Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager ^i understand your POV. i don't agree with most of it, but nonetheless i can appreciate your the points you make.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager They did actually screw up The Doctor's memory already in "Before And After". As we all know, The Doctor was activated around Stardate 48315.6 (26 April 2371) in the episode "Caretaker". In this episode he is treating Kes's bruises when she arrives to the ship. He also cures Kim and Torres from the disease they got while being examined by the Caretaker and he heals Chakotay's broken leg. In "Time And Again" which takes place two months later, The Doctor examines Kes after she had that premonition about the destroyed planet. Then he don't seem to have any memory of treting her in "Caretaker" and he don't seem to remember that Chakotay and the Maquis had joined the crew either. I mean, they had been on the ship for two months then. OK, such sloppy writing can of course be explained as temporal glitches in The Doctor's program but he was supposed to be a very sofisticated program.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager And I suppose you can explain away the Doctor forgetting about Barclay when he seemed to completely lose his memory in season 3's The Swarm. We know that he got most of his memories back after that, but maybe Barclay slipped through the cracks. See, you can explain away almost anything.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Honestly, some of the more silly errors and some of the sloppy writing can be explained or written around. But not all. And sometimes it is very difficult to try to come up with some plausible explanation to the worst contradictions. Voyager's mysteries-and how to solve them: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Park/1964/Voyagermysteries.html
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager It is not unfair to compare two sci-fi shows which take place in the same franchise. I compare TV shows all the time; I compare The West Wing with The Sopranos even though one is about politics and another is about criminal and family life. I compare nuBSG with Lost even though one is a post-apocalyptic alternate reality and another is about a magical island in the pacific. I compare Scrubs with Arrested Development even though one is a comedy about weird characters working in a hospital and the other is a comedy about a dysfunctional family which is under investigation for corruption. None of those shows have anything to do with one another, but I compare them and can determine which I prefer and what aspects of each show I would like to see in the others. I compare DS9 to Voyager because they are both Star Trek shows which aired at the same time. DS9 had story arcs, Voyager didn't. DS9 had a large amount of character development, Voyager only had a little. DS9 challenged me, Voyager rarely did. Voyager is its own show and it has its fans and I'm not going to criticise them for liking something which I didn't, but there is nothing wrong with me saying that I preferred DS9 to Voyager and explaining why. I prefer The West Wing to The Sopranos because it had snappy dialogue, I prefer nuBSG to Lost because of the character development, I prefer Scrubs to Arrested Development because I like the characters on Scrubs more, and I prefer DS9 to Voyager because of all of the above.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager ok. i don't agree, but then i approach tv viewing differently than you do. i guess i must've taken things away differently in voyager and DS9 too. well, that's obvious, since i am almost reversed in my views on DS9 and VOY. though, to be fair, i guess on some level i, too, must compare the trek shows b/c i found voyager the most interesting while you stated why you found DS9 the most interesting. i guess the main difference is i think my comparison is on a sub-conscious level whereas your's is on a conscious level. and please don't take this as an insult, but it seems bizarre to me that you compare shows that aren't even in the same genre. i think as long as you find a show interesting and enjoyable, sit back, relax and enjoy it. however, you do your thing, i'll do my thing, and we'll each like the shows we like. btw, i like scrubs too.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Well I tend to only think in terms of there being only two genres; drama and comedy.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager DS9 had story arcs, but it's not necessarily one of the series streghts. Jumping from Dominion issues to Klingons stuff was kind of bi-polar from the writers and producers. Bajoran stuff with those "fire demons" was perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of the story arc. Dominion War was great. DS9 had character development, but none of the characters interested me as much as characters in Voyager. Sisko didn't inspire me like Janeway did and still does, Bashir was very weak (and annoying) compared to both Beverly Crusher and The Doc. O'Brien was minor character in TNG who become mediocre at best on DS9. He is likeable, though. True stars are Kira, Odo, Quark and Garak. So needless to say that I prefer Voyager. But DS9 is good too, even though it does not reach to the level of awesomeness of Voyager or legendness of TNG.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Sisko becomes a totally different man in the end though. He goes from being an angry and broken man who hates the idea of being a spiritual icon, to a man who embraces life, family, and religion. He is complex and real in was that most of the other captains where not. Even in becoming a Prophet, he stays accessible. Bashir is another character that goes through a metamorphosis. He does start out whiny and annoying, be he evolves in to a good friend to O'Brien, a shrewd thinker that was able to out-think Sloan and instrumental in influencing Garak for the better. O'Brien is the everyman that you can truly relate to. He says what the audience is thinking most of the time. He also learns to be less prejudice in the show. He is able to see past Bashir's flaws (after he gets past being annoyed by him) and learns to like Bashir more that Keiko. He is the kind of friend everyone should have, loyal and constant. Then, add to them, all of the other characters, Garak, Kira, Odo, Quark, Rom, Jake (the first child on Star Trek to be not annoying or a genius), Nog, Vic, Leeta, Ki Winn, Dukat, Ziyal, Martok, both Daxs and the list goes on. Each of these characters has more growth in the series than Chrusher, Riker, Kim, Chakotay, Geordi, Deanna and Mayweather. And on top of all that, most of those DS9 characters are not the main cast, but side characters; talk about, what you leave behind! It is a richer and fuller tapestry than any other Trek series. All because it was not afraid to push the envelope.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Elogium (½) Let's talk about Kes baby, let's talk about her and Nee(lix). Let's talk about all the bad things, and the very bad things, they did in (prod no.) 118. Let's talk about Kes. The severe logical errors really ruin this episode, and it doesn't help that it is so boring that my mind kept on dwelling on the logical errors rather than what was actually going on. Now I'm no expert on sex... wait, let me rephrase that. I'm no biology professor, but I do know that sex is supposed to be fun and that it is supposed to be so easy that animals, or teenagers who dropped out of high-school and are addicted to meth, know how to do it. You put the thing in there, you wiggle around for 30 seconds and you're done. That's right, I know how the ladies like it. If sex could only be performed once, it involved a sweaty woman bloated from eating beetles, two hours of foot rubbing, a few days of bonding, hand pus and abnormal back growths... I would probably give it a pass. The pr0n industry on Ocampa must really suffer. I'm not even going to bring up the fact that population growth for Ocampan's is less than 0.5, I figured that out when I first saw this episode aged 9. If a 9 year-old can see such a glaring logical problem then how can professional writers not? At least the writers for this episode would never get a chance to work on this show again. (Jeri Taylor: show runner during seasons 3 & 4, Kenneth Biller: show runner during season 7.) Those of you who follow sfdebris' great reviews know about his Stupid Neelix Moments™, and I couldn't stop thinking about those when I was watching this episode. His character was so insufferable that I consider this whole episode to be a stupid Neelix moment because it is impossible to pick just one moment from this episode. Then there is the plot with the aliens flying all about the ship. I miss Picard because he would have just shot the bastards and be done with it, instead we get boring suspense which at least took us away from the Kes/Neelix story-line. And this is the 24th century, so why does Chakotay act like Mary Whitehouse when it comes to sex? I just watched Futurama's The Beast With a Billion Backs last night, if you want to watch some sci-fi sex with weird aliens then I would strongly suggest you watch that over Elogium because it probably makes more sense. Worst episode yet.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager They totally screwed up with the Ocampans, really, right from the start. I get that the idea of a species that lives for nine years was different, but different isn't always better. I can't imagine, even with the telepathic powers, Ocampans managing to survive on their homeworld before the Caretaker came. Now, maybe it could be explained away that because they'd grown so reliant on the Caretaker, it had somehow affected their biology and screwed them up and made them like that and they used to have a life span of... at least to forty... but it's still really hard to buy.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Very, very well said, GodBen (and I particularly enjoyed the cover song at the beginning. ) There's not very much I can add to what I agree is a bad, bad episode. The concept itself was not bad, but the execution was, well, awful. (Deja vu?) It's an interesting idea to make a character face the choice of whether or not to have a child but it wasn't handled very interestingly. I think that the basic idea of the Ocampa wasn't bad, but there were too many holes in the way they were portrayed to make them make sense. (So, they only live nine years but they can only breed once? Riiight. Take that, natural selection.) I get that this was Kes's 'mayfly' moment. It just... wasn't good. And it didn't help that it was coupled with, as you point out, a B-plot that seems to make little sense. The B-plot toyed with an intriguing idea too - do we violate the prime directive to get through these annoying natural hazards? - but ultimately felt very dragged out to me and not even worthy of B-plot status. It did however give us the amusing notion of a 'Targ catcher.' This story might have been more interesting had the cause of Kes's unnatural elogium been downlplayed, or had it been natural altogether - Neelix is forced to choose whether he wants a kid with Kes and ultimately has to face whether the relationship he's in makes sense, and Kes, likewise, has to choose whether she wants a kid at all, and ultimately what she wants in life. More of a natural reflection of the notion of a woman's biological clock winding down. I would have simply loved seeing Kes choose to actually have a baby and getting pregnant, only to find out this was a false elogium and she will have another chance when she's four. It might have also been interesting (as a B-plot) had this caused a 'baby buzz' around the ship and the crew would have all started talking more about pairing off and the issue of whether they should become a generational ship, whether they were going to get home, whether they had a right to bring children into the world to just become crew members. In other words, tying more into the premise here since it would have been quite appropriate. As aired, it barely gets a mention in the one scene with Janeway and Chakotay and in the ending log. Perhaps this episode's worst characteristic was that it was the very first episode that I can actually remember disliking Neelix in - dislike to the point of wanting him ejected out the nearest airlock. Dislike to the point where any affection I had developed for him in previous episodes evaporated. And I watched Voyager dedicatedly from the beginning.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I like Elogium and I still watch it every once and awhile. Nothing wrong with the episode.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager I've actually been thinking about that song and this episode for about a week. If it has logical problems that a 9 year-old idiot like I could pick out then there is something very wrong with the episode.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager so...you're saying that only your opinions and views are the right ones and any one who might not see it your way or share your disappointment is just wrong?
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager Not to speak for him, but when someone says "nothing wrong with this episode," and the episode features a species that can't even reproduce itself, then, well, obviously the statement that *nothing* is wrong with this episode is, well, wrong... It's basic biology. To have zero population growth, you need to children for each set of parents--the children replace the parents. Ocampans have 1 child per 2 parents. That's negative growth. The species could not survive. That's a big something wrong with the episode.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager true. however, just to play devil's advocate but kes only says that she can have a child once in her life. she says "child" but that doesn't preclude that she'll necessarily have only one child. a multiple birth is not outside the realm of possibility. however, i have made it a point to try and stay out of arguing about kes-centric episodes. i'm just loathe to say anything specifically about any them for reasons you are probably already aware of.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager teya has said it for me but I'm going to extrapolate with some mathematics. A man and a woman decide to have a kid and the woman can only have one child in her whole life then you have one child for every two parents, that is population growth of 0.5. If males could also have children then there would be a maximum possible population growth of 1. However, even that is unlikely because some people will die before child-rearing age, there is potential miscarriages, some people wont find love and some people just wont want children, so population growth would probably be around 0.8. If there is a chance of multiple births such as twins and suchlike then population growth could conceivably reach 0.9. So lets try this out with a population of 1,000 people. Generation 1: 1,000 Generation 2: 900 Generation 3: 810 Generation 4: 729 Generation 5: 656 Generation 6: 590 Generation 7: 531 Generation 8: 478 Generation 9: 430 Generation 10: 397 See the pattern? This isn't opinion, this is mathematics. The population is unsustainable and even a 9 year old who hated maths could figure that out. Add to this just how difficult it is for Ocampans to mate and you make things worse. You have to rub their feet for some reason, then you have to go through a long bonding ritual, there is something to do with sticky patches on hands... Procreation has to be a relatively simple and instinctual affair in order for animals to be able to do it and it has to be enjoyable to make us want to do it. How did the Ocampans evolve all these hoops they have to jump through before they get to the action? Human procreation may be socially rigorous, but the physical act itself doesn't have all these precursors. Finally, you have to actually want to mate with the person, and Kes just did not look attractive in this episode. Scientific studies suggest that human females manage to subtly become more attractive during ovulation in order to attract males. Kes was sweaty and bloated in this episode, that was not an attractive look for her. None of this makes any sense mathematically, biologically or logically. This isn't opinion, this is fact and the writers have no excuse for screwing up like this, especially when they are paying science advisers to correct all these mistakes. This is inexcusable.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager For sustainable population growth she would need to have at least three kids, and all they had to do was put one line into the episode suggesting that would happen. But they didn't, all discussion about Kes and Neelix having a kid in this episode revolved around the idea of them having one kid.