Post by @toddhorowitz@fediscience.org

2026-10-25 18:06 UTC

"Unforgettable" is a cut better than "Vis à Vis", in that the central concept of a romance initially doomed by one partner's inability to remember and then ironically by the other's, has some emotional resonance. A big problem is that Robert Beltran and Virginia Madsen lack chemistry. A bigger problem is that Madsen's character, Kellin, seems not to have thought anything through. She knew that the Sandmen -- excuse me, the trackers -- would come after her, but she doesn't seem to have thought of any countermeasures until the last minute, offering to adjust Voyager's sensors. She should have done that first thing...

Replies (1)

@toddhorowitz@fediscience.org 2026-10-25 18:06

What was she going to do if Chakotay didn't fall in love with her again? How would a relationship work when one partner would forget the other if they were ever separated for more than a few hours? How many times was she willing to start over? But a lot of the first part of the episode is taken up with the question of whether they (not just Chakotay) should trust Kellin. The solution is: they overlay her navigational logs over Voyager's, proving that they traveled together for a time. When someone suggests that her logs could be faked, she answers, "You can run a diagnostic on them". This is a classic Voyager mistake, solving an emotional problem with technobabble. Interestingly, there's a much better pivot point later in the episode, when Kellin is frustrated that she doesn't know whether Chakotay returns her love, and offers to return to the Ramurans and have her memory wiped so she no longer endangers the Voyager crew. At that point, Chakotay gives in and admits he has feelings for her and rekindles their relationship. But that should really be the point at which the whole crew starts trusting her, not the "run a diagnostic on my navigational logs" bullshit.

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