Oh, boy! Do I get to be the first one to mention T...U...V...I...X? Bad decision by Janeway. Very bad.
In the first two seasons she didn't make any command decisions, so their was no good or bad of it; in the '37s' everyone else made their command decision, in 'Deadlock' was it Janeway who made the command decision or Janeway #2, in 'Resolutions' her command decision wasn't respected. What could be her first bad command decision came with 'False Prophets'. Getting home was much more important than playing with the Ferengi and they always win at their own game. It's hard to believe she commanded these series of events without secret motivations. The science team wasn't absolutely sure the wormhole was wide enough. Perhaps for this reason the safety of Voyager was involved and she didn't feel fully insured about getting home. Later, in the Voyager epic, what could be a bad command decision will follow with the same reasoning- like in 'Dark Frontier', 'Year of Hell', 'Eqiunox', etc. We find she is good at making a command decision with 'Warlord' and 'Macrocosm'. Why Voyager was allowed to continue and win the day was totally and solely because of Janeway's inherant abilities. This continues with 'Concerning Flight' and 'The Killing Game', with the 'Omega Directive and 'Drone, with 'Counterpoint' , 'Latent Image' and 'Bride of Chaotica' and the rest in Season 6 and 7.
Got to disagree on a few things. Janeway made the decision to blow up the Array, I think that qualifies as a command decision. She made B'Elanna Chief Engineer, probably one of her BEST command decisions. She made the decision to STOP her team from saving her in "Time and Again", thereby saving her life and the planet, was yet another Command decision. She decided to pursue the mysterious organ snatching aliens in "Phage", and once captured she made the decision to RELEASE them which made them willing to help save Neelix's life. THAT decision cost her a lot of grief but prevented Neelix from being a permanent resident of the sickbay. In "Eye of the Needle"... I think you get my drift. Janeway was Queen Bee on that ship and it showed. Did everything work out the way she wanted it? Seen "The Cloud" lately? No, but even when things went the wrong way, it usually wasn't because her original decision was "wrong". The Ferengis in "False Profits" were a great example of why the Federation has the "prime directive". I can see Janeway trying to save a planet from its enslavement by such two questionable Alpha Quadrant characters... kind of like Kirk et al cleaning up after a previous Federation contact with that planet in "A piece of the action". Janeway's only error (Or was it Chakotay's?) was in underestimating the Ferengi's desire for profit and not assigning a bigger security team to escort the Ferengi to the brig. Had they NOT escaped the team and the ship, then Voyager would have successfully made it to the wormhole and home to the AQ. IIRC there wasn't a problem with the wormhole until the tractor beam and the feedback energy destablized the axis making it too dangerous to use. JANEWAY: Follow them in before that wormhole collapses, Mister Paris. PARIS: Aye, Captain. Resetting the co-ordinates. KIM: Captain, the entrance to the wormhole is moving. The Ferengi graviton pulse must have increased its rotational momentum. PARIS: Adjusting course to follow. It's too fast for us, Captain. I need more speed. JANEWAY: Mister Tuvok, divert auxiliary power to the thrusters. PARIS: It's not enough. CHAKOTAY: Initiate a high intensity impulse burst. (wormhole disappears) JANEWAY: Mister Kim, reinitiate the verteron field. Maybe we can attract the wormhole back. KIM: The Ferengi graviton pulse knocked the wormhole completely off its subspace axis. It's jumping erratically now on both ends. Just because she's my fav, doesn't mean she's going to win EVERY game. That's why there ARE games. Probabilities are just so much hot air, and they are forgotten once the game is over. I suspect if Janeway won every time, if you agreed with her every time, it would be a very boring show indeed.
I would agree that she had to make a LOT of decisions the first couple years - the Array and the whole Maquis thing were pretty huge. Oh, and the "traitor" and "Chakotay's baby" sagas were rather major as well. She pretty much had to make some choice or another every single episode, like all the other captains. Part of the job. I haven't seen this episode in quite a while - but I think that wormhole was considered a "lemon" even way back in TNG. Its instability was how those two Ferengi got stuck in the first place.
Security team my ass. The Ferengi used the Prime Directive to logically argue that they were an engrained presence in the culture below, and Janeway is so frakking weak on the subject she flinched. Let them got while she had to pop off to re-examine the cheat cheats which got her through her ethics classes back at the academy. She didn't need a security team, she needed one word. And the word was: "Bullshit." And how the hell did she not know that this was coming? It's a matter of public record that those Ferengi were lost during the aborted sale of the Barzan Worm hole. It should have been their first port of call. Warp Nine .975 and no fucking detours. Froot. The wormhole was fixed in the AQ side into Barzan Space but there was a random element on the dq side that it seemed to open up anywhere... however it took janeway just a couple hours to figure out the patten and force the bastard to heel (Superior tech to Picard perhaps? Voyager was 7 years more advanced than the Enterprise, and more so if you consider that it took a bit longer to draft and build the galaxy to an Intrepid perhaps.). The ferengi Dislodged the AQ side as well and now both sides of the worm hole were unhinged form timespace.
Janeway made the decision to blow-up the array but the decision put Voyager in jeopardy and made sure enemies of the Kazons. Making B'Elanna Chief Engineer was a consensus- I think. What could of happened in 'Time and Again' is up for grabs- even if it didn't involve a command decision. The 'Phage' was a command decision that saved ----> Neelix? it seems to me every once in a while everyone had to save Neelix, like in 'Mortal Coil' with Chakotay. 'Tuvix' was a command decision? In 'False Prophets' her determination is guided by intense sentimentalism. Being that said and more-or-less (plus ou moins) I have to agree with Janeway Rulz. After all it had to be sold to the general public. Garlic and Paprika work almost anywhere.
I believe that qualifies as PMS From ehow.com: Deal with the Emotional Effects of PMS 1. Implement a plan to deal with any irrational thoughts. Seek advice from a counselor or confidant who can help you work through difficult feelings caused by PMS. 2. Put off any big decision-making if possible. PMS can make you feel like you are losing your mind. However, be confident that your clear, rational thinking will probably return to normal in a few days. 3. Learn how increased irritability is caused by hormone changes. Moodiness is clearly a result of rising and falling hormone levels. Read more: How to Recognize the Symptoms of PMS | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/how_2048316_recognize-symptoms-pms.html#ixzz1FqPBglQS
Thanks, man. I couldn't remember the details. This isn't an episode I watch very often. I find it boring, although I do like the TNG tie-in (I always want to slap Troi's stupid empathic boyfriend in the mouth every single scene he shows up, though. WHAT DID SHE SEE IN HIM, EVER?) Zameaze, your post really makes me want to give my "PMS jokes remind me of Spenser's Gifts keychains" speech again, but I promised myself I'd stop doing that. Although I guess I sort of made it anyway. Okay, next time... next time I won't even mention it. I'm going cold turkey after this. EDIT: Also, I'm wondering if that e-how article was just made up by some bored dude. Difficult feelings?! Put off decision-making?! LOL. A counselor?! For PMS?! I'm facepalming over here. For realsies. There's no way a woman wrote that, or, if she did, it was as a joke.
I believe that qualifies as a serious lack of a sense of humor. *adds to Narcissistic Personality Disorder list*
Lots of females don't mind PMS humor (I have a friend who - while I love her to death- drives me up the wall when she makes PMS and "OMG chocolate LOL" jokes because she sounds like an episode of The View or an '80s sitcom,) but others kind of take it personally. It's not narcissism or anything, it's more that it tends to bring up reminders of that old chestnut about how women are irrationally ruled by their emotions and cannot function as smart decision makers and so on. Mostly because there are a still few people of both genders out there who still honestly believe that malarkey. Like the person who wrote that article, for instance. Counselors! COUNSELORS! LOL. Sort of unrelated, but I bought this lady deodorant the other day and it had a big flowery pink label on it that said "extra strong... for those emotional moments" and I just sort of pinched the bridge of my nose and shook my head and silently cursed their marketing department. I dunno. Maybe I'm the only female on this good Earth annoyed by that sort of thing, but I can't help it. EDIT: I say all this and yet I still constantly make jokes about women drivers...
It's a way of de-legitimatizing a person's decisions and actions, attributing it derogatorily it on hormones. And yes to the 80's froot because it's a tired old trope.
I'm not amused. For the PMS argument to hold water, that would mean that either the authors decided specially and actionably that Kathryn had PMS or that one of the Authors had PMS and trickle downed it into Janeway's Personality unintentionally. That's ridiculous or doubly ridiculous. Besides, the contraception of choice for some humans is a monthly shot, and if Cassidy didn't notice that she had missed her period, because she was pregnant, that means that she never had periods unless she forgot her shot and wasn't pregnant. No periods in the future to make fun of, or be defensive about people unless we're talking about hippies ignoring modern medicine, the careless or those for who celibacy seems to have evolved beyond a choice, the period has been ostensibly eliminated from the 24th century. Did Ransom not deal with Caretaker because he was drinking the Prime Directive Coolaide or because he was a massive wussy? If he applied himself, Ransom had maybe six months to bend Caretaker to his will before Janway showed up, meanwhile are we supposed to think that Rudy bolted after Caretaker got tall or that if Janeway had as long that that other Starship Captain had to manage Caretaker that she could have resolved the day without explosions? (I'm watching Jack and Bobby... And Looky! It's Alicia Coppila. I <3 her.)
Zameaze , if I may. A decision that runs counter to YOUR preference, does NOT qualify for PMS. TPTB tested men in the role just as they tested women, in case the studio couldn't accept the idea of a woman as Captain. Which means that a MAN would have been called upon to make the same decision as Kathryn Janeway. So... how should we respond to HIS decision to save the Ocampa? Change the backstory? Have him become Kes's lover, and his ship's sacrifice could then be to save her family and insure him a warm bed on Ocampa? Or maybe, forget the whole premise of the show and have him throw the Ocampa to the winds, simply tuck his tail between his legs and RUN HOME! The Federation Docs will undoubtably call it a "Low T" problem when they examine the ship's logs...meaning he literally didn't have the cohones to stand up to the Kazon and insure the safety of the Ocampa. She made the call, as women do every day all over this great world despite their hormone status. As men do every day, despite their hormone status. What the distaff side of the planet doesn't need, is every decision made be derided/second guessed because of sex. That's actually not funny. Its tiring.
If someone can ascribe KJ's decisions to "PMS" (with all the female leaders these days that really should be "old news"), then maybe the decisions that males make (which aren't always so great, btw, but don't want to be negative) could be blamed on too much testosterone, but that would be prejudicial, and we wouldn't want to do that, would we? Star Trek is supposed to be beyond that, forward thinking, supposedly. Oh well, guess it might be until the 24th century that such thinking is finally out of fashion and women (or whatever) captains are just "normal," finally. All beings of good will deserve respect (IMHO).
Here's the Catch 22. If there is no sexual oppression in the future, then there are no hurdles women specifically have to over come to seem impressive that men don't have to also. There's nothing more amazing about a woman Captain than a male Captain. Factor in that there's no money and geography is no limit either. Anyone n the 24th century can grow up to be Captain so it's hinky to attach 21st (20th?) century standards to her situation that she should be applauded and celebrated for defying and overcoming non-existent and redacted barriers only throwbacks from ancient time would interpret as tangible. Janeway is a person.
That is a really good point. In that fictional time and situation, it is no big to have a woman or a person with pointy ears or what-have-you be a captain. And, in the show universe, (outside of a few digs by the Kazon and Q, which I could have honestly done without) they were actually really good about not bashing viewers in the face with the gender issue. They stayed blissfully quiet about B'Elanna as well, and she was also a high-ranking leader on the ship. However, I think those of us with ovaries tend to throw these fictional ladies on a pedestal because we are looking at them from our perspective as 21st century humans. I realize we've come quite a long way in this society in the past hundred years or so, but even in my brief lifetime, I can think of at least a couple times where I was told by important men and women in my life that women are never, ever to be leaders. That women are too emotionally driven to make decisions and must always defer to men. And they were straight-faced serious. And I believed them for a long, long time. So, no, there's no glass ceiling or whatever in the pretend future, but to those of us back here in this century, it still looks like an accomplishment. Should we be so uppity about a fictional character? Eh, probably not. It really isn't fair to toss the sexism card around every time we see dissenting statements. But even offhand jokes like the one in this thread can hit home for a few of us who have heard this stuff for real (though, as I said, some ladies don't really mind. I know several. Like anything, YMMV.)