Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I got the impression from Doug Drexler's blog that the VFX guys cared more about continuity and things like that more than the producers, Doug said if he had his way Voyager would have received battle-damage as the series went on and by the final episode the ship would be on its last legs. But I don't think Doug worked on Voyager's VFX team at that point, I think he only moved there after DS9 ended. Tom and B'Elanna might not have gotten married on the real Voyager because "demon" Tom proposed while the real Tom was in the brig. Hey, I'm getting good at this explaining stuff away thing. Sadly I have not been able to think up an answer for the improved warp-drive.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager That's a shame. Just some little hints here and there that Voyager's travel had been a bit more perilous than it appeared would have been great.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager The Demon crew my have come across some friendly aliens who gave them a hand with the quantum slipstream drive. Besides, thanks to quatum mechanics, we know there's always random elements. Even if the demon crew had met exactly the same aliens in the same conditions as the real one, stuff would still go different.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I'm thinking I might save it for one of the Fairhaven episodes, somebody deserves to die for those atrocities.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I wasn't all that entertained by "Fair Haven" or "Spirit Folk" but I've never understood the backlash against these two episodes. They certainly aren't among the worst of Trek and I did like the music, the production and the atmosphere. I guess some might be offended by the Irish stereotypes but that didn't bother me but then again neither did TNG's "Up the Long Ladder" or "Sub Rosa". I think the worst thing about the episodes was that not only did the writers waste one episode slot but two on a fluff holodeck program. It was sad that the writers had this unexplored Delta Quadrant full of theoretically wondrous aliens and unique phenomena yet they couldn't fashion a nice episode around those things. And the sci-fi storm in "Fair Haven" was absolutely superfluous.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Fury's after the both of them - if you can bottle it up, I'd recommend saving it for then, because if one person deserves death for Fair Haven and Spirit Folk, MANY deserve death for the character assassination inflicted on Kes.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager That's another popularly held fan notion that I don't really agree with. Yes, Kes was a sweet gentle individual that could melt anyone's heart but she was also comparable to a young child when we knew her. Kids grow up. The idealism is replaced. "Fury" took an interesting, and in my opinion, a perfectly valid character trajectory for her. Obviously, becoming an evolved non-corporeal being cleary overwhelmed her and the experiences she endured for the last few years, even assuming she experienced time as we do, took its toll on her mentally. Whether it was justified or not, Kes blames Janeway et al for cultivating that curiosity about being something more and it turned out for to not be a positive experience. So I could definitely buy her lashing out so ruthlessly. I'm sure the life she had onboard Voyager with this family felt like a lifetime ago. I felt a few things could have been done differently but I did enjoy seeing Kes again and the episode did a nice job in evoking some season one nostalgia with the power bun, the Doc confined to sickbay, no Seven, no Borg, talk of neural gel packs, a Carey sighting. So it couldn't be all bad.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I'll probably go into it more when we get there, but I'll just point this out - when Kes leaves in The Gift, the event is treated as this wondrous experience. In Fury, she's just back and looking for blood, not a single comment about her being in a higher plane. The idea of the higher plane being so overwhelming that she becomes this withered and destructive shell is interesting, but nothing is done with that - Kes might as well have departed the ship and got left behind without a thought and chased after Voyager for all the consideration given to her motives.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Corrected. And what comes to the amount of torpedoes, I cannot understand why there is an assumption the crew never, at any point, acquired more weaponry during their time time in DQ. They most certainly had to do so and if it was not shown on TV, one could used his or hers imagination.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager If I may be allowed to broken record this statement, all it would take is one line of dialogue to fix the problem with this - 'we bought some torpedeos off that weapons trader a few light-years back.' There, we'd stop bitching. Instead, we HAVE to assume and infer because the writers didn't care enough to mention this fact that was apparently important enough to be an issue at the beginning of the series and is now a complete non-issue.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager What is wrong with assuming? This is what I don't get. But on the other hand, I don't get fans who whine about some ship's registration numbers or as equally "significant" things either. Geez.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Au contraire mon Tachyon, it is precisely because of my imagination that I consider it to be such an issue. I can see an interesting story where they have to go to a weapon's dealer and they have to deal with the moral implications of getting involved in the arms business, sort of like DS9's Business as Usual. They have to decide whether it is right to buy weapons from a man who will use the technology they trade to him to build new weapons which will be used to kill people. I'm sure we can all agree that that would be much better than an episode where the ship gets stuck in a region of space and they'll all die if they don't escape, but one crewmember receives visions from some strange aliens and those visions help them to escape. That's right, I'm talking about TNG's Night Terrors. Whoops, I meant The Fight.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Urgh, The Fight! This episode was not good. And how come Voyager runs into so many weird space phenomena? I though space was essentially big and empty, but if this show is to be believed you can't go more than a few light years without hitting some crazy anomaly. And when Tuvok said they'd probably land in the middle of a star or asteroid field when they came out of chaotic space - no you won't! This is space, it's massive! The chances of crashing into something like that must be infinitesimal.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager The point is they made such a big deal about it at the beginning. This was clearly done as an attempt to show that there are some limits to their resources and being in the Delta Quadrant has consequences. If they hadn't mentioned it, one could have assumed they could be replicated (well, there's the whole issue of power shortages, but that's something that was never consistent).
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager How dare you compare "Night Terrors" to "The Fight". "The Fight" was horrible. "Night Terrors” is a great episode. It has it all-a creepy atmosphere, great character moments and is anchored by an intriguing mystery. The episode gets off on the right note with a lost, adrift starship and great ominous, moody music. It also boasts quite a tantalizing mystery(What went on here? What nightmare took place? Did they encounter a malevolent alien race? A space anomaly?) for the crew to solve in regards to what caused the crew of the Brattain to violently kill each other in the throes of some bizarre mental breakdown. The show was also nicely graphic with the depiction of the violence that had taken place on the Brattain. There were tons of different elements that I really enjoyed--The officer talking to O’Brien about the old man in the old-style Starfleet uniform seen lurching in engineering(creeeeepy); the sobering realization that the crew are finding themselves in the same exact situation as the Brattain and the the same tragic fate that befell that ship is beginning to take place on the Enterprise unlike "The Fight" where there was no tension whatsoever with the crew in danger. The tension was also well-realized at the end when the bussard collectors released the hydrogen and everyone waited to see if it worked. Picard’s story of his grandfather’s senility reinforcing the strong fear for Picard the loss of his mind which is only heightened coming off the heels of his recent assimilation and nicely foreshadows AGT and the Irumodic Syndrome is heads and shoulders above the anemic attempts at character insight with Chakotay and his grandfather. And while "Night Terrors" wasn't a primarily character-driven episode it did sprinkle in some nice moments for the entire cast amidst the crisis along with little touches such as Crusher missing her comm-badge on the first attempt because of her deteriorating condition the unsettling moment where a young ensign hears something on the Brattain and then Geordi, the more experienced senior officer, offering reassurance to him that his reaction is only normal given the horrific events that transpired on the ship or when Riker displays irritability when Picard suggests he gets some rest acts almost like a child ordered to bed by a parent--something I could definitely see coming from Riker. Then we see Worf contemplating suicide because the fear he is experiencing isn't some physical adversary he can strike down with a bat'leth. Good stuff. The images were also much more effective such as the moment when the corpses bolt up inside the makeshift morgue. "Night Terrors" even had continuity with the nice touch of putting into use a previously attempted tactic with the deflector dish from BoBW in their attempt to break free of the Tyken's rift. And unlike a shoe-horned appearance of Boothby NT has a natural, well-placed and wonderfully done scene with everyone’s favorite enigmatic bartender pulling out her huge phaser and taking control of the situation--classic Guinan. Another striking difference between the two episodes was the acting. I loved Patrick Stewart’s performance. Even when he does something that would be embarrassing to someone else he always seems to maintain his dignity; Troi gets to play a significant part in saving the day with Worf or the ship; the O’Briens have some good scenes. Brent turned in another good showing with his android nature allowing him to be the crew’s one hope for survival. It was an interesting contrast to see Data unaffected while the rest of the crew looks awful. I also liked the deadends that kept cropping up. Everytime the crew thought they were onto something(ie the Tyken’s rift) it didn’t go anywhere ultimately. I also liked there were multiple mysteries. First what was affecting the crew then what was the meaning of “Eyes in the dark. One moon circles…”—I liked how the answer was staring me in the face the whole time. Now that is a clever subtle explanation rather than the incoherent stuff that littered "The Fight". As is often the case with TNG’s mystery-based stories the payoff is worthy of the preceeding build-up of suspense and intrigue unlike VOY who would tease us with an intriguing mystery but fail to deliver when it came time for the big reveal. I especially loved the way the writers used the fairly original idea of REM deprivation as well as the unique idea of a distress signal where aliens use dream frequencies to communicate. And the riddle of hydrogen was brilliant. And in this one episode TNG did a better job at capturing the isolation and danger of deep space. The directing was also superior. The way it was filmed had an almost dream-like feel. The emphasis by the crew of being out of contact made it truly feel like there were two lone ships trapped in the void of cold, deep space far from any outpost, starbase or help and at the mercy of some incomprehensible & unknown force determined to insidiously destroy them. I really liked that. The episode also demonstrated effectively how an innocent act such as an SOS can ultimately lead to a critical situation when it involves an alien lifeform. The shots of the binary stars and the way in certain scenes the light would briefly strike the lens and reflect was nice. I always enjoy seeing another ship and bridge even if it was a redress. And I liked the final scene where Data orders Picard to bed which is a much better coda than Chakotay getting ready to spar. Those two episodes just demonstrate how TNG consistently hit the mark when it came to executing high concept/mysterious sci-fi episodes and how VOY botched them big time. I could go on with all the well done TNG stories of this type--"Cause and Effect", "Timescape", "Parallels", "Clues", "The Survivors", "Remember Me", "Disaster", "All Good Things..." and have to really think about VOY's contribution.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Kes looked like she turned into a being of light that consumed her shuttle in "The Gift"--the implication being she had evolved into a higher plane which "Fury" seems to confirm. Kes: "In three years, I'm going to leave Voyager and search for higher things because you encouraged me to do it. You encouraged me to develop my mental abilities. I wasn't ready. What I found...I couldn't control it. It scared me. I had nowhere to go. I thought of returning home to Ocampa . . . but I had changed too much. I knew they'd be frightened of me. I knew they wouldn't accept me, but they'll accept her[younger Kes]." We are clearly seeing a confused and angry Kes. People change. So I can't agree with the criticism that Kes' change was poor characterization lacking any foundation for the person she is in "Fury". What I do have a problem with is how quickly the embittered Kes has a 180 turn in attitude after hearing a holo-recording from her younger self.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Big deal for some, I see, but not necessarily for others. There are still others means to get more torpedoes than replicating them. It's like... geez, we didn't see Defiant getting armed with all those torpedos, so why didn't they run out of them during all those battles we saw on TV? If not seeing the ship getting armed, the torpedoes must not be there! We have to see everything, don't we, or it cannot happen? Right? So friends - let's cut the crap, shall we? And The Fight had nothing similar with the Night Terrors. I agree. Such an episode could have been interesting.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager ^But it was never stated Defiant couldn't get new torpedoes. While Tuvok said "We've got 38 photon torpedoes and no way of replacing them."
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager The show stated flat-out that it cannot happen. "We have 38 torpedoes and no way to make more." So if we see more, the show contradicted itself. Sure, there are all sorts of possible explanations, but they didn't give any! The fact is, if the show contradicts itself with no explanation, that's bad writing. "We have to see everything, don't we, or it cannot happen? Right?" Wrong. If they say something cannot happen, and it happens anyway, we have to see why. Or at least hear it. The Defiant had access to Starfleet resources. Implicitly understood and stated onscreen. Voyager was in a situation that was deliberately written as different (implicitly understood) and did not have access to Starfleet resources (stated onscreen). Apples and oranges.