I've always liked this episode. Anyways,
The bad news: the entire crew of the Prometheus has been slaughtered by Romulan intelligence services
The good news: Andy Dick is here for comic relief!
As part of VOY's tradition of "good concept, poor execution," here we have an episode that represents a momentous occasion: establishing contact with Starfleet for the 1st time since arriving in the Delta Quadrant. But continuing with the writers' pattern of only putting real effort into the writing of 1-in-4 episodes, we're given another one that's thrown together with bizarre scenarios along the way that is simply sloppy work on the writers' part - while still being regarded as one of VOY's better episodes.
Examples:
- The alien communication network absolutely cannot handle an audio transmission by Janeway to the Alpha Quadrant. Solution: send the ship's only doctor as a file and hope for the best.
- The prototype ship of the slaughtered crew is about to fall into enemy hands, but amid the comedy, there's a need to talk about previous sexual experiences and sexual anatomy.
It's a comedic episode through and through.Think of it as dark humor if you wish. Part of the humor is the fact that they are carrying on an argument over this wounded Romulan. The Starfleet crewmembers are irrelevant here. They are already dead and gone. We didn't know them, and we shall not mourn for them. They do not impact the tone of this episode. A more reasonable objection might be the serious episodes found in all Trek series where humans are unceremoniously killed, and sometimes left to rot unburied on some planet that will never be visited again, like in
To the Death, for example. These unnamed people have never not been expendable, whether it's a comedic episode, action, drama, or otherwise.
- While the ship is at high warp, the main viewscreen shows stars at a standstill. (This mistake was later acknowledged by the show's production.)
How does a VFX gaff serve as an example of "sloppy work on the writers' part"?
- We're told that nothing can catch up with the Prometheus, but oh wait, here are 4 Starfleet vessels that have caught up and are ready to save the day.
We'r told earlier that it was traveling at "Warp 9.9." According to DS9, those ships
can catch up. This is irrelevant however. Why?
Because the ship has stopped moving. This means that the other Starfleet Vessels in pursuit are going to catch up to the Prometheus.
- Somehow the Doctors unwittingly initiate a warp core overload on the Prometheus, but neither actor is invested into the moment at all, seemingly expecting the scene to be cut. The warp core overload is halted after pushing a few more buttons. Crisis averted.
Why would it be meant to be cut? It's funny. It's supposed to be funny. They don't know what they're doing. The Doc is pretending to be "the experienced one," but he is out of his league. Where does he look for inspiration? Tom Paris. He says "There's a little trick I saw Mister Paris do once. If I can generate a slight overload to the nacelle coils, it'll collapse the warp field."
(Whumph!)
EMH2: "What happened?"
EMH: "I did it. We've stopped. Ah, All we have to do now is find a way to send Starfleet a distress signal and..."
(The console beeps.)
- Ensign Kim tests out a potential EMH replacement for the Doctor, and as the replacement Doctor is reciting a section from a medical textbook (from memory), Robert Picardo's eyes are going side-to-side, clearly reading cue cards that are nearby off-camera.
Hmm.. I never noticed. Though here again, we have a technical gaff being used as an example of "simply sloppy work on the writers' part." I'm not sure I would even call this a gaff. This is like noticing the reflection of a microphone. The director may have known and chosen it as the best option anyway, unavoidable and acceptable as no one would really be able to see it.
-For whatever reason, the Prometheus' EMH has info on Starfleet deployment as well as current political/military knowledge about the Federation-Dominion war.
Where are you getting this? All that he knows(that we are told) is that there is a war going on against the dominion. This is info he could have easily picked up on a daily basis from casual conversation. He also stated that he could roam the ship freely, and that he was being tested and worked on still. This means he has been activated, and walking around the ship for weeks. And if he is like Voyagers EMH, he has access to the ship's computer. It would be more of a problem for him
not to know these basic things.
He also refuses to treat the injured Romulan because he's "the enemy."
Why would he consider the Romulan an "enemy"? Could it be that these same Romulans just boarded his ship, killed the crew, and hijacked it? Further than that, were the Romulans ever not "enemies"?
The only way in which comedy can be tolerated in this episode is in the fact that they made the entire Starfleet crew disappear without a trace. The 2 bloodied crewmembers we initially see are quickly hidden from view, and it's like the whole crew was never there.
Since the "entire crew" consisted of only 4 people, plus Andy Dick, this is not at all an issue, especially not a
writing issue. If it is a problem for you, it would be logical to assume they were removed off screen, as you don't leave bodies just lying around forever.
Andy Dick is great, but this was an odd episode to place him into. They clearly intended for it to be a comedic episode from the beginning, but it played out in a way that was strangely disconnected from basic points of the plot.
Here you have recognized the obvious, that it was a dedicated comedic episode. Your only stated objection to the comedic tone was irreverant treatment of dead redshirts, not plot elements. plot elements are often outlandish in comedic episodes, like
The Magnificient Ferengi, Little Green Men, or even
One Little Ship. Just think of some of the outlandishness in those episodes compared to this one.
It was 1 more way that VOY chose to be cute & silly rather than take a grittier & more realistic approach to its circumstances.
This followed for the rest of the series as it more or less went into auto-pilot.
It's nice that the Doctor gets to play hero. It's nice that Voyager makes contact with Starfleet. But this is one more episode (among many) that is based on an alright concept that's poorly done in the execution. For most loyal VOY fans, the sentimental nature of it will make them overlook virtually all of this, but it's an important part of the autopsy of what went wrong with Voyager, because there are far easier episodes to pick apart (like "Threshold"), but deconstructing an episode like this says a lot about the overall writing when it had to do with a momentous event and wasn't a completely random stand-alone episode that can be easily written off.
For those good 1-in-4 episodes, I'm a fan. But this wasn't one of them.
"All of this" in your critique consists of very little substance for Voyager fans to have to overlook. Talking about an autopsy of "what went wrong with Voyager" requires "what went wrong" to be some sort of universal value, rather than simply your value.
And lastly(and I'm surprised no one has mentioned this yet), the "big event" of contacting Starfleet, earth, etc, and all the emotions and drama that goes with that, does not take place in this episode, but in the next episode, "Hunters," where the crew receives letters from home. This is the actual contact with home. It's a serious episode, very emotional, very "gritty and realistic." This is where Janeway learns of her fiance, and Chakotay and B'elanna learn the fate of the Maquis, and Janeway gets a message from Starfleet that she can't fully piece back together. And all of these things are even further explored in future episodes. So if you went looking for the serious episode where Voyager finally makes contact with their families, and all the repercussions that might bring, you chose the wrong episode.
A comedic episode should be judged as a comedic episode. You cannot find an incident in the first few minutes that you don't find appropriate for a comedic story, then proceed to critique the entire remaining episode by a different standard, that would not otherwise apply.
And many of these critiques are simply mistakes on your part, such as Starfleet catching up, or the EMH knowing about the war, or these Romulans being "enemies." Two additional critiques were technical issues that might be so minor as to not even show up on IMDB's trivia section where watches switch wrists, and combadges disappear.
We are
only left with the objection to the redshirts existing as dead men in a comedic episode. Fair enough, although I disagree on that point.
