It took me forever, but I'm finally through s3 of Star Trek Voyager. (Dream big, ladies and gentlemen!) Some quick thoughts up front before the countdown:
- My baby boy was born a few months back. Hey now! He's awesome and I love him, but man, talk about your blog-stealers. My whole Voyager timetable got whacked worse than Tommy DeVito. As a result, a couple of episodes below were phoned-in - or, actually, I fell asleep during them but decided to just keep trying for the end of the series rather than stop and go back to watch them.
- They saved most of the great episodes for the last half of the series, which makes this a tougher slog than I'd hoped for given all the above. But once you get there (I'll use "Blood Fever" as a demarcation line, though it's not a very good one; maybe "Future's End," but there are some stinkers between them) we see the best run of the series so far.
I'm going to try something a little different this time. While still ranking the eps least-to-most-favorite, I'm going to group them into categories. I more or less like each episode in each grouping about the same; the countdown-numbers are just for convenience. Let's start at the bottom.
DIDN'T MUCH CARE FOR
26.
Janeway appears to be trapped in a time-loop with different events, but all ending in her death.
The time loop mystery is set up well, but they started losing me around the 15 minute mark. Is it that this Trek well (see own funeral, alien take family member shape, all the saying goodbye/ medical death drama etc.) has run dry for me? Or is it the actor who played her Dad and the awkward chemistry and line readings that develop with Kathryn Mulgrew?
Either way. The script isn't great. Could've and should've taken more chances. (Does anyone in these things ever say anything but "(the departed) wouldn't want us sitting around moping"? Why bother? Just once I want someone to say "If so-and-so were here, she'd want us to blow our effing brains out." Just mix it up for once.) A lame ending with over the top stuff from all around ("Fight, Kath!") and it all adds up to a No-thank-you-sir.
I actually included this in my original best-of eps for VOY when I was doing the Captain's Blogs. What the hell was I thinking? I wasn't. Ditto for:
25.
Tuvok experiences brain-damaging flashbacks to his service on the Excelsior. He and the captain attempt to find the reason for the flashbacks, believed to be a suppressed memory, through a joint mind-meld.
I feel bad for disliking this one, but dislike it I do - it's a mess. I actually wish it was just a Tuvok story and had no callbacks to Rand or Sulu at all. Takei and Whitney just don't seem up to speed, here. Acting is just like exercise; few can skip the gym/ screen for a long time and then seamlessly re-enter the fray. The fan service of seeing them in the Voyager-verse doesn't justify itself in the episode (or performances) we get.
Am I being unfair? I'd love to change my mind, so please by all means. It pains me, sincerely, to find fault in one of Grace Lee Whitney's few post-TOS Trek appearances. Or Sulu's for that matter. But it just never feels like Sulu and Rand to me.
24.
Q visits Voyager with a proposal for Janeway as civil war breaks out in the Q Continuum.
They lost the plot with Q on Voyager. I get that this is only how their war looks on our plane, but it's weak. The Q / Trek shouldn't be used as a wardrobe surplus depot - I recognize that this could be said of any dozen(s) of similar Trek episodes, but what can I say: they just lost sight of Q as a concept here and in most if not all of their Voyager appearances. Q works when John de Lancie is Picard's guardian angel (so to speak); otherwise, he - and whatever other Q they drum up around him - is just Mr. Mxyzptlk. And if I want to see a Mxyzptlk Civil War (and why wouldn't I?) it should look like that JLA arc by Grant Morrison, not this.
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| Kate Mulgrew has some fun in her scenes with de Lancie, but it's not enough to carry the day. |
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| "No Jean, No Money!" |
SLIGHTLY BETTER
23.
The crew must learn to survive on the inhospitable planet as the Doctor, Crewman Suder, and Paris attempt to regain control of the ship.
I suppose I should celebrate this episode for taking us out of Kazon space. Everyone does good work, cast and crew alike, but I was just kind of waiting this one out.
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| Brad Dourif, ladies and gentlemen! Always a pleasure. |
"I offer you a Vulcan prayer, Mister Suder. May your death bring you the peace you never found in life."
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| Pssst - no one tell Tuvok: everybody has that prayer. |
22.
Voyager approaches the edge of Neelix's knowledge and a trading station.
Hey it's that Vulcan kid from TNG! Is this the first time he's appeared? Have I been asleep again? We'll save discussion of him until we get to "Blood Fever."
Is this a bad episode? Probably not. But it's a Neelix self-growth episode, and I'm kind of stubbornly sticking to my policy on this.
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| "Great - two Neelixes." |
HAD THEIR MOMENTS
21.
Tom Paris and Harry Kim are trapped in a prison. Tom gets stabbed trying to protect Kim, leaving him to try to find an escape plan alone. Simultaneously, Voyager is trying to find a way to prove their innocence.
I kind of fell asleep during this one. I think this was where it'd land, though. I look forward to Bryant's review to find out if I liked it more than I think I do! As should you.
20.
Kes is left comatose after contacting an energy field around a rock.
Similarly to the above, "Kinda similar to 'Macrocosm'" is the sum total of what I wrote in my notes for this episode, and I don't remember it too well. Some of the screencaps over at Trekcore look pretty cool -
and Jennifer Lien is usually pretty awesome. But I'll have to watch it again. I'm keeping a list - there'll be some kind of fill-in-the-blanks post somewhere down the line.
19.
Torres relives a lifetime of memories from a woman which perpetrated and then covered up the extermination of an entire population, one of whom was her youthful lover.
This one reminded me a bit of "Ex Post Facto" from Season One, in that it seemed to take a TNG episode and then graft another story on top of it, and run it again. In this case, it's "Remember Me," which is actually one of my favorites from Season 4 of TNG. Is this ("Remember") an homage? I don't think so - I mean, the similarities are there but they're not that explicit. Like I say, it's more like someone what-if'd the script of "Remember Me" on a coffee break and then made appropriate changes in the writer's room.
Whatever the case, Winrich Kolbe (director) and Brannon Braga (writer) have earned enough benefit-of-the-doubt cred with me for me not to care too much. But it's not a fave.
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| "Come for the Festival, heya?" |
18.
Captain Janeway relieves Neelix of all other duties and makes him Shipmaster of Partying Down!
(Actual Plot: Kes is controlled by an alien warlord named Tieran.)
"Nice performance from Lien" is the sum total of notes I took for this one. Can I use the baby excuse again? My brain and body have been in two different places lately. Another one I barely remember, alas. These reviews are getting better by the minute!
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| General shout-out to Lien on Voyager, though, whose departure is drawing near. Official Dog Star Last Word: she was great. |
PRETTY GOOD, ACTUALLY
17.
The crew encounters the Delta Quadrant terminus of the Barzan wormhole...and the two Ferengi from "The Price" now posing as gods on a nearby planet.
I should mention I'm using Trekcore's episode summaries, for the most part. I sometimes edit or alter them. I should probably be clearer on that type of stuff.
Nice and unexpected callback to TNG here with the Barzan wormhole. (And much more sensible than something like "Dreadnought.") I guess given that the Delta Quadrant's two mentions in TNG were this wormhole and introducing the Borg that maybe it's not that unexpected to see either concept returning. Okay, so I was surprised by this, reasonably or not. Who didn't vicariously panic just a little bit / curse the arrogance of Man/Ferengi when the wormhole closed around Arridor and Kol in "The Price?"
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| Turns out they did okay for themselves. At least until Voyager shows up. |
I'm more of a Neelix fan than I am a Ferengi fan, so that's saying something. But this is a fun one. As with most Ferengi encounters, their incompetence leaves their fate in little doubt, but it's fun watching the Voyager crew "Devil's Due" the situation.
16.
Crew members are replaced one-by-one with aliens from an unknown race.
Not a bad little mystery, but once it's revealed what's going on, it's kind of wonky. I think this is a "Taste for Armaggedon" sort of thing, but that makes slightly more sense than this one, I think.
Speaking of TOS, once it became obvious what was going on, shouldn't Chakotay have flooded the ship with knockout gas or something? I mean, Khan did, and he only was in the 23rd century for a few days before figuring out how to use the ship itself as a weapon. But okay - no big deal.
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| What the hell happened to "wide field" for phasers, though? Did some Starfleet gun control lobby get this functionality removed? Instead, everyone fires single phaser streams against multiple attackers, becoming overwhelmed easily. |
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| Speaking of weapons - later in the episode, after discussing how their phaser only has a charge or two left, they take out two Nyrians, who drop their weapons, and Tom and B'Elanna don't even pick them up. |
So while the episode isn't necessarily bad, these two things bugged me. Stuff like that should never leave the writer's room.
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| Fun to see Janeway channel a little Kirk-"world-destroyer" in her final showdown with the Nyrians, though. It's a good look for her. |
15.
Voyager helps a planet with asteroid problems. Tuvok and Neelix crash-land on the planet and attempt to fix a maglev space elevator.
All right, gd it, Neelix, you're not so bad in this one. (And man does he commit to the shaky-camera countdown stuff. At one point I laughed out loud - not at the performance but
A little goes a long way, though - by the end I was back to not caring. He and Tuvok play well off one another, though, even if this is kinda' sorta just another "Galileo 7" episode for Tuvok. (By my counting, the 3rd one - maybe 1 was enough?)
14.
Voyager encounters a swarm of ships while trying to take a shortcut through a space belonging to a hostile species, while the Doctor begins to experience memory loss.
These aliens are kind of a cool idea. I probably should have this one higher, actually. It's a great Picardo episode - which is redundant, since it's a Doctor-centric episode so of course it's a great Picardo episode - and the ideas are engaging. I love the differences between The Doctor and the diagnostic program and the holographic self-sacrifice. Nice ending with the callback to "O Soave, Fanciulla", the Puccini duet The Doctor and his holo-soprano were working on in the beginning.
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| Featuring the head of Wolfram and Hart's Rome office as Giuseppina Pentangeli, the greatest soprano of the 22nd century. (And named after Verdi's wife.) |
"Next time I'll take my chances with Maria Callas."
13.
Harry Kim is drawn to a planet that is nearly all women.
There's a lot in play here. I want to say the whole thing (from the way it starts on the bridge with Janeway, whose line delivery of "Have the doctor look at that cut" is rather perfect) is some metaphor for motherly disapproval. While stewing in it, Harry is told he's the prodigal son for a planet of all women, who adore him.
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| Is it a stretch? I think it's in there. |
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| Meta. |
This Teresian scheme seems more than a little fishy. Tuvok should've objected more. But it allows Harry to go full Rekall. (Harry from vwerk!)
12.
Voyager answers help from a mining colony about a viral outbreak that manages to sneak onto Voyager through the transporter, leaving only Janeway and the Doctor to stop it.
Not the greatest CGI monster attacks in this one, but the premise is engaging and I enjoy the Doctor/ Janeway team-up. Pretty solid ep. Plus, we get to see Janeway in action mode, which is also a good look for the character.
I like that the other alien species is named the Tak Tak. Just like the sound of that.
11.
The Doctor's attempt to graft other personalities into his program causes him to develop an evil alternate personality.
Not a bad episode and some fun stuff from Picardo, but it has the slight feel of filler. Like "Oh we can always just do a bad-robot-Doctor episode." Still, the concept of the holographic doctor provides so many places to go, and when you've got an actor of Picardo's caliber in the cast, it seems criminal not to give him episodes like this.
But, yeah, a tad on the Trek Casserole side.
10.
As Voyager travels through a nebula, the crew enjoys a luau on the holodeck. Tuvok discovers an unusual hologram and makes Harry jealous in the process.
A thoughtful ep in many ways, in the best Trek tradition. (Especially when conditions outside the ship begin to reflect the emotional turmoil of the leads.) I guessed the Marayna twist as it went along, but she and Tuvok play well off one another.
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| Poor Harry. |
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| Vulcan jenga... (I have this joke in my notes, crossed out with 'don't use' above it. Why? Apparently I thought it was beneath us at the time. I have no such restraints in retrospect.) |
9.
Vorik (that Vulcan kid from TNG) passes on the Pon farr to B'Elanna.
Aww yeah, Vulcan sexual harassment! This is an interesting concept that might get away from them a little. Or maybe it's that Alexander Enberg is given a little more than he can handle. I like the idea of the character, but everytime you play a Vulcan, you're getting in the ring with Leonard Nimoy (and Mark Lenard.) Tim Russ plays a good Vulcan, and I have general praise for Enberg's Vorik.
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| Here, though, he went broad in some key spots that diluted the edge somewhat. |
But the B'Elanna / Tom stuff is fun. This one goes some places! Audacity award winner, up there with "Threshold" from s2. Could it have gone even further? Undoubtedly. Was Trek ready? Uncertain. Any sexual relationship between humans and Klingons doesn't have to go outside the bounds of traditional interspecies-Trek romance, but that's not to say it couldn't - and maybe it'd have been interesting to see Paris in Sick Bay a lot more, getting bones mended and such. Or if B'Elanna actually ripped his throat open in this episode. (Just a random example of interspecies mating problems, you understand, not a wish-list.) That could lead to some great repartee with the Doctor. I'm projecting into the future of their relationship, of course. Anyway, they handle it okay enough here, and I like the general "go in there and get this over with, FFS" from Tuvok and Chakotay.
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| "She's out of communications range." |
IMPRESSIVE
8.
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| and |
7.
A 29th century timeship causes a time paradox when it accidentally sends itself and Voyager to two different periods in 20th century Earth. Janeway must prevent the destruction of the solar system by a 20th century entrepreneur who has acquired the timeship.
I liked this 2-parter more this time around than any previous time I'd seen it (and I ranked it 15th and 14th, best overall, when I did these the first time. But eff those rankings.) It has all the problems of any Trek time-travel story (especially - and you can't hold this against Voyager - Enterprise) and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for the spacetime-bending/hey-we're-back-on-Earth business. But hey - I'm forgiving.
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| Get Ed Begley, Jr. |
I mentioned this the first time this episode appeared in these pages: "At one point in part two, Chakotay and Torres are captured by anti-government extremists. The drive towards collectivism and the drive towards individuality are held up (specifically) as two mutually exclusive ideals." We're a long way from E'ed plebnista.
Nevertheless, this is a fun two-parter with high production value. I run hot and cold on the story's other notable guest star (Sarah Silverman), Ed Begley Jr does good stuff here. One of the more memorable villains of the series, actually, and it is he who gives The Doctor his mobile emitter.
6.
Shortly before her death in the future, Kes begins to travel backwards in time, with a portion of events occurring in (next season's) Year of Hell.
One of Trek's patented What If...? episodes. I like that the franchise has this sub-genre of episodes, and this one is as good - if not necessarily all that groundbreaking - as any of the others. It's a mix of TNG's "All Good Things..." and ENT's "Twilight" (which sure, that came out well after this one. But I saw "Twilight" first) but with Jennifer Lien's raspy narration. As a fan of said rasp, that's fine by me. (Has she done any voiceover/ narration work? She's got such a great voice.) The script and all other performances help, of course.
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| Every time a bald character effects a hairpiece in Trek, I wonder if Shatner was discussed in the writing room. More than usual, I mean. |
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| It's a big "hair" episode, actually. |
So, back births, unh? With Ocampans? Is, uhh... all the equipment back there? Or just the birth canal? So many questions.
5.
While Voyager explores a temporal eddy in space that briefly kidnaps Lt. Paris, the Doctor creates a family on the holodeck.
I hate being this guy, but I am so here it is - isn't this just "The Offspring" from TNG? You can tell from where I've placed it that I think fairly highly of this VOY reiteration, but sometimes it strikes me as odd that they so specifically recreate dramatic heights already scaled. But, the more I think about this, the more I argue the other direction: that that's what the whole idea of franchise fiction is and that it's a silly thing for me to get stuck on. The only thing that matters is if the players themselves commit and the magic of drama - however you define that - breathes anew.
And this does go in some directions "The Offspring" does not, so what the hell: it was a launching off point. Who cares. I overrule myself. (Not that this will stop the other half of my brain from arguing the point, probably in many other posts.)
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| Wendy Schaal plays The Doctor's (I'm sorry "Kenneth's" - easily the least of the monikers we've heard for the Doctor thus far, no offense to any Kenneths out there) wife. |
The Vysogite station that Voyager was heading towards must have been made of some pretty flimsy stuff to be completely destroyed by the anomaly. Both Voyager and its shuttlecraft survive some intense (and quite beautiful fx) fluctuations.
"The brain is a mysterious organ."
4.
B'Elanna Torres discovers a holodeck program where Chakotay and the Maquis rebel against Janeway.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," says Seska's avatar in the holodeck program. "This phaser's set on wide beam. I could take you all in one shot." Oh, so there is a wide field. (At least in the security drills that Tuvok authors.)
I wondered why Tuvok didn't know of the Vulcan mind-meld technique through-the-wall-to-influence-the-guard that Spock used on two different occasions in TOS. ("Tuvok would've read those logs, no?" my notes ask.) But once it's revealed Tuvok how the scenario came to be, I guess it would make sense that he's not fully himself in the simulation.
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| "Additional narrative parameters have not been programmed." |
This whole thing is pretty meta for Trek, isn't it? Seems like they're discussing storytelling to me. This may be why I like it so much - I enjoy the occasional "what are we really doing here?" deconstruction from the Trek writing room. (Part of the reason I like TNG's "Emergence" as much as I do; it feels like s a tribute to the way Trek is written.)
I thought the Seska easter egg was a nice twist. VOY does a lot with the holodeck, and I know that annoys some people. But some of my favorite episodes of the series are holodeck ones, so I'm not one of those people. I've always felt it was the series' signature contribution to the franchise.
EXCELLENT
3.
Chakotay answers a call for help on a planet and finds himself in the middle of a shoot-out between two groups of people. Meanwhile, the Voyager crew discovers an abandoned Borg ship.
I quite liked this one. Although the Borg have been brought into things here and there (and alluded to at the end of "Blood Fever", which preceded this one directly) this was a great way to plant the seeds for the season finale a good stretch of episodes before.
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| "The nebula's completely scrambling our navigational readings. I still can't get a fix on our position. " |
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| Nothing to worry about. We've been trained for this. And I've got the best shuttlecraft pilot on - |
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| ... |
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| I'm going to die. |
All kidding aside, this is a great Beltran/ Chakotay episode, as are the next two as well. Which means Beltran wins s3. I've never delved too deeply into the Voyager gang's post-show thoughts, but Robert Beltran has been vocally disgruntled here and there. Is it because his character kicked so much ass in this and the next 2 episodes and never got back to these heights? I'll have to check once I get through the rest of the series.
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| Voyager guys reunion (from Garrett Wang's twitter feed) |
2.
Voyager must pass through Borg space, only to discover a new alien race that is even deadlier than the Borg.
I like Janeway's new holodeck buddy. (John Rhys-Davies as Leonardo Da Vinci) Guess she got tired of being the governess in the other scenario. This one (apprentice to the maestro in his lab) seems cooler. These days, this would be a predictable set-up for the usual women-in-STEM word salad. Aren't you happy I don't inflict such on you? Send the check to Dog Star Omnibus, Inc.
I vaguely recall a friend telling me about this episode years before I ever saw it (or watched Voyager). I liked the idea of a species that intimidates the Borg.
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| Or hell - more than intimidates. Turns them into some kind of body-horror sculpture. |
Question while we're here: why do the Borg even use tubules? Can't they just beam the nanoprobes into people? Given everything else we know about the Borg, does it make even the slightest sense that their technology relies on being able to physically inject the nanoprobes into those they assimilate? I understand we're close to debating the physics of vampires, here, and I think it's visually effective to see the tubules and what not. But come on.
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| This scene is pretty awesome. |
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| Poor Harry. |
Another parallel/ homage to TNG, whose s3 famously ended with a Borg cliffhanger. I think "Best of Both Worlds" is the better episode (or at least more important to the franchise) but "Scorpion" might be the most interesting development of the race/concept of all other Borg episodes. It builds well off the Borg we've seen. Janeway's negotiation with the Collective (above) is a great moment. (I like the idea of a Borg/ Fed. alliance. I'm a let's-make-a-deal sort of guy.)
And finally:
1.
A reptilian scientist trying to prove his heretical theories kidnaps Chakotay and draws the entire crew in conflict between his race's doctrine and the startling truth about its origin.
While this is the sort of ep (script/ visual design/ execution) that might really befuddle the non-Trek-aligned, it's the kind that elicits a "Hell yeah now we're talking" response from yours truly. One of the series' finest (and most unexpected) achievements. I don't know if the makers of Discovery and the Kelvinverse Treks have a sincere passion for episodes like this (or "Blink of an Eye" or other comparable examples) - I could be totally wrong. But it seems like the missing element in their Trek worldview.
"That creature napping in Sick Bay is a dinosaur."
Chakotay is the human you want humanity to be, here. Nicely done. His finest moment? Possibly. Walking in Kirk's and Picard's shoes, at least, as well as Charlton Heston's. (There's a definite Planet of the Apes vibe in spots.) Great performances from the guest actors, as well. Just an A+ of an episode from top to bottom.
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| That's Robert Picardo's China Beach co-star Concetta Tomei under that make-up as Minister Odala. |
~
Well, another season comes to a close! I hope to have s4 up sometime in the next few months. Until next time - eyes open, friends.
I skimmed my way through this and found that more episodes rang a bell than I'd have expected. So I'm officially looking forward to my own season-three revisit, commencing soon!
ReplyDeleteMe, too - there's a couple of eps here I'm waiting for your review to discover if I liked or not!
DeleteI'm going to try and power through s4.
"Basics, Part II" --
ReplyDelete(1) I agree with you on this one; it's not that great. I kind of see what they were going for, but I don't think it works.
(2) Dourif is great, but there's a better version of this wherein Suder has to wrestle more with his sociopathy and ends up choosing life. There's also another better version wherein he gives in to his impulses and just runs around slicing off Kazon heads the pulling out Kazon guts and having a grand, bloody old time. Not very Star Trek of me to suggest that, though, is it? Nope. Anyways, he IS great here, although I still feel like they missed an opportunity for Suder to be a highly intriguing ongoing character.
(3) Would Chakotay really refer to himself as an Indian? I kind of doubt it; I suspect that by the 24th century that's gonna be a thing of the past. I'm saying a very 2018 thing by saying that, though, and for the record, I get it: this show is from twenty years ago, when we weren't quite so sensitive to such things. Plus, it's kind of funny that Chakotay is frustrated to be an Indian who can't start a fire.
(4) From an effects standpoint, this may have been the most ambitious episode of Trek ever: a giant snake monster AND an exploding volcano, complete with a river of lava?!? That's insane to try on late-nineties television money. And amazingly, it kind of looks okay.
(5) Seska and the Kazon suck, but it was weirdly touching when Seska spent her dying energy to crawl over to her (happily non-Chakotay-fathered) baby, and the Majj Cullah or whatever his stupid name is briefly weeps over her dead body. Interestingly human moments for characters who have been almost cartoonishly evil.
(2) Good point. It'd have been too jarring for the Rick Berman era Trek, but it's the better story to tell/ explore.
Delete(3) thru (5) Also good points!
(1) I was wondering why all the quiet. Congratulations.
ReplyDelete(2) What Bryant says sort of applies to the aliens in "Scorpion" part I. It always seems to come down to a question of whether to push the envelope or play it safe. It is possible the play it safe crowd is bigger than the risk-taker half.
ChrisC.
(1) Thanks, Chris!
Delete(2) Very true.
You know what, just apropos of absolutely nothing, I came across this mash-up fan trailer for Disney' "Up".
ReplyDeleteWhat makes this interesting is that it posits what would happen if that film were made way back in the 60s as a live action film.
The most important part of the fan trailer is the faux-date attached to the film: 1965. I think that's important because it's the first instance I know of where a fan trailer was able to manufacture it's own back story.
In this case the trailer asks, what if, after learning from his doctors that he didn't have long to live, that Walt Disney decided to throw out almost all care and shoot for the moon with one last live action film, something that would be both a summation of his career, and his outlook on life and art.
Sadly, none of that ever happened in real life. It's just fun to think of how it could have been, though.
the fan trailer is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml9hAN5km14
ChrisC
Disney could arguably be said to have done something similar to "a summation of his career, and his outlook on life and art" with Mary Poppins, and I would argue that he DID do it in his plans for Walt Disney World (and especially EPCOT).
DeleteI'm out of the habit of studying his work, but Disney the man fascinates me.
Regardless, that's probably the best of those Premakes trailers that I've seen. Very cool!
"Flashback" --
ReplyDelete(1) Yeah, I more or less agree with you on this one, sadly. I'm probably a little more in the positive camp than you overall, but I certainly can't disagree that at the end of the day, this is just fan-wank material. And hey, you know what? Historically, Trek hasn't really done a huge amount of that, so I'm okay with it in theory; but I agree, the episode that came out of this bout of wanking (ew) is just not really all that special.
(2) I think Takei is okay. I've never thought he was all that marvelous an actor, to be honest, but I do have a great deal of affection for him, and I bring that to this episode with me. So that hero shot of him appearing out of the smoke...? Love it. I wish I could somehow have experienced that moment as a surprise; I'd have bounced out of my seat. But he's just not really anything special here, apart from simply being who he is.
(3) Whitney is awful, bless her heart. If not for knowing it, I'd never have believed that was the woman who played Janice Rand. But she had a hard life, so... Well, no, actually; that just kind of makes it worse. It's like you're at a wake for someone who hasn't quite managed to die yet. I feel awful saying that, but it's the truth. I adore TOS Janice Rand, and this version of her just makes me kind of sad.
(4) You know who's great in this episode, though? Tim Russ. Excellent backstory episode for Tuvok, and I agree: maybe that's ALL this should have been. But in a strange way, I think the fact that it isn't kind of works in the show's favor overall. It's got -- and this comes from Tuvok (and to a lesser degree from Janeway) -- this underlying emphasis on the idea that the past is important, and worthy of remembering, and worthy of treasuring. But it's the present where one must live, and which is the most important thing. In a way, this is "Voyager" saying, hey, you know what? TOS was awesome; those movies were awesome. But WE'RE Star Trek now, and you know what? We're awesome, too. And by and large, I agree.
(5) Also awesome here: Kate Mulgrew. I especially love two scenes. One: in which she is waxing nostalgic for an age in which she never lived, when captains played fast and loose with the prime directive and the frontier was a real damn frontier. God, it makes SUCH perfect sense that she would feel that way; how could she not? Wonderful.
Two: in which she is inside Tuvok's memory, observing Captain Sulu formulating his plan. You can tell she has temporarily forgotten all about Tuvok. She is, instead, focused with laser precision upon Sulu's words, hanging on every single one of them; this is an incredibly rare opportunity for her to study a moment of decision from the career of someone you figure is a bit of a legend, and she is just soaking in it. Mulgrew makes these little gestures showing that in some cases she is almost making the decisions in her own mind right along with Sulu, and coming to the same decisions. Now, that is likely not in the screenplay; she was likely not directed to do that. I betcha five quatloos that is pure Kate Mulgrew in that scene, and it is great.
(6) The memory virus thing is ridiculous. Not your finest work, Brannon Braga. I don't blame you for swinging, but that's a swing and a got-damn miss right there, kid.
(7) Kes is fine as a motherfucker. I may end every comment that way from this point forward, just so we all remember.
(7) I wouldn't blame you.
DeleteAgreed with you on almost all other points, here. Except for Takei, for whom I used to have affection, but another casualty of the social media age: he just slowly whittled it away and then blasted it into orbit. My Sulu ends with Star Trek V, I guess. (Altho Takei was pretty good in that Star Trek Phase II episode. He at least seemed like he was performing in that episode. Here and everywhere else, it's like watching a statue in a parade or something for me.)
My impromptu other-franchise appearances by TOS members:
1) Spock in TNG/ Kelvinverse (even if his appearance in the 2nd one basically demonstrates why that 2nd one doesn't really work.)
2) Scotty in TNG
And then everything else is just varying degrees of awful/ almost-sacrilegious. Sulu might be 3rd, though. So that's something.
Solid review! I made a joke up there about waiting for Bryant's review on some of these episodes but it basically goes for all of them. I enjoy capsule-reviewing and ranking these things, and had I more time I could see myself doing a post per episode and really doing a deep dive like that. But, it's like we're working together between blog and comments to do that, so it's kind of the best of both worlds (sans Borg).
Well, the Borg are coming soon enough, I guess, aren't they? No getting rid of 'em for a while there.
DeleteI agree that Takei was good in that Phase II episode.
With both he and Whitney, I think they needed a stronger directorial hand here. I would imagine that once you're being cast for your figurehead ability, you don't actually get directed; people are probably scared to say, "Hey, let's try that again, with a different emphasis." They don't want to insult Yeoman Rand, so they just keep their lip zipped. They should have unzipped that lip.
"The Chute" --
ReplyDelete(1) This one's okay. Nothing super, unless you're big fans of Harry and/or Tom (and perhaps especially if you're a Harry/Tom fan, if you know what I mean). But there are good elements; it's lit nicely, and the direction is pretty good, and it really feels at times like something might truly be at stake for our characters. And I like the reveal that it's all happening on a space station; that's effective.
(2) I live in hope that someday, I will simply forget that there even is such a conceit as the universal translator. Because when I remember it during the course of an episode like this one -- when the crew don't have their comm badges and really ought not be able to understand anyone or be understood by them -- I kind of can't forgive it.
(3) That one dude may as well be a more plainly spoken Gasher.
(4) I like Janeway's tough negotiation scenes, but I think there was a better version of this episode where you never cut away from Harry or Tom and the rescue comes without explanation.
(1) Sounds about right from what I DO remember.
Delete(2) Someone should do a tedious sci-fi show where all these things (universal translator, no effect on the body from living in space, warp drive, transporters, replicators, etc.) are not there but the plot-prompts are still the same. i.e. it's some kind of Federation/ Starfleet set-up, but each story never launches because the characters have to clean out their space suits of the crap and urine, etc. every 12 hours, as they slowly approach the object of the episod, etc., all the while receiving gibberish over the hailing frequencies, because they only speak English. I could see this being done really well and funnily. But yeah, the universal translator/ babelfish thing is a little crazy. It's like when they start replicating spinal cords with the replicator; they should have set up some constraints with the concept.
(3) Ahhh good ol gross Gasher. Just this morning I was saying I should re-read all the Dark Towers and fix my blogs for those from the sprawling messes they are. A summer project? I dream.
(4) That would have been better! This is one of my favorite aspects of the TNG episode "Thine Own Self." (Altho the rescue comes a little late and after a crowbar to the face and guts. But, it's Data, so 'sall good bro.)
(2) God, that's a great idea! I'd watch that show for sure. Virtually none of the Trek-ian conceits bother me in the grand scheme of things; it's all just a collection of storytelling tools. I only mind when they forget to at least keep the veil of pretense up that it all makes sense. Like here. Even here, it doesn't ruin it.
Delete(3) So goes the rough-n-tumble life of a blogger. I dream of my own Dark Tower movie review finally happening. Not to mention a reread and proper blogging about that!
(4) Excellent episode. And I agree, that's a pretty good template for what this one could have been. Or, hell, it could have been the inverse: the crew fighting to get them back and us finding them in horrible condition, with only hints of what had happened to them.
"The Swarm" --
ReplyDelete(1) I kind of love this episode. As you say, it's a great Picardo episode -- and I'm always down for a great ep for ol' Shmullus. Is that Picardo actually singing? Pretty good; not sure he's ready for the Met, but pretty good.
(2) Do the two parts of this episode fit together in ANY way? Nope. But the urgency of the encounter with the swarm makes the problem with the Doctor seem that much more urgent, too. And the fact that his peril seems so real even while set against this seemingly formidable threat from a truly alien species is a great indication of just how fully we accept the Doctor as human.
(3) I know I threatened to say this a whole bunch, but seriously, Kes is fine as a motherfucker.
(4) I like the fact that it turns out to not really be that hard to defeat the swarm. I know why they don't do this sort of thing more often, but I really like it when the Starfleet ships end up just cakewalking over antagonistic races like this. You can only get away with doing it every so often, but I think they got away with it here, especially since it's the Doctor stuff that is the real draw.
(5) Carole Davis is pretty great as the diva. The Internet informs me that she appeared in Penthouse. Hmm. Well, see you next episode, I feel a need to be elsewhere all of a sudden...
(1) I think it was him singing, but I'm not sure. I think I read somewhere he had some musical theater/ opera training, but I could be making that up.
Delete(2) Normally they're a bit more graceful in making teh external threat match at least symbolically the internal one, but yeah, they didn't quite make the trains meet in the middle, here, did they?
(3) I feel we should keep saying it if only to counter the unfortunate and tragic afterstory of Jen Lien post-VOY.
(4) True!
(5) Also true. (Also PIRANHA 2! A classic.)
"False Profits" --
ReplyDeleteI'm not much of a fan of the Ferengi, either. But I kind of enjoy these two specific ones, who have a different energy to them than most others. And I kind of dig this episode due to the fact that it not only acknowledges/addresses the fact that TNG had stranded these characters in the Delta Quadrant years before, but also acknowledges the fact that Ethan Phillips had played a Ferengi before. ("Menage a Troi.") And he's pretty great here; he does an excellent job of drawing the line between the "Grand Proxy" and a scared Neelix.
The episode itself is not a favorite, but it's fine. Janeway's inventive interpretation of the Prime Directive made me chuckle.
One question, though: why did they feel the need to remove Chakotay's tattoo when he beamed down? And another: why would he permit it?
I don't recall the Chakotay-tattoo business; did the script offer up any kind of explanation for that?
DeleteI totally should've mentioned Ethan Phillips as the Grand Proxy - that was a highlight. But to be honest I meant to mention it in the "oh great - neelix AND ferengi, together as one" snarky vein.
Nah, no explanation was given -- the idea, I think, is that it would keep him from standing out and his cover from being blown. But that's silly. Why not just send someone else instead? Plus, since these "aliens" look 100% human, is it really that hard to believe they would never have seen a tattoo before?
DeleteWeird.
"Remember" --
ReplyDelete(1) The TNG vibes are definitely strong with this one. If it had aired on that show, who would you have wanted to see playing B'Elanna's part? Troi is the obvious candidate, but I see this as more of a Tasha Yar episode.
(2) Roxann Dawson is great in this one. It's got some of the steamiest moments in Trek up to that point, and she does well with that, as well as with B'Elanna's confusion, fear, and finally anger. I also like the fact that she can confide in Chakotay, who is amused by it initially but not in a judgmental way.
(3) There's something really interesting in the idea that it's progressives who initiated the Holocaust-like events. That's an unexpected tack for Trek to take, and while the episode absolutely IS redolent of TNG, it's got enough differences like that that it feels kind of fresh.
(4) The ending is very effective. The blonde engineer woman starts taking the memories from B'Elanna, and they begin in the same way for her: she is living the experience, and the Jared Leto-looking dude comes in the window and the gettin'-it-on starts. In that moment, it's like he's come back to life; like all of this, their entire relationship, is alive again. That's kind of weirdly touching. Or maybe it's late and I'm tired and my defenses are down. It struck me as a great way to go out of the episode, though.
(5) What is this show's fascination with weird head wraps? How/why did somebody at Paramount or UPN or wherever not put an end to that? Like, were they TRYING to get people not to watch?!?
I just lamenting last night that no one laughed at my "Archons" joke for this ep! I'm sure Klum did, if they have internet in Hell. (Which I'm sure they do. And I'm sure he's charmed his way to a penthouse suite by this point. He'd out-Pip Pip down there.)
Delete(1) - (2) Or Beverly. Actually, it's kind of a graft of "Remember Me" and it has some icky elements from "Sub Rosa" as well.
(3) I agree we're not used to seeing this sort of thing from Trek. Though it's refreshing to see! Someone must have read up on the history of Holocaust-like events in the 20th century and elsewhen. It's always the progressives. (Close second: the fascists. Who often start as progressives. Third place: the rubes/ the mob.)
(5) Too true.
I am ashamed of myself for missing that "Archons" joke. (And what was up with those costumes? Has there ever been a scene where the whole crew did cosplay to welcome an alien race? It's not unreasonable, just weird.)
Delete(1) "Sub Rosa," boy... that's a WTF of an episode for sure.
"Sacred Ground" --
ReplyDeleteNope, not a fan of this one at all. In fact, I think it's (so far) my least-favorite episode of the series by a wide margin.
It might be possible to accuse me of spiritual intolerance for what I'm about to say, and if that's the case then I'm okay with that. But I just find it difficult to accept it when episodes of Trek lean in the direction of saying "Well, but MAYBE there really IS something to religion after ALL...!" And I'm not refuting that as a sentiment; I just don't much care for it in my Star Trek. I like my Star Trek to be "Who Mourns For Adonais?" or "Devil's Due." I do NOT like it to imply that Janeway is a bit of a chump for her adherence to science, or to imply that she is suddenly unsettled by the Doctor's rigorous scientific explanations after her experiences.
The episode leaves juuuuust a bit of room for me to choose to believe that Janeway's new attitude is a result of her still having toxins in her system, so I'll just seize on that and run with it.
All that aside, I don't think this is much of an episode. I do like -- very much, actually -- Becky Ann Baker in the role of spiritual guide or whatever. She's great; she's always great, in everything from "Storm of the Century" to "Freaks and Geeks" to "Girls."
I also like Robert Beltran and Robert Picardo in this one. Par for the course. However, I kind of dislike Kate Mulgrew, which is decidedly NOT par for the course; that's highly unusual. But I don't think she's very good in many of her scenes here, and I'm choosing to believe that it's because she hated the episode and was trying to tank it. If so, good on ya, Katie; I give you a thumbs-up for that.
And this has been Curmudgeon Minute With Bryant Burnette.
I'll have to revisit this one for sure.
DeleteReligion/ science/ Trek: tough intersection for sure! Think of the ending to "Bread and Circuses" for example in TOS vs. something like TNG's "Devil's Due" (or even that other one with Ray Wise as an alien in TNG which I had to look up the name of just now: "Who Watches the Watchers.")
I suppose it makes sense for the people of the 23rd and 24th centuries to be as varied in their attitudes towards religion / science/ superstition as anyone else.
Sometimes (like in "Coda" or some other episodes) Janeway/ Mulgrew's line reads or reactions seem really... off. I don't know what it is; perhaps it's what you describe, just an insurmountable antipathy towards the material.
In that case, if Shatner can deliver the performance he delivered in "Turnabout Intruder", then suck it up, everyone-else-on-planet-earth-and-just-read-the-goddamn-lines.
I'm with you on that; as much as I love Mulgrew, she has moments where I'm like, "Ehhhh...really?" But to be fair, Patrick Stewart had those on occasion, too; not many, but every once in a while. Avery Brooks had 'em pretty frequently, and Scott Bakula probably about as often as Mulgrew. I don't hold it again them; not much at least, especially when they are all also just as prone to be brilliant.
DeleteI actually did find myself thinking about "Bread and Circuses." That episode -- its end, at least -- is a real head-scratcher for me. I find it to be fairly compelling, though. It's kind of ... weirdly touching. (Not "weirdly" at all for many, many people, obviously; I mean "weirdly" for me.)
The comparison to "Turnabout Intruder" is kind of apt. Mulgrew isn't off the wall in this like Shatner in that, but it's a curious enough performance that I can kind of draw a line between the two; not a straight line, a squiggly-as-hell one, but a line all the same.
"Future's End, Part 1" --
ReplyDelete(1) I ended up watching this one over the course of several nights because I kept falling asleep. So I think I'm getting you experience of Voyager-watching all of a sudden! Not sure why fatigue was striking so much, but I don't hold it against the episode, per se. That said...
(2) Boy is this episode goofy. I feel about time-travel on Trek similar to the way I feel about Mirror Universe episodes: I'd rather they didn't, but if they do, I'd rather they didn't try to take it all too seriously. I don't know how I can take Federation timeships with one-person crews from the 29th century seriously; and I don't, but this episode does, and it kind of doesn't work for me.
(3) Similarly, I cannot AT ALL take the wardrobe decisions of this episode seriously. Did the cast get sent to a Target with a $45 budget to dress themselves?!? Why the need to leave Chakotay's face tattoo but give him flat hair? Awful.
(4) Speaking of awful, Sarah Silverman. I like her, but not in this episode; she's pretty terrible, in my opinion.
(3) True but that one shot of the 4 of them leaning on the boardwalk edge inspired that quick Jan Hammer/ Miamia Vice joke. Not that I mean to keep pointing out jokes! It just cracks me up. It's such a wannabe Miami Vice look (and you can sort of be charmed by the future's geeky idea of what people would wear to blend in).
Delete(4) I have the opposite reaction: I don't mind her here, but I think she's somewhat terrible elsewhere. But! A boring world would it be if we agreed on EVERYTHING.
(3) You could be right. I fear that it was some overpaid costume designer's idea of what the nineties looked like. Which, to be fair, maybe it kind of did.
Delete(4) Very true. Maybe part two will change my mind! (I can remember literally nothing about it.)
"Future's End, Part 2" --
ReplyDelete(1) I like this one a good bit better than part one. I am hard-pressed to say why that is, exactly, but I suspect Chakotay's hair -- which is, here, back to normal -- is a part of the equation.
(2) An excellent use of Tuvok early on when Sarah Silverman asks him "What's up?" and he answers, "Breakfast is up." "Would you please hand me a burrito?" he asks moments later, which delighted me.
(3) Silverman and Robert Duncan McNeill have zero chemistry. I like Tom Paris pretty well, but if I'm being honest with myself I have to admit that he's a beige bowl of oatmeal, a bland schlub. Stick him in subpar nineties attire and he looks like a guy who could only be described as a ladies' man if a screenplay insisted upon it. It's easy to see why Paris might be into Rain (she's hot and feisty, an excellent combination, especially when her midriff is consistently exposed as well), but her alleged attraction to him does not pass muster.
(4) I agree with you: Begley makes a good villain here, and it's almost a shame they did away with him. He's an unusual screen presence, and they actually make that work to the episode's benefit: that off-center intensity of his is atypical for this series, and in the good way.
(5) There's a great little moment when some of the crew are riding in Rain's van. Tuvok leans forward to give some instructions or something to do with the plot, and the newly-liberated Doctor leans forward with him so as to be a part of the conversation. He's a big grin on his face, and Tuvok just sort of casts a tiny bit of side-eye at him, slightly rattled (or so I'm reading it) by the fact that this literal computer program can't keep its emotions in check. He finishes what he's saying, and leans back; the Doctor, still thrilled, leans back with him.
(6) The interlude at the compound of the Sovereign Citizens or whatever they are is so weird. "They've got lasers! A black man and some bald guy!" one of the rednecks says, disgustedly. Is this the only time Tuvok is actually referred to as being black in the series? Probably so. (A strange sequence of thoughts occurred to me while watching this stuff. First, it reminded me of "Pulp Fiction," because I was pretty sure the two hicks wanted to rape Chakotay; if they'd produced a gimp to do that very thing, it wouldn't have been THAT out of place. Second, that led me to think how much somebody probably wanted to have one of the hicks call Tuvok something other than "black." Third, that led me back to Tarantino, who is allegedly making a Star Trek movie in the not-too-distant future, and I immediately became worried that he was ginning up a feature-length version of this scene, somehow. Fouth: I'd probably still watch it.)
(1) I still get a kick out of the outfits/ flat-hair stuff. It just reminds me of STIV when even the crew of the Enterprise can't quite crack the fashion/trends code of the past. (I do agree on the timeship-wonkiness; that part never quite gels. You kinda just have to go with it, like, oh okay, now they're in the past, back on Earth. Somehow. Like temporal wormholes and shit. Okay, guys.)
Delete(2) thru (5) Ditto!
(6) I sincerely hope not. I'm rooting for Tarantino on the new Trek, which is big for me, I really despise the guy's writing/ approach. I can only hope no one is THAT crazy to "go there" in the Trekverse. (Except for the AV Club and Vox, of course, but they do so because "woke." i.e. it's not racist to keep referring to Tuvok as half-Vulcan/ half-black and view his character not the way the writers, producers, and Tim Russ designed it; they know better. And to call it is "said the white guy" etc.) Anyway, yeah, the sovereignty rednecks are embarrassingly awful and I should downgrade the episode for such stupidity and banality but I kinda shrugged it off. It helps to be sleep-deprived, sometimes.
(6) No, I'm with you -- I found it to be so weird that it kind of charmed me, so I don't hold it against the episode. I have no problem enjoying it when a show pokes a stick at rednecks, I just don't expect it from a Star Trek, so it kind of jolted me.
DeleteIf anything, I was offended by the obvious implication that these goons hate bald people as much as they hate black people. Bald men are a noble sort and do not deserve the world's scorn. #BaldNotBad
Oh, and I continue to be amazed/disgusted by that shit you describe at AV Club. Fuck that.
DeleteI agree with you on Tom Paris. Each of the VOY actors seems chosen to hit their particular note in the ensemble. Robert Duncan McNeill hits that note reliably, and the writers make adequate - sometimes inspired - use of it. Harry's the same way. Maybe B'Elanna, too. I like this aspect of ensemble shows, overall - supporting cast in the best use of the term - but one of the nice things about going along with VOY is seeing everyone (especially Tuvik and Kes. And - damn it! - Neelix) develop their note and imbue it with variety and depth.
DeleteDo Harry, Tom, and B'Elanna? I don't know. This isn't a criticism of what they do, more of an appreciation of what Kes, Tuvok et al do.
It's funny because some of my favorite VOY episodes are Tom and Harry ones. And really that's the cool thing about this show - everyone's genuinely likable enough. Even goddamn Neelix.
p.s. #BaldNotBad: There should be a Robert Picardo/ Patrick Stewart The-More-You-Know ad as a special message at the end of the episode. (With Shatner not allowed back in, though he tries. "Traitor! You've betrayed the clan!!")
DeleteI think that would be a valuable public service. Let's get Avery Brooks and Persis Khambatta in there, too!
Delete"Do Harry, Tom, and B'Elanna? I don't know." -- My knee-jerk reaction would be to say no. But that's okay; not every character can be an A+. I mean, I don't know that either Geordie or Beverly were ever able to show much variety/depth, and it's not because Burton and McFadden were bad in the roles. Maybe just not inspired the way some of the others were. Maybe the same is true of some of the Voyager performers.
But I like them all! Not a single one of them makes me groan when they walk on the screen. (And there are DS9 characters who kind of do spark that reaction in me, so I'm not incapable of it.)
"Warlord" --
ReplyDelete(1) The opening scene on Neelix's party-planet simulation is quite possibly one of the worst scenes in all of Star Trek history. And I say that as someone who likes Neelix (and Ethan Phillips); but he is just stunningly awful here. Why the foot-festishist closeups?!?
(2) The only good thing that comes out of that scene is the later one where B'Elanna shows up and has the biggest slice of beefcake you've ever seen tagging along beside her. "I've made my own modifications," she says, obviously preparing for a DEEP dicking. Good for her! (Roxann Dawson looks nice in a bathing suit, too, it must be added.)
(3) I'm not quite as sold on Jennifer Lien's performance here as you are. I think she's great in much of it, but at other times she's out of her element and trying too hard. I wish she had gone for (or had been directed to go for -- this may be shoddy direction at fault) quiet menace rather than over-the-top menace. For example, she IS great in the quasi-dream-sequence in which Kes is threatening the real guy. And I like moments of her being over the top, too; all that leaping over tables and whatnot is kind of fun.
(4) The guy who gets exiled and ends up on Voyager for a while is Brad Greenquist, who played Victor Pascow in "Pet Sematary"! The ground is sour! So is his performance.
(5) Why didn't they send the Doctor to infiltrate the camp and put the science device on her face? (This will be the first of many times that question gets asked, I'd imagine.)
(5) It's a question worth asking many times in many scenarios!
Delete"The Q and the Grey" --
ReplyDelete(1) I want to love this one. I really do. I mean, it's got John de Lancie in it, and Suzie Plakson, and a great title. I even kind of enjoy the notion of a civil war in the Q Continuum. I don't love it, though; it's just not very lovable.
(2) Q sexually harassing Janeway is not really my cup of tea. And I bet it really wasn't Kate Mulgrew's cup of tea, either.
(3) This whole thing where Janeway gets all high and mighty and insists that the Voyager will get back to Earth on its own initiative thankyouverymuch is fucking ridiculous. The entire first season was ostensibly about them trying to find the second Caretaker so she could send them back. But when Q offers, it's beyond the pale? That's awful writing. Better to have them be constantly begging Q to do it, and for Q to be all cagey about why he won't.
(4) I generally love Suzie Plakson, but I don't like her in this much at all.
(2) Yeah I wish they'd just have had better sense with the Q altogether on VOY, but all the "Come on, Kathy!" stuff is just dumb. This is the episode where the milk turned on me, so to speak.
Delete(3) Agreed.
(4) I totally should have mentioned her, eh? As a reviewer, sometimes, I'm a decent assistant manager for the salad bar.
(2) I'm with you on that. Mulgrew and de Lancie have good chemistry, so I kind of understand why the producers wanted to do this; but it doesn't work and is kind of embarrassing. There're no Kazon in it, at least.
Delete"Macrocosm" --
ReplyDelete(1) Sweaty, tank-topped, monster-hunting Janeway receives my hearty endorsement.
(2) The Tak Tak are really, really weird. Weird design, weird execution visually. Weird communication conceit. Weird species name. But hey, why not? I think you can get away with this sort of thing on a sci-fi show every once in a while, and they get away with it here. Plus, there's that nice moment toward the end where the Tak Tak dude wishes Janeway good health and after he's signed off she puts her hands on the hips -- a gesture that caused a diplomatic incident before the episode began -- and says "Good health" in a fuck-you tone of voice. I love that.
(3) The coda, in which the Voyager sails away to the sound of Janeway's jazz music, is odd. I like it, but it's odd.
(4) Pretty funny that the plot is resolved by the viruses being tricked into attacking Neelix's party-planet simulations. Was Brannon Braga (who wrote this one) perhaps not too big a fan of that set, I wonder?
(5) The chemistry between Roxann Dawson and Robert Duncan McNeill is really starting to click. There's just a brief little bit of it here, when they start arguing over whose fault the replicator problem is, but it crackles. I can't remember when the relationship between the two characters starts -- but I wonder if it was a direct outgrowth of the fact that when they were put together in stray moments like this, somebody noticed how well it was working.
(6) Solid episode for Shmullus, obviously.
(7) There's a nice callback to a previous episode during one of Neelix's scenes when Janeway says something about his lungs and he corrects her by saying "lung" singular.
(8) Ever seen this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAVFOVgwBrY&t=127s
A little lame, but also kind of funny.
(3) I like when tehy do stuff like that. I remember watching "A Fistful of Datas" for the first time (that's one I only saw in the 21st century not when it originally aired) and there's that great shot of the Enterprise sailing off into the sun at the end and thinking "oh hey - they can DO that?" Or the end of "The Inner Light" with just the flute music. Now, those two episodes couldn't be further apart in tone, but just two that jump out to me. I wouldn't want to see every episode end with jazz or what not, but every once in awhile it's a nice change of pace.
Delete(4) Not sure! Could be, though.
(7) THEY CAME TO BURGLE NEELIX'S LUNG would have been a better name for that episode.
(8) Never saw that, no! Loved it. Roz and Daphne are really Sopranos-out with that hair - I approve. The Klingon cracked me up; was that another Frasier actor?
(3) I knew it had been done before, but I couldn't think of which episodes.
Delete(8) Good question. Didn't sound like Kelsey Grammar to me, but it's possible. Dan Butler, maybe? Seemed too tall.
"Fair Trade" --
ReplyDelete(1) To answer your question, I don't think this IS a bad episode, but it doesn't really do a whole heck of a lot for me, either. And it probably should. I mean, I like Neelix. And Ethan Phillips is good in this one, playing a version of the character we've never really seen before (i.e., a guy who is desperate to prove he can be of continued use even though he knows he probably can't be). In the end, I think the episode fails because it refuses to take a strong side. I'm not sure how I would suggest changing it, though.
(2) Why wasn't Kes a pivotal part of this episode? Given how much Neelix loves her, I don't buy that she wouldn't have been front and center in his thinking, even above and beyond his thinking about Voyager.
(3) So I guess this Vulcan kid is the same actor but not the same character as from "Lower Decks." This guy is named Vorik; the TNG Vulcan was named Taurik. I don't get that. Same deal as with how Tom Paris is basically just the guy from "The First Duty" with a different name. What was their weird obsession on Voyager with doing stuff like this?
(3) That is weird, yeah. I hadn't realized they changed the name, even - I imagine it's just a way to avoid paying ongoing royalties to whomever wrote those two episodes. I'm not sure how it works; someone needs to tell me. (Would the directors of those episodes receive royalties, too?)
DeleteIf it ISN'T this, then it's incredibly stupid to do this and I refuse to go along with it by pretending they're different people.
"Alter Ego" --
ReplyDelete(1) Apologies for repeating a thing I know I've said before, but it's impressive how many different ways the various shows find of doing holodeck-run-amok episodes. This one is kiiiiiinda like the Moriarty episodes of TNG (enough so that they kind of name-drop them here), and a little bit like the Minuet episode (a personal favorite of mine), but there's a clever enough spin on the ideas that it ends up feeling like its own thing.
(2) Poor Harry Kim. Not only does Tuvok end up stealing his woman from him, but the entire episode as well!
(3) This episode was directed by Robert Picardo, which I think makes it the first episode of the series to be directed one of its own castmembers. He did a good job, too. I think the cast all responded well to his direction, Tim Russ in particular.
(4) Major disappointment: Jennifer Lien was in swimwear of some sort but Picardo did not allow the camera to ogle her. Morally and ethically, this was the correct decision. I resent him for it all the same.
(1) I too shall apologize for repeating myself, but I feel VOY's holodeck/photonic-lifeform type of episodes are its signature contribution to the franchise.
Delete(4) If Seven had directed it, morality and ethics would have been irrelevant!
"Coda" --
ReplyDelete(1) I wouldn't be able to put it on any kind of a personal-favorites list (probably even merely ranking third-season episodes), but I don't dislike this one much, if at all. I do get where you're coming from, though; it seems a bit like a story that resulted from Trek-tropes madlibs or something. That said, it felt to me at times as if maybe screenwriter Jeri Taylor knew that a big chunk of the audience would be thinking that and had written the episode in a playful manner that kept just ahead of us. If so, I don't think the results are inspired or anything; but I think they're okay.
(2) One element I enjoyed was the Admiral Janeway costume, which seems designed to serve as a midpoint between the late-movies-era TOS costumes and the early-seasons TNG costumes. It's kind of hideous, but no costume that singlehandedly bridges those two eras could have been anything but.
(3) There's some good acting throughout from most of the main cast, but Mulgrew has a terrific moment when "Harry" is speaking at her memorial service. He's kind of struggling with it -- and by "he" I mean Garrett Wang, who is good in the scene but is 100% unable to summon any tears or any kind of genuinely affecting emotion -- and we cut to Janeway, who is incredibly moved and is barely keeping her shit together. Tears start running down her face and everything. Voyager (and all Trek of this era) is occasionally a bit standoffish when it comes to this type of humanity, so this moment really stands out, and in the good way.
(4) "Admiral Janeway" is played by Len Cariou, who's been in lots of stuff, including both "1408" and "Secret Window" (thanks, IMDb!). I don't love his performance here, but I think the lack of chemistry between he and Janeway works as a cue that something is wrong. Not that you really need such a cue; I mean, duh.
(3) That is a nice moment. We've been here before, of course, with Trek, though that certainly doesn't mean we should never "go there" again. But yeah, what was "The Next Phase," less than 10 years before this episode for sure. I'll take that one over this six times a week and twice on Sunday.
Delete(4) I probably should namecheck the guest stars more often than I do. I didn't here because Len Cariou is a bit of a legend (particularly in Chicago, where he's done extensive Steppenwolf Theater stuff over the years) but I REALLY didn't like him in this. If I didn't know he was somebody, I'd think they let somebody's Dad in and gave him a part to play. You could be right about the chemistry, but the problem (to me) is worse in that he makes Mulgrew a bad performance. Her reactions to him are all badly or oddly delivered. Beats are hit that don't need to be. And then it cuts to Len scowling. (And while I'm here, that uniform looks bad on him.)
Probably on the director (Nancy Malone) who was in some fine sci-fi back in the day. Oddly enough she directs another episode where she gets a great performance out of Andy Dick, of all freaking people.
So, maybe instead of being Mulgrew, Malone, or Cariou's fault, it's just mine, who knows.
"Blood Fever" --
ReplyDelete(1) I like pretty much all of the stuff with Vorik here (although I agree that Enberg gets a little bit outside his range at times). The Doctor's holographic-simulation cure was a good idea, but it makes sense that it wouldn't work. I hate to think what sort of horrors Vorik performed upon that poor holographic woman, though.
(2) The rock-people aliens or whatever they are turned out pretty well. They've got that weird head-wrap-with-odd-hairy-sections thing that this show had an idiotic hardon for, but I'll let that slide. And the final-moments revelation about what's actually going on with the destruction on their planet is effective and exciting. Speaking of exciting...
(3) All the B'Elanna/Tom stuff is super hot. Seems like I should have more to say about it than that, but really, what else is there?
(4) Neelix sucks in this one; not so much him as the manner in which he is deployed. Let me get this straight: you need to send a team of crewmembers on a spelunking expedition, and you decide that fatass Neelix is the guy to fill one of the spots?!? That's dumb. I like the episode, but that aspect of it not so much.
(4) Ha! That's a good point. "But Captain there are literally a hundred other -" "This needs Neelix."
Delete"Unity" --
ReplyDelete(1) I agree, this is a very fine episode indeed. In some ways, it's as radical a furthering of the Borg plotline as "I, Borg" was back in the TNG days. Heck, maybe even more so. But that's kind of a hallmark of the best Trek, I think: always asking questions, always pushing against the status quo to see if it maintains or if it can be -- needs to be -- broken through to whatever lies beyond it. I hope Trek will do that again one of these days.
(2) Excellent line at the very end: "I wonder how long their ideals will last in the face of that kind of power." And an excellent question, too.
(3) I think Chakotay was a perfect pick for the point of view character in this one. There's an unexpectedly spiritual side to this notion of a pacifist ex-Borg collective -- or cooperative, I guess, really. And the quasi-spiritual side to Chakotay makes him a good fit for this, whereas if it'd been, like, Harry or Tom it probably wouldn't have worked at all.
(4) Pretty good direction from Robert Duncan MacNeill, although there's one scene where the staging is kind of clunky between Janeway and Chakotay. But hey, it's a mid-nineties television show, so I'll cut 'em some slack.
(5) From what I remember of the rest of the season, this episode really is a good establishing story for the next phase of the Borg storyline. And that's cool, but it plays perfectly well in its own right, and doesn't feel like a cheap ploy just to set up some other thing. I give everyone involved big kudos for that.
(6) Random Trek-adjacent thought: if I had a replicator in my apartment, I would program into it a completely seedless watermelon, and would then proceed to eat approximately two pounds of it every fucking day, because watermelon is delicious beyond belief but BOY do I hate dealing with the seeds. Even with those so-called seedless watermelons (a complete misnomer). If not for those seeds, watermelons would fear me the way hens fear foxes. As is, they've got considerably less to be afraid of, at least so far as I'm concerned. Anyways, I'd really like a replicator.
Oh, almost forgot: that bit you added in which Ensign Redshirt realizes she is doomed with Chakotay piloting the shuttlecraft is great. And oh so true.
Delete(3) That's true, I'm glad it was Chakotay. He's pretty great here and in "Distant Origin."
Delete(4) and (5) True, and agreed.
(6) Evelyn loves watermelon but has only ever had the presliced, seeds-mostly-discarded variety. I bought a whole one the other day and chopped it up and she was disturbed by the amount of seeds. She may have switched to cantaloupe that very day. Both are pretty awesome from where I'm coming from.
Canteloupe is indeed awesome. I had one the other day that was as good as any I've ever had.
Delete"Darkling" --
ReplyDelete(1) "Still, the concept of the holographic doctor provides so many places to go, and when you've got an actor of Picardo's caliber in the cast, it seems criminal not to give him episodes like this." -- Even if I *could* argue with this, I probably wouldn't. This is especially true of tv shows from this particular era, where you're talking 20+ episodes per season over the course of seven seasons. What a shame it'd be if you didn't give your cast members opportunities to strut their stuff. So a Doctor-centric riff on Jekyll/Hyde...? Sure, why not?
(2) It's casually mentioned during one scene that Kes has broken up with Neelix. Huhwhut?!? Are we talking about during that one scene in "Warlord" when it's not even really Kes? Is the idea that Neelix got so butthurt about that that Kes decided to simply be rid of her on a permanent basis? An odd decision to just sort of drop that idea into the series in this manner, ill-defined and vague.
(3) That one alien guy Kes has the hots for looks like a bargain-bin Jon Hamm. Kes sure does have mediocre-to-shitty taste in men. She's not unlike Denna Troi in that regard; every guy Troi was ever into on TNG who wasn't named Riker (or Worf) may as well have been a rice cake with arms and legs. Post-Neelix, Kes is showing signs of being similarly bland in her leanings.
(4) Lord Byron and Gandhi having a debate about sexuality on a luau-planet holodeck simulation. WTF. I love it, but WTF.
(2) I thought they broke up in s3 (or s2 even) sometime. Didn't they? I thought during that whole Neelix-gets-jealous-of-Paris episode stretch or when it was revealed they (she and Neelix) had never had sex, around there. But I guess they were vague enough about it that neither of us knew/knows for sure.
Delete(3) For sure and (4) Yes crap I meant to single that out for praise. Thank you for catching it and doing so here.
(2) I forgot to report in on this -- the behind-the-scenes stuff on the season 3 DVDs includes a bit from Ethan Phillips wherein he talks about the fact that a scene was filmed for "Fair Trade" in which it is formally stated that es has broken up with Neelix. And it's specifically the result of what happens in "Warlord"; the idea there is that that wasn't entirely the alien dude, there was some of Kes in that moment as well.
DeleteSees like that's a scene you'd want to leave in, if you ask me.
Ah-so! Thank you - I was hoping people would leave tidbits from the behind-the-scenes/ commentary tracks here in the comments.
DeleteEver since I saw the time-shattered-Kes one, I think "Baby Got Back" when I see her. I'm easily amused.
"Rise" --
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on pretty much all of this one -- definitely a Diet Galileo 7. Tim Russ and Ethan Phillips make a bit of hay out of it, though, and I kind of dig the space-elevator idea.
On the other hand, the guy playing the traitor is pretty awful; he's like Diet Patton Oswalt, which is not a good thing to be.
I'm not even sure we need non-diet Patton Oswalt! Alas, who has a choice.
Delete"Favorite Son" --
ReplyDelete(1) Oh, man, I really dug this one. This MIGHT be my favorite of the season so far; it's on the shortlist, for sure. For the record, I 100% agree that there is some Janeway-as-surrogate-mother stuff going on and that that is a big part of Harry's unconscious motivation behind resisting being trapped in this place. We've known from previous episodes that Harry looks to Janeway as a sort of mother-figure, and it makes sense that this alien virus would find it necessary to attempt to overwrite THAT along with his feelings about his own mother. And since the surrogate mother is kind of his only way of ever hoping to be able to see his real mother again, it kind of makes sense that he might retain a strong enough desire to remain part of Voyager's crew that it would prevent the virus from fully rewriting his neural pathways. To the extent any of this makes sense, of course; but as a conceit on an episode of Trek, I think it works pretty damn well.
(2) The casting department outdid themselves in the finding-of-babes sense of things on this one. Holy moly. I've got all sorts of thoughts that, quite frankly, are not fit to be repeated. What I'll say about that is that poor Garrett Wang must have had the devil of a time filming this. See, it might SEEM like it'd be delightful to have scantily-clad uber-babes pawing at you and hugging you and caressing you for hours on end during the filming of an episode like this one, but can you imagine the frustration that must accrue over the course of a day's filming of that nature? Maybe a professional simply takes it in stride and goes about their business, but I don't know how one could avoid being in (at best) a low-grade state of freakout the entire day long. For Garrett's sake, I hope he made at least one good friend during that time.
(3) The Janeway moment you mention above -- ordering him to get his cut seen to -- is excellent. There's another great moment when Harry marches into her ready room and delivers a forceful but kind of reluctant sounding apology. The look with which Mulgrew fixes him when she looks up at him from her desk is kind of staggering; she's not had as many such moments in the third season as during the first two, I think, but one like this is good enough to damn near make up for that.
(4) One of the hotter of the hot babes is the hot lady terminator from "Terminator 3." She was also the star of "Bloodrayne," which is by far one of the worst movies I've ever seen.
(5) Playing the poor schmuck who gets desiccated is Patrick Fabian, who is currently one of the series regulars on "Better Call Saul." I always think of him from his role in the "Millennium" episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense," which is awesome and in which HE is awesome.
(6) I really dig the concept behind the DNA virus as this episode presents it. There's something horrible and spidery about it. This species plants DNA all over its span of the galaxy, and then feeds a line of bullshit to the poor saps who unwittingly become victimized by it. In this fashion, they further their species. What a weird idea! "Voyager" was (and still is) criticized for being "too normal," but holy moly does it occasionally prove those criticisms to be baseless. I love it.
(1) and (2) Amen!
Delete(4) Crikey! Is that her? I really have to do a better job of vetting the guest stars. Except that would make an already tediously long process even longer. The day I get bankrolled by mysterious patrons from the Delta Quadrant (or Switzerland. Or Swaziland, for that matter) I'll really have to step up my game. Anyway "hot lady Terminator" reminded me how River (from Firefly) was once able to be briefly classified as such a thing in that (not so good) Sarah-Connor-Chronicles show. I'd forgotten all about her being in that until this comment, here.
(5) I really have to watch that one again. I agree on its awesomeness.
(6) VOY is an odd blend of Trek-Casserole and strikingly-original / cool-sci-fi formulations. I agree: that "too normal" charge is baseless.
(Although if someone described it the way I just did, I'd say "That sounds like wisdom talking, friend. What clever insightful bastard did you get THAT from?")
(4) I would not have recognized her if I had not recognized the name in the opening credits (Kristanna Loken, which is like the kind of name I'd invent if I were writing a novel and wanted to impress upon people with merely a name how hot a babe was).
DeleteI never could get into "The Sarah Connor Chronicles." It wasn't bad, just didn't hold my attention.
Ohhhhh, it was kinda bad. :-) Actually, I barely remember it. I remember one tragically overdone scene in a swimming pool with Johnny Cash's "The Mercy Seat" and a lot of random acting/ contrived stuff. (And Bubbles from The Wire as a resistance fighter.)
Delete"Before and After" --
ReplyDelete(1) I would imagine there is an extensive amount of fan fiction that attempts to answer your back-birth-related questions. I will not make such an attempt, because nobody needs that.
(2) Lien is fantastic in this episode. She's especially great in the early scenes, where she is playing a decreasingly-old-and-senile series of Keses. I wonder if they filmed in reverse order, so she could kind of track that aspect of the role. Whatever they did, it worked.
(3) Is Kes the most underrated character in all of Trek?
(4) That wig on Dr. Shmullus -- I refuse to ever call him Dr. Van Gogh -- is both great and terrible.
(5) I wonder if they already had plans to do a big "Year of Hell" two-parter during the next season, or if the idea as presented in this episode worked so well that they felt an obligation to follow up on it. Neither would surprise me.
(6) I like all of the Kes/Tom stuff. There was enough of a spark between them in the early episodes that it is perfectly plausible that that is a thing which could pick up again later on.
(7) Farewell, Linnis Paris! That actress eventually landed a role on The Young and the Restless, and made some 400+ episodes. She works quite well here, as does the actress who plays Kes's mother (who I don't know from anything much, but whose IMDb page indicates that she has been working like a beast ever since this episode, which was one of her first gigs). You've got to love when casting for relatively small parts like these goes this well.
(8) I agree that this episode is not exactly charting new territory for Trek, and I also agree that it is nevertheless a terrific episode. I've been a little down on this season at times, but there have been some awfully good episodes to go along with the less-great ones.
(3) Possibly! I'd have to think on that one for a spell. (I'd like to see a cage match between every contender for the ultimate spot. Nurse Ogawa - new challenger!)
Delete(3.5) No disrespect to Patti Yasutake, just a random example.
(7) Poor Patti Yasutake never parlayed Nurse Ogawa into big-or-small-screen glory; looks like her last gig was in 2007 according to her imdb. While we're/ I'm here! NURSE OGAWA FOREVER.
(8) One interesting (unintended, I'm sure) side effect for this episode is that they kind of come down on the life-begins-at-conception side of the "debate" (I use air quotes because a) FFS let's not have one here in the comments, not that I'd worry about anything YOU say, just don't want to throw open the floor with a suggested topic) and b) it's more of an implication of what they write here. Nevertheless, in these Orwellian times in which all ideas traffick, I suspect it's the sort of implication that would get someone fired. Fuck 2018 with a gigantic planet-eating drill that consumes the woke and un-woke alike in violent, retching agony.
(3) After further thought, I'm probably going to say Dr. Pulaski would get my actual vote. I like her way more than I ever liked Dr. Crusher. Heresy! And it's all mine.
Delete(8) 100%
"Real Life" --
ReplyDeleteIt either says something about this episode or about my shitty memory that "The Offspring" did not occur to me while watching this one. Probably the latter; but maybe a bit of both.
I don't think this is AS good an episode as that one, but it's still very good. And it makes sense that a self-actualizing holographic person could/would(/should?) create his own family.
I wonder if B'Elanna herself programmed it so that the kid might be mortally injured? Or did she maybe just program things so that that was a randomness factor which enabled mortal peril?
I agree - "The Offspring" is better. With few exceptions, the original offering for any Trek Casserole later reheated and served in ENT or VOY (or DS9, I imagine, but maybe that one less so? Not sure) gets the nod. I do quite like "Real Life," mainly because I like The Doctor so much, though.
DeleteThat would be pretty edgy if B'Elanna did that! I'd approve. Her character needs that edge. As I watch these things I can't help but see BSG more and more as the anti-VOY, or as the edgy outlet for all the ideas and approaches deemed too edgy for the Berman-era Trek machine. A machine I love, but a machine it was.
A well-oiled one that seemed at the time (this is my perception of it, at least) like it was maybe a little too much on the safe side; but it's aged incredibly well.
DeleteOh! And I forgot to mention one of the things that most fascinated me in this episode: the Doctor's son identifying as Klingon. Imagine how many veins of sociological exploration of that nature would be opened by a true intermingling of that many worlds' species! It's WAY too big a topic for a television show to ever successfully tackle, but I like the fact that they hinted at it here.
And, again, it kind of seems like that might be programming by B'Elanna that might have come from her trying to explore things from her own life in some way.
Anyways, yeah, I dig this episode quite a bit. GREAT episode for Picardo, to say the least.
"Distant Origin" --
ReplyDelete(1) I echo your A+ assessment. Let's have no mistake about that; this is upper-echelon Trek, full stop. Even if it hadn't ended up working as well as it does, you'd have to salute the sheer ambition and audacity of it. And speaking of that...
(2) ...I have to wonder how on EARTH I forgot about this episode. I'll grant you, I only ever saw it once, but I remembered nothing whatsoever about it. So much so that I'm tempted to wonder if I somehow skipped it when I watched the series the first time circa 2008. It's not implausible -- I watching by getting discs from Netflix, and it's not unthinkable that one of them might not have worked 100%, causing me to not be able to see this episode. If I did see it, it's insane to think that I didn't remember this one at least a little bit.
(3) It seems like a true shame that Trek has never followed up on the Voth. A consultation of Memory Alpha informs me that that is indeed the case, however. They apparently showed up in the "Star Trek Online" MMO, where they were turned into a race of advanced soldiers. Fuck that in the nose.
(4) The Voth storyline is incredibly cool -- I mean, everything about them works. It's all obviously a metaphor for humanity's own struggles with faith versus science; it's on-the-nose in that regard, I guess, but that don't bother me none. And it puts me in mind of the idea that our own planet would likely -- in our own reality, I mean, not in Trek's (although mayyyybe there, too) -- go through some batshit craziness if there were ever any credible evidence that humanity were not the first sentient species to evolve on the planet. Fuck's sake, evolution itself is still disputed; THAT shit would be a lightning rod of another magnitude altogether.
(5) Hard to say enough about how great Chakotay is in this episode. They didn't always figure out how to put Beltran to good use; but when they did, it seems like it was GREAT use more often than not. It's such a plum role that I'm tempted to be grumpy that they didn't give it to Janeway; this is the kind of role a Captain probably ought to have. But I'm kind of glad ol' Chakotay got this one, for whatever reason.
(6) So you're telling me that in the Star Trek universe, there is an entire race of super-advanced evolved dinosaurs FROM EARTH who live in a ship a hundred times bigger than Voyager?!? And they HAVEN'T been featured a second time?!? The only excuse for this is if everyone decided that they'd done it so well the one time that there was simply no topping it. And you know what? I've made that argument about "Q Who?" from time to time, so maybe I ought to salute Berman and Braga and company for their decision here.
Delete(7) Regarding the jab at Discovery and the Kelvinverse movies (which I full-throatedly echo in the case of the former and echo a bit more halfheartedly regarding the latter), I'd say that nobody on those projects has the slightest idea how to do this kind of Star Trek. And while I've taken Discovery to task for that, I'm beginning to wonder if it's less their fault than it is a reflection of the fact that this earlier era of Trek -- the Berman years -- was in fact much stronger than it's ever gotten the credit for being. I mean ... were we all just taking TNG and DS9 and Voyager and Enterprise for granted? Were we thinking that that was simply the Trek that we were OWED? In my own case, I'm beginning to think that might be true, and if so, then I'm guilty of vastly undervaluing what all of those shows did. And if THAT is the case, then even though Discovery IS kind of shabby, maybe its failures begin to seem more acceptable, somehow. Maybe they all have the right intent and are just not up to the task. And maybe they know it and will begin pushing themselves to get there.
Uncharacteristically charitable of me, and probably too much so. But this episode has brought out a streak of stubborn optimism in me, which is pretty cool.
(8) Boy, I think Gene Roddenberry would have been so pleased by this one that he'd have split his head open smiling about it.
(3) Wow, yeah that is stupid.
Delete(5) It's a fair point, both: probably should've given such a role to Mulgrew but it's also Chakotay's defining episode, I think. So yeah, he gets one of the best episodes in Trek, which is good to see. Janeway already has her accolades in any dozen other episodes, I guess.
(6) I suppose we should be happy they weren't retconned/ ruined for the Kelvinverse or Discovery. Yet.
(7) What I just wrote was a jab at both, to be sure, but I honestly don't think the makers of either of those truly have any idea of episodes like "Distant Origin". Or maybe they do and just don't see it as "prototypical Trek." Like I say, if so, that's where I split ways - and hard - with the new generation of Treksters. Or new generation of so many franchises. But, so it goes. Anyway, you could be onto something here about taking it all for granted. I was obsessed solely with TOS for the majority of all those shows' runs so I'm enjoying rediscovering (or discovering for the first time) them now. Perhaps I'll be similarly happy when I get to Discovery down the line. Or the Kelvinverse movies will seem less perfunctory.
"Displaced" --
ReplyDeleteWe're pretty much in lockstep on this one. Not a bad episode; but, as you say, wonky. I'm glad you called out the bit where Tom and B'Elanna just abandon the weapons which have just been gifted to them. This is a truly awful moment. One of the Nyrians even falls down in such a manner as to allow the gun to land on his freaking torso, right there where it's in plain view.
Your points about the wide-dispersal phaser blasts -- which nobody ever uses against the Borg or whoever, either -- and (especially) Chakotay failing to just dose the entire ship with knockout gas are well spotted.
MY big thought during the first part of the episode was that as soon as the second Voyager crewmember disappeared, I would have transferred all command function to the Doctor on a temporary basis. This is why I am not a Starfleet-calibre tactician; I failed to consider that the aliens might have already planned to knock the Doctor out of commission. I'd've got us all killed!
They even reference wide-field phasers in a later episode. Ay caramba. As with King and his editor(s), I guess my idea of how things work behind the scenes and how they actually play out are far afield from one another. In my mind, shouldn't there be a show/franchise bible where things like this are caught?
DeleteMy big pet peeve lately has been the changing nature of light years and the ship's speed. I just don't understand why/ how that stuff changes; should not the writers have some kind of chart nailed to the wall or something? And shouldn't all scripts go by that chart, or the showrunner/ head runner say "nice job, so-and-so, but you have Paris claim it'll take 4 hours to travel that distance at maximum warp, when other episodes established this as yadda yadda." Or ask the pivotal questions like "why didn't they just shoot them with wide field phasers?"
What's the advantage of having had 3 other Trek series and all the movies work out such kinks/ bugs? Like, you can't fault "The Enemy Within" for not having a shuttlecraft, as they didn't have one in the writers room yet. But once they exist, you have to account for them.
Ah well. Everyone's only human and all, and like I say I'm sure the realities of television production are always the answer. But crikey... as with King and his editor(s), let me do it then! Pay me peanuts, I don't care.
I realize this job (helping VOY avoid continuity errors) is like John Cusack's Dream Job list in HIgh Fidelity, i.e. all jobs that existed only in the past, but sheesh.
"Worst Case Scenario" --
ReplyDelete(1) This one is a hoot. I had a smile on my face for most of it. I totally agree about it being meta -- it's the closest thing to a Darin Morgan episode of Star Trek (a thing I'd very much like to see). I like how Tuvok is appalled by Tom's utterly LCD tendencies; and I also like the fact that Tom has those tendencies. Weirdly, I agree with both. And so does the episode, which follows both philosophies: it has a completely ludicrous plot twist that also makes complete sense logically.
(2) I agree that the holodeck explorations of "Voyager" are a signature. And so much more satisfying (at least so far) than I'd remembered!
(3) Roxann Dawson is terrific in the first part of the episode, where you're supposed to think an actual Maquis uprising is happening. But in retrospect, she's clearly just kind of gobsmacked by the fact that the program exists at all. Dawson straddles that line very capably.
(4) Seska! Doggone it, I like her here. I don't know what it is about the combination of that half-Cardassian makeup with the lousy Kazon plotline, but when the show got to that phase of things, I really turned on Seska. Prior to that, though, I think she's just fine; and this episode is a reflection of that in an unexpected way. It kind of feels like somebody was sitting around thinking about how much they liked the actress and wished they could find a way to get her back on, and this is what they came up with. If so, well done; I think it was a resounding success.
(5) Beltran is great playing the heavy, but he's even better during the briefing-room scene where Janeway reveals that she knows about the holo-novel. Some versions of the show might have had him play all butthurt and indignant about it, but no, he's kind of getting a kick out of it all. I love that.
(1) Maybe they can get Darin Morgan to do the big Leonardo Da Vinci/ Moriarty/ The Doctor holodeck movie. Ahhh if only I was an eccentric gazillionaire.
Delete(5) S3 might contain Beltran's finest moments in the series, all around. (Chakotay's too.)
"Scorpion" --
ReplyDelete(1) I was not a Voyager fan at the time it was airing. This was not on purpose; as I've mentioned before, my town didn't have a UPN affiliate, so I didn't have the option of watching. But I'd hear about things here and there, and would develop opinions -- and my opinion of the Borgification of Voyager was that it was a cop-out, a bone thrown to fans of "First Contact" in a desperate gambit to get them to watch the series. And I'm sure the ratings-stunt angle of things WAS an important consideration, but beyond that, I think my criticism was empty and stupid. I do that sometimes, I am sad to say. In any case, watching this episode with a fresh eye, I have to say it works quite well; if this is a cop-out, there should be more cop-outs. (Cops-out?)
(2) That cold-open segment in which the Borg begin threatening to assimilate someone only to have their asses handed to them is awesome. And it works in multiple ways -- first, it's great because it simply throws the viewer into a new era of Borg conflict, with no preamble and no warning (I'm ignoring that most viewers at the time would have known it from commercials). Just bam, Borg in your face. And THEN, by golly, it does the unthinkable: it annihilates them like a frat guy crushing a beer can. Plus, is that the shortest cold-open in all Trek history?
(3) The effects for Species 8472 hold up better than I'd have expected. They're not awesome, but they get the job done, and aren't embarrassing, which is honestly the best you can hope for from tv shows from twenty plus years ago.
(4) More good stuff from Chakotay in this one. All in all, I think I'm probably on his side during his argument with Janeway. Plus, wouldn't there be a Prime Directive issue in all of this?
(5) Part of the reason Q should never have been introduced in "Voyager" is that in all honesty, Janeway's duty should have been to do everything in her power to contact him and ask him to give them a way out of this mess. A good episode could even have theoretically come out of him refusing to do it.
(6) The da Vinci thing ought to be a colossal misfire, but instead it's great. I mean, John Rhys-Davies, man! That's a coup of casting. The Mission Log podcast I listen to has not gotten anywhere close to "Voyager" yet, but their coverage of TNG sort of put forth the theory that a BIG part of what drives the holodeck is the possibility that the Enterprise's computer is in fact a form of artificial intelligence, and that in some episodes -- the one where Geordi falls in love with "Leah Brahms" for example -- the "people" on the holodeck are actually manifestations of that intelligence.
I never could quite figure out where I came down on that idea, but watching this da Vinci decided me: I buy it. There would probably just not be enough data on the real da Vinci for a holodeck simulation to be programmable for the types of scenarios that seem to be implied by this episode. Him giving Janeway advice, etc. But if an aspect of the Voyager computer's artificial intelligence was able to take the extant data and then *extrapolate* from it -- essentially becoming da Vinci, or a new being going by that name -- then all bets are off.
What a fascinating idea! I'm not sure how much of it was intended, but I think it's there in the background.
(7) Thus ends a pretty strong season. I don't like it as much as the first two, but it's not by a large enough difference for me to care. On to the fourth!
(2) and (6) Agree completely. (Isn't that what "Emergence" is about? God I love that episode. I was just writing about it, actually, in my write-up of a Season 5 episode.) Watch this space for more, true believers! - Smilin' Stan
DeleteYou know, you're right -- "Emergence" probably does establish that as canon. Although I think it may go back as far as "11001001."
DeleteAnd you're right, "Emergence" is an awfully fine late-innings TNG episode. Woulda been great in any season, but it's killer in 7.