I do not know if I will ever work up the nerve to review Star Trek: Voyager, but if I do, you are going to hear the name Kenneth Biller a lot. Biller was responsible for some of the worst episodes of that series. He is the writer for “Eve,” as well. Surprisingly, it is an effectively entertaining episode. Unsurprisingly, it was heavily rewritten by Glenn Morgan and James Wong, who wrote some of the best X-Files episodes. So there is a strong possibility Biller screwed this script up, too. Therefore, it might be good solely because Morgan and Wong salvaged it. If you cannot tell, VOY reviews would often be drafted by poison pen.A man is murdered in his backyard by having 75% of the blood drawn out of his body. Two puncture marks near the jugular are the only evidence remaining, aside from his young daughter, Cindy, who claims she saw nothing. Mulder becomes involved when he notes similarities with cattle mutilations and suspects alien involvement. When he and Scully learn another murder of the same type occurred on the west coast at the same time, they investigate that one, too, only to find out not only was his little girl present, butTeena looks exactly like Cindy.
(Before anyone snickers, her name is spelled with two E’s, not an “I.” Morgan and wong named the girl’s after their wives. I assume she had parents who thought avoiding traditional name spellings is cute.)
Deep Throat conveniently shows up to fill in all the exposition we need to further the plot. Since bringing him in was the only way to do so, I figure that is good enough evidence to declare Biller screwed the script originally. Deep throat tells Mulder that US intelligence got wind cloning experiments being done in the Soviet Union in the ‘60’s attempting to create super soldiers. The US tried it, too. They named the cloned boys Adam and the girls Eve. Breathtakingly original, huh? Classic Biller. The project was scrapped when the children developed psychotic behavior at the onset of puberty.
Eve 6 survived the government purge/cover up and become a fertility doctor who decided to clone herself. Teena and Cindy are some of the results Predictably, all the eves are psychotic. The two little girls killed their fathers, eventually kill her, and attempt to kill Mulder and Scully before the truth is discovered and they get locked up in a mental hospital.
I do not mean to sound down on the episode. I am just down on Biller. I had forgotten he wrote for the series. My heart sank when I saw his name in the credits. But lucky for us, the script was heavily rewritten. Kids can be scary and for some reason, having them as twins is even scarier. Judging by the nameplates on the cell doors, there have been at least ten of them of various ages, all psychotically loony. It is effectively disturbing enough to salvage what could have been another Biller dud.
The now defunct band Eve 6 got its name from this episode. I searched YouTube for one of their songs to embed, but they only had two hits: “Inside Out“ and “Here‘s to the Night.” Neither of them tickled my tuckus. No wonder the band broke up.
Rating: *** (out of 5)
