Seven of Nine's journey back to being a human sure is bumpy. Also, how can she encrypt a function of Voyager by just pressing a few buttons. If she had, say, injected the panel with the probes on her hands I would have maybe bought it, but wow. Also, if she has a personal shield that is invulnerable to all damage and can walk through just about all forcefields why isn't she the number one attack soldier on the ship? I guess they didn't know she had the shield still, but isn't it worth looking into that and maybe make it so she can use it when not tracking in on a Borg homing signal.
The episode opens with Janeway trying to teach Seven how to sculpt with clay but it isn't going well. It gets even worse when Seven seeds one of Leonardo's flying machines and it gives her flashbacks of being chased and assimilated by Borg and then suddenly a raven flying at her. The Doctor can't find anything wrong with her so she gets an even bigger challenge, trying to survive Neelix's food. It goes badly because of course Neelix is a terrible cook. Next Janeway is negotiating with the B'omar for passage through their space, but they make demands that make going along with them totally unreasonable. They are interrupted by Seven attacking Neelix and going full Borg trying to escape the ship. Despite all their efforts she escapes the ship and flies a shuttle straight into B'omar space where their leader insists Voyager can't go.
The Doctor figures out that the nanites inside her somehow turned back on and unless he stops them will continue turning her back into a Borg. He does create an antidote though, but it must be administered via hypo. Paris comes up with a plan to sneak a shuttle into B'omar space and he gets to do it along with Tuvok. Tuvok beams over to her shuttle but she defeats him in hand to hand combat and restricts him to the back of the shuttle with a forcefield. Janeway meanwhile gives Harry the job of digging through Seven's personal logs and while he can't make anything of it she recognizes the Raven motif and gets things rolling. Seven agrees to let Tuvok beam to the planet she has flown them to along with her. They find a wrecked Federation ship with clear signs of Borg attack.
Inside the ship Seven starts having flashbacks again and realizes this is the ship that she was assimilated on. She turns off the homing signal that activated her nanites and drew her back there. But just then the B'omar start bombarding from orbit. The two flee as Paris flies in to pick them up. Voyager opens fire on several B'omar vessels to stop the bombardment and Janeway just turns off comms when their leaders call to complain. Paris and Tuvok are rescued and Seven has a nice talk with Janeway about her parents.
Review: Despite having combat and stuff this episode felt a little dull. The entire scene with Seven trying to eat Neelix's food was terrible and boring. Overall pretty average.
5 out of 10
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
VOY: Revulsion
I am not sure if the title refers to the hologram's revulsion for humanity or Kim's revulsion for actual contact with a female member of the species. And yeah, I get that having Seven of Nine suddenly turn all sexy on you would be a huge shock, but come on. Torres and Paris seem to be moving towards an actual relationship in a way the rest of the crew seems to not be able to do themselves. Also I really enjoyed having the holodeck gone wrong take place due to some actual fault of the users rather than just some excuse about a patch of radiation or something. It is interesting the way the Doctor clearly understands some of the frustrations about not being taken seriously even if he doesn't share the sociopathic urge to kill.
We open with a holographic character cleaning up the remains of the crew of a starship that evidently suffered a violent end. Afterwards he heads to the bridge and puts out a call for help stating that his crew was killed in an accident and that he needs help. Cut to Voyager where Tuvok is being roasted/promoted to lieutenant commander. Afterwards Paris manages to corner Torres who tries to appologize for declaring her love before Paris just comes straight in for a kiss. They are interrupted by the Doctor who informs Paris that he is now the second most trained medical crew now and will be taking duty shifts in sickbay. They are called to the bridge by the distress signal from the opening. The Doctor is super excited to get to go before the captain even agrees to send him but he manages to convince her to send him and Torres. The ship sets off on some unrelated mission while Torres and the Doctor look for the lost hologram.
They find the ship but it seems empty. The first clue it isn't is when the hologram flickers out while sneaking up on Torres and the Doctor and drops the hammer he is brandishing menacingly. He seems resistant to letting Torres help him with his program but eventually agrees to show her what she needs and also that she shouldn't go to the bottom deck since it is flooded with radiation. He hits it off with the Doctor loving the talk of being treated as equals to carbon based crew. Back on Voyager Kim is assigned to work on the astrometrics lab with Seven which he finds uncomfortable since she hit him in the back of the head with a wrench the last time they worked together. But things go well, too well in face as Harry finds himself falling for Seven.
Back on the damaged ship Torres has a nasty run in with the hologram who tells her how much he hates carbon based lifeforms. She checks and finds that the lower decks are just fine so she gets the Doctor to distract him while she investigates. She finds the bodies of his murdered crew members just as the hologram figures out the ruse. He tries to kill her by putting his hand into her chest as she manages to turn him off. On Voyager Kim tries asking Seven to go to the holodeck with him and she realizes he is trying to seduce her and is totally down to give it a go. Which of course terrifies Kim who flees. Torres heads back up to the bridge and finds that the hologram is still alive. He disables the Doctors mobile emitter and hits Torres in the head with a hammer. She manages to flee to a broken cable leaking the kind of energy you need to kill and hologram and barely escapes with her life.
Review: This episode does a good job coming up with a broken hologram who is clearly too dangerous to be allowed to exist, but who you can empathize with for his mistreatment by his crew. Also damn Paris has his love game so much better together than Kim.
6 out of 10
We open with a holographic character cleaning up the remains of the crew of a starship that evidently suffered a violent end. Afterwards he heads to the bridge and puts out a call for help stating that his crew was killed in an accident and that he needs help. Cut to Voyager where Tuvok is being roasted/promoted to lieutenant commander. Afterwards Paris manages to corner Torres who tries to appologize for declaring her love before Paris just comes straight in for a kiss. They are interrupted by the Doctor who informs Paris that he is now the second most trained medical crew now and will be taking duty shifts in sickbay. They are called to the bridge by the distress signal from the opening. The Doctor is super excited to get to go before the captain even agrees to send him but he manages to convince her to send him and Torres. The ship sets off on some unrelated mission while Torres and the Doctor look for the lost hologram.
They find the ship but it seems empty. The first clue it isn't is when the hologram flickers out while sneaking up on Torres and the Doctor and drops the hammer he is brandishing menacingly. He seems resistant to letting Torres help him with his program but eventually agrees to show her what she needs and also that she shouldn't go to the bottom deck since it is flooded with radiation. He hits it off with the Doctor loving the talk of being treated as equals to carbon based crew. Back on Voyager Kim is assigned to work on the astrometrics lab with Seven which he finds uncomfortable since she hit him in the back of the head with a wrench the last time they worked together. But things go well, too well in face as Harry finds himself falling for Seven.
Back on the damaged ship Torres has a nasty run in with the hologram who tells her how much he hates carbon based lifeforms. She checks and finds that the lower decks are just fine so she gets the Doctor to distract him while she investigates. She finds the bodies of his murdered crew members just as the hologram figures out the ruse. He tries to kill her by putting his hand into her chest as she manages to turn him off. On Voyager Kim tries asking Seven to go to the holodeck with him and she realizes he is trying to seduce her and is totally down to give it a go. Which of course terrifies Kim who flees. Torres heads back up to the bridge and finds that the hologram is still alive. He disables the Doctors mobile emitter and hits Torres in the head with a hammer. She manages to flee to a broken cable leaking the kind of energy you need to kill and hologram and barely escapes with her life.
Review: This episode does a good job coming up with a broken hologram who is clearly too dangerous to be allowed to exist, but who you can empathize with for his mistreatment by his crew. Also damn Paris has his love game so much better together than Kim.
6 out of 10
Monday, August 29, 2016
VOY: Nemesis
Thank god I wasn't watching that Nemesis today. Instead I got a rather deep dive into propaganda, recruitment, and tactics of a small army brainwashing soldiers to its cause. By showing almost the entire story from Chakotay's perspective it makes it easier to understand just how hard it must be for him to deal with learning everything he experienced was a lie. I am sure there are terrorist groups today who use tactics very similar to these but of course without the ability to create technoillusions of some sort. I admit I was expecting to see that the race talking with Janeway would turn out to be the nemesis of the Chakotay's Vori, but overall the scene still really worked.
We begin with Chakotay being captured by a Vori soldier, but his commander quickly recognizes that he isn't their nemesis. He talks Chakotay into staying the night in their camp and all everyone wants to talk about is nullifying their enemies who are so brutal to their families. Chakotay doesn't seem to buy it and talks to a young soldier new to the fight about killing. The next day the leader sends a seasoned soldier with Chakotay to look for his crashed shuttle but they run into a Kradin patrol and his friend is killed. Chakotay kills a Kradin before the rest of the Vori rush in. Chakotay is given the uniform of the fallen soldier and the entire group sets off to rendezvous with another unit. They find their comrades have already been killed though and the Kradin are waiting in ambush. Everyone but Chakotay are killed and he escapes into the forest.
The next day Chakotay finds a Vori village and is welcomed as a hero. A young girl befriends him who had a brother in the massacred unit. The next day she gives him flowers as he prepares to leave but as he goes he hears explosions and finds the village being overrun by Kradin. He is captured and tortured but spends the night with the villagers protecting the girl. The next day her grandfather is being hauled off for execution but the girl tries to help and is hauled off as well. This is too much for Chakotay who attacks the Kradin commander. He is captured and left for dead but rescued by one of the soldiers he met earlier. Voyager meanwhile meets with the locals on the planet who offer to help Chakotay, the locals in this case being the Kradin. Tuvok offers to join them in a rescue mission for Chakotay.
Chakotay is now fulling commited to his side and joins a unit in an attack on a Kradin convoy. He runs into a Kradin who tells him he is Tuvok but Chakotay refuses to believe him. His friends are dragged off and gradually he realizes it is Tuvok. He is taken to the village where he is greeted by the same villagers as before, even the ones he saw being taken away for execution. Back on Voyager the Doctor explains he was given powerful drugs and put in a simulation of some sort. He accepts this but still can't stand to be in the same room as the Kradin ambassador.
Review: Not entirely realistic, but an interesting look at what it takes to be recruited into a militant movement. The way the Vori talk was a bit annoying, but I suppose getting someone to adopt a specific way of talking is a good way to get them to feel a part of a group.
7 out of 10
We begin with Chakotay being captured by a Vori soldier, but his commander quickly recognizes that he isn't their nemesis. He talks Chakotay into staying the night in their camp and all everyone wants to talk about is nullifying their enemies who are so brutal to their families. Chakotay doesn't seem to buy it and talks to a young soldier new to the fight about killing. The next day the leader sends a seasoned soldier with Chakotay to look for his crashed shuttle but they run into a Kradin patrol and his friend is killed. Chakotay kills a Kradin before the rest of the Vori rush in. Chakotay is given the uniform of the fallen soldier and the entire group sets off to rendezvous with another unit. They find their comrades have already been killed though and the Kradin are waiting in ambush. Everyone but Chakotay are killed and he escapes into the forest.
The next day Chakotay finds a Vori village and is welcomed as a hero. A young girl befriends him who had a brother in the massacred unit. The next day she gives him flowers as he prepares to leave but as he goes he hears explosions and finds the village being overrun by Kradin. He is captured and tortured but spends the night with the villagers protecting the girl. The next day her grandfather is being hauled off for execution but the girl tries to help and is hauled off as well. This is too much for Chakotay who attacks the Kradin commander. He is captured and left for dead but rescued by one of the soldiers he met earlier. Voyager meanwhile meets with the locals on the planet who offer to help Chakotay, the locals in this case being the Kradin. Tuvok offers to join them in a rescue mission for Chakotay.
Chakotay is now fulling commited to his side and joins a unit in an attack on a Kradin convoy. He runs into a Kradin who tells him he is Tuvok but Chakotay refuses to believe him. His friends are dragged off and gradually he realizes it is Tuvok. He is taken to the village where he is greeted by the same villagers as before, even the ones he saw being taken away for execution. Back on Voyager the Doctor explains he was given powerful drugs and put in a simulation of some sort. He accepts this but still can't stand to be in the same room as the Kradin ambassador.
Review: Not entirely realistic, but an interesting look at what it takes to be recruited into a militant movement. The way the Vori talk was a bit annoying, but I suppose getting someone to adopt a specific way of talking is a good way to get them to feel a part of a group.
7 out of 10
Sunday, August 28, 2016
VOY: Day of Honor
B'Elanna Torres and the terrible day that turns out ok could easily be the name of this episode. Pretty much everything that could go wrong for B'Elanna does but in the end she overcomes her personal fears and admits she loves Paris. Now it wasn't super clear from his reaction at that moment that he reciprocated, but he has been into her for at least the last season. The plot with the bird head aliens who extort Voyager for medical supplies and thorium wasn't the greatest B story of all time, but it worked to give a reasonable reason for Tom and B'Elanna to be marooned together.
First we open with Seven requesting a duty shift from Chakotay. Cut to the engine room where everything is going wrong for Torres. Plasma is leaking, she over slept, her sonic shower broke, and Tom is there it pester her about the dinner date she agreed to. To finish things up Chakotay shows up to tell Torres that she has a new working to give shifts to, Seven of Nine. Speaking of, she is talking with Janeway in her ready room about her new assignment. She promises to not sabotage anything and also tells Janeway that she prefers going by Seven of Nine rather than her human name Annika. They head to the bridge where a ship full of bird head aliens is requesting aide. Janeway agrees but can't fulfill all their demands. They claim to have been left without a planet after the Borg attacked their world which makes them feel great when they notice Seven on the bridge. They are pushy about their demands but Janeway isn't having it.
In the mess hall Torres is fuming over her dinner when Neelix shows up with a blood pie. It apparently a Klingon holiday called The Day of Honor where you eat blood pie and show off how badass a Klingon you are. There is supposed to be a ceremony which Paris was going to go through with her. Instead she insists no blood pie and no ceremony. But she tries it anyway. And sticks with it for about a minute before beating up the holograms and leaving. The next day Seven is in engineering to try to get them into a transwarp conduit or something but it goes horribly wrong and they have to eject the warp core leaving the ship adrift. Janeway sends Torres and Paris back to get to core in a shuttle since Voyager is stuck.
They find the core but the bird heads found it first. Not only to the make off with the core, they destroy the shuttle leaving Paris and Torres in space suits without long range communications. The bird heads show up at Voyager with the core and a few dozen more of their ships. They demand both supplies and Seven of Nine. It is a good lesson for her in how the crew works though because Janeway refuses to turn her over. Seven even manages to rig up a replicator for the Thorium the bird heads need. Things get bad for Torres and Paris as Paris' suit is damaged and they have to share oxygen. Not only that Torres tank isn't full so they only have minutes to live. Just as they are about to pass out Torres admits that she has always been afraid to say it, but she loves Tom. And then Voyager beams them to safety.
Review: A solid character episode that would have fit in pretty well on DS9 but still works just fine in Voyager. It is also nice to see the writers letting two characters who clearly have a lot in common actually get together for once.
7 out of 10
First we open with Seven requesting a duty shift from Chakotay. Cut to the engine room where everything is going wrong for Torres. Plasma is leaking, she over slept, her sonic shower broke, and Tom is there it pester her about the dinner date she agreed to. To finish things up Chakotay shows up to tell Torres that she has a new working to give shifts to, Seven of Nine. Speaking of, she is talking with Janeway in her ready room about her new assignment. She promises to not sabotage anything and also tells Janeway that she prefers going by Seven of Nine rather than her human name Annika. They head to the bridge where a ship full of bird head aliens is requesting aide. Janeway agrees but can't fulfill all their demands. They claim to have been left without a planet after the Borg attacked their world which makes them feel great when they notice Seven on the bridge. They are pushy about their demands but Janeway isn't having it.
In the mess hall Torres is fuming over her dinner when Neelix shows up with a blood pie. It apparently a Klingon holiday called The Day of Honor where you eat blood pie and show off how badass a Klingon you are. There is supposed to be a ceremony which Paris was going to go through with her. Instead she insists no blood pie and no ceremony. But she tries it anyway. And sticks with it for about a minute before beating up the holograms and leaving. The next day Seven is in engineering to try to get them into a transwarp conduit or something but it goes horribly wrong and they have to eject the warp core leaving the ship adrift. Janeway sends Torres and Paris back to get to core in a shuttle since Voyager is stuck.
They find the core but the bird heads found it first. Not only to the make off with the core, they destroy the shuttle leaving Paris and Torres in space suits without long range communications. The bird heads show up at Voyager with the core and a few dozen more of their ships. They demand both supplies and Seven of Nine. It is a good lesson for her in how the crew works though because Janeway refuses to turn her over. Seven even manages to rig up a replicator for the Thorium the bird heads need. Things get bad for Torres and Paris as Paris' suit is damaged and they have to share oxygen. Not only that Torres tank isn't full so they only have minutes to live. Just as they are about to pass out Torres admits that she has always been afraid to say it, but she loves Tom. And then Voyager beams them to safety.
Review: A solid character episode that would have fit in pretty well on DS9 but still works just fine in Voyager. It is also nice to see the writers letting two characters who clearly have a lot in common actually get together for once.
7 out of 10
Friday, August 26, 2016
VOY: The Gift
This episode really only exists to give us a transition from Kes to Seven of Nine and pretty much the entire plot is about these two things. Having read that the plan wasn't for Kes to leave but instead for Kim to die explains why she went from being a bit psychic to being able to move things with her mind and almost destroy the ship in such a short time. Presumably that arc was supposed to gradually unfurl throughout the series but instead we get it all up front here. We also get the most actually romantic scene between Neelix and Kes that I have ever seen which is nice and something that would have been welcome much earlier in the series. I am still on the road and my typing is keeping my wife awake so this is going to be a quick summary, but luckily it is also a straightforward episode.
We open with the Doctor telling Janeway that Seven is rejecting her Borg implants and that he needs to start removing them. They awaken Seven and she hates the idea but Janeway doesn't care and orders the Doctor to do it anyway. In sickbay Kes manages to grab a hypo with her mind and then later destroys one of the implants with her mind saving Seven. Seven wakes up and is pissed but also seems willing to help remove some of the Borg tech to help get the warp drive back online. But instead she tries to break into communications to contact the collective. Tuvok and Kes meditate together and Tuvok realizes Kes is seeing deeper into reality that anyone he has ever known about and also starting to change into something other than what she is. Seven gets thrown in the brig for what she did but Janeway ties to remind her of her humanity. Kes has a final dinner with Neelix after telling the captain she is leaving the ship but starts losing control of her transition and is forced to leave in a shuttlecraft. She changes into pure energy and sends them 9500 lightyears closer to home in a few seconds before disappearing. We end with Seven in the form she has through the rest of the show with only minimal implants. She agrees to not contact the collective again and even seems to be regaining some humanity.
Review: A necessary episode and certainly a better end than Tasha or Jadzia got so that is cool, but still a little weak as an episode. The better character handling though gets it at least up to:
5 out of 10
We open with the Doctor telling Janeway that Seven is rejecting her Borg implants and that he needs to start removing them. They awaken Seven and she hates the idea but Janeway doesn't care and orders the Doctor to do it anyway. In sickbay Kes manages to grab a hypo with her mind and then later destroys one of the implants with her mind saving Seven. Seven wakes up and is pissed but also seems willing to help remove some of the Borg tech to help get the warp drive back online. But instead she tries to break into communications to contact the collective. Tuvok and Kes meditate together and Tuvok realizes Kes is seeing deeper into reality that anyone he has ever known about and also starting to change into something other than what she is. Seven gets thrown in the brig for what she did but Janeway ties to remind her of her humanity. Kes has a final dinner with Neelix after telling the captain she is leaving the ship but starts losing control of her transition and is forced to leave in a shuttlecraft. She changes into pure energy and sends them 9500 lightyears closer to home in a few seconds before disappearing. We end with Seven in the form she has through the rest of the show with only minimal implants. She agrees to not contact the collective again and even seems to be regaining some humanity.
Review: A necessary episode and certainly a better end than Tasha or Jadzia got so that is cool, but still a little weak as an episode. The better character handling though gets it at least up to:
5 out of 10
Thursday, August 25, 2016
Scorpion, Part II
Not super shockingly Janeway isn't pleased Chakotay ignored her orders to stick with the plan. But it does seem like they are back on the same team in the end of the episode so there is at least that. The introduction of Seven of Nine seemed to work fairly well within the episode which was cool, I had remembered it standing out a bit more, but I am sure I had heard the news of Jerry Ryan joining the cast long before the original airing. It seems Janeway also managed to get through this whole thing so far without actually giving tech to the Borg which is the opposite of how I remembered it. It does seem odd that they seem to think they have made it through all of Borg space this quickly, but I am pretty sure they end up being wrong in any case.
We open where we left off with Voyager being dragged by a cube with the captain on board and Kim still doing very poorly in sickbay. Janeway contacts Voyager and tells Tuvok to beam over and assist her. After he arrives the two are taken to a "work area" although it seems to just be another nondescript room without any tools or whatever you use to put nanites into a weapon. The Borg try to "temporarily" assimilate Janeway and Tuvok but Janeway threatens to destroy the nanites if they do and requests a spokesborg to work with. The Borg provide Seven of Nine, an assimilated human woman, to work with them. She insists on building a massive super weapon to kill all of 8472 but Janeway convinces her creating that many nanites will take too long. Instead they decide to modify some torpedoes to deploy them, but before the plan can get much further they are attacked. The cube sacrifices itself to save Voyager beaming the captain, Tuvok and a group of Borg into a cargobay at the last second.
Janeway is hurt badly and Chakotay takes command. At least Kim is finally recovering as the synthesized nanites do the job. Seven tells Chakotay that he needs to change the plan and fly several more days into Borg space to give them the nanites they need but he refuses. Instead he plans to maroon them on a planet with the nanites so other Borg can come pick them up. Seven is pissed and instead sets a plan in motion to send them into the liquid space of 8472. She pulls it off but not before Chakotay vents the cargobay sending all the Borg but her into deep space. They arrive in liquid space just as Janeway wakes up. She is pissed at Chakotay but they come up with a plan. She prepares for a fight and tells Seven that Chakotay is in the brig. The attack goes great and they manage to destroy a bunch of 8472's bioships. Seven lets them out of liquid space and then tries to take over Voyager and fly it back to the Borg. Janeway has other ideas and has Chakotay link with the Borg to distract Seven while Torres overloads her link to the collective. It works and she is broken from the Borg and left for the Doctor to try and bring some humanity back to.
Review: Not quite as strong as part I, but enough action to keep things entertaining. I skipped the entire Kes psychic visions thing since it seemed pretty worthless to the story and she is only around for maybe one or two more episodes in any case.
7 out of 10
We open where we left off with Voyager being dragged by a cube with the captain on board and Kim still doing very poorly in sickbay. Janeway contacts Voyager and tells Tuvok to beam over and assist her. After he arrives the two are taken to a "work area" although it seems to just be another nondescript room without any tools or whatever you use to put nanites into a weapon. The Borg try to "temporarily" assimilate Janeway and Tuvok but Janeway threatens to destroy the nanites if they do and requests a spokesborg to work with. The Borg provide Seven of Nine, an assimilated human woman, to work with them. She insists on building a massive super weapon to kill all of 8472 but Janeway convinces her creating that many nanites will take too long. Instead they decide to modify some torpedoes to deploy them, but before the plan can get much further they are attacked. The cube sacrifices itself to save Voyager beaming the captain, Tuvok and a group of Borg into a cargobay at the last second.
Janeway is hurt badly and Chakotay takes command. At least Kim is finally recovering as the synthesized nanites do the job. Seven tells Chakotay that he needs to change the plan and fly several more days into Borg space to give them the nanites they need but he refuses. Instead he plans to maroon them on a planet with the nanites so other Borg can come pick them up. Seven is pissed and instead sets a plan in motion to send them into the liquid space of 8472. She pulls it off but not before Chakotay vents the cargobay sending all the Borg but her into deep space. They arrive in liquid space just as Janeway wakes up. She is pissed at Chakotay but they come up with a plan. She prepares for a fight and tells Seven that Chakotay is in the brig. The attack goes great and they manage to destroy a bunch of 8472's bioships. Seven lets them out of liquid space and then tries to take over Voyager and fly it back to the Borg. Janeway has other ideas and has Chakotay link with the Borg to distract Seven while Torres overloads her link to the collective. It works and she is broken from the Borg and left for the Doctor to try and bring some humanity back to.
Review: Not quite as strong as part I, but enough action to keep things entertaining. I skipped the entire Kes psychic visions thing since it seemed pretty worthless to the story and she is only around for maybe one or two more episodes in any case.
7 out of 10
Wednesday, August 24, 2016
VOY: Scorpion
This episode marks two major changes in the show, and I am not talking about Seven of Nine. First of all is the point after which I am sure we never have to deal with the Kazon again and that is a super good thing. It is also the point where Janeway breaks a little and is a bit unhinged, especially when it comes to issues of morality, for the rest of the show. On this watch especially it seemed pretty obvious that Chakotay was right and that they should let the Borg fall. Also, honestly the idea of settling down somewhere seems more reasonable than continuing a 70+ year flight home. This is especially true since they have yet to have any of their major jumps across space that significantly shorten their journey. In some ways Janeway is proven right, but not in many others.
The episode opens with two Borg cubes being destroyed by a mysterious energy weapon. Cut to Janeway talking to Gimli, I mean Da Vinci played by John Rhys-Davies. She talks him into a collaboration before she is called to the bridge. A probe they sent out a few months ago has disappeared, and the last thing it showed was Borg. She calls a senior staff meeting and they discuss the situation. She feels they have no choice but to plow through Borg space since it is so vast. Especially since there is an appropriately named "Northwest Passage" through that appears to be clear of Borg. In sickbay the Doctor explains to Kes that he has discovered the first step in assimilation, the Borg inject their victims with nanites that infect their blood and start taking over the body. Kes has a vision of a pile of Borg bodies just as they encounter a large group of Borg ships. They don't attack though and after a quick scan fly onward.
Chakotay and Janeway have a talk where he promises to be on her side no matter what. They both get called to the bridge with interesting news, all 15 Borg cubes that flew past have been destroyed. They fly in to investigate and find a living ship jammed in a cube. Chakotay leads a party to investigate and finds the cube badly damaged and one of the new aliens on board. They manage to get some data on them but Harry is badly hurt by the alien as they beam out. The alien ship powers up and they just barely escape. From the Borg data they learn the Borg call the aliens Species 8472 and know almost nothing about them. Also the Borg as badly losing the fight. In sickbay Kim is in bad shape, the alien cells in his wound are eating him from the inside. The Doctor has an idea though, modified Borg nanites seem to work great.
Janeway has an idea and proposes it at a staff meeting. She wants to trade the tech to kill 8472 in exchange for free passage through Borg space. Pretty much everybody thinks it is a bad idea. After the meeting Chakotay and Janeway have a private talk and Janeway tells him she thinks this means he doesn't actually have her back. They go forward with the plan and fly straight to a Borg planet. The Borg seem interested and beam Janeway onto their cube to negotiate but 8472 appears out of a quantum singularity and destroys the entire Borg planet throwing the cube and the still tractor beamed Voyager away in the shock wave.
Review: Kes and her visions seem to be getting play mostly because I am sure they knew by now she was leaving the show. I remember not liking what Janeway did after this, but I am going to try and keep an open mind as we enter the next season and the next phase of the show.
8 out of 10
The episode opens with two Borg cubes being destroyed by a mysterious energy weapon. Cut to Janeway talking to Gimli, I mean Da Vinci played by John Rhys-Davies. She talks him into a collaboration before she is called to the bridge. A probe they sent out a few months ago has disappeared, and the last thing it showed was Borg. She calls a senior staff meeting and they discuss the situation. She feels they have no choice but to plow through Borg space since it is so vast. Especially since there is an appropriately named "Northwest Passage" through that appears to be clear of Borg. In sickbay the Doctor explains to Kes that he has discovered the first step in assimilation, the Borg inject their victims with nanites that infect their blood and start taking over the body. Kes has a vision of a pile of Borg bodies just as they encounter a large group of Borg ships. They don't attack though and after a quick scan fly onward.
Chakotay and Janeway have a talk where he promises to be on her side no matter what. They both get called to the bridge with interesting news, all 15 Borg cubes that flew past have been destroyed. They fly in to investigate and find a living ship jammed in a cube. Chakotay leads a party to investigate and finds the cube badly damaged and one of the new aliens on board. They manage to get some data on them but Harry is badly hurt by the alien as they beam out. The alien ship powers up and they just barely escape. From the Borg data they learn the Borg call the aliens Species 8472 and know almost nothing about them. Also the Borg as badly losing the fight. In sickbay Kim is in bad shape, the alien cells in his wound are eating him from the inside. The Doctor has an idea though, modified Borg nanites seem to work great.
Janeway has an idea and proposes it at a staff meeting. She wants to trade the tech to kill 8472 in exchange for free passage through Borg space. Pretty much everybody thinks it is a bad idea. After the meeting Chakotay and Janeway have a private talk and Janeway tells him she thinks this means he doesn't actually have her back. They go forward with the plan and fly straight to a Borg planet. The Borg seem interested and beam Janeway onto their cube to negotiate but 8472 appears out of a quantum singularity and destroys the entire Borg planet throwing the cube and the still tractor beamed Voyager away in the shock wave.
Review: Kes and her visions seem to be getting play mostly because I am sure they knew by now she was leaving the show. I remember not liking what Janeway did after this, but I am going to try and keep an open mind as we enter the next season and the next phase of the show.
8 out of 10
Tuesday, August 23, 2016
VOY: Worst Case Scenario
Sooooo nice to be back on a physical keyboard! Touch screens have come a long way but I am probably ten times faster typing on the real thing. And speaking of things that aren't quite real, tonight episode over Voyager falls into the classic TNG category of episodes about the holodeck going wrong. This time though the cause isn't hitting some sort of energy field in space or something, it is sabotage. Probably the biggest thing this episode did was make me realize that I really don't miss Seska. She wasn't a great character and her love of Chakotay never really felt like a real relationship. I did really enjoy the cold opening of Chakotay asking Torres to join his mutiny though, that was pretty badass.
Speaking of, we open with Chakotay complaining about Tuvok to Torres and then in the turbolift asking her to join his mutiny. She is hesitant but agrees. On the bridge the captain leaves for a mission on a shuttle and as soon as she is gone Chakotay signals his allies. They take out Tuvok and Torres shoots Kim. All the officers are thrown into the brig the rest of the crew are held in the cargo bay and given the option of joining the rebellion or being marooned on a planet forever. Just then Paris walks in and asks Torres what is going on. She pauses the program and eventually tells him she found this holonovel in the ships databases but can't figure out who wrote it. He insists on joining and plays the program for a while. It doesn't work out since he opposes the mutiny but he tries again, this time joining in. It plays up to the point where Janeway gets onto the ship with the holographic Paris who the real Paris confronts in the transporter room and then the program ends.
They also discover while talking about it that Neelix and several other crew members have discovered the program. At briefing the captain brings it up and Tuvok admits to having created the program. He is also worried that it would inspire an actual rebellion and insists on deleting it. But Janeway overrules him and even orders him to finish it. It seems she is a fan too. Tuvok resists so Paris volunteers. In the mess hall Paris is working on the program when Tuvok walks in. He insists on helping finish the program and Paris objects, but then he learns Tuvok is the only one who can edit it so he agrees. They open the program for editing in the holodeck when everything shimmers for a second. On the bridge they find that the holodecks are locked and the transporters are down.
In the program Tuvok and Paris find themselves in the brig confronted by Seska. She explains she found the program and booby trapped it so the next time Tuvok edited it this would happen. The safeties are off and there is now way out. She tells them to run and they realize they have little choice. They head to the transporter room and run into Janeway, but she is killed when her phaser backfires. Seska shoots Paris in the arm and they flee again. This time in sickbay they are attacked by the Doctor and forced to flee into the Jeffery's tubes. They encounter a plasma fire but the real Janeway has figured a way to help so a fire extinguisher appears. She tries sending them a message but they get caught as the Seska program adapts. They end up in the cargo bay but Janeway gets an alien race to attack just then and they get a gun. Seska threatens to destroy the ship unless they give her back the guns so Tuvok rigs it to explode before giving it to her. She fails to notice and after being killed the program ends.
Review: This episode manages to examine entertainment in the future in a very interesting way. So much so that the holodeck is trying to kill them trope managed to actually be interesting in a way it hasn't for a while.
8 out of 10
Speaking of, we open with Chakotay complaining about Tuvok to Torres and then in the turbolift asking her to join his mutiny. She is hesitant but agrees. On the bridge the captain leaves for a mission on a shuttle and as soon as she is gone Chakotay signals his allies. They take out Tuvok and Torres shoots Kim. All the officers are thrown into the brig the rest of the crew are held in the cargo bay and given the option of joining the rebellion or being marooned on a planet forever. Just then Paris walks in and asks Torres what is going on. She pauses the program and eventually tells him she found this holonovel in the ships databases but can't figure out who wrote it. He insists on joining and plays the program for a while. It doesn't work out since he opposes the mutiny but he tries again, this time joining in. It plays up to the point where Janeway gets onto the ship with the holographic Paris who the real Paris confronts in the transporter room and then the program ends.
They also discover while talking about it that Neelix and several other crew members have discovered the program. At briefing the captain brings it up and Tuvok admits to having created the program. He is also worried that it would inspire an actual rebellion and insists on deleting it. But Janeway overrules him and even orders him to finish it. It seems she is a fan too. Tuvok resists so Paris volunteers. In the mess hall Paris is working on the program when Tuvok walks in. He insists on helping finish the program and Paris objects, but then he learns Tuvok is the only one who can edit it so he agrees. They open the program for editing in the holodeck when everything shimmers for a second. On the bridge they find that the holodecks are locked and the transporters are down.
In the program Tuvok and Paris find themselves in the brig confronted by Seska. She explains she found the program and booby trapped it so the next time Tuvok edited it this would happen. The safeties are off and there is now way out. She tells them to run and they realize they have little choice. They head to the transporter room and run into Janeway, but she is killed when her phaser backfires. Seska shoots Paris in the arm and they flee again. This time in sickbay they are attacked by the Doctor and forced to flee into the Jeffery's tubes. They encounter a plasma fire but the real Janeway has figured a way to help so a fire extinguisher appears. She tries sending them a message but they get caught as the Seska program adapts. They end up in the cargo bay but Janeway gets an alien race to attack just then and they get a gun. Seska threatens to destroy the ship unless they give her back the guns so Tuvok rigs it to explode before giving it to her. She fails to notice and after being killed the program ends.
Review: This episode manages to examine entertainment in the future in a very interesting way. So much so that the holodeck is trying to kill them trope managed to actually be interesting in a way it hasn't for a while.
8 out of 10
Monday, August 22, 2016
VOY: Displaced
First of all I am typing this write up on a touch screen keyboard which is driving me nuts so it is going to be kinda short. I actually really liked this one both because it felt like a good TNG episode but also because of how badass Janeway is. When Tom and B'Elana left alien weapons behind I was hella pissed. A few minutes later though Janeway cornered the alien leaders in a dangerously cold place while packing serious alien heat. The Paris/Torres relationship seems to be making progress too.
The episode opens with Torres and Paris fighting as usual until a random alien appears. Also at the same moment a member of the crew disappeared. After pretending they don't know whats going on for a while the aliens become hostile. Eventually Chakotay is alone and while he damaged the ship it isn't enough and he finds himself with the rest of the crew. A different alien shows up and helps the get out of the fake environment they find themselves in. Tuvok rigs up phasers and they manage to take control of the habitat ship after some extreme Janeway negotiating.
Review: As you can probably tell I really liked the episode. The summary doesn't do it justice, go check this one out!
8 out of 10
The episode opens with Torres and Paris fighting as usual until a random alien appears. Also at the same moment a member of the crew disappeared. After pretending they don't know whats going on for a while the aliens become hostile. Eventually Chakotay is alone and while he damaged the ship it isn't enough and he finds himself with the rest of the crew. A different alien shows up and helps the get out of the fake environment they find themselves in. Tuvok rigs up phasers and they manage to take control of the habitat ship after some extreme Janeway negotiating.
Review: As you can probably tell I really liked the episode. The summary doesn't do it justice, go check this one out!
8 out of 10
Sunday, August 21, 2016
VOY: Distant Origin
I really enjoyed seeing another more advanced, but not too advanced, race of creatures in the Trek universe try to study the Federation. Just like in Who Watches the Watchers they are able to cloak themselves around us but just like there something goes wrong. It is also clearly an episode about people fighting over evolution which is a fight that has at least settled down a bit since then. Also the idea of a race of dinosaurs escaping the earth and becoming an advanced race in the stars is so cool I would be surprised if it originated here, but it is certainly the first time I have heard anything about it.
The episode opens with a pair of dino dudes discovering a human skull with a fragment of a starfleet uniform in a cave. A DNA scan confirms that the skull is just what they are looking for! Finally the evidence that will make the council of science shut up and accept that professor Gegen has been right all along! His assistant Veer is enthusiastic but a bit more reserved. They get back to their ship and get the hearing they want but the council is unimpressed and seems afraid that the discovery that they aren't from that part of space would contradict dogma and therefore must be shut down. Gegen doesn't give up though and tracks down Voyagers plasma signature. Using their advanced sensors they track her down though and then using advanced transwarp they easily catch up to Voyager. They are even able to phase both their ship and themselves slightly out of reality allowing them to approach and even board Voyager without detection. The two wander the halls watching behaviors and getting data from the ships computers. When they get to the bridge though Kim detects something is going on. Tuvok puts up a forcefield but they still manage to beam to the mess hall. Tuvok again tracks them down, this time with phasers that get them back into reality and the assistant shoots Chakotay with some sort of dart. Veer is knocked out with a phaser as Gegen escapes with the unconscious Chakotay.
In sickbay the Doctor is fascinated by the unconscious Veer. He tries to reawaken him but Veer goes into some sort of defensive hibernation. His scans though show the same thing Gegen's did, the two species are clearly closely related and almost certainly come from the same planet. On Gegen's ship Chakotay wakes up and convinces Gegen to let him out of the forcefield. The two have a long conversation during which Gegen agrees Chakotay is both intelligent and his relative, but he can't just let him go, he needs to show him to the science committee! Voyager suddenly encounters a massive ship which beams all of Voyager inside. They are quickly overwhelmed by the advanced dino men and are used as ransom to get Gegen to come back. He returns with Chakotay but the council aren't impressed. Veer repents but Gegen insists his theories are right. So he all all the crew of Voyager are sentenced to hard labor. Gegen finally gives in and agrees to give up his theories and go study rocks.
Review: I super enjoyed this episode despite being a little too openly about the evolution debate. Strong science fiction ideas going on here and a nice role reversal for the crew.
8 out of 10
The episode opens with a pair of dino dudes discovering a human skull with a fragment of a starfleet uniform in a cave. A DNA scan confirms that the skull is just what they are looking for! Finally the evidence that will make the council of science shut up and accept that professor Gegen has been right all along! His assistant Veer is enthusiastic but a bit more reserved. They get back to their ship and get the hearing they want but the council is unimpressed and seems afraid that the discovery that they aren't from that part of space would contradict dogma and therefore must be shut down. Gegen doesn't give up though and tracks down Voyagers plasma signature. Using their advanced sensors they track her down though and then using advanced transwarp they easily catch up to Voyager. They are even able to phase both their ship and themselves slightly out of reality allowing them to approach and even board Voyager without detection. The two wander the halls watching behaviors and getting data from the ships computers. When they get to the bridge though Kim detects something is going on. Tuvok puts up a forcefield but they still manage to beam to the mess hall. Tuvok again tracks them down, this time with phasers that get them back into reality and the assistant shoots Chakotay with some sort of dart. Veer is knocked out with a phaser as Gegen escapes with the unconscious Chakotay.
In sickbay the Doctor is fascinated by the unconscious Veer. He tries to reawaken him but Veer goes into some sort of defensive hibernation. His scans though show the same thing Gegen's did, the two species are clearly closely related and almost certainly come from the same planet. On Gegen's ship Chakotay wakes up and convinces Gegen to let him out of the forcefield. The two have a long conversation during which Gegen agrees Chakotay is both intelligent and his relative, but he can't just let him go, he needs to show him to the science committee! Voyager suddenly encounters a massive ship which beams all of Voyager inside. They are quickly overwhelmed by the advanced dino men and are used as ransom to get Gegen to come back. He returns with Chakotay but the council aren't impressed. Veer repents but Gegen insists his theories are right. So he all all the crew of Voyager are sentenced to hard labor. Gegen finally gives in and agrees to give up his theories and go study rocks.
Review: I super enjoyed this episode despite being a little too openly about the evolution debate. Strong science fiction ideas going on here and a nice role reversal for the crew.
8 out of 10
Saturday, August 20, 2016
VOY: Real Life
Seeing more of the Doctor exploring what it means to be him is definitely a good thing for the show. Also when they introduced the idea of the Doctor having a perfect family and Torres "fixing" it I thought it was going to just be a straight TV trope about how awful real families are. And yeah, there was some of that, but there was also a healthy scoop of "losing a child too soon" trope to keep things reasonable. The entire B story about the anomaly that for some reason they send Paris into just so he can be hurt to push the Doctor ahead in his A story is totally consequential and I will mostly ignore it in my summary below as a result.
We open in stereotypical 50's family life on the Doctor where his loving wife and children line up at the door to send him off to work. And yeah, Torres got it right, way too sweet to be anything close to real. On the bridge they are supposed to be meeting with some scientists or something but the space station is gone! Oh no, the Jedi are really going to feel this one! Janeway is pissed and insists they investigate but they find it is just some kind of spatial anomaly that sends out waves to distortion that they send Tom into in some kind of harebrained scheme to get free energy or something but it doesn't work and he is trapped only to be rescued and suffer a minor injury.
The Doctor keeps bragging about his family and invites Kes and Torres over for dinner but Torres can't stand it. She does her own thing and the next time the Doctor comes him his house is a mess, his wife is out the door, his daughter is screaming about not being able to find something and his son is hanging out with some tough Klingon kids. He is horrified that his son is trying to become a warrior and holds a meeting to fix the family. But it is a disaster as such things often are and they all are even more mad at him that before.
Things take a turn for the worse though when his daughter is badly hurt in a sports accident. He has to tell his wife that their daughter isn't going to make it and then the daughter wakes up and asks if she is going to be ok and it is too much for him. He turns off the program but then finds himself scolding Paris for taking a risk and the two talk about it. Paris tells him he won't be able to move on unless he goes back in. The episode closes with his daughter dying and the family mourning together.
Review: A very touching episode despite being kinda weak, especially when it came to the B story. Janeway is in fine hawk form ready to seek and destroy. Neelix's food is still a disaster but that isn't really news, or new, or amusing for that matter.
4 out of 10
Note: I am having some issues with blogger fonts so this review may look slightly different than the rest. Hopefully it will be fixed soon!
We open in stereotypical 50's family life on the Doctor where his loving wife and children line up at the door to send him off to work. And yeah, Torres got it right, way too sweet to be anything close to real. On the bridge they are supposed to be meeting with some scientists or something but the space station is gone! Oh no, the Jedi are really going to feel this one! Janeway is pissed and insists they investigate but they find it is just some kind of spatial anomaly that sends out waves to distortion that they send Tom into in some kind of harebrained scheme to get free energy or something but it doesn't work and he is trapped only to be rescued and suffer a minor injury.
The Doctor keeps bragging about his family and invites Kes and Torres over for dinner but Torres can't stand it. She does her own thing and the next time the Doctor comes him his house is a mess, his wife is out the door, his daughter is screaming about not being able to find something and his son is hanging out with some tough Klingon kids. He is horrified that his son is trying to become a warrior and holds a meeting to fix the family. But it is a disaster as such things often are and they all are even more mad at him that before.
Things take a turn for the worse though when his daughter is badly hurt in a sports accident. He has to tell his wife that their daughter isn't going to make it and then the daughter wakes up and asks if she is going to be ok and it is too much for him. He turns off the program but then finds himself scolding Paris for taking a risk and the two talk about it. Paris tells him he won't be able to move on unless he goes back in. The episode closes with his daughter dying and the family mourning together.
Review: A very touching episode despite being kinda weak, especially when it came to the B story. Janeway is in fine hawk form ready to seek and destroy. Neelix's food is still a disaster but that isn't really news, or new, or amusing for that matter.
4 out of 10
Note: I am having some issues with blogger fonts so this review may look slightly different than the rest. Hopefully it will be fixed soon!
Friday, August 19, 2016
VOY: Before and After
I don't know if it was certain at this point, but it really looks like they are starting the process of getting rid of Kes. This episode is all about a future we know won't happen and honestly it raises some serious questions. I get that despite only being a few years old Kes is ready to have a baby with Paris, but would that daughter really grow up fast enough for Kim to be married to her and have a son by the time she was 9? Also I get that maybe it was supposed to be technobabble, but the machine the Doctor is talking about putting her in is clearly a time manipulation machine of some sort so maybe she should have figured out she was unstuck in time sooner. But she also has no memories so who knows.
We begin with Kes unstuck from time and finding herself in sickbay as an old woman. Her grandson is there and the Doctor has hair, but she has no memory. The Doctor is preparing some sort of chrono-procedure to try and prolong her life. She gets cold and jumps back in time to being in her quarters with her daughter. It seems she is entering the period of dementia at the end of Ocampan life so no one believes her that she is unstuck in time. She gets taken to sickbay where she runs into Tom, her husband, Kim, now her son in law, and Chakotay who is now captain. After a few more jumps she realizes she was exposed to chroniton radiation in what is in theory her future and the procedure even farther into the future managed to unstick her. She ends up in the middle of the chroniton torpedo attack and gets the frequency she needs super conveniently. Time then takes her to the present where the Doctor is working on a cure and only needs the frequency. She jumps back into the past and we see her being born and then as a fetus. And then she is back, the treatment worked and they now know they are going to face some evil chroniton weapon using jerks soon.
Review: For a time travel episode this one seemed pretty weak. Especially some of the ways they handled the future crew changes seemed pretty unreasonable. I guess it counts as foreshadowing since the year of hell does in fact happen, but obviously Janeway doesn't die but I guess at the time that wouldn't have been clear.
3 out of 10
We begin with Kes unstuck from time and finding herself in sickbay as an old woman. Her grandson is there and the Doctor has hair, but she has no memory. The Doctor is preparing some sort of chrono-procedure to try and prolong her life. She gets cold and jumps back in time to being in her quarters with her daughter. It seems she is entering the period of dementia at the end of Ocampan life so no one believes her that she is unstuck in time. She gets taken to sickbay where she runs into Tom, her husband, Kim, now her son in law, and Chakotay who is now captain. After a few more jumps she realizes she was exposed to chroniton radiation in what is in theory her future and the procedure even farther into the future managed to unstick her. She ends up in the middle of the chroniton torpedo attack and gets the frequency she needs super conveniently. Time then takes her to the present where the Doctor is working on a cure and only needs the frequency. She jumps back into the past and we see her being born and then as a fetus. And then she is back, the treatment worked and they now know they are going to face some evil chroniton weapon using jerks soon.
Review: For a time travel episode this one seemed pretty weak. Especially some of the ways they handled the future crew changes seemed pretty unreasonable. I guess it counts as foreshadowing since the year of hell does in fact happen, but obviously Janeway doesn't die but I guess at the time that wouldn't have been clear.
3 out of 10
Thursday, August 18, 2016
VOY: Favorite Son
As usual when it looks like something really good is about to happen to Harry Kim it turns out to be some sort of trick or trap. This time he thinks he has found is true home in the Delta Quadrant, a planet of almost all women several of whom will be his wife so he can reproduce and spread his children to across the stars or something. But of course it turns out they are actually a bunch of black widows who will kill him to extract his genetic information (not sure why this part is necessary) and then make a bunch of all female babies. Not shockingly it seems he was infected on the planet of the tricky bar dwellers where the Doctor went crazy a few episodes earlier.
The episode begins on the bridge where they are in a part of space that seems super familiar to Kim for no apparent reason. Suddenly the come across a ship with seemingly peaceful intent but Kim takes control of the weapons and opens fire without warning. A battle ensues with both sides eventually breaking off after taking serious damage. Torres is burned in the the incident and Kim and relieved of command for what he did. He heads to sickbay and breaks out with a rash resembling a childhood illness he suffered from. Feeling terrible about the attack, the next day he comes to the captains ready room to apologize and accept whatever punishment she is going to give but she tells him he was right. Tuvok checked the sensor logs and the ship was about to open fire and Voyager didn't even have shields up. Soon three more enemy ships show up and they start running but won't be able to stay ahead for long. Kim without warning brings up a star chart and tells them to head to a planet in a system they haven't visited yet and they arrive just ahead of the enemy ships. Luckily another ship flies up from the planet and disables all three of the attackers.
They contact the planet and learn that that Kim is actually from their planet and sure enough, they all have spots like him. Also they are all women. They beam aboard and give a DNA sample to the Doctor who confirms Kim has their DNA. They claim their species reproduces by sending out males to secretly impregnate women all across the galaxy and that it implants a drive to explore and find home in them. Kim beams down to learn more and Voyager flies out to contact the ships who attacked. The attackers claim the locals are dangerous liars and no one ever returns from there. Kim though gets a warm welcome and meets a guy who is about to be married to his three wives. Kim participates in his marriage which involves the man getting tied up and led away.
That might Kim is making out with one of his wives to be when she knocks him out with some kind of plant extract. He wakes up and is still totally down but wants to contact Voyager and freaks out when they won't let him. It turns out the planet has some sort of protective field they have turned on and also the Doctor learned the DNA thing was a trick, Kim was infected by a retrovirus two episodes earlier. Kim manages to escape from the two women in his room and finds the married dude drained and dead on his wedding bed. The women attack Kim with clubs but Voyager manages to beam him out just in time.
Review: The damsel in distress in Voyager seems to end up being Kim more often than not which isn't a disaster per say, but it does get kinda old. The link they make in the end to the sirens of old is a bit too on the nose for me, but it does make sense that they were thinking about them when they wrote the ep.
5 out of 10
The episode begins on the bridge where they are in a part of space that seems super familiar to Kim for no apparent reason. Suddenly the come across a ship with seemingly peaceful intent but Kim takes control of the weapons and opens fire without warning. A battle ensues with both sides eventually breaking off after taking serious damage. Torres is burned in the the incident and Kim and relieved of command for what he did. He heads to sickbay and breaks out with a rash resembling a childhood illness he suffered from. Feeling terrible about the attack, the next day he comes to the captains ready room to apologize and accept whatever punishment she is going to give but she tells him he was right. Tuvok checked the sensor logs and the ship was about to open fire and Voyager didn't even have shields up. Soon three more enemy ships show up and they start running but won't be able to stay ahead for long. Kim without warning brings up a star chart and tells them to head to a planet in a system they haven't visited yet and they arrive just ahead of the enemy ships. Luckily another ship flies up from the planet and disables all three of the attackers.
They contact the planet and learn that that Kim is actually from their planet and sure enough, they all have spots like him. Also they are all women. They beam aboard and give a DNA sample to the Doctor who confirms Kim has their DNA. They claim their species reproduces by sending out males to secretly impregnate women all across the galaxy and that it implants a drive to explore and find home in them. Kim beams down to learn more and Voyager flies out to contact the ships who attacked. The attackers claim the locals are dangerous liars and no one ever returns from there. Kim though gets a warm welcome and meets a guy who is about to be married to his three wives. Kim participates in his marriage which involves the man getting tied up and led away.
That might Kim is making out with one of his wives to be when she knocks him out with some kind of plant extract. He wakes up and is still totally down but wants to contact Voyager and freaks out when they won't let him. It turns out the planet has some sort of protective field they have turned on and also the Doctor learned the DNA thing was a trick, Kim was infected by a retrovirus two episodes earlier. Kim manages to escape from the two women in his room and finds the married dude drained and dead on his wedding bed. The women attack Kim with clubs but Voyager manages to beam him out just in time.
Review: The damsel in distress in Voyager seems to end up being Kim more often than not which isn't a disaster per say, but it does get kinda old. The link they make in the end to the sirens of old is a bit too on the nose for me, but it does make sense that they were thinking about them when they wrote the ep.
5 out of 10
Wednesday, August 17, 2016
VOY: Rise
In theory this is an episode about protecting a semi-primitive civilization from an aggressive neighbor, but really it exists entirely to make Tuvok hate Neelix less. And as the stand in for the audience I feel like Tuvok has been pretty justified in his constant annoyance with Neelix so they contrived a scenario where Neelix manages to save the day. It is too bad they didn't find a way to make him less annoying while doing it because even when he saved the day by correctly guessing that the crazy guy trying to open the elevator door at an altitude that should kill them all from lack of oxygen was in fact not crazy and had the information needed to totally save the day. +1 for the Arnold Schwarzenegger style one liner about the guy getting thrown out the door of the elevator from 40 kilometers up.
We open on the bridge with the crew trying to blast an asteroid headed for a populated planet with representatives there to watch. Despite using one of their irreplaceable photon torpedoes the asteroid merely breaks up rather than vaporizing and two parts make it to the surface. They get a message from some guy in the surface that the asteroids are artificial and for some reason send three shuttles to get him. But of course the one with Tuvok and Neelix crashes. The two start bickering but this is the episode where Neelix is always right so he spots an orbital tether and they decide to ride it up to transporter altitude. A quick aside, they state the tether is 300 km tall, which means this planet is tiny. A tether on Earth would need to be something like 35,000 km tall to work so this is kinda extra dumb. They find evidence the meteor was guided to their planet and head for the tether but one of the guys tries to leave without them before it is ready.
On the ship they eventually figure out there is a ship that has been sending the meteors and no, it has no cloak, but can somehow hide just using its shield frequency. On the surface after much bickering they get the lift going but the dude who freaked out earlier tries to get out the door despite the super thing atmosphere saying something about the roof. Neelix somehow figures out this means there is something important up there so refuses to go on unless someone go look because he just knows something is there. So Tuvok goes since he can breath but he gets followed and attacked by one of the guys who is a traitor and can somehow breath despite not being vulcan. He knocks Tuvok off and comes inside but Neelix and Tuvok manage to knock him out the door to his death and get to Voyager just as the enemy ship is about to destroy them (no explanation of how they beam through the shields that are presumably up during the attack) and use the info on the roof the defeat the enemy despite it just being their shield frequency which they change after the first attack.
Review: They tried really hard and totally failed to make me like Neelix with this episode. I really wish they were getting ready to ditch him instead of Kes.
3 out of 10
We open on the bridge with the crew trying to blast an asteroid headed for a populated planet with representatives there to watch. Despite using one of their irreplaceable photon torpedoes the asteroid merely breaks up rather than vaporizing and two parts make it to the surface. They get a message from some guy in the surface that the asteroids are artificial and for some reason send three shuttles to get him. But of course the one with Tuvok and Neelix crashes. The two start bickering but this is the episode where Neelix is always right so he spots an orbital tether and they decide to ride it up to transporter altitude. A quick aside, they state the tether is 300 km tall, which means this planet is tiny. A tether on Earth would need to be something like 35,000 km tall to work so this is kinda extra dumb. They find evidence the meteor was guided to their planet and head for the tether but one of the guys tries to leave without them before it is ready.
On the ship they eventually figure out there is a ship that has been sending the meteors and no, it has no cloak, but can somehow hide just using its shield frequency. On the surface after much bickering they get the lift going but the dude who freaked out earlier tries to get out the door despite the super thing atmosphere saying something about the roof. Neelix somehow figures out this means there is something important up there so refuses to go on unless someone go look because he just knows something is there. So Tuvok goes since he can breath but he gets followed and attacked by one of the guys who is a traitor and can somehow breath despite not being vulcan. He knocks Tuvok off and comes inside but Neelix and Tuvok manage to knock him out the door to his death and get to Voyager just as the enemy ship is about to destroy them (no explanation of how they beam through the shields that are presumably up during the attack) and use the info on the roof the defeat the enemy despite it just being their shield frequency which they change after the first attack.
Review: They tried really hard and totally failed to make me like Neelix with this episode. I really wish they were getting ready to ditch him instead of Kes.
3 out of 10
VOY: Darkling
In theory the idea of having the Doctor alter his program in a way that makes him dangerous is really interesting. Unfortunately instead of going the subtle route they decided to make him a mustache twirling villain. I am actually stoked they decided to keep the breakup with Neelix that Kes went through in Warlord even though she broke things off while being possessed by an evil warlord guy. Also it is totally unclear why the ship is stopped for so long in this one place. I guess they are unloading medical supplies? How many spare supplies do they have? I realize they stay just long enough for Kes to fall in love, but it felt kinda forced.
We open with some random alien trying to impress Janeway with his tales of adventure but he gets shut down by Zahir who shows up with Kes. He is a pilot she has been working with to unload supplies and she is clearly really into him. On the holodeck the Doctor is talking to Neelix about his experiments with historical figures to try and learn to build a more complete personality for himself. Kes shows up he dismisses her love as something she should handle with a cold bath. Later with Torres he is very hands on in a super creepy way and he admits to her he has been adding personality subroutines from his historical figures to his own program and she tells him he needs to stop as it is both weird and also probably dangerous. The Doctor shuts himself down and we cut to the planet where Kes is walking on a moonlit path with Zahir. They kiss as a hooded figure watches from the shadows.
After she returns to Voyager people keep pointing out to Kes that she is late or behind on stuff and she arranges a meeting with the captain to discuss leaving Voyager to live with Zahir. On the planet Zahir is meeting with Tuvok to discuss their passage forward through dangerous space. Later that night while alone Zahir is attacked by the hooded figure. He returns to the bar and attacks the bar tender demanding passage off the planet. Finally we see the hooded figure is the Doctor. On the ship and apparently back to normal the Doctor sends Kes down to treat Zahir. Torres shows up to work on the Doctors program but he shimmers a bit and knocks her out off camera. Tuvok shows up and finds her unconscious and alone so he activates the Doctor who explains she must have had an allergic reaction while working on his program. After Tuvok leaves he loads up a bunch of hypos and goes back to Torres.
He tries torturing Torres but it doesn't work so he leaves for the holodeck. Tuvok investigates the attack on Zahir and suspects the bartender. When he goes to the scene of the crime though he finds traces of a holo signal. Kes meanwhile finds the Doctor in the holodeck with a bunch of broken programs. He takes her hostage and beams down to the planet with her. The ship he tried to book isn't available for some reason though and he ends up fleeing onto a cliff face with Kes. They are confronted by Chakotay and Tuvok but he decides to jump instead and they are only saved by a quick beam out. The Doctor is returned to normal and Kes decides to dump Zahir and stay with ship.
Review: An interesting idea that didn't get treated with the subtlty it really needed. Still not a terrible episode. The scene with the beam out while falling seems like something they maybe paid attention to in the reboots.
5 out of 10
We open with some random alien trying to impress Janeway with his tales of adventure but he gets shut down by Zahir who shows up with Kes. He is a pilot she has been working with to unload supplies and she is clearly really into him. On the holodeck the Doctor is talking to Neelix about his experiments with historical figures to try and learn to build a more complete personality for himself. Kes shows up he dismisses her love as something she should handle with a cold bath. Later with Torres he is very hands on in a super creepy way and he admits to her he has been adding personality subroutines from his historical figures to his own program and she tells him he needs to stop as it is both weird and also probably dangerous. The Doctor shuts himself down and we cut to the planet where Kes is walking on a moonlit path with Zahir. They kiss as a hooded figure watches from the shadows.
After she returns to Voyager people keep pointing out to Kes that she is late or behind on stuff and she arranges a meeting with the captain to discuss leaving Voyager to live with Zahir. On the planet Zahir is meeting with Tuvok to discuss their passage forward through dangerous space. Later that night while alone Zahir is attacked by the hooded figure. He returns to the bar and attacks the bar tender demanding passage off the planet. Finally we see the hooded figure is the Doctor. On the ship and apparently back to normal the Doctor sends Kes down to treat Zahir. Torres shows up to work on the Doctors program but he shimmers a bit and knocks her out off camera. Tuvok shows up and finds her unconscious and alone so he activates the Doctor who explains she must have had an allergic reaction while working on his program. After Tuvok leaves he loads up a bunch of hypos and goes back to Torres.
He tries torturing Torres but it doesn't work so he leaves for the holodeck. Tuvok investigates the attack on Zahir and suspects the bartender. When he goes to the scene of the crime though he finds traces of a holo signal. Kes meanwhile finds the Doctor in the holodeck with a bunch of broken programs. He takes her hostage and beams down to the planet with her. The ship he tried to book isn't available for some reason though and he ends up fleeing onto a cliff face with Kes. They are confronted by Chakotay and Tuvok but he decides to jump instead and they are only saved by a quick beam out. The Doctor is returned to normal and Kes decides to dump Zahir and stay with ship.
Review: An interesting idea that didn't get treated with the subtlty it really needed. Still not a terrible episode. The scene with the beam out while falling seems like something they maybe paid attention to in the reboots.
5 out of 10
Monday, August 15, 2016
VOY: Unity
The writers of Voyager seem to enjoy the idea of making all the enemies of the Federation actually be alright people. TNG did this a bit already with the Hugh episode so the idea that Borg are really alright creatures when separated is an interesting thing to explore. I can't help but wonder if they had already decided to replace Kes with Seven of Nine and this episode was meant to set up the idea of an ex-borg joining the crew. It seems like Chakotay being joined to a collective consciousness would affect how he felt about a Seven of Nine but I don't recall that being a thing. But then again I don't remember much of this part of Voyager so we shall see.
We open with Chakotay and short live ensign Kaplin on a shuttle scouting the Nekrit Expanse. They detect a Federation hailing frequency and head towards it, but find the signal coming from a planet. After landing the shuttle they embark to look for the person who called them but are soon attacked. Kaplin is killed and Chakotay badly hurt. Back on the ship Paris is complaining about being bored until they encounter a borg cube. Luckily for them it is dead so Janeway sends Torres and Tuvok to look for information. They try getting things working but find a dead borg which they bring aboard. Back on the planet Chakotay wakes up and is greeted by a human woman. She says she is there to help him but something strange is clearly going on. He escapes and discovers he is in a colony of ex-borg. He finds the woman, Frazier, and she insists they were only keeping it a secret from him since they know people don't trust borg.
She is of course right but Chakotay can see they are trying to build a new life, but there are problems. Without the mind link various factions of borg emerged after the cube was disabled which is why there are now rival factions on the planet. Chakotay still badly hurt though and the only cure they can offer is to join him with the link to give him mental energy for healing. After much hesitation he agrees and finds he can see the thoughts and memories of the other borg while link. Afterwards he meets up with Frazier with whom he is still partly linked and they have crazy psychic sex. Voyager tracks him down and he realizes he knows what she wants. He brings Frazier to meet Janeway and she tells the captain that she wants to turn on the mental beacon on the cube to link all the ex-borg on the planet again so they will stop fighting, but Janeway refuses. She does let Chakotay take supplies down though and on the way back he phasers Torres and makes his way to the cube where he turns it on, it seems his link with the borg on the planet still works without the implant. The borg on the cube wake up as Voyager prepares to flee but it self destructs before it can hurt them. They are hailed by the new Borg Cooperative they have just helped create who apologize for using Chakotay and break the link completely as Voyager flies off.
Review: I really liked that they examine what the advantages are of being part of a collective consciousness for the individuals which is an interesting idea. Up to now the borg have mostly been seemingly mindless in their actions other than the endless drive to assimilate.
6 out of 10
We open with Chakotay and short live ensign Kaplin on a shuttle scouting the Nekrit Expanse. They detect a Federation hailing frequency and head towards it, but find the signal coming from a planet. After landing the shuttle they embark to look for the person who called them but are soon attacked. Kaplin is killed and Chakotay badly hurt. Back on the ship Paris is complaining about being bored until they encounter a borg cube. Luckily for them it is dead so Janeway sends Torres and Tuvok to look for information. They try getting things working but find a dead borg which they bring aboard. Back on the planet Chakotay wakes up and is greeted by a human woman. She says she is there to help him but something strange is clearly going on. He escapes and discovers he is in a colony of ex-borg. He finds the woman, Frazier, and she insists they were only keeping it a secret from him since they know people don't trust borg.
She is of course right but Chakotay can see they are trying to build a new life, but there are problems. Without the mind link various factions of borg emerged after the cube was disabled which is why there are now rival factions on the planet. Chakotay still badly hurt though and the only cure they can offer is to join him with the link to give him mental energy for healing. After much hesitation he agrees and finds he can see the thoughts and memories of the other borg while link. Afterwards he meets up with Frazier with whom he is still partly linked and they have crazy psychic sex. Voyager tracks him down and he realizes he knows what she wants. He brings Frazier to meet Janeway and she tells the captain that she wants to turn on the mental beacon on the cube to link all the ex-borg on the planet again so they will stop fighting, but Janeway refuses. She does let Chakotay take supplies down though and on the way back he phasers Torres and makes his way to the cube where he turns it on, it seems his link with the borg on the planet still works without the implant. The borg on the cube wake up as Voyager prepares to flee but it self destructs before it can hurt them. They are hailed by the new Borg Cooperative they have just helped create who apologize for using Chakotay and break the link completely as Voyager flies off.
Review: I really liked that they examine what the advantages are of being part of a collective consciousness for the individuals which is an interesting idea. Up to now the borg have mostly been seemingly mindless in their actions other than the endless drive to assimilate.
6 out of 10
Sunday, August 14, 2016
VOY: Blood Fever
It really seemed like the writers wanted pon farr to both be a mental illness that can be overcome internally and also have it be a physiological condition that must be dealt with or you die. This is only made worse by the fact that pon farr is also transmissible via psychic touch even between species which seems extra unlikely. Also it wasn't clear to me why Paris was so unwilling to have sex with Torres. I totally get him not wanting to take advantage of her, but she will literally die if you don't, I kinda suspect she will forgive you for that one later. Unfortunately the very best part of the episode is the last shot of the decaying borg corpse.
We open with the discovery of a large deposite of materials needed to overhaul the warp engines and they plan to go in and gather some. Torres is put in charge and she and Ensign Vorik work on a plan. There are unstable tunnels under the surface leading to the deposits so Torres says they will bring Neelix for his mining experience and Paris for his rock climbing knowledge. Paris' inclusion visibly upsets Vorik who cuts to the chase and proposes marriage to B'Elanna. She not shockingly turns him down so he grabs her but she fights him off breaking his jaw in the process. It turns out he is suffering pon farr and while he has an awkward conversation with the Doctor. On the surface they find the ruins of a civilization but Torres aggressively pushes for them to get on with the mining, but as soon as they get started Neelix fails to use a piton correctly and almost kills Torres in a fall which also breaks his leg. Rather than stick together Torres bites Paris on the face and runs off.
Tuvok gets consulted about pon farr and while he doesn't want to do anything for Vorik he realizes it is a real crisis for Torres who somehow got it from when Vorik grabbed her. Vorik gets sent to his quarters to meditate it away but it doesn't work. The Doctor proposes some holo-sex and talks Vorik into giving it a try. Chakotay and Tuvok beam down and get Neelix to safety before joining Paris to find Torres. She finds the metal but it is part of an active power system and as soon as they are all together aliens appear with guns. Chakotay gets them to calm down by handing over his weapon by Torres freaks out and attacks one of them as an quake hits. She and Paris get separated with the gun while Tuvok and Chakotay end up negotiating with the aliens.
Torres is in bad shape and really wants to have sex with Paris to get things working for her again but he refuses. Eventually Chakotay convinces the aliens they are in fact peaceful and offers to help them hide even better in the future. They link up with Paris and Torres but when they get to the surface comms are down. To save her life Paris finally agrees to have sex with Torres but before they can get it on Vorik shows up. He is the one who disabled the comms and also transporters and the shuttlebay. He demands to mate with Torres but she says no so he challenges Paris to a fight to the death. Torres steps in though and demands she be allowed to fight and Tuvok says that is allowed. Chakotay tries to stop the fight but Tuvok convinces him it is the only way. They fight and Torres wins which I guess completes pon farr for both of them. On the ship we learn they got the metal they need. The episode ends with the discovery of why the locals hid so well, they find a borg corpse on the surface.
Review: This is an alright episode. Not great, but not horribly embarrassing either. It could have used some work on the Torres pon farr bits, but it doesn't make the whole thing too bad.
5 out of 10
We open with the discovery of a large deposite of materials needed to overhaul the warp engines and they plan to go in and gather some. Torres is put in charge and she and Ensign Vorik work on a plan. There are unstable tunnels under the surface leading to the deposits so Torres says they will bring Neelix for his mining experience and Paris for his rock climbing knowledge. Paris' inclusion visibly upsets Vorik who cuts to the chase and proposes marriage to B'Elanna. She not shockingly turns him down so he grabs her but she fights him off breaking his jaw in the process. It turns out he is suffering pon farr and while he has an awkward conversation with the Doctor. On the surface they find the ruins of a civilization but Torres aggressively pushes for them to get on with the mining, but as soon as they get started Neelix fails to use a piton correctly and almost kills Torres in a fall which also breaks his leg. Rather than stick together Torres bites Paris on the face and runs off.
Tuvok gets consulted about pon farr and while he doesn't want to do anything for Vorik he realizes it is a real crisis for Torres who somehow got it from when Vorik grabbed her. Vorik gets sent to his quarters to meditate it away but it doesn't work. The Doctor proposes some holo-sex and talks Vorik into giving it a try. Chakotay and Tuvok beam down and get Neelix to safety before joining Paris to find Torres. She finds the metal but it is part of an active power system and as soon as they are all together aliens appear with guns. Chakotay gets them to calm down by handing over his weapon by Torres freaks out and attacks one of them as an quake hits. She and Paris get separated with the gun while Tuvok and Chakotay end up negotiating with the aliens.
Torres is in bad shape and really wants to have sex with Paris to get things working for her again but he refuses. Eventually Chakotay convinces the aliens they are in fact peaceful and offers to help them hide even better in the future. They link up with Paris and Torres but when they get to the surface comms are down. To save her life Paris finally agrees to have sex with Torres but before they can get it on Vorik shows up. He is the one who disabled the comms and also transporters and the shuttlebay. He demands to mate with Torres but she says no so he challenges Paris to a fight to the death. Torres steps in though and demands she be allowed to fight and Tuvok says that is allowed. Chakotay tries to stop the fight but Tuvok convinces him it is the only way. They fight and Torres wins which I guess completes pon farr for both of them. On the ship we learn they got the metal they need. The episode ends with the discovery of why the locals hid so well, they find a borg corpse on the surface.
Review: This is an alright episode. Not great, but not horribly embarrassing either. It could have used some work on the Torres pon farr bits, but it doesn't make the whole thing too bad.
5 out of 10
Saturday, August 13, 2016
VOY: Coda
When this episode opened with a time loop and the characters immediately figuring out that they were stuck in a time loop I got a bit annoyed. Time loops are bread and butter for TNG but I kinda feel like they have been pretty played out. Of course when it turned out to not be a time loop but instead be a trick of the grim reaper I didn't feel all that much better. Having pretty much the entire episode be a hallucination at least keeps too many questions from being raised, but by having the alien trying to steal her soul be literally trying to steal her soul it isn't great. I don't care they he calls the thing he is going to put her soul into a matrix, we all know what is going on.
We open with Neelix and Janeway practically cackling about how well the ship talent show went and how no matter what they need to keep Tuvok and his vulcan poetry out next time. She jumps on a shuttle with Chakotay and they also start talking about the talent show but something goes wrong and their shuttle crashes. Janeway is badly hurt and seems to be dead but Chakotay manages to revive her. He discovers that the crash wasn't an accident, they were shot down by Vidiians who are on their way. They flee to a cave where they die fighting and wake up on the shuttle again. They both immediately realize it is a time loop but manage to get killed again before Janeway finds she is back on Voyager and Chakotay doesn't remember the loop. Instead they were captured by the vidiians but escaped. The Doctor has bad news though, she has the phage. After sedating her for a few days he tells her she needs to die for the crew and she struggles to live before dying.
Next she is awake watching Chakotay fail to revive her. She follows her body to sickbay where she is again not revived. This time the ghost of her father shows up and gets hella pushy about her "crossing over" with him. She manages to get Kes to detect her once but it fails. She watches her own funeral and her "father" shows up again and tries to get her to give up but she keeps fighting. She also starts getting flashes of the Doctor trying to revive her and realizes there is a reason the guy is getting hella pushy. She figures out he is an alien and he admits her was there to take her consciousness after she died but she is too tough and won't give in. She banishes him and wakes up on the surface of the planet.
Review: It is hard to get too excited about life after death hallucination episodes, but this one at least manages to put on the veneer of science fiction which is nice. Pretty average and a bit dull in the middle.
4 out of 10
We open with Neelix and Janeway practically cackling about how well the ship talent show went and how no matter what they need to keep Tuvok and his vulcan poetry out next time. She jumps on a shuttle with Chakotay and they also start talking about the talent show but something goes wrong and their shuttle crashes. Janeway is badly hurt and seems to be dead but Chakotay manages to revive her. He discovers that the crash wasn't an accident, they were shot down by Vidiians who are on their way. They flee to a cave where they die fighting and wake up on the shuttle again. They both immediately realize it is a time loop but manage to get killed again before Janeway finds she is back on Voyager and Chakotay doesn't remember the loop. Instead they were captured by the vidiians but escaped. The Doctor has bad news though, she has the phage. After sedating her for a few days he tells her she needs to die for the crew and she struggles to live before dying.
Next she is awake watching Chakotay fail to revive her. She follows her body to sickbay where she is again not revived. This time the ghost of her father shows up and gets hella pushy about her "crossing over" with him. She manages to get Kes to detect her once but it fails. She watches her own funeral and her "father" shows up again and tries to get her to give up but she keeps fighting. She also starts getting flashes of the Doctor trying to revive her and realizes there is a reason the guy is getting hella pushy. She figures out he is an alien and he admits her was there to take her consciousness after she died but she is too tough and won't give in. She banishes him and wakes up on the surface of the planet.
Review: It is hard to get too excited about life after death hallucination episodes, but this one at least manages to put on the veneer of science fiction which is nice. Pretty average and a bit dull in the middle.
4 out of 10
Friday, August 12, 2016
VOY: Alter Ego
It really sucks to be Harry Kim. He can't even date a holo-character for more than a few days without someone swooping him. It is even worse in this case since the person he went to for help dealing with his love of a holo-character is the one who actually steals his lady. Now to be fair in this case the lady turns out to be a projection of a kinda evil alien lady who is so bored with her job managing a nebula that she snoops on any ships that happen to be in the area. Also despite the alien influence this is clearly just another holodeck gone wrong episode which is a pretty played out Trek trope.
We open with the discovery of a negative nebula whatever that is supposed to mean. They are supposed to be super unstable so the fact that this one appears to be millions of years old is very interesting. They go in for a look but one of the filaments explodes but instead of destroying the nebula it just fizzes out. The whole time Kim is visibly distracted at his station. That evening he visits Tuvok in his quarters. The vulcan is playing kal-toh, a vulcan game that somehow resembles chess. Kim wants to know how to suppress his emotions, specifically the love he is feeling for a holodeck character. The two visit the holodeck and Tuvok isn't impressed with the lady. There is a luau that night and everyone is invited. Even Tuvok who makes it clear it isn't interested in showing up, but Janeway pretty much orders him to so he is out of luck.
Paris convinces Kim to show up but one site of his lady love and he is out of there. She approaches Tuvok and offers to play kal-toh with him and he agrees. She instantly analyzes the situation and points out Tuvok isn't wearing a flower necklace to set himself aside from the rest of the crew. He is intrigued and the two spend the rest of the evening together. The next day they try to leave the nebula but find they have no control over the ship. Kim confronts Tuvok in the holodeck where he is again playing kal-toh with the lady and to show he isn't trying to get with her Tuvok erases her program. But that night she appears in his quarters using the Doctors mobile emitter and seems to be able to control she ship. Filaments of plasma start exploding around them and Tuvok realizes the holosignal is coming from a ship in the nebula. He beams over and finds an alien lady who is super lonely and has fallen in love with him. He manages to talk her down and they go on their way. That evening Tuvok apologizes to Kim and the two start playing kal-toh together.
Review: This episode raises a bunch of questions about the nature of the alien lady. Did she already know how to hydrosail so she could be Kim's instructor? Did she have luau's in her database to know how they work? She even says she had never seen anything like a holodeck which if true really means she is one hell of an improviser.
5 out of 10
We open with the discovery of a negative nebula whatever that is supposed to mean. They are supposed to be super unstable so the fact that this one appears to be millions of years old is very interesting. They go in for a look but one of the filaments explodes but instead of destroying the nebula it just fizzes out. The whole time Kim is visibly distracted at his station. That evening he visits Tuvok in his quarters. The vulcan is playing kal-toh, a vulcan game that somehow resembles chess. Kim wants to know how to suppress his emotions, specifically the love he is feeling for a holodeck character. The two visit the holodeck and Tuvok isn't impressed with the lady. There is a luau that night and everyone is invited. Even Tuvok who makes it clear it isn't interested in showing up, but Janeway pretty much orders him to so he is out of luck.
Paris convinces Kim to show up but one site of his lady love and he is out of there. She approaches Tuvok and offers to play kal-toh with him and he agrees. She instantly analyzes the situation and points out Tuvok isn't wearing a flower necklace to set himself aside from the rest of the crew. He is intrigued and the two spend the rest of the evening together. The next day they try to leave the nebula but find they have no control over the ship. Kim confronts Tuvok in the holodeck where he is again playing kal-toh with the lady and to show he isn't trying to get with her Tuvok erases her program. But that night she appears in his quarters using the Doctors mobile emitter and seems to be able to control she ship. Filaments of plasma start exploding around them and Tuvok realizes the holosignal is coming from a ship in the nebula. He beams over and finds an alien lady who is super lonely and has fallen in love with him. He manages to talk her down and they go on their way. That evening Tuvok apologizes to Kim and the two start playing kal-toh together.
Review: This episode raises a bunch of questions about the nature of the alien lady. Did she already know how to hydrosail so she could be Kim's instructor? Did she have luau's in her database to know how they work? She even says she had never seen anything like a holodeck which if true really means she is one hell of an improviser.
5 out of 10
Thursday, August 11, 2016
VOY: Fair Trade
Lets start with the obvious, an episode all about Neelix is never going to be my favorite. This episode almost seems like it is aimed directly at people like me who realized Neelix wasn't adding anything to the crew and eventually he would leave the part of space he had even his crappy level of knowledge about making him literally useless. And they address it by him trying to get up to wacky hijinks to try and get a map of the area ahead to make himself important. But of course after scolding him at the end of his hijinks being more of the criminal murder kind than the wacky kind she tells him how important he is to her as a trusted adviser. Now I guess this is the thing a captain is supposed to say if they want a crew member to not leave, but it does seem to show how poor a judge of character Janeway really is.
We open with Neelix trying to be helpful to various crew members but of course all he does is annoy them and get in the way until he gets called to the bridge. The ship has encountered a dusty region of space Neelix tells them is called the Nekrit expanse. They stop at a filthy space station to try and trade for supplies after a warning from the administrator that he takes 20% of all trades. They spread out across the station to try and get the supplies they need starting with Paris and Chakotay being offered drugs by a sketchy looking character. They do manage to find people willing to trade and Neelix runs into his old buddy Wix. WIx helps them get some stuff they need and gets a tour of the ship. When they are alone he tells Neelix he can get a map and a bunch of other useful stuff but he needs Neelix's help.
The two take a shuttle to get the goods and then beam into a shutdown part of the station where they meet the drug dealer from earlier. He is impressed with the goods but opens fire rather than pay for what he got. The two flee after Wix kills the drug dealer with a phaser he borrowed from the shuttle. The next day the administrator contacts Janeway about the murder on his station. He soon arrests Paris and Chakotay since they were seen with the drug dealer and the phaser had a Federation signature. Neelix is torn and eventually convinces Wix to help him with a crazy plan to help the administrator catch the guys behind the drug smuggling. He agrees for some reason and Wix sets up a meeting to trade warp plasma for their lives. Neelix opens the vent on the plasma container before handing it over and revealing that it is leaking so no one can shoot. But security shows up and the criminals open fire but sadly Neelix survives. Janeway is pissed and they all move on.
Review: There is a scene near the end where Neelix pushes hard for the drug dealer to shoot him which seems both stupid on his part and just doesn't make much sense. I really wish he had died in this episode though and the fact that he didn't is going to push this one down to:
3 out of 10
We open with Neelix trying to be helpful to various crew members but of course all he does is annoy them and get in the way until he gets called to the bridge. The ship has encountered a dusty region of space Neelix tells them is called the Nekrit expanse. They stop at a filthy space station to try and trade for supplies after a warning from the administrator that he takes 20% of all trades. They spread out across the station to try and get the supplies they need starting with Paris and Chakotay being offered drugs by a sketchy looking character. They do manage to find people willing to trade and Neelix runs into his old buddy Wix. WIx helps them get some stuff they need and gets a tour of the ship. When they are alone he tells Neelix he can get a map and a bunch of other useful stuff but he needs Neelix's help.
The two take a shuttle to get the goods and then beam into a shutdown part of the station where they meet the drug dealer from earlier. He is impressed with the goods but opens fire rather than pay for what he got. The two flee after Wix kills the drug dealer with a phaser he borrowed from the shuttle. The next day the administrator contacts Janeway about the murder on his station. He soon arrests Paris and Chakotay since they were seen with the drug dealer and the phaser had a Federation signature. Neelix is torn and eventually convinces Wix to help him with a crazy plan to help the administrator catch the guys behind the drug smuggling. He agrees for some reason and Wix sets up a meeting to trade warp plasma for their lives. Neelix opens the vent on the plasma container before handing it over and revealing that it is leaking so no one can shoot. But security shows up and the criminals open fire but sadly Neelix survives. Janeway is pissed and they all move on.
Review: There is a scene near the end where Neelix pushes hard for the drug dealer to shoot him which seems both stupid on his part and just doesn't make much sense. I really wish he had died in this episode though and the fact that he didn't is going to push this one down to:
3 out of 10
VOY: Macrocosm
This is a fun episode with some seriously dumb sciency stuff. The idea of a virus being huge is one thing. Sure, they aren't actually alive and therefore presumably not actually intelligent. But lets actually totally put that aside for a moment. WHY CAN THEY FLY AROUND? I know they make a buzzing sound like a bug, but they don't seem to be flapping any wings or anything like that. So what are they flying? The fly sized versions we can't see very well, but the huge ones seem to only float with magic. Also it is totally unclear what the virus is supposed to do to people and even more so why they get huge. Also, why is the cure distributed by a bomb? And how did it get distributed around the ship without the environmental controls working.
We open with Janeway and Neelix negotiating with a goofy race of aliens who do a kind of interpretive dance as a form of communication. When they get back to where the ship was supposed to meet them it is gone, and not just that, when they detect it there is something badly wrong. They track down Voyager which is adrift and no one is answering their hails. On board things are going poorly, main power is off and environmental controls are failing. It seems everyone stopped doing what they had been up to about 11 hours earlier but where they are is a mystery. They see a shadow of something fleeing and flow where they find that it melted through the floor of the transporter (they never explain how it can just melt through bulkheads, sure it has slime but that doesn't melt people and the spike doesn't seem up to the job). They head to the bridge in a turbolift but something bangs into the lift and a tentacle bursts through and sprays Neelix.
They have to go through Jeffrey's tubes and Neelix is getting sick. Janeway leaves him to get a med kit and something attacks him. He is gone when she returns so she heads to engineering to get guns and stuff to go full Ripley. She eventually finds her way to sickbay where the Doctor narrates a long series of flashbacks where he explains that they got the virus from a mining colony and it got into the gel packs on the ship (never explained how it got from the transport buffer where it is literally just data to a physical place) and infects Torres from there. The Doctor managed to make a cure but is too terrified of his mobile emitter getting damaged to try and use it. For some reason he and Janeway split up heading to environmental controls to spread the cure around but the Doctor gets trapped and Janeway has to be an action star and save the day which she does by making the cure into a bomb. Oh, the aliens from the cold open show up and try to destroy the ship but that doesn't really go anywhere.
Review: This was both very silly from a science perspective and also pretty poorly paced out. The flashback segment was way too long and the final showdown felt kinda rushed.
4 out of 10
We open with Janeway and Neelix negotiating with a goofy race of aliens who do a kind of interpretive dance as a form of communication. When they get back to where the ship was supposed to meet them it is gone, and not just that, when they detect it there is something badly wrong. They track down Voyager which is adrift and no one is answering their hails. On board things are going poorly, main power is off and environmental controls are failing. It seems everyone stopped doing what they had been up to about 11 hours earlier but where they are is a mystery. They see a shadow of something fleeing and flow where they find that it melted through the floor of the transporter (they never explain how it can just melt through bulkheads, sure it has slime but that doesn't melt people and the spike doesn't seem up to the job). They head to the bridge in a turbolift but something bangs into the lift and a tentacle bursts through and sprays Neelix.
They have to go through Jeffrey's tubes and Neelix is getting sick. Janeway leaves him to get a med kit and something attacks him. He is gone when she returns so she heads to engineering to get guns and stuff to go full Ripley. She eventually finds her way to sickbay where the Doctor narrates a long series of flashbacks where he explains that they got the virus from a mining colony and it got into the gel packs on the ship (never explained how it got from the transport buffer where it is literally just data to a physical place) and infects Torres from there. The Doctor managed to make a cure but is too terrified of his mobile emitter getting damaged to try and use it. For some reason he and Janeway split up heading to environmental controls to spread the cure around but the Doctor gets trapped and Janeway has to be an action star and save the day which she does by making the cure into a bomb. Oh, the aliens from the cold open show up and try to destroy the ship but that doesn't really go anywhere.
Review: This was both very silly from a science perspective and also pretty poorly paced out. The flashback segment was way too long and the final showdown felt kinda rushed.
4 out of 10
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
VOY: The Q and the Grey
I have always had mixed feelings about Q episodes. And it isn't that I dislike John de Lancie, but what they do with him varies greatly in terms of storytelling. I thought the previous episode about a suicidal Q was an interesting look at the morality of immortality, but their decision to render the continuum as a boring metaphor only gets more boring in this episode. The idea of a Q war is fascinating, but the idea that they would go at it with muskets in something inspired by the Earth civil war is just silly. I know that it is supposed to be something grander made comprehensible for us primates, but the fact that humans and the like can be handed the guns and turn into actual threats to the Q seems downright absurd.
We open with the crew watching a supernova followed by Janeway heading to her quarters for bed only to discover that Q has decided to seduce her. He wants to mate with her and spends the next bit of time convincing her to sleep with him unsuccessfully. Back on the bridge there are more supernova and Q admits he has something to do with it. His apparently ex-lover shows up upset and he and Janeway disappear into the continuum as a shockwave hits the ship. They are in a version of the American civil war and under attack from the other side. Q explains that this is an actual civil war and the supernovae are a side effect of it. He gets hit and eventually Janeway has to rescue him to his camp somehow off camera. Back on the ship Lady Q has lost her powers but they have a plan to get into the continuum anyway, fly the ship into an exploding star. Janeway sneaks off to try and negotiate peace but is captured along with Q and the two face execution. But somehow the crew of Voyager show up and save the day with guns blazing. Lady Q and Q have a baby by touching fingers and Janeway agrees to be the godparent.
Review: Waaaay too much messing around in this episode for my taste. Could have been an episode of the animated series for all the actual content. I really hope Q gets more interesting in Voyager.
3 out of 10
We open with the crew watching a supernova followed by Janeway heading to her quarters for bed only to discover that Q has decided to seduce her. He wants to mate with her and spends the next bit of time convincing her to sleep with him unsuccessfully. Back on the bridge there are more supernova and Q admits he has something to do with it. His apparently ex-lover shows up upset and he and Janeway disappear into the continuum as a shockwave hits the ship. They are in a version of the American civil war and under attack from the other side. Q explains that this is an actual civil war and the supernovae are a side effect of it. He gets hit and eventually Janeway has to rescue him to his camp somehow off camera. Back on the ship Lady Q has lost her powers but they have a plan to get into the continuum anyway, fly the ship into an exploding star. Janeway sneaks off to try and negotiate peace but is captured along with Q and the two face execution. But somehow the crew of Voyager show up and save the day with guns blazing. Lady Q and Q have a baby by touching fingers and Janeway agrees to be the godparent.
Review: Waaaay too much messing around in this episode for my taste. Could have been an episode of the animated series for all the actual content. I really hope Q gets more interesting in Voyager.
3 out of 10
Monday, August 8, 2016
VOY: Warlord
I admit that when in the opening of this episode Kes told Neelix she was breaking things off I thought to myself, "about damn time." But of course it would be silly to assume the characters on this show are capable in any way of actually doing things that are obviously good for them so it is actually because she is being possessed by Vigo the Carpathian I mean some alien warlord guy. Once again proving how much more interesting Kes is than Neelix her mental powers come into play as does her relationship as a pupil of Tuvok's mental discipline. The whole body swapping villain trope is pretty played out in my opinion, but this stories gender swap at least makes it interesting. Maybe more than two seconds of the previous host being alive to establish who they were might have been nice, but whatever.
We open on the holodeck where Neelix has created a new recreation program but Paris and Kim find it kinda dull. Until they add some bikini clad ladies and a steel drum player that is. But then all senior officers are called to the bridge, they have come across a badly damaged ship with only three people left alive on board. All three make it over by one of the men dies on the operating table. Kes makes friends with the woman, the widow if the dead man, and even breaks up with Neelix when he tries to go on a date with her. The two survivors are happy to be returned to their planet but when a representative of the Autarch beams aboard Kes pulls out a gun and shoots the guy along with the transporter chief. Janeway gets knocked out and the three escape onto a shuttle that they also beam off the ship. We quickly learn that the dead guy transferred his mind into Kes and is using her along with her mental powers to try and take over his planet.
The son of the sitting Autarch beams over the Voyager which is good because his father is killed by Kes only a short while later and she siezes the title of Autarch and starts consolidating power. She is having problems keeping her old self put away though and keeps having headaches. Despite the son's insistence that Kes is gone they come up with a plan to send Tuvok down to put a neural inhibitor thing on Kes to drive the other mind out but her improving psychic abilities let her detect that he is there and she has him arrested. While interrogating him Tuvok manages to grab her and bring Kes back to the surface but the warlord pushes him away. Kes pushes ahead with her plans to consolidate power but is increasingly loses touch with reality. Janeway and company manage to mount a rescue attempt and despite the warlord fleeing into another body they manage to destroy him and put the son of the autarch into power.
Review: A solid episode with an standout performance by Jennifer Lien. Episodes like this make me wish we had more Kes episodes and fewer Neelix eps.
7 out of 10
We open on the holodeck where Neelix has created a new recreation program but Paris and Kim find it kinda dull. Until they add some bikini clad ladies and a steel drum player that is. But then all senior officers are called to the bridge, they have come across a badly damaged ship with only three people left alive on board. All three make it over by one of the men dies on the operating table. Kes makes friends with the woman, the widow if the dead man, and even breaks up with Neelix when he tries to go on a date with her. The two survivors are happy to be returned to their planet but when a representative of the Autarch beams aboard Kes pulls out a gun and shoots the guy along with the transporter chief. Janeway gets knocked out and the three escape onto a shuttle that they also beam off the ship. We quickly learn that the dead guy transferred his mind into Kes and is using her along with her mental powers to try and take over his planet.
The son of the sitting Autarch beams over the Voyager which is good because his father is killed by Kes only a short while later and she siezes the title of Autarch and starts consolidating power. She is having problems keeping her old self put away though and keeps having headaches. Despite the son's insistence that Kes is gone they come up with a plan to send Tuvok down to put a neural inhibitor thing on Kes to drive the other mind out but her improving psychic abilities let her detect that he is there and she has him arrested. While interrogating him Tuvok manages to grab her and bring Kes back to the surface but the warlord pushes him away. Kes pushes ahead with her plans to consolidate power but is increasingly loses touch with reality. Janeway and company manage to mount a rescue attempt and despite the warlord fleeing into another body they manage to destroy him and put the son of the autarch into power.
Review: A solid episode with an standout performance by Jennifer Lien. Episodes like this make me wish we had more Kes episodes and fewer Neelix eps.
7 out of 10
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