Inspired by a little conversation in the How is Janeway sexy? thread, I thought I'd turn to the inhabitants and passers-by of the Voyager forum and ask straight out: How do you feel about the two-parter Equinox? Personally, I thought it was a pretty good episode. But this is about you guys.
I thought it was an attempt to show what the creators originally wanted Voyager to be like: A lost starfleet crew abandoning their morals to get home at any cost living is a deteriorating ship with limited resources. Since they weren't allowed to do this type of show they condensed it into two episodes instead. In universe, I saw the Equinox crew as kind of a mirror universe Voyager, a ship and crew in the same situation but with a captain abandoning SF principles and doing anything to get home. Janeway always put her SF principles first and chose the right way rather then the easy way. I guess the moral of the story is, "Would you sacrifice your values to survive or would you stick to them even if it meant more suffering for you?"
I liked part 1, but part 2 completely threw me off with Janeway's out of character behaviour. I was waiting for some moment where it was revealed she was under the influence of space drugs or inter-dimensional PMS, but alas it was just poor writing. Aside from that, I liked the episode, and the contrast of the two crews, and the Equinox was a great looking ship.
I'd prefer it if my 200th post weren't about this episode. But since the first post I ever posted was about Equinox it makes sense. Fifty more until I'm a Commander. I'm going to keep my mouth shut on most things and just say that when a fourteen year old knows that Janeway was way far off from where she should be and how she should be, then it has to be bad.
I didn't think Janeway's behavior was so much out of character as just a higher degree of behavior that we'd seen her exhibit previously. That being said, while I would consider what she did immoral and she should have caught herself, I'll give the writers some kudos for being willing to take her that far. I'm reminded of a D&D situation where a Paladin becomes so determined to extinguish evil that anything that's not absolutely, perfectly good -becomes- evil to them.
I think it's a huge trope in ST to make the characters "bad" because some alien's in their brain or something. It's actually a departure to make the good guys "bad" because they got pushed to the edge. These episodes, along with "Tuvix," is where a good amount of the Janeway vitriol comes from, which is the only thing that really kind of ruins them for me. (i.e., the crowd that likes to diagnose her with mental illnesses they found on Google.) Other than that, I find them fascinating. It's bad and all that Ransom and his crew were offing some green fellows for fuel, but I honestly think his worst crime was leaving a Starfleet ally to die, and capturing and torturing one of them besides. That's very messed up - and it's even worse considering that Voyager saved their asses in Part I. So it's pretty obvious why Janeway was pissed. She was probably also pissed because she saw a little bit of herself in Ransom, which the writers make quite clear by the time we hit the infamous cargo bay scene. I really, really don't think she was out to kill him ("he'll break" implied she was just trying to get him to talk) but it was emotional torture, no way around that. Ransom was doing the same thing to Seven (although with a bit more cruelty since they were using the Doc to hurt her) but the mirroring of the characters there was clear as day. I dunno. I just find the whole thing interesting. When does a quest for justice morph into something more sinister? The real bummer is not seeing more of the emotional fallout, considering how ugly things got between J and C. The final scene with J/C and the fallen plaque is great. I'm sure Tuvok was sorely hurt as well. Sidenote: Why is every time a woman pissed blamed on PMS? It reminds me of those idiotic kitschy PMS keychains/t-shirts from Spencer's Gifts.
If you're referring to me, I was most definitely joking (and as far as I'm aware, interdimensional rifts can't create the onset of PMS symptoms anyway).
I'm of the opinion that Ransom could have accused Janeway of being a criminal as easy as she did. 3 of the 4 episodes before Equinox were more than enough to strip Janeway of her command and uniform. Warhead. Prime Directive Violation. They perverted tech (an AI) into creating a conscience and stopped a single strike in a war that changed the outcome, losses and or duration of that war which Janeway had no right to involve herself in. Relativity. Temporal Displacement Policy (DS9 past tense.) (The temporal Prime Directive doesn't exist in the 24th century "sometimes".). Aiding and Abetting. Considering the future is some times full of evil assholes and it's hard to tell friend from foe and it's so easy to be used like a donkey by an evil mastermind even if they're expecting you to rebel and do the exact opposite of everything they say (Note Archer's relationship with Future Guy and Daniels.) which is why they tell you to do every the opposite of what the need you to do (Shades of princess bride no?) ...You're supposed to ignore future people, not jump through their hoops like trained seals. Juggernaut. Prime Directive Violation. The ecological disaster resulting from the destruction of that juggernaught would either force the Malon to act responsible or force a nieghbour to kick the shit out of them until they act responsible or they die, whether that be from war or choking on their garbage, but you don't reward idiots endangering the universe with second chances and higher orders of technology if inside they're still assholes without any civic sense of responsibility to take care of their own environment. This goes double for in Night when janeway tried to force recycling tech on the malon but they couldn't see the profit in not polluting. Ransom handled the situation badly, but Janeway was just as big a criminal.
Here's a great youtube about Equinox called "What I've Done" set to the Linkin Park song of that name. Fantastic lyrics for the story! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jy2xOFs7I-8&feature=related I would go rewatch Equinox so I could post freshly on it but I've a date with Rickey tonight so I better be off. (gah, just watched that youtube again, makes me tear up)
Or can they? dun dun dun Sorry, lol. I've just seen people bring it up in other Equinox threads before and I just auto-facepalm. This might be partially related to the fact that I have a friend who blames PMS for everything and makes all those dumb PMS jokes and, for some reason, it just ups my rage level to over 9000. ...Wow, when I explain it like that, I realize that's kind of a weird thing to get mad about. Carry on. EDIT: This might explain why I can't watch anything on Lifetime without wanting to toss the TV through the drywall. I shall have to ponder this.
In Warhead, they interfered by freeing the warhead in the first place, so by stopping it they were only fixing their own initial error. The blame here is on Harry for beaming it aboard. I thought that was very clear in the episode. I don't see this as a big violation on Janeway's part. This has happened in every Trek series. They make a mistake, then they have to correct it. Juggernaut is a legit breaking of the Directive. The difference here is that they helped clean up to stop the tanker from polluting an entire system. It does break the Prime Directive, but it was in the interest of saving many species from the interference of another. Voyager had no place to interfere though. As for Relativity, I prefer not to debate time travel episodes. Too many inconsistencies. There may or may not be an issue, but I'm personally willing to just give Janeway the benefit of the doubt here, as Voyager doesn't seem to acknowledge any temporal prime directive in the 24th century. She has definitely broken the Prime Directive on many many occasions, no doubt about it. The difference is that she mostly did it for the benefit of other races, sometimes even at the expense of her own crew (even if she was misguided at times). The crew of Equinox were violating the Prime Directive for nothing other than selfish personal gain, even though it was blatantly at the expense of another race. I'm not sure how bad they compare to each other in Starfleet's eyes, but morally speaking, there is no comparison between the two imo. We're talking breaking the PD by killing aliens vs breaking the PD by saving them.
The Prime Directive isn't just about the here and now. Saving a benign species now that in 500 years will turn into a despotic tyrant who murders a thousand races while building empire is a good thing or a bad thing? The Prime Directive is about limiting liability toward the UNFORSEEN for the next FOREVER.
One of many reasons they try to uphold the Prime Directive. Dragon's Teeth is a pretty good example of what you're talking about. I'm not debating whether what they did was right or wrong, I'm just saying that morally there was a big difference in why Voyager broke the Prime Directive vs why Equinox did it. I'm not saying it's ok that they broke the Prime Directive, but at least their intentions were in the right place. That was the big difference between what Janeway did, and what Captain whatshisface from the Equinox did.
I enjoyed "Equinox". It's like the writers' answer to fans saying "Voyager should be more beaten up and the crew more desperate". Also, seeing it recently, I get a bit of a Stargate Universe vibe off the Equinox crew. It's almost clean, happy, Trek sci-fi vs. gritty sci-fi. Janeway went into totally OTT single-minded vendetta mode. FWIW, when I saw it last, it was one of the women in the room who made the PMS gag and not I. I was suprised that there was no real Janeway/Chakotay follow-up. She just sent him to his room for disagreeing with her and let him out once she'd extracted her pseudo-vengeance. Chakotay: You are f--king useless. This is the episode where you became Janeway's bitch. Castrated!
My fav line from "Empty Nest" (tv sitcom 1980's) was... "That's your biggest fear? (being shot in the line of duty) Mine is there's no such thing as PMS and this is who I really am."
"Equinox" has an amazing score. The plot itself is decent, the script is passable, the Janeway Ahab thing is alright but done better in other parts of the franchise... but the music, man. No one ever talks about the music but I frelling love it. Let me put it this way: I haven't seen the two-parter since the year it came out and I can still remember the main part of its theme. Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-DUN-dun...
I thing I vividly remember was a writer or producer hyping the episode up in an interview. The odd thing was that it was the alien race being touted as the next big bad thing, and that they would be more powerful than Species 8472. Very dubious! I'm not even sure it was a writer or producer, or just some half-baked comment from some high up exec. I think they missed the point of the episode.
Noah Lessing? Meh. There was about 30 crew aboard Equinox when they met Voyager. Wittingly or not, she corralled 25 of them into an early grave. She also killed her fair share of space beasties too. And she accepted a murder for hire contract to exterminate all of the Equinox Crew in return for the safety of her own crew.
Janeway's actions in this episode alone don't bother me. Seeing her pushed to the edge is more of what I really wanted to see in the series, but we never really got it. I just wish the drabs that we did get were more consistent with her other decisions in the show's run. Now the Equinox ship, that's where the series should have gone. Certainly not as severe, otherwise you'd lose that Star Trek charm.