Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager
Whoa. I've missed a lot....so...long reply. My bad.
Future's End, Part 2 (**½)
The arrival of the Doctor's mobile emitter is the only thing that allows me to stomach these episodes. The redneck plot in part 2 is just terrible. Ick.
I agree with the rating. It could have been worse, but wasn't very good. I did like Jennifer's performance and the semi-gay / bi stuff.
The Q and the Grey (*)
Janeway said:
But what is not insignificant is the fact that the Q, as an omnipotent race, have an opportunity to be a positive force to set a higher standard for other beings in the galaxy. I implore you all, don't go through with this. Don't allow yourselves to continue using violence to resolve your differences.
30 seconds later a group of Humans stormed over the hill and started shooting with weapons that can destroy entire star-systems. I believe that shows the level of thought which went into this episode.
I find this episode almost unwatchable, except for Lady Q. She amuses me, even though much of her is poorly written - I think the actress made her significantly better than the writing did. But not enough to make me rewatch this episode.
I missed this episode when it first aired, and only got to see it when I bought the DVDs. I thought the story was terrible. I thought the virus made no sense. I did think they made the virus icky enough...the rest of the story was just...it didn't quite arrive though, and that's a shame.
I'd rate this one **1/2. It's one of those episodes where I can see that the quality is better than average, yet I don't care.
I liked this one more than you. I'd give it ***. Tuvok's random behavior and his blaming it all on being a Vulcan is the norm, so by this time I didn't really take that as a negative. I also thought the guest actress did a great job, and I liked the idea of the nebula and the alien makeup and I just liked it. It's more than the sum of it's parts for me.
I'd give it * simply because I don't do the zero stars thing. But this is another episode that feels like it had a good idea behind it that just went horribly wrong in execution. There are things in it that I want to like, but don't. The time loop is the thing that annoys me most. I just...don't want to be reliving those lame scenes over and over again. The first time was bad enough...and then...ugh. The ingrediants are there for something better than this...but they never quite came to a boil.
And for the record - I like Janway / Chakotay. I'd just prefer their moments be better written...and watchable.
Janeway admitting feelings for Chakotay when she (appearently) sees him grieve and the appearance of her father after she dies – could very well be implemented in a version of the episode that
doesn't use the arbitrary
déjà vu device and the malicious alien element. I actually liked those aspects as well, because they told us something about Janeway. But the nonsensical plot elements they used to get there are absolutely unnecessary and distracting. The episode would have been better without them. In my opinion that is.
Exactly! I'm not bashing J/C peeps by not liking this episode; I am a J/C fan...so that would be pointless. I just wish such elements were in episodes that I enjoyed watching.
The best example I can give you is ask "could the Dominion war been shown as Next Gen episodes?"
TNG could have done a Dominion War story, but it would have been different from the war we saw on DS9. I could never see Picard accepting himself as Emissary and asking the Prophets to destroy a Dominion fleet, and I certainly couldn't see Picard doing what Sisko did in
In the Pale Moonlight. I can't see Riker organising a resistance movement against the Cardassian occupation, I can't see Crusher getting involved with Section 31, I can't see Wesley trying to stop Red Squad going on a suicide mission. And I can't see anybody else as Garak.
Pretty much what I was going to say in response. I'd also expand on that by saying that while Next Generation could have had a Dominion War storyline, I don't think it would have been as impressive simply because the characters on Next Generation weren't as developed as those on DS9. Besides the fact that I don't see the Enteprise (or Voyager) camping outside the wormhole for the rest of the series - but with DS9 it made sense.
I had hoped I wouldn't have to do this, but since my non-review of Coda has caused some consternation I will now rip it apart and show everybody exactly why this episode failed to earn any points.
I agreed with everything you said in this section of your review, but especially this bit:
Then we have the memorial service in the mess hall and Kim gives a speech. Oh boy...
You all know the old axiom "show, don't tell", well this episode completely ignores that. Kim tells the story about a time when he and Janeway ate some fruit together on a planet and it is really emotional and blah-blah-blah. The whole thing felt very phony and later I figured out why; not only did this scene never happen on screen, but the only time I can remember Janeway and Kim having any kind of heart-to-heart was at the end of
Emanations, and that wasn't all that personal. The fact is that Janeway and Kim do not have a great relationship and pretending that they do just doesn't work.
This is one of those 'false continuity' moments that could have been great...if there had been anything to build it on except the words of the characters in whatever episode they're talking in. This happens more than once in Voyager and it irks me to no end. Compare this funeral scene to the one in DS9's "The Visitor" in which we only hear a
fragment of what Kira has to say about Sisko yet it completely resonates with everything we've ever seen between those two characters. Maybe that's the real problem here; nothing seems real; nothing resonates with any real emotions - all the emotion here is fake. It makes this Voyager scene seem like a farce, when it should be pulling at heart strings. I'm not saying that this scene failed because we didn't see the encounter that he spoke of - I'm saying it failed because we never saw any indication that the scene he described would have happened. It's just...ugh. It hurts my head to think about it.
Blood Fever (***)
Unity (****)
I've always, always really enjoyed these episodes! They're fun. And I like that something that turns up in 'Blood Fever' comes to a head in 'Unity'. And we knew that the Borg came from the Delta Quadrant from Next Generation so I was excited to finally see some Borg episodes (at this point) - and I was just very happy with these installments. I'm not saying they're perfect - but they're just so much better than a number of episodes that aired before them (and directly after them - though I didn't know that at the time), that by comparison I felt hopeful that the series had started to right itself. 2 good episodes in a row! I remember that these episodes aired around the same time as the spectacular DS9 2 parter "In Purgatory's Shadow" / "By Inferno's Light" - and also "Star Trek: First Contact" had been released about 3 months before, and I saw it again in a dollar theater about this time - and I was just so happy to be a Star Trek fan - with everything going so well in 3 different Trek incarnations. It didn't last of course...but it was a great couple of weeks.
However, Season 3 manages to make a come back in the end, with five really good episodes, leading to the best season of Voyager.
I agree. I remember being very happy with the final episodes of Season 3, and loving MOST of Season 4. Season 4 of Voyager was the golden year of Trek for me. Season 6 of DS9 was kicking ass - and I remember thinking to myself that Voyager had finally, thankfully arrived!
This episode sucks on so many levels that I've never been able to make it through the whole thing. And I've tried several times, and will again in the near future, as something from this episode turns up in the new Voyager novel and I want to understand whats going on. Or maybe that was just an odd nightmare that I had... I'll have to double check.
Why should every episode have consequences?
Funny, you make it sound like
most of the episodes
had consequences.
There has been lots of consequences this season; Shmullus lost all his memories, Janeway's character was profoundly changed by the events in
Sacred Ground, half the crew was killed off by the macrovirus and they spent that year in the vast and dangerous Nekrit expanse. There was tonnes of consequences.
Seriously, in answer to Jaespol's question, consequences make things interesting. Consequences are what makes drama drama, otherwise it is just a series of random events. The decisions I have made in my life have all had consequences, both for good and for bad, and I have had to deal with the fall-out of messy situations which I got myself into. If I am going to have an emotional connection to the characters on this show then I have to be able to connect to them, and if their lives are absent of consequences then I have no way of making that connection.
That has been the biggest problem I have faced with season 3, I am not clicking with the characters like I managed to do sometimes during the first two seasons and as I did most of the time on DS9 or nuBSG. Without that connection I find the stories uninvolving and ultimately meaningless.
Indeed. Continuity demands consequences. Character development demands consequences. Realism (even in a fantasy based series) demands consequences.
I'm a fair man (ha!
) so I'll open it to a vote. Does everyone want me to stop with the Shmullus references?
Well it doesn't bother me, but it doesn't seem to represent the Doctor. I mean...he doesn't really have a name. Which was just another storyline that went nowhere. Calling him Shmullus doesn't bother me because I know what character you're referring to, but it's almost like you're giving the writers more credit than they are due.
Again - Sorry for the long reply. I just wanted to comment on stuff. Please continue.
