Thoughts on Season 2

[dub]

I'm going through my first re-watch since the first run of the show (having not seen all of the episodes the first time through). I had a review thread started, but once I realized how much work is involved in a review thread, I couldn't keep going. Hats off to all of those who have made it through your own review threads!

I did want to make a couple of observations about season 2. There are lots of episodes worth commenting upon, but I'm just going to concentrate on a few episodes toward the end of the season.

I thought "Investigations" was quite good despite the boring title. I thought they could have stretched it over 2 or more episodes, and I thought they could have kept Jonas in the brig or just done something other than end his treachery so abruptly after spending so many episodes showing him feeding info to Seska. I was never clear on his motives and I wanted to hear from him directly. Maybe the writers were never clear either, so they shut him up! So I thought they could have wrapped it all up better, but I still think it was a good episode.

Then "Deadlock" started out to be really awesome. I was thinking "this is more like it!" The ship is suffering and no one knows why, characters are shown working together in truly dangerous situations, explosions everywhere, Harry Kim is killed, what more could you ask for! But then it turned into another technobabble is the reason, technobabble is the solution episode. Face-palm. But I had high hopes at the end when the practically disabled Voyager was the one that carried on. I imagined the next episode would be stellar! Their ship is severely damaged and they're in the middle of Vidiian space. How were they going to get out of this one? Well, we found out how they got out of it (the writers at least). Reset. The twist was wasted.

"The Thaw" reminded me of something we could have easily seen on TOS, right down to the production value, "fear" becoming an actual character, and just the insanity of the situation. I swear it could have been a TOS episode. I wish I had a recording of the episode without music so I could edit in some TOS music! I'm not knocking it, because I actually enjoyed the episode even though it was trippin'.

"Resolutions" was almost my dream come true. I so wanted Janeway and Chakotay to get together. And they were almost there until Harry Kim went and messed everything up. He should have stayed on the duplicate Voyager and died with the other crew. By they way - when did he grow a pair? That came out of nowhere.

"Basics, Part I" is the last episode I've watched. And yes, there are some plot holes and some WTF moments, but overall THIS is the Voyager I would have tuned in for week after week! Very nice! I'm looking forward to Part II!

 

[KaraBear]

While Voyager is my favorite series, I think it started out weak. I don't think it started to get really great until late season 3.

the episodes you listed are good, but one question...how is the end of Deadlock a reset?

 

[dub]

^ In the episode after "Deadlock," instead of dealing with a massively disabled ship that would seemingly take weeks or even months to repair, and also trying to gain distance from Vidiian space without being captured, in the next episode it's like none of that ever happened and the ship is in perfect condition. That's the reset.

It's not unusual. It happens in every Trek series. I was just disappointed because I had hopes for the story to continue where it left off as it potentially could have.

 

[KaraBear]

^ In the episode after "Deadlock," instead of dealing with a massively disabled ship that would seemingly take weeks or even months to repair, and also trying to gain distance from Vidiian space without being captured, in the next episode it's like none of that ever happened and the ship is in perfect condition. That's the reset.

It's not unusual. It happens in every Trek series. I was just disappointed because I had hopes for the story to continue where it left off as it potentially could have.

they did talk about the time to make repairs. It just happened at the end of this episode instead of the beginning of the next one

and that's not what is a reset. A reset is an episode like Year of Hell, where at the end, you're back at the beginning and nothing happened. Otherwise every episode is a reset

 

[R. Star]

I found Investigations to be a huge let down. Neelix really shows how self absorbed he is in this episode. He decides he's an expert journalist and pokes and prods everywhere in pursuit of HIS story, even when he's asked not to. Not only does he repeatedly bother everyone who are doing some fairly important stuff, but he then decides he has the right to search people's quarters, falsify identifications, then smears a good man's name just to make a headline. Not to mention the whole Jonas storyline was a letdown. I was kinda stoked by the continuity build up and then... the storyline just flops, complete with the silly villain charging over the precipice bit.

Deadlock is a classic reset button push. Everything is the same at the end as it was at the beginning of the episode. Heck, all that damage is even magically repaired by the next episode. Good episode, but the reset button was pushed. Continuity was never one of Voyager's strengths.

The Thaw was easily the best episode of season 2. That clown was actually threatening without being a parody. Of course it's poor Harry Kim he targets too, but it's amusing to no end that Janeway conquers fear. Her crew members will be fearing her for the next five years, so it was good practice.

Resolutions? Well I can see why the J/C shippers like the episode, but it never did much for me... what kind of virus doesn't kill you if you don't leave it's breeding ground again? Did that writer even look up what a virus does? And you can tell Jeri Taylor had her hand in this one being the crew is completely wrecked to the ability of not being able to function over the loss of Janeway, even weeks later.

Basics I... well sometimes this crew just deserves what they get. Apparently Kazon blood is combustible though. I guess that's useful. But whatever else, the cliff hanger is good. The Kazon have the ship, the crew is stranded, and there's a serial killer on the loose. Since you haven't seen part 2, I'll just stop there.

 

[Bad Thoughts]

^ In the episode after "Deadlock," instead of dealing with a massively disabled ship that would seemingly take weeks or even months to repair, and also trying to gain distance from Vidiian space without being captured, in the next episode it's like none of that ever happened and the ship is in perfect condition. That's the reset.

It's not unusual. It happens in every Trek series. I was just disappointed because I had hopes for the story to continue where it left off as it potentially could have.

that's not what one traditionaly calls a reset. A reset is an episode like Year of Hell, where at the end, you're back at the beginning and nothing happened. Otherwise every episode is a reset

It is a reset in that it allowed massive, spectacular harm to come to the characters without significant consequences. Indeed, had their been no duplicate ship, the premise of the show would have been entirely undermined by the events represented in the episode. Indeed, this use of alternative realities is classic reset button. ETA: It is certainly no less a reset button than Visionary.

 

[KaraBear]

Neelix is anything but self absorbed

Deadlock is not a reset

 

[R. Star]

Hard to argue with such in depth conclusions like that. In the spirit of season 2, I suppose it's a trait of all non-self absorbed people to stalk their girlfriends.

 

[KaraBear]

^ In the episode after "Deadlock," instead of dealing with a massively disabled ship that would seemingly take weeks or even months to repair, and also trying to gain distance from Vidiian space without being captured, in the next episode it's like none of that ever happened and the ship is in perfect condition. That's the reset.

It's not unusual. It happens in every Trek series. I was just disappointed because I had hopes for the story to continue where it left off as it potentially could have.

that's not a reset though, a reset is if the events in an episode actually never happened, like Time and Again and Year of Hell.

and they did take time to repair, they talk about it at the end of the episode

 

[KaraBear]

Hard to argue with such in depth conclusions like that. In the spirit of season 2, I suppose it's a trait of all non-self absorbed people to stalk their girlfriends.

well I'm sorry I didn't use enough words for you

 

[dub]

Let's just replace the word "reset" with some random technobabble. Will that make everyone happy? LOL. Honestly, whether or not what happened is a "reset" is completely irrelevant to my feelings on what happened. So if you say it's not a "reset," Kara, that's perfectly fine by me.

By the way, I finished watching "Basics, Part II" on my lunch break. I thought the struggles on the planet (the cavemen, the monster of the week, the baby) were all kind of pointless, except for showing how awesome Janeway is in survival mode. But I loved the scenes of the Voyager landing and the music gave me warm and fuzzies. I thought Darwin had a decent death scene, but I wish they kept him around because I found him interesting. I'd say Part I was far and away a better episode.

 

[KaraBear]

Let's just replace the word "reset" with some random technobabble. Will that make everyone happy? LOL. Honestly, whether or not what happened is a "reset" is completely irrelevant to my feelings on what happened. So if you say it's not a "reset," Kara, that's perfectly fine by me.

By the way, I finished watching "Basics, Part II" on my lunch break. I thought the struggles on the planet (the cavemen, the monster of the week, the baby) were all kind of pointless, except for showing how awesome Janeway is in survival mode. But I loved the scenes of the Voyager landing and the music gave me warm and fuzzies. I thought Darwin had a decent death scene, but I wish they kept him around because I found him interesting. I'd say Part I was far and away a better episode.

So since at the end of the episode they're all back on Voyager as if nothing happened, this is a reset episode too?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

Reset button is not a synonym for happy ending. The resolution, although seemingly improbable, is nonetheless more natural, particularly with the hard-wired ineptness of the Kazon. No suffering was erased by the resolution.

 

[KaraBear]

Reset button is not a synonym for happy ending. The resolution, although seemingly improbable, is nonetheless more natural, particularly with the hard-wired ineptness of the Kazon. No suffering was erased by the resolution.

then by this definition Deadlock is not a reset either. No suffering was erased. The crew suffered through the damage the other Voyage was inflicting on them and at the end they were making repairs. Nothing was erased

 

[Melakon]

. . .Neelix. . .decides he's an expert journalist and pokes and prods everywhere in pursuit of HIS story, even when he's asked not to. Not only does he repeatedly bother everyone who are doing some fairly important stuff, but he then decides he has the right to search people's quarters, falsify identifications, then smears a good man's name just to make a headline. . .

He does everything Lois Lane has done in the entire history of Superman.

 

[KaraBear]

. . .Neelix. . .decides he's an expert journalist and pokes and prods everywhere in pursuit of HIS story, even when he's asked not to. Not only does he repeatedly bother everyone who are doing some fairly important stuff, but he then decides he has the right to search people's quarters, falsify identifications, then smears a good man's name just to make a headline. . .

He does everything Lois Lane has done in the entire history of Superman.

isn't that generally what most reporters do? whatever they can to get their story?

and about "smearing" tom's name....that's what Janeway and tuvok wanted. Remember Tom was purposely acting like a jerk to make it believable that he was leaving. Neelix, like everyone else, believed it like they wanted

 

[Bad Thoughts]

In the context of extricating the crew from the Vidian attack, it was. The term is not so inflexible that it must apply to the whole episode. Like I said, it is as much a reset as Visionary.

Eta: if the consequences of the episode were inplace fully, the series should have ended, just as which should have happened in Caus and Effect.

 

[DonIago]

Whether or not it's a reset button, the rapid clean-up of the ship after the events of "Deadlock" was disappointing.

 

[KaraBear]

In the context of extricating the crew from the Vidian attack, it was. The term is not so inflexible that it must apply to the whole episode. Like I said, it is as much a reset as Visionary.

Eta: if the consequences of the episode were inplace fully, the series should have ended, just as which should have happened in Caus and Effect.

I'm not seeing the difference. One Voyager blew itself up taking the Vidian ship with it. That's what makes it a reset?

 

[Bad Thoughts]

In the context of extricating the crew from the Vidian attack, it was. The term is not so inflexible that it must apply to the whole episode. Like I said, it is as much a reset as Visionary.

Eta: if the consequences of the episode were inplace fully, the series should have ended, just as which should have happened in Caus and Effect.

I'm not seeing the difference. One Voyager blew itself up taking the Vidian ship with it. That's what makes it a reset?

Duplicate Voyager.
Destroy Voyager.
Leave premise unchanged.

It's a twist on the reset, but special pleading doesn't make it not a reset.