The Continuity and Serialization of Voyager

[DigificWriter]

I just finished the Future's End 2-parter, and have a couple of observations, one continuity-related and the other concerning something that I really wish the PTBs had gone ahead with.

There is a bit of a continuity discrepancy between these two episodes and its Season 6 sequel Relativity with regards to Braxton, but I can understand what the thinking probably was at the time: the character was a one-off guest star and they were more than likely wanting to tie things up neatly and concisely.

My second observation has to with Sarah Silverman's character of Rain Robinson and what I think was a major missed opportunity and something that Brannon Braga really ought to have pushed for, which was to bring her aboard the show as either a regular or recurring character. She would've added a very unique dynamic to the series even in a semi-recurring capacity, and it would've been neat so see her romance with Tom play itself out and how it might've factored into the development of his and B'Elanna's relationship (which they'd already started to hint at in The Swarm).

I know I said I only had two observations to make about Future's End, but I just though Of another one: I've always enjoyed the TNG Season 5 episode A Matter of Time, and therefore thought it was neat that Future's End is basically the Voyages version of that episode, but with more content added.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Sarah Silverman would never have been able to behave and Seven of Nine would never have been able to compete.

They explain that there is a process called integration. When they have a lot of the same person from different timelines wandering around, the timecops stick all of that identical person into a transporter and one of them comes out the other side with an orgied personality.

This did happen to both Janeway and Seven at the end of Relativity.

Notice how Kathryn never once compared this predicament to Tuvix and just hypocritically left the two women inside her screaming unfulfilled to get out denied?

Why am I talking about this?

Grampa Braxton 20 years on Earth in the psych ward, was integrated with young super adventure chrononaut sexy Braxton, and that's the schism that resulted in his temporal aphasia and his face being all fucked up and different.

 

[DigificWriter]

I noticed something that I hadn't before in reposting my viewing order(s) on another site: According to Stardates, Course: Oblivion takes place before Dark Frontier despite being produced after it.

 

[DigificWriter]

Sorry for the double post, but, as I continue to watch the show, I'm finding that the PTBs keep outsmarting me and that the order in which a number of episodes were aired is actually the correct/proper order in which they ought to be watched - thus invalidating my own conclusions about said correct/proper order (which, while embarrassing for me, actually bolsters what I've been saying about the show).

 

[Guy Gardener]

Don't worry, we're all wrong sometimes too.

 

[DigificWriter]

I'm actually glad that I keep finding instances where the Original Airing Order ends up being accurate because it shows that the PTBs did in fact know, by and large, what they were doing with regards to continuity and serialization.

BTW, the latest instance of my conclusions being superceded has to do with the episodes, Fair Trade, Alter Ego, Coda, and Blood Fever.

 

[DigificWriter]

Sorry for double-posting, but I just finished Unity, and have to say that aside from being a very good episode in and of itself, it's a pivotal episode for the show. Without the story told in this episode, the show would not have been able to bring in Seven of Nine and the Borg kids or do stories like Survival Instinct or Unimatrix Zero (the latter of which allowed them to do Endgame).

It's also a prime example of the kind of 'ripple effect serialization' that defines the show as a Serialized Procedural, especially in the remaining seasons.

Another thing the episode does is that it perfectly illustrates, for me at least, the difference between antagonists and villains, because, in spite of what Robert Duncan McNeil told Robert Beltran, Riley and her 'core' group aren't in any way written or portrayed as evil; they simply take actions that put them in opposition to Voyager's crew.... which, BTW, is exactly how John de Lancie's Q is utilized in TNG and, to a certain degree, in his lone appearance on DS9.

 

[Guy Gardener]

"We always knew this day was coming, we're entering Borg Space"????

Just think about that.

The plan was to sneak through Borg Space.

They hadn't spent a year building a cloak or finding super weapons or trying to find a way around it... They just got rumbled.

Apocrypha is that Berman was told that the Borg lived in the DQ at a convention during a Q&A half way through season one. Until then it had completely slipped his recollection.

 

[R. Star]

"We always knew this day was coming, we're entering Borg Space"????

Just think about that.

The plan was to sneak through Borg Space.

They hadn't spent a year building a cloak or finding super weapons or trying to find a way around it... They just got rumbled.

Apocrypha is that Berman was told that the Borg lived in the DQ at a convention during a Q&A half way through season one. Until then it had completely slipped his recollection.

What you actually expect them to plan ahead of time? That would require the writers to.

 

[Anwar]

When you're in a tiny scout ship a kick in the shins would blow up and the entire Quadrant is out to kill you, it's not really viable to have a plan because it's never going to hold.

Naturally, if they HAD found some alien cloak to get them through undetected then the audience would just complain that they had an alien cloak device.

 

[R. Star]

Yeah... I can see how a group with no margin for error wouldn't want to waste their time planning ahead for possible contingencies that would lead to their death if anything goes wrong. Why be ready when you can improvise a technbabble solution out of nothing?

 

[Guy Gardener]

And lets just remember that they had the Hansens cloak after they downloaded the information form the Raven at the beginning of season 4, which was still working perfectly fine half way through season 6, 20 years after the Borg chose to stop making sure that no one was using that technology against them.

For the first year after they got Magnus they were probably gung ho wasting a lot of resources making sure that... Then there was the cloak in Counterpoint and the cloak in scientific method and the cloak in Distant Origin.

 

[Anwar]

And lets just remember that they had the Hansens cloak after they downloaded the information form the Raven at the beginning of season 4, which was still working perfectly fine half way through season 6, 20 years after the Borg chose to stop making sure that no one was using that technology against them.

For the first year after they got Magnus they were probably gung ho wasting a lot of resources making sure that... Then there was the cloak in Counterpoint and the cloak in scientific method and the cloak in Distant Origin.

And if Voyager got their hands on those Cloaking devices that the other races used to get by, the audience would just complain that they had a way of cloaking past the Borg.

Even if there'd been some big stupid 30-part storyline leading up to them getting said cloak.

Nevermind that Farscape and NuBSG can have THEIR plot contrivances to get by large distances (Starburst and Jump Drive) and no one cared.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Voyager used the shield refraction in Counterpoint, and the Delta Flyer had that Hansen cloak.

There's no if, about it. That tech was installed and usable but left unused.

I mean seriously, it's also about as much of a crutch how often they use torpedoes.

Maybe they should have run out of torpedoes for some strange reason.

 

[Anwar]

Voyager used the shield refraction in Counterpoint, and the Delta Flyer had that Hansen cloak.

And did anyone like those episodes? No? Well there's your answer why they weren't used again.

Maybe they should have run out of torpedoes for some strange reason.

Galactica never ran out of Nukes, no one cared there.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Pegasus had a self-sustaining/sufficient Viper factory on board... Nukes must have been easier to build if they could source the raw materials?

 

[Anwar]

And where would they get the Uranium or the rocket fuel for nuclear missiles? Where would they get the materials needed to run a Viper factory?

And why is Pegasus allowed to have a Viper Factory with no one raising an eyebrow, but VOY can't make more torpedoes or shuttles?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The Uranium might be difficult to source, which I already admitted, but making the casings should be easy for Pegasus.

Pegasus is allowed to have a Viper factory because it's one of the first things in canon that we found out about Pegasus, meanwhile building new torpedoes is completely beyond Voyager becuase it's one of the first things in canon that they told us about Voyager.

 

[Anwar]

The "We can't make new torpedoes" thing never made any damn sense in the first place. They can make the casings with the replicators, and they have an Anti-Matter Reactor to create the weapons-grade anti-matter with.

So if they have both, why can't they make new torpedoes?

 

[Guy Gardener]

Because they said so.