A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

^ I agree that the constant focus on the main characters is a mistake, but Voyager has trouble even giving some of the main characters screen time so I'm just grateful that all the characters (except Shmully who had a whole episode last week) get serviced in this episode.

As for the Maquis, I'm torn between what I wanted to see in regards to that. On the one hand a scene where Chakotay calls together all the Maquis to the mess hall and tells them the news would have been great, but I also liked the personal element of his chat with B'Elanna. More should have come of it, that is a certainty. I can imagine that many of the Maquis crew would have been outraged and would have redoubled their efforts to get home in order to join the fight against the Dominion, and that could have brought back the tension against Janeway's command decisions which should have been present in the earlier seasons. Hell, even Janeway should have had extra motivation to get back considering how badly the war was going for the Federation at that point.

 

[Frazzled]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I thought it was pretty silly that Chakotay ended up being so attentive and consoling to Janeway in the final scenes. She'd lost a fiance who she already knew was likely to have moved on, whereas he had just received the devastating news that a lot of his friends and colleagues were wiped out, and he would've been too if he hadn't been flung into the DQ.

The consoling was kinda the wrong way round, she (or someone else) should've been looking after him.

 

[jefferiestubes8]

illustrations of holographic "Capt. Proton"

I loved the black and white 'The Adventures of Captain Proton' holonovel. Janeway as Queen Arachnia was memorable.

I came across these two illustrations of
holographic "Capt. Proton" rocket and "Fortress of Doom".
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/factfiles/protons-ship-interior.jpg
http://www.ex-astris-scientia.org/gallery/factfiles/fortressofdoom.jpg

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I thought it was pretty silly that Chakotay ended up being so attentive and consoling to Janeway in the final scenes. She'd lost a fiance who she already knew was likely to have moved on, whereas he had just received the devastating news that a lot of his friends and colleagues were wiped out, and he would've been too if he hadn't been flung into the DQ.

The consoling was kinda the wrong way round, she (or someone else) should've been looking after him.

Wow, good point.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The consoling was kinda the wrong way round, she (or someone else) should've been looking after him.

I didn't think that at the time, but you're absolutely right. Why that's the sort of news which would normally send a man blowing up random planets for no reason, I'm surprised Chakotay didn't succumb to that urge.


Prey (****½)

I'm beginning to realise that Seven is bringing the sort of conflict to this show that the Maquis should have brought at the beginning. In this episode not only does she constantly question Janeway's orders, but at the end she countermands them. At first I was wary of her, but the gamble of introducing her to the show is paying off.

This is a good way to bring 8472 back into the show, and this is a great use of the Hirogen. I'm a little worried about the softening up of species 8472 because I know where that is going to lead, but in this episode it serves its purpose quite well by being a mechanism for Seven's conflict with Janeway. I'm still not sure why Chakotay refused to kill it just because it was injured, 8472 are powerful killing machines after all, and that's my biggest qualm about the episode.

There's a great sense of tension when 8472 initially enters the ship, and Voyager actually loses for once, this is a very good and entertaining episode, best of the season so far.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Prey gets three stars from me out of four.

It was a solid script by the much-maligned, and unfairly, Brannon Braga but I didn't think it was exceptional.

I remember seeing the sweeps promo showing an 8472 on the outside of the ship's hull. It definitely piqued my curiosity since I assumed that "Scorpion II" was the last we saw of them. It was definitely clever how Brannon merged the Hirogen story with 8472 in such a plausible and interesting way.

The Hirogen's single-mindedness grated a bit as the episode went on but it played well of Seven's Borg-like single-mindedness to destroy 8472. The Janeway/Seven interaction was very good. Didn't much care for Tom's quip about chasing a mouse.

The episode did a good job with the mood with the power down and gravity off and everyone in a spacesuit as they approached 8472.

 

[The Grim Ghost]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Prey is a great ep. Other than the Nazi two parter I enjoy all of the Hirogen appearances. Tony Todd turns in a nice performance in this one.

And I like earlier rebellious Seven much more than the housebroken later version.

 

[kimc]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I thought it was pretty silly that Chakotay ended up being so attentive and consoling to Janeway in the final scenes. She'd lost a fiance who she already knew was likely to have moved on, whereas he had just received the devastating news that a lot of his friends and colleagues were wiped out, and he would've been too if he hadn't been flung into the DQ.

The consoling was kinda the wrong way round, she (or someone else) should've been looking after him.

For all we know he didn't tell her at that point. She obviously knew about it in later episodes though but during "Hunters" we don't see him telling Janeway about it at all which is pretty strange considering she's supposed to be his best friend on the ship. Perhaps the Maquis just wanted to grieve their fallen comrades privately for a bit before sharing the news? Or it could have just been an oversight by the writers...

As for the letter from Mark it was obvious she was upset about it. Sure, she knew intellectually that he would have moved on but she had been in love with and engaged to the guy and emotionally it would be easy to hang onto the hope that he hadn't moved on.

 

[Jaespol]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Prey gets three stars from me out of four.

It was a solid script by the much-maligned, and unfairly, Brannon Braga but I didn't think it was exceptional.

Looking at his "contribution" as a whole, I don't really think any maligning of Braga is unfair.
"Prey" was made great by its conclusion, finally someone made a sensible and logical conclusion. This episode was a bit like the entire first season of Enterprise where the crew were acting like complete retards and T'Pol was the only one that ever had reasonable suggestions.

 

[Tachyon]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Prey gets ***½ from me. Species 8472 work well in this episode unlike In The Flesh, which is an episode I don't like very much at all.

 

[Alex1939]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

For all we know he didn't tell her at that point. She obviously knew about it in later episodes though but during "Hunters" we don't see him telling Janeway about it at all which is pretty strange considering she's supposed to be his best friend on the ship. Perhaps the Maquis just wanted to grieve their fallen comrades privately for a bit before sharing the news? Or it could have just been an oversight by the writers...

These are things that we shouldn't have to use our imagination to work around.

 

[kimc]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

For all we know he didn't tell her at that point. She obviously knew about it in later episodes though but during "Hunters" we don't see him telling Janeway about it at all which is pretty strange considering she's supposed to be his best friend on the ship. Perhaps the Maquis just wanted to grieve their fallen comrades privately for a bit before sharing the news? Or it could have just been an oversight by the writers...

These are things that we shouldn't have to use our imagination to work around.

The use of imagination never killed anyoe. The writers did not show Janeway finding out about the fate of the Maquis in the alpha quardrant. Therefore, one can IMAGINE that she somehow knew but didn't care, she didn't know, etc. Viewers choice.

 

[Tachyon]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Her finding out about the Maquis situation was obviously not relevant for the episode's storyline. But obviously she became aware of the situation at some point. I don't know why such a minor thing should be spelled out and chewed for a viewer, when it doesn't really make the story in the episode going further.

Naturally I would have liked to see a scene like that, but I can very well live without.

 

[Alex1939]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The use of imagination never killed anyoe. The writers did not show Janeway finding out about the fate of the Maquis in the alpha quardrant. Therefore, one can IMAGINE that she somehow knew but didn't care, she didn't know, etc. Viewers choice.

That's cool if it works for you.

Myself, I imagine writers that are too dumb to tell a good story. (ducks and runs)

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I think it has more to do with a lack of cojones myself.


Retrospect (***½)

I'm not normally interested in investigation episodes, it's one of the reasons why I can't be bothered with cop shows, but what I enjoyed about this episode is the fact that it focuses on Shmully and Seven's emotional reaction to a crime which has not been proven. The fact that Kovin turns out to be innocent and ends up dying because everyone was ready to judge him without trial is a dark twist, it is not something I'm used to seeing on Trek.

My biggest problem with the episode is how Seven's infraction from last week is glossed over at the beginning.

I'm ready to give her some latitude. She's been behaving herself lately.

So Seven's rehabilitation into the normal crew has happened off screen between last week's episode and this one? That completely undermines the impact of the previous episode.

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I haven't seen Retrospect in ages but I remember not caring much for it. I didn't like how it interrupted the Hirogen arc--the only lipservice we have is in relation to the crew trying to purchase weapons.

I liked the brief mention of Seven working on decrypting the coded Starfleet message and the fact that she is having trouble with it is rather interesting. Yes, a message that could possibly contain top secret information you'd want it to be difficult to crack but the fact that Seven can't do it with all of her Borg encrytpion knowledge eventually does make sense which I appreciated.

The episode itself is one of those that is just "there". It's harmless. It could have taken several more interesting turns than it did. The Doctor annoyed me in this episode with his persistence. Overall, it was pretty straightforward and average. 2.5 stars out of 4.

 

[Jaespol]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I think people are confused about the message starfleet sent...its not that its encrypted, its that its broken and incomplete due to the fact they didn't have time to get it out fully from the transmission thing. They need to find an algorithm that can fill in the gaps so to speak.
Also I did like this episode and found its conclusion very unique (much like the conclusion of "Prey") but it bothered me that the only time it showed Voyager buying new weapons, they didn't actually go ahead with the purchase...

 

[startrekwatcher]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I think people are confused about the message starfleet sent...its not that its encrypted, its that its broken and incomplete due to the fact they didn't have time to get it out fully from the transmission thing. They need to find an algorithm that can fill in the gaps so to speak.

These are lines from the episodes:

"I'm trying to decode the message Starfleet Command sent us several weeks ago,"--Seven in Retrospect

"Captain's log, Stardate 51978.2. It's been five months since we received the encoded message from the alpha quadrant. We know that the transmission was from Starfleet command but we still can't decrypt it. B'Elanna thinks it's a lost cause that too much of the data stream has been destroyed, but I haven't given up. I keep hoping inspiration will strike...Somehow."--Janeway in Hope and Fear

"We've found the treasure. I just can't pick the lock! I've tried over 50 decryption algorithms. Every time I piece together a data block, ten more come unraveled. What did Starfleet send us? A map? The location of a wormhole? If I could decode this today, Chakotay, we could be home tomorrow!"

Those all sound to me that their problem is they can't decode it to read the message. If their main problem was recovering data I think the writers would have used a term like a "retrieval algorithm". Also Arturis' gift is in linguistics and code not data recovery. A big deal was made in "Hope and Fear" of his quick grasp of language and codes.

The way that I understood how everything unfolded was that Arturis intercepted the original message back in "Hunters" or sometime before then at some point along the alien relay Voyager was using to communicate with Starfleet(This of course requires some suspension of disbelief that Arturis would know any of this). It was then that he created the false message about the Dauntless. I don't think he would have had the time in "Hope and Fear" in those few seconds to create the false message with Admiral Windbag.

He then encoded it with one of his species' complex encryptions and placed it back in the relay to where Torres grabbed it. That would be the only way that Arturis could have controlled when the message was opened in order to guarantee he would be the one on hand when it was and that the "Dauntless" was in place.

The reason Seven had such a hard time decoding it and the reason none of her codes mentioned in "Retrospect" and "Hope and Fear" failed to yield results in hindsight was because in her time as part of the Collective the Borg never assimilated Arturis' race as we learn in "Hope and Fear" and therefore hadn't asimilated their linguistic/coding skills and therefore wouldn't be able to developed a decryption algorithm to counter it:

"Have you encountered his people before?" Janeway asks Seven. "Species 1-1-6," Seven replies.

"Is that what you call us?" Arturis says "Yes," Seven says. "The Borg has never been able to assimilate them. Not yet."

At least that is what makes the most sense to me. If Arturis just sent his message and didn't take into account the damage from the data stream then he'd be thinking that the crew would get the message right away so why would the Dauntless not be nearby instead of in a system five months from where the crew was in "Hunters".

 

[Jaespol]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Let's agree to disagree and move on

 

[Destructor]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I am very interested to read this thread as I just recently made my gf watch TNG (in exchange for Buffy) and we have now gotten started on DS9. I've pretty much discounted VOY but it's interesting to see how a hater might review it many years later. It certainly was not worse than ENT.

I always loved 'Prey', and the entire Hirogen arc. My trek fandom was at it's absolute height that year, Voy S4 was amazing, DS9 season 6 was amazing, and FC just came out. Heaven.