a lapsed Catholic and using this episode as a bit of catharsis- that's the closest to what must have been niggling at me, I guess.