Workforce - Your Thoughts?

[Praetor]

I remember watching this two-parter when it first aired. I thought then as I do now that while the idea was interesting (the crew living alternate lives and having to choose whether to resume their 'old' lives), the execution was rather silly, and probably not worthy of a two-parter. We got to see some interesting things but overall, not my favorite.

What do you think?

 

[spoonunseptium]

The happens to be THE episode that got me started on Voyager, and therefore all of Trek.


I am now a raging trekkie because of Workforce.


As for the episode itself, I obviously liked it enough to get interested in Star Trek- but the part that won me over was the fact that Tom had some internal instinct to take care of B'elanna's child and be her friend even when he had no idea who she was. It was all sweet and stuff. Plus, i really appreciated how all of the characters acted when they didn't know themselves. It really makes you think about how people would be if they had the same basic personality but weren't bound by their own inhibitions, social cusoms, the image they try to display, etc.

Plus, after watching the DVD special features, I was impressed at how creative the set designers were, especially on a budget.

 

[Praetor]

Well, it did a good job doing that then.

 

[Dane_Whitman]

You summed up my feelings on this episode in your OP. Not a favourite, though I usually enjoy watching it because the SFX work was quite nice.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Soonunseptum is spot on about this giving the actors a chance to show their range, and I always enjoy Tom and B'Elanna moments too.

It's just that considering this technology to create false identities, they didn't need already innately skilled labour to create a skilled labour force. The people in charge could have upgraded idiot slackers into super geniuses if they felt the need (Maybe that was the problem? All the Locals had upgraded to the point that menial labour was beneath them? Similar to what happened on Talos IV.). Sure the Voyager crew might have had completely new skillsets to bring to the party, but if this memory creating tech was on the level, it should have been able to record and imprint any of the Voyager crews personalities and/or talents onto anyone else that everyone thereafter could have had Seven of Nines technical and managerial skills, or Chuckles' finesse as a lover. Seriously, they kidnap and psychically Vivisect, reducing the knowledge base and mental acuity in Tom until he'll agree to be a bartender?

That's weird.

Really "parts" the crew could have been mass produced and inserted into the personalities of millions of people across that planet if things had gone right.

 

[Praetor]

You've summed up my basic problem with this episode nicely, Guy. It just doesn't make rational sense to me.

The actors did get to showcase their range and do something different, which, aside from the nifty new VFX, was what I liked about this episode.

Apparently Bryan Fuller (who has a hard-on for death if 'Dead Like Me' and 'Pushing Daisies' are any indication) originally wanted the crew to all die in this episode and be resurrected as Kobali (see 'Ashes to Ashes') with new lives as a result. In some ways, I might have preferred this had the Doctor been able to somehow reverse the process at the end.

 

[Myasishchev]

^He could've used antiprotons. They're good for what ails ya.

 

[Guy Gardener]

I like the actor who played Janeway's Boyfriend. He'd always been fairly amusing on Charmed. Though he should have protested a little harder when she said that he could come with her but then they couldn't be together. But then, is she really the woman he fell in love with any more after all that superficial programming was brushed aside?

I gotta wonder if there is any man out there that she would love so hard as to abandon ship half way home like Neelix did (for a woman)? Other than Lizard Tom of course.

 

[Tachyon]

The concept of the episode is interesting. But I am not a huge fan of this story, though. There are many good elements in it, but I guess I am more of a "space-anomaly-of-the-week" kind of person.

It would have been a lot more entertaining episode for me, if they had gone with the original script and put Chakotay on the planet too as Janeway's lover.

 

[Praetor]

Yeah, even that would have added to it. Basically, I think taking it as a bizarro 'what if the crew had settled down?' approach would have been best.

 

[J47]

You've summed up my basic problem with this episode nicely, Guy. It just doesn't make rational sense to me.

The actors did get to showcase their range and do something different, which, aside from the nifty new VFX, was what I liked about this episode.

Apparently Bryan Fuller (who has a hard-on for death if 'Dead Like Me' and 'Pushing Daisies' are any indication) originally wanted the crew to all die in this episode and be resurrected as Kobali (see 'Ashes to Ashes') with new lives as a result. In some ways, I might have preferred this had the Doctor been able to somehow reverse the process at the end.

Since there was obviously no way that would ever have happened, I'm guessing Fuller was joking when he said that.

 

[Praetor]

No, he really wasn't. It's what he wanted to do: resurrect the crew as Kobali as they were shown to do with Ensign Ballard. He had some very off the wall story ideas in general.

Like you say though, it got vetoed by the producers. They weren't game.

 

[Tachyon]

Hmm... perhaps it was better that he did not get his way on this. Sometimes unconventional thinking pays off, but this kind of scenario sounds just too weird for me.

 

[Lindley]

Eh, SG-1 did the story better.

 

[Praetor]

They did?

 

[Guy Gardener]

They did.

SG1's memories were wiped and they were basically given a raggity Dickensian lifestyle to endure working in an underground powerstation that looked like a huge steam engine. The ruling class pretended a new ice age was upon them so that the workers had to stay under ground. Teal'c has to go through a healing meditation called kal'nor'ree(sp?) once a day to keep his symbiont from going batshit which because his new personality had no idea to do this, made him ill and he began to die but his memories started flittering up unpredictably so he appeared insane which is almost exactly what happened with Tuvok's lack of emotion not being factored into his rebuilt personality which created all his problems in the new world order and his memories flittered to the surface which was mistaken for insanity.

Glaring similarities really.

 

[Praetor]

Crap, I actually remember seeing that episode now. That's an odd coincidence...

So which came first?

 

[Meredith]

76 410 "Beneath the Surface" Peter DeLuise Heather E. Ash September 1, 2000 (Showtime) The members of SG-1 have had their memories altered and been put to work in an underground industrial complex. They must recover their memories in order to escape.




162. "Workforce, Part I" February 21, 2001 54584.3 716 The Voyager crew are brainwashed into starting new jobs on an industrialized planet, leaving only Chakotay, Kim and Neelix (who were on an away mission at the time) and the Doctor (who has become the E.C.H in the absence of the crew) to save them.
163. "Workforce, Part II" February 28, 2001 54622.4 717 Chakotay tries to rescue the resistive amnesiac crew.




SG1 was there first!!!!

 

[Praetor]

I am unsurprised, somehow. Geesh. Now I dislike this ep a little more.

 

[Guy Gardener]

In the week or so leading up to Workforce, just from reading the TV Guide blurb, people already started complaining that Voyager had ripped off Stargate. At least that's some of the online reaction I remember seeing at the time.