Star Trek Nemesis comes off the list. Riker and Troi’s wedding was a lot of fun, looked gorgeous, and it was cool seeing Wesley and Guinan again TNG, Season 2: “The Outrageous Okona” VOY, Season 3: “Favorite Son” ENT, Season 4: “Home”
“Favorite Son” a decent Harry Kim episode. I like the idea of the aliens, as they were initially presented. Also, Harry and Tom have a cute friendship. TNG, Season 2: “The Outrageous Okona” ENT, Season 4: “Home”
So I’ll save The Outrageous Okona and be done with it! I know it’s not the best, but it’s more memorable than the other so… that’s that! edit - Ninjad! Lucky for Home!
Just for once I thought I'd ended a game and in an outrageous way that @Qonundrum would appreciate, but no...
I personally thought "Favorite Son" deserved to lose because it was the episode in which the writers effectively committed to Harry's character stagnating instead of actually going somewhere. As originally written, this episode was supposed to have him actually turn out to be an alien. Can you imagine if they'd had actually run with that, instead of dancing on the Reset Button some more?
Good winner for me! Hotness of William Campbell aside, I can't stand "Okona", both plots are total misfires. Usually in an episode with A/B stories, at least one of them will have something to recommend it. It's rare for both stories to flop like this.
I was rooting for Favorite Son or Nemesis to win this, but The Outrageous Okana is still a bad enough episode. Photo finish!
Actually, I thought "HOME" was a good episode. It was a nice follow up after the events of the Xindi arc. A quiet episode that was very much necessary. I am sad to say this, but this one was of a much better quality than a Data episode (well, he was the B plot), "The Outrageous Okona". Frankly, I was expecting NEMESIS to win. Horrible, horrible movie.
It would have been poetic for a movie to "win" at least once... however, they all have their fans, however few. And only one fan is required.
I would have saved Nemesis on the basis of liking Tom Hardy. Sometimes an arbitrary thing like that is all it takes to save something.
I also considered saving Nemesis -- I hated the movie, but I liked the wedding. In the end, though, I hated the movie just a little too much to go through with it. Nah. That premise made so little sense I was bashing it even as I watched. They planted a seed 70,000 light-years away and assumed it would somehow find its way back, something that could only happen with extreme extreme ludicrous-level dumb luck? Yeah, no. "Well, but we gave you motivation!" "Yeah, but you didn't give me a method!" I'm good with the reset button on this one.
If you're Ok with Harry effectively being a durable redshirt for the entire run of the series, with no effort being made to take his character in a new direction... I accept your right to that opinion.
- "Aside"??? His hotness can never be put aside! William Campbell's hotness is the only reason I would have saved "The Outrageous Okona" over "Favourite Son" too ("Home" is in a MUCH higher league altogether, IMO) had I not been asleep while most of this game played out...
If the price of getting Harry a little character development involves breaking my brain to that extent, then yeah, he can be a durable redshirt. Though I respectfully submit that given their track record, it's unlikely TPTB would have exploited the difference in any meaningful way. They never made anything at all out of the fact that "our" Harry is actually the survivor of a destroyed duplicate Voyager, did they? Or that B'Elanna saw Harry die.
Interesting observation: Torres was not quite as chummy with Kim after "DEADLOCK". She was friendly, yes, but I never got the sense of the bond being very strong after that episode. Except for "SCORPION, PART II" when she teases him about still having a tendril up his nose, I can't really think of many moments between them.
You have a point there. Harry was a symptom of several of Voyager's greater issues: excess reliance on the Reset Button, writers who were sloppy to the point of incompetence, and a total lack of respect for the intelligence of the viewers. Still, consider the episode of DS9 when Nog announces his desire to join Starfleet, and his whole character journey takes a sharp turn and shifts into high gear. Is it wrong to think about how "Favorite Son" almost did the same thing?
What makes it more glaring... "HEART OF STONE" was the 14th episode of season 3. "FAVORITE SON" was the 16th of season 3. (Production wise, since UPN held over 4 produced episodes from season 2.) That means DS9's 60th and VGR's 62nd episode had a sharp turn for a character... one series actually followed through on it, the other didn't.