sfdebris Reviews "The Gift".
- Thread starter TedShatner10
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I usually enjoy SF Debris' video reviews and have spent quite some time on his site to watch all the videos, but this one actually fell a little short of my expectations. He makes some good points about the inconsistent writing of Janeway regarding her decision to force Seven to stay on Voyager versus the Q scenario in Death Wish, but his hatred towards Neelix gets a little old, if you ask me. Neelix isn't my favorite character by any stretch of the imagination, but he hardly deserves to get mocked for each and every scene he is in.
I wonder what SF Debris would have to say about Fury, though. Now that's a controversal episode.
Oh, and I urge everyone to take the time and watch his insightful review of Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan. It's not particularly funny, but includes some very interesting thoughts about the theme of the movie and its literary allusions.
I wonder what SF Debris would have to say about Fury, though. Now that's a controversal episode.
Oh, and I urge everyone to take the time and watch his insightful review of Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan. It's not particularly funny, but includes some very interesting thoughts about the theme of the movie and its literary allusions.
Quite, but honestly, he has a point here. I think the series probably could have done more with Kes from S4 on than it did with Neelix, she had some pretty interesting turns in S3 and Jennifer Lien was pretty good in "Warlord" particularly.
Granted it's not one of his best reviews - it's a request review, and that shows. Had he got around to this naturally he most certainly would have done 'Scorpion' first, to which this is a coda (consider his covering all the Q episodes in TNG, which was basically a preamble to 'The Q and the Grey'.)
I'm actually not disagreeing with you there. They definitely should have kept Kes. Lien showed some good performances in the episodes focussing on her character. But instead of Neelix they should have lost Kim, who most of the time was nothing more than an extra with a name. Wang is a decent guy and all, but his character never really went anywhere.
Yup, that's what I thought, too.
Also agreed. We all know it's purely because his name appeared in that sexiest TV men list that he kept his job (apparently he did so because the article writer saw him on stage and he'd forgotten to zip his fly.)
In retrospect they should have stuck to their guns and given Wang the axe, honestly. Four years later and he's still the naive young Ensign?
Personally, I think the dudes got way, way too much time on his hands.
I'd also take Neelix over Kes any day.
I don't care what you feel about the character but the make up & laytex artistry alone on him was outstanding. The make up artists really did their homework when it came to creating his look.
Garrett Wang was a champ when it came to reading/speaking technobabble. I think he did so better than some of his more seasoned co-stars. The only one that gives him a run for is money was Dawson.
I'd also take Neelix over Kes any day.
I don't care what you feel about the character but the make up & laytex artistry alone on him was outstanding. The make up artists really did their homework when it came to creating his look.
Garrett Wang was a champ when it came to reading/speaking technobabble. I think he did so better than some of his more seasoned co-stars. The only one that gives him a run for is money was Dawson.
That much may be true. And I never really had a problem with Garrett Wang's acting per se. He was usually able to pull off a decent performance with what he got. The thing is, though, that very often that wasn't much. As Kegg suggested, the guy basically stayed the same for seven years! It never seemed like they were trying to let his character grow or do anything of interest with him. Which was a shame, considering that I found Harry to be a very likeable guy.
And to me that's the crux of the problem: They let go of a character that was not only well-acted, but was also given at least some attention by the writers. Kes was interesting and promised some rather intriguing story possibilities for future episodes.
john titor
Captain
Sci Fi Debris rocks!, He should have his own real tv show, WoK is a masterpiece of critical thought and I like his reviews of Voyager episodes, hehheh. Verily he is the king of internet critics.
Amen to that!
Plus his voice is annoying and he's not that funny. I've seen review parodies of Voyager that are much better like 5 Minute Voyager.
No argument there. Westmore may be quite rightly critiqued for the sometimes extremely perfunctory forehead bumps that are used to denote 'alien' far too often, but when he actually put his head to the grindstone he could come up with some pretty good alien designs. The Talaxians are a far cry from what I'd consider his best work on Trek - that'd be the Cardassians - but their design is pretty well developed and fits the vaguely scruffy yet harmless personality of Neelix.
Robert Picardo's no slouch either. But yeah, Wang's capacity for technobabble prevented him from fading into a mere fixture of the bridge like Beltran. Hey, maybe Chuckles should have got the axe - he's rather laid back and inconsequential for someone so high up the command food chain.
And since their decision to keep Kim was basically done on, apparently, Wang's sex appeal (and that was clearly a major influence behind Seven of Nine), I think it can be safely said that the show's currently residnet blond bombshell had more of that going for her than Neelix did.
Which would be great if I watched Trek for the make-up, but there's a reason why the Creative Arts Emmy Award ceremonies aren't televised.
I have a cunning plan... cut Wang and then cut down on the technobabble. It's so simple that it just might work.
I didn't think that his review of The Gift was that great, and I found his review of TWOK a little pretentious, but the guy is normally reliable for a few laughs. He was funnier back in the early days when he only picked on bad episodes, but then he decided to do video reviews for all of them and he has a hard time finding things to joke about in good episodes. I can't wait for his review of Profit and Lace, I hope he does it as a two-parter.
Neelix was OK - Ethan Phillips can act when given the chance and Neelix did at least have a personality, even if the "Mr Vulcan" stuff got pretty old. And the end of Homestead made you sad, admit it!
Of course you are entitled to have your own opinion, but I wouldn't classify his reviews as clear-cut parodies in the vein of Five-Minute Voyager. Maybe my understanding of what constitutes a parody is off, but I see his videos more as reviews which happen to be funny, in the same way as Jammer's reviews make me laugh. But I never thought their purpose was to merely mock and make fun of the subject he is reviewing.
Wow, for once we agree on something.
Sorry NCC-1701, I didn't find Lien to be a great actress. IMO it seemed when she didn't have any lines, she just zone out with a blank expression on her face. I agree with the writers about writing Kes into a corner, the only thing that was interesting were her powers and that even became limited with her being sweet & innocent. Yes, she had potential but not much depth. Everything about her is what you saw on the surface. IMO Neelix became a better character without her around. Besides, if Harry didn't develope much over 7 years, I don't the character Kes doing much better.
BTW, SF Debris is a member of another Trek board I post on. The guy is extremely annoying & irritating. He claims to be a Voyager fan but never has one possitive thing to say about the show. He believe his negitive comment are actually possitive and it obsessed with bashing Janeway & Neelix. He bases if an ep. is good depending on if the science is correct, he doesn't focus much on plot, character development or acting. Due to his grating nature, very few posters actually get along with him.
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I blame direction. What's Kes supposed to do when she's just standing there? I still think when she was actually given a chance she was pretty good - I cited "Warlord" because the role she has to play there is about as far from the sweet, innocent Kes persona she'd be straddled with as one could get.
Something would have happened. Granted, this is still VOY, so you can't expect the world, but Kes did have a character arc even within her three season stay. She grows attached to the Doctor, has a romantic triangle which ends up with neither Paris or Neelix keeping the girl, and she's developing powers that may be dangerous or uncontrollable.
VOY may have chickened out and resorted to using Kes's powers as nanoprobes - all purpose plot solutions (indeed, they served exactly this function in "The Gift", as the plot needed to get rid of Kes and get them out of Borg space - hey, presto!), but there's definitely more potential for her than there ever was for Kim.
There's also the fact she'd actually live most of her life on Voyager. As a regular I severely doubt they would age her like they did in "Fury", but they'd probably have to deal with that somehow - maybe her powers would grant her longer life and youth, I'd suspect, or something.
Fine but none of that shows any personality growth as far as character development. It basically treats Kes as an accessory & plot device. It makes her Phoenix but without the emotional attachment to Scott Summers(Cyclops). So it ends up being "Fury" all over again. Lots of flashy effects but no emotional content.
"Warlord" is only one ep., one ep. in 3 years does not a great actress make. Take Tim Russ as an example, even when he had no lines he still managed to convey expression & emotion just through a raised eyebrow or body language. Lien didn't have that, she often had no expression at all. Take "Phage" for example, she's standing over Neelix' bed telling the Doc. she won't leave and as soon as her lines are done, her face goes blank. She does it in "Deadlock", "Darkling", "Displaced"..... Like she's falling in & out of character.
However, I'd rather not turn this post into yet another like/dislike post about Kes and get back to the OT.
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I guess the reason I consider them parodies is because he makes fun of every character and his critiques aren't constructive. It's easy to say "everything sucks" but to get into why it sucks and "here's what I think they were trying to accomplish and why they failed" takes a bit more skill and effort.
I have seen some of this guy's reviews and I think that he's too critical of the show.
Anyway, I couldn't stand watching this because of the flasbacks to an episode which I hate so much that I can't even stand watching small parts of it so I didn't bother to check out his opinion about this horrible piece of crap. I just hope that he trashed it.
Anyway, I couldn't stand watching this because of the flasbacks to an episode which I hate so much that I can't even stand watching small parts of it so I didn't bother to check out his opinion about this horrible piece of crap. I just hope that he trashed it.
He gave it a reasonably hefty 7/10.
Unlike some here, I don't mind sfdebris on the whole and I get the impression he prefers VOY from S4 to S6, but he does get carried away on occasion (like with TWoK; of course it's better than TMP and set a benchmark, but come on!).
I agree with the Trek BBS concensus that his reviews of Red Dwarf are good and fair.
Giving "The Gift" 7 out of 10 made my ratings for him decrease further.
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