A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager
- Thread starter TheGodBen
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Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^ I think I'll just wave rather than bow, OK?
Out of deference to those who love this episode, I have tried to think of something positive to say...and I can't. The idea of a character facing this choice is interesting, but the execution...ugh! I found it simply dreadful in every single conceivable way. It was painful to watch - embarrassing, really. Those poor actors! Poor anybody who could figure out, "Hey, if they can only reproduce once, how come..."
And all that stickiness made me want to take a shower.
^ I think I'll just wave rather than bow, OK?
Out of deference to those who love this episode, I have tried to think of something positive to say...and I can't. The idea of a character facing this choice is interesting, but the execution...ugh! I found it simply dreadful in every single conceivable way. It was painful to watch - embarrassing, really. Those poor actors! Poor anybody who could figure out, "Hey, if they can only reproduce once, how come..."
And all that stickiness made me want to take a shower.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I'd prefer it if you'd curtsey, but I guess a wave will do.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Non Sequitur (*½)
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." -Douglas Adams
Space is big. I can't comprehend how big it is and neither can you. You know what else is big? Time. 20 minutes waiting for a bus might seem like a long time, but it is nothing compared to 13.7 billion years. When you calculate the various sizes of the universe with how long it has existed and attempt to give it a value in space-time you will get a number which doesn't mean anything because it is so huge.
So Harry flies into a "time stream" with some funky stuff going on in his shuttle and he randomly affects history in some way. He could change it at any time and in any place, yet somehow the only thing he changes is that Janeway doesn't select him to be on Voyager.
That's like saying I can drive my car into a vat of explosive nitroglycerine and that the only effect it has is to change the colour of my shirt. The title is apt.
Star Trek has bad science and you just have to accept that in order to enjoy it, but the problem is that this episode is also pretty boring and when you have a boring episode it tends to make my mind wander about things like this. Even during the big climactic space battle I was bored and kept finding inconsistencies. Such as:
Harry manages to escape SF security even though he has a tag around his leg and is wearing his communicator. That makes no sense, they could have just transported him directly into a cell. Then Tom and Harry escape from the Dyson sphere from TNG's Relics. The Runabout model that exploded had the roll-bar attached even though it didn't during the rest of the chase. I'm a nerd, I obsess about things like this, how could they think I wouldn't complain about that?
Then Harry hits the "time stream" again and repeats the funky stuff and somehow he is back at the moment of the original problem.
That's like saying I can drive my car into a second vat of explosive nitroglycerine and that the only effect it has is to change the colour of my shirt back to what it was. Oy vey.
Anyway, an episode like this relies upon its character moments to distract you from its horrible plot, and to add to my frustrations they decide to turn Harry from a human being into an emotionless robot. He has to go back to Voyager whyyyyyy? Okay, so Tom ends up a drunk, but I would prefer to be a drunk rather than lost 70 years away from home. At least as a drunk I could go to rehab and be out a few months later with my life back on track, when you are lost far away from home you are never going to get that chance. There is two scenes in this episode that work; when Harry met Paris (say it in a French accent) in the bar and when Harry got to hit that fine looking finance of his. So there is some worth to this episode when it doesn't focus on the plot, but unfortunately there was far too much plot.
Another shuttle was destroyed, and since Voyager is a small ship they probably only had two and I assume we wont be seeing any more.
Shuttle Crashes: 2
Torpedoes: 1/38
Harry deaths: 1 (Although he had two narrow escapes in this episode.)
Non Sequitur (*½)
"Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space." -Douglas Adams
Space is big. I can't comprehend how big it is and neither can you. You know what else is big? Time. 20 minutes waiting for a bus might seem like a long time, but it is nothing compared to 13.7 billion years. When you calculate the various sizes of the universe with how long it has existed and attempt to give it a value in space-time you will get a number which doesn't mean anything because it is so huge.
So Harry flies into a "time stream" with some funky stuff going on in his shuttle and he randomly affects history in some way. He could change it at any time and in any place, yet somehow the only thing he changes is that Janeway doesn't select him to be on Voyager.
That's like saying I can drive my car into a vat of explosive nitroglycerine and that the only effect it has is to change the colour of my shirt. The title is apt.
Star Trek has bad science and you just have to accept that in order to enjoy it, but the problem is that this episode is also pretty boring and when you have a boring episode it tends to make my mind wander about things like this. Even during the big climactic space battle I was bored and kept finding inconsistencies. Such as:
Harry manages to escape SF security even though he has a tag around his leg and is wearing his communicator. That makes no sense, they could have just transported him directly into a cell. Then Tom and Harry escape from the Dyson sphere from TNG's Relics. The Runabout model that exploded had the roll-bar attached even though it didn't during the rest of the chase. I'm a nerd, I obsess about things like this, how could they think I wouldn't complain about that?
Then Harry hits the "time stream" again and repeats the funky stuff and somehow he is back at the moment of the original problem.
That's like saying I can drive my car into a second vat of explosive nitroglycerine and that the only effect it has is to change the colour of my shirt back to what it was. Oy vey.
Anyway, an episode like this relies upon its character moments to distract you from its horrible plot, and to add to my frustrations they decide to turn Harry from a human being into an emotionless robot. He has to go back to Voyager whyyyyyy? Okay, so Tom ends up a drunk, but I would prefer to be a drunk rather than lost 70 years away from home. At least as a drunk I could go to rehab and be out a few months later with my life back on track, when you are lost far away from home you are never going to get that chance. There is two scenes in this episode that work; when Harry met Paris (say it in a French accent) in the bar and when Harry got to hit that fine looking finance of his. So there is some worth to this episode when it doesn't focus on the plot, but unfortunately there was far too much plot.
Another shuttle was destroyed, and since Voyager is a small ship they probably only had two and I assume we wont be seeing any more.
Shuttle Crashes: 2
Torpedoes: 1/38
Harry deaths: 1 (Although he had two narrow escapes in this episode.)
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Yeah, some of these early episodes aren't all that great. Hopefully things weill get better from your perspective soon.
Yeah, some of these early episodes aren't all that great. Hopefully things weill get better from your perspective soon.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Despite being a fan of the character Kes, I have to admit that this one doesn't work for me.
Kes is funny to watch when she eats beetles (not Beatles!
)and freaks out but the story itself leads nowhere.
There are also some total insane things in this story, such as: Ocampa can have only one child per lifetime, Ocampa females freak out and eat beetles, they got sticky fingers, have to have sex for a couple of days (or hours, or whatever it was) and before that one of the woman's parents must massage her feet until her tongue swells!
And they deliver their child from the back!
Talk about ruining a species and talk about morbid, crazy fantasies! Sometimes I wonder what the "writers" were on when they came up with that rubbish.
However, Jennifer Lien's acting is superb and saves the episode.
But I'll have to give it a 1 out of 5.
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.
Despite being a fan of the character Kes, I have to admit that this one doesn't work for me.
Kes is funny to watch when she eats beetles (not Beatles!
)and freaks out but the story itself leads nowhere. There are also some total insane things in this story, such as: Ocampa can have only one child per lifetime, Ocampa females freak out and eat beetles, they got sticky fingers, have to have sex for a couple of days (or hours, or whatever it was) and before that one of the woman's parents must massage her feet until her tongue swells!
And they deliver their child from the back!
Talk about ruining a species and talk about morbid, crazy fantasies! Sometimes I wonder what the "writers" were on when they came up with that rubbish.
However, Jennifer Lien's acting is superb and saves the episode.
But I'll have to give it a 1 out of 5.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Maybe Garrett was told to be robotic so he didn't make his leading lady look bad.
Seriously, there have been some dicey guest stars on Voyager over the years, but the woman who played Libby was sleepwalking.
*snooze*
Maybe Garrett was told to be robotic so he didn't make his leading lady look bad.
Seriously, there have been some dicey guest stars on Voyager over the years, but the woman who played Libby was sleepwalking.
*snooze*
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^ Golly, she was awful. And that scene - which I have not seen since the original run but which is etched into my mind by pure Grade A inanity - where the guards or whatever come after Harry, and l'il Libby leaps up into the opening he's just left through to block the guards - no phaser, no knife, not so much as a nail file? And that's enough to stop the guards from leaving that way? Remember that? Remember? I do. I wish I didn't but I do.
That said, aside from Libby, I didn't hate this episode. Didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it. Although it's a bad sign when my strongest memory of it is Libby acting like Dudley Do-right or somebody.
^ Golly, she was awful. And that scene - which I have not seen since the original run but which is etched into my mind by pure Grade A inanity - where the guards or whatever come after Harry, and l'il Libby leaps up into the opening he's just left through to block the guards - no phaser, no knife, not so much as a nail file? And that's enough to stop the guards from leaving that way? Remember that? Remember? I do. I wish I didn't but I do.
That said, aside from Libby, I didn't hate this episode. Didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it. Although it's a bad sign when my strongest memory of it is Libby acting like Dudley Do-right or somebody.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
This is probably true, but I must confess that I wasn't looking at her face during that towel scene.
Yeah, that was just dumb. Two big guys with guns and they can't move this one person?
I watched this scene and just went "so?" Plenty of human cultures eat insects, what is so weird about an alien doing it? For all we know it could be natural for her species to eat insects.Lynx said:Kes is funny to watch when she eats beetles (not Beatles!
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I think 'Elogium" was fun. It's not great, but it's not bad - which is always a huge plus for this show. I thought Jennifer did a great job.
I really liked "Non Sequitur" when it first aired, and then I didn't see it for a really long time. I rewatched it last year, I think, and was underwhelmed. I think the Tom / Harry thing works pretty well. I actually liked the Libby actress, though the writing for her was pretty bad. This isn't my least favorite episode by a long shot, but it's not in the good selections either.
But I enjoy both of these episodes more than "Initiations".
I think 'Elogium" was fun. It's not great, but it's not bad - which is always a huge plus for this show. I thought Jennifer did a great job.
I really liked "Non Sequitur" when it first aired, and then I didn't see it for a really long time. I rewatched it last year, I think, and was underwhelmed. I think the Tom / Harry thing works pretty well. I actually liked the Libby actress, though the writing for her was pretty bad. This isn't my least favorite episode by a long shot, but it's not in the good selections either.
But I enjoy both of these episodes more than "Initiations".
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
GodBen, I don't think I hate this episode as much as you but then again I didn't just rewatch it either. I'd say you gave it a fair rating.
This is why I have issues with this episode, and with a lot Trek episodes. The 'why' behind the 'what' was distracting from the 'what.' It ends up feeling like a 'Parallels' rehash somewhat.
Overall, wouldn't it have been a far more interesting story had the deus ex machina resulted in Voyager not being lost in the first place, and it was all because of the 'why' caused by Harry? For example, the Ops Officer assigned instead of Harry bumbled tracing the Maquis path (or something like this) and thus never encountered the Caretaker's wave.
Then, Harry would have to choose to do what the nice alien says and re-strand Voyager to set the universe right, or leave the universe as it is, with no one lost? It might have been a nice added wrinkle if the Maquis ship was still missing too, and Harry had no way of knowing whether the Maquis in the Delta Quadrant were alive or dead, and would have to deal with his newer friendships for them, coupled with his affinity for the Starfleet crew, coupled with his sense of duty and obligation.
We all knew the episode was going to have a reset button at the end (unless they decided to introduce a new ops officer this way and write out Harry), so why not put Harry through the fullest emotional wringer possible first? Isn't that the whole damn plot of a story? Compelling protagonist goes through a series of challenges that leave both him and the viewer richer for the experience?
And, the actress that played Libby really sucked.
GodBen, I don't think I hate this episode as much as you but then again I didn't just rewatch it either. I'd say you gave it a fair rating.
So Harry flies into a "time stream" with some funky stuff going on in his shuttle and he randomly affects history in some way. He could change it at any time and in any place, yet somehow the only thing he changes is that Janeway doesn't select him to be on Voyager.
That's like saying I can drive my car into a vat of explosive nitroglycerine and that the only effect it has is to change the colour of my shirt. The title is apt.
Star Trek has bad science and you just have to accept that in order to enjoy it, but the problem is that this episode is also pretty boring and when you have a boring episode it tends to make my mind wander about things like this. Even during the big climactic space battle I was bored and kept finding inconsistencies.
This is why I have issues with this episode, and with a lot Trek episodes. The 'why' behind the 'what' was distracting from the 'what.' It ends up feeling like a 'Parallels' rehash somewhat.
Overall, wouldn't it have been a far more interesting story had the deus ex machina resulted in Voyager not being lost in the first place, and it was all because of the 'why' caused by Harry? For example, the Ops Officer assigned instead of Harry bumbled tracing the Maquis path (or something like this) and thus never encountered the Caretaker's wave.
Then, Harry would have to choose to do what the nice alien says and re-strand Voyager to set the universe right, or leave the universe as it is, with no one lost? It might have been a nice added wrinkle if the Maquis ship was still missing too, and Harry had no way of knowing whether the Maquis in the Delta Quadrant were alive or dead, and would have to deal with his newer friendships for them, coupled with his affinity for the Starfleet crew, coupled with his sense of duty and obligation.
We all knew the episode was going to have a reset button at the end (unless they decided to introduce a new ops officer this way and write out Harry
), so why not put Harry through the fullest emotional wringer possible first? Isn't that the whole damn plot of a story? Compelling protagonist goes through a series of challenges that leave both him and the viewer richer for the experience?And, the actress that played Libby really sucked.
Oooh la la...
Dang it! But this episode still proves "The Universe Hates Harry Kim (tm)." He had to revert to being an emotionless robot to set it right.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I had a similar thought while watching it, the only difference is that I found Parallels entertaining. Parallels made no sense; Worf flies through some quantum space ka-jigger and Geordi's visor now sends him into parallel universes, that is complete BS. But the story was interesting enough that I never had time to stop and think about just how ridiculous the whole thing was, whereas Non Sequitur didn't entertain me enough to stop me from focusing on the science.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Me too. Interesting character.
Besides that, I like "Non Sequitur". Not one of my favorites but an inetersting "what if" story. Harry is actually OK as the main character here, there are some good twists and turns and the whole episode is enjoyable.
I also think that Libby is OK (both the actress and the character).
I'll give the episode 3 points out of 5.
Me too. Interesting character.
Besides that, I like "Non Sequitur". Not one of my favorites but an inetersting "what if" story. Harry is actually OK as the main character here, there are some good twists and turns and the whole episode is enjoyable.
I also think that Libby is OK (both the actress and the character).
I'll give the episode 3 points out of 5.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Exactly.
(And, what, you didn't like my alternate plot suggestion? I see how it is.
)
Exactly.
(And, what, you didn't like my alternate plot suggestion? I see how it is.
)
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Non Sequitur has a lot of problems (logic, the peformances) but I can stomach it. It's one of the few Trek episodes that is set almost entirely on Earth, which I enjoy.
The most stupid aspect of this episode has to be Tom's mobile transporter. We're supposed to accept that this little handheld fucker can do everything a normal transporter does and even rematerialise itself? LOL. I figure the only way that thing can work is to make it find the nearest actual transporter and somehow use that to do the actual transporting. The way Paris was handling it, seemed to imply that the thing itself did all the work!
Non Sequitur has a lot of problems (logic, the peformances) but I can stomach it. It's one of the few Trek episodes that is set almost entirely on Earth, which I enjoy.
The most stupid aspect of this episode has to be Tom's mobile transporter. We're supposed to accept that this little handheld fucker can do everything a normal transporter does and even rematerialise itself? LOL. I figure the only way that thing can work is to make it find the nearest actual transporter and somehow use that to do the actual transporting. The way Paris was handling it, seemed to imply that the thing itself did all the work!
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