Week 8: (Ending 11.22.98)
B5 -
The River Of Souls (Airdate 11.17.98)
DS9 -
The Siege Of AR-558 (Airdate 11.18.98)
VOY -
Timeless (Airdate 11.18.98)
B5 -
Objects At Rest (Airdate 11.18.98)
Actually, there's a bunch of conflicting dates with that B5 tele-movie, some putting it as early as Nov. 8. I'm going with the Ep. Guide website, which I've been using for all of the B5 airdates ...which puts it one day before everything else this week. How odd.
But not as odd as the fact
River Of Souls is actually set six months
after Objects At Rest is supposed to take place. Thus, just last week we watch Garibaldi make a heartfelt exit, only to turn up here, now sportin' a beard. Can you imagine if you somehow missed the bit of exposition establishing when this movie takes place? Your mind would blow upeth!
As for the movie itself, it's actually pretty good. While there's undoubtedly some out there that weren't all that keen on seeing the Soul Hunters again (hi, Godben!), it doesn't get too bogged down in the 'whats' and 'hows' regarding the nature of 'souls' here; rather, it's an examination of whether what the Soul Hunters are doing is actually any good. They may have a noble intent, but their practices definitely leave a lot to be desired. It's a good sci-fi quandary, and handled quite nicely here. Shame the climax of this movie is kind of drab, and even a bit cliche. Plus, the whole holo-brothel thing seems like a blatant rip on Trek's own holodecks; after all, the first thing anyone's gonna use such technology for is pr0n.
Overall, it's a stronger outing than B5's regular episode for the week. As has been the case with the past few weeks, it doesn't seem like much really happens here. Actually, that's far from the case, as all these people moving on
is a big deal when you think about it; however, everyone is leaving the station quietly and without much fanfare (well, except G'Kar), which is probably how it would be in real life. It's not like they're forever disappearing - just simply moving on with their lives. And because these are such subtle departures, there's stronger emotional resonance to these scenes, especially so if you've been watching the show since the beginning - it gives you a chance to reflect on all the events these people went through during their time on B5 ...even making you want to start watching the series all over again!
Oh, and there's some tagged on thing involving Lennier making a Bad Decision. While I don't necessarily see it as character assassination, the trouble with him running off like that is there's been no proper build-up to him making such a decision in the first place. Yeah, there's been tension between him and Sheriden for most of this season, but nothing to hint he'd turn on him just like that. It's a scene that comes far too out of the blue and nearly derails what has been an otherwise pleasant little episode.
Ah well. Lennier runs off, then somehow gets caught in a spatial rift while in hyperspace. As he's flung into a parallel universe, he's amazingly turned into a human and suddenly working on hacking into a relay station built by something called The Dominion, but currently held by a group known as The Federation, of which each are at war against the other. Quickly, he becomes fluent in technobabble and blends right in with the rest of the officers stationed there. He should have stayed on the White Star though, as he's killed while holding the relay station against an attack. All that Ranger training just wasn't enough to prepare him for this bizarre turn of events.
As for all the other people at this station, they're really put through their paces. This is some gritty stuff, at least for Trek. The last thing DS9 wants to do is glamorize war, which it was a bit in danger of doing so with so many gosh-darn gee-whiz amazing SFX space-battles thus far. Time to get in the dirt and put a proper face to all these people that are dying in the war effort. This is one of those rare episodes where you feel every loss of life, where no death is glamorized nor easily dismissed. Death comes quickly, unexpected, and inexplicably senselessly. Couple that with a rare emotional theme in the score, and yes, you do have a winner here folks, beating out both B5 efforts.
What about VOY then? Well, it looks like Doc has his Mobile Emitter back with no explanation so that automatically knocks 10 points off this episode. Oh, wait, I'm not actually giving scores here. Never mind then. Guess I'll just assume it was a time paradox thing. Lord knows this episode's got a lot of 'em.
Still,
Timeless comes through in the raw emotion department, and surprisingly courtesy of Harry Kim! To be honest, given this episode's reputation, I was kind of perplexed for a while how it had gained it. Yeah, seeing a frozen-over
Voyager was neat to see, and the alternate future involving Kim and Chakotay as the lone survivors was all kinds of fascinating to me - I could seriously imagine a spin-off mini-series involving them being full of great story potential (hmm... maybe I should brave the realms of VOY fanfiction to find some). But nay, this is mostly about Harry's obsession in trying to fix what he did wrong, which brings up endless amounts of moralistic quandary that, unfortunately, doesn't get enough due attention; instead,
Timeless gets a bit bogged down in moving plot, since there is so much of it to deal with here. All well and good, but I'm more interested in the character moments, and
that's where this episodes does come through - surprisingly enough, a great deal of it during the climax! Go on, admit it: you wanted to leap up just as much as Old Kim did when he shouted his last word, "YES!!!" Chalk that up to good directing on Captain LaForge's part.
Ooohhhhh, what to decide. Ah, DS9. VOY was very good too, but there's a slight problem when I'm actually more interested in the adventures of Rogue Kim & Chakotay than seeing the regular VOY crew carry on as usual. Agree to disagree to your heart's content.
Weekly Winner
DS9
Next:
DS9 -
Covenant
VOY -
Infinite Regress
B5 -
Sleeping In The Light
