Does It Get Better???

[You_Will_Fail]

But he wasn't our Tom, so who cares.
I'm pretty sure Brannon did not set out to make a "Tom Paris episode" with Non-Sequitur.

[Harvey]

stj wrote:

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So, you agree that Harry has no problem deciding to return

Yes.

nor does he really have a problem returning (thanks to Cosimo,)

No. Cosimo hands Harry the techno-babble about the "temporal inversion fold of the space-time matrix," but it isn't as easy as Harry tapping his Ruby Slippers together for him to get home. He still has to convince both Libby and Paris to help him, and steal the Yellowstone to get there.

Why do you then persist in assuming that the story is really about Harry? Because the episode didn't follow convention in showing us the hero in the first shot?

Checking the last time we debated this, Paris doesn't show up until 21 minutes have elapsed. After that, he's relegated to being off-screen more than half the remaining time (He's in half of act three, the last minute of act four, and in act five until he dies). If he's the protagonist, keeping him off screen for 70% of the running time is simply clumsy writing. The fact that his crucial decision to change his mind and help Harry is relegated to happening off screen should clue us in to his role in the script -- to help Harry out when he's in a jam.

[RoJoHen]

I just started Season 3 in my re-watch, and I have to say, I do not remember "Basics Part 2" being so retarded.

[Guy Gardener]

You're smarter, and more worldy now.

That's all that's changed.

Bad luck trying to revisit anything you used to enjoy 10, 15 or 20 years ago.

...

The thing I don't understand about Tom is... "Oh so there's a better version of me out there, who is unfortunately in a fantastically dangerous situation that he might die any moment, but I am going to help you destroy (overwrite) the universe anyway and kill myself in the process rather than try to make a go of the life I have now, because it's some how meta delightful that there's a copy of me who thinks I'm scum just like you think I'm scum, so I'm just going to bend over and accept that if you say I should kill myself for his sake, and that I should take the universe and everyone in it with me, except you."

That's a seriously *&^%ed up sort of Muppet who needs to be put down.

Hells, bells, and it's exactly what's happening on Dexter at the moment with the Doomsday Killer.

Reminds me of Emperor Catagia a little too. How he thought that he would turn into a god off world when he planned to allow the Shadows to destroy Centauri Prime.

[stj]

^^^I never quite got past the scene where Tom broke into Harry's bedroom. And not just because we find Harry wears a sleep mask. I would have thought Paris/Kim was another canonical slash coupling like J/7, except it was two guys and interracial to boot. But, no, the alternate Tom was there to show us the inner, true Tom, who is incredibly noble and self-sacrificing. I have no idea how a society without money is supposed to be infested with ne'er-do-wells like alternate Tom or Julian Bashir's father, but there you are.

Paris' decision to save Harry is offscreen because seeing him come to the rescue is supposed to be a bravo moment. Harry's presumably dramatic decision to return to the ship may be technically on screen but it's not dramatized. There's no high point or exciting scene like Tom the Hero swooping in to save his friend.

Keeping the protagonist off screen isn't clumsy writing. But character based drama where the characters are acting out instead of interacting with the environment. There really isn't any reason why alternate Tom can't straighten up his act if he's really inspired to hope. Nor is there any reason why his situation is so dire as to merit suicide. (There's no reason to think any universes are destroyed in this scenario.) This weak motivation for Tom may be why the character didn't just dominate the story, even though all the heroics are due to him. Harry succeeds in nothing, other than, presumably, pleasing Libby during the fadeout.

[Guy Gardener]

Kim thought it was unfair for Daniel Byrd to be trapped on Voyager in his place.

Part of his reasoning in destroying the Universe was to save Daniel Byrd from being trapped on Voyager.

COSIMO: Are you so sure? This is a pretty good place for you, Harry. You have a wonderful job with Starfleet, a beautiful woman who loves you. Why be so quick to turn your back on all this? Maybe this is your, er, fate. Isn't that the word your people use? That thing which was meant to be? Hmm? Seems to me you're actually a very lucky man.
KIM: What about Danny Byrd? He isn't so lucky. And Tom Paris? Fate wasn't so kind to him. No, it isn't supposed to be this way. I'm supposed to be on Voyager in the Delta Quadrant. And that's where I have to go.
COSIMO: Very well.

The only way to not have "a" universe leftover in tact with Daniel Byrd not trapped in the DQ was to destroy this reality completely.

FRom DS9 In the Cards.

JAKE: I'm human, I don't have any money.
NOG: It's not my fault that your species decided to abandon currency-based economics in favour of some philosophy of self-enhancement.
JAKE: Hey, watch it. There's nothing wrong with our philosophy. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.
NOG: What does that mean exactly?

There's a labour glut.

Everyone wants to work, but there's not enough jobs, which might be why you get some one like Julian's dad "Dick" who had so many professions because he trains up for one job, but he's ass at it and left sitting on his thumbs because no bugger will contract him.

(I imagine that education is "free", and entrance is purely merit based, even if they make you cage match like Wesley did in Coming of Age to justify the resources that will be expended your education.)

Getting a job in this society is a privilege.

However, I also assume that that Starfleet itself is a sort of hands on polytechnic institute, if you want to wonder about the enlisted ranks floating about. I mean sure O'Brien is a lifer, but what about the people who just sign up for a two to 5 year contract to learn a trade? However in reverse, others could get preferential slots in "schools" of their choosing if they agree to sign up with the fleet for a small number of years, just like how the army and navy these days pay student tuition in exchange for service.

[Lord Manitou]

So far you people are not counting up the odds here. According to Cosimo, Harry is suppose to accept his new surroundings and he will then die on Voyager and then carry out this time stream which is some fairy land to what end? To accept he's dead? Cosimo said he had been doing these experiments for awhile and it's a 50 to one shot the victim will just blend-in to the situaltion.
That's not how it is with Harry though who decides to do something that is very technically difficult and daring and that is to steal a shuttle and go back to entry point.
No doubt the experiment is-- the time stream will merge with real time and Tom will disappear (he must be expendable) and Harry will marry Libby.
Why glorify Tom if he is the only original character that must be killed?

[stj]

By the way, it is very vague precisely how those ships recreate the entry point, when the entry took place in the Delta Quadrant. Which just points out once again that the Voyager producers thought all that stuff was just so much technobabble. Our Tom, their Tom, universes destroyed or characters switch, it's all blah blah blah, and throwing around all those absurd objections over something that doesn't make any sense is pure fanboyism.

I personally find that attitude does a lot of damage to practically all TV and movie SF. The moronic notion that there's no difference between SF and fantasy exists to justify slovenly writing in plot and setting. And also limits the real world relevance of SF because real scientific speculation is usually more relevant.

Anyhow, the point of this story is not that Harry is dutiful and wants to come home. The point of this story is that the old, useless loser Tom is dead because Tom has nobly come to the rescue, at great personal cost. It's a character driven story, not a plot driven story. And it is of course the official creed that everyone likes characterd driven stories as opposed to those crappy plot driven stories.

Incidentally, keeping the real protagonist offstage was done other times in Voyager. In this context, the most notable was Alter Ego, which begins with Harry having a problem and ends with Harry's solving his problem by learning something. In what is nonetheless a Tuvok episode.

[You_Will_Fail]

Its still a crap episode no matter what way you try and spin it. "Nightingale" was an example of a good Harry Kim story imo, although I know some people don't like it.

[Guy Gardener]

Nightingale may be a good episode for the character of Harold Kim, running him through the gauntlet, but that's like saying 12 days in the Bunker was a good Movie for the character of Adolph Hitler.

(Anthony Hopkins, 1981, if you were wondering.)

It just highlighted what a dick he was, and how magnificently he could make a bad situation worse, almost as if they were writing a villain who needed a comeuppence.

[exodus]

You_Will_Fail wrote:

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I wouldn't call the trek fanbase "limited", TNG was pulling in 20 million viewers per episode in season 7....on the other hand, Trek haemmoraged viewers after that.

Remember, fan means fanatic.
A fanatic will stick with something they like through thick and thin.

Which means many of those 20 million weren't true fans but rather casual viewers turned on to TNG because it was the "in" fad at the time. Trek lost viewers because they were never interested in Trek before or beyond TNG to begin with. The numbers for Voyager are probably closer to how big the fanbase really is, seeing how those that stuck it out to watch Voyager would be the loyal fans

[Lord Manitou]

It has always been the same for science fiction with a crew who must consider selling to the average public and leave scientific credence to the wayside. The first science fiction films had a true base but what has emerged since 1970 is something to stare at and is hard to believe in. Their must be reasons for more optimism, though since it is adept to pick-up things that are applicable and, given a few well rounded notions, it is easy to advance.
An interesting idea is a science fiction epic that is based on relevent data and relevent science though mankinds nature would prove it to be immiscible, since the limits of its habitat are only philisophical books by great thinkers.
The reason I stay with Trek is because most of it is believable science and also with adventure and humour and sex.

[Tiberius]

Guy Gardener wrote:

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How does it effect your interest in this episode if I tell you that by season 6, that either Projections had never happened because the viewership started following a new timeline, or some menace had erased this adventure from their memories.

What? because they don't know who reg Barclay is?

Ah, but the Doc forgot about him in The Swarm, remember? He's the only one who saw Barclay, so how could he recognise him?

[You_Will_Fail]

Haha convenient!

[RoJoHen]

The Doctor not remembering Reg makes perfect sense given that his entire mind is wiped and rebooted. He's bound not to remember everything.

As for the rest of the crew...those things happened 4 years apart! If I looked up a random name 4 years ago, I very much doubt I'd be able to remember it today.