Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Okay, time to play catchup.
I warned you this would happen when you got that job.
And frak me if I'm not more behind now!
I hate it when you're right - i.e. pretty much always!
It has definitely gotten worse over the years, and it was particularly noticeable in
Dragon's Teeth. I'm just browsing the script and here's some common technobabble phrases that were just thrown into the battle in order to make it "more dramatic".
Shields at maximum. Weapons standing by.
Target phasers, full spread.
Shields at ninety two percent.
Evasive manoeuvres.
Reroute emergency power.
Targeting sensors offline. Switching to manual.
Aft shields down to twenty percent.
Our sensor array took heavy damage.
We've lost impulse engines and navigation.
Thrusters are failing.
How about emergency power?
Thirteen power relays just blew out on deck six.
^ Can you really call it "babble" if it's understandable? Don't get me wrong, VOY did a lot of technobabble, but most of your examples here seem...well, sometimes unnecessary maybe, but not actual babbling. I mean, if shields are down or power relays have blown out, that is (or at least ought to be) a fairly important plot point, yes? Or at least indicators of the seriousness of the situation.
Edit: I mean, is it really any worse than those little dramatic things that non-scifi does? You know, like in a war movie when they start talking about running low on ammo or a mystery when the detective always ends up looking for stuff with a flashlight after dark instead of in daylight.
On this topic of babble, I think there's a thin line between what the TOS writer's guide called "jargon" and made-up stuff that doesn't do anything. I think the examples that
GodBen cited are borderline babble but read to me more like jargon, because while we may not fully understand it, it's simple enough that we can get an idea off what's going on. Still, it's best to say things like that simply - and realistically - at the same time.
Now, if they were talking about repolarizing the deflector grid and diverting auxiliary power to the lateral EPS array, that's full-on babble to me.
We have a double header tonight!
One Small Step (**½)
Isn't it amazing how the the ship from 2028 didn't have artificial gravity when the DY-100 class ships had such technology in 1996?
{snip}
The big problem I have with this episode is that it should have been a Chakotay episode rather than a Seven episode, here we see Chakotay coming into contact with one of his heroes and we really don't get a proper conclusion to that because the episode switches focus to Seven. Actually, the episode really should have focused on Paris when you consider that he is the guy who displayed interest in the early Mars missions in at least one previous episode, but here he is just treated as the pilot, he has a severe case of the Mayweathers going on.
Agreed there. It doesn't have to involve Seven to be good, dang it!
In fact, sometimes if it's about her, it still isn't good:
The Voyager Conspiracy (*½)
I can just about buy into the idea that Seven's brain overloads and she starts coming up with insane conspiracy theories, but there is no way in hell that I could possibly buy into the idea that Janeway and Chakotay buy into them with no supporting evidence and abandon everything they know about one another. All this episode does is make Janeway and Chakotay look like utter fools, but if anybody knows how to contact them I have a subspace bridge for sale...
And what about the evidence that Seven discovered? What about the Cardassian ship which just disappeared? What about the tractor beam during the explosion of the Caretaker array? Where did the Tetrion reactor that Tash used on his slingshot come from? In order to make Seven's position have any form of validity the episode creates these conundrums and then fails to explain any of them.
Dead-on. The episode really makes it seem like there are a bunch of unexplained inconsistencies to make it seem possible that there was a conspiracy, and then expects us to go "no, there wasn't really" at the end?
Pathfinder (***½)
I know that there's some out there who dislike Barclay and I can understand why, I personally like him but consider him to be a character of diminishing returns. His first few episodes on TNG were good, but by
Genesis his shtick was wearing thin.
Projections was good partly because it wasn't really Barclay, but in
Pathfinder it is a Barclay who has suffered a relapse and is even more Barclay-esque than he was in
Hollow Pursuits. For that reason I found Barclay a little annoying to watch in this episode. The most fun is to be had when Barclay is acting at his least Barclay-esque in the Voyager holo-program (although I do find it amusing that even in Barclay's imagination of Voyager Lt Carey is a non-entity in Engineering
).
Some minor quibbles include Troi who feels like a gratuitous addition in an episode which is already in danger of falling into that category on its own. As to how Barclay knows where Voyager is considering the ship jumped 30,000 light-years since they last contacted Starfleet... well, I'm sure everybody realised that on their own.
Agreed there, too. Not much to add, in fact.
Fair Haven (0)
JANEWAY: You have outdone yourself this time. Everything is authentic, except for one tiny detail.
...
SHMULLY: As I recall, the Captain is quite an aficionado of Irish history.
Having watched
Darby O'Gill and the Little People does not make one an aficionado of Irish history. The program seems to be based in the late 19th century, probably between 1870-1900 in which case the episode is missing several important features; the land war, religious tensions, mass emigration, the Home Rule movement and... oh yeah, the fact that the country was still occupied by a foreign power.
The later half of the 19th century was a turbulent time in Irish history and the political fallout from the period sowed the seeds for the eventual creation of the Irish Free State in 1922. I'm not saying that the episode should have focused on these things because the writers clearly wanted the episode to be a light story about a romantic entanglement with a hologram, but if you're going to play so fast and loose with history then you shouldn't be patting yourself on the back for being so accurate.
JANEWAY: Excuse me, sir. Is the train to Galway running on time?
MICHAEL: It's a steep climb but from the top of the battlement you can see all the way to Dublin.
Time for a geography lesson, take a look at this map of Ireland.
I've circled Co Clare in red, it's in the mid-west region. We know that Fair Haven is a coastal town near Co Clare, so that would place it somewhere in Co Galway or Co Kerry, both of which I've circled in blue. Of those two counties it is more likely that Fair Haven is in Co Galway because Janeway enquired about the train to Galway (presumably referring to the city) and there would never have been a direct train line between Kerry and Galway due to the Shannon estuary, the train would have been heading to Limerick city. Using Google Earth I have calculated that the shortest possible distance between Fair Haven and Co Dublin is 160km, or 100 miles. That must be one bloody high castle!
To some this may seem like a minor nit-pick and I would generally agree, but it is a symbol of a huge problem this episode had for me; they keep on throwing in "Irish" references while hardly seeming to understand what they're talking about. But hey, Dublin is a city in Ireland so that makes it authentic.
And I haven't even begun to discuss the Irish sterotyping contained within the episode. What I liked about Chief O'Brien was that he was a person who happened to be Irish, but every single one of the characters in the Fair Haven program is an Irish stereotype who happens to be a person. You have the mischievous drunk stereotype, the rugged yet sensitive stereotype, the red-haired temptress stereotype... The whole town is populated with overused Irish stereotypes, but I guess that makes it "authentic".
I normally don't let this sort of thing bother me so much, and I generally play along with some of the stereotypes such as the drinking and love of potatoes. But the incessant nature of the stereotyping and the name-dropping in this episode while claiming that the whole thing is authentic is very aggravating to me. I hope you understand why I have to give this episode a zero.
Imagine if Tom had decided to make a holoprogram set in an African American community and he has all the black characters being of lower than average intelligence, they survive on a diet of watermelons and fried chicken and they add "izzle" to the end of every second word. Now imagine he set the program in Mississippi in the 1960s and completely failed to mention anything about the racial tensions and the civil rights movement. Now imagine Janeway walking in and saying "This is very authentic work Tom, and I should know because I'm an expert on African American culture, my nizzle".
Absolutely brilliantly put, sir. I am of Irish ancestry myself, and despite not knowing nearly as much as you do, this episode and "Spirit Folk" always felt like insulting utter wastes of time, in every way possible, to say nothing of the drama of Janeway's holographic boyfriend. Geez.
Blink of an Eye (****)
This is easily one of the best sci-fi plot based episodes of the series, the concept is cool and the episode manages to back it up for the most part. And even though the story takes place across several days and a few centuries at the same time, the whole thing manages to be seamless.
Two problems hold it back a little, the biggest problem is the use of Shmully. He lived three years on that planet with a partner and child, yet when Voyager beams him back up he doesn't seem to care about the family he was leaving behind?
That should be a life-changing experience for Shmully but instead he is pleased to return to Voyager and take up his old job. And just like O'Brien's experience in
Hard Time, this second life is never mentioned again.
The other problem is that this species will probably be super-advanced by the end of the week, yet we never hear from them again? It's the embodiment of episodic story-telling.
Totally agreed there, too.
When you think about it, if Voyager had just hung around nearby for a few more hours, the aliens on that planet probably could have managed to come up with a super engine that could have gotten them home.
Bah, foiled again!
Virtuoso (**)
I went into this episode with bad memories, so I was pleasantly surprised by the first 20 minutes or so where there is some comedy that managed to make me laugh. While I'm not a fan of how Shmully's character developed annoying traits over the years (such as the holo-photography thing) in this episode he manages to be annoying and humorous at the same time.
Then the second half of the episode kicks in and Shmully decides to leave Voyager for a career as a singer. No, that would not happen, the necessities of the plot are forcing the character to do things he would never do and that absolutely kills this episode for me. This was a man who just last week was so overjoyed to return to Voyager that he abandoned his son, and they expect me to believe that he is going to throw it all away again for fame and the love of a badly-acted woman? Shmully may be a flawed individual who is a little too in love with himself, but he is not a moron.
You've totally summed up my love/hate relationship with this episode, and the Doc in general. I hated how in later episodes he seemed to become irksome simply to be irksome. I'm all for the exploration of the nature of artificial life if there's something to be gained from it, but I never really felt like anything was gained from it.
SHMULLY: So, without further ado, I give you Harry Kim and the Kimtones!
How pathetic are these bastards that Harry Kim is considered the cool one?!
They're the shuttle-building team, obviously.
Memorial (****)
Soooo... war is bad then?
How often do you get an episode where Chakotay, Neelix, Paris and Harry all get something meaningful to do? Its amazing, they chose the four worst utilised characters and actors in this show and based an episode around them, and they all managed to deliver. The whole mystery element didn't work for me because I remembered the plot of this episode, but the intentions of this episode are good even if a little obvious.
I enjoy Shmully as much as everyone else, and Seven has her moments, but I think there is much more that can be done with these four characters which is not being done. This episode worked for me because it is a strong ensemble show, I'd like more episodes like this please.
Yes, I can has moar? I really did enjoy this ep.
Tsunkatse (**)
I remember when this episode first aired there was a promo dedicated to how there was going to be an epic confrontation between Seven and The Rock. I had no idea who Mr Rock was and a friend had to explain to me that he was some sort of professional wrestler. When I saw the episode I thought to myself "Why didn't they play up that Weyoun and Martok were going to be in it rather than that stupid two minute fight scene with that dumb wrestler guy?"
J. G. Hertzler? Great, I'll watch that.
Jeffrey Combs? Excellent, I'll watch that three times!
The Rock? Do I have to watch that?
Okay, so I may get my nerd card revoked for this, but here goes.
I actually watched "professional wrestling" (yes, I know, it's fake) with my dad up through my teen years, so I knew who the Rock was. And it was everso painfully obvious that his cameo was designed to get wrestling fans to watch VGR by presenting VGR as some kind of action show.
That said, they almost made an interseting episode despite it.
The episode is surprisingly alright in spite of all the boring wrestling bits. I think this episode follows on quite well from Memorial by giving smaller characters something to do even while the episode is focused on Seven. Chakotay, B'Elanna and Tuvok all have meaningful roles, Chakotay in particular works well as the guy in charge of the attempt to rescue Seven while Janeway is away. Chakotay's character is at his best right now than he has been since the beginning of season 4, I hope they can maintain this standard for his character.
This episode reminded me of DS9's By Inferno's Light, the scenes of Worf fighting the Jem'Hadar soldiers in the prison camp are very reminiscent to the Tsunkatse matches. Unfortunately the Worf fighting matches were the only thing I did not like about that two-parter and it was only made respectable by having the Jemmie refuse to kill Worf at the end. Since this episode is based around that concept entirely I completely lost interest in the Seven story. The Voyager-based story was good until the end when it devolved into "things get blowed up real good" mode.
Yes, exactly.
Also, the episode is a rehash of
The Gamesters of Triskelion, so I think this might be the first time I deduct points for stealing a plot from TOS rather than TNG. And on that subject, Memory Alpha had this to say about the episode:
As with "Blink of an Eye", this episode's title had to be changed shortly before shooting when it was realized that it matched a TOS episode's: "Arena".
Whaaaaat?
I can understand the
Wink of an Eye one because that wasn't a memorable episode, but
Arena is one of the most famous TOS episodes, so much so that I knew it and its name long before I set out to watch TOS. How could almost the entire production staff on a Star Trek show not remember the time Kirk fought the Gorn?
Holy. Crap. Really?
Collective (***½)
One thing this episode does fairly well is recover the Borg from how weak and stupid they seemed in Dark Frontier. Turning the Borg into a bunch of kids seems like a recipe for disaster, but the fact that five Borg kids are menacing and a match for Voyager makes the regular Borg seem even more powerful. I was pleasantly surprised by that.
The episode itself is fairly good, although Chakotay, Neelix and Paris all seem to get lost somewhere. After the last two episodes I was hoping the show was going to maintain the ensemble feel but this episode stays mainly focused on Seven and Janeway with a little Harry thrown in. The conflict between First and the rest of the Borg was a little too telegraphed, and his refusal to back down at the end was based in stupidity, but the other Borg worked well, particularly Icheb. The final ten minutes or so also falls into a generic fight sequence where Voyager wins with magic technobabble.
The Delta Flyer fires three torpedoes before they are captured.
Torpedoes: 64/38
Agreed overall on that one. I was very surprised how much I liked this episode when it first aired.
Awesome.
Dark Images (*½)
The episode started out quite well, Kes goes a little insane and forgets who she is so she has to be brought to sickbay. The scene where Neelix shows up and realises that he still loves Kes was quite moving, and his determination to stay with her and devote himself to finding out what is wrong with her was very well handled. It's good when his character is treated seriously.
Things start going wrong when we find out that Kes' ailment is caused by a nest of giant space bees inside her stomach, but then they escape her body and start to spread around the ship. The episode goes from bad to worse when the bees infect the holodeck and form a new nest inside the Fair Haven program, so Tom, Harry and Janeway have to enter the program and work with the locals to kill the bees. They manage to jury-rig a fire-truck into spraying out a stream of quantum-malengular positrons (an orange light) that will kill the bees, so they drive around Fair Haven killing bees as though they were the Ghostbusters.
I don't know why Joe Menosky decided to take the episode in this bizarre direction, I guess this was one of his high-concept stories that got a little out of control.
Yes, I've started to have dreams about reviewing episodes of Voyager.
Now I'm a little worried about you, pal. Been reading too many badmovies.org reviews?
Hmm, you'd think the people of Fair Haven would remember that.
She was a great character back in the early seasons, her interactions with Harry were very memorable and her death was one of the most emotional moments of the show. I remember that she and Harry were Best Friends Forever at the academy and they both ended up on Voyager so that Harry wouldn't be relying upon the friendship of a criminal like Tom Paris. Harry was in love with her all that time, of course, so that means his engagement to Libby was a sham because he was too much of a pussy to ask out the girl he really liked. But that's par for the course for our Harry. 
