Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Counterpoint (**½) Aha, I knew it! Janeway is Maris Crane! It all makes sense now. Counterpoint is an interesting episode but a few things hold it back from being good. My biggest problem is the romance between Janeway and Kashyk, not because I don't want to see Janeway in a romance or because I want to see her shacking up with a certain native American we all know well, but because I don't feel this was the right episode for a Janeway romance of the week. Kashyk has double-crossed his people, but he's actually double-crossing Janeway (which makes it a triple-cross), but then we realise that Janeway has double-crossed Kashyk (which makes it a quadruple-cross). Did Janeway really feel anything for Kashyk or was she just playing him? Did Kashyk feel anything for her or was he just playing her? The episode doesn't know, it is content to end without truly exploring anybody's real feelings. Another problem this episode has is that the enemy ultimately wins, some telepaths may have escaped in the short-term but what the Devore really wanted was the location of the wormhole the telepaths are using to cross their space. They now know the last five locations of the wormhole and should be able to extrapolate where it will appear in the future, but the episode doesn't realise that Janeway lost and it plays out like a win. I don't believe that Kashyk would just let Voyager go at the end, his excuse is that he doesn't want this failure on his record, but clearly this is just the writer's excuse for having Voyager not be impounded in the next episode. There's also the issue of where Tuvok and the other telepaths in the crew went to while the Devore were on the ship and why they were allowed to leave with Voyager. The word I can best use to describe this episode is "interesting", but that is probably a damning remark. There's a lot of story potential here and the fact that the episode doesn't spin that potential into something good is a great loss for the show. I wasn't bored, but I feel this episode could have been so much more. Two shuttles were taken by the telepaths, two torpedoes were fired. Shuttles Lost: 11 Torpedoes: 41/38
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Grrr, the one with Jurot, the Betazoid who was never mentioned before or since. How about deducting half a star for each episode in which she would be useful, but doesn't appear? I like the episode, because I think it's actually quite a good romance episode for Star Trek standards, and certainly the best on Voyager. I think it's stylish, the music is great, and the idea of having to put the Catholics away in priest holes is interesting. The sci-fi bit with the wormholes is quite incidental. I'm still not altogether sure who was playing who, and at what point Janeway realised he realised that she realised that he realised that she realised he was lying. Or even if he was. I probably need to watch it again. Anyway, Kate Mulgrew and Mark Harelik were both very good, and it's quite a different sort of episode for the show.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Counterpoint did nothing for me--so I guess that makes it a decidedly average hour. The Janeway romance wasn't interesting. I could care less who is playing who. I hate to keep doing this because I really hate making comparisons with other Trek shows but "The Defector" and "In the Pale Moonlight" were really the definitive Machivellian Trek episodes. The idea that the Devore outlawed telepathy was an interesting idea but the Devore themselves were rather mundane. This was just more season five mediocrity. I'll give it 2.5 stars out of 4. In fact there are only a smattering of episodes I enjoyed that are upcoming--Bride of Chaotica, Bliss, Dark Frontier, Think Tank, 11:59, Relativity and Equinox. The rest were awful or just plain boring.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager But that's the beauty of it. It's as Mulgrew once descirbed it a "sting within a sting". Janeway wins - or does she? Not a traditional "romance" by any stretch of the imaginatation but aren't there enough of those? I would rate it higher.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager This was Mulgrew's favorite episode, right? She certainly gave it her all. One of my favorites, too.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Yeah I really liked Counterpoint, sure there are some plot issues but Mulgrew is clearly having a great time and really sells the episode. Also a very interesting use of music - a modern Star Trek rarity.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Oh yes! And If you play as Alexandria Munroe (as is my wont), you get to have a hot lesbian affair.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I tend to agree. I enjoy it quite a bit, but it was rather... muddled. The magically appearing Jurot was very annoying. With a ship of 150 people, you'd have really thought we'd have met them all by now, at least once. But the reasons you cite are basically the reasons I enjoyed it.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager 'Nothing Human' - I found it strange that the Doc was able to whip up a working holographic representation of Crell Mosset so easily after Tom and Harry had already had trouble trying to build a new EMH back in 'Message in a Bottle.' I agree with whoever said that this could have been a better episode had it been on DS9 with the real Mosset - having a random Maquis crewman show up for just one episode certainly devalued it a bit. And also, the alien prop attatched to B'Elanna this episode looked particularly bad. 2/5 'Thirty Days' - A relatively decent Paris episode, with an interesting ocean planet and a government that ignores the imminent ecological threat. Paris being stripped of his rank and being shoved in the brig was a brilliant opener, and the consequences sort of stuck around in the form of him being an ensign for nearly two years. I liked that Tom wrote to his father whilst locked up. 3.5/5 'Counterpoint' - Not a perfect episode by far but the best of the three, I think. Kate Mulgrew and Mark Harelik were on form, and with all of the double and double-double crossing going on, it's a joy to watch. Janeway's 'romance' was a little left-field, but it works as a deception of Kashyk. The end is brilliant, and the music throughout the episode is very good. And Jurot is a very random crewmember who pops up again in Elite Force! 4/5 I'm loving all this Jump The Shark stuff too - very funny.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Latent Image (****) This episode first aired when I was 13, this is a verbatim record of the conversation I had with a friend the next day: So for those of you who wonder why I'm so cynical it's because I tried being an optimist and it didn't work out so good. The episode itself is actually very good, it's not just a great character episode for Shmully it also addresses some big issues about Shmully and his rights. I really enjoyed watching this episode for the most part, it was better than I remembered it and this time I didn't have a problem with how everybody is suddenly treating Shmully as not quite a person, I realise that they're using that as a justification for removing his memories 18 months before. But as with season 3's The Swarm I'm annoyed by the ending. This is clearly an episodic show no matter how much I wish it was otherwise and you can't just end an episode like this with no resolution. If they followed up on this it would be great, but as far as I remember they wont. Shmully has a camera that can "see" through clothing and he's using it to take a picture of a little girl? Somebody alert Tuvok!
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Love, love, love, love Counterpoint, from beginning to end. So much potential finally fulfilled, Janeway is finally allowed to be a woman for 45 minutes, but she doesn't let any of her 'Captain' ness slip, she outsmarts Kashyk in the end. Just rereading the original post..... shame the Devore now will know where the wormhole is, damn it GodBen why did you have to point that one out? I'm crushed! but as Tomalak says the music is great, I think that kind of elevates this episode above the others. It's Kashyk that really does that though, he's just gorgeous, definitely a lovable rogue I still just love the bit where the vegetables rematerialise, for years I thought of this as 'the vegetable episode' - however the very best scene just has to be the smirk on the security guard at the bedroom door's face - 'As you were' - love it
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I agree that in Latent image it's far too simplistic that a bit of poetry can solve all the Doctor's problems, I never thought this one ended well it seems a bit chopped off as if they ran out of time. Plus unless my memory plays tricks on me the beginning isn't brilliant, Janeway hasn't been that rude to the Doc since Season One, that was turned on to make a point. The continuity also isn't brilliant as Kes would've been in Sickbay during the events 18 months before, and Janeway's hair would've been long. However I think overall it's a good one for the Doc, because it's kind of the turning point where Janeway finally admits he's a person and starts showing him a little bit more respect. I think these few Episodes in season Five are probably the bit where Voyager suffers most from being too episodic - Janeway is ditched by Kashyk one week, bounces back to deal with the Doctor but ends up with flu this week then will be happily and energetically running about with the spider people next. Wish I could move through life as smoothly and as unscathed!
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I'm not a huge fan of Voyager, but Latent Image was very good. Voyager episodes seem to botch their handling of serious questions a lot of the time, whereas this one actually got to grips with the issue of the Doctor's sentience and worked very well as drama at the same time. I thought Robert Picardo and Jeri Ryan did excellent work. The ending could have been better, but this still beats most episodes of the show.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager 'Latent Image' was a very good episode, if you ignore the end, and the slightly duff continuity. In that sense, it was a really good Voyager episode, if you know what I mean! Consequences just don't really happen on VOY, so the end is still disappointing years after I first saw it. It's odd that we had never met this member of the crew before, and as it happened again in season six's 'Ashes to Ashes, it seems that the writers didn't learn their lesson. Having someone who the audience have met who later died in the past could really have made the episode more substantial. I still give it a 4/5 though.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I loved the ending. I thought it was sweet how the crew sat with him while he hashed out philosophical crisis. I also loved the Dante references. Then again, I also liked the Da Vinci program being the Renaissance fan that I am.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager The overall resolution was good, but I'd have liked it better without the poem, which for me detracted from the sense that this was something that was going to take time for him to work out. Of course you can interpret it differently, but it just gave that impression, I thought.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I'd've liked to see him back in sickbay afterwards, putting all he learned into practice and reflecting on the poetry that gave him the inspiration to move forwards. Just an extra few minutes tying it all together a bit.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Adore Latent Image, fantastic character piece. The Doctor's rant about choices is a highlight for me, great acting on display. Best of that season would be Bride of Chaotica though, possibly my fave Voyager episode of the lot.