A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The actress who played Ballard was good and she was certainly a unique character, but I was very annoyed how they took such an interesting concept and turned it into a Harry romance episode. I also find it ridiculous that she would spend three years living as a Kobali but she only realises that she doesn't properly remember her past life until after she gets back to Voyager. It felt very fake to me, and it felt like a routine push of the reset button in order to get rid of this potentially interesting character.

 

[Unicron]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Agreed. There were some interesting aspects to that problem, of her not being able to completely resume her original life, that the writers didn't use particularly well.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Child's Play (***½)

You know what would be awesome? To find your long-lost father and learn that he's Romo Lampkin. If I had a choice between staying on Voyager or staying with Romo Lampkin I know what I'd choose! Unless its the Romo from that really stupid gun scene in Sine Qua Non, in which case I'd prefer to take my chances with Janeway.

Oh right, there was an story here somewhere, wasn't there?

The episode was good for the most part, the earlier parts of the story where Icheb learns about his people and eventually decides to stay with them are solid stuff. There was one stand-out scene where Seven and Janeway argue in the ready room, for some reason I really enjoyed that scene and thought it was possibly the best so far this season. Seven learning to let go of Icheb was also well-handled.

The second part of the episode where we learn Icheb's parent's sinister plan has me conflicted. On the one hand it works as an explanation to what happened with the cube he was on, and the idea of parents purposefully engineering their child to be used as a weapon has a lot of potential. I don't think this potential was met, and the realisation that his parents didn't really want him back does hurt the earlier parts of the episode. The scenes of Romo and Icheb reconnecting felt real, but were they?

One torpedo was used to disable the Borg sphere.

Torpedoes: 65/38

 

[Frazzled]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The actress who played Ballard was good and she was certainly a unique character, but I was very annoyed how they took such an interesting concept and turned it into a Harry romance episode. I also find it ridiculous that she would spend three years living as a Kobali but she only realises that she doesn't properly remember her past life until after she gets back to Voyager. It felt very fake to me, and it felt like a routine push of the reset button in order to get rid of this potentially interesting character.

I wouldn't agree with that GodBen, I think it's perfectly possible to pine for a past life whilst not quite remembering it properly. Ballard wouldn't realise that she wasn't remembering things properly until she got back to Voyager and had certain things she should remember, eg her human father, pointed out to her.

I do agree that it was a shame to turn an episode and character that had so much potential into a Harry romance!! I wouldn't've minded if we'd seen her before she died!

Some aspects of the continuity bothered me. She was supposed to have been away three years - weren't there a couple of big jumps Voyager took in that time? How did she catch up?

Plus, Harry says during this episode they've been away six years. So three years ago was the point that Seven arrived and Kes left. Yet Ballard was killed by a Hirogen Hunting party. They were introduced to the Hirogen when they used that array thing to send the Doc home and receive their letters from Earth including the captain's Dear John letter in Hunters, in which it states they've been away for four years. Errors like that make my head hurt, I like things to add up!!!! How much did they pay these people to write flawed stuff?

And if Janeway really can't work a replicator, where did that perfect looking bread come from?

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I wouldn't agree with that GodBen, I think it's perfectly possible to pine for a past life whilst not quite remembering it properly. Ballard wouldn't realise that she wasn't remembering things properly until she got back to Voyager and had certain things she should remember, eg her human father, pointed out to her.

But in the three years as a Kobali she didn't find it odd that she couldn't remember her human father, or much of anything about her human life? Three years just feels too long to me for her not to realise these things, three weeks or three months would have felt much better.

 

[Frazzled]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

But in the three years as a Kobali she didn't find it odd that she couldn't remember her human father, or much of anything about her human life? Three years just feels too long to me for her not to realise these things, three weeks or three months would have felt much better.

Possibly. Maybe at some point, especially once she was in a shuttle alone for six months (taking just six months to get to Voyager's position it took three years, lots of battles and a couple of miraculous jumps to get to, ok I've made that point now........) she would have had a lot of time to think and maybe should've thought 'Hang on, what happened before Voyager?'

But maybe it would be normal for her just to live in her reality as a Kobali. They typically seem to start life as Adults, as a Kobali she was just three years old yet could pilot a shuttle and was fully grown etc etc, so she wouldn't be wondering about her childhood she couldn't remember as 'childhood' as we know it would be beyond her understanding.

Also I suspect that in that sort of situation she probably wouldn't think at all about what she couldn't remember, she was so focused on getting back to what she could remember and dealing with all the stuff to do with being Kobali now and being chased by them.

Maybe I just know a lot more shallow thinking people than you GodBen

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Maybe I'm shallow-thinking myself and I'm trying to hide it by overcompensating.

 

[Frazzled]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Maybe I'm shallow-thinking myself and I'm trying to hide it by overcompensating.

 

[teya]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

You know what would be awesome? To find your long-lost father and learn that he's Romo Lampkin.

The second part of the episode where we learn Icheb's parent's sinister plan has me conflicted. On the one hand it works as an explanation to what happened with the cube he was on, and the idea of parents purposefully engineering their child to be used as a weapon has a lot of potential. I don't think this potential was met, and the realisation that his parents didn't really want him back does hurt the earlier parts of the episode. The scenes of Romo and Icheb reconnecting felt real, but were they?

Yeah, I think they were. Icheb's dad was arguing to let him stay. It was his Mom who argued that his return was a gift they couldn't afford to waste.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Good Shepard (***)

I'm a big fan of Lower Decks so this style of episode suits me, but I wouldn't be a hater if I didn't have problems with it, would I?

The big problem I have at the beginning is that after 5 years of not interacting with the lower decks crewmembers, she only realises that some of them are struggling now and she only decided to help them now? I agree with those who say that the Voyager "family" Janeway talks about is too centered on the senior staff and we never got a sense of family from the junior officers. On the one hand this episode addresses that fact, but by addressing it it is pointing out that problem to the audience. We're never going to see these characters again so it feels like lip-service rather than a real attempt to solve this issue. Janeway doesn't come across as a concerned captain caring about the welfare of her crew, Janeway feels like someone who is over-enthusiastic about a new idea that she is going to forget about next week. And she does.

As for the characters; Celes was good, and her speech about how on Voyager she feels confident because nobody has to rely upon her rings true. She does seem exactly like the sort of person who was mistakenly assigned to a starship when her niche was probably in a different area. Telfer was alright, I could take or leave him and I had little interest in his hypochondria. Harren was great, I loved his counter to Janeway about how he has no interest in exploration because it is undignified. I may not agree with his views, but I respect his opinion and his balls for standing up to Janeway. I really liked Harren.

Which is why I don't like the fact that the show tried to change him. So what if he's cantankerous and prefers to spend his time theorising about things rather than social interaction? The other characters seem to judge him as though he is missing out on something, and maybe he is, but does it matter so long as he is happy? I don't like this drive towards conformity that the episode seemed to be aiming towards, I prefer for unique characters to remain unique, it's better than having another Harry Kim on the ship.

Then some dark matter aliens show up. One of them abducts Telfer and then takes control of his body, then it starts messing around with the environmental settings to make the ship inhospitable to humans. Harren does the sane things and shoots the creature in order to save everyone's life, but Janeway chastises him for killing the creature. Oh come on. That's a great way to show these nervous and frightened people the fun of exploration, let your desire to explore nearly get them killed, then complain to the guy who saved everyone.

The episode was okay, the concept and plot were a little insulting to me but it was buoyed up by the characters.

Torpedoes: 66/38

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The Good Shepherd gets only 2.5 stars from me. I don't tune into VOY to watch lower deck characters so I could care less about this group. The whole dark matter aliens was nothing more than an incoherent plot device which was very disappointing. The ending was also rushed. The only thing I enjoyed was the tracking shots of VOY in the teaser. Oh well the next episode is lots of fun.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I don't tune into VOY to watch lower deck characters so I could care less about this group.

It's 'COULDN'T care less', not 'could care less'. [/grammar nazi]

Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Ha, I always assumed "I could care less" was normal in America. Sounds weird to my English ears though.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I'd have liked to see an episode where the other redshirts get annoyed that Harry Kim is mysteriously regarded as way more important than them in spite of staying an Ensign for seven years.

 

[kimc]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The big problem I have at the beginning is that after 5 years of not interacting with the lower decks crewmembers, she only realises that some of them are struggling now and she only decided to help them now?

Personnel issues are the duties of the first officer. He's supposed to go to the captain if needed. It sounds like from the episode Janeway just found out about the personnel issues because that's when her senior staff decided to tell her.

Unfortunately, it also makes Chakotay look like a putz once again because he should have been the one on top of this instead of having Seven do it.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I think one of the things that I like about the misfits is that they're all Starfleet, not Maquis - Every Starfleet officer we've met before has been this mostly perfect person. Sure, there have been some with their problems, but most seem to clearly fit the mold.

I do agree with GodBen about how disappointing it is that Harren was changed under the pretense of character development (and, side note, it is just plain SAD when a one-off guest character gets more character development than about half of the main cast...). It's basically a case of the Trope 'The Complainer Is Always Wrong,' (...yeah, I think I've lost a collective week to TVTropes by this point.), but it's also basically taking a juvenile stance - anyone who disagrees with the herd has a problem that must be fixed, and then they will go right along with whatever the group says. Whatever happened to IDIC?

But, given that I'm one of those you mention who take issue with the 'Voyager family' idea that gets pushed, I completely agree with you that by making these misfits into a plot point, it should have been a larger part of the show, not just shoved aside - it's been brought up and by not returning to these characters (barring one more appearance from Tal Celes), it's completely ignoring the point it's trying to make.

Still, judged on its own, it is one of the better outings for Voyager.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Personnel issues are the duties of the first officer. He's supposed to go to the captain if needed. It sounds like from the episode Janeway just found out about the personnel issues because that's when her senior staff decided to tell her.

Unfortunately, it also makes Chakotay look like a putz once again because he should have been the one on top of this instead of having Seven do it.

That's a good point, I hadn't thought about it that way. Chakotay really needs to grow a beard, maybe then he'll become a better XO, like Riker, or MU Spock.


Live Fast and Prosper (**½)

I like the idea of this episode, I don't necessarily like the execution. A group of conmen claim to be Voyager, they trick people out of their property, Voyager gets the blame, hilarity ensues. Except hilarity doesn't ensue, they think that hilarity ensues but instead a lot of unfunny things happen. There are few things more painful to watch than a joke that falls flat, at least in this case the writer is oblivious to this so it isn't quite cringe-worthy.

The episode begins with one of my pet peeves; it requires the characters to act insanely stupid in order to get the plot to work at all, in this case Tom and Neelix have to fall for a really obvious con. Once you get past that the episode itself is okay, I just did not find it funny. The worst part had to be the fake Tuvok and how enamoured he became with the Tuvok role, I could not stand how annoying and stupid this character was. The switcheroo with Shmully at the end was fairly clever, I almost fell for it even though I saw the episode before.

The plot was competently handled, I just wish it had been funny.

 

[PolloCaballo]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I don't tune into VOY to watch lower deck characters so I could care less about this group.

It's 'COULDN'T care less', not 'could care less'. [/grammar nazi]

Sorry, it's a pet peeve of mine.

Both versions are used with equal frequency in the US.

With all due respect to anyone nitpicking the logic of the former, there is no ambiguity in the meaning of either version when used in common conversation.

 

[LeeHutchison]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

GodBen, do you have a site where all your reviews are maybe kept together? I'd be keen to look back on certain episode reviews but can't be hooped trawling through 114 pages

 

[Akiraprise]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Season 1
Caretaker ****
Parallax **1/2
Time and Again**1/2
Phage ****
The Cloud **
Eye of the Needle ****1/2
Ex Post Facto *1/2
Emanations *1/2
Prime Factors ****
State of Flux ****
Heroes and Demons **
Cathexis **
Faces ****
Jetrel ***1/2
Learning Curve *

Season 2
The 37's *1/2
Initiations *1/2
Projections ****
Elogium 1/2
Non Sequitur *1/2
Twisted **
Parturition **1/2
Persistence of Vision ***
Tattoo **1/2
Cold Fire *1/2
Maneuvers ***1/2
Resistance ****
Prototype *1/2
Alliances ***1/2
Threshold *****
Meld ****1/2
Dreadnought **1/2
Deathwish ***
Lifesigns ***
Investigations *
Deadlock **1/2
Innocence *
The Thaw ***1/2
Tuvix *1/2
Resolutions **1/2
Basics, Part 1 ***

Season 3
Basics, Part 2 (**½)
Flashback (*)
The Chute (***)
The Swarm (*½) (I retroactively deducted half a star from this one.)
False Profits (½)
Remember (*½) (Which led to an incident that caused my first drunk post.)
Sacred Ground (*½)
Future's End, Part 1 (**)
Future's End, Part 2 (**½)
Warlord (**½)
The Q and the Grey (*)
Macrocosm (*½)
Fair Trade (***½)
Alter Ego (*)
Coda (0) (The 0 score got some people riled up so I was forced to do what is probably my longest episode review.)
Blood Fever (***)
Unity (****) (Yes, they're the same link but it looks more official this way. )
The Darkling (½)
Rise (**½) (I know the guy was insulting and totally deserved the actions taken against him, but damn, the Jaespol era was fun. )
Favourite Son (0)
Before and After (***½)
Real Life (***½)
Distant Origin (****)
Displaced (*½)
Worst Case Scenario (**½)
Scorpion (*****)
Season 3 Review

Season 4
Scorpion, Part 2 (***½)
The Gift (***)
Day of Honour (**½)
Nemesis (***½) (This episode earned half a star back because I made a u-turn and decided to not deduct points for shuttle losses. I never did bother to incorporate the point deductions in season reviews because the show was having enough trouble keeping its score up.)
Revulsion (**½)
The Raven (***½) (This explains the origin of the shuttle-o-matic.)
Scientific Method (*)
Year of Hell, Part 1 (****)
Year of Hell, Part 2 (****)
Random Thoughts (*)
Concerning Flight (*)
Mortal Coil (***½)
Waking Moments (*½)
Message in a Bottle (****)
Hunters (***½)
Prey (****½)
Retrospect (***½)
The Killing Game, Part 1 (*)
The Killing Game, Part 2 (*½)
Vis à Vis (½)
The Omega Directive (**)
Unforgettable (*½)
Living Witness (*****)
Demon (*)
One (**)
Hope and Fear (***½)
Season 4 Review