Does It Get Better???

[teacake]

I gotta agree there. Maybe you were tired Admiral Screed? Because Blink of an Eye is a great episode.

[lurok]

I admire his candour

[AdmiralScreed]

teacake wrote:

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I gotta agree there. Maybe you were tired Admiral Screed? Because Blink of an Eye is a great episode.

Yeah, I was pretty beat. Can hardly remember most of the episode, so there's no way I can review it right now.

[AdmiralScreed]

I've got some blu rays I bought not long ago that I need to get through right now, so it'll probably be around a week or so until I watch any more Voyager. I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the episodes I recently watched. I'm not sure what the consensus' for most of these episodes are, so I have no idea if my opinions are popular or not. Feel free to leave your thoughts!

[tighr]

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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One Small Step: Quite a moving episode, I must say! Wonderfully paced, I loved hearing/seeing the journey of the astronaut, and was deeply moved by his tragic demise.
9/10

I actually thought it dragged on, and then ultimately ends with a ridiculous case of "trek tech" when they're able to download the ship's logs with a tricorder? What, did the spaceship have bluetooth or soemthing?

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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The Voyager Conspiracy: Quite an interesting episode. For awhile I actually believed a conspiracy was afloat. Very good.
8/10

Had some interesting ideas, but ultimately lame. I think they took it a little too far. How can you trust Seven after that?

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Pathfinder: TNG CROSSOVER!!! Not only that, but we got to see one of my favorite guests from TNG, Barclay, along with Troi. This was one of the most memorable episodes of the series' run. As always, Barclay found a way to gain my sympathy, and I rooted for him the entire episode! Loved the ending when they contacted Voyager and Barclay redeemed himself, really wonderful!
10/10

Oh, I forgot. You like the TNG crossovers.

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Fair Faven: Creative premise, some nice Janeway/Sullivan romance, pretty solid all around!
8/10

Second worst episode of the series, as I mentioned above. Only surpassed by its sequel, a few episodes later.

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Blink of An Eye: Fell asleep halfway through...need to rewatch it at some point...

My favorite episode, do yourself a favor and give it a rewatch.

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Virtuoso: Absurd premise, something I could see them doing on Trek cartoon for 8 year olds......but it had some good laughs, and some nice entertainment value.
6/10

A Doctor episode. Lame. If I ever do a rewatch again, I'm skipping every Doctor episode.

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Memorial: What a vile episode! The big reveal at the end was just terrible. How could these aliens make people relive such awful memories? I'd have been psychologically scarred had I been in Tom, Harry, Chakotay, or Neelix's shoes. There decision to not let it shut down was very misguided. Just dreadful...
In it's defense there were some very moving scenes, and lots of intense emotion. The action scenes were well done, and the actors gave it their all.
5/10

You're a TNG fan, what do you think of The Inner Light? Same thing.

[AdmiralScreed]

@tighr

About the Doctor episodes, I'd have to agree that I'm not the biggest fan of his character or his episodes. I think the actor is fine, but the character just comes across to me as really one dimensional. Too often he's just played for laughs, and that I find gets old fast.

About Memorial, I'd agree it has a lot in common with The Inner Light, but the latter is far superior IMO. In Memorial I don't know who these aliens are, and I'm not sure why I should relate to them or care about them. Yes, it's terrible what happened to them, but without the personal touch that TNG had (meeting the community, his wife, children, etc.) the massacre doesn't move me in the same way the death of the community in The Inner Light did. By the end of the latter I knew who these people were, and I was deeply saddened to see them go. In Memorial I was just left with a sick and uncomfortable feeling. I guess in TNG's episode I thought they handled the drama and pacing much more skillfully, and overall I just preferred the brighter tone of the The Inner Light to the darker tone of Memorial.
Also, The Inner Light was a great developmental episode for Picard. He settled down, raised a family, and we were able to see what his life would have been like had he not joined Starfleet. It was very touching to watch! TNG at its absolute finest.

[exodus]

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Memorial: What a vile episode! The big reveal at the end was just terrible. How could these aliens make people relive such awful memories? I'd have been psychologically scarred had I been in Tom, Harry, Chakotay, or Neelix's shoes. There decision to not let it shut down was very misguided. Just dreadful...
In it's defense there were some very moving scenes, and lots of intense emotion. The action scenes were well done, and the actors gave it their all.
5/10

I found it one of Voyager's best.
I didn't find it vile, I saw it as Trek's idea of a living Holocaust memorial. We see in our history books or documentaries, real pictures of how the Jews were treated and died. However unfortunately there are those in our society that choose to believe it wasn't real or wasn't as bad as they portray but you can't disbelieve an event in history if you live it. Our own modern motto for 9/11 is "Never Forget". How would you ever forget an event so tragic if you had to experience it first hand?
I think one of the greatest parts of the ep. is when Neelix was the one to speak up first to save it, cause he would be the only one on the ship to have survived a similar event. The memorial means something far greater to him. History shouldn't be forgotten for fear it will be repeated. Too live it is to learn from it.

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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About Memorial, I'd agree it has a lot in common with The Inner Light, but the latter is far superior IMO. In Memorial I don't know who these aliens are, and I'm not sure why I should relate to them or care about them. Yes, it's terrible what happened to them, but without the personal touch that TNG had (meeting the community, his wife, children, etc.) the massacre doesn't move me in the same way the death of the community in The Inner Light did. By the end of the latter I knew who these people were, and I was deeply saddened to see them go. In Memorial I was just left with a sick and uncomfortable feeling. I guess in TNG's episode I thought they handled the drama and pacing much more skillfully, and overall I just preferred the brighter tone of the The Inner Light to the darker tone of Memorial.
Also, The Inner Light was a great developmental episode for Picard. He settled down, raised a family, and we were able to see what his life would have been like had he not joined Starfleet. It was very touching to watch! TNG at its absolute finest.

I disagree with this completely
"Inner Light" is a fine ep. but it's pure fairy tale fiction.
The mass genocide of a people in "Memorial" are events that have happened and continue to happen every day in several countries around the world to this day. I find "Memorial" a more realistic and relatable, especially after the events of Sandy Hook Elementary. "Memorial" was supposed to make you uncomfortable, it's about war. It's wasn't the lie that everybody dies happily in their sleep with no pain fiction that's only found in fairy tales that "Inner Light" was.

[Guy Gardener]

The memorial was supposed to be voluntary. If you chose to undergo the experience, cool. Janeway fixed the broken warning buoy, and flew off. This is what happened in Caretaker. How can she trust a buoy to keep transponding for the next thousand years, if she can't trust a timer on a torpedo to wait 30 seconds till after she's left the quadrant to blow up caretakers array?

The buoy is going to break down one day, allowing the memorial to start raping people again.

She should have left Kim behind as a Caretaker.

But at some point he'd need to have a baby to take over his job to stop the memorial from raping unprepared starfaring aliens, because he's not very immortal at all.

[exodus]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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The memorial was supposed to be voluntary. If you chose to undergo the experience, cool. Janeway fixed the broken warning buoy, and flew off. This is what happened in Caretaker. How can she trust a buoy to keep transponding for the next thousand years, if she can't trust a timer on a torpedo to wait 30 seconds till after she's left the quadrant to blow up caretakers array?

That's not the torpedos fault or Janeway's, it's Tuvok's.
He is Chief of Security and the one that rigged the detonator.
Guess he didn't like getting over looked for his promotion due to Chakotay.

[Guy Gardener]

It was janeways fault that she didn't trust Tuvok.

Tuvok made a lovely bomb for Kathryn in Omega Directive.

2 actually.

The first was too small, so he cranked up the yield per his Captain, his Captains wishes.

It also seems like she may have trusted the timer on that bomb.

Oh.

And then there was the superior ordinance Janeway used to blow up that Cube in Dark Frontier when she was stealing coils off the Borg like a common hood.

[AdmiralScreed]

exodus wrote:

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I found it one of Voyager's best.
I didn't find it vile, I saw it as Trek's idea of a living Holocaust memorial. We see in our history books or documentaries, real pictures of how the Jews were treated and died. However unfortunately there are those in our society that choose to believe it wasn't real or wasn't as bad as they portray but you can't disbelieve an event in history if you live it. Our own modern motto for 9/11 is "Never Forget". How would you ever forget an event so tragic if you had to experience it first hand?
I think one of the greatest parts of the ep. is when Neelix was the one to speak up first to save it, cause he would be the only one on the ship to have survived a similar event. The memorial means something far greater to him. History shouldn't be forgotten for fear it will be repeated. Too live it is to learn from it.

I disagree with this completely
"Inner Light" is a fine ep. but it's pure fairy tale fiction.
The mass genocide of a people in "Memorial" are events that have happened and continue to happen every day in several countries around the world to this day. I find "Memorial" a more realistic and relatable, especially after the events of Sandy Hook Elementary. "Memorial" was supposed to make you uncomfortable, it's about war. It's wasn't the lie that everybody dies happily in their sleep with no pain fiction that's only found in fairy tales that "Inner Light" was.

Good points. I don't disagree with your comparison of Memorial to the events of our own time, but for the reasons I gave in my last post I still think the Inner Light is he stronger of the two. Is it the more realistic of the two episodes? Maybe not, but IMO it's still a great drama that leaves me feeling optimistic and satisfied every time I watch it. Memorial is one of those episodes that I can't see myself ever watching again because it was so over the top violent and depressing. One of the reasons Trek has always appealed to me is because of it's optimistic vision of the future. Many episodes I watched left me feeling good about humanity and the direction we were heading in. This episode of course had the opposite effect. I know it was intended to be violent and uncomfortable to watch, but maybe I feel that they could have accomplished what they wanted to in this episode with less of that. I'm still mulling over this one...

[tighr]

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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One of the reasons Trek has always appealed to me is because of it's optimistic vision of the future.

Stay away from DS9, then. You're in for a surprise.

[exodus]

AdmiralScreed wrote:

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Good points. I don't disagree with your comparison of Memorial to the events of our own time, but for the reasons I gave in my last post I still think the Inner Light is he stronger of the two. Is it the more realistic of the two episodes? Maybe not, but IMO it's still a great drama that leaves me feeling optimistic and satisfied every time I watch it. Memorial is one of those episodes that I can't see myself ever watching again because it was so over the top violent and depressing. One of the reasons Trek has always appealed to me is because of it's optimistic vision of the future. Many episodes I watched left me feeling good about humanity and the direction we were heading in. This episode of course had the opposite effect. I know it was intended to be violent and uncomfortable to watch, but maybe I feel that they could have accomplished what they wanted to in this episode with less of that. I'm still mulling over this one...

That's why Trek is escapist fiction.
Humanity isn't headed in the direction we see in Trek.
It's also in a way you really shouldn't compare "Inner Light" to "Memorial" because the message, scenarios and reason behind both are completely different. The only similarity is the "Quantum Leap" syndrome. One isn't about politics or social injustice, the other is. "Memorial" is a ep. that allows us to do just what we're doing now, discuss and debate it more so than "Inner Light". They didn't want you to feel good after seeing it, they wanted you to be uncomfortable because that's what real war is. It's not even pretty as DS9 made it where the good guys don't get killed during it.

[AdmiralScreed]

tighr wrote:

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Stay away from DS9, then. You're in for a surprise.

Too late, watched that before I started Voyager, haha.

I loved DS9. No, it wasn't optimistic in the way that TNG was. It revealed the darker side of humanity. I prefer TNG's vision, but because of just how well DS9 was written, directed, acted, etc. I still thought it was an incredible show. The moral dilemmas were fascinating because of how grey they were. To this day I still don't know how I would have acted had I been in Sisko's position in In the Pale Moonlight, to give an example.

I think that dark and pessimistic can be fine for Trek as long as it's presented in the right way. DS9 accomplished this brilliantly.

[AdmiralScreed]

exodus wrote:

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That's why Trek is escapist fiction.
Humanity isn't headed in the direction we see in Trek.
It's also in a way you really shouldn't compare "Inner Light" to "Memorial" because the message, scenarios and reason behind both are completely different. The only similarity is the "Quantum Leap" syndrome. One isn't about politics or social injustice, the other is. "Memorial" is a ep. that allows us to do just what we're doing now, discuss and debate it more so than "Inner Light". They didn't want you to feel good after seeing it, they wanted you to be uncomfortable because that's what real war is. It's not even pretty as DS9 made it where the good guys don't get killed during it.

I agree. Despite their commonalities, they're very different episodes with entirely different purposes.

While I may not have particularly enjoyed it, I agree there's a lot to be discussed in Memorial. Glad we're having this conversation.