Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Yeah, I love debating evolution. I try to hide just how little I really know about it. I suppose it is possible for a species to evolve into extinction. Environment is a critical component of evolution and I can't just claim that environment is that only thing which leads to extinction. The extinction of an entire species is, in a sense, a brutal form of natural selection since some animals will have evolved themselves into such a niche that they were unable to adapt out of quickly enough. As Darwin said, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” I should reach Threshold by tomorrow, so I guess I can save the "they don't understand the evolutions!" rant until then.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager the classic example of an animal evolving itself into extinction is the woolly mammoth. btw, i know you're going to roast "threshold," but i hope you'll at least give some separate consideration to what i thought was some decent character insight into paris. it's not one of my favorite b/c of the evolution part of it, but everything before the gecko scenes seemed okay. oh yeah, i know you'll also be having a problem with the warp 10 threshold and how easily it was conquered by paris, kim, and torres. well, i'll look forward to reading it so we can discuss a couple of things about it tomorrow.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Oh no you didn't! Technobabble? I must have missed that. The thought of it never even crossed my mind while watching this. This episode was good. At least worth of ***½.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Well there was about three minutes of Torres talking to the Doc about plasma and how to make the ship's plasma work for the robot, then there is a two minute scene where they go ahead and do it. The most exciting part of the episode, the bit where Voyager is being pounded by the Praelor ship, is also filled with Kim and Tuvok shouting "Shields at 47%!" "Auxiliary power is offline" and other such phrases. The only good technobabble is technobabble which references flux capacitors. That is a well known rule of science fiction.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Not my rule. The dialog you mentioned was fine. Nothing wrong with that. So let's move along.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager i don't understand why sci-fi fans have a problem with technobabble. while much of it is BS, there is quite a lot of it that is grounded in sound physics theory. i love it that they try to give some explanation and not just say, "that thing is busted and i need something to fix it."
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Okay, read this: That took up two minutes on screen. It is nonsense for the most part, if I tried to follow these instructions I would not be able to build myself a robot. It has no dramatic purpose, it is there to fill time. The next scene: Why not just have B'Elanna perform the procedure and have it work? Why waste time telling me that energy levels are building up too quickly and they need to increase the capacitance? It was another minute and a half of wasted screen time which should have been used to do something more interesting about B'Elanna and why she feels the need to reactivate the robot. We could have had a nice scene where she realises that she feels a bit like a doctor and that she wants to help out an injured patient, instead we had time wasted on technobabble. Technobabble is fine in small doses, excessive technobabble is toxic to my patience. Alliances (***½) This episode suffers one major problem; it tried to do too much in just one episode. In one episode Voyager is beaten to hell by the Kazon, unrest amongst the crew grows, Janeway decides to make an alliance with the Kazon, they meet with Cullah to no avail, Neelix gets captured by the Kazon, he meets the Trabe, he escapes with the Trabe, we learn all about the Trabe, we learn all about the Kazon's past, Janeway decides to ally with the Trabe, the Trabe decide to hold a peace conference, Cullah decides to use the peace conference to somehow take control of all the Kazon, the Trabe attack the conference to kill the Kazon leadership, Voyager finds herself in a worse situation than at the beginning of the episode. There is a lot of plot here and much of it is very important. This is the back-story to the Kazon which we have needed since the show began but the whole episode feels so rushed that we can't absorb it correctly. This really should have been spread out into a two part episode because the story is good enough to deserve more time. Things have to move very quickly by the end of the episode, and the speed at which Seska convinces Cullah to go to the conference makes Cullah look like a simple-minded fool. What I like about this episode is that it finally starts to use the potential of this show's premise. Voyager is in real danger, the Maquis begin to dispute Janeway's decision making, Janeway has to start being less obtuse when it comes to the Prime Directive. This is all good stuff and it makes for a very good first act. I also like how they end the show with Voyager fleeing for their lives and how they are discussing how far they will be able to get without restocking on essential supplies. This is a very exciting ending that could only have been made better if it hadn't felt so rushed. Then Janeway makes a speech. Oh boy. Janeway got completely the wrong message from the events in this episode, at least in my opinion. She says that these events shows how they must stick to their principles at all costs, but the fact is that she didn't really abandon her principles at all and now the ship finds itself in greater danger. I'm not saying that she should have given a speech about how they are going to abandon their principles, I'm saying that there shouldn't have been a speech at all because the speech we got didn't seem to gel with what happened in this episode at all. A good episode overall, I just wish it had taken more time and not tacked on that speech to the end. Torpedo counter: 4/38
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I've agreed with GodBen for most of this thread but I'm with Tachyon and blitz on Prototype. I would give it ***1/2.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I agree with all of this. It was like they crammed what could have even been a good half-season's worth of plot into one episode. I agree. That speech was just... weird. Another annoying thing to me was that the idea was that the Maquis 'joined' Voyager as a Starfleet crew, yet the Starfleet crew that were already there didn't seem willing to bend even just a little to learn anything from the Maquis, or even really listen to them and give their opinions consideration. It's happened before in the series, and it happens a good few times more and, IMHO, makes Our Heroes seem rather closed minded. I'm not suggesting they throw their principles out the window; I'm just suggesting they take a sharpie and a highlighter to the rulebook and figure out exactly where they all stand. It's something that should have happened at the very beginning of the series. This was a good opportunity to fix not having done that.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Interesting thread! I was actually thinking of doing something like this one day. I was also a big Trek fan... until Voyager came along. I loved the first three Trek shows but this one was so disappointing for me. I gave up on the show sometime during the 5th season of the original run. Later, I went back and watched the episodes I missed, but the show actually seemed worse than in the earlier seasons. It is too bad because it had a great premise and it seemed to have some interesting characters back in the first season. And it always had excellent production values. But along the way the characters just got on my nerves and the show itself became TNG Phase II. But I may give it another shot when I have some time. Even though the series as a whole disappointed me, there were some great individual episodes. I agree with most of your reviews thus far, GodBen. By the way, did you use to run a Transformers site? Or am I thinking of someone else?
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Oh come now. Tom Paris coughing up his tongue has to be worth at least half a star for sheer gross-out value. As for the rest... well, yes. Half a star is about its limit, but I stick by my belief that Threshold is not the worst Voyager episode out there. Damning with faint praise I know.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Between this and TNG: Genesis, methinks Brannon Braga should have picked up a textbook on evolutionary biology. Or better, maybe someone should have beaten him over the head with a textbook.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager He was responsible for Genesis too, was he? Oh dear... I could never bear watching that more than once.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager If you don't take 'everywhere at once' literally, the way Starfleet transwarp drive should work actually makes sense: it's a jump drive, generated by a warp field so energetic that it renders structural components spaghetti-strength. Til now. Now we have salamanders.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager "Prototype" is OK. A good B'Elanna Torres episode which shows that even the best intentions can go wrong sometimes. I must also state that I do support Janeway in her decision not to allow B'Elanna to help those robots re-produce themselves. They did know too little about that "species" or what to call them to help them with that. As for the episode, I'll give it 3 out of 5. "Alliances" is one of my top 20 favorites. Great episode from the beginning to the end where our heroes discover that the enemy's enemy isn't always the best friend either. As I see it, Janeway and the others made the right decision with first trying to ,ake some sort of deal with the Kazon and when it failed, they tired the same with the Trabe, not to mention that they actually tried to make peace between the Kazon and the Trabe. A nice try and a good attempt but some conflicts obviously can't be solved. The only thing we could have live without was Janeway's speech at the end about "the principles of the Federation". Now that sounded like bad propaganda and wasn't convincing. Otherwise an excellent episode. I'll give it 5 points out of 5! "Threshold". Oh dear, what a mess. One of the worst episodes ever in the history of Star Trek. But there are some funny moments and the episode is actually watchable if you imagine it as just a nightmare Paris had after eating too much Leola Root stew or drinking too much of Neelix’s coffee. The best evidence for this episode being nothing but a nightmare is the fact that no one ever mentioned the events in the episode in later episodes. I mean, Paris almost dies, turns into a lizard, abducts Janeway who is also turned into a lizard and they have lizard “children” and no one talks about it or jokes about it later! At least it's better than downright bad and insulting episodes as "The Gift" and "Fury". But the verdict will be 1 point out of 5.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager i look at this one as having very little difference than "genesis" and yet it gets more derision. now, i understand the biology problems since i am heavily involved with the sciences. but, unlike "genesis" there was a character-building moment for one of the characters. btw, i'm just wondering where trek fans draw the line in suspending belief for many of the scientific (pseudo-scientific?) topics that are presented from physics to chemistry to biology? it's seems very haphazard.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I can suspend belief if the material presented is somewhat plausible OR if the writers do not intentionally focus attention on the technobabble explanations. If there are some good character moments or good dramatic moments, then I can forgive some scientific implausibility as long as the writers know it is implausible and keep the explanations to themselves. Genesis and Threshold were not interesting stories, therefore the bad science becomes even more noticable. On the other hand, TNG's The Chase also had some halfbaked pseudo-science but it was good character episode for Picard. However, I didn't think it was necessary for the writers to try and rationalize why all the aliens in Star Trek are humanoid. Most intelligent viewers understand that this just a TV show and obviously every species they meet can't look like a Horta or an 8472. For me personally, I notice the pseudo-biology more than the pseudo-chemistry/physics/engineering because that is part of my training and background.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Threshold is worse because it insinuates that humans will evolve into giant salamanders. At least Genesis says that the characers DEVOLVED into various preevolutionary states (though it still doesn't explain Barclay becoming a spider...). I think people felt insulted by both the idea and the idea that the writers thought people would BUY the idea.