A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[startrekwatcher]

I find Drive dull as dirt. I never really could get involved in Torres and Paris. Biller finally giving it some progression really is too little too late.

I also found the space race boring. You don't halt a supposedly exciting race halfway through and then have everyone return to the ship for a boring series of accusations and lame threats. There was no mystery to who the culprit was. The ticking clock with the bomb on the Flyer was not the least bit urgent. The alien menagerie was dull. The terrorism subplot was hackneyed. The Kim/terrorist chemistry was non-existent.

I only can give it 2 stars. So why not another episode tied to Unimatrix Zero rather than this crap?

[Dane_Whitman]

Drive has some very nice SFX.

Also: Love the flight suits.

[Tachyon]

Drive was fun episode. Definitely among the few I still watch from season 7. I'd hit it with *** as well (***½ even).

[Seven of Five]

I disliked Drive. It was quite a boring episode, and I think the balance of B'Elanna and Tom was a bit off. The relationship had essentially been forgotten, so maybe they should have had an episode or two where we touch ground with them, before then marrying them off. And then maybe when they were married, we could see the wedding? It all seemed a bit rushed.

[PolloCaballo]

Well, we had already seen the "wedding" in Course Oblivion, so I guess they figured it would be redundant.

[TheGodBen]

Repression (**½)

I remembered the twist to this episode, that Tuvok it the assailant who is being influenced by some Bajoran guy back in the AQ, so I dreaded that this episode was going to be a long drawn-out investigation that I already knew the answer to. To my pleasant surprise the episode moves at a swift pace throughout the investigation; at the point where it begins to become obvious that Tuvok is the one responsible it is revealed to the audience, and then it doesn't take too long for Tuvok to figure it out for himself. The first three acts of this episode are in the solid 3½ to 4 range in my opinion, but then things fall to shit.

Firstly, the episode doesn't seem to know what the Maquis actually are. They were Federation resistance fighters fighting for control of their colonies from Cardassian oppression, and a few hard-line extremists (such as Eddington) wanted to become an independent state from the Federation. The Cardassians were utterly massacred in the Dominion War so they probably don't even have control of those border-worlds anymore, the UFP probably took them back. The Maquis cause is won even if they are all dead. Anyway, how does thirty-something Maquis guys on a ship trapped in the DQ resurrect their cause?

Terro's motivations... well, he doesn't have any, he's either insane or a pawn of the plot, or both. Tuvok sees visions of Terro and this is dragged out into some flashback that doesn't make any sense. Then Tuvok activates his mind-control powers and Chakotay commandeers the ship for five minutes before he loses it again. What was the point of that? I was all set for a Maquis mutiny plot back in season 2 but I wanted one based on legitimate grievances over Janeway's decision to explore the DQ rather than make a straight-line for home, I did not want a five minute mutiny based on mind control.

Then they all go to the movies and eat popcorn, because mutinies happen every day on the good ship Voyager.

[startrekwatcher]

2 stars for Repression. Not very good. Every time they did a Tuvok episode they made him out of his mind. It's stale. Plus the motivation of the Bajoran nutjob is a mess. The two things I did enjoy was the atmosphere and the final scene.

[TheGodBen]

Critical Care (****)

I've always found this episode strangely enjoyable. Firstly, it takes on an issue that's relevant in many countries, healthcare. If there's a problem here then it is that we only see event's from Shmully's point of view, we never get to see evidence of how this society was dying before they implemented this radical system where a computer calculates people's worth to society. It's not a system I could ever agree to, but in extreme circumstances I could understand why it was implemented.

Shmully only sees the people that are suffering because of this system so he decides to act against it, and his initial naive attempt to change the world gets someone killed. Neat. So he tries again and this time his plan involves poisoning a man in order to get him to cooperate. Also neat. There's no black or white here, it's a necessary evil that Shmully performs to save others. The episode wisely decides to end without truly resolving the problem, the planet is still a haven of inequality, but at least Shmully made life better for a dozen people.

[startrekwatcher]

Critical Care was an episode that when it originally aired back in 2001 I wasn't all that interested in. Flash forward 8 years and I think it is a really good one and given the heated debate over reformation of the US healthcare system appropriately timed.

My appreciation of this has increased mainly because of the personal experiences I have had regarding family members and the maddening bureaucracy of healthcare I've seen--so it has taken on a newfound resonance that was absent all those years ago.

I thought it handled all sides well and was a truly thought-provoking episode with no clear answers.

I give it 3.5 stars out of 4.

[Seven of Five]

Repression was a decent enough episode until the last 10/15 minutes or so.

Critical Care was a much better episode though, I really enoyed that one.

[TheGodBen]

startrekwatcher wrote:

---

Critical Care was an episode that when it originally aired back in 2001 I wasn't all that interested in. Flash forward 8 years and I think it is a really good one and given the heated debate over reformation of the US healthcare system appropriately timed.

I had a similar experience, I didn't think much of it when it first aired, but after the ordeal I went through just to have a 10 minute procedure to correct my in-grown toenail, my annoyance at the bureaucracy of medicine caused me to enjoy the episode more.


Inside Man (**)

There are several times where I've said that Robert Picardo's performance sold me on a bad episode, well Dwight Schultz almost manages that here. I think there is an interesting comparison to be had here with Barclay's first appearance on TNG; back then the real Barclay could only act confident with holograms designed by him, whereas here Barclay has created a confident hologram of himself designed to interact with real people. This could lead to an interesting psychoanalysis of the character.

Wait, no, it's all part of an asinine plot by the Ferengi.

There are many things to complain about with this episode, but the thing which sticks out for me is how stupid it makes the Voyager characters seem. If it wasn't for the actions of Starfleet Command then the crew of Voyager would have been outsmarted by the Ferengi because nobody thought to analyse whether the new shield frequency really would work with the anti-radiation medicine. The only reason they even bothered studying the Barclay hologram for errors is because he was really rude to Shmully for absolutely no reason. This stupidity is compounded by making Harry out to be an utter fool at the end of the episode, even moreso than normal.

HOLO-BARCLAY: You were Borg, but you escaped and despite incredible odds, you managed to reclaim your humanity. No one's ever done that before.

Oy vey.

[Seven of Five]

Argh! Inside Man! This made the continuing appearances of Barclay and Troi in particular more gratuitous - that is if they weren't already before. The episode is very paint by numbers, average fair, and the apparance of the Ferengi is tired and cliche. Everyone is made out to be an idiot, and the episode suffers greatly for it (well, along with everything else it has going for it). I found it quite poor.

[The Grim Ghost]

I would have rather seen another episode focusing on the real Barclay, rather than an evil-holo-Reg (tm!)

But I admit Barclay is one of my favorite Trek characters of all time, so I'm always happy to see him. For me most of the Voyager Reg episodes really work, this is the only one that is merely average.

[TheGodBen]

Body and Soul (*½)

Maybe it shows the low regard I have for people (including myself), but if a man were to be transferred into the body of a woman he is attracted to then then I have a hard time believing that the naughtiest thing he'd do would be to eat a second piece of cheesecake.

There's so much potential in the concept of this episode, but rather than exploring the issues of someone taking over the body of another person and abusing it, it turns into a romantic comedy with hi-larious results. And once the ordeal is over Seven lets the whole thing slide and now they're better friends than ever before. As for captain Ranek, he comes across as a complete buffoon so now I have to rationalise how he managed to capture the three of them in the first place.

Where's the negative things about being human? I watched the episode two days ago so maybe I've forgotten, but the only painful thing to happen to Shmully in Seven's body was a shoulder spasm which quickly went away. Being human isn't all cheesecake and champagne, I know that sythahol is a magical substance which gets rid of the negative effects of alcohol, but Shmully really should have had to suffer through a hangover.

On the same day that I watched this episode I watched an episode of Red Dwarf called DNA. In that episode the mechanoid Kryten is turned into a human, but he is so off-put by how ugly his penis is that he decided to turn back into a mechanoid. That was a better exploration of a similar issue, in my opinion.

[The Grim Ghost]

Hadn't it already been established by this point that Seven gets wrecked by sythahol unlike normal humans?