Faranight watches Voyager

[Faranight]

Yes, it's another one of those episode review threads :P
I know there is one allready going on, so maybe there isn't room for one more, but as I'm writing my reviews for another forum I might as well post them here too.

I've watched Voyager once before (allthough for some reason I missed the last season) a few years back, so I remember some stuff, but not much of the details :P

I'm watching Star Trek in chronological order and am now at the point where DS9 and Voyager are simultaneous, so I have a similar thread in the DS9-forum. I watch one or two episodes per day, so that makes it an episode every one or two days per series.

Feel free to comment and discuss if you want.

Here we go then.

S01E01-02 - Caretaker part I and II

The newly commissioned starship Voyager and a Maquis raider are flung into the remote Delta Quadrant by a powerful entity known as the Caretaker.

The story in brief is that the U.S.S Voyager and a (terrorist) Maquis raider both get transported 70 000 lightyears to the delta quadrant on the other side of the galaxy by the so called Caretaker. The caretaker, we learn, is a being from another galaxy who accidentally destroyed the atmosphere of a planet, and is now repaying his debt by sustaining the people who live underground with energy. While doing this he is searching the galaxy for species that might be genetically compatible with him to produce an offspring that can take over his task as he is dying. As the federation and Maquis personel are probed one of each crew, Harry Kim and B'Ellana Torres, develop an illness and are successively transported by the caretaker to the planet for care. This leads the two crews to a search for them which results in their learning about the planets and caretakers history.
While the two crews try to settle their internal differences they at the same time are threatened by the Kazons who want control of the caretaker and the planet. This conflict results in Janeway destroying the late caretaker rather than letting the Kazons control his power. Unfortunatelly this also means Voyager loses their possibility to get transported back home.


The Voyager pilot is probably my favorite Star Trek pilot so far, even though it too could be better in my opinion. It does what it is supposed to – we get a good background story and good character introductions, but it's done a bit too fast and with some questions left unanswered. Of course there were time constraints limiting what could be done, but I would really have liked a bit more of a discussion about the caretaker. Why does, for example, such an apparently moral being justify kidnapping crews from all over the galaxy? And if he has that kind of technology, wouldn't he be able to just conduct his genetic tests remotely without the need to bring whole ships in wasting valuable energy? Where did the disease Harry and B'Ellana contracted come from?


It's a bit hard to comment on the crew in the episode as I remember them from my last viewing. I did, as probably most, find a lack of potentially interesting Starfleet – Maquis hostility. Granted they are “in the same boat” and all, but the “all is forgiven” attitude was a bit of a disappointment. I hope we get too see a bit more conflict in the following episodes.
I would for example have liked to see Chakotay's appointment as first officer postponed to the next episode. Doing it fast like in this episode with no discussion feels a bit like if Nato would have given the Afghani vice-presidential post to a taliban :P.


The Voyager itself was quite a lot smaller than I remembered it – but I guess that doesn't matter as it stills as armed and though as I recalled :P. The internals feel nice and more modern than that of TOS and TNG. It also seems to be easily repaired as it obtained quite a lot of damage in this episode but warping homeward in the end with no problem.


Oh well, all in all it was a nice pilot episode which served to get this nice series going. I look forward to the rest.


S01E03 - Parallax

Investigating an apparent distress call, Voyager becomes trapped inside the event horizon of a quantum singularity.

An episode with a lot of TNG feeling, which is quite nice as I'm watching DS9 simultaneously. Having a few “forehead/anomaly of the week” episodes of Voyager will balance the more dark and story driven episodes of DS9 well.

This episode was of course a quite important character development episode – with B'Ellana in focus. After initial attempts by Chakotay to talk Janeway into assigning the chief engineer post to B'Ellana, the Voyager is trapped in a quantum singularity putting B'Ellanas skills to the test as they try to get out. (Interestingly enough Janeway seems to figure out pretty much the same theories as B'Ellana … maybe she is a weekend engineer :P). After B'Ellanas work gets Voyager free she is awarded the chief engineer post.

I'm not very happy with the science aspect of this episode though. Janeway pretty much just explains away one of the fundamentals of physics – namely that of causality (cause comes before effect, not the other way around). In the episode Voyager responds to a distress call from their future self and get trapped. What we get is a circular order of events …
Oh well, this kind of story is not unusual in Star Trek and TV/movies in general, and it does give interesting plots, so I guess it is still acceptable :P
Neelix is also in charge of explaining what an Event Horizon is to Kes (and the viewers). Too bad for her, and us, he gets it wrong. Maybe it is to show that Neelix is no scientist or maybe the science consultant was on holidays during the time of writing :P

All in all, a good character development episode but a bad science episode.

 

[Faranight]

S01E04 - Time and Again

While investigating a massive explosion that destroyed all life on a planet, Janeway and Paris are swept back a day in time, where they must prevent the explosion.

An episode that was, although different, still surprisingly similar to the previous one. Here also the story is about an accident which the crew investigates, only to find out it's their own investigation that causes the accident in the first place. It's not too common to have the same basic problem in two subsequent episodes

This episode is not as much of a character development-episode, but we still get to find out some stuff about Kes. Allthough we don't get any specifics, we learn that she has some remarkable ability to telepathically communicate (in some sense) even back in time.
Janeway also continues to show that she is quite a technically and scientifically competent captain.

I must say the people on the planet must have some of the ugliest clothes in all of Trek. (Pic)

Overall a quite enjoyable episode, but felt a bit like a theme-repetition. Maybe they should have waited a bit with this ep and had it later in the series.

 

[Faranight]

S01E05 - Phage

Neelix's lungs are removed by a race that suffers from a deadly phage that is slowly destroying their population.

A somewhat more dark and uncomfortable (for a lack of better words) episode. The uncomfortable feeling might, however, have something to do with me having a bit of a stomach ache and thinking about what it would feel like having my organs transported out. :P

We get to see a new alien race, the Vidiians, who suffer from a disease resulting in organ failure, which subsequently means that these aliens have to "kidnap" organs from others in order to survive. It was interesting how the way the aliens were presented made at least me feel a bit sorry for them and actually almost forgiving them for what they did. I remember that they will be seen again later in the series, but now at least I feel I'll have a hard time thinking of them as an enemy.

I really liked Janeway in this episode, who had to face that she couldn't really do much even though her crewman got violated in one of the worst possible ways. Mulgrew made a nice job with the voice here as Janeway really sounds on the break of loosing her control.

Kes is also portrayed as a very empathic person, both in her interactions with Neelix and with the doctor. I don't know why, but I still don't really like the character.

One thing that got me thinking during the episode was about how the doctor works. In this episode we see him sitting working at his desk, and him even being irritated at being disturbed by people. Wouldn't the doctor be able to pretty much work like a computer (or like TNG's Data) and multi-task quite effectively?

Well, overall this was an ok episode, but not much more. I think this also should have been postponed a bit until the characters feel more familiar to the viewer.

 

[Faranight]

S01E06 - The Cloud

With energy reserves nearly depleted, Voyager investigates possible resources inside a nebula, which - as it turns out - is not really a nebula.

An episode that, in my opinion, has quite a mediocre story, but that has it's strength in the character development.
The main story is, as is mentioned above, that Voyager travels through a nebula that later turns out to be alive. After realizing this and the fact that they hurt it while passing through, Janeway decides that Voyager is to return and help in the healing process.

The B-story is mostly about Janeway and how she, as the captain, is to interact with the crew. In the teaser we hear Janeway talking about how she was taught in the academy that a captain should keep her distance to the crew, but that she is a bit uncertain now as Voyager is in quite a unique situation. Throughout the episode we get too see scenes where crewmembers act in a sort of "nervous formal" manner towards her. In the end, however, Harry Kim decides to invite Janeway to join the other people on the holodeck in a more casual fashion, and we get to see Janeway get more comfortable.
We also see Janeway getting to know Chakotay more personally as she explores his spiritual beliefs.
And last but not least, we learn that she is a coffee addict. So am I

Personally I think the whole "distance to the crew" thing feels a bit too old fashioned for the 24th century. I'm fine with it being the case in TNG - but there that is really a part of Picards personality. I'd much rather have a nice and casual Janeway

Neelix appoints himself to moral officer of the ship after getting put in place by both Janeway and Kes when he voices concern about the risks Janeway takes. I guess thats fine - as long as he don't continue interupting the bridge crew with snacks and attempted singalongs :P

I also have to, again, complain about the lack of starfleet-maquis tensions. It feels like they miss out on so much potentially interesting social episodes.

As a last whine I have to mention "Acootchimoya, we are far away from the sacred ....". I don't know why, but I so hate that line :P

 

[Faranight]

S01E07 - Eye of the Needle

Voyager discovers a wormhole that leads back to the Alpha Quadrant.

I know it's the third episode in a row that I say this, but I think this one too should have been postponed a bit in the series. I was sort of expecting an episode like this to come quite early in the series, but to get it this early just made it quite clear that whatever happens will be to good to be true.

The story of the episode is that Voyager finds a small alpha quadrant wormhole through which they get contact with a Romulan science vessel. The crew moral gets a big boost as they find out they will be able to transmit messages to their loved ones through the wormhole - something which we later find out is complicated by the relations between Romulus and the federation. Since any message will have to be screened by the Romulan bureaucracy the scientist on board cannot guarantee that anything will find it's way to the recipients.
The Voyager crews hopes get even higher as B'Ellana discovers that it is possible to transport matter through the wormhole. Test confirm that it is possible, allthough not without some trouble getting test objects to materialize. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the romulan can't allow starfleet personel aboard his ship due to romulan regulations. Instead he proposes that he contact his government and have them send another ship, while he himself beams over to Voyager and back again to test whether it is possible to transport a person.
When the romulan materializes scans show that he is from the Voyager crews past - the wormhole not only travels through space, but also time. The romulan offers to warn starfleet about what will happen before they send out Voyager, but Chakotay says that is not an option since that would affect several cultures in the Delta quadrant that Voyager has been in contact with. The only possibility is that the romulan takes the messages with him to the past and delivers them to the families after the future Voyager has gone missing.
In the end we find out through Voyagers computers that the romulan scientist died four years before Voyagers departure, and that the status of the messages thus is unknown.

It was fun getting to see the romulans again. We have a few glimpses of them in DS9, but otherwise they feel very underrepresented in Trek concidering them being a major power in the alpha quadrant.

It will be interesting to see if the messages are mentioned again later in the series and if they actually got to their destination.
Allthough the scientist died it feels quite likely that someone knows about them and might hand them over. It's also quite likely that they were seized by the romulan government ... the scientist did after all ask for permission to recieve such messages, and the government is hardly likely to not come look for them shortly after he recieves them.
If I remember correctly relations between Romulus and the Federation will get better as the Dominion war starts, so who knows - maybe they hand them over with no fuss.

My complaint about this episode is the potentially interesting question about transporting the Voyager crew back in time. This was not explored any more than the one line were Chakotay says that that is not an option due to the effect it will have on the delta quadrant. That could have been given a bit more time in my opinion as maybe a dividing force between the starfleet and maquis crew.
And also, from what we have seen so far, Voyager hasn't really done that much in the delta quadrant that in my opinion would be so horrible to "time-travel-cancel".
I don't think I'd have that much strength to pass up on the possibility to be warned and thus never getting lost 70 000 lightyears from home

And oh ... Janeway in a nightgown .... not bad at all!

 

[Faranight]

S01E08 - Ex Post Facto

Tom Paris is convicted of murder. However, he denies having committed the crime, even though the images extracted from the victim's own memory seem to prove his guilt.

An entertaining episode that feels like the first real non-initial episode. The story does not feel very plausible but is still pretty interesting.

The story is that Harry Kim and Tom Paris visit a planet to acquire some navigational equipment (or something like that). For some reason the engineer who is to help them wants to do the work at his own home. Tom Paris, being bored with the dry technical work soon takes more interest in the engineers wife, and things quickly move to flirting and beyond.
I the next moment Paris wakes up in a cell, tried and convicted of murder with only an extracted memory as evidence. This memory, which we get to see, shows clearly how Paris stabs the engineer to death after being caught together with the wife. Also in this "memory movie sequence" we see two rows of text in some other language.
When Janeway heres of this the Voyager with Tuvok as leas investigator starts questioning everyone involved before gathering them all up in a old-crime-novel-fashion to reveal what really has happened. We learn that it is the memory-extractor and the wife that together has commited the murder and framed Tom Paris. Their plan was to implant a secret message bound for the planets enemy in the memory sequence, and have the recepients extrakt it while, as they thought, Voyager would pressure the government to send Paris back to the ship.

I don't know about you, but I think I could figure out some easier and less error-prone ways to send secret messages than this :P. And isn't it quite plausible that Tom Paris would actually wonder what the heck those two rows of text he sees are?

Oh well, even though quite implausible, it was an entertaining episode.

-Voyager gets a bonus point for being cool and sending Voyager in orbit as sort of an intimidation tactic.
-Tuvok gets a bonus point for being an awesome detective.
-Paris gets a minus point for his lack of judgement.

 

[Faranight]

S01E09 - Emanations

Investigating mineral deposits on an asteroid, Harry Kim is trapped on an alien planet.

An ok episode dealing with life and death. The story is that Harry Kim is accidentally transported from an asteroid to a planet where the inhabitants believe he has returned from the dead. Now he has to balance between telling them the truth and thus maybe finding a way home, while at the same time respecting their religious beliefs. Fortunately for Kim, he meets a person who is semi-voluntarily getting ready to be transported to the after-life. This person has doubts which are enforced by Kims arrival, and Kim subsequently manages to take his place since, luckilly enough, the to-be-transported dress up as mumies before they go.

The episode has quite obvious spiritual and religious undertones. In the beginning of the episode Voyager finds a new element in a grave chamber which would prove very useful to the crew, but Chakotay forbids the extraction of it due to respect for the dead bodies.
Of course respect for the dead is always important, but I find it a bit weird that Janeways decides to go with Chakotay and not even take any samples for studying the formation of the element.
I certainly wouldn't have any problems with taking samples, or even a body, due to the material science potential in it. Maybe I, as an atheist, am to disrespectful? I don't know.
Later we also find out that the bodies actually do, shortly after death, release some kind of energy, which is suggested is sort of the "spirit" leaving the body. I don't know about you, but to me this feels a bit non-trek and rather more like something that had to be added to not have the episode concidered as religion bashing. This is also the case with Janeway and Kims dialogue in the end.

Oh well, all in all it was an ok episode which was enjoyable since it deals with some sensitivt topics.

 

[stj]

Interesting views. About Eye of the Needle, though, I'm pretty sure the thought was supposed to be they didn't want to change the past of the Federation by having travelers come from a future Delta Quadrant.

And, in Emanations, the woman says something like "It's not like what they told us." It being the afterlife, the show is dramatizing an atheist view. But when they toss in some gibberish about activity in the electromagnetic field, it's still not the afterlife the leaders described. But the viewer could ignore that and read the episode as contradicting atheism.

Time and Again was, speaking of characters, about Janeway and Paris' relationship. And Ex Post Facto was pretty much about Paris in love and betrayal. Perhaps these episodes were a little weak because McNiell didn't do a very good job acting the character? It doesn't seem likely that the real point of Ex Post Facto was to show Tuvok as investigator.