A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

[neogothboy74]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

...and the important thing to see was that the Doctor really didn't care about the way she looked...

my problem is that anyone who has truly been in love knows this to be true.

Of course they have, but the point of the story is that she had not been in love before; she'd been affected by the Phage as a child and lived her life devoid of such things - so seeing her find that was touching for me, though I'd experienced such things before myself - I was experiencing that wonder again through her performance. And I imagine it must have been touching for those that had not experenced such things before as well. That's the way art works; isn't it?

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Of course they have, but the point of the story is that she had not been in love before; she'd been affected by the Phage as a child and lived her life devoid of such things - so seeing her find that was touching for me, though I'd experienced such things before myself - I was experiencing that wonder again through her performance. And I imagine it must have been touching for those that had not experenced such things before as well. That's the way art works; isn't it?

It might have worked better for me had they not added in the faux-suspense of her trying to kill her body. I would have preferred it if she had just been mature and had a conversation with Shmullus about not wanting to go back to her body rather than taking matters into her own hands. I can understand why they did it, but it just didn't work well for me.

 

[kimc]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Deathwish (***)

I would give the episode three stars too. Not my fav, but good.

I would have gone higher - this along with "Resistance" and "Meld" are my top episodes.

As for "Lifesigns" it's the best Trek love story ever.

 

[Tachyon]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I would have given Resistance * and Meld ****½. Lifesigns was just alright for me. It had its moments, but not my fav.

 

[Lynx]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

"Lifesigns" is a good one. Some funny conversations between The Doctor, Denara Pel and Kes. Also nice to see that Denara Pel learned that The Doctor was more interested in her as a person than for her looks.

We also have the ongoing "Michael Jonas" arc which is excellent and the events in this episode leads up to the final in "Investigations".

I'll give the episode 3 points out of 5.

 

[Tachyon]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I liked Michael Jonas arc.

 

[neogothboy74]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I liked Michael Jonas arc.

I thought it was a valiant attempt. But Jeri Taylor is on record as having hated it. She liked her Treks in these little self contained installments. I liked a lot of what she wrote for the series, but I remember reading a quote by her saying that she felt this storyline proved that the series wasn't meant to do this kind of storytelling (or at least that's how it sounded) - the part I remember fairly clearly was her talking about "Lifesigns" and how they had this GEM of an episode with this little scene that didn't relate to anything else in the episode - and that bothered her a lot. This was her justification for ending the storyline all-together (and rather abruptly) when she gained control in "Basics, Part II". I don't know how successful that storyline was for the vast majority of fans, but while it didn't work for me per say, I thought that it was an interesting failure - and that in many ways, such a failure could be viewed as more enjoyable than a lot of other 'safe' successes. I would have preferred that they had continued with these kinds of stories and perfected the process, rather than dump the style all together. Voyager was a series that seemed ripe for storytelling risks, but was seldom if ever allowed to achieve it's full potential.

 

[Tachyon]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

This is the first time ever I hear about Jeri Taylor disliking this. Mucho interesante, to say the least.

I think Jonas arc worked well in the season two. During the later seasons it would have make only little sense, I think.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

As for "Lifesigns" it's the best Trek love story ever.

It is a good love story, and Trek isn't well known for its good love stories, so it was a pleasant deviation from the norm. However, my favourite Trek love story is Crossfire in DS9. The fact that Odo didn't get Kira at the end and instead chose to let her go in order to do what is best for her made for some heart-breaking scenes, and I think most people have been in a situation like that in the past so it is easy to connect to. Plus, it has my favourite Odo/Quark scene in the whole show.

I don't know how successful that storyline was for the vast majority of fans, but while it didn't work for me per say, I thought that it was an interesting failure - and that in many ways, such a failure could be viewed as more enjoyable than a lot of other 'safe' successes. I would have preferred that they had continued with these kinds of stories and perfected the process, rather than dump the style all together. Voyager was a series that seemed ripe for storytelling risks, but was seldom if ever allowed to achieve it's full potential.

Well said, it sums up how I feel about the show. The Kazon arc has been hit and miss for me but I still admire the fact that they at least attempted a proper story arc.

And that information about Jeri Taylor is very enlightening, I didn't realise that she was the one who nixed future arcs. While I can understand what she said about the Jonas scenes getting in the way of Shmullus's love story, I think that a good writer should find a way to have those scenes in an episode without them feeling out of place. By dropping the concept altogether they were admitting that they weren't good enough to manage it, at least that is how I see it.

Who was behind the Jonas arc in the first place?

 

[Lynx]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I liked Michael Jonas arc.

I thought it was a valiant attempt. But Jeri Taylor is on record as having hated it. She liked her Treks in these little self contained installments. I liked a lot of what she wrote for the series, but I remember reading a quote by her saying that she felt this storyline proved that the series wasn't meant to do this kind of storytelling (or at least that's how it sounded) - the part I remember fairly clearly was her talking about "Lifesigns" and how they had this GEM of an episode with this little scene that didn't relate to anything else in the episode - and that bothered her a lot. This was her justification for ending the storyline all-together (and rather abruptly) when she gained control in "Basics, Part II". I don't know how successful that storyline was for the vast majority of fans, but while it didn't work for me per say, I thought that it was an interesting failure - and that in many ways, such a failure could be viewed as more enjoyable than a lot of other 'safe' successes. I would have preferred that they had continued with these kinds of stories and perfected the process, rather than dump the style all together. Voyager was a series that seemed ripe for storytelling risks, but was seldom if ever allowed to achieve it's full potential.

I like some of Jeri Taylor's stories and despite a dislike for her because of her involvment in the sacking of Kes, I really enjoyed "Mosaic" and "Pathways" and I do find her a good writer.

But I strongly disagree with her in this aspect. Voyager was the show where it should have been more arcs, due to the premise of the show. The Jonas arc was actually one of the high spots of the series.

 

[Praetor]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I, too, am surprised at Jeri Taylor.

Like everyone else has said, 'Voyager' needed arcs. The whole damn show was setup as a seven-year-arc.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Investigations (*)

For an arc to be successful it needs to have a good ending. This is the reason why season 4 of Enterprise didn't work for me, while there was some great episodes that year I felt that they kept on messing up the final episode in each of the arcs. Well this episode is the end of the Jonas/Paris/Kazon arc and it is a complete clusterf#@k.

Firstly, Neelix solves the case. That's right, the chef decides to give himself a TV show and then he thinks he is a serious journalist and then he is able to solve a crime that the Vulcan with over a hundred years of experience in criminal investigations was unable to solve. Whoever had that bright idea deserves to be hit over the head with a hammer every 4 seconds for the next 28 years. Actually, make that 29 years.

Paris leaves the ship and Neelix gives a nice speech on his show about him. Great, except I know that Paris is only pretending to leave as part of a convoluted ruse which makes little sense. Janeway leaves Paris with a Talaxian convoy in the hope that the Kazon will attack and capture him. So Janeway came up with a plan which involved the Kazon attacking and potentially killing a completely innocent group of people? I'm beginning to think that all the races they have met recently are correct, Voyager is a dangerous ship that should be avoided at all costs.

There is a lot of crap in this episode which I don't need to go into, but the final confrontation involves Neelix throwing Jonas into a conveniently exposed plasma vent in a conveniently empty engine room and vapourising him, then Neelix saves the ship by pushing some buttons. Tuvok comes in and Neelix says to him:

"Well, I'm going to have plenty of material for tomorrow's Briefing With Neelix. "

YOU JUST KILLED A MAN!!! You don't spout sound-bites after being forced to do such a horrific thing, you are not Steven Segal!

Incredibly disappointing episode. If I was the suspicious type (and I am) then I would say that Jeri Taylor, the writer of this episode, purposefully ruined the ending to this arc so that she would have an excuse not to do another one. One more point: Voyager ended this episode with her warp-drive still inoperable and they weren't able to get any spare parts from the planet they were going to since it was a trap. If this isn't mentioned in the next episode I'm deducting half a star.

 

[Praetor]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Investigations (*)

For an arc to be successful it needs to have a good ending.
{snip}
Firstly, Neelix solves the case.
{snip}
YOU JUST KILLED A MAN!!! You don't spout sound-bites after being forced to do such a horrific thing, you are not Steven Segal!

Fully agreed.

Incredibly disappointing episode. If I was the suspicious type (and I am) then I would say that Jeri Taylor, the writer of this episode, purposefully ruined the ending to this arc so that she would have an excuse not to do another one.

I'm the type too, and from what's been recently revealed about her dislike of arc writing, I agree.

One more point: Voyager ended this episode with her warp-drive still inoperable and they weren't able to get any spare parts from the planet they were going to since it was a trap. If this isn't mentioned in the next episode I'm deducting half a star.

I have a psychic premonition you'll be deducting half a star, and I don't even remember what the next episode is.

 

[Robotech Master]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Hmm. Okay, I haven't seen the show in years but I remember thinking it was odd that Paris and Neelix were best buds all of a sudden.

I know they supposedly resolved their differences a couple episodes back but the whole thing felt very waifer-thin to me. They got over their childishness that easily? And what did Kes have to say about the whole thing?

In retrospect, knowing that Paris was just being an ass for a specific purpose, it makes Chakotay look like a moron too.

Shouldn't he be more pissed off that his captain didn't trust him at all? He just sits around takes all the abuse like a chump.

I think this might have been the last episode to have any real major character conflict among the main crew until Seven came along and started butting heads with people.

Investigations, like Alliances, should not have been wrapped in the space of one episode.

 

[teya]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Shouldn't he be more pissed off that his captain didn't trust him at all? He just sits around takes all the abuse like a chump.

Played for the patsy.

Season 2 was not a good one for Chakotay.

 

[Praetor]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Shouldn't he be more pissed off that his captain didn't trust him at all? He just sits around takes all the abuse like a chump.

Played for the patsy.

Season 2 was not a good one for Chakotay.

The future doesn't really bode that well for him, either...

 

[Robotech Master]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

^Was there really a good season for Chakotay? The writers didn't do a whole lot with him over seven years.

Same goes for Kim and possibly Neelix and Tuvok as well.

The first three seasons at least felt like an ensemble. Later seasons did not capture this feeling so well for me.

It was kind of funny that Seven of Nine could put the entire ship to sleep in 'One' and still run the ship perfectly. No one else was even missed.

Maybe a sly comment on what the series had become by that point?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

Picard and Bev ran the Enterprise on their own plain fine during TNG Remember Me and that ship was 8 times the size of voyager.

 

[neogothboy74]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I too was dissatisfied with 'Investigations'; the pay off didn't seem worth all the trouble. It's not a horrible episode, but for all the build up it was pretty anti-climactic - which drags the episode down quite a bit. Arc stories have that effect; they can raise a series to new heights, but they also raise the stakes. As I've said, I was intrigued by the new storytelling style and hoped for better efforts down the road. We did get some arcs in Season 4. And there were moments between episodes that worked when combined, but this was very rare - which is a shame.

The thing with Jeri Taylor (and I really wish I remembered where I read this; I used to read all kinds of Trek articles and reviews and stuff - they get stuck in my head) was a kind of rift between her and Braga. The way she described it Braga had fallen in love with more current television trends which feature these kinds of arcs that play out over multiple episodes and he wanted to bring that to Trek, while Jeri just felt that it didn't work on Trek. And she viewed this experiment as flawed, and proof that she was correct. I viewed the experiment as flawed as well but that it was also a step in the right direction. She nixed those kinds of stories for Season 3 - which I always felt was a mistake. I like a lot of what Jeri Taylor brought to Trek (I'll always be grateful to her for Next Gen's "The Outcast") but in this instance I disagreed with her.

 

[TheGodBen]

Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The way she described it Braga had fallen in love with more current television trends which feature these kinds of arcs that play out over multiple episodes and he wanted to bring that to Trek, while Jeri just felt that it didn't work on Trek. And she viewed this experiment as flawed, and proof that she was correct.

All she had to do was pay attention to the other Trek show which was on the air and she would have realised that she was wrong.

This is the problem I have with judging Braga, I get the sense that he had a lot of good ideas but by the time he started working on Voyager he was a little burned out and couldn't realise his ideas in the way he could on TNG. You can tell by the first season of Enterprise that he was gunning for more continuity on an episode by episode basis, and I also know he wanted to do a real Year of Hell all through season 4 of Voyager but the idea was shot down. I guess there is a possibility that Taylor may have been the one responsible for that epically bad decision.