Another Voyager 1st-time watch thread

[TheGodBen]

I'm really sad that we lost Seska. What a great villain! And with an escape pod at the ready, she could have kept being a thorn in the side of Voyager, with an even bigger incentive for hating them.

Originally, Seska was going to survive, and that baby really was going to be Chakotay's. But Jeri Taylor didn't like the Kazon, and since she was about to take over as head writer, she edited the script in order to kill off the Kazon arc once and for all. So, that's the last time that Voyager encounters the Kazon, although they do reappear a couple more times in imaginative ways.

 

[vas2009]

^^^ I didn't know that.

Martha Hackett said that she was dissapointed with the way Seska died. She would have prefered Janeway or Chakotay to of had it out with her for a final scene. I agree with her.

Seska was a great villian but I think it would have been to "soapish" if the baby was Chakotay's.

 

[vas2009]

OK, we're on to...."Basics, Part II"

Good recap to start off.

Bad command decision by Neelix to have a guy gather a bunch of bones right in front of a cave. From the start, this didn't look good. RIP Hogan.

Although he should have had a different name. Someone yelling, "HOOGAAAN!" makes me think of Werner Klemperer. To me he'll always be, "the guy who kind of looks like Scott Thompson from The Kids in the Hall."


I think this was the first time I've ever seen a major baddie start breastfeeding, which was a great touch, and a real inspiration to young parents: your evil schemes don't have to end just because you're changing diapers.

 

[T.D. Possum]

But hey, she's the captain, she gets to pick her squad.

Exactly. Since this is a situation they probably don't train for, I see her keeping Torres and Chakotay close by as her way of keeping her brain trust near her.

Look, someone has to say it, so please forgive me, J'Rulz. Ahem. If Janeway wanted to keep her brain trust near her, why did she invite Chakotay? Ouch! Yes, that was cold. Bad AMG.

OK, we're on to...."Basics, Part II"
Someone yelling, "HOOGAAAN!" makes me think of Werner Klemperer.

This never crossed my mind before, but now it will on all subsequent viewings.

I really dug Tuvok's archery instructor background. He's become my favorite character. Funny interaction between him & Chakotay about bows and arrows.

Yes! If you did not mention that, I was going to point it out. Love that scene.

It's like one character constantly referring to her "European heritage" and mixing up things from Denmark, Greece, and Portugal.

Edit: I originally offered my opinion of this statement, and refered to the episode "Tattoo", which you'll be watching soon, but then I realized I was adding bias to your fresh approach. Comments deleted for now. I look forward to hearing your opinions on Chak's heritage after you see Tattoo. Till then, I'll shut up.

I think this was the first time I've ever seen a major baddie start breastfeeding, which was a great touch, and a real inspiration to young parents: your evil schemes don't have to end just because you're changing diapers.

Yes, that's the code I try to live by.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

Yes, that was cold. Bad AMG.

Bad AMG!

 

[kimc]

I really dug Tuvok's archery instructor background. He's become my favorite character.

That's because our Tuvie rocks.

 

[Shatnertage]

Just as I discover that Tuvok's my favorite character, I get a Tuvok episode to watch. It's great how these things work out. Last night's episode was..

"Flashback"

It was a real surprise to see Grace Lee Whitney's name in the opening credits, especially because we both met her at the Vegas convention 2 weeks ago. Then to see Takei as well...this is good.

At the close of the tease, I was sure that Neelix's orange juice was to blame. Why else make such a big deal out of it? Oh well, it was a nice touch.

Was Paris in this episode? I don't remember seeing him.

OK, Tuvok's playing with blocks. Me: "Oh wow, it's Jenga!" More somber colors might have made it look less like playing with blocks. And it reminded me of Data and that kind who wanted to be like Data.

Even when Tuvok's having an awful day, he keeps that sense of humor. I'm paraphrasing, but this was a great exchange:
Chipotle: "Just relax and get back to normal."
Tuvok: "Not so easy when you've got a neuro-sensor beeping in your ear."

Neat seeing the Excelsior. Captain Sulu is right where he belongs. That voice! How could you not find it simultaneously authoritative and soothing?

Is Commander Rand his 1st officer? Why is she still doing yeoman stuff like carrying around a clipboard and delivering mail?

Nice reference to the original show with, "it took me three years to make ensign."

I'm still not sure exactly why knocking out a senior officer and removing her clothes was the most unobtrusive way for Janeway to blend in with the memories.

I think I jumped back a little when Sulu said, "What are you doing here?"

It's been a while since I've seen TUC, so I'm not sure how well this ties in with the beloved canon, but it made sense to me, and it would make sense to someone who hasn't seen the movie.

Is the resolution a plot twist or cop-out? I don't know. I suggest "cop-out" because it seems to take what could have been a personal story and turns it into technobabble, which is defeated by more technobabble.

Funny that the most traumatic memory imaginable isn't something bad happening to you, but to someone else.

Overall, it was good to see the Excelsior, Rand, and Sulu. I could have done without the notion that bad memories cause brain damage in Vulcans. I guess they wanted to raise the stakes, and they needed a ticking clock.

For the flashback itself, I'd have preferred to see something more like "Carbon Creek," where the flashback is narrated from the present without going into medical-babble. As a matter of fact, I've got an idea about how I'd have told a similar story. Since this is coming right after the death of Lon Suder in "Basics, Part II," why not have Tuvok simply muse about the first time he faced death as a Starfleet officer. He just tells the story to Janeway after Suder's funeral. No false memory engrams needed. I'd change around the Excelsior scenes to make them more dramatic--maybe the dead guy has a "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" decision to make. To me, "thoughtful officer muses on death after mourning colleague" is more compelling than "memory virus beaten by thoron radiation," but that's just me.

Still, we got a lot of Tuvok and Janeway, plus two characters from TOS, so it's a win in my book.

 

[TMara]

I really dug Tuvok's archery instructor background. He's become my favorite character.

That's because our Tuvie rocks.

In a major way, too

 

[JanewayRulz!]

"You never made me tea."

 

[Shatnertage]

"You never made me tea."

That was another hilarious moment.

 

[Shatnertage]

OK, a new week, a new slate of episodes. We're up to...

"The Chute"

This one seemed like pretty much standard Jailbreak Trek. My first impression was that if I were to go to prison, I'd want Paris along for the ride--he seemed to be able to handle himself pretty well.

This one was like VOY meets OZ. All they needed was Paris burning a Starfleet delta into Kim's ass.

There's not a lot else going on here, unless I missed something. My wife's comment: "Yeah, it's missing something." It didn't have that extra dimension that episodes like "Tuvix" and "Meld" do.

I like how Neelix's ship was basically one corner with blinky lights and a CGI model. Pretty cost-effective stuff there.

Another neat touch--before the revelation that the prison's in space, there's no ambient rumbly ship noise. Afterwards, there is an ambient rumbly ship noise. So is it really there all the time and Kim doesn't notice until he learns they're in space, or is it not there at all, and this is just an impressionistic touch that lets us know that Kim knows he's in space now. I thought it was an interesting decision.

I'm not so sure about the ethics of this one--they liberated their people from a prison run by a planet whose criminal justice system they knew to be unjust, but didn't free anyone else?

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any idea of how many episodes of Jailbreak Trek we've seen across the series? Someone in another forum crunched the numbers for time travel episodes a while back. I remember seeing quite a few of these in ENT, a few in TNG, and a few in DS9, too.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

They "knew" their people were innocent, but they didn't "know" who else was, so unless they were ready to keep them on Voyager for the next 70 years, they couldn't release them.

 

[Shatnertage]

Okay, up with another episode...
"The Swarm"
The DVR info says the Doctor loses his memory.

Great holodeck tease, even though I usually don't like holodeck stuff ("Hollow Pursuits" is a major exception). Picardo sure can sing, can't he?

I was a little let down by this episode. It seems to be heavy on the technobabble, like cascading memory failures, though there's some good, old-fashioned dilemma-pondering, too.

The B plot, of the tick-like ships, didn't do that much for me either.


It was nice to see Dr. Zimmerman, though (or at least his holo-image). I like how Picardo played him.

A technobabble solution (overlaying the diagnostic holo-matrix) again doesn't seem that exciting.

At the end, the Doctor doesn't remember anything...or does he? I guess I'll find out.

 

[Destructor]

This one seemed like pretty much standard Jailbreak Trek.

I'm going to put my hand up to disagree with the assessment. 'The Chute' is now and forever will be one of my favourite episodes of Voyager and Trek in general. It's perfectly paced and the dialogue is, at times, extremely well written:

"It came to me as though a fireball had exploded in my mind."

The moment where Kim is driven to the edge and beats on Paris was extremely effective. I thought it was thoughtful, the revelation of the prison's location and control systems was clever and timely. It's never boring. The image of Janeway sliding out of the chute and phasering everyone is classic. It's just a great ride and I never tire of it.

 

[JanewayRulz!]

At the end, the Doctor doesn't remember anything...or does he? I

Well, he still knows how to sing.

This ep is actually referred to again by the EMH in season 3's (?) "Future's End".

I liked this ep quite a lot, more for the crew interactions than anything else.

For example....

JANEWAY: When I was in high school I snuck out of the house a couple of times late at night. Had to tiptoe past my parents bedroom. That's kind of how I feel right now.
PARIS: You sneaked out of your house? Where were you going?
JANEWAY: I'll have to leave that to your imagination, Lieutenant.
PARIS: Can I take a few guesses?

 

[T.D. Possum]

The Swarm! That was such a cool and scary idea for an alien attack. I wish it had been a two part episode, or an episode without another significant plot going on, so there could have been more development of the aliens and more struggling and drama before the butt kicking.

And we get to see Tuvok admitting surprise at Janeway's non-Starfleet behavior, which is a special moment.

But my favorite part of this episode is the scene in Sickbay, when Torres is explaining how she can 'reimage' the Doctor. And the Doc says: "I can't say I'd like to lose the last two years, but my primary responsibility is the health and welfare of this crew. In my current state I am useless to them. I believe Lieutenant Torres should start the re-initialisation process immediately." There were several Doctor-episodes later in the series where he comes across as a selfish pig, so this is a nice little scene to remember.

 

[TheGodBen]

At the end, the Doctor doesn't remember anything...or does he? I guess I'll find out.

He does. There's a throwaway line about it in an episode coming up soon, but you might miss it if you're not paying attention. Other than that, there's no reference to him not remembering the first two years.

I'm torn on the issue. On the one hand, I like Shmullus and don't like the idea of him being reset, but on the other hand, what's the point of resetting him and then continuing as normal?

 

[Shatnertage]

One thing I forgot to mention that I liked about "The Swarm" was that Kes got some good lines. I like how she was able to back Janeway off of reimaging the Doc right off the bat.

I can appreciate that others liked "The Chute" more than I did.

"Shmullus" sounds like a mild Yiddish obscenity to me. FWIW.

Okay, it's time for the next episode...

"False Profits"

Oh boy, a sequel to that TNG episode where the Ferengi get stuck on the wrong side of a wormhole. Because that was a story that needed some resolution. Screw the neural parasites from "Conspiracy," this was a cliffhanger that we needed resolved!

Well, I'm going to apologize in advance if you like this episode, because I am going to say some things about it that are a bit unkind because I really didn't like "False Profits."

Generally, I watch Trek to unwind a bit, enjoy some action, and every now and then be made to think. I'd like to think I'm a pretty forgiving viewer-- read some of my other posts, and you'll see that I've posted spirited defenses of episodes like "Sub Rosa" and "Haven." Over in the ENT forum, I just said a few modest words in defense of "A Night in Sickbay." So it's not like I'm incredibly picky about what I like and don't like. And I love Comedy Trek, a lot of time more than Dramatic Trek. Some of my favorite all-time episodes include TOS "The Trouble with Tribbles" & "Spock's Brain," TNG "Hollow Pursuits," and ENT "Singularity." When they do comedy right, it's great.

But "False Profits" just felt supremely uninspired to me. It really boiled down the Ferengi to one-note character ("they're greedy!") and seemed to be mostly about sending up religion and capitalism in the broadest, least nuanced way possible. I'd consider it about high school-level writing: smart enough to have absorbed enough information to spit out caricatures, not experienced enough to see behind the facade.

So the episode felt, to me at least, a lot less "smart" than it could have been. They could have taken it in much more interesting directions: what if the Ferengi influence led to an increase in the planet's standard of living? Would the Federation still be eager to correct the "mistake?" What if the Ferengi "went native" and decided that whatever the people on that planet were into (like making sandals?) was more important than profits?

Or really, anything besides just cranking the volume up to 11 on every one-dimensional character.

It just bugs that, on a show that's supposed to be about looking at other people's perspectives, this is the best they could do.

Even if you kept it as a comedy, you could go in another direction. The sandal-maker thing made me think of Douglas Adams' "shoe event horizon" bit--maybe a loving "homage" to DA would work, where the Ferengi corner the market on shoes and tank the planet's economy to the extent that, just to make things right, Voyager has to buy up all the shoes.

Well, I'm not dispirited--I'm looking forward to some more episodes this week.

 

[kimc]

False Profits is one I always skip when I'm re-watching.

 

[You_Will_Fail]

"False Profits" is simply awful, not even remotely funny. At least you've got a superb episode coming up next.