I love "MANEUVERS". Ome of my favorite early episodes.
Seska was such an excellent villain.
Seska was such an excellent villain.
Re-Watching VOY
- Thread starter Lord Garth
- Start date
Definitely. Voyager as a series lost a step when she left.
After sleeping on it, I bumped up the rating for "Manunevers" from an 8 to a 9. It's not perfect, but it feels like it's firing on all cylinders. Better yet, this is before the Tom Paris "Sorry I'm Late!" subplot started and no Michael Jonas yet. So, this is a good spot to be, as far as Voyager's ongoing story arc this season.
Funny thing: my mind always thinks Seska and Cullah were in more of the season than they actually were.
Funny thing: my mind always thinks Seska and Cullah were in more of the season than they actually were.
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"Resistance"
Right off the bat, watching this episode on the projector was a treat. The Mokra set designs really stand up when seeing them up against an entire wall. The lighting looks neo-noir, and it makes the browns and earth tones stand out.
This episode takes advantage of how different VOY is from DS9. Unlike in DS9 where there's time to build up cultures about aliens, VOY doesn't have that kind of time, with Voyager always running into new aliens. So, sometimes, it has to throw you right into the thick of it and hope you can follow along. That works to this episode's advantage. Voyager got a material it needed from the resistance on the Mokra home world, Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres were captured, Neelix got out and that's all you need to know about the Mokra. Besides their having a very strict, authoritarian streak.
Voyager's bad reputation is following the ship everywhere. Including that they've made more enemies than friends. The man who Chakotay has to deal with is a real asshole and is as difficult as possible while he tries to find Janeway and the others. Seeing Chakotay in command in a battle situation on the bridge is something we don't get to see very often.
The major highlight of this episode is Calem, and old man who the Mokra thinks is a fool and they only let him live to serve as an example to others. He treats Janeway like she's his daughter. He thinks she's his daughter. Then he tells her about her "mother" and how she was captured by the Mokra and is in prison. The same prison where Tuvok and Torres are. I think Mokra has Alzheimer's or at least he's broken down the point where he's seeing only what he wants to see, which has to be some other type of mental illness or unhealthiness. Janeway indulges him, becomes endeared, and he's someone who you feel bad for but still want to root for.
Another thing that stands out is a scene after Tuvok is tortured, then returned to his and Torres figures out the screaming was from him. She thought Vulcans couldn't feel physical pain, then Tuvok explains they can. I like that they left Tuvok's screaming and any depictions of his torture up the imagination of the viewers. We can fill in the blanks by ourselves.
Eventually, the Voyager crew figures out how to rescue Janeway and others, Chakotay gives Paris permission to rescue them, Janeway finds Tuvok and Torres, Calem sacrifices himself to save Janeway, and Janeway and Calem have a touching farewell. Nice of Janeway to play the part of Calem's daughter, so he can die happy as Janeway tells him what he needs to hear.
I think the Mokra are more bark than bite. Not to their own people, but against Voyager. There were a few times where I was surprised they didn't try to destroy Voyager immediately instead of giving them warnings. Either they have a procedure they follow to a fault or Voyager is powerful enough to overpower them in general. I can see why the reputation of Voyager would spread if Voyager is so much more powerful than everyone else. Voyager is something these planets fear. They want to warn as many people as possible so they can be prepared. And the Mokra don't want to show fear or weakness because they're worried what would happen if other worlds and their own people perceived them that way. That's my interpretation anyway.
Overall, this episode very effectively gave us a ton of story in only a little time and made it all work. I was able to see different layers, implicit and explicit, that I could take in and make observations about. I give it a 9.
EDITED TO ADD: Voyager's second season looked like it was having some ups and downs earlier, but now it looks like they're on a streak with the batch of episodes I'm currently on. Let's see how long it holds out!
What do I consider a streak? Any time I give three or more episodes in a row a 9 or 10.
Right off the bat, watching this episode on the projector was a treat. The Mokra set designs really stand up when seeing them up against an entire wall. The lighting looks neo-noir, and it makes the browns and earth tones stand out.
This episode takes advantage of how different VOY is from DS9. Unlike in DS9 where there's time to build up cultures about aliens, VOY doesn't have that kind of time, with Voyager always running into new aliens. So, sometimes, it has to throw you right into the thick of it and hope you can follow along. That works to this episode's advantage. Voyager got a material it needed from the resistance on the Mokra home world, Janeway, Tuvok, and Torres were captured, Neelix got out and that's all you need to know about the Mokra. Besides their having a very strict, authoritarian streak.
Voyager's bad reputation is following the ship everywhere. Including that they've made more enemies than friends. The man who Chakotay has to deal with is a real asshole and is as difficult as possible while he tries to find Janeway and the others. Seeing Chakotay in command in a battle situation on the bridge is something we don't get to see very often.
The major highlight of this episode is Calem, and old man who the Mokra thinks is a fool and they only let him live to serve as an example to others. He treats Janeway like she's his daughter. He thinks she's his daughter. Then he tells her about her "mother" and how she was captured by the Mokra and is in prison. The same prison where Tuvok and Torres are. I think Mokra has Alzheimer's or at least he's broken down the point where he's seeing only what he wants to see, which has to be some other type of mental illness or unhealthiness. Janeway indulges him, becomes endeared, and he's someone who you feel bad for but still want to root for.
Another thing that stands out is a scene after Tuvok is tortured, then returned to his and Torres figures out the screaming was from him. She thought Vulcans couldn't feel physical pain, then Tuvok explains they can. I like that they left Tuvok's screaming and any depictions of his torture up the imagination of the viewers. We can fill in the blanks by ourselves.
Eventually, the Voyager crew figures out how to rescue Janeway and others, Chakotay gives Paris permission to rescue them, Janeway finds Tuvok and Torres, Calem sacrifices himself to save Janeway, and Janeway and Calem have a touching farewell. Nice of Janeway to play the part of Calem's daughter, so he can die happy as Janeway tells him what he needs to hear.
I think the Mokra are more bark than bite. Not to their own people, but against Voyager. There were a few times where I was surprised they didn't try to destroy Voyager immediately instead of giving them warnings. Either they have a procedure they follow to a fault or Voyager is powerful enough to overpower them in general. I can see why the reputation of Voyager would spread if Voyager is so much more powerful than everyone else. Voyager is something these planets fear. They want to warn as many people as possible so they can be prepared. And the Mokra don't want to show fear or weakness because they're worried what would happen if other worlds and their own people perceived them that way. That's my interpretation anyway.
Overall, this episode very effectively gave us a ton of story in only a little time and made it all work. I was able to see different layers, implicit and explicit, that I could take in and make observations about. I give it a 9.
EDITED TO ADD: Voyager's second season looked like it was having some ups and downs earlier, but now it looks like they're on a streak with the batch of episodes I'm currently on. Let's see how long it holds out!
What do I consider a streak? Any time I give three or more episodes in a row a 9 or 10.
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Fantastic, I was expecting to see a "guest appearance" by George Cloony
"Prototype"
Nice stylistic choice at the beginning of the episode with a black-and-white sequence of the Unit 3947 being beamed aboard Voyager, as seen from the Unit 3947's POV. I like that it takes until the end of the Teaser before we see what Unit 3937 looks like, and that we only see it through a reflection. Up until that point, the audience is wondering what it even is.
It takes Torres a while to figure out how to give the Unit 3947 proper energy, by repairing 3947's power module and then adapting it to accept Voyager's plasma energy. Then comes the twist: only the race that build the machines like Unit 3947 could repair or build their power modules. This race was called The Builders, and they went extinct decades ago. 3947 sees Torres as being just like The Builders and wants her to create more power modules, so they can construct more Automated Units.
This leads to an interesting Prime Directive question. Torres brings up an interesting point about helping a species that had become sterile and Janeway has a counterargument that there's a difference between a biological species that had become sterile and the Automated Units that never had the ability to reproduce in the first place. Janeway's correct here in that giving them a new ability to reproduce is a violation of the Prime Directive and could change the balance of power in the Delta Quadrant. But what's interesting is that it contrasts with what Janeway will do in a few seasons when she sides with the Borg to fight Species 8472 when those in the Delta Quadrant were actually hoping that Species 8472 would defeat the Borg. That's getting way ahead of myself but it's the first example that jumped to mind of Janeway taking the exact opposite approach later on. Back to this episode.
The Automated Units look like Maria, the robot from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, except anatomically male instead of female. Just like R2-D2, who they act just as polite as. The only difference is the Automated Units are silver instead of copper. And they sound like and speak with Data's inflections.
No surprise that Unit 3947 kidnaps Torres when she tells him that Janeway won't allow her to help them. Being an android in the classical sense, I'm assuming, 3947 looks at things in a binary way: Torres can help, so Torres will help if she's taken away from Janeway. That binary thinking comes back when Torres tries to explain to 3947 that he wouldn't even have been reactivated if Janeway hadn't agreed over Tuvok's objections. But all he sees is that Janeway is an enemy right now, and must be destroyed. There's no nuance. It's black-or-white, yes-or-no, on-or-off, 1-or-0.
The Automated Units try to destroy Voyager and only relent when Torres agrees to build more power modules. When Torres tells Janeway she has no choice, 3947 gets right in front of Torres and takes up a large part of the image on Voyager's viewscreen, looking deadly and dangerous. It's a great directing choice for something like this. It's like something you'd see on the cover of a '50s comic book, but I mean that in a good way.
When Torres is in the lab where 3947 wants Torres to build the power modules, there's a robot skull prominently displayed. The way it looks, it reminds me skulls of the cyborgs from the Terminator movies. Add that to what I described about them earlier, and it's clear the creators of this episode wanted to work in as many easter eggs to other science-fiction as possible. Including other Star Trek, when Torres mentions Data when 3947 asks if there are any androids in her society.
Unit 6263 wants Torres to build a power module before Voyager can repair itself, Torres says she's not sure if she can, and he says that she'll either build a module or she and the Voyager crew will die. If that's not binary-thinking, I don't know what is.
When enemies of the Automated Units, also automated units themselves, attack, it gives Voyager the opening to rescue Torres. You can tell the other side apart because they're copper.
It's revealed that the Pralor (whose automated units are the one's we've been seeing) and the Cravick were enemies, they tried to end the war thus ending their use for the robots. Being a threat to their existence, the automated units now saw the Pralor and Cravick as the enemies and annihilated them before continuing their conflict with each other. Meaning that these Automated Units exist only for war and only care about victory through war. This is no doubt common to a lot of science-fiction works, including -- I'm assuming -- those of Isaac Asimov's. This type of backstory also wouldn't have felt out of place in TOS, if the Enterprise were to have ever encountered warring robots. By the way, the concept of warring robots also sounds just like Transformers.
With the Automated Units fighting each other, Paris is able to take a shuttle and rescue Torres, then Voyager is able to escape. It takes until the last minute, literally, for the Torres to be rescued, but the episode still finds time to see Janeway and Torres to have a heart-to-heart as Torres tells Janeway she had to destroy something she gave life. That's an appreciated button at the end of the episode.
If I were one of the Automated Units, and I had the rate this episode, it would either be a 01 or a 10. Fortunately, I'm not an Automated Unit, so I can find something in-between and give this episode an 8.
Nice stylistic choice at the beginning of the episode with a black-and-white sequence of the Unit 3947 being beamed aboard Voyager, as seen from the Unit 3947's POV. I like that it takes until the end of the Teaser before we see what Unit 3937 looks like, and that we only see it through a reflection. Up until that point, the audience is wondering what it even is.
It takes Torres a while to figure out how to give the Unit 3947 proper energy, by repairing 3947's power module and then adapting it to accept Voyager's plasma energy. Then comes the twist: only the race that build the machines like Unit 3947 could repair or build their power modules. This race was called The Builders, and they went extinct decades ago. 3947 sees Torres as being just like The Builders and wants her to create more power modules, so they can construct more Automated Units.
This leads to an interesting Prime Directive question. Torres brings up an interesting point about helping a species that had become sterile and Janeway has a counterargument that there's a difference between a biological species that had become sterile and the Automated Units that never had the ability to reproduce in the first place. Janeway's correct here in that giving them a new ability to reproduce is a violation of the Prime Directive and could change the balance of power in the Delta Quadrant. But what's interesting is that it contrasts with what Janeway will do in a few seasons when she sides with the Borg to fight Species 8472 when those in the Delta Quadrant were actually hoping that Species 8472 would defeat the Borg. That's getting way ahead of myself but it's the first example that jumped to mind of Janeway taking the exact opposite approach later on. Back to this episode.
The Automated Units look like Maria, the robot from Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis, except anatomically male instead of female. Just like R2-D2, who they act just as polite as. The only difference is the Automated Units are silver instead of copper. And they sound like and speak with Data's inflections.
No surprise that Unit 3947 kidnaps Torres when she tells him that Janeway won't allow her to help them. Being an android in the classical sense, I'm assuming, 3947 looks at things in a binary way: Torres can help, so Torres will help if she's taken away from Janeway. That binary thinking comes back when Torres tries to explain to 3947 that he wouldn't even have been reactivated if Janeway hadn't agreed over Tuvok's objections. But all he sees is that Janeway is an enemy right now, and must be destroyed. There's no nuance. It's black-or-white, yes-or-no, on-or-off, 1-or-0.
The Automated Units try to destroy Voyager and only relent when Torres agrees to build more power modules. When Torres tells Janeway she has no choice, 3947 gets right in front of Torres and takes up a large part of the image on Voyager's viewscreen, looking deadly and dangerous. It's a great directing choice for something like this. It's like something you'd see on the cover of a '50s comic book, but I mean that in a good way.
When Torres is in the lab where 3947 wants Torres to build the power modules, there's a robot skull prominently displayed. The way it looks, it reminds me skulls of the cyborgs from the Terminator movies. Add that to what I described about them earlier, and it's clear the creators of this episode wanted to work in as many easter eggs to other science-fiction as possible. Including other Star Trek, when Torres mentions Data when 3947 asks if there are any androids in her society.
Unit 6263 wants Torres to build a power module before Voyager can repair itself, Torres says she's not sure if she can, and he says that she'll either build a module or she and the Voyager crew will die. If that's not binary-thinking, I don't know what is.
When enemies of the Automated Units, also automated units themselves, attack, it gives Voyager the opening to rescue Torres. You can tell the other side apart because they're copper.
It's revealed that the Pralor (whose automated units are the one's we've been seeing) and the Cravick were enemies, they tried to end the war thus ending their use for the robots. Being a threat to their existence, the automated units now saw the Pralor and Cravick as the enemies and annihilated them before continuing their conflict with each other. Meaning that these Automated Units exist only for war and only care about victory through war. This is no doubt common to a lot of science-fiction works, including -- I'm assuming -- those of Isaac Asimov's. This type of backstory also wouldn't have felt out of place in TOS, if the Enterprise were to have ever encountered warring robots. By the way, the concept of warring robots also sounds just like Transformers.
With the Automated Units fighting each other, Paris is able to take a shuttle and rescue Torres, then Voyager is able to escape. It takes until the last minute, literally, for the Torres to be rescued, but the episode still finds time to see Janeway and Torres to have a heart-to-heart as Torres tells Janeway she had to destroy something she gave life. That's an appreciated button at the end of the episode.
If I were one of the Automated Units, and I had the rate this episode, it would either be a 01 or a 10. Fortunately, I'm not an Automated Unit, so I can find something in-between and give this episode an 8.
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Frakes did a good job directing, as always.
Also love how we get to see the transporter effect through the eyes of the transported... so rarely done.
Also love how we get to see the transporter effect through the eyes of the transported... so rarely done.
I've seen it said before that "VOY is just warmed-over TNG!", but I think "Prototype" is a good argument for the opposite. If this were TNG, Data's presence alone would've made it a completely different episode, because it would've been about comparing and contrasting Data to the Automated Units.
OTOH, I could easily see this as a TOS episode, with only a few changes. The Automated Units would've kidnapped Scotty, just like Torres, but TOS wouldn't put so much focus on Scotty. So, I think the Automated Units would've kidnapped Spock as well. Then Spock and Scotty would have to make it look like they were helping them, while trying to figure out how to escape.
The other change, if it were TOS, is that neither McCoy nor Scotty would argue for the right for the Automated Units to reproduce. Neither would Spock. Maybe a guest-character, depending on the episode. But otherwise, the argument Torres has with Janeway over it is unique to VOY and unique to her.
OTOH, I could easily see this as a TOS episode, with only a few changes. The Automated Units would've kidnapped Scotty, just like Torres, but TOS wouldn't put so much focus on Scotty. So, I think the Automated Units would've kidnapped Spock as well. Then Spock and Scotty would have to make it look like they were helping them, while trying to figure out how to escape.
The other change, if it were TOS, is that neither McCoy nor Scotty would argue for the right for the Automated Units to reproduce. Neither would Spock. Maybe a guest-character, depending on the episode. But otherwise, the argument Torres has with Janeway over it is unique to VOY and unique to her.
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