'Living Witness" Was Hilarious
- Thread starter INACTIVESamusAranX
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Surely not as many as all that! Admittedly I love Voyager but will freely admit to 3-4 clunkers a season with the rest ranging from good to excellent.
As for "Living Witness" while I found the historical implications intriguing I missed my favorite characters. Part of the fun of a "mirror-universe" episode is seeing how the "real universe" characters react to how different the other versions of themselves are. Consequently I felt a bit cheated with this episode and perhaps a little preached at.
That's just my take on it - I can see how many like it though.
^ as in the doctor's holonovel Photons Be Free. I'll never forget Tom's cheesy mustache or the Doctor's combover!
One of my favourite Voyager episodes.
I also am in the camp that really likes this ep. The twisted versions of the altruistic crew we've come to know are what make this ep. And frankly, I 'm glad there is no real "mirror universe" ep in VOY, a device that became way overused in DSN, I believe.
I do have questions about the ep, and I just watched it, so maybe I missed a fine point. It takes place 700 years in the future, then ends even further in the future, with the proper history and role of Voyager restored. First, how was it possible for the doctor to be reactivated if he returned to Earth with the Voyager crew? Was he a backup version of the original EMH? And second, approximately when in the timeline does the last scene take place, if it was stated explicitly? -- RR
I do have questions about the ep, and I just watched it, so maybe I missed a fine point. It takes place 700 years in the future, then ends even further in the future, with the proper history and role of Voyager restored. First, how was it possible for the doctor to be reactivated if he returned to Earth with the Voyager crew? Was he a backup version of the original EMH? And second, approximately when in the timeline does the last scene take place, if it was stated explicitly? -- RR
Yes the doctor in that episode was supposed to be a backup version of himself.
As for when in the timeline the last scene takes place ... I don't know really ...
Possibly close to the 32nd century, maybe sometime afterward.
No accounting for taste. I thought Janeway's hair never looked better. The style very much suited her.
Yes.
No, in all seriousness, if my time on this board has shown me anything, it's that for every episode that is appreciated by many there is at least one who considers it overrated. I don't think "Living Witness" is overrated. On the contrary, I don't see people talking about it that much. For me it's easily Voyager's best outing. But everyone's entitled to their own opinion, of course.
Exactly so--In the Pale Moonlight is like the most overrated Star Trek episode ever. That's how it goes--there's always a few, or Trek would have had Neilsen ratings of 60% audience share and all the series would be running on the air together!
This episode makes it into my top ten list of Voyager episodes, although having watched it a number of times, it isn't quite as effective after multiple viewings. I think that's because some of the enjoyment and surprise of the initial viewing is lost when we already know we are viewing a simulation. However, I do remember how affected I was (the first time I watched) by the final scene, when we are tricked into thinking we are seeing the museum curator and the doctor speaking, but in fact we are watching another simulation.
I never thought about the Mirror Universe like that--but you've hit the nail right on the head about why I didn't like the Enterprise MU shows, none of my characters were in it!
Just a minor quibble, but the Doctor is a character of the "real universe" and you can certainly see his reactions to the "mirror characters" in this episode. I don't see what's so different about the other MU shows (except maybe for "In A Mirror, Darkly" which I found lame for exactly this reason — it's just the mirror characters).
But it actually gave us twisted versions of our characters; DS9 only twisted some then dumbed down others and seemed more like Star Wars with lesbians than Jerome Bixby's topsy-turvy universe, which is why those episodes were pretty weak.
Yeah, but most of the IAMD characters were portrayed so over the top evil that it just felt implausible. I really sat before the screen asking myself why I should care about those characters — all of them were basically bad and untrustworthy. At least the DS9 mirror universe episodes gave us characters we could care about. IAMD boiled down to characters being evil just for the sake of being evil. It just lacked the perspective of some good character from our universe. IMHO that is.
Yes, a far cry from genocidal Janeway in "Living Witness" and devilish Chekov in "Mirror, Mirro", moronic maniac Worf in "Shattered Mirror"... and so on. Plausibility has never been a selling point of the MU.
Only character I cared about in the DS9 MU was the Intendent, and if she isn't bad and untrustworthy, then who is? The characters were fun to watch in their ludricously amoral scheming.
This said, IAMD could have benefited from one of our characters; but it worked well enough by itself, IMHO.
^ In my opinion IAMD was just weak drama. I can't exactly describe why, but I think it has to do with there being no rules whatsoever which applied in this universe. When a character betrayed another character I couldn't really care because I didn't really expect the character to keep his word in the first place. Everything was just over the top evil for no good reason.
Also, I think it would have been better if the episode was only one hour instead of two.
The only redeeming quality for me was the appearance of the Defiant which appealed to the fanboy in me.
Also, I think it would have been better if the episode was only one hour instead of two.
The only redeeming quality for me was the appearance of the Defiant which appealed to the fanboy in me.
In the real timeline, the Ambassador's government didn't conduct biowarfare. Only the false mirror Voyager crew did that, in the museum version of events. (The most violent thing the Ambassador did was shoot the lead terrorist.)
As for the ending: I always assumed that by this time period, the Federation itself extended out that far into the galaxy. The Kyrians and Vaskans might have already been members (by the time they got their act together). So I doubt the Doctor had far to go.
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