Another Voyager 1st-time watch thread

[RyuRoots]

One of the worst things about the episode were the amazing cities that were the crux of the second half of the episode...that we are only told about after the characters see it DURING A COMMERCIAL BREAK. I mean come on, we don't even get a matte painting?! I agree that the "drama" fell completely flat on its face, and it's disappointing since I think the people who played Earhart and the other 37s did a decent job and the ep had a lot of potential, but it was all squandered in that basically nothing happened.

And as sort of a side note, why is there a "blue alert" for when the ship is landing? Why not just announce that the ship is landing?

 

[T.D. Possum]

I like it when the truck backfires. And, when Tuvok notices the exhaust.

See what I mean?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k_fvT637AA#t=4m57s

Oh, Tuvok, how can you make me laugh so hard?

 

[NBG011]

The scene when Janeway reacts to the cargo bay being empty is worth the price of admission alone.

 

[vas2009]

I like it when the truck backfires. And, when Tuvok notices the exhaust.

See what I mean?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k_fvT637AA#t=4m57s

Oh, Tuvok, how can you make me laugh so hard?

I had forgotten LMAO!

 

[You_Will_Fail]

The scene when Janeway reacts to the cargo bay being empty is worth the price of admission alone.

Urk, it's really not.
The whole premise of this episode was absolutely atricious and nonsensical. I can't even rewatch this pile of garbage.

 

[Shatnertage]

I like it when the truck backfires. And, when Tuvok notices the exhaust.

See what I mean?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0k_fvT637AA#t=4m57s

Oh, Tuvok, how can you make me laugh so hard?

I had forgotten LMAO!

Yeah--I forgot to mention, but that was my favorite moment, and his little request to increase the ventilation before they were asphyxiated.

That blue alert was pretty funky, too. I kept on thinking it was a Blue Light Special down at K-Mart.

And yeah, the cities and civilization so amazing that we can't show them was a riot, too.

 

[Shatnertage]

OK, I'm back with another one....

"Initiations"

At the outset, this looked like it would be another clunker, and coming on the heels of "Teh 37'''s" I didn't expect much. But it turned out to be a pretty good episode, with great acting from Aron Eisenberg and a real character-definer for Chakotay.

I know Robert Beltran gets a lot of heat in this forum, and that most of the folks here don't like Chakotay. But in this episode, I don't see anything to dislike. He's a tough, resourceful man, who doesn't want to hurt anyone. There's something heroic in that, and it begs the question of what made this man, who had doubtless shed blood in the past, feel so strongly about not hurting others, even offering his own life (in a temporary way) to help Cash (or whatever the kid's name was) avoid execution and get a name. Was it him finally heeding "the message of the ancestors," or whatever the producers want to call their distillation of the belief systems of several disparate New World cultures? The influence of Janeway (there's something in his voice when he says "She's the captain" in "Caretaker" that makes me suspect this)? Who knows? But I hope they follow up on this (but, from what others have said about the character arc, I fear they won't).

Aron Eisenberg is great as Cash, and the two get along in a great Buddy-Movie-Trek sort of way. Chakotay and Cash, coming to theaters everywhere...this summer! Seriously, the episode had a story to tell--about Cash trying to become a man, and Chakotay teaching a valuable lesson about what it really means to be a man--that didn't come across nearly as preachily as I feared it might.

It's not a perfect story--the Kazon continue to come across as too stupid for warp travel. You'd have to have an extraordinary degree of specialization and inter-dependency to maintain a warp-capable civilization for any amount of time, let alone run an individual ship. And the "showing your colors in our turf" thing was just a little too obviously gang-inspired.

But on the whole it was good. Even Neelix had a good scene, though he was sitting in the captain's chair while he did. And that's saying something.

EDIT: Another not-so-good part was Chakotay speaking as the representative of the Federation and Starfleet, and being so proud of his uniform. A year before, he was fighting more or less against Starfleet.

And I'm guessing they found his medicine bundle along with the wreckage of his shuttle?

 

[NBG011]

the Kazon continue to come across as too stupid for warp travel

In the 14th episode of season 2, "Alliances" you'll learn how Kazon obtained warp technology and some other things about their past. I'm stopping here, I don't want to spoil it for you.

 

[Mareika]

Oh, I`m so glad there`s another one who likes "Initiations" and Beltran in it.
It`s one of my favorite Chakotay episodes. I think the scenes between Nog and Chakotay are great and they give us many thoughts to think about.

Besides- there`s something about Eisenberg and Beltran beeing on stage together at Beltran`s Galaxyball:

Eisenberg, who has appeared on Star Trek: Voyager as well as STS9 is asked to name his favourite ST:VOY actor. "This is gonna sound like brown-nosing, but Robert Beltran. We had such fun on the episode Initiations."

It`s from this site
http://www.jetclover.com/tri/galaxyballrpt.htm

 

[Shatnertage]

Back again, with another really good episode...

"Projections"

Here's an episode that I knew, five minutes in, would have the resolution of "it was all just a dream" or something similar. That's the worst plot device in history, and one that you can usually spot from a mile away. But...I really liked this episode.

Not only is it an "it was all a dream" episode, it was a HOLODECK episode. And I tend to really dislike holodeck episodes--it feels like a week ago I was grousing about the Beowulf episode.

And not only is it a holodeck episode, it's an episode that involves a non-human character trying to understand what it means to be human. In TNG, these were some of the most ponderous episodes. So, in theory (pun intended), the episode has three strikes against it at the start. But it works, and works wonderfully.

But maybe there's a connection here--"Hollow Pursuits" is one of my favorite TNG episodes, and it happens to be a holodeck episode that features...Dwight Schultz as Lt. Barclay. And guess who this one features?

Since, coming into it, I knew that it would be "all a dream" (or, in typical VOY fashion, a feedback loop caused by a surge of radiometric particles), I was able to simply enjoy the performances and chuckle at the increasingly bizarre situations the Doctor found himself in.

It was a nice way to get Dwight Schultz onto the show, and set up a few inside jokes, like Barclay working on the Doc's interpersonal skills.

"Projections" is proof that, if its well-conceived and well-acted, there's nothing wrong with a fluff episode.

I loved the false ending that comes to light with, "...then our marriage is over!" Jennifer Lien brings a real pixieish quality to Kes in this episode, especially with that last, "How can you be sure?" Loved the Doc sticking his hand out of the door at the end, just to be sure.

So yeah, I liked this one. Obviously any episode that features Neelix chucking fruit at a Kazon before whacking him on the head with a frying pan isn't playing for drama, and this was a fun episode. I wouldn't mind seeing more like this.

 

[froot]

As a little squirt, Projections was one of my favorite episodes. As an even littler squirt, one of my favorite TNG episodes was the one where Barclay sees monsters when he transports, and so I was thrilled when he popped up on VOY.

We've recently hit the second season in our "watch VOY backwards-a-thon," so we're pretty much watching the same episodes now. Just saw Projections last night myself! It's definitely got some standard tropes, but nostalgia (and Barclay) keeps me loving this one even now.

 

[Shatnertage]

I've seen "Threshold," but it didn't quite prepare me for this...

"Elogium"

Boy oh boy oh boy. This is going to be short, because this was such a bad episode I can't completely wrap my head around it. In 30 years, it might be considered another "Spock's Brain" of good badness, but right now, it just looks really bad.

It's got the "Spock's Brain" vibe of "the screenwriters didn't think this was a comedy, but the director and half of the actors did." And it's just like a heaping platter of bad ideas and cliches, loaded one on the other. A comedic look at the sex life of one of the crew? Check. Weird spatial phenomenon that the ship investigates, then becomes a danger? Check. A technobabble solution to a technobabble problem? Check.

And Janeway completely blew Chakotay off in the tease, when she says that she doesn't have the luxury of shacking up, and wants to get back to Mark. Say it ain't so! Chakotay looked devastated.

The best moment was Tuvok and Neelix's heart-to-heart (I never thought I'd write that sentence). I LOLed at Tuvok's response to Neelix saying that he'd teach his son about romancing the ladies.

I won't even dwell on the two big logical problems with the story, which are the ridiculous Ocampa mating patterns (1 kid per every female? Recipe for a dead species. Sure, I guess it could be a litter, but still...) and the fact that they've been out in the Delta Quadrant for a year or so, and Ensign Wildman has just discovered she's pregnant? Huh?

There was only one thing that made this episode remotely watchable, and that was the moment when something clicked in my brain.

I realized that this was basically a filmed version of a "VOY story--five words at a time" thread.

After I took that perspective, it was kind of fun. But there's no way I'm watching that one again.

 

[froot]

Elogium puts me to sleep pretty much without fail. I think I watch the first part just to see Kes eating beatles and freaking out. And even if Chuckles got shot down, isn't this also the episode where Janeway asks him about mating behavior? On the Bridge, no less?

I think the Wildman pregnancy problem might be because Elogium was one of three episodes filmed during the first season and held over to the second (according to the DVD commentary). I haven't a clue how stardates work, either, but I don't think they're more than a few months into the journey by the beginning of the second season.

Plus there is that TV show based entirely around women who didn't know they were pregnant

 

[T.D. Possum]

I've seen "Threshold," but it didn't quite prepare me for this...

"Elogium"

Yes. "Elogium" would have been improved by the addition of giant lizards. *nods solemnly*

I don't have many nice things to say about this one, either. The high points for me were the sweet Janeway/Kes hug and Tuvok announcing: "It appears we have lost our sex appeal, Captain."

 

[JanewayRulz!]

I also liked Tuvok's Father to potential Father talk with Neelix (He does that a lot, recall he did it with Tom too.) .... and even the EMH as a Father figure for Kes.

Its also the ep where we see "fraternization among the crew" in the turbolift. Who wouldn't like to see that more among the officers????
Katie... Mark has given you up for dead, deal with it!

 

[Shatnertage]

Well, I didn't want to read too much into Chakotay being an expert on how to show submissiveness--that get a few imaginations working overtime.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

Elogium is underrated, its a fairly diverting piece of fluff for me.

 

[Shatnertage]

Spike spun the wheel, and I like where it landed. First, some background.

We've marched along through the first and into the second season--I picked up watching the show mid-way through the sixth season before Spike went back to "Caretaker," so a lot of what I have isn't linear.

I have never seen any of season 3, and I've been hearing a lot about "Scorpion," so I was looking forward to going through the show chronologically.

Then Spike really switched the script. A bunch of episodes that my DVR insists are Voyager ended up being some kind of awful world's most dangerous videos show.

Then, we finally get an episode to watch. As the credits are rolling, my wife says, "Look! Jeri Ryan is in this one!"

Looks like we skipped pretty far ahead. So I'm off into...

"The Killing Game, Part I"

This was a pleasant surprise. I generally dislike holodeck episodes. I generally dislike episodes that put the crew into historical scenarios, real or simulated. But this was a pretty good episode, and I'm eager to see the conclusion.

The tease was legitimately confusing--we recognized Janeway's voice but had no idea what was going on.

I really liked how they kept on feeding us little bits of info about the Hirogen. I'd read references to them around here, but seeing them in the episode I learned something important: the accent is on the middle syllable, not first one.

One quibble: Janeway looked absolutely awful in that white tuxedo thing they had her wear in the first act. She looked like she belonged in a circus, either as the ringmaster or doing tricks while riding a horse. Simply hideous. I'm disappointed that they couldn't find a nice period dress for her to wear--something classy that helps build the Casablanca mood.

It's rare that Kim gets to play such an integral role in the show, and it's good to see.

I really like the philosophical lead Hirogen guy--seeing a lot of potential there. It's a very different kind of antagonist.

 

[froot]

One quibble: Janeway looked absolutely awful in that white tuxedo thing they had her wear in the first act. She looked like she belonged in a circus, either as the ringmaster or doing tricks while riding a horse. Simply hideous. I'm disappointed that they couldn't find a nice period dress for her to wear--something classy that helps build the Casablanca mood.

I must disagree with this statement with my whole being. I am of the belief that the Awesome White Tux should have been a standard uniform for the rest of the show.

(Don't worry, at least you won't see the tux again.)

One problem with skipping to Killing Game is that the Hirogen are part of an arc in mid-Season 4. Thankfully, you can glean what they're about from the episode itself, but it's kind of a bummer you're missing out on the episodes that lead up to this point. You also don't really see just how different this particular Alpha is - the Hirogen are not normally a philosophical people.

I always felt he was using this concern for "learning" about his prey as a cover for being a really sick dude who liked "killing" the crew over and over again instead of just once. But that's an unfounded opinion of mine.

 

[T.D. Possum]

One quibble: Janeway looked absolutely awful in that white tuxedo thing they had her wear in the first act. She looked like she belonged in a circus, either as the ringmaster or doing tricks while riding a horse. Simply hideous. I'm disappointed that they couldn't find a nice period dress for her to wear--something classy that helps build the Casablanca mood.

*faints*

I am glad to see Froot has already defended the white tuxedo, 'cause I'm speechless. LOVE LOVE LOVE that outfit on her!

Moving on . . .

Remember the other day when you were talking about body horror and I said that the Viidian stealing Durst's face was one of the creepiest things in Trek? Well, the Hirogen in the holodeck are right up there with it! I think the episode really underplayed the pure sickness of what the Hirogen were doing and the damage they caused. On the other hand, though, dealing with all that on camera would have made the episode quite dark, to say the least.