A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager
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Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
You know, one of the things that bugs me about Flashback has nothing to do with the semblance of plot (and, yeah, 'memory virus'? And Janeway can be seen by and interact with said memories?
DOES NOT COMPUTE.)
But my nit to pick here would be that Janeway says of the TOS era crews that 'the whole lot of them' would be thrown out of Starfleet in the 24th century. And... excuse me? I don't think they were THAT far different from modern Starfleet. Yes, they weren't in constant communication with Starfleet, but that doesn't mean that they broke every rule. They may have bent them and walked the fine line, but they wouldn't be Starfleet officers if they didn't follow the rules. I just find that line completely insulting to the Starfleet officers that Janeway's talking about, and there's a part of me that would love to point this conversation out to the Janeway of various later episodes.
You know, one of the things that bugs me about Flashback has nothing to do with the semblance of plot (and, yeah, 'memory virus'? And Janeway can be seen by and interact with said memories?
DOES NOT COMPUTE.) But my nit to pick here would be that Janeway says of the TOS era crews that 'the whole lot of them' would be thrown out of Starfleet in the 24th century. And... excuse me? I don't think they were THAT far different from modern Starfleet. Yes, they weren't in constant communication with Starfleet, but that doesn't mean that they broke every rule. They may have bent them and walked the fine line, but they wouldn't be Starfleet officers if they didn't follow the rules. I just find that line completely insulting to the Starfleet officers that Janeway's talking about, and there's a part of me that would love to point this conversation out to the Janeway of various later episodes.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^ That really bothered me too. How many times did Janeway bend or break the rules? She freaking TORTURED someone! Is that grounds for getting kicked out of Starfleet? No, it gets you promoted to Admiral!
I like Janeway, but pot meet kettle...
^ That really bothered me too. How many times did Janeway bend or break the rules? She freaking TORTURED someone! Is that grounds for getting kicked out of Starfleet? No, it gets you promoted to Admiral!
I like Janeway, but pot meet kettle...
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
krikey, I can't believe you people call it a "memory virus" when it's obviously space syphilis or the cosmic clap. Hmmmm... lets consider about how long he spent inside Kes' brain "training" her or in the case of Warlord, "fighting" her?
Kes was deffinitely infected, infact a "memory virus" would absolutely explain Fury.
krikey, I can't believe you people call it a "memory virus" when it's obviously space syphilis or the cosmic clap. Hmmmm... lets consider about how long he spent inside Kes' brain "training" her or in the case of Warlord, "fighting" her?
Kes was deffinitely infected, infact a "memory virus" would absolutely explain Fury.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
1) I could accept Tuvok being on the Excelsior if the episode was good, I can forgive all sorts of continuity issues if I enjoy what I'm watching, hence why I don't mind the Xindi arc on Enterprise. But this episode was bad, so I find it hard to forgive this retcon.
2) If Sulu had crossed the border in TUC and attacked Klingon ships then it would have had a huge impact on the story of that film. The peace talks with the Klingons would have completely broken down, Sulu would have been relived of command for breaking an order from the UFP President, and Sulu certainly wouldn't have been privy to the classified location of the Khitomer conference. The story of this episode just does not fit in with the story of the movie, just like TATV doesn't fit in with The Pegasus.
3) This is purely an aesthetic thing, but I'm so used to the opening scene of TUC that seeing it re-shot just didn't work for me. It was shot better in the movie, but as I said, that is personal opinion.
However, I don't think that Brannon Braga was the right person to write that scene. If you are going to take a few jabs at TOS then you have to be an unabashed fan of the show like RDM and René Echevarria were, but Brannon Braga famously said that he never watched TOS before writing for TNG.
Well these three are just personal opinion because I love TUC so much. They probably wouldn't bother most people.
1) I could accept Tuvok being on the Excelsior if the episode was good, I can forgive all sorts of continuity issues if I enjoy what I'm watching, hence why I don't mind the Xindi arc on Enterprise. But this episode was bad, so I find it hard to forgive this retcon.
2) If Sulu had crossed the border in TUC and attacked Klingon ships then it would have had a huge impact on the story of that film. The peace talks with the Klingons would have completely broken down, Sulu would have been relived of command for breaking an order from the UFP President, and Sulu certainly wouldn't have been privy to the classified location of the Khitomer conference. The story of this episode just does not fit in with the story of the movie, just like TATV doesn't fit in with The Pegasus.
3) This is purely an aesthetic thing, but I'm so used to the opening scene of TUC that seeing it re-shot just didn't work for me. It was shot better in the movie, but as I said, that is personal opinion.
I didn't mind this scene because it is kind of true. I love Kirk as a character, and I think he would be a cool guy to hang around with, but John Locke was right to call him a piss-poor captain. I grew up on NG Trek and only managed to watch TOS last year, and I found the differences between the mindset of the characters from the different eras to be very apparent. In TOS space was very much like the wild west, by the 24th century things have settled down and the rule of law applied to a far greater extent.
However, I don't think that Brannon Braga was the right person to write that scene. If you are going to take a few jabs at TOS then you have to be an unabashed fan of the show like RDM and René Echevarria were, but Brannon Braga famously said that he never watched TOS before writing for TNG.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Oh, here I was about to write some nice, appreciating comments about "Flashback" and then you bring up all those details which have given me some headache too.
Yes, I've rewatched "The Undiscovered Country" a couple of times too and noticed the errors.
But still, I like "Flashback". It was fun to see Sulu again and the interaction between Janeway and Tuvok is great most of the time. The story was a bit weird, though.
I guess that this one is one of the episodes which could have been so much better if they had bothered to care more about the details.
But despite some misgivings, I'll stick out my head and give it 4 out of 5, most of all for Sulu!
Guy Gardener wrote:
Sorry, that theory doesn't work, especially not when the "String Theory" books have revealed the pathetic creature in "Fury" not being the real Kes.
Besides that, her time as an energy-being would have revealed and probably killed off such a virus.
Flashback (*)
Why does Brannon Braga try to place his episodes inside good Star Trek? Flashback takes place on the Excelsior during the events of TUC, TATV took place during TNG's The Pegasus... stop ruining the legacy of good Trek!
I have a number of issues with this episode which I shall now list because I'm too lazy to form paragraphs around them.
1) Tuvok was not in The Undiscovered Country. He just wasn't.
2) Sulu did not send the Excelsior across the border to rescue Kirk in The Undiscovered Country. He just didn't.
3) I've seen the opening scene of TUC two dozen times, I can nit-pick the re-shoot of the scene to death.
4) Tuvok has a lot of character moments and back-story, but they are mainly exposition. Show, don't tell.
5) Something goes wrong with the mind meld and JANEWAY COULD DIE!!!
6) Something goes wrong with Tuvok's memories and suddenly Sulu and everyone else can see Janeway. Memories.
7) The falling girl was a memory virus? So it was completely unimportant? Well that was well worth 40 minutes of my time.
8) The montage of the falling girl seen by various different children was unintentionally comedic.
9) The resolution to the problem was technobabble, this is one episode where the resolution needed to stem from the character.
TUC is my favourite Trek film because I love the political element of it, so this episode earned a star based purely on seeing the Excelsior in action under Sulu. But there must have been a better way than this to do a tribute to TOS. Oh wait, there was.
Oh, here I was about to write some nice, appreciating comments about "Flashback" and then you bring up all those details which have given me some headache too.
Yes, I've rewatched "The Undiscovered Country" a couple of times too and noticed the errors.
But still, I like "Flashback". It was fun to see Sulu again and the interaction between Janeway and Tuvok is great most of the time. The story was a bit weird, though.
I guess that this one is one of the episodes which could have been so much better if they had bothered to care more about the details.
But despite some misgivings, I'll stick out my head and give it 4 out of 5, most of all for Sulu!
Guy Gardener wrote:
Sorry, that theory doesn't work, especially not when the "String Theory" books have revealed the pathetic creature in "Fury" not being the real Kes.
Besides that, her time as an energy-being would have revealed and probably killed off such a virus.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Flashback just never worked for me either. It's strange that it was actually planned before DS9's T&T, yet ended up with such an unconvincing plot. I think the strength of Trials and Tribble-ations is that the framing story - the older Darvin - is never intrusive, and allows us and the characters to simply have fun in the nostalgia of the old Enterprise.
Flashback tries to sell us a Voyager episode, and give us nostalgia, but it falls flat. There's lots of the usual technobabble, there's some very unconvincing "peril", and precious little to enjoy.
What should be the highlights - the Excelsior scenes - are ruined by the fact that we only know Sulu and Rand. And even so, Rand was in half a dozen episodes, and Sulu was always the least endearing of the TOS characters (in my opinion, of course). Sadly, if you ever needed evidence that Takei's proposed "Star Trek: Excelsior" was a bad idea, look no further. It's painful watching Grace Lee Whitney trying to get through her lines, and Takei's surprisingly awful.
It's not unique to Flashback though - watching James Doohan spouting useless TNG technobabble in Relics and Generations is very uncomfortable, because it feels totally wrong. Scotty's technical speak was along the lines of "she cannae take it any more" and "the dilithium crystal is cracked", not "we could try a resounance burst from the main deflector dish".
What should be enjoyable fluff becomes actually a quite painful experience for all concerned.
Flashback just never worked for me either. It's strange that it was actually planned before DS9's T&T, yet ended up with such an unconvincing plot. I think the strength of Trials and Tribble-ations is that the framing story - the older Darvin - is never intrusive, and allows us and the characters to simply have fun in the nostalgia of the old Enterprise.
Flashback tries to sell us a Voyager episode, and give us nostalgia, but it falls flat. There's lots of the usual technobabble, there's some very unconvincing "peril", and precious little to enjoy.
What should be the highlights - the Excelsior scenes - are ruined by the fact that we only know Sulu and Rand. And even so, Rand was in half a dozen episodes, and Sulu was always the least endearing of the TOS characters (in my opinion, of course). Sadly, if you ever needed evidence that Takei's proposed "Star Trek: Excelsior" was a bad idea, look no further. It's painful watching Grace Lee Whitney trying to get through her lines, and Takei's surprisingly awful.
It's not unique to Flashback though - watching James Doohan spouting useless TNG technobabble in Relics and Generations is very uncomfortable, because it feels totally wrong. Scotty's technical speak was along the lines of "she cannae take it any more" and "the dilithium crystal is cracked", not "we could try a resounance burst from the main deflector dish".
What should be enjoyable fluff becomes actually a quite painful experience for all concerned.
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Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
The Chute (***)
I said it in my review of Faces and I'll say it again here; prison stories tend to be boring because we always know that the characters will escape in the end, so you need interesting scenes in the prison to make it worthwhile. Well this episode was reasonable in that regard, and this is probably the best episode to focus on Harry so far.
The idea that they have devices designed to agitate the prisoners isn't exactly compelling, but it does help Harry break out from the annoying NG Trek depiction of perfect humans. Seeing Harry get visibly angry and beating his best friend is good, as Quark once said about hew-mons:
My main problem with this episode is that I just don't enjoy prison dramas all that much. I never liked Oz or Prison Break, and seeing these shows set in space doesn't make me like them any more. It's just a personal preference thing.
Also, at the end Neelix makes a comment about his brilliant piloting skills which happened... off-screen. That's just what I wanted, comments about a brilliant chase sequence I'll never get to see, rub it in why don't you?
Some good character stuff in a fairly routine story. Not the best, but not bad.
The Chute (***)
I said it in my review of Faces and I'll say it again here; prison stories tend to be boring because we always know that the characters will escape in the end, so you need interesting scenes in the prison to make it worthwhile. Well this episode was reasonable in that regard, and this is probably the best episode to focus on Harry so far.
The idea that they have devices designed to agitate the prisoners isn't exactly compelling, but it does help Harry break out from the annoying NG Trek depiction of perfect humans. Seeing Harry get visibly angry and beating his best friend is good, as Quark once said about hew-mons:
Quark said:
My main problem with this episode is that I just don't enjoy prison dramas all that much. I never liked Oz or Prison Break, and seeing these shows set in space doesn't make me like them any more. It's just a personal preference thing.
Also, at the end Neelix makes a comment about his brilliant piloting skills which happened... off-screen. That's just what I wanted, comments about a brilliant chase sequence I'll never get to see, rub it in why don't you?
Some good character stuff in a fairly routine story. Not the best, but not bad.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
See, my thing is just that - there WAS a different mindset at the time for the officers at the time. But the way Janeway talks, it's as if she believes that in modern Starfleet, these officers would do the same things they did in the 23rd century. It's judging people of the past by the rules and regulations of the present. Kirk and crew were products of their environment.
And, again, I want to give Janeway a listing of her later offenses without mentioning names and see if she thinks that she should be drummed out of Starfleet because of it. I like Janeway and all, but she is SO not one to talk.
See, my thing is just that - there WAS a different mindset at the time for the officers at the time. But the way Janeway talks, it's as if she believes that in modern Starfleet, these officers would do the same things they did in the 23rd century. It's judging people of the past by the rules and regulations of the present. Kirk and crew were products of their environment.
And, again, I want to give Janeway a listing of her later offenses without mentioning names and see if she thinks that she should be drummed out of Starfleet because of it. I like Janeway and all, but she is SO not one to talk.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^ Perhaps this is the minority opinion, but I think those comments of Janeway's are...well, realistic. It's exactly the sort of thing a human of whatever era would think when looking at the practices of era not his or her own. When we judge another era, we tend to either idealize it or underrate it. So why wouldn't Janeway do the same thing?
If you'd ever heard an old-school Marine talk about the modern Marine Corps, for example, or a modern-day cop talking about old-school cops, you'd understand what I mean. So, sure, perhaps Janeway wasn't 100 percent fair in her assessment but she was 100 percent human. I'd rather have a character act human than act perfect. This was a very human moment for Janeway, so I like it for that very reason.
^ Perhaps this is the minority opinion, but I think those comments of Janeway's are...well, realistic. It's exactly the sort of thing a human of whatever era would think when looking at the practices of era not his or her own. When we judge another era, we tend to either idealize it or underrate it. So why wouldn't Janeway do the same thing?
If you'd ever heard an old-school Marine talk about the modern Marine Corps, for example, or a modern-day cop talking about old-school cops, you'd understand what I mean. So, sure, perhaps Janeway wasn't 100 percent fair in her assessment but she was 100 percent human. I'd rather have a character act human than act perfect. This was a very human moment for Janeway, so I like it for that very reason.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^-- I suppose you're right, but what might have made that scene better would have been for Janeway to come to understand the reasoning behind what Sulu and the Excelsior did - going to the ends of the universe in an attempt to help someone they cared about. Maybe it would even involve a bit of a lesson to Janeway, show her that she herself is developing a relationship with her crew much like that between the Kirk crew.
I agree that it is better for the characters to be human than being perfect, but it's one more of flaw in an episode that is full of them, which makes each flaw stand out that much more.
^-- I suppose you're right, but what might have made that scene better would have been for Janeway to come to understand the reasoning behind what Sulu and the Excelsior did - going to the ends of the universe in an attempt to help someone they cared about. Maybe it would even involve a bit of a lesson to Janeway, show her that she herself is developing a relationship with her crew much like that between the Kirk crew.
I agree that it is better for the characters to be human than being perfect, but it's one more of flaw in an episode that is full of them, which makes each flaw stand out that much more.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
The more I think about 2, the more I agree with you. But I do of course understand where you're coming from. TUC is such a great movie that it does feel wrong to do an inferior story that seems to detract from it.
Agreed... this week, the universe hated Harry, but at least let him entertain us.
I agree with this assessment of what she said. It was actually somewhat refreshing.
Now THAT would have made not only Janeway's talk about the TOS period but also the episode overall just a tiny bit better - Janeway actually learns something.
The more I think about 2, the more I agree with you. But I do of course understand where you're coming from. TUC is such a great movie that it does feel wrong to do an inferior story that seems to detract from it.
Agreed... this week, the universe hated Harry, but at least let him entertain us.
I agree with this assessment of what she said. It was actually somewhat refreshing.
Now THAT would have made not only Janeway's talk about the TOS period but also the episode overall just a tiny bit better - Janeway actually learns something.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Janeway learn something? But didn't you realise that she already knows everything there is to know?
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
The problem is that the device makes the episode pointless..
It wasn't Kim lashing out..it was the device!
The writers were just having their cake and eating it too...
Having a character do "flawed 20th Century Human" things but still be a "perfect 24th Century Human"...
I wasn't convinced!
The Chute (***)
I said it in my review of Faces and I'll say it again here; prison stories tend to be boring because we always know that the characters will escape in the end, so you need interesting scenes in the prison to make it worthwhile. Well this episode was reasonable in that regard, and this is probably the best episode to focus on Harry so far.
The idea that they have devices designed to agitate the prisoners isn't exactly compelling, but it does help Harry break out from the annoying NG Trek depiction of perfect humans. Seeing Harry get visibly angry and beating his best friend is good, as Quark once said about hew-mons:
Quark said:
My main problem with this episode is that I just don't enjoy prison dramas all that much. I never liked Oz or Prison Break, and seeing these shows set in space doesn't make me like them any more. It's just a personal preference thing.
Also, at the end Neelix makes a comment about his brilliant piloting skills which happened... off-screen. That's just what I wanted, comments about a brilliant chase sequence I'll never get to see, rub it in why don't you?
Some good character stuff in a fairly routine story. Not the best, but not bad.
The problem is that the device makes the episode pointless..
It wasn't Kim lashing out..it was the device!
The writers were just having their cake and eating it too...
Having a character do "flawed 20th Century Human" things but still be a "perfect 24th Century Human"...
I wasn't convinced!
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
^The objection to the device is a valid point.
Silly me.
^The objection to the device is a valid point.
Janeway learn something? But didn't you realise that she already knows everything there is to know?
Silly me.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I understand what you are saying, but Roddenberry put the writers in a box and if they need to create some way in order to escape it then I'm okay with that.
It depends on how you view it, I don't see it as the device controlling them, it merely put them under emotional strain so that they would act on their more aggressive instincts. It is similar to how you will lash out at people when you are having a bad day, the increased emotional strain that you are under may have facilitated your aggressive impulse, but it was still you that acted upon that impulse.
I understand what you are saying, but Roddenberry put the writers in a box and if they need to create some way in order to escape it then I'm okay with that.
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I know this scene caused a lot of controversey at the time but it was actually meant to be a compliment from Janeway to the TOS crew. Sure, they didn't do things the same way as "modern" Starfleet but the way Janeway says "I would still love to ride shotgun with them" says that she understands and approves of their methods and would have done the same in their position.
As she later proved...
I know this scene caused a lot of controversey at the time but it was actually meant to be a compliment from Janeway to the TOS crew. Sure, they didn't do things the same way as "modern" Starfleet but the way Janeway says "I would still love to ride shotgun with them" says that she understands and approves of their methods and would have done the same in their position.
As she later proved...
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
I agree with GodBen. Flashback (*). That whole premise of a virus masquerading as a memory... completely ridiculous.
On the one end, I appreciated the flashback to the Excelsior with Sulu in command, but if only it could have been done in a much more plausible way.
I agree with GodBen. Flashback (*). That whole premise of a virus masquerading as a memory... completely ridiculous.
On the one end, I appreciated the flashback to the Excelsior with Sulu in command, but if only it could have been done in a much more plausible way.
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