PERSISTENCE OF VISION - 2x08 - 1/5 Things start off with Janeway stressing, and then taking it out on Harry. Does this count as Harry Horror? Either way, it's the only entertaining aspect of this awful episode. I am sick to death of this period drama already so to see it in this episode go from, annoying filler to a major part of the story, with Janeway seeing the characters everywhere, is just painful. I already have difficulty caring about holo-drama episodes, and this is a particularly BAD holo-drama episode. I ESPECIALLY don't want to watch a story about Janeway taking part in ANOTHER story. This scene drags on far too long. I just can't bring myself to care about anything in this episode. The whole thing plays out with a tedious inevitability and I found it almost unwatchable. The only reason this episode gets a 1 rather than 0, is simply for Kes saving the day.
^ Personally I'd rate it higher simply there are worse Voyager episodes. The concept of the alien was interesting although I agree with you on the overuse of the holodeck.
Well, I still consider '0' a score, so I've always got that. I don't want to be lenient on an episode under the assumption there will be worse episodes. It may be warranted, but it's fairly pessimistic and I am trying to tackle this re-watch with as open a mind as possible.
Haha, I liked Janeway's holoprogram, it was pretty fun. Overall "Persistence of Vision" is a fairly entertaining piece of fluff, somewhat reminiscent of earlier TNG.
TATTOO - 2x09 - 2/5 Okay, so it's good that Chakotay is getting some character development. I like this, and for the most part I really like seeing his relationship with his father as a teen, and the regret he feels for being so ignorant. But the way they go about providing backstory and not to mention completely re-writing native American cultural history is just bizarre at best; offensive at worst. I guess I am not really in a position to comment on this, but I try to put myself in the same situation, and pretend that Star Trek is telling me that my cultural heritage was just given to my ancestors by space aliens and not learned or developed through our own ingenuity and imagination because we were too dumb to evolve by ourselves. There are some nice touches in this episode, like the Doctor getting the flu (Picardo is superb as always) and Voyager falling into the eye of a cyclone was very pretty. Overall, this is good for Chak - not so good for American Indians. Oh and the visual of the tree falling on Chakotay is so laughably bad - 90's sci-fi is better than ham like this!
COLD FIRE - 2x10 - 4/5 The episode opens with a re-cap of the events in Caretaker. It's a little odd, as beyond multi-part episodes, I can't recall Star Trek doing this before (until you get into late DS9). I suppose it allows more screen time for the plot rather than wasting time on exposition. There's a lot to like about this episode, though not really much to think about. I like the development of the Ocampans - finding out there others (and maybe more) scattered throughout the quadrant. Voyager getting a bad reputation through second and third hand stories is good. It gives their actions greater significance and weight and is a realistic result of their situation in the Delta Quadrant. There's some pretty dark imagery in this episode, such as Tuvok's blood boiling and the bodies of crew members hanging, dripping blood in Engineering. The music is pretty suspenseful at times too. Making Susperia personified as a little girl with a scary voice is a mega cliche, but one that doesn't bother me too much. All in all, this was a lot of fun and provided some great development for Kes.
MANEUVERS - 2x11 - 3/5 This opens quite intensely for once you get a real sense of Voyager being vulnerable (at least for me) for the first time in the series. The ship is easily taken off-guard and boarded with little incident. That said, any threat you feel from the Kazon is instantly diluted by the fact these are without a doubt the stupidest alien species in the history of Trek, or dare I say, in the history of science fiction. They're irritatingly stupid. So I suppose it's nice to see them being used by Seska. There's some good interaction between BLT and Chakotay, and I wish the show had more stuff about their Maquis roots and experiences. This episode is good fun and Chak's personal score with Seska being the core of the drama is solid. Plus the torture scene gives Beltran some acting time - a rare occurance. Unfortunately I find episodes like this fall a little flat for me as the Kazon really just don't do anything for me. The small amount of depth they were given in "Initiations" isn't really expanded upon and you really get a sense that sometimes they're quickly consulting their "How to be the Bad Guy for Dummies" books whilst no one's looking. If the Kazon were just plain better, then I would probably have scored this higher but they ruin a lot of the drama and intensity of many scences. The strengths of this episode really just come down to Chakotay and his personal score with Seska. I noted towards the end of this episode that it really should've been called "Let's Kick Chak in the Balls for 40 minutes."
Au Contraire.... http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Pakled Loved this ep for, as you pointed out, all the Chakotay/Seska stuff, the Chakotay/B'Elanna stuff but also the B'Elanna/Janeway head butting scenes and of course the Chakotay/Janeway scene at the end.
Also, I'm now considering when watching any scene with Kazon in it, mentally replacing them with Pakleds. Can't wait for "Basics" now. :P
"Brain? What is brain?" Oops, wrong series... My favorite two-parter. Sure, there aren't the kewl explosions of "Year of Hell" and "Scorpion" but there's also no borg or time travel (yeah!), just a good (imo) story.
RESISTANCE - 2x12 - 3/5 This episode could have been something amazing had the attention been focused on Janeway's relationship with Caylem, a man who has been driven to senility over the denial of losing his wife and daughter through what he sees as his on action/inaction. The exploration of the indignity he suffers every day under this cruel, militant regime and his mental substitution of Janeway as his daughter is where this episode needed to focus its attention. Unfortunately this gets watered down by the prison bust/rescue stuff and whilst the pairing of BLT and Tuvok is a nice combination, it's not really substantial enough. Again, had there been more detailed scenes between them. There could've been more emotional impact to this episode. Instead we get some fairly formulaic stuff with Voyager dealing with the bad military guy stuff, though there are some nice touches like the continuing of Voyager's bad reputation spreading throughout the DQ. This episode is good, but not great.
PROTOTYPE - 2x13 - 3/5 First off I REALLY like the opening perspective of this episode and I would've liked to have seen perhaps this whole episode play out through the perspective of 3947. Anyway, yet again Neelix proves that he should shutup. The problem with Neelix is that I like him when he's being the experienced rogue trader dispensing knowledge and advice to the crew in regards to potential conflicts or dealings with alien races. He annoys the god damn shit out of me as this supposed Wise Sage Galley Chef, which at best comes off as Sesame Street and at worst, makes him appear to be a moron. Just like the previous episode, 'Resistance', 'Prototype' suffers from being watered down, but this time it's with swathes of technobabble. In fact pretty much every piece of dialogue between the end of the opening credits and when the robot wakes up is irrelevant. They are just sciency words being said which could all be replaced with: "BLAH BLAH BLAH SCIENCE" and you would get the same amount of information and plot development from those scenes. I just want it all be over so we can get onto the story. Once things do get a move on, I find that the scenes between BLT and 3947 are pretty good and probably the best aspects of the episode. I also like the plot as it's revealed: that both the creator races have been killed by each others creations, which now continue to fight forever. And the episode ends well, with no solution being found. But the lead up to getting there was fairly dry thanks to technobabble. I finished the ep thinking that some sort of follow up encounter with these robots would've been interesting, but I guess we've got the Borg for that. :P Also I find Mulgrew's pre-act-break line: "...SOME SORT OF ROBOTIC WAR.", so unintentionally hilarious I had to pause from laughing too much.
ALLIANCES - 2x14 - 3/5 The opening to this episode is excellent. Seeing Voyager completely overwhelmed and getting the shit kicked out of it is more of what I want to see. Chakotay's words to Janeway: "I don't think we can afford to keep doing business as usual" are prophetic and it's a shame that these words appear to fall on deaf ears. Janeway's stubborn adherence to protocol is frustrating but at least in keeping with her character (so far). This episode presents some interesting ideas and makes me wonder if they could've strung out this alliance with the Trabe for a few episodes before realising their real motives. Neelix once again becomes used for what he's good at. Meeting with alien contacts and getting readings on situations before Voyager commits itself. Unfortunately everything goes back to the way it was in the beginning and we get nothing out of this experience. I am giving this episode a 3 because the majority of it is really good stuff and what I want Voyager to be about. Unfortunately Janeway ruins it in all in the final scene by saying that the rules and principles of the Federation are the best allies they can have. It's corny, sappy bullshit and doesn't address the fact that they're STILL IN DANGER in the DQ. I wouldn't blame this crew for mutiny and you'd think that some Maquis at this point would at the very least stage a coup against Janeway. This episode would've been superb had it actually depicted the consequences of the actions of characters in this episode. Unfortunately we get every wrapped up in a smug little package. Voyager as a series keeps doing "business as usual" and I'm starting to remember why I remember being a Niner in the 90's rather than a Voyagerian.
THRESHOLD - 2x15 - 0/5 Threshold or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Salamander Great, just got into some negativity there at the end of Alliances. Threshold is not going to improve things. I was original thinking when going into this episode, that there's nothing to be said about this train wreck that hasn't been said already. But I just can't help myself. So I'll just paraphrase the notes I made whilst watching this travesty to Trek. - Personally, I like the concept of this episode. However it's the fact that they take an interesting scientific concept of infinite velocity and turn it into a bizarre Parisian mutation and then finally a salamander mating fest that just adds insult to the injury that this episode is. - Neelix once again proves that he should just not talk whenever he's on chef duties. - How the fuck does the holodeck simulate something that has been a scientifically impossible up until this point? I am all for them simulating what they can up until the point they reach transwarp. But at the stage I would expect the programme to generate an error or just end abruptly. As such, I wouldn't put too much stock in the holodeck's ability to simulate this endeavour like the crew seem to be. - The crew reacting with incredulity when the shuttle reaches INFINITE VELOCITY still makes me laugh. I mean, they KNEW what was going to happen. So why are they so surprised when Paris disappears from range? THIS WAS TO BE EXPECTED GUYS. - What gets me is that this episode aside from all the stupid moments, could've been something good (or at the very least passable), if either the plot lines became the focus of the episode. The transwarp breakthrough should've been an episode (perhaps something along the lines of ENT's "First Flight") and Tom Paris's degeneration into a mutant fish monster could've been scary and cool on it's own in a different story (something reminiscent of TNG's "Genesis"). The combination though is just baffling. - Evolution is a reactionary process to environmental conditions causing a species to change through adaptation. IT IS NOT PRE-DETERMINED! - No matter how many times I watch this, I can't get over the salamanders. It's just…….wow. - I am giving this 0/5 because it's worse than bad. Bad would be a score of 1. Threshold takes interesting ideas, ruins them and turns Paris into a fish monster. Not to mention all of the loose ends regarding the gigaquads of information they found and the transwarp info Jonas gave to the Kazon. Although knowing the Kazon, they would be too stupid to figure it out.
"Resistance" is actually one of my favorite episodes mainly due to the relationship between Caylem and Janeway. The situation reminds me of regimes like Pinochet's Chile where people disappeared never to be seen or heard from again. To me the best Trek stories are socially relevant - not showcases for the borg, time travel or cgi explosions. The social relevance of this episode combined with the fantastic acting all around make this a winner for me. As for "Threshold" it's probably the "Spock's Brain" of Voyager. Despite that it's a guilty pleasure for many. For some reason Tom wanting a pepperoni pizza while in sick bay is worth the price of admission.
Same for me, which is why when Voyager is poignant and sociological I enjoy as much as any other Trek. I actually quite like that the episode tried to give Tom a lot of personality development and explanation of his motivations. Unfortunately it still wasn't enough to raise this ep from the grave.