Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager He isn't really a "hater," Angel, at least not in the way most people mean when they call themselves "hater." GodBen (IMO - sorry, dude ) just kind of likes the way that title sounds. If you read some of his reviews - and I recommend that you do because they are thoughtful and well-written - you'll see that there are things that he likes about the show. But he is someone who really disliked Voyager the first time around and he's giving it another chance. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Yes, it's pretty obvious he doesn't hate every single episode. I wouldn't call myself a "hater" either - I found the series on the whole to be disappointing, but there were some cracking episodes within it. It's fun discussing in this thread where things might have gone wrong, and how they could have been improved.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I need the money to buy crack and this thread brings in a nice steady revenue stream by... Damn, I didn't think this plan through. That's it, I'm going back to stealing underpants! Seriously, I'm rewatching Voyager because I'm trying to give it a fair shot after years of poking fun at it. There are things about Voyager that I like, this season in particular has had many good episodes, and a diamond in the rough is still a diamond. Besides, many Voyager fans seem to enjoy reading this thread and I can't stop now in case they get angry at me and decide to report me to the police for attempting to buy crack from them. Concerning Flight (*) Remember when Abraham Lincoln teamed up with Kirk so they could kick Genghis Khan's ass? Remember how bad an idea that was? Call me crazy (and many have ) but I don't like like it when historical figures appear in Trek, it always feels contrived and this episode is no exception. The whole episode focuses on Leonard da Vinci trying to get to grips with a futuristic setting, and I don't want to see that. I'm more interested in following the piracy plot, but the episode isn't really about that, that's just used as an excuse for an action/adventure story involving Leonardo. I see no reason why this episode couldn't have been done on TNG. I see no reason why this episode was done at all.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Totally agreed. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Concerning Flight is definitely an episode I'd pass on. I can accept the idea of using da Vinci as a private confidante for Captain Janeway (though it really could have been just about anyone), but... Did we really need this? A waste of Jonathon Rhys-Davies.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I think ya just mentally mashed two different actors. John Rhys-Davies, DaVinci/the dude from "Sliders." Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, the dude from "The Tudors." (I only mention it because I hate the latter. )
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager John, Jonathon... I was close! And I thought he was credited in those episodes under Jonathon. But it's still a waste of the actor - whichever was da Vinci also was the voice of MacBeth on Gargoyles, and I loved that character.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager This may not be an entirely justified objection, but it always struck me as inconsistent that da Vinci could even use the mobile emitter in the first place. He's not the same kind of program as the Doctor-- not a totally independent program who's intended to be aware of the world around him. He's merely a subroutine of the "da Vinci's Workshop" holo-program. He's not designed to see, hear or interact with anything outside his simulation of medieval Italy. Simply strapping on the emitter is not going to suddenly give him that ability. It's like the difference between HAL 9000 and MS Word. It appears the writers assumed that all computer-generated human images must be identical in capabilities and function. Great thinking! Am I totally off-base here?
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager You may have another point there, Silvercrest. Good analogy. HAL and Word.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Oh, that really becomes the whole basis of my problems with a lot of Voyager's usage of holograms - the idea that every hologram is capable of awareness of the reality of their surroundings. I mean, the Doctor is a unique situation, being forced to become a fully sentient being due to the fact that he had to be the CMO, and Vic Fontaine was designed to be interactive and aware... At what point do photons and lights become sentient individuals? The stance Voyager seems to take is that the more they're used, the more intelligent and aware they get. To me, that feels like saying that if I play my video games often enough that the NPCs will start taking different actions - the mooks will run in fear when they should be swarming me, the party members will switch to the bad guy's team because they made the more convincing argument, as opposed to my one-line statement that, in the past, has always convinced them to stay on my team... It just doesn't make sense.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I hadn't thought about it while watching the episode, but you make an excellent point. Da Vinci was not a fully interactive hologram, and it has been said many times in the past that Dr Shmully has a special adaptive program which makes him sentient, so da Vinci should not have functioned outside the holodeck. One thing that did bug me during the episode was knowing that this wasn't the real da Vinci we were dealing with, somebody programmed him to have the personality he has without ever meeting the real deal (lets leave Requiem for Methuselah out of this). It's just wishful thinking that da Vinci is the way he is in this episode. An odd thing to complain about, I agree, but I didn't like the thought.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager GodBen, it seems to me that logically, the only thing that could have happened was for the entire "da Vinci's Workshop" program to get loaded onto the mobile emitter. So wherever you go, you can push a button on mobile emitter and zing! instant workshop (with Leonardo in it). That wouldn't have made for much of an episode, of course. I am not prepared to believe that every hologram will become more intelligent and more aware. I am prepared to believe that, in-universe, the Doctor, Vic Fontaine, some of the characters from Fair Haven (ick!), and Professor Moriarty are able to do so because of their programming. Any fully-interactive hologram, as GodBen puts it. (I guess we can treat this as an unwritten rule of the Next Gen universe, which the writers violated by doing what you said.) The problem is that even if you stick to that rule, it is rather mind-boggling in its implications. At some point the Next Generation universe went from astonishment that holo-characters could exceed programming limitations and/or become aware of the world around them (Minuet, the Dixon Hill characters, Professor Moriarty), to the casual creation what is essentially holographic life. And no one noticed. Or if they noticed, they treated their creations with contempt. The Doctor and Vic were not all that unique. There were other generations of holographic doctors, and it sounded like Felix made characters like Vic for fun. In his spare time. And set up "jack-in-the-box" routines that threatened their lives. Janeway treated the Doctor like a second-class citizen at first, turning him off in mid-sentence and forgetting about him completely at times. "How flattering." This behavior took years to change, and only when the Doctor asserted himself. Later, when the Doctor started fighting for his rights as a sentient being, I figured someone would bring up Data's situation as a legal precedent. Did they do so? Nope. It appears the precedents established by "The Measure Of A Man" and "Offspring" were conveniently swept under the rug by the Federation, in favor of doing exactly what was predicted in those episodes -- creating generations of artificial lifeforms to slave away on the holodecks and in the dilithium mines. So much for "exploring the possibilities of existence", when you treat the miracles going on under your nose with contempt. How come Q didn't show up and judge against humanity for this particular crime? I don't think the shows intended to show this happening, but the writers and producers were just not thinking very hard. If you feature a character like the Doctor, you either 1) establish that he's absolutely unique and treat him accordingly, or 2) you acknowledge that there are others like him and figure out where he fits in the scheme of things. They tried to do both, or neither, and inconsistently. The one thing they should have done, and never did, was to explore the ramifications of playing God with holographic life.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I would give Concerning Flight 2 stars out of 4. It is not an awful episode just a booooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrring one. I never cared for DaVinci in any of his appearances--his best one was in Scorpion--and the last thing I want to do is watch an hour centered on him. The aliens were dull garden variety thugs. The jeopardy was underwhelming. The action was plodding. This was one of those ideas that Menosky veered towards and usually didn't hit the mark. The dialog tried to be whimsy and funny but fell flat. This was about the point that any hopes Scorpion might have given me that season four might be the year that the show came into its own were dashed although I must admit the next series of episodes from Waking Moments to Prey were pretty entertaining.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I need the money to buy crack and this thread brings in a nice steady revenue stream by... Damn, I didn't think this plan through. That's it, I'm going back to stealing underpants!
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Seriously, I'm rewatching Voyager because I'm trying to give it a fair shot after years of poking fun at it. There are things about Voyager that I like, this season in particular has had many good episodes, and a diamond in the rough is still a diamond. Besides, many Voyager fans seem to enjoy reading this thread and I can't stop now in case they get angry at me and decide to report me to the police for attempting to buy crack from them. Fair dos godben.......... anyway i have read this thread through from the start and have really enjoyed it !
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Because it was another Federation star ship. I think the main difference here, between Voyager and BSG, can be summarized like this: BSG was more about survival than journey and Voyager was more about the journey than survival. Both had elements from both, but the emphasis made the two very different. So there. Tachyon has spoken.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Another problem that wasn't properly explored with holograms is their danger. Yes, there was that ship genocide episode, and the holograms who killed the hunters, but I'm talking full-out quadrant domination. Think about it. Holograms don't need nourishment or sleep, can learn information instantly, have infallible memories, and are even impervious to physical harm. The only way you can kill a hologram is by destroying its emitter, but that's certainly a minor flaw compared to all the ways in which you can kill a human. Now consider hologram reproduction. All you need is to be able to make 1 EMH-level holo-program, get these mass manufactured, and you could have billions of holo-soldiers being produced every day. So long as you program them correctly, their loyalties will never waver. Basically, you could have a holo-army as deadly as the Jem Hadar, but in much vaster supply. Unless you could generate widespread holo-matrix viruses, they'd be absolutely unstoppable. This is just one branch of speculation. Look how much the EMH out-performs the average doctor. Imagine the kind of job loss a planet would experience when holograms can perform their tasks far more efficiently, and don't demand pay. So long as holo-matrices can be manufactured at a cheap price, you have a serious economic problem on your hands. Well, while I'm going on this tangent, think about how holodecks make it possible to live out elaborate fantasies at the touch of a button. Why join star fleet when you can emulate the entire experience with a holo-program? Why develop relationships when you can live out wild sexual fantasies, or embark on crazy adventures at your every whim? Imagine the amazing show possibilities at exploring holo-addiction, and how it can utterly destroy a person's ambition to do anything, and whether that really is that wrong. What's the shame of living out a fantasy life if it so accurately emulates reality? Case-in-point, holograms are portrayed as far too sophisticated in the show. Once you have holograms being regarded as sentient beings, it's like entertaining the possibility of artifical intelligence developping self-awareness. You face the possibility of your creations overthrowing you Terminator-style, along with the other aforementioned problems that Trek seems to either gloss over or cover inadequately.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager And about Concerning Flight - not my fav either, but somewhat entertaining. So I give it **.