Voyager again, for the first time

[NightJim]

Prey

I liked it. Probably the best Hirogen episode yet, and having them face off against a member of Species 8472 really sets them apart and for once shows how bad ass they can be. Though the fact the only one we spend any real time was played by The Candyman probably helped.

I also liked that finally Seven goes too far, and they address Janeway has let her get away with some some serious shit. She's supremely pragmatic, and finally pushes the Captain too far. The fact she stands up to the Captain instead of just taking the rap on the knuckles was great too.

Seven at the end of this episode is almost on the path to villainy, and that could have made a great double bluff, introduce a character as a new member of the crew, and as she finds her own individuality realises that the concept of a Chain of Command goes against that, and doesn't agree with it.

The one thing I didn't like was her assertion that Janeway was scared, then Janeway didn't argue that. Her reaction came across like Seven hit the nail on the head, and I don't believe that for a second.

 

[NightJim]

Retrospect.

God Damn, we can't even have one episode with Seven being out of favour, as we cut forward a few weeks and Janeway's willing to give her a little leeway.

An interesting premise, which seems like a Seven episode, but then you realise it's all about the Doctor losing his damn mind. Which is interesting since he's trying to be a councillor. The ending was great, and it was nicely open about what actually happened, but overall it was alright.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

WTF did the Kazon have to do with LA gangs? They were modeled after nomadic war tribes, like ancient Mongolian warlords, not modern street gangs.

The Hirogen were a decent idea but very poorly planned out. The stuff they do later in the series is really stupid and they were never given real depth or any real definition to the extent of their power base.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I usually try to check my facts before I call someone a liar.

The idea for the Kazon started to be conceived during secretive development meetings between Rick Berman, Michael Piller and Jeri Taylor, from which Star Trek: Voyager began to be created. (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager) The series' co-creators originally conceived of the Kazon as contemporary Los Angeles street gangs. Jeri Taylor recalled, "We felt with the Kazon we needed to address the tenor of our times and what [...] was happening in our cities and recognizing a source of danger and social unrest. We wanted to do that metaphorically." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 151) One factor in this analogy was that the trio wanted to have in-fighting between the alien "gangs". Michael Piller commented, "Our intention was to create a sort of disorganized anarchy, them-against-them as much as them-against-us." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 161)

And it goes on...

http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kazon

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

I cannot imagine anyone living in LA watching the Kazon for the first time thinking, oh wow.. this is a metaphor for the gang problem here.

And thank goodness for that, that would have been utterly lame.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Remember the Drazi on Babylon 5?

Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple! Green! Purple!

The Crips and the Bloods would have laughed their asses off.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yes because apparently all deep seated feuds and hatreds are really that simplistic

That was one of those Bab 5 embarrassing storylines that could be ignored in favor of whatever B stories swirled around it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Apparently that was written at the last minute, Claudia broke her foot, and JMS thought she'd want a week off... But there's a feud between her and the bloke who played Garibaldi about who could be in more episodes, and she said frakk the hospital, I'm going to Babylon 5.

It was a c-story, which I thought was a hell of lot more exciting than a lot of their A-stories.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

So what was the A story in that ep..

Too lazy to look. I do remember now Ivanova hobbling in a cast.

 

[exodus]

WTF did the Kazon have to do with LA gangs? They were modeled after nomadic war tribes, like ancient Mongolian warlords, not modern street gangs.

If they were based on Mongolians, I would certainly hope they're be smarter than formerly oppressed gun totting morons that shoot each other for power, territory or just to be a gang member. Mongolians were powerful conquerors, the Kazon didn't factually have claim on anything.

Yes because apparently all deep seated feuds and hatreds are really that simplistic

Well, what exactly were the Bloods and Crips fighting over anyway?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The great Michael Ansara as a technomage...

Elric: As I look at you, Ambasador Mollari, I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sound; the sounds of billions of people calling your name.
Ambassador Londo Mollari: My followers?
Elric: Your victims.

 

[exodus]

The great Michael Ansara as a technomage...

Elric: As I look at you, Ambasador Mollari, I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sound; the sounds of billions of people calling your name.
Ambassador Londo Mollari: My followers?
Elric: Your victims.

My favorite speech from the series is from G'kar about people's need to be free. The show would have been a total waste without G'kar & Londo.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Mine is Delenn breaking the Grey Council in Severed Dreams

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Yes because apparently all deep seated feuds and hatreds are really that simplistic

Well, what exactly were the Bloods and Crips fighting over anyway?

Probably drug territory these days. Money. Makes more sense than being randomly assigned a colour scarf and that makes person A your enemy and person B your friend.

The great Michael Ansara as a technomage...

Elric: As I look at you, Ambasador Mollari, I see a great hand reaching out of the stars. The hand is your hand. And I hear sound; the sounds of billions of people calling your name.
Ambassador Londo Mollari: My followers?
Elric: Your victims.

And... here we go, teacake will now plug for the umpteenth time the Technomage trilogy by Jeanne Cavelos which is one of the greatest things I've ever read.

http://www.amazon.com/Casting-Shadows-Babylon-Passing-Techno-Mages/dp/0345427211/ref=pd_sim_b_2

Don't read reviews, there be spoilers!!

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Centauri Trilogy is better.

(But we have had this conversation before.)

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

And I still haven't read that.

Yes.

 

[NightJim]

I've often thought about reading some of the Babylon 5 books, simply because it seems to be the only franchise that embraced them. JMS seemed to regard them the same as episodes, which is a rare thing. Buffy may have now, but that's years later and it's unlikely to happen anywhere but comics now.

Anyway, The Killing Game

Is it me or did the Hirogen shrink? I got the impression that they were meant to be eight foot odd in their previous episodes, and now they're back to standard human size. From a budget point of view I get it, but it seems poor and silly, especially as these Hirogen eps are coming one after the other.

Also, isn't "Voyager's already been overrun and this is the story of how they take it back" trope getting a little tired now. It happens at least once a season if not more.

At least the Hirogen using the ship as a giant holodeck was interesting, and the leader wanting to find a new path for his race offered a good reason to do so.

Also, why go to all the trouble of making the crew look like Klingons for that scenario but not for the WW2 one. It was just inconsistent, either do it for both or neither. I'm sure Dawson would have been happy with not bothering with the forehead as well as showing her pregnancy off.

The overloading of the holoprojectors seemed pointless. It was a good tactic by Kim to end things, but by the time it actually happened there didn't seem to be a need, the crew were back in control, the Klingons were taking out the Nazis, job was done. Kim was just creating more work to be fixed.

Killing Game was bombastic fun but little in the way of a decent story.

 

[NightJim]

Vis a Vis

Finally something without the Hirogen. I think the fact the show rammed them down your throat for a good few episodes. Course they had one break, and if this is just another one episode away from them I'll scream.

Not bad, other than the fact that Paris just seems to randomly acting like a teenager for the start of the episode it wasn't bad. Cool alien anyway.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The off thing is that despite claiming to be the rock in his relationship... It's B'Elanna who is going mental off camera and inbetween different scenes, but you'll figure that you in a few episodes.

 

[NightJim]

lol fair enough.

Onwards with The Omega Directive

This was an episode I could really get behind, it felt properly part of Star Trek. With my lack of knowledge about TOS I half wondered if it was a semi-sequel to an episode there, and I loved the shoutout to Carol Marcus in Janeway's log. Seven's slide back into Borg culture as she's given a team to run, all good character moments against a nice science problem and moral debate about how to proceed. The aliens only started shooting to add a ticking clock to the end of the episode. I really enjoyed it.

Two things that confused me was the ending. Seven made some serious forward movements with dealing with Omega Particles, up to this point Starfleet had the stance of destroy them before they do any damage. Now they had actual data that might give them a decent understanding of them. Yet Janeway deleted it all because it was classified. That's a serious step backwards and totally against character. On a similar front why did they blow particles when they stabilised? I know none of them expected to be able to do it, but the fact was they did, so the need to blow them up was gone...


Also, as I have no life at the minute, this new year's eve might end up being a Voyager marathon.