A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[Frazzled]

GodBen wrote:

---

Body and Soul (*½)

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 the 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.

Going to try to see that asap!!

[kes7]

destro wrote:

---

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

Yes. Which is why it also pissed me off when they used her nanoprobes to un-drunkify that lecherous ambassador from the Puritan planet.

[TheGodBen]

destro wrote:

---

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

Yeah, I think that was stated in Timeless. So I guess they could have had a hangover scene if they really wanted.

Frazzled wrote:

---

Going to try to see that asap!!

You should, I watched all of Red Dwarf season 4 over the last few days and it was very good.


Nightingale (*½)

Guess what, everybody?! It's a Harry Kim episode, and this time he's determined to let it known that he's not a naive ensign... again. It is really going to change his character, from this episode on he is going to be a completely different guy. Just wait and see.

ICHEB: I noticed a charge imbalance in the EPS feed. I'm sorry if I...
TORRES: It could have taken us hours to find that.

This is a good direction to go in with Icheb's character, how can you not love a boy genius who can fix things that experienced officers can't? Star Trek audiences adore that kind of thing.

SEVEN: The Borg value efficiency, not redundancy.
KIM: I've got a hunch about this nebula. There's dilithium in there somewhere.

After being captured by a complete doofus last week, Janeway has allowed Kim and Seven out in the Delta Flyer again? Did Kim not prove that he's incompetent already this month?

KIM: I know I can do this, and the Kraylor are giving me a chance to prove it.
...
JANEWAY: I want you to take Seven. Since she has no rank, you clearly outrank her.

I guess not.

NEELIX: If you're going to be a Captain you have to act like a Captain. Never admit you're uncertain, about anything. You can't be indecisive in front of your crew.
KIM: It's just a snack, Neelix.
NEELIX: When Captain Janeway comes in here, she knows exactly what she wants.

There are many reasons why I would make a lousy starship captain, my complete disregard for human life being a major one. The fact that I sometimes take a few minutes to decide what I'm going to eat in a restaurant is not one of them.

SEVEN: Are you abandoning this ship because the mission wasn't what you expected, or because being a Captain wasn't what you expected?

Lolwut? He's abandoning the mission because he found out that the crew were lying to him and they were secretly transporting military technology rather than medical supplies. Not only is it illegal for Kim to have gotten involved, it is also highly immoral, the natural course of action is for him to leave the ship and not assist any further. Who is writing this crap?

André Bormanis? The science consultant? The guy whose primary role was to replace [tech] in the scripts with meaningless technobabble? The guy who let the scientific nonsense in episodes like Threshold and Macrocosm pass? He has been brought onto the staff as a writer?! Well that explains this:

KIM: What's the field polarity?
DAYLA: Two hundred six point four.
KIM: That's too low. We're going to have to raise it.
DAYLA: I'm bypassing the phase converter.
KIM: No, wait, I didn't tell you to do that.
DAYLA: Won't that increase the field polarity?
KIM: Yes, but... Listen to me carefully. I want you to try...
SHEPHERD: Dayla, it's Shepherd Book, take the warp core offline.
KIM: What are you talking about?
SHEPHERD: Bypass the driver coil and shunt power directly to the polaron matrix.
TEREK: The cloak is back online.

KIM: Get your people into the pods, quickly.
SHEPHERD: But the cloak.
KIM: I've got a plan to save it. If I fail, at least the scientist who designed it will be alive to create another one.

But it doesn't work! The "bad guys" (who actually seem more like the good guys from what I've seen) have developed a method of detecting the cloak and that's how the found Kim's ship and started blowing up it up real good. There is little value to having the cloak because the other guys already have an effective way of countering it! How could the writer not have been paying attention to the plot of his own episode?

NEELIX: I thought we talked about this. A Captain has to be deci-...
KIM: I'm not a Captain, Neelix. Not yet, anyway.

The first time I saw this episode I was sure the episode would end with the reveal that Kim had been promoted to Lieutenant JG. Nope, the status quo was maintained.

[kes7]

You forgot to sufficiently tear apart the cringe-worthy B-story, but all in all, you've captured the general suckitude level of my least favorite Season 7 episode pretty well. Nightingale was truly awful.

[TheGodBen]

And to round-out this Sunday Voyager bonanza!


Flesh and Blood (**½)

This episode started out really well and then fell apart into a shadow of its earlier self. What I found so great about the early parts of the episode was how realistically and rationally everyone was acting, there wasn't a single moment where I questioned why characters were doing what they were doing. Iden was an oppressed individual who wanted to free his people, Shmully didn't trust him at first but was willing to hear him out, Janeway and the Hirogen were willing to work together in order to stop the threat of the holograms. The characters were driving the plot in interesting directions. If this had just been a normal one-part episode then, depending upon the ending, it could have achieved a score of 8 or 9 out of 10.

But at the 37 minute mark the eventual decline into nonsense began. Janeway wouldn't reason with Shmully, the Hirogen in the mess hall rioted for no reason, Janeway wouldn't reason with Iden and Iden wouldn't reason with Janeway. Why did all these things happen? Because the writing staff apparently decided to extend this good one-hour adventure into a feature-length event and that meant that characters had to do dumb things in order to set up the second part. Shmully defected, Iden abducted B'Elanna, more Hirogen show up and act needlessly aggressive. The plot is now driving the characters into doing stupid things.

Then there's Iden's character. In the first part of the episode he is a hero, a man trying to free his people from a ruthless band of hunters. In the second part he turns into megalomaniac who is determined to exact revenge by hunting the hunters. In the first part there is nothing wrong with Iden so Shmully's actions in defecting to him make some form of sense, but in order to make Shmully wrong and Janeway right they do a complete 180 on the character and turn him evil. What happens to Iden is a complete tragedy, his character is reduced to a pointless villain-of-the-week who kills people while spouting one-liners.

The worst part of the episode is the final scene when Janeway decides not to punish Shmully for his actions because she allowed him to grow in the first place. I have two words for that: Thirty Days. How about just one word: Prey. By letting Shmully off the hook for an act that would have put a human crewmember in the brig she is essentially saying that holograms are not the equal of humans and need to be given special treatment, and that undermines some of the best parts of this episode. This is one of the worst endings to an episode of Voyager ever.

Torpedoes: 86/38

[kipron]

You're not a "hater."

You're just looking for something that isn't there.

[TheGodBen]

But I have to be a hater in order to get my Niner membership card. I've already passed the requirement for acting smug and pretending that DS9 is a perfect show with no bad episodes, but I still have to hate Voyager in order to be accepted.

[TheGodBen]

Shattered (**)

JANEWAY: Come in. You're late. Unfortunately, so's dinner.
CHAKOTAY: Let me guess, you burned the roast again.

REPLICATORS STILL DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!!

CHAKOTAY: I'm not sure I get it myself, but the ship seems to have been fractured somehow.
SHMULLY: Fractured?
CHAKOTAY: Different areas seem to exist in different time periods.

TIME TRAVEL ALSO DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!!

While Morbo may be loud and terrifying, he does bring up a valid point. All of the historical incidents that this time travel mess created are spread out over thousands of light years, one of them even takes place in the AQ, so how is any of this possible? I know, I know, it's science fiction and none of this stuff makes sense but I find this one especially galling.

I get the idea behind this episode, it is trying to be like All Good Things by having visions of Voyager's future and its past. It's like a clip-show without being a boring clip-show. But All Good Things came together at the end to make sense (except for some logical inconsistencies involving the anti-time anomaly), it was a test devised by Q to see if Picard could figure out "the unknown possibilities of existence". In Shattered the whole plot revolves around an anomaly of the week which does something random and nonsensical and the solution is some technobabble thing that Seven devised.

And there is no sense of danger here, the time-travel nature of the plot makes it abundantly clear that everything is going to be reset at the end so that none of this happens. Even Tuvok's emotional death scene didn't impact me in the slightest because I knew it didn't mean anything, the only thing I thought was that I wished it was Harry so that I could increment his death counter one more time.

It wasn't a boring episode and there's some fun to be had, particularly with the cranky Shmully before he took his annoying turn. But overall I found it to be a very meh episode, perhaps because I don't feel all that nostalgic about Voyager.

[rahullak]

GodBen wrote:

---

But I have to be a hater in order to get my Niner membership card. I've already passed the requirement for acting smug and pretending that DS9 is a perfect show with no bad episodes, but I still have to hate Voyager in order to be accepted.

Don't let the trolls get to you.

[TheGodBen]

Now now, we reached a peace agreement, there's no trolls here. Except maybe Morbo.



I AM NOT A TROLL, FOOLISH HUMAN!! MY PEOPLE WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!

[DGCatAniSiri]

Ah, Morbo. Wherever would we be without your sage counsel?

[The Grim Ghost]

On the replicator issue.. I imagine maybe you can replicate a piece of uncooked "synthi-meat" or whatever and then possibly program some sort of heating/cooking sequence?

Maybe that is considered a way to add a personal touch to replicated food? So it can be prepared different ways.

Yeah I know there is absolutely nothing on screen to suggest that, but seriously why couldn't that happen? That is what always went through my head in these (poorly thought out) sequences involving Janeway's bad luck with replicated food.

[Tachyon]

GodBen wrote:

---

TIME TRAVEL ALSO DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOODNIGHT!!

And how do you know that? Time traveled much my dear?

And good luck with that DS9 member card. We now the truth here, however. You are a Voyager fan, but still in the closet.

Shattered gets ****½ from me.

[kes7]

Shattered was terrific fun. It made no sense, but it was so entertaining I didn't care.

[tomalak301]

Shattard was a nice way to do a quasi-clip show. Go back to some important moments in Voyager history and while it didn't make any sense, it still was one of my favorite Season 7 episodes.