A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[kes7]

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.

Sure there is. One version makes sense, the other does not. There are plenty of grammatical abominations used with appalling frequency in the U.S., and their ubiquity doesn't make them any less grating.

(Yes, I'm a "grammar nazi," too. Though I prefer to think of myself as simply literate.)

 

[TheGodBen]

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
(This is as far as I got. If somebody else wants to continue I'll merge the rest together.)

Whoa, awesome! I might get some time at the weekend to scrawl through the thread and find the rest, all I've been keeping track of so far is the scores and the various counters.

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

I've considered it, but I don't think I write enough to sustain a website. Unlike Jammer, who will write a whole page for his reviews, I normally write only two or three paragraphs per episode. I also think that the comments from everyone else is an important part of the thread and I wouldn't have that on a website. Not to mention the fact that I only did one semester of web-coding in college and I haven't a clue about the latest standards.

 

[LeeHutchison]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

cheers AKIRAPHRASE that was just what i was hoping for, can't wait to see the rest if they pop up, as a voyager hater, it's good to dip into certain episodes and read your short thoughts on them Ben

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Muse (*½)

Prime Directive be damned, somebody needs to send these aliens the complete works of William Shakespeare. Actually, I'm not such a fan of Shakespeare because I have trouble understanding Old English, so send them the scripts for the Sorkin years of The West Wing. Anything, would be more interesting than the plays they have currently.

The episode started out intriguingly, B'Elanna need's a local playwrights help in order to fix her ship so she helps him to write a play about her. For the first 15 minutes or so I was entertained by the possibilities of what might happen, but then the episode drags on. And on. And on. Then you look at your watch and realise there's another 15 minutes left in an episode where nothing seems to be happening. When your ace in the hole is that Harry Kim shows up then you're in real trouble.

The ending also suffers due to the fact that it is based around a really boring play with intentionally stilted dialogue and acting. The play doesn't make any sense and it makes even less sense when B'Elanna shows up and says goodbye to Kelis on-stage. You also have some stuff thrown in about an angry patron and a war, but that never seems to go anywhere.

Minus half a star because this could easily have been a TNG episode.

KELIS: That's exactly the problem, where is the mistaken identity, the discovery, the sudden reversal? Mistaken identity, a character who is someone else. Discovery, the moment when that identity is revealed. Reversal, a situation that turns from good to bad in a blink of an eye.
OLD MAN: Find the truth of your story and you won't need all those tricks. I don't know how things are done across the Eastern Sea, but here poets have become lazy, they rely on manipulation to move their audience. It wasn't always that way.

Wow, it's like a subtle little dig at Ron Moore.

 

[Pemmer Harge]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Actually, I'm not such a fan of Shakespeare because I have trouble understanding Old English

Early Modern English actually

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

It's still gibberish to me.

 

[Santa of Five]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Nooo, I loved Muse! One of the better episodes of the season, I reckon.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

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


I have to point out that it is a long weekend in my country so I still have another day to stay true to my word.

 

[Bertie]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

"Muse" gets a lot of stars from me. That said, I'm a sucker for Ancient Greek drama, having read all of the surviving plays. Well, in English translation, anyway.

 

[LeeHutchison]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

enjoyed that read through season 3, good work!

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Fury (*****)

Wow, what a fantastic episode! It starts out brilliantly by having Kes turn evil and kill B'Elanna, then it uses my favourite Trek plot device; time travel. Kes travels back in time to the events of the season 1 episode Graveyard at Midnight which was one of my favourite episodes of the first season, as you'll recall (review here). I love it when the Vidiians are used as stock bad guys rather than being developed, they're such a rubbish villain that all they are good for is being used as a generic threat.

One of the things that struck me about this episode is how it manages to fit in with established continuity seamlessly, it doesn't completely change Kes's character arc at all. It makes perfect sense that Kes would do all the things she did in seasons 2&3 with the foreknowledge she now has about how disastrously her life will turn out. It also makes sense that Kes, being an advanced superbeing who has the power to blow things up with her mind, would engage in a convoluted plot to destroy Voyager rather than just outright destroying Voyager.

And Tuvok's part in the story is magnificent, it makes perfect sense that the existence of chroniton particles gives him visions of the future. The fact that he is now aware of Seven, the Borg children and the Delta Flyer also fit very neatly into the series canon.

This is probably the best episode of Voyager yet.






Has Lynx passed out yet?


Fury (*)

I'm not writing another review, just reverse everything I said above.

Voyager fired 3 torpedoes but I'm confused as to whether they should be added to the counter because of the timeline shenanigans. If Kes didn't go back in time at the end then did the events of this episode really happen in the series? Probably, how else would Janeway stop Kes? Okay, I'll add them to the counter.

Torpedoes: 69/38

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Fury gets 2.5 stars from me. It is diverting enough as long as you turn your brain off which I was willing to do. I do think the hate directed towards this episode is really overblown. This is far from the worst episode of Voyager let alone Trek overall.

I enjoyed when the series recreated and revisited the show in its early years before the Borg became ubiquitous, before Seven was a crewmember, Carey was still around, there was talk of bio neural gel packs, the Doc had no mobile emitter and was confined to sickbay, Janeway's power bun, the Vidiians were still around(although they should have done something with Beltran's hair sinc in the early seasons Chakotay was salt and pepper) and this was no different.

The visuals were strong. I liked some of the added details like explaining Samantha's longer pregnancy.

I look at the time travel of this episode and in ENT's "Regeneration" two ways. Either you can choose to view everything we saw up until Kes went back in time as the original timeline and who knows how things were different after Kes traveled back *or* we had been watching for the last six years the events in a timeline where Kes went back in time but everyone kept quiet about them unbeknowst to us. Either way I'm fine with it. I'm certainly not going to overanalyze time travel.

I didn't have an issue with Kes coming back hell bent on revenge. Although I didn't really buy the about face of the angry Kes the second time seeing a holo recording. I also would have thought that given the knowledge of things to come more would have been done to stop Kes from stimulating those regions of her brain that sent her on her ascendance. And while the idea of the motivation for her actions makes sense I think it wouldn't have hurt if it was a bit more fleshed out.

It was nice to see Jennifer Lien back too although when I first saw her I was taken aback by her weight gain.

 

[PolloCaballo]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

It was nice to see Jennifer Lien back too although when I first saw her I was taken aback by her weight gain.

I agree. It took you out of the story a little bit.

All they had to do was put her in a long-sleeve outfit. I only noticed how thick her arms were because the short sleeves really called attention to them.

How could the director be so stupid? With nothing but her face showing, viewers would probably never notice the weight gain in long sleeves. She had many long sleeve outfits she wore early on in the series. I'm puzzled as to how such an easy solution to such a glaring problem was overlooked.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

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

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Life Line (**½)

Is it just me or does it seem like as if the writers decided to have Voyager enter into regular communication with Starfleet so that Shmully could go back to heal Zimmerman? A major moment in the show's history decided because Robert Picardo wanted a second pay-check? I don't know whether to be disgusted or to admire the guy.

You can usually rely upon Robert Picardo to hold an episode together and he does so here as much as ever. I'm not a fan of sending Shmully back to Earth willy-nilly, especially not on their first use of this new communication method with Earth, it really does undercut the notion that they're isolated if one of the characters can have a little holiday on Jupiter station. Bringing Diana in also felt gratuitous, even morso than last time. The episode also has trouble meshing with what was stated in DS9's Doctor Bashir, I Presume, but I suppose that episode was treading into Voyager's territory a little so I'll let it go. After all, if Voyager threw in a piece of dialogue in Message in a Bottle that the Dominion War was over then DS9 shouldn't have been forced to change their plans.

Also, what was that scene where Janeway and Chakotay discuss the Maquis about? It came from nowhere, it went nowhere, and it tried to claim that the Maquis were still an active identity on Voyager when that hasn't been true for almost four years. Was it there to fill time? Because that's the way it feels to me.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Life Line is a decent show but was a little underwhelming for me since it reminds me so much more of TNG's "Brothers" and as a result "Life Line" is a less poignant and acting tour de force as TNG's "Brothers" was.

I did appreciate though that the episode actually started setting up things for what at the time seemed like for the homecoming and the aftermath of the crew's return. Unfortunately none of this materializes--not the Maquis element, not Pathfinder's role in bringing the crew home, not Admiral Paris getting some resolution and one on one with his son, not seeing Zimmerman again.

I did enjoy seeing Marina return too.

I give it three stars.

 

[Is It Over Yet?]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I've updated the first post with a table of contents up to Season 4.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Cheers. Here's season 5, I'll collate season 6 once I'm done watching it.


Season 5

Night (***)
Drone (**) (That one sure did cause a kerfuffle that lasted for a few pages.)
Extreme Risk (**)
In the Flesh (0) (Post 1701! And then I left.)
Once Upon a Time (***½) (Not really.)
Timeless (****½) (In no way do I endorse the use of rohypnol as a date-rape drug. Just to be clear.)
Infinite Regress (**½)
Nothing Human (*½)
Thirty Days (***½) (And the show jumped the shark!)
Counterpoint (**½)
Latant Image (****)
Bride of Chaotica! (**½)
Gravity (**)
Bliss (*½)
Dark Frontier (**½)
The Disease (**)
Course: Oblivion (**)
The Fight (0)
Think Tank (**)
Juggernaut (**)
Someone to Watch Over Me (***½)
11:59 (****)
Relativity (**)
Warhead (**½)
Equinox (****)

Season 5 Review

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The Haunting of Deck Twelve (**½)

What a scary tale, I had to change my underpants after watching this one.

Or not. This is a very generic Star Trek episode about a strange alien and computer malfunctions, but they try to gussy it up by placing the action within a ghost story. That helps in a way because it makes a very ordinary episode feel slightly unique, but it is also a hindrance because none of what happens is scary. I can do a better ghost story than that:

Once there was a man that liked to call himself GodBen, and... he reproduced!

Scary, no?

For a scary story about being trapped in a dark ship there is far too many lights operating. Power goes across the ship, but somehow the red alert lights keep flashing? Neelix also mentions that he had to crawl through pitch-black Jefferies tubes, but when we seem him do it the lights are on. I'm sure there was probably some production reason why they had to have the lights on, but it really takes away from the effect that the episode was going for. But it is nice that the writers remembered Neelix's fear of the dark.

 

[kes7]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The best line of the episode? "Snacks are irrelevant. Continue the story!" It was all in the delivery. I loved Mezoti.

ETA -- I also liked how they brought the computer into it. "I won't be your prisoner, you're going to have to kill me!" "Acknowledged."

And Tuvok was pretty funny when Kim and Paris asked him what he saw (meaning, in the image they were comparing to a vampire bat) and he said "Two Starfleet officers with juvenile imaginations."