4.12 mortal coil

While exploring a nebula, Neelix is struck by a proton burst and killed. Dead for 18 hours, the crew is surprised when Seven explains that she has assimilated high levels of medical knowledge, and that bringing Neelix back to life – by using nanoprobes – should not be an issue. She succeeds, but Neelix, who had a very strong belief in an afterlife featuring a Great Forest, a Big Tree, and a reunion with all of his long dead family – experienced nothing during his 18 hours on the other side – leading him without a strong reason for living, despite his usefulness to the crew, including a very cute little Naomi Wildman, whom Neelix must help get to sleep by scaring monsters from her bedroom. Chakotay offers to lead him in a vision quest, but Neelix’ first vision is a nightmare, and members of the crew and his sister tell him there is no reason for him to live. He takes their advice to heart, and, leaving a letter for Captain Janeway, he prepares to beam himself back into the nebula where he belongs. Kim is able to delay the initial beam out long enough for Chakotay to get to the transporter room to try to talk Neelix down, but Neelix configures an uninterruptible site-to-site transport, and is about to activate it, when Ensign Wildman calls Neelix over the intercom to come help Naomi scare a monster. Neelix realizes he is needed – that Voyager is his family (a recurring theme this season) and he leaves the transport pad. In the final scene, it must be some weeks later, and he is tucking Naomi in, and, when she falls asleep, in her dreams she sees the fable that Neelix has told her a bedtime story: she is in the Great Forest, under a Big Tree; Neelix afterlife lives on within her.

This is a very touching, well-acted episode, especially by Ethan Phillips (Neelix). Nit: Nice of Seven to finally mention that she can bring people back from the dead. Could she have revived the young alien woman who was murdered in ‘random thoughts’?  Might she have revived some of the many crewpeople who died in ‘the year in hell’? And since she said that she could revive ‘drones’ who had been dead up to 72 hours, is it possible that any of the crewpeople killed by the hologram in ‘revulsion’ could have been revived after they were found? Or is it that this talent for bringing people back from the dead is a perk for the senior staff only?