A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[Akiraprise]

tomalak301 wrote:

---

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.

Mine too.

[TheGodBen]

Tachyon wrote:

---

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

As a matter of fact, I am one of many people that suffers from a rare genetic problem called chrono-displacement disorder. It causes me to travel through time at random, but it also makes me sweet, sensitive and ruggedly handsome.


Lineage (****)

I said back when Tom and B'Elanna got married that I had a hard time buying into their relationship because we normally saw them arguing, but this time around I can buy into it. Maybe it is because they're happy and planning their future in the early part of the episode and the fighting comes later, but whatever it is, I'm willing to accept that his is a couple who are shocked/overjoyed to learn that their first child is on the way. Add to this the fact that this is something which will have consequences, and that Voyager feels like a community once again, and you have the basis for a successful episode.

I can very easily buy into the idea that B'Elanna fears her kid would end up like her because... well, I've known women like that. And if they had the ability to genetically modify their unborn kids to make them less like themselves then they might just do that. In a way it is sort of sweet because B'Elanna is looking out for the welfare of her child, but in another way it is very disturbing. As for the eventual realisation that she is also doing it because she fears Tom would leave her if their child ends up too Klingon, I think that the flashbacks gave that away too early, but that makes sense too.

Speaking of the flashbacks, one of my problems with the episode is the notion that B'Elanna's father would talk about leaving because of B'Elanna while sitting next to her tent is just a little too convenient. Emotionally it works but logically you'd think the guy had more sense than that. But my biggest problem with the episode was that B'Elanna goes uber-crazy at the end and reprograms Shmully to perform the procedure. Maybe it makes sense if the pregnancy is making her extra hormonal and whatnot, but I felt that it added a layer of tension which wasn't needed in an otherwise fantastic character episode.

[Praetor]

Man, I hate not logging on for a month. I'm soo far behind.

In summary, I agree with GodBen. On generally everything.

Now, let's carry on.

[The Grim Ghost]

I've brought this up here before, but this episode makes me want to mention it again. I'm actually kind of surprised that GodBen didn't pick up on it, because he usually bitches about these kinds of things..

So you're half Klingon, and the only obvious way anybody can tell is your forehead ridges. Your child is going to look a lot like you.

But once again the obvious choices are thrown out the window.

CHOOSE A DAMN HAIRSTYLE THAT HIDES IT! But no, BLT wears her hair in a way that not only doesn't hide the ridges, it actually seems intended to show them off. It's stupid.

Or a slightly more extreme choice, how about plastic surgery to just get rid of them on her and on the child when she is old enough? Or does that make too much sense?? Rant over.

[TheGodBen]

Praetor wrote:

---

In summary, I agree with GodBen. On generally everything.

Even that rant I made about how black people are the scum of society a few pages back?

RACIST!!!

destro wrote:

---

CHOOSE A DAMN HAIRSTYLE THAT HIDES IT! But no, BLT wears her hair in a way that not only doesn't hide the ridges, it actually seems intended to show them off. It's stupid.

To be fair, she does have a very big forehead and coming up with a hairstyle that would hide her ridges... I have a hard time thinking of one that wouldn't look silly. Which is probably why I failed in my attempt to become a hair-stylist.


Repentance (**½)

Being one of those enlightened European types (), I am opposed to the death penalty. I guess that one of the problems that I have with this episode is that it took an hour to come to the conclusion that I already had, and it wasn't fair with its portrayal of the other side of the argument. The alien legal system is portrayed as being intransigent, the prison guards are shown to be brutal, and many on the crew judge the whole thing as being barbaric. The episode would have been far better if the other side of the argument had been given some subtlety.

There is some interesting concepts here, such as a man suffering because his conscience was turned on after the crime, and the idea of a legal system where the victims determine the punishment. It is a pity then that these concepts aren't utilised to their full potential, the majority of this episode seems to be scenes going over and over previous scenes. There's three scenes between Seven and Iko in sickbay which can be summed up like this:

IKO: I'm a horrible person, I deserve to die.
SEVEN: You were not responsible for your actions, you don't deserve to die.

A lot of the episode feels that way; the same scenes repeated in order to get the point across to the audience. For example, in one scene Seven explains her motivation to Iko, that she relates to him because of the horrible things she remembers doing as a Borg. Then she has almost the exact same conversation with Janeway. Then the episode ends with another scene explaining this again. I almost feel like knocking a point off for being a rehash of Cause and Effect.

One other thing that I noticed; all the violent criminals appear to be men. Is this some sort of revenge sexism for all the miniskirts and catsuits that women have had the wear?

[startrekwatcher]

Repentance gets 3 stars from me. It is a decent hour. What I found interesting was it was originally suppose to be a story where while Seven is down on an alien planet acquiring some macguffin she is recognized as Borg and taken into custody. The episode would have been about whether she should be held accountable for the assimilation of this species when she was a drone. The question would have been would she be responsible for the actions given that unlike most drones she had a bit more individuality and was a true believer in what the Borg did as opposed to your average drone.

[kimc]

startrekwatcher wrote:

---

Repentance gets 3 stars from me. It is a decent hour. What I found interesting was it was originally suppose to be a story where while Seven is down on an alien planet acquiring some macguffin she is recognized as Borg and taken into custody. The episode would have been about whether she should be held accountable for the assimilation of this species when she was a drone. The question would have been would she be responsible for the actions given that unlike most drones she had a bit more individuality and was a true believer in what the Borg did as opposed to your average drone.

That sounds more interesting than what we got...

[TheGodBen]

It has a lot of potential to be a great episode, but so did what we got. It really depends on how the story was executed, but I probably would have preferred to see the original version.


Prophesy (*½)

And then the Klingons show up. Makes sense, Voyager has to be in the Beta Quadrant by now, and that is where the Klingons live. Admittedly they live on the other side of the Beta Quadrant and Voyager is more likely to bump into a group of Romulans but... hey, there's an idea! Voyager comes across a Romulan ship, they get into a fight, the Romulan ship is destroyed, Janeway rescues some of them and they're forced to integrate with one another. It would be similar to this episode, but it would be infinitely better because it would have Romulans.

This episode has some good ideas but it doesn't explore them well. I like the idea of Voyager's crew having to accommodate the fact that the majority of the people aboard are now Klingons, that is a very serious situation and it deserves to be explored to its fullest. Instead we get Neelix bumping his furry ugly with a Klingon woman's ridged ugly. (I apologise for that image.) And I like the idea of exploring the prophesy and B'Elanna's place within it, but instead that is used as an excuse to have a bat'leth fight, something which was already overused on DS9.

Then the episode pulls a Day of the Dove on us by having a bunch of Klingons attempt to commandeer the ship. Why? How did that move the plot along? If the episode had been about the Voyager crew having trouble integrating the Klingons then it would have been fine, but this episode is about a prophesy and some disease the Klingons have picked up, the firefight on the bridge had no purpose.

Then the Klingons go to some planet because B'Elanna's unborn kid told them to (or something). The end.

[Bertie]

GodBen wrote:

---

Prophesy (*½)

As you said, positive points for trying a Klingon episode here, since meeting far-flung bits of Alpha Quadrant species is a credible plot idea at this point, but the execution left a lot to be desired.

[The Grim Ghost]

Unfortunately for some bizarre reason they decided to make this lackluster episode a major plot point in the recent Voyager books

When I watch Voyager I don't want Klingons, Ferengi, Romulans or any of the other normal Trek species.

What I want to see are new races in the Delta quadrant. Otherwise what is the point of the show? Sure we got some of that, but everytime one of the old familiar species pops up I just cringe.

[TheGodBen]

destro wrote:

---

Unfortunately for some bizarre reason they decided to make this lackluster episode a major plot point in the recent Voyager books

Yet another reason why I'm glad I don't read the novels.


The Void (**½)

Ireland, Summer 2001, a 15 year-old schoolboy named Godfrey Steven Benn is alone in his parent's front room watching the latest episode of Star Trek Voyager on Sky One. The following is a reasonably accurate transcript of what occurred:

JANEWAY: It was almost like being part of a Federation again.
GODFREY: Well, the real one is only thirty thousand light-years away.
CHAKOTAY: The real one's only thirty thousand light years away.
GODFREY: Then what are we waiting for?!
JANEWAY: Then what are we standing around for?

Yes, I predicted the dialogue at the end of the episode all those years ago. It's not such a big deal on the surface, but I rarely feel so familiar with a show that I'm capable of doing such a thing, and that triggered something in me. When I think about it, The Void should be my perfect Voyager episode; piracy, questioning one's morality and the formation of an alliance. This is exactly what I wanted from the Kazon arc but it is condensed down into one episode, so why don't I love it? I can best explain it through a strained analogy:

You're married to a woman for many years and the relationship has grown stale. It's not any one individual's fault, you've just become very familiar with one another and rarely have much interesting to say. You arrive home from work one day and walk into your bedroom to find her on the bed in sexy lingerie as part of an attempt by her to spice things up, so you do what's expected of you and join her on the bed. But there's no sense of passion, there's no bonding, there's no emotion involved, it's a purely physical act to you. When you're done you look into her eyes and realise that you don't love her. You can't remember if you ever truly loved her, but you can be sure in that moment that you don't and probably never will. You still care for her, you still want to spend some time with her, but you don't love her, and it hurts you to realise it almost as much as it would hurt her to tell her.

You only started dating her because of her hot sister anyway.

The Void isn't a bad episode, but it marks the point where I gave up on Voyager during its original run. Yes, I did hang in there for a long time. I still watched the show right up until Endgame (probably a mistake), but I stopped caring and I stopped expecting the show to turn into what I wanted it to be. That's what The Void represents for me, the episode where I officially stopped being a Voyager fan.

Torpedoes: 88/38

And no, I'm not really called Godfrey, but after coming up with that name I almost wish I was.

[Sykonee]

I can best explain it through a strained analogy:

So would that make any further high scores analogous to wildly kinky attempts to reignite the flame of love again?

[startrekwatcher]

The Void gets 2.5 stars from me. I know many love it but I find it to be dull. For a similiar story executed a million times better watch ENT's "Anomaly" and "Damage".

This is where the season finally comes off the rails--the next series of episodes are an absolute waste of space and just is shocking the writers didn't craft a homecoming arc like DS9 did with its Final Chapter instead of treating us to pointless drivel like Natural Law, Q2, Human Error, Friendship one, Renaissance Man, Workforce.

[apenpaap]

^The idea of ending with an arc is awesome, especially since the last half of the season is shit, with the exception of "Author, Author". However, I think the show shouldn't end with Voyager coming home, but with them finding a new home in the Delta Quadrant like in the "Places of Exile" story in "Infinity's Prism" (

In that story, Janeway decided to follow Chakotay's advice in Scorpion and observe the Borg-8472 war instead of joining in, but the 8472s found them and smashed Voyager up real good, so they retreat and find allied people (Including the Voth). Eventually, this alliance ends up becoming a second Federation in the Delta Quadrant, and at the end of the story even Janeway doesn't want to go home anymore.

)

[TheGodBen]

Sykonee wrote:

---

So would that make any further high scores analogous to wildly kinky attempts to reignite the flame of love again?

I'd put it more down to a funny conversation we had that reminded me why I want to remain her friend. To be honest, I've met this new girl and from what I know of her she could be quite the catch. She's called Enterprise, and I've found myself thinking about her a lot recently, especially while Voyager and I were into the kinky stuff. But I'm not going to cheat on Voyager, Godfrey Benn is a gentleman, so I'm going break it off with Voyager and once the divorce is settled I might just ask Enterprise out.