I quite like this one. There's a genuinely creepy atmosphere all the way through it (i think this is the first episode where i actually noticed the music). Janeway fighting the ghoulish Mrs Templeton in her imagination while Kes, Tuvok and the doctor look on bemused (Janeway looks genuinely terrified...screaming for Tuvok to help her.....don't think i've seen her that scared before). The Jane Eyre rip off holo-novel was obviously created so that it could be utilised later in the show for this particular episode (adding the established creepiness of the novel to the creepiness of the alien attack). speaking of which, why would such an eerie, sinister holo-novel appeal to Janeway (what does that tell us about her and her sexuality) and that Henry boy.....eurgh!....perversely creepy Kes gets to show us her powers. B'Elanna gets to have fantasy Chakotay (should have developed a romance with him instead of Paris in my opinion...they made more sense) And just when you think everything is resolved and the atmosphere is returning to normal, the alien vanishes with the words (whisper them)....."i'm not really here" Nice
I like the episode. It's another one I've watched a lot in the past few weeks, because it deals with illusion vs. reality. It's unfortunate that the Botha sounds similar to the many Bothans who died while delivering Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance.
I thought the holo novel was creepy too. When Mrs. Templeton attacked Janeway I jumped out of my skin! I felt so bad for her. I'm glad after this episode she stops running that program. It seemed extremely out of character for her.
He was the least creepy thing in the episode If she had great taste in women, she would have spent the entirerty of the 37's with Karyn Berlin and an assortment of sweet tasting lubricants I think that whole holo-novel was established purely so they could make "persistence of vision". They obviously had a plan for those characters. Somebody clearly wanted to write a creepy gothic episode then dispose of them
Tom's father sounds a lot like Picard's in Tapestry, the episode where he's stabbed by a Nausicaan and is threatened to spend eternity in the company of Q.
For Chakotay/B'elana to work they would have had to spent time working through the fact that he's always been an authority figure to her and established a more equal relationship.
Here we have one of Voyager's shining diamonds. One of my top 5 episodes, actually my favorite no. 2 after "Cold Fire", A very exciting and overall excellent episode!
Carolyne Seymour not your cup of tea? I was very taken by her in TNG First Contact (The Episode.) Of course it was a waste to use her like this since she had also played a Romulan Starship Commander in another episode of TNG, which means that if the producers had rallied their resources with a touch more heart, Voyager might have had another brief intersection with the Romulan Star Empire which might have even been a continuation of Eye of the Needle. The bloke who played Telek Rimor, the Romulan Starship Commander in Eye of the Needle was cast again and again in different episodes of Voyager under half different pounds of laytex until he was in even Endgame, an actual fricking episode about time travel and going hom which would have been a perfect book end for eye of the Needle.
I must admit that I find the holonovel a bit....out of context and out of character. I mean, why would Janeway's secret fantasies be about being some sort of chambermaid in a house with an obviously weird family. I would have expected something more rational, more according to the Janeway we mostly saw, her personal interests, such as tennis and dogs. On the other hand, we were never allowed to see what really happened in that house. Maybe the holonovel turned out to be some X-files thing about the presumable death wife of Lord Burleigh being chained to the floor in a room on the fourth floor, or a room with lions who have just eaten the lady or the lady being a terrifying ghoste which Janeway's guvernant had to fight, or Lord Burleigh being a serial killer with his victims collected in a certain room on the fourth floor. We'll never know.....
I don't think it is her secret fantasies, I think it is an actual Austen style novel. Probably had to read it in school and decided to revisit it this way. You know how sentimental a person can be about books loved in your youth, which you would think boring or just not your thing if you read them the first time now.
"Computer. Make Lord Burliegh two inches taller, 15% smarter, shirtless and make sure that his wife is dead." Oh!? The little boy grew up to be John Connor and fight Terminators. Oh!? Oh!? The guy who played Lord Burleigh was in an episode of Mercy? I wonder if he shared any scenes with Kate? (Still haven't watched Mercy.)
You're absolutely right. I do have experienced the same thing about books I read as a kid which don't seem so exciting now but I still love them. Nostalgia maybe. Not to mention a strange love-dislike relationship I have with a certain TV series I watched in the end of the 90's. However, you must admit that my suggestions for the holonovel would have made it more exciting!
There's a dial by the front door that you can use to adjust how porny any holodeck story/adventure is going to be. Most people played that novel set at a 6, but Janeway prudishly dialed it back to a 2, locking off many of the Novels Easter eggs, back doors to hidden gameplay, reward levels and bonus levels.
At Level 11, Mrs. Templeton tears Lucy's clothes off during the catfight just before Lord Burleigh enters the room.
It's a weird rip off of Jane Eyre (the mad wife in the attic is the give away) so i totally get why she would like it (Rochester was voted the most romantic literary character in a recent poll) He's not physically very attractive but he's grumpy, reticent, dominant, pensive, masculine and a bit of a dick.......most women like that combination....Janeway is obviously no different And since no one on board possessed those qualities (maybe Dalby) and she was still pining for Mark, she had to get her submissive needs met on the holodeck