Course: Oblivion made me cry. 
Demon Planet is one of the worst of Voyager
- Thread starter DarthTom
- Start date
Would not say it was the worst show. Would say the ending of the show was bad. The demon Voyager race too meet up with the real Voyager. The demon Voyager is destroyed. The real Voyager comes onto the destroyed ship, oh they say a ship destroyed in space. Oh, nothing we can do lets find a way home. What a sad ending.
Unfortunately for me, I don't really like this episode.
One; it made the VOY crew look like fools from the get-go. They're stranded in the Delta Quadrant and they know they are starting to run low on fuel, and yet they wait until they're almost out before turning off the lights and closing down the holodeck? That's like waiting until you're in the middle of nowhere, running on fumes before starting to look like a gas station.
Two; the characterization was off for me. After 4 years, Harry suddenly decides to become assertive? That's fine and dandy, and it's good to see the writers want to change him, but unfortunately it wasn't done in a very convincing way for me. Also, Tuvok came across as a complete jerk towards Neelix. I know he doesn't like the guy, but I thought he was an arrogant ass.
Three; As already said, what gives with the spacesuit business? Not only that, but if the planet's atmosphere is so dangerous, how come the shuttlecraft doors were left open and the furnite inside was fine? Wouldn't the chairs have burned up? Wouldn't the instruments have melted? Plus, the spacesuit business. Who knows how long it was before Chakotay's team found Tom and Harry, but they should've been toast. Apparently a magical-never-before-heard-of-even-though-there-have-been-circumstances-where-we-have-needed-it-backup-life-support-system also has protective qualities against the 12K atmosphere. Why not just start with that air supply since it seems to have been invincible to the climate?
I'm sorry, but I know there are 26 45-minute episodes to be produced every season, but that's why you have a writing staff that doesn't have to worry about post-production and is paid to worry about plotting and characterization and making sure that the stories don't violate their own rules. And that season, writer Kenneth Biller only wrote three episodes: Nemesis, Random Thoughts, and Demon. And it was seven months between Random Thoughts and Demon, so Mr. Biller had time to check his work, regardless of whatever other responsibilities he might have. If he doesn't have the time to fulfill his responsibilities has a producer while still proofing his own work, he should leave the writing to someone who does have the time. I found this to be not so much an example of poor writing, but of lazy writing.
And before I end my rant, let's not forget the implications of allowing the entire crew to be duplicated, especially when you know that it's more than just physically, but apparently mentally. That's a major security risk, because God knows what information they have. And (according to the follow-up) to allow the technology to be duplicated as well? Holy crap! What was Janeway thinking?
End of rant. Thank you. Have a nice day.
One; it made the VOY crew look like fools from the get-go. They're stranded in the Delta Quadrant and they know they are starting to run low on fuel, and yet they wait until they're almost out before turning off the lights and closing down the holodeck? That's like waiting until you're in the middle of nowhere, running on fumes before starting to look like a gas station.
Two; the characterization was off for me. After 4 years, Harry suddenly decides to become assertive? That's fine and dandy, and it's good to see the writers want to change him, but unfortunately it wasn't done in a very convincing way for me. Also, Tuvok came across as a complete jerk towards Neelix. I know he doesn't like the guy, but I thought he was an arrogant ass.
Three; As already said, what gives with the spacesuit business? Not only that, but if the planet's atmosphere is so dangerous, how come the shuttlecraft doors were left open and the furnite inside was fine? Wouldn't the chairs have burned up? Wouldn't the instruments have melted? Plus, the spacesuit business. Who knows how long it was before Chakotay's team found Tom and Harry, but they should've been toast. Apparently a magical-never-before-heard-of-even-though-there-have-been-circumstances-where-we-have-needed-it-backup-life-support-system also has protective qualities against the 12K atmosphere. Why not just start with that air supply since it seems to have been invincible to the climate?
I'm sorry, but I know there are 26 45-minute episodes to be produced every season, but that's why you have a writing staff that doesn't have to worry about post-production and is paid to worry about plotting and characterization and making sure that the stories don't violate their own rules. And that season, writer Kenneth Biller only wrote three episodes: Nemesis, Random Thoughts, and Demon. And it was seven months between Random Thoughts and Demon, so Mr. Biller had time to check his work, regardless of whatever other responsibilities he might have. If he doesn't have the time to fulfill his responsibilities has a producer while still proofing his own work, he should leave the writing to someone who does have the time. I found this to be not so much an example of poor writing, but of lazy writing.
And before I end my rant, let's not forget the implications of allowing the entire crew to be duplicated, especially when you know that it's more than just physically, but apparently mentally. That's a major security risk, because God knows what information they have. And (according to the follow-up) to allow the technology to be duplicated as well? Holy crap! What was Janeway thinking?
End of rant. Thank you. Have a nice day.
That is pretty much it's only redeeming quality.
Then again, perhaps they always operated in that fashion? Perhaps there was no other choice but to hope that there'd be a gas station around the next bend - and for this once, there wasn't?
The ship could have been flying on fumes for the past three years, never managing to quite fill up anywhere. Voyager might well have had a maximum endurance of six months without refill at a properly equipped deuterium distillery, the ramscoops never providing complete relief but rather just prolonging the agony. After all, we technoheads have always argued that ramscoops would not work well in real life, there being too little gas out in the vacuum of space. For all we know, there's too little deuterium in ordinary seawater, too - the only credible source for starship fuel could indeed be an artificial refinery, or this exotic "natural" equivalent down on that planet.
Let's also remember that the presence of liquid deuterium comes as a complete shock to our heroes, who were merely expecting to find "pockets of concentrated deuterium", no doubt in gaseous form. So the science isn't all screwy - not until the alien lifeforms of the week start screwing with it. And IMHO that isn't a cheat, that's a valid plot twist.
Sometimes these relationships flip-flop in unpredictable and unrealistic ways, given that there's a whole bunch of writers playing with a limited number of characters. But certainly Kim was especially bad in this particular episode.
It could have been turned into a character trait, you know. Like LaForge being just plain weird and into bad jokes, or Sulu never managing to hold on to a hobby. And if I were Kim, I probably would indeed start go bipolar after all those years as the underappreciated Eternal Ensign.
Not to try and pretend that this was good writing - but it is a hobby of mine to try and pretend that even bad writing makes some sense in Trek. So let's see...
The shuttles do come with air-holding forcefields. And improved forcefields is what allowed them to land in the first place, not improved durability of the shuttlecraft hull. So that shouldn't be much of a problem: they had the forcefields up, and once that was taken care of, the position of the door made no difference. Better leave it open for quick return in case something went wrong.
Well, Tom and Harry originally think it impossible that their suit seals could be going that fast. But when Seven and Chakotay arrive, Seven says it's "unlikely" the suits could have held, while Chakotay is more optimistic. So it seems that the suits could have held - otherwise Seven would be dead certain, not just doubtful. She's the ship's appointed pessimist, and she doesn't mince words if she thinks there is no hope.
That's not quite stated in the episode. What is seen and stated is that, contrary to the reports of the false Tom and Harry, the real pair is still bottled up in seemingly intact spacesuits, not having been exposed to the atmosphere. The backup systems in the suits are not credited with keeping the atmosphere out, they are credited with "keeping their vitals going".
So we could well surmise that the 500K atmosphere did not corrode spacesuits as quickly as some pessimists like Seven feared (the protection offered by the caves could have had something to do with that, too - the pools did read at this comfortable outer-spacey 12K somehow, removing one major environmental threat from the equation). Instead, the lifeforms on the planet could have attacked Harry and Kim without harming the suits - especially when we remember that Harry and Kim were adamant that the seals could not be failing them yet. Instead of a real corrosive seal failure, what our heroes experienced could have been an attack where the seals were opened for entry and then closed again, by a hostile and intelligent force.
We don't give nearly enough credit to these mimics anyway. "Demon" portrays them as stupid pooly-gooey things whose first contact with anything was with Tom and Harry. But "Course: Oblivion" offers an interesting counterpoint, establishing that the creatures rapidly forget their former life when adopting a new one. So there's no telling that the pools of goo couldn't have hitchhiked onto that planet aboard another starship, having mastered the infiltration trick during their long and eventful (if poorly remembered) lives. No wonder they were so terminally bored on that planet, with all the past excitement nagging on their subconscious!
Timo Saloniemi
In contrast, when the Hansens in "Dark Frontier" discuss running out of gas, the wife specifically tells the husband that they should look for dilithium.
Sure, deuterium is "fuel" and dilithium is at best "lubrication" or perhaps "spark plugs" in the way the onscreen and offscreen technobabble analogy between starships and automobiles is set up. In that sense, "Demon" dialogue and terminology is better. But otherwise it would indeed make more sense if dilithium were the major consumable that is difficult to obtain.
Timo Saloniemi
I liked both of the episodes involving the Demon people. Especially Course: Oblivion. Upon first viewing it I just remember being shocked when their log buoy was destroyed, and with it any trace of their existence. I always figured the duplicate Voyager was doomed but the buoy would make it to the real Voyager.
Didn't the writers consider a crossover with DS9 in which the copies arrived at Deep Space 9? That would have been fantastic! Does anyone have a source for that?
I think it was supposed to be a Voyager episode with the DS9 characters.
how do we know....that we weren't watching the copied version of voyager fron the demon episode to the course oblivion episode?....we could have been watching the clones the whole time and the real voyager was just floating round in space doing nothing much bored out of the minds....hehe
sorry just thoguht i'd throw that in
sorry just thoguht i'd throw that in
^
Well, if I'm rememberin' correctly, the liquid crew mentioned stuff that wasn't seen at any point in the series. Now, sure, that happens all the time, but it was cool sounded stuff, so I'm thinkin' that 'Demon' & 'Course: Oblivion' were the only episodes where we saw the liquids.
Well, if I'm rememberin' correctly, the liquid crew mentioned stuff that wasn't seen at any point in the series. Now, sure, that happens all the time, but it was cool sounded stuff, so I'm thinkin' that 'Demon' & 'Course: Oblivion' were the only episodes where we saw the liquids.
I'm still convinced the spacesuit was a screw up when they dropped the frozen in 12K pool that grabbed them. Besides the episode is about Janeway letting them live.
But the idea that Voyager should have loaded up on deuterium is just wrong. It's like saying that a car crossing a desert should load up on oxygen.
But the idea that Voyager should have loaded up on deuterium is just wrong. It's like saying that a car crossing a desert should load up on oxygen.
Fully agreed. But that doesn't necessarily mean it didn't happen - the pool could have grabbed, cooled down and protected them (and attempted to do that to Seven), without there being any flashy VFX to that effect.
Most of the fancy, poorly understood physical phenomena of today are not optically visible, or else they would have been studied more already... I for one would welcome a Trek spatiotemporal tri-isophasic anomaly that looks exactly like nothing.
Not necessarily. Space isn't full of deuterium the way Earth's deserts are full of oxygen. And starships would seem to consume ginormous amounts of it, if they operate by annihilating the stuff (with antideuterium they have first created with energy obtained from deuterium-deuterium fusion). The only plausible means of obtaining deuterium for a ship short of the fuel could well be sucking it up pre-enriched.
...Much like it would be plausible for our intrepid desert explorers to consume atmospheric oxygen, or even burn it into water, but not very plausible for them to use the energy from the burning to liberate more oxygen from the sand. Having or not having the stuff is not the issue; having it in a form that is of use is the key.
Timo Saloniemi
Of course, if deuterium is anything like the real-world deuterium, any planet and a good number of moons should have enough deuterium to keep them going indefinitely. They'd have saved a lot of trouble if the ship had run out of dilithium, since that doesn't have any actual physical properties we can count against it.
