I don't think it would be a good idea to player poker against Janeway. Even when the inspector guy had her kissing him good bye passionately on the transporter pad, she was still planning a way around in case he turned out to be lying to her. And in this case she was clearly right. Having telepaths be the oppressed minority in this culture makes a lot of sense, maintaining state secrets with mind readers walking around would be rather challenging. At the same time it is easy to see why Janeway would want to come to their assistance. I liked the clue that she was up to something in the opening where she mentions Tuvok being killed in a shuttle accident. We aren't sure how much time has passed, but she obviously is up to something. This of course causes a problem because when the Devore return since Tuvok is back on the bridge and their ignoring him seems like it would break the cover rather quickly.
We open with Voyager being thoroughly searched for Telepaths by two Devore warships. Janeway orders the crew to comply and they do, but in conversation Janeway mentions both Vulcans and the Betazoid crew being killed in a shuttle accident hinting that she is up to something. The head inspector named Kashyk is clearly into Janeway but she is creeped out by him. As soon as the Devore leave Janeway has the hidden crew and several alien telepaths rematerialized in cargo bay where they were being stored in the transport buffer. It seems she is planning on smuggling them to a wormhole out of Devore space but something has gone wrong. The rendezvous with the smugglers keeps getting moved and the repeated transporter storage is starting to damage their bodies. They come up with a plan to find a local wormhole expert, but before they can a Devore ship shows up, but it isn't a warship. It is a small scout ship with only Kashyk on board and he claims to be there to defect.
Janeway isn't buying it but he gives her a sob story and she agrees to help smuggle him to the wormhole if he helps her avoid the Kashyk. They track down the wormhole expert and after some bluffing by Janeway he gives them the information. But it is an algorithm, not a location as the wormhole keeps moving. They encounter a Devore sensor probe and despite their best efforts they set it off. Janeway and Kashyk have been spending a lot of time together and it really looks like she trusts him. He convinces her to let him return so he can keep the authorities at bay long enough for the refugees to escape. Kashyk departs Voyager after sharing a passionate kiss with Janeway. He returns with the warship soon after and gets her alone and she tells him they have the location of the wormhole, right in front of them at which point he reveals he was a traitor and takes control of the ship. But when he tries to destroy the wormhole it doesn't work since it isn't there. And neither are the refugees, they are in two shuttles and escape through the wormhole before he can stop them. Rather than face the consequences of failing Kashyk decides to cover it all up and gets the hell out of there.
Review: I really liked this episode. It is one where you are sure Janeway has finally messed up, but something about the look on her face after Kashyk played his cards made me feel sure she had a plan. And other than a few problems it was a damn good plan.
7 out of 10
Friday, September 30, 2016
Thursday, September 29, 2016
VOY: Thirty Days
I felt like this episode needed the South Park guys to break in with a song about standing up for what you believe it, even it if violates the most basic laws of your culture. I admit when the episode opened with Paris being demoted and Jailed didn't really shock me, it was either going to be him or Torres someday. But when it turns out it was because he decided some fish people shouldn't be allowed to ruin their ocean world? Especially since his act of attacking one of their economic centers would have almost certainly not stopped the actions he was so worried about. Maybe if they had set up over a few seasons the idea that he really loves oceans but this was pretty much totally out of the blue. Also I kinda doubt Starfleet allows for 30 days solitary confinement. That is definitely getting into cruel and unusual territory.
We open as I mentioned with Tom being demoted and sentenced to the titular thirty days in the brig. He settles in pretty quick since this isn't is first stint. Neelix finds him working out when he shows up with food, but can't stay to talk as it would violate the captains orders. Paris decides to narrate a letter to his father explaining what happened. It seems they encountered a huge sphere of water without a planet. When they approached ships came out and started shooting but Janeway was able to talk some sense into them with the phasers. Two representatives beam to Voyager and after some getting comfortable admit that their waterworld is in trouble and they suspect that the answer lies in the center of the water drop. Paris volunteers to take the Flyer in with the fish peoples science representative and since he is for this episode obsessed with the ocean Janeway agrees. Seven, Kim, Paris and the fish guy fly in and find a huge generator at the core of the ocean. But something goes wrong and engines fail and they start springing leaks. Since it is their one shot though Paris keeps them there until they can get some temporary fixes on the ancient reactor and then they float to the surface.
Apparently the problems are being caused by oxygen harvesting by the fish people and Paris gets very upset about it in a meeting. Janeway tells him to fall in line but that night he has a talk with Torres. She tells him to follow his passion so he steals the Flyer and takes it in along with fish scientist guy. They decide to blow up the oxygen harvesters so Janeway has to shoot a torpedo at their missile. Janeway's plan works and Tom gets arrested. Cut to Tuvok letting him out 30 days later. Tom does finish his letter to his father though, but I suspect his dad won't see this as an act of protest so much as a really poor career move.
Review: I consider myself an environmentalist, but it is stunts like this that make people thing wanting to not destroy the planet makes you a wacko.
3 out of 10
We open as I mentioned with Tom being demoted and sentenced to the titular thirty days in the brig. He settles in pretty quick since this isn't is first stint. Neelix finds him working out when he shows up with food, but can't stay to talk as it would violate the captains orders. Paris decides to narrate a letter to his father explaining what happened. It seems they encountered a huge sphere of water without a planet. When they approached ships came out and started shooting but Janeway was able to talk some sense into them with the phasers. Two representatives beam to Voyager and after some getting comfortable admit that their waterworld is in trouble and they suspect that the answer lies in the center of the water drop. Paris volunteers to take the Flyer in with the fish peoples science representative and since he is for this episode obsessed with the ocean Janeway agrees. Seven, Kim, Paris and the fish guy fly in and find a huge generator at the core of the ocean. But something goes wrong and engines fail and they start springing leaks. Since it is their one shot though Paris keeps them there until they can get some temporary fixes on the ancient reactor and then they float to the surface.
Apparently the problems are being caused by oxygen harvesting by the fish people and Paris gets very upset about it in a meeting. Janeway tells him to fall in line but that night he has a talk with Torres. She tells him to follow his passion so he steals the Flyer and takes it in along with fish scientist guy. They decide to blow up the oxygen harvesters so Janeway has to shoot a torpedo at their missile. Janeway's plan works and Tom gets arrested. Cut to Tuvok letting him out 30 days later. Tom does finish his letter to his father though, but I suspect his dad won't see this as an act of protest so much as a really poor career move.
Review: I consider myself an environmentalist, but it is stunts like this that make people thing wanting to not destroy the planet makes you a wacko.
3 out of 10
Wednesday, September 28, 2016
VOY: Nothing Human
This is a rather ham-handed take on whether we should use what the nazis learned from experiments on Jews to help save lives today. Rather than going for something as subtle and complicated as the real issue though they instead have the Doctor recreate the actual Cardassian who committed the atrocities and then expect people familiar with his victims to allow themselves to be operated on by him. I get that they are trying to say that the Doctor doesn't understand our humanoid prejudices and that is why he thought this was remotely a good idea, but it is a little too in your face. Also it seems like maybe he could have just deleted the personality and image of the Cardassian, presumably anybody could figure out to cut the thing open and then shock it until it lets go.
We open with the Doctor conducting a presentation of humorous things that happened to him so far and it is exactly as awful as you think. So much so that Janeway has ordered Chakotay to signal yellow alert 30 minutes in to get them all out of there, but he had to sit through 2 hours the week before and ignores the order. Janeway is heated when she gets out but before she can tell Chakotay just what she thought of his prank the ship is rocked by an energy wave. After the wave passes they track down the ship that made the wake and it is in bad shape. There is only one creature on board and it is beamed to sickbay. It is so strange the Doctor can't figure out what is going on with it, but before he can do much it leaps through a forcefield and clamps on the Torres and starts stealing her blood and other fluids. The Doctor for some reason doesn't know much about non-humanoid physiology so he decides to create an assistant, the leading expert on exobiology in fact. Unfortunately that man turns out to be a creepy Cardassian.
The Doctor starts working with the Cardassian who is named Crell Moset. Crell is excited by getting to examine such a strange creature and the Doctor is totally in awe. But he does find it odd that the Cardassian doesn't want to use any modern tools instead preferring a large scalpel. He cuts open a simulated version of the alien and finds signs of intelligence, and quickly comes up with a plan to fry the nerve center to get it to release from Torres. Meanwhile Janeway and Seven work to figure out the distress call the alien sent before they found it and eventually decide to just transmit the same signal but much more strongly. In sickbay Crell encounters one of the Bajoran crew who freaks out since Crell killed several of his family members in medical experiments. Torres also refuses to let the recreation of Crell work on her.
Time is getting short for B'Elanna so they have a meeting and Janeway decides to let the Doctor and Crell perform the procedure to remove the alien. As they begin another of the alien ships shows up but they are totally unable to communicate. In surgery Crell decides he knows best and starts increasing the power of shocks he is delivering to the aliens brain. The Doctor steps in and manages to get it to release and then save its life. Just in time Harry beams the creature to the ship that is now attacking Voyager and they disengage the attack. Janeway gives the Doctor the choice of whether to delete Crell or not and he decides he has to. Torres is of course pissed off but Janeway tells her it was the captains decision to make.
Review: Not terrible, but a little more direct at the point that most episodes. So much so that it was hard to separate what Crell did from that nazis in a way that really didn't help the story much.
4 out of 10
We open with the Doctor conducting a presentation of humorous things that happened to him so far and it is exactly as awful as you think. So much so that Janeway has ordered Chakotay to signal yellow alert 30 minutes in to get them all out of there, but he had to sit through 2 hours the week before and ignores the order. Janeway is heated when she gets out but before she can tell Chakotay just what she thought of his prank the ship is rocked by an energy wave. After the wave passes they track down the ship that made the wake and it is in bad shape. There is only one creature on board and it is beamed to sickbay. It is so strange the Doctor can't figure out what is going on with it, but before he can do much it leaps through a forcefield and clamps on the Torres and starts stealing her blood and other fluids. The Doctor for some reason doesn't know much about non-humanoid physiology so he decides to create an assistant, the leading expert on exobiology in fact. Unfortunately that man turns out to be a creepy Cardassian.
The Doctor starts working with the Cardassian who is named Crell Moset. Crell is excited by getting to examine such a strange creature and the Doctor is totally in awe. But he does find it odd that the Cardassian doesn't want to use any modern tools instead preferring a large scalpel. He cuts open a simulated version of the alien and finds signs of intelligence, and quickly comes up with a plan to fry the nerve center to get it to release from Torres. Meanwhile Janeway and Seven work to figure out the distress call the alien sent before they found it and eventually decide to just transmit the same signal but much more strongly. In sickbay Crell encounters one of the Bajoran crew who freaks out since Crell killed several of his family members in medical experiments. Torres also refuses to let the recreation of Crell work on her.
Time is getting short for B'Elanna so they have a meeting and Janeway decides to let the Doctor and Crell perform the procedure to remove the alien. As they begin another of the alien ships shows up but they are totally unable to communicate. In surgery Crell decides he knows best and starts increasing the power of shocks he is delivering to the aliens brain. The Doctor steps in and manages to get it to release and then save its life. Just in time Harry beams the creature to the ship that is now attacking Voyager and they disengage the attack. Janeway gives the Doctor the choice of whether to delete Crell or not and he decides he has to. Torres is of course pissed off but Janeway tells her it was the captains decision to make.
Review: Not terrible, but a little more direct at the point that most episodes. So much so that it was hard to separate what Crell did from that nazis in a way that really didn't help the story much.
4 out of 10
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
VOY: Infinite Regress
Yay, an episode that is filled with nonsense hallucinations! Well, luckily it is only the last third or so, but still. It was actually pretty cool getting to see Jeri Ryan get to play a bunch of different characters and even without the audio cue it would be pretty easy to tell when she had switched. It does seem a little unreasonable that Seven keeps literally all the memories of the various people she assimilated inside her brain, but I guess the borg are really good at compressing data. It also makes a lot of sense that all the species that touch borg space would be struggling to find ways to stop them, and some might even succeed.
We open with Seven waking up in her cargobay to a cacophony of voices. She makes her way to the mess hall where she finds and devours a huge chunk of meat and when she sees her reflection it is that of a male Klingon. The next day Kim finds the core of a borg ship in what seemed like an asteroid field. Janeway decides to avoid the bastard but before the meeting can break up Neelix brings up the issue of the midnight snacker. He gets permission to put locks on the cabinets and they move on. Next we see Naomi following Seven around. She is quickly caught but impressed that Naomi sees her as a form of perfection. But then we hear the voices again and Seven's demeanor changes instantly. She is bubbly and just wants to go play games. She and Naomi play for an hour or so until Seven gets called to engineering and suddenly snaps back to normal without memories of the last hour.
In engineering Seven confirms the signal Torres found is borg, but then changes again and turns into a Klingon warrior who bites Torres before fleeing. She takes out some security guards before being trapped in a forcefield. When Tuvok finds her she believes she is a Vulcan and surrenders before turning Klingon again forcing Tuvok to stun her. In sickbay the Doctor figures out the borg core is responsible for activating her implants which are bringing on the multiple personalities. The track down the vinculum, the processing core of the borg ship and beam it on board. They try to shut it down but there is some sort of virus inside of it.
Eventually Seven figures out the virus was from some aliens the borg assimilated and they manage to track some of them down. They are pissed that Janeway took the vinculum from where they left it to infect any borg who showed up to pick the thing up. For some reason they need to turn it off before turning it over and the aliens are pissed so there is a fight. Tuvok mindmelds with Seven to keep her mind stable. Torres manages to turn the vinculum off just in time to save the and Janeway beams the core into space before fleeing.
Review: Kinda unfocused as an episode. I liked the premise of multiple personalities, but the rest was a bit of a mess. Pretty average.
5 out of 10
We open with Seven waking up in her cargobay to a cacophony of voices. She makes her way to the mess hall where she finds and devours a huge chunk of meat and when she sees her reflection it is that of a male Klingon. The next day Kim finds the core of a borg ship in what seemed like an asteroid field. Janeway decides to avoid the bastard but before the meeting can break up Neelix brings up the issue of the midnight snacker. He gets permission to put locks on the cabinets and they move on. Next we see Naomi following Seven around. She is quickly caught but impressed that Naomi sees her as a form of perfection. But then we hear the voices again and Seven's demeanor changes instantly. She is bubbly and just wants to go play games. She and Naomi play for an hour or so until Seven gets called to engineering and suddenly snaps back to normal without memories of the last hour.
In engineering Seven confirms the signal Torres found is borg, but then changes again and turns into a Klingon warrior who bites Torres before fleeing. She takes out some security guards before being trapped in a forcefield. When Tuvok finds her she believes she is a Vulcan and surrenders before turning Klingon again forcing Tuvok to stun her. In sickbay the Doctor figures out the borg core is responsible for activating her implants which are bringing on the multiple personalities. The track down the vinculum, the processing core of the borg ship and beam it on board. They try to shut it down but there is some sort of virus inside of it.
Eventually Seven figures out the virus was from some aliens the borg assimilated and they manage to track some of them down. They are pissed that Janeway took the vinculum from where they left it to infect any borg who showed up to pick the thing up. For some reason they need to turn it off before turning it over and the aliens are pissed so there is a fight. Tuvok mindmelds with Seven to keep her mind stable. Torres manages to turn the vinculum off just in time to save the and Janeway beams the core into space before fleeing.
Review: Kinda unfocused as an episode. I liked the premise of multiple personalities, but the rest was a bit of a mess. Pretty average.
5 out of 10
Monday, September 26, 2016
VOY: Timeless
I have a soft spot for time travel stories, I should probably just start with that. This managed to be a time communication rather than actual travel story, but it dealt with the issues of changing the timeline that are so common in time travel so I guess it counts. I feel like Kim sending himself a message from a now nonexistent future might draw some prosecution from the bureau of temporal affairs or something like that, but whatever, the plan seems to have worked. It seems like Janeway's plan to just pack away the quantum drive might be a bit quick to judge, but I guess there wouldn't be much show if they did just make it back quickly. It just seems like maybe keep the equipment installed and keep working on it. I know they talked about having some sort of unstable crystals needed or something, but can't you just keep an eye out for more?
We open with two hooded and jacketed figures finding Voyager buried under a glacier on an ice planet. After the credits we see that it is Kim and Chakotay and they have a comlink with a woman whose voice isn't familiar. They power up a panel on the ship but everything seems to be broken. Chakotay heads to the bridge and beams Seven's body to somewhere. Kim heads to sickbay and gets the Doctor going and transferred to the mobile emitter. They tell the Doctor they are there to change history. Cut to 15 years earlier and Voyager is preparing for the inaugural test of the quantum slipstream drive. Everyone is celebrating except for Tom who is worried he has found a flaw in the design. He heads to the holodeck with Kim and they confirm the flaw will doom the flight the next day. They go to the captain but she comes up with a plan to send the Flyer ahead of Voyager and send data back so they can keep things going. After much consideration and a dinner with Chakotay Janeway decides it is worth the risk and they will attempt the flight in the morning.
Back in the future we learn first that this isn't a Starfleet operation and the three of them are fugitives. They also have a borg temporal transceiver that Kim is going to use to send corrected data to Seven in the past to keep Voyager from crashing and killing everybody, something Kim blames himself for. They get to work but sensors tell them the Starfleet has found them and a ship is on the way. In the past we see them complete final preparations and launch the slipstream. In the future Geordi shows up and tries to stop them but Kim manages to send the data. But in the past the data comes through and it doesn't work, Voyager crashes just like the first time. Kim realizes something is wrong but by now the Flyer is under fire. Kim freaks out and Chakotay tries to keep the ship together. Eventually the Doctor suggests altering the data to break up the slipstream instead. It works and Voyager and the Flyer both return to normal space. After some digging they find that Kim was the one who sent the signal, from the future.
Review: Overall a rather enjoyable episode. Raises some questions about the ethics of time alteration, but overall seems to be in the camp that it is a good idea. Kim is pretty weak the entire time, but at least Neelix isn't in the episode at all.
6 out of 10
We open with two hooded and jacketed figures finding Voyager buried under a glacier on an ice planet. After the credits we see that it is Kim and Chakotay and they have a comlink with a woman whose voice isn't familiar. They power up a panel on the ship but everything seems to be broken. Chakotay heads to the bridge and beams Seven's body to somewhere. Kim heads to sickbay and gets the Doctor going and transferred to the mobile emitter. They tell the Doctor they are there to change history. Cut to 15 years earlier and Voyager is preparing for the inaugural test of the quantum slipstream drive. Everyone is celebrating except for Tom who is worried he has found a flaw in the design. He heads to the holodeck with Kim and they confirm the flaw will doom the flight the next day. They go to the captain but she comes up with a plan to send the Flyer ahead of Voyager and send data back so they can keep things going. After much consideration and a dinner with Chakotay Janeway decides it is worth the risk and they will attempt the flight in the morning.
Back in the future we learn first that this isn't a Starfleet operation and the three of them are fugitives. They also have a borg temporal transceiver that Kim is going to use to send corrected data to Seven in the past to keep Voyager from crashing and killing everybody, something Kim blames himself for. They get to work but sensors tell them the Starfleet has found them and a ship is on the way. In the past we see them complete final preparations and launch the slipstream. In the future Geordi shows up and tries to stop them but Kim manages to send the data. But in the past the data comes through and it doesn't work, Voyager crashes just like the first time. Kim realizes something is wrong but by now the Flyer is under fire. Kim freaks out and Chakotay tries to keep the ship together. Eventually the Doctor suggests altering the data to break up the slipstream instead. It works and Voyager and the Flyer both return to normal space. After some digging they find that Kim was the one who sent the signal, from the future.
Review: Overall a rather enjoyable episode. Raises some questions about the ethics of time alteration, but overall seems to be in the camp that it is a good idea. Kim is pretty weak the entire time, but at least Neelix isn't in the episode at all.
6 out of 10
Sunday, September 25, 2016
VOY: Once Upon a Time
This episode provides an interesting look into what the future of children's entertainment may look like. I know I would have loved having a holodeck as a kid, in fact getting me out of it probably would have been a problem. This is also a good look at the challenges of having a child on a space ship, but not a normal ship either; a ship trapped on the far side of the galaxy. The B story about her mom being trapped under rubble played out pretty much exactly how you would expect. Something goes wrong, they think they are fine, they are not fine, crisis coming so it is now or never, and at the last minute everything works out great.
We open on the holodeck where Naomi is hanging out with her friend Flotter, a character who is the embodiment of water. He is afraid of the tree monster, but it turns out the tree is friendly. She gets stopped by Neelix who takes her to bed. She has a video call with her mom first who assures her everything is fine, but all the static on the view indicates it probably isn't fine. Ensign Wildman talks to Neelix after Naomi heads to bed and tells him they have been hit by a dangerous ion storm. On the Flyer Paris is struggling to keep them under control as they are buffeted. They find a class M planet but when they crash land they end up buried under tons of rock and Wildman is badly hurt. At briefing on Voyager they come up with a plan to track the flyer and Neelix gets the job of keeping Naomi distracted. She goes through her day and eventually ends up on the holodeck again where Flotter gets evaporated by the fire ogre who also burns down the forest. That night she notices her mom hasn't called.
Things get bad enough that Janeway tells Neelix to tell Naomi, but before he can she wakes up and wanders the ship and starts getting clues something has gone wrong. Eventually she takes the turbolift to the bridge and hears the captain ordering sickbay to prepare for heavy casualties before anyone notices Naomi. She runs to the holodeck horrified that she has been lied to. On the planet the Flyer is running out of oxygen but luckily Seven has located the ship. They manage to cut through with phaser drills and everybody gets rescued just before the end of the episode. We just have time for one more trip to visit Flotter.
Review: Not the most exciting episode, but it at least does a better job with a kid-centric episode than TNG or DS9.
5 out of 10
We open on the holodeck where Naomi is hanging out with her friend Flotter, a character who is the embodiment of water. He is afraid of the tree monster, but it turns out the tree is friendly. She gets stopped by Neelix who takes her to bed. She has a video call with her mom first who assures her everything is fine, but all the static on the view indicates it probably isn't fine. Ensign Wildman talks to Neelix after Naomi heads to bed and tells him they have been hit by a dangerous ion storm. On the Flyer Paris is struggling to keep them under control as they are buffeted. They find a class M planet but when they crash land they end up buried under tons of rock and Wildman is badly hurt. At briefing on Voyager they come up with a plan to track the flyer and Neelix gets the job of keeping Naomi distracted. She goes through her day and eventually ends up on the holodeck again where Flotter gets evaporated by the fire ogre who also burns down the forest. That night she notices her mom hasn't called.
Things get bad enough that Janeway tells Neelix to tell Naomi, but before he can she wakes up and wanders the ship and starts getting clues something has gone wrong. Eventually she takes the turbolift to the bridge and hears the captain ordering sickbay to prepare for heavy casualties before anyone notices Naomi. She runs to the holodeck horrified that she has been lied to. On the planet the Flyer is running out of oxygen but luckily Seven has located the ship. They manage to cut through with phaser drills and everybody gets rescued just before the end of the episode. We just have time for one more trip to visit Flotter.
Review: Not the most exciting episode, but it at least does a better job with a kid-centric episode than TNG or DS9.
5 out of 10
Saturday, September 24, 2016
VOY: In the Flesh
The opening of this episode especially managed to get me pretty good. I obviously knew Chakotay hadn't single-handedly made it back to earth only to creep around the Starfleet academy with a camera. When he introduced himself with a fake name I still wasn't sure what was up. Even when one of the people turned blue and shifty and had to be dragged off I wasn't sure. Clearly the lady he met at the bar was up to something, she would even openly discuss it to some degree, but it wasn't until the dead guy turned all 8472 that I really understood. Also it is kinda odd that the Hirogen couldn't kill a single 8472 despite massive firepower, but all it takes it seems is the thought of being with humans to make one kill itself.
We open at what appears to be Starfleet academy with this one sketchy dude sneaking around taking pictures of people and things. It turns out that creepy guy is Chakotay and he soon bumps in the gardener who clearly suspects something is going on. Next he heads to a bar where a female officer approaches him and starts laying on the flirt hard. She also starts talking about reverting and infiltrating or something and he realizes it is time to bail, but not before agreeing to return for a date that night. He is followed by a security officer who Tuvok neck pinches before they beam off the space station they were apparently on and into the Delta Flyer. They get back to the ship where the very confused security officer wakes up in sickbay and freaks out when they start asking him what he really is. So much so that he kills himself with some sort of cellular toxin or something. But not dead enough that the Doctor can't get him to turn back into his original 8472 form.
After some debate and a DNA test Chakotay returns for his date with the creature but he is clearly a lot more nervous this time. After leaving with a kiss she scans her skin where she touched him and contacts the gardener to have Chakotay captured. He is taken in for questioning and is pretty much totally honest with them. After preparing lots of weapons for them Janeway approaches the station but is actually quite willing to talk when they hail her. She convinces them to have a peace conference and at the conference turns off Voyagers weapons and offers to give them the tech to fight back against the nano-probes. Somewhat surprised by the offers of peace the gardener and others of his species agree to return to their space to reconsider their invasion of earth. Oh, but not before Chakotay gets to share another kiss with his lady 8472.
Review: I admit it has been a while since it seemed like Janeway and company were living up to their starfleet standards, but this time they definitely do. Even Seven of Nine is forced to admit that Janeway's peace tactics are working which definitely shows some growth on her part.
6 out of 10
Friday, September 23, 2016
VOY: Extreme Risk
I don't think there has has yet been a Trek episode as directly about suicide and specifically suicidal thoughts as Extreme Risk. And it honestly makes sense that someone as passionate as Torres would be the one to have such thoughts. They also really paint Tom as being totally out of touch as he excitedly builds his new space hotrod while his girlfriend keeps trying to kill herself on the holodeck. Also, it seems like there should be some sort of algorithm in the ship that lets the captain know like every single time someone turns off the safety protocol on the holodeck. There should be some space forms you have to fill out or something. Kinda strange that this is the episode where they introduce the Delta Flyer, but at least it isn't something that came out of the blue. Well, the specific idea did, but the idea that Tom wants to build something to tinker with has been clear for at least a season or two.
We open with B'Elanna in a shuttle in some sort of protective suit. She orders the pilot to fly higher before opening the door and jumping out. Oh, but before that she turns off the safety protocols. She is interrupted by a call to engineering but on the way runs into Seven who is surprised when Torres tells Seven to take over the project and returns to her quarters. Meanwhile the Malon have caught one of Voyagers new probes in a tractor beam and Janeway is worried they will get their hands on the borg shielding it has so she orders the probe to disrupt the tractor beam and fly into a gas giant. The Malon ship follows it in and is destroyed. The probe is now stuck in the gas giant though and more Malon are on there way to try and get it. Janeway calls a meeting and Paris convinces them all to let him build his new shuttle design. Seven and Harry are excited to help and Torres, while quiet, also pitches in.
In a holodeck they are working on the new ship design and Tuvok has to reign in Paris' plans to make the ship actually look like a hot rod. Torres leaves to work on the thrusters but instead goes to a different holodeck and turns it on without the safeties to go fight Cardassians. Seven discovers the Malon are also working on a shuttle to go after the probe and the race is on. Torres leaves the group while they are working on a hull fracturing problem and heads to the holodeck where she simulates it without the safeties and passes out. Chakotay tries to reach her on the coms and finds her in the holodeck unconscious and takes her to sickbay. After she wakes up Janeway shows up and demands to know what is going on but B'Elanna won't talk about it so she is relieved of duty.
Chakotay visits Torres and practically has to drag her into the holodeck to check out one of her programs. It turns out to be a cave full of dead Maquis, friends of theirs who were killed by the Dominion. She breaks down and admits she keeps risking her life because she feels that she can't feel any more and this is her way of trying to again. He tries to convince her she has a new family but she doesn't seem certain. The Malon attack Voyager to distract from their shuttle launch so Janeway orders the Flyer to launch as well. Chakotay heads down to help with the hull fracture problem but Torres catches him in the hall and convinces him to let her go. They manage to get the probe but the hull actually breaches and the only thing that saves them all is Torres' jury rigged forcefield.
Review: A bit tonally dissonant, but not a bad way to examine what it is like to have someone you care about not care about life any more. Maybe shouldn't have had Torres way of proving she wasn't suicidal be having her risk her own and a bunch of other peoples lives on a hella dangerous mission.
6 out of 10
We open with B'Elanna in a shuttle in some sort of protective suit. She orders the pilot to fly higher before opening the door and jumping out. Oh, but before that she turns off the safety protocols. She is interrupted by a call to engineering but on the way runs into Seven who is surprised when Torres tells Seven to take over the project and returns to her quarters. Meanwhile the Malon have caught one of Voyagers new probes in a tractor beam and Janeway is worried they will get their hands on the borg shielding it has so she orders the probe to disrupt the tractor beam and fly into a gas giant. The Malon ship follows it in and is destroyed. The probe is now stuck in the gas giant though and more Malon are on there way to try and get it. Janeway calls a meeting and Paris convinces them all to let him build his new shuttle design. Seven and Harry are excited to help and Torres, while quiet, also pitches in.
In a holodeck they are working on the new ship design and Tuvok has to reign in Paris' plans to make the ship actually look like a hot rod. Torres leaves to work on the thrusters but instead goes to a different holodeck and turns it on without the safeties to go fight Cardassians. Seven discovers the Malon are also working on a shuttle to go after the probe and the race is on. Torres leaves the group while they are working on a hull fracturing problem and heads to the holodeck where she simulates it without the safeties and passes out. Chakotay tries to reach her on the coms and finds her in the holodeck unconscious and takes her to sickbay. After she wakes up Janeway shows up and demands to know what is going on but B'Elanna won't talk about it so she is relieved of duty.
Chakotay visits Torres and practically has to drag her into the holodeck to check out one of her programs. It turns out to be a cave full of dead Maquis, friends of theirs who were killed by the Dominion. She breaks down and admits she keeps risking her life because she feels that she can't feel any more and this is her way of trying to again. He tries to convince her she has a new family but she doesn't seem certain. The Malon attack Voyager to distract from their shuttle launch so Janeway orders the Flyer to launch as well. Chakotay heads down to help with the hull fracture problem but Torres catches him in the hall and convinces him to let her go. They manage to get the probe but the hull actually breaches and the only thing that saves them all is Torres' jury rigged forcefield.
Review: A bit tonally dissonant, but not a bad way to examine what it is like to have someone you care about not care about life any more. Maybe shouldn't have had Torres way of proving she wasn't suicidal be having her risk her own and a bunch of other peoples lives on a hella dangerous mission.
6 out of 10
Thursday, September 22, 2016
VOY: Drone
For all the trouble they have with the holodeck it seems like there should be way more episodes about problems with the transporter. They had two in TNG and one in VOY before this one, but none that worked as well as Drone. It also really worked for me because it addresses something I feel like they ignore way too often, the amazing piece of the future they possess called the mobile emitter. They should be mining it for new power management tech and all sorts of things like that every chance they can get, but no, they just use it to allow the Doctor to walk around. But using that tech would be altering the timeline you say! Sure, but so is having a holographic doctor walking around retaking ships from Romulans and all that. And none of this is even touching how awesome One is as a character. First he learns to be himself, then he learns to care, and finally he learns how to kick ass. Oh yeah, and something about self sacrifice in there too, but wasn't it awesome when he beamed into the borg sphere and flew it into a nebula!
We open with the Doctor rudely walking into Seven's cargo bay unannounced and then making fun of her for practicing smiling in front of a mirror. She joins Torres and Paris along with the Doctor on a mission to survey a nebula but something goes wrong and they need to go through an emergency beam out. Everyone seems fine except the Doctor whose emitter fails shortly after arriving. Torres takes it to the science lab and the next morning the Doctor wakes her up to fix it and then calls her in the shower to bug her about it more. (The Doctor really manages to be the Neelix of this episode.) In the science lab we see the emitter sprouting borg looking probes. Before Torres can get to it some guy walks into the science lab and gets probed in the neck by the emitter. The emitter thing gives off a borg forcefield which they detect from the bridge and send a team to investigate. Seven recognizes the device it has built, a borg gestation chamber, and it has a young drone inside.
Of course since this is TV the drone develops super fast and before they know it they have an adult drone with all sorts of extra high tech metal armor and the emitter as an implant. After a rough start where he tries to download Seven's mind she teaches the drone to interface with a borg data cube and it knows who they all are suddenly. There is a lot of awkward growing up stuff as the drone learns to be an individual and even picks a name, One. The one thing they don't tell him about is the Borg. Seven is worried the allure of perfection will be too much for him.
They don't have much choice though because when One regenerates his body generates a transmitter which sends a signal which contacts the collective and they send a scout ship to find him. Seven and the captain give One a crash course on who the Borg are and when he sees that Seven doesn't want to rejoin the collective and how afraid of being assimilated the crew are he agrees to help. One enhances Voyagers shields and weapons, but it isn't enough. He beams himself into the sphere and takes control flying it into an unstable nebula crushing the ship. He seemingly allows himself to be hurt though. When he gets back to Voyager he tells Seven the collective knows about him and that he must die to keep them all safe. Seven tries to talk him out of it, but he dies in front of her.
Review: I really liked this episode. Not quite as good as Living Witness, but it the same group of really outstanding Voyager episodes.
8 out of 10
We open with the Doctor rudely walking into Seven's cargo bay unannounced and then making fun of her for practicing smiling in front of a mirror. She joins Torres and Paris along with the Doctor on a mission to survey a nebula but something goes wrong and they need to go through an emergency beam out. Everyone seems fine except the Doctor whose emitter fails shortly after arriving. Torres takes it to the science lab and the next morning the Doctor wakes her up to fix it and then calls her in the shower to bug her about it more. (The Doctor really manages to be the Neelix of this episode.) In the science lab we see the emitter sprouting borg looking probes. Before Torres can get to it some guy walks into the science lab and gets probed in the neck by the emitter. The emitter thing gives off a borg forcefield which they detect from the bridge and send a team to investigate. Seven recognizes the device it has built, a borg gestation chamber, and it has a young drone inside.
Of course since this is TV the drone develops super fast and before they know it they have an adult drone with all sorts of extra high tech metal armor and the emitter as an implant. After a rough start where he tries to download Seven's mind she teaches the drone to interface with a borg data cube and it knows who they all are suddenly. There is a lot of awkward growing up stuff as the drone learns to be an individual and even picks a name, One. The one thing they don't tell him about is the Borg. Seven is worried the allure of perfection will be too much for him.
They don't have much choice though because when One regenerates his body generates a transmitter which sends a signal which contacts the collective and they send a scout ship to find him. Seven and the captain give One a crash course on who the Borg are and when he sees that Seven doesn't want to rejoin the collective and how afraid of being assimilated the crew are he agrees to help. One enhances Voyagers shields and weapons, but it isn't enough. He beams himself into the sphere and takes control flying it into an unstable nebula crushing the ship. He seemingly allows himself to be hurt though. When he gets back to Voyager he tells Seven the collective knows about him and that he must die to keep them all safe. Seven tries to talk him out of it, but he dies in front of her.
Review: I really liked this episode. Not quite as good as Living Witness, but it the same group of really outstanding Voyager episodes.
8 out of 10
Wednesday, September 21, 2016
VOY: Night
Overall I think this was a really good way to kick off season five. We start with Captain Proton, then Janeway has a crisis of confidence. The kind of crisis you can only solve by saving one race of aliens by blowing the hell out of some other aliens. Oh, and maybe collapse a wormhole that nobody will call a wormhole for no apparent reason. This is also a case where it seems like maybe the prime directive says they shouldn't do what they decide to do, but it turns out that it is really just one lone jerk who is doing the polluting so who really cares. Also it seems like the shadow aliens are so badly poisoned by this point that they are probably all doomed, but who knows. Also not sure what the difference between having no engines and being carried by inertia is and being dead in the water, but it is apparently one weapon hit worth of damage.
We open as I mentioned with Paris and Kim fighting with the Doctor over whether they get to finish their Captain Proton simulation which overloads the holodeck somehow. Luckily this doesn't turn out to the be actual story. The actual plot is that Voyager is crossing a huge starless expanse. Also theta radiation somehow keeps you from even seeing any stars outside the region which doesn't make much sense, and now that I think of it makes even less sense later on. Tension is high as the crew grow weary flying through the same endless void day after day. The captain seems to have it worst of all and hasn't come out of her ready room in days. Chakotay visits her but she seems uninterested in the events of the ship. Chakotay talks with Tuvok about it and they realize she is blaming her self for their being stuck and the last time she did this she risked her life unnecessarily trying to make things right.
Suddenly they lose power and aliens are on board seemingly attacking. They flee the light and Seven manages to disable one on the holodeck. Tuvok shoots a torpedo rigged as a flare and they realize they are surrounded by three alien ships. Suddenly fourth ship shows up firing spatial charges and drives the dark loving aliens off. It is commanded by Controller Emck. Emck is there hauling cargo allegedly but when he beams over he is saturated with theta radiation. He offers the guide them out of the space if she turns over the hurt alien and gets awfully hostile when asked about his mission. Janeway declines his offer and he leaves warning that he won't save them next time.
Janeway has the alien awoken and it explains Emck's people showed up out of nowhere and started dumping radioactive garbage and it is killing them. Janeway offers to help and it guides them to its people. After turning him over Janeway contacts Emck and offers him the tech to turn the waste he is dumping into valuable energy but he is too happy with the deal he has. So she comes up with a plan to seal his wormhole and trap him behind. It doesn't go great but the dark aliens show up at the last minute and Janeway destroy's Emck's ship with a good shot to the cargo bays full of radioactive waste. They escape through the wormhole and then from the dark region.
Review: In writing my summary I realized that while I liked the ideas in the episode I didn't like much of th execution. I totally skipped over Janeway trying to leave herself behind on a shuttle because it was silly and didn't really effect much of the rest of the episode. Still not a bad environmental episode with some decent action.
6 out of 10
We open as I mentioned with Paris and Kim fighting with the Doctor over whether they get to finish their Captain Proton simulation which overloads the holodeck somehow. Luckily this doesn't turn out to the be actual story. The actual plot is that Voyager is crossing a huge starless expanse. Also theta radiation somehow keeps you from even seeing any stars outside the region which doesn't make much sense, and now that I think of it makes even less sense later on. Tension is high as the crew grow weary flying through the same endless void day after day. The captain seems to have it worst of all and hasn't come out of her ready room in days. Chakotay visits her but she seems uninterested in the events of the ship. Chakotay talks with Tuvok about it and they realize she is blaming her self for their being stuck and the last time she did this she risked her life unnecessarily trying to make things right.
Suddenly they lose power and aliens are on board seemingly attacking. They flee the light and Seven manages to disable one on the holodeck. Tuvok shoots a torpedo rigged as a flare and they realize they are surrounded by three alien ships. Suddenly fourth ship shows up firing spatial charges and drives the dark loving aliens off. It is commanded by Controller Emck. Emck is there hauling cargo allegedly but when he beams over he is saturated with theta radiation. He offers the guide them out of the space if she turns over the hurt alien and gets awfully hostile when asked about his mission. Janeway declines his offer and he leaves warning that he won't save them next time.
Janeway has the alien awoken and it explains Emck's people showed up out of nowhere and started dumping radioactive garbage and it is killing them. Janeway offers to help and it guides them to its people. After turning him over Janeway contacts Emck and offers him the tech to turn the waste he is dumping into valuable energy but he is too happy with the deal he has. So she comes up with a plan to seal his wormhole and trap him behind. It doesn't go great but the dark aliens show up at the last minute and Janeway destroy's Emck's ship with a good shot to the cargo bays full of radioactive waste. They escape through the wormhole and then from the dark region.
Review: In writing my summary I realized that while I liked the ideas in the episode I didn't like much of th execution. I totally skipped over Janeway trying to leave herself behind on a shuttle because it was silly and didn't really effect much of the rest of the episode. Still not a bad environmental episode with some decent action.
6 out of 10
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
VOY: Hope and Fear
This season seems to be all about the impacts Voyager is having on various species in the Delta Quadrant and so far that has been a good thing. This time it is an alien bent on revenge for what Voyager did in helping the Borg with 8472. It really makes sense that a choice like that would have a huge impact on the many species whose space bordered the Borg. I do find it rather questionable that they are able to instantly travel at super transwarp speeds with tech they already had, but at least that is more reasonable that Starfleet sending an empty rescue ship to save them. Luckily that second bit turned out to be a trap so I am glad Janeway's endless suspicion saved them again. And speaking of her, this is the episode that starts setting Janeway up as a mentor to Seven. Good thing because the Doctor's lessons don't seem to be working.
We open with Janeway and Seven playing Velocity on the holodeck. It is something between racket ball and phaser practice and despite Seven's enhanced skills, Janeway keeps winning. Seven is upset and challenges her to another game but Janeway walks out on her. Next the captain is in the mess hall working all night on the secret message they got from Starfleet in Message in a Bottle when Chakotay walks in. In addition to scolding her jokingly about being up all night he tells her they got a message from Neelix and Paris that their supply mission went great and asking to take on a passenger who helped Neelix. She agrees and later that day meets the big headed alien. He is friendly and they learn that he helped after Neelix and Paris' universal translator broke he learned their language and helped. He mentions that his people are really good at all sorts of languages and Janeway gets him to work on the message from Starfleet. He is able to get the message decoded and in addition to a bunch of other info contains coordinates and a garbled message from Admiral Hayes.
They take the ship to the specified coordinates and find what appears to be a strange looking Federation ship. Chakotay leads an away team over since the ship is empty and they find a futuristic looking Starfleet ship with some sort of quantum slipstream drive thing. The ship takes off on its own and makes it 15 lightyears before they can get it to stop. Voyager catches up a few days later and they also decode the video from Hayes. He explains Starfleet had a breakthrough in warp tech and sent this ship to rescue them. Janeway is a bit dubious but sends teams over and it all seems fine. Everyone is excited about getting home except for Seven. She decides she isn't going home with them but Janeway tells her that is because she is afraid which Seven isn't exactly pumped to hear.
Janeway also keeps working on a supposedly unrecoverable part of the message which turns out to be the real message from Hayes. It explains that they couldn't do much to help other than send a bunch of info on the Delta Quadrant. Janeway gets a security team together and orders the other ship evacuated. She arrives on the bridge with Seven and some goons but the alien manages to pull a lever after a struggle and the ship morphs into an alien ship. Well, the bridge does at least. He confines them in a forcefield but Kim manages to beam out everybody but Seven and the captain. The alien explains his people were destroyed by the Borg after Janeway helped them beat 8472 and he is taking them to be assimilated. He does a classic villain thing and puts them in a brig he can't see or easily monitor so Janeway turns on some of Seven's implants so she can get through the forcefield and turn it off. Seven also explains Janeway was right, she was afraid but now that she might be getting borged again she realizes she wants to be human after all. The Janeway makes it to the bridge but the alien breaks the controls with them set for Borg space but Voyager manages to do the quantum drive thing and shows up just in time to save the day. We close with Janeway and Seven back playing Velocity again but this time Janeway is down to keep playing after the match.
Review: A decent episode with some actual character growth from Seven. Hopefully it isn't undone as quickly as they seem to like to, but we shall see. I enjoyed the plot about the revenge seeking alien quite a bit.
7 out of 10
We open with Janeway and Seven playing Velocity on the holodeck. It is something between racket ball and phaser practice and despite Seven's enhanced skills, Janeway keeps winning. Seven is upset and challenges her to another game but Janeway walks out on her. Next the captain is in the mess hall working all night on the secret message they got from Starfleet in Message in a Bottle when Chakotay walks in. In addition to scolding her jokingly about being up all night he tells her they got a message from Neelix and Paris that their supply mission went great and asking to take on a passenger who helped Neelix. She agrees and later that day meets the big headed alien. He is friendly and they learn that he helped after Neelix and Paris' universal translator broke he learned their language and helped. He mentions that his people are really good at all sorts of languages and Janeway gets him to work on the message from Starfleet. He is able to get the message decoded and in addition to a bunch of other info contains coordinates and a garbled message from Admiral Hayes.
They take the ship to the specified coordinates and find what appears to be a strange looking Federation ship. Chakotay leads an away team over since the ship is empty and they find a futuristic looking Starfleet ship with some sort of quantum slipstream drive thing. The ship takes off on its own and makes it 15 lightyears before they can get it to stop. Voyager catches up a few days later and they also decode the video from Hayes. He explains Starfleet had a breakthrough in warp tech and sent this ship to rescue them. Janeway is a bit dubious but sends teams over and it all seems fine. Everyone is excited about getting home except for Seven. She decides she isn't going home with them but Janeway tells her that is because she is afraid which Seven isn't exactly pumped to hear.
Janeway also keeps working on a supposedly unrecoverable part of the message which turns out to be the real message from Hayes. It explains that they couldn't do much to help other than send a bunch of info on the Delta Quadrant. Janeway gets a security team together and orders the other ship evacuated. She arrives on the bridge with Seven and some goons but the alien manages to pull a lever after a struggle and the ship morphs into an alien ship. Well, the bridge does at least. He confines them in a forcefield but Kim manages to beam out everybody but Seven and the captain. The alien explains his people were destroyed by the Borg after Janeway helped them beat 8472 and he is taking them to be assimilated. He does a classic villain thing and puts them in a brig he can't see or easily monitor so Janeway turns on some of Seven's implants so she can get through the forcefield and turn it off. Seven also explains Janeway was right, she was afraid but now that she might be getting borged again she realizes she wants to be human after all. The Janeway makes it to the bridge but the alien breaks the controls with them set for Borg space but Voyager manages to do the quantum drive thing and shows up just in time to save the day. We close with Janeway and Seven back playing Velocity again but this time Janeway is down to keep playing after the match.
Review: A decent episode with some actual character growth from Seven. Hopefully it isn't undone as quickly as they seem to like to, but we shall see. I enjoyed the plot about the revenge seeking alien quite a bit.
7 out of 10
Monday, September 19, 2016
VOY: One
I admit I am generally not a fan of hallucination episodes and this one didn't do anything to change that opinion. Pretty early on it became clear Seven was seeing things so it was pretty obvious you could ignore most of what was happening. The only thing that kept it interesting was that the ship itself was starting to break down in various ways that did at least put real problems in her way as well. I actually really liked that they used this episode to get her to start stepping out of her shell socially and at least beginning to engage with the other crew in what might be mistaken for actual conversation. It was totally reasonable to have her possess a complete lack of social skills with her background, but it has stifled her character development and seeing her do more than bark at people is nice.
We open with Seven in the mess hall interrogating her shipmates about themselves until the Doctor pauses the simulation. She has a hard time understanding what she did wrong but he isn't giving up. Voyager meanwhile has encountered a nebula so big it would take months to fly around, but when they go in all the crew except Seven suffer horrible burns and several are killed. Janeway asks for options and after some discussion the Doctor's idea of putting everyone but him and Seven in stasis pods is decided upon. Paris in particular isn't pumped about the idea of spending a month in a pod, even if he is asleep, but they all go out just fine. Things go smoothly at first except for Paris escaping a few times and Seven bickering with the Doctor a bit. He insists on continuing their social training but they are interrupted by the ship announcing an anti-matter leak. But it turns out the gel packs are failing and giving false sensor readings.
The ships computer starts having problems and eventually so too does the Doctors mobile emitter trapping him in sickbay. They encounter a ship with a lone alien who offers to trade. Seven beams him over but he gets creepy really fast. He manages to escape her partially because she hears Tom calling out. The alien threatens to destroy the ship sending Seven rushing after him. She also starts getting visions of Borg. While chasing the alien she runs into the Doctor who confirms she is hallucinating, the radiation from the nebula is damaging her implants. Eventually power starts failing to the engines so she turns off several pods. But to save them she transfers the remaining lifesupport power to the pods and passes out. She wakes up in sickbay to a thankful Janeway. That evening she joins Paris, Kim and Torres in the mess hall for some idle chat.
Review: Not a bad episode that is improved a bit by no Neelix. The hallucination sequence was a bit more than I needed, but luckily enough else was going to that it didn't ruin things. Overall balances out to an average episode.
5 out of 10
We open with Seven in the mess hall interrogating her shipmates about themselves until the Doctor pauses the simulation. She has a hard time understanding what she did wrong but he isn't giving up. Voyager meanwhile has encountered a nebula so big it would take months to fly around, but when they go in all the crew except Seven suffer horrible burns and several are killed. Janeway asks for options and after some discussion the Doctor's idea of putting everyone but him and Seven in stasis pods is decided upon. Paris in particular isn't pumped about the idea of spending a month in a pod, even if he is asleep, but they all go out just fine. Things go smoothly at first except for Paris escaping a few times and Seven bickering with the Doctor a bit. He insists on continuing their social training but they are interrupted by the ship announcing an anti-matter leak. But it turns out the gel packs are failing and giving false sensor readings.
The ships computer starts having problems and eventually so too does the Doctors mobile emitter trapping him in sickbay. They encounter a ship with a lone alien who offers to trade. Seven beams him over but he gets creepy really fast. He manages to escape her partially because she hears Tom calling out. The alien threatens to destroy the ship sending Seven rushing after him. She also starts getting visions of Borg. While chasing the alien she runs into the Doctor who confirms she is hallucinating, the radiation from the nebula is damaging her implants. Eventually power starts failing to the engines so she turns off several pods. But to save them she transfers the remaining lifesupport power to the pods and passes out. She wakes up in sickbay to a thankful Janeway. That evening she joins Paris, Kim and Torres in the mess hall for some idle chat.
Review: Not a bad episode that is improved a bit by no Neelix. The hallucination sequence was a bit more than I needed, but luckily enough else was going to that it didn't ruin things. Overall balances out to an average episode.
5 out of 10
VOY: Demon
They are really starting to get more experimental in their episodes and I am loving it. They are also determined to make Neelix as annoying as humanly possible, in this case by having him decide to camp out in sickbay with no regard for the fact that it is an active clinic. I know the Doctor is a hologram, but if they are going to treat him like a member of the crew then maybe don't turn his sickbay into a dormitory. It was at least fun to get to watch the Doctor turn on the lights and gleefully kick them all out when an actual medical crisis happened. As for the actual story of the episode, it doesn't seem all that likely that a living metal goop could make a duplicate of a person including their memories, but it does make for a fun story.
We open with the ship running out of energy and moving the crew to dormitories rather than their quarters to save power on life support and such. Neelix decides he is too good for the dorms and opts to instead move into sickbay which seems like a terrible idea but Chakotay supports it for some reason. Seven meanwhile has ignored the order to shut down astrometrics but on the upside she found them a source of fuel. It is on a hostile planet, class Y which is apparently called a demon planet. Lets take a step back for a second, this planet is clearly way less hostile than even Venus so I have no idea other than lack of creativity by the writers why it would be considered the worst of the worst by starfleet. Janeway sends Harry and Paris down in a shuttle but when they land Harry is pulled into a puddle of goop. Then a minute or two later life support fails on his suit after we see some of the liquid metal passing through and then Paris' suit fails soon after. They both collapse unable to breath.
Since she can't contact them on the most hostile type of planet known to starfleet Janeway decides to land the ship and check things out. Yup, the read that correctly. They are so badly damaged they can't take off again even if they had fuel which they don't. Janeway sends Chakotay and Seven to look for them and they are surprised to find a happy and healthy Tom Paris walking around with no spacesuit on. He says he is fine, better than fine even. They find Harry and beam back to the ship but the two of them instantly start asphyxiating and the Doctor can only stabilize them by putting them in a force field with the atmosphere from the demon planet inside. They do however manage to harvest enough deuterium fuel to get the ship running again so there is that.
Kim goes back to the surface while Paris stays in sickbay so the Doctor can look for a cure. While exploring a cave with Seven Harry finds himself and Paris almost dead in their spacesuits. Meanwhile the ship suddenly has a pool of the liquid metal open up underneath and starts sinking so Janeway decides to take off despite that not really being an option due to the damage from landing. She calls to beam up the away team but Harry runs away and they only get the original Harry and Paris along with Seven and Chakotay. They come up with a plan to destroy the liquid to let them go but when they do the fake Paris is in pain and the fake Kim calls up from the surface. Janeway beams him into the transporter room in a bubble of his own air and fake Kim explains the planet has had life of a strange sort for a long time, but this is the first time it has had consciousness. Janeway negotiates their release in exchange for the crew being asked to voluntarily give the alien goo samples of DNA so it can make more people out of itself to be less lonely or something.
Review: An odd episode with some odd decisions by the crew, but overall rather enjoyable. The idea of a planet having a form of life that is unconscious but that can somehow make conscious beings with another creatures memories is certainly interesting scifi. I still am not sure why Janeway decided to land the ship, but luckily it all worked out for her.
7 out of 10
We open with the ship running out of energy and moving the crew to dormitories rather than their quarters to save power on life support and such. Neelix decides he is too good for the dorms and opts to instead move into sickbay which seems like a terrible idea but Chakotay supports it for some reason. Seven meanwhile has ignored the order to shut down astrometrics but on the upside she found them a source of fuel. It is on a hostile planet, class Y which is apparently called a demon planet. Lets take a step back for a second, this planet is clearly way less hostile than even Venus so I have no idea other than lack of creativity by the writers why it would be considered the worst of the worst by starfleet. Janeway sends Harry and Paris down in a shuttle but when they land Harry is pulled into a puddle of goop. Then a minute or two later life support fails on his suit after we see some of the liquid metal passing through and then Paris' suit fails soon after. They both collapse unable to breath.
Since she can't contact them on the most hostile type of planet known to starfleet Janeway decides to land the ship and check things out. Yup, the read that correctly. They are so badly damaged they can't take off again even if they had fuel which they don't. Janeway sends Chakotay and Seven to look for them and they are surprised to find a happy and healthy Tom Paris walking around with no spacesuit on. He says he is fine, better than fine even. They find Harry and beam back to the ship but the two of them instantly start asphyxiating and the Doctor can only stabilize them by putting them in a force field with the atmosphere from the demon planet inside. They do however manage to harvest enough deuterium fuel to get the ship running again so there is that.
Kim goes back to the surface while Paris stays in sickbay so the Doctor can look for a cure. While exploring a cave with Seven Harry finds himself and Paris almost dead in their spacesuits. Meanwhile the ship suddenly has a pool of the liquid metal open up underneath and starts sinking so Janeway decides to take off despite that not really being an option due to the damage from landing. She calls to beam up the away team but Harry runs away and they only get the original Harry and Paris along with Seven and Chakotay. They come up with a plan to destroy the liquid to let them go but when they do the fake Paris is in pain and the fake Kim calls up from the surface. Janeway beams him into the transporter room in a bubble of his own air and fake Kim explains the planet has had life of a strange sort for a long time, but this is the first time it has had consciousness. Janeway negotiates their release in exchange for the crew being asked to voluntarily give the alien goo samples of DNA so it can make more people out of itself to be less lonely or something.
Review: An odd episode with some odd decisions by the crew, but overall rather enjoyable. The idea of a planet having a form of life that is unconscious but that can somehow make conscious beings with another creatures memories is certainly interesting scifi. I still am not sure why Janeway decided to land the ship, but luckily it all worked out for her.
7 out of 10
Saturday, September 17, 2016
VOY: Living Witness
What a strange episode! I actually thought it was really cool to take a look and the impact Voyager had on a people 700 years after their passage. Presumably they are rewriting the histories of the many of the peoples they encountered along the way but in this case we get to see the consequences of their actions. It was also really enjoyable to see the crew portrayed as a bunch of well armed thugs determined to destroy their enemies no matter the cost. Also having at attack contingent of Borg seems like an actually really good idea, it is probably for the best Janeway never got to see this recreation. I am not entirely sure how I feel about the conclusion even farther into the future showing that everything worked out great, but it did at least fit well within the theme of the episode.
We open with a black gloved Janeway agreeing to help an ambassador capture the leader of his enemies, no matter the cost. He offered her access to a wormhole in exchange for the leader. They are attacked by the Kyrians before they can do anything and several of them make it to engineering. But Janeway activates her Borg drones who not only defeat the Kyrians, they assimilate several of them. And suddenly we are looking in through a window into Voyager from a museum 700 years in the future. A curator, himself Kyrian, is explaining the recreation to an audience made up both Kyrians and Vaskans. The simulation continues and with the Doctors help they bombard the planet with biogenic weapons killing hundreds of thousands of people. The ambassador objects and is thrown in the brig. They torture a prisoner and get the leaders location. He is captured by an assault squad but when he refuses to surrender Janeway executes him herself. Afterwards a Vaskan man confronts the curator about the accuracy of the simulation but the curator defends himself saying a data module was just discovered which should prove his side of the story.
Quarren, the curator, is alone in the museum that night and decides to try and use some of the tools from the simulation to access the data module. It works and he activates the Doctor. It turns out the module was a backup of the EMH (something they specifically ruled out existing previously, but whatever). He is shocked to be so far into the future and even more shocked when he sees the simulation. Quarren explains he will be held accountable for his war crimes but the Doctor objects that the entire story is totally bogus. Quarren turns him off not willing to consider that the Doctor might be telling the truth. The next day though he has second thoughts and turns the Doctor back on and allows him to create his own version of the simulation. He doesn't want to believe it but the Doctor explains he can prove it with data on a tricorder they also have in the museum.
The next day a panel of arbiters is there to determine if the Doctor is a war criminal or if his story might be valid. There is overt racial tension between the Vaskan and the Kyrian members of the panel but the Vaskan prevails and insists the investigation proceed. That night the museum is rocked by weapons fire. Rampaging Vaskans have attacked and vandalize most of the museum before being pushed back by Kyrian forces. The Doctor and Quarren discuss what is happening and the Doctor insists in being decompiled so he doesn't cause more harm but Quarren strongly disagrees and convinces the Doctor to set the record straight at which point we go out a window again into another simulation, this time in a future where Kyrian and Vaskans are in harmony and the Doctor flew off to the Alpha Quadrant long ago after being chief surgeon for an unspecified long period of time.
Review: One of the most creative episodes of Trek I have honestly ever seen and probably my favorite episode of VOY so far. The fact that it didn't actually involve time travel turns out to be a huge point in its favor as well.
9 out of 10
We open with a black gloved Janeway agreeing to help an ambassador capture the leader of his enemies, no matter the cost. He offered her access to a wormhole in exchange for the leader. They are attacked by the Kyrians before they can do anything and several of them make it to engineering. But Janeway activates her Borg drones who not only defeat the Kyrians, they assimilate several of them. And suddenly we are looking in through a window into Voyager from a museum 700 years in the future. A curator, himself Kyrian, is explaining the recreation to an audience made up both Kyrians and Vaskans. The simulation continues and with the Doctors help they bombard the planet with biogenic weapons killing hundreds of thousands of people. The ambassador objects and is thrown in the brig. They torture a prisoner and get the leaders location. He is captured by an assault squad but when he refuses to surrender Janeway executes him herself. Afterwards a Vaskan man confronts the curator about the accuracy of the simulation but the curator defends himself saying a data module was just discovered which should prove his side of the story.
Quarren, the curator, is alone in the museum that night and decides to try and use some of the tools from the simulation to access the data module. It works and he activates the Doctor. It turns out the module was a backup of the EMH (something they specifically ruled out existing previously, but whatever). He is shocked to be so far into the future and even more shocked when he sees the simulation. Quarren explains he will be held accountable for his war crimes but the Doctor objects that the entire story is totally bogus. Quarren turns him off not willing to consider that the Doctor might be telling the truth. The next day though he has second thoughts and turns the Doctor back on and allows him to create his own version of the simulation. He doesn't want to believe it but the Doctor explains he can prove it with data on a tricorder they also have in the museum.
The next day a panel of arbiters is there to determine if the Doctor is a war criminal or if his story might be valid. There is overt racial tension between the Vaskan and the Kyrian members of the panel but the Vaskan prevails and insists the investigation proceed. That night the museum is rocked by weapons fire. Rampaging Vaskans have attacked and vandalize most of the museum before being pushed back by Kyrian forces. The Doctor and Quarren discuss what is happening and the Doctor insists in being decompiled so he doesn't cause more harm but Quarren strongly disagrees and convinces the Doctor to set the record straight at which point we go out a window again into another simulation, this time in a future where Kyrian and Vaskans are in harmony and the Doctor flew off to the Alpha Quadrant long ago after being chief surgeon for an unspecified long period of time.
Review: One of the most creative episodes of Trek I have honestly ever seen and probably my favorite episode of VOY so far. The fact that it didn't actually involve time travel turns out to be a huge point in its favor as well.
9 out of 10
Friday, September 16, 2016
VOY: Unforgettable
I am once again on the road so yeah, this write up may be a bit shorter than normal. I admit I find the idea of a race that has evolved so that no other race can remember them more than a few hours is silly, but it is also an interesting premise to explore. This episode also makes it a bit deeper by having the story be about falling in love with someone you can't remember and them coming back and trying to convince you that you are in love with them. I liked the twist in the end where she loses her memory and Chakotay tries to get her to love him again but she can't understand how she would have ever done that in the first place.
We open with the ship being hit with weapons fire from an invisible ship, it seems two invisible ships are fighting. One explodes and the other is briefly visible before cloaking again. They get a hail, voice only, and the female voice asks for Chakotay to help her. They can't get a lock to beam her over and the ship is dangerously unstable so of course they decide to beam over. Chakotay finds the woman, whose name we later learn is Kellin, trapped under debris but he is able to rescue her and beam them both to sickbay. She doesn't show up on scanners but the Doctor is able to treat her anyway. As soon as she is alone with Chakotay she tells him she was on Voyager a few weeks earlier but her species has special pheromones or something that make it impossible to remember them and she implanted a computer virus that erased the records of her being there. She tells him she was there to track down a fugitive and worked with Chakotay to do so. And they fell in love with each other.
Chakotay isn't sure how to take this and spends some time getting her back story and making things line up before he believes her, but he eventually does. And lucky too, just then they are attacked by her people. She explains they are a closed society and no one is ever allowed to leave. And she wants to and has asked for asylum. If she is ever caught they will erase her memories of the outside and take her back. Kellin helps them target her people ships and after one blast they flee. She and Chakotay have dinner in his quarters and talk about their relationship which ends with them kissing.
The next day though she is getting paranoid. Her people use cloaking devices in such cases and she is sure she is being followed when she finds a broken vase in her room. She calls for Chakotay and sure enough, a tracer (the people who do the job she used to have) appears in her room and hits her with the memory erase beam before Chakotay can stop him. She loses her memories slowly and makes Chakotay promise to tell her about them falling in love. But after her memories are gone it is like she is a different person. She can't understand why she would ever want to leave her people and refuses to get involved with Chakotay again. She leaves with the tracer after he implants a virus again to remove all trace of the two of them. To save his memories we end with Chakotay taking written notes and getting advice on love from one of the worst people he could get it from, Neelix.
Review: I have mixed feelings about this episode. I do like that the twist didn't turn out to be that she was just a spy or something and as rough as it was for Chakotay, having her decide to leave on her own in the end made it a more compelling story.
6 out of 10
We open with the ship being hit with weapons fire from an invisible ship, it seems two invisible ships are fighting. One explodes and the other is briefly visible before cloaking again. They get a hail, voice only, and the female voice asks for Chakotay to help her. They can't get a lock to beam her over and the ship is dangerously unstable so of course they decide to beam over. Chakotay finds the woman, whose name we later learn is Kellin, trapped under debris but he is able to rescue her and beam them both to sickbay. She doesn't show up on scanners but the Doctor is able to treat her anyway. As soon as she is alone with Chakotay she tells him she was on Voyager a few weeks earlier but her species has special pheromones or something that make it impossible to remember them and she implanted a computer virus that erased the records of her being there. She tells him she was there to track down a fugitive and worked with Chakotay to do so. And they fell in love with each other.
Chakotay isn't sure how to take this and spends some time getting her back story and making things line up before he believes her, but he eventually does. And lucky too, just then they are attacked by her people. She explains they are a closed society and no one is ever allowed to leave. And she wants to and has asked for asylum. If she is ever caught they will erase her memories of the outside and take her back. Kellin helps them target her people ships and after one blast they flee. She and Chakotay have dinner in his quarters and talk about their relationship which ends with them kissing.
The next day though she is getting paranoid. Her people use cloaking devices in such cases and she is sure she is being followed when she finds a broken vase in her room. She calls for Chakotay and sure enough, a tracer (the people who do the job she used to have) appears in her room and hits her with the memory erase beam before Chakotay can stop him. She loses her memories slowly and makes Chakotay promise to tell her about them falling in love. But after her memories are gone it is like she is a different person. She can't understand why she would ever want to leave her people and refuses to get involved with Chakotay again. She leaves with the tracer after he implants a virus again to remove all trace of the two of them. To save his memories we end with Chakotay taking written notes and getting advice on love from one of the worst people he could get it from, Neelix.
Review: I have mixed feelings about this episode. I do like that the twist didn't turn out to be that she was just a spy or something and as rough as it was for Chakotay, having her decide to leave on her own in the end made it a more compelling story.
6 out of 10
Thursday, September 15, 2016
VOY: The Omega Directive
This episode is very TNG in that they get strange orders that no one seems to want to keep an actual secret even though they are SUPER SECRET. Also, how is it violating the prime directive to stop a warp capable culture from destroying a quarter of the galaxies ability to travel at warp speed? Isn't that exactly the kind of thing Starfleet does all the time? Also, if you are trying to keep your super secret orders a secret why put the symbol that is the name of the dangerous molecule on the screen of every monitor on the bridge? Shouldn't it just send a secret message to the captain? Also, I am pretty sure this is one of those times where they meant to say particle but they just kept saying molecule instead.
We open with Seven waking up and getting ready to go to work with Harry. On the bridge they are hit by a shockwave and suddenly all their monitors have the omega symbol on them and Janeway rushes onto the bridge and orders that they stay put. Oh, and don't talk about this with anybody. Janeway goes to her ready room and reads up on the omega molecule that has been detected a few light years away. She starts giving out orders that don't make any sense to any of the crew but Seven who hears "Omega Directive" and her ears perk right up. It seems she has the knowledge of all the Starfleet captains who were assimilated so she knows what it is all about. Apparently these molecules are some kind of incredible energy source and the Borg spent centuries trying to track down but instead only managed to create them in an unstable way and they destroyed a whole bunch of Borg ships. Also it is some sort of religious thing for Borg since these molecules are so perfect. But they also have the side effect of making warp travel impossible in large parts of space when they explode.
They track the molecules to an alien compound that has clearly been damaged in an explosion but there are survivors so Janeway leads an away team down. They find scientists who point them towards a containment field that still has a bunch of omega inside. Janeway is determined to destroy it no matter what but Seven wants to save the particles, but she does still keep working on the destruction plan as well. Eventually they come up with a containment/destruction system on Voyager and just in time because ships of the culture who built the facility show up and demand Omega back. But Janeway isn't giving it to them and flies off while Seven works on destroying the molecules. Just before she destroys them the become stable and form a complex structure which Seven watches before the molecules are destroyed. And then suddenly the aliens are friendly despite that not making much sense.
Review: A fun scifi episode with some plot holes in the end, but overall a good episode. It is nice to see Janeway on the side of destroying the super weapon instead of determined to try and harness its power to get home or something.
6 out of 10
We open with Seven waking up and getting ready to go to work with Harry. On the bridge they are hit by a shockwave and suddenly all their monitors have the omega symbol on them and Janeway rushes onto the bridge and orders that they stay put. Oh, and don't talk about this with anybody. Janeway goes to her ready room and reads up on the omega molecule that has been detected a few light years away. She starts giving out orders that don't make any sense to any of the crew but Seven who hears "Omega Directive" and her ears perk right up. It seems she has the knowledge of all the Starfleet captains who were assimilated so she knows what it is all about. Apparently these molecules are some kind of incredible energy source and the Borg spent centuries trying to track down but instead only managed to create them in an unstable way and they destroyed a whole bunch of Borg ships. Also it is some sort of religious thing for Borg since these molecules are so perfect. But they also have the side effect of making warp travel impossible in large parts of space when they explode.
They track the molecules to an alien compound that has clearly been damaged in an explosion but there are survivors so Janeway leads an away team down. They find scientists who point them towards a containment field that still has a bunch of omega inside. Janeway is determined to destroy it no matter what but Seven wants to save the particles, but she does still keep working on the destruction plan as well. Eventually they come up with a containment/destruction system on Voyager and just in time because ships of the culture who built the facility show up and demand Omega back. But Janeway isn't giving it to them and flies off while Seven works on destroying the molecules. Just before she destroys them the become stable and form a complex structure which Seven watches before the molecules are destroyed. And then suddenly the aliens are friendly despite that not making much sense.
Review: A fun scifi episode with some plot holes in the end, but overall a good episode. It is nice to see Janeway on the side of destroying the super weapon instead of determined to try and harness its power to get home or something.
6 out of 10
Wednesday, September 14, 2016
VOY: Vis à Vis
When the episode opened with Tom getting in trouble with Chakotay I was kinda annoyed that we were going down this path again. But even before revealing how much of a fake out that was they have Chakotay show that he has gained trust in Tom by letting him go do the job he wants to do repairing the alien vessel. This just proves what I have always said which is that I think Chakotay would be the best boss on earth or anywhere in space. Not so sure about Janeway sometimes, but Chakotay is that perfect combination of patient, fair, but also willing to do what needs to be done discipline wise. I also enjoyed the idea of a body stealing alien leaving a wake of people in the wrong bodies behind, not something I have seen before.
We open with the Doctor interrupting Paris at work on his holocar in the holodeck. He is there to remind Paris that he is supposed to be training in sickbay. Tom gets called away to the bridge though, they have encountered a ship coming out of a spacial distortion that Paris recognizes as using a coaxial warp drive. He is able to stabilize the warp field and save the ship. Paris gets called to Chakotay's office and apologizes for not going to sickbay, he is just sick of the Doctor and requests the job of fixing the coaxial ship. Chakotay lets him do it recognizing that Paris is really making an effort to improve himself. Paris and Steth, the alien, hit it off and get working on a plan to fix the ship, but there is something wrong with Steth, he keeps changing shape but hides it from Paris. That night Paris misses another date with Torres and she is sick of it. He has apparently been skipping out on her for the holodeck and hasn't even told her what program.
Paris has an idea about making a carburetor to fix the problem with Steth's ship and it works. Steth offers to take Paris with him, but Paris likes his life too much. So Steth knocks him out, switches bodies or something and then sets the coaxial ship to fly off after he beams back to Voyager. And it works out about as well as you would expect. People don't suspect a body swap since that isn't something you would think of, but everyone notices immediately that something is wrong. In the ship Tom is immediately confronted by aliens who demand he give one of them back her body. Steth in Tom's body is eventually confronted by the Captain who calls security. Tom is taken to the brig just as the coaxial ship appears with both Tom and the lady whose body Tom now has and they explain the body swap. But the captain doesn't by it and says she is going to sickbay but instead goes to a shuttle bay were she shoots Seven before stealing a shuttle that Tom had modified with a coaxial drive. Actual Tom pursues and manages to take out the coaxial carburetor and gets his body back.
Review: A really fun episode that explores the body swapping alien trope in a way I haven't seen before. Especially nice to see how briefly he is able to keep up the illusion of actually being Tom.
7 out of 10
We open with the Doctor interrupting Paris at work on his holocar in the holodeck. He is there to remind Paris that he is supposed to be training in sickbay. Tom gets called away to the bridge though, they have encountered a ship coming out of a spacial distortion that Paris recognizes as using a coaxial warp drive. He is able to stabilize the warp field and save the ship. Paris gets called to Chakotay's office and apologizes for not going to sickbay, he is just sick of the Doctor and requests the job of fixing the coaxial ship. Chakotay lets him do it recognizing that Paris is really making an effort to improve himself. Paris and Steth, the alien, hit it off and get working on a plan to fix the ship, but there is something wrong with Steth, he keeps changing shape but hides it from Paris. That night Paris misses another date with Torres and she is sick of it. He has apparently been skipping out on her for the holodeck and hasn't even told her what program.
Paris has an idea about making a carburetor to fix the problem with Steth's ship and it works. Steth offers to take Paris with him, but Paris likes his life too much. So Steth knocks him out, switches bodies or something and then sets the coaxial ship to fly off after he beams back to Voyager. And it works out about as well as you would expect. People don't suspect a body swap since that isn't something you would think of, but everyone notices immediately that something is wrong. In the ship Tom is immediately confronted by aliens who demand he give one of them back her body. Steth in Tom's body is eventually confronted by the Captain who calls security. Tom is taken to the brig just as the coaxial ship appears with both Tom and the lady whose body Tom now has and they explain the body swap. But the captain doesn't by it and says she is going to sickbay but instead goes to a shuttle bay were she shoots Seven before stealing a shuttle that Tom had modified with a coaxial drive. Actual Tom pursues and manages to take out the coaxial carburetor and gets his body back.
Review: A really fun episode that explores the body swapping alien trope in a way I haven't seen before. Especially nice to see how briefly he is able to keep up the illusion of actually being Tom.
7 out of 10
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
VOY: The Killing Game, Part II
This one ended up pretty much like I expected. The Hirogen leader got shot by his second in command for daring to try and change society, Janeway used holographic weapons to kill nazis and somehow they manage to negotiate their way out of the mess with the race whose only value is hunting. Not really clear why the surviving Hirogen didn't just destroy Voyager after they essentially won the conflict. Sure the Klingons showed up, but that didn't really change the balance of power all that much. Plus the Klingons were only armed with hand to hand weapons, even as great warriors I kinda suspect they go down hard when shot with a phaser or even a firearm.
We open with the conflict from the holodeck spilling into the ship. The Americans decide the hole in the holodeck is a nazi bunker and are shocked when Janeway and Seven return alive. They mess around for a long time and eventually Janeway is taken to her ready room and confronted by Karr, the Hirogen leader. He sees she won't surrender and explains his plan to fix Hirogen culture. She is willing to negotiate so he calls a cease fire. But his second in command gets pep talk from a nazi and shows up in the ready room and kills Karr. Then despite calling for her death for a while now he lets Janeway go. She gets Neelix to rally the Klingons and somehow the force a truce out out of the hunt to the death Hirogen. Janeway still gives them holodeck tech though despite that clearly being an awful idea.
Review: This half of the episode was all over the place. Sure it had some action, but their goals were pretty vague and the solution didn't make much sense.
3 out of 10
We open with the conflict from the holodeck spilling into the ship. The Americans decide the hole in the holodeck is a nazi bunker and are shocked when Janeway and Seven return alive. They mess around for a long time and eventually Janeway is taken to her ready room and confronted by Karr, the Hirogen leader. He sees she won't surrender and explains his plan to fix Hirogen culture. She is willing to negotiate so he calls a cease fire. But his second in command gets pep talk from a nazi and shows up in the ready room and kills Karr. Then despite calling for her death for a while now he lets Janeway go. She gets Neelix to rally the Klingons and somehow the force a truce out out of the hunt to the death Hirogen. Janeway still gives them holodeck tech though despite that clearly being an awful idea.
Review: This half of the episode was all over the place. Sure it had some action, but their goals were pretty vague and the solution didn't make much sense.
3 out of 10
Monday, September 12, 2016
VOY: The Killing Game
When the Hirogen were introduced I was sure they were going to be a super interesting race. Well, maybe not interesting, but at least a worth opponent. But now they just want to play games on the holodeck? Sure they have the safeties off, and yes, I get that it is one mans crazy vision, but wow, not what I was hoping for. It is interesting that the holodecks can apparently blow holes in their walls with the safeties off. I also can't help but wonder if the expanded hologrid is going to give the Doctor more free reign over the ship after this is over. Makes you wonder why they don't already do that and have squads of holosoldiers ready to go. But instead we get reptile nazis versus the brave resistance.
We open with a Klingon Janeway fighting a Hirogen hunter and she takes a knife to the chest. She is taken to sickbay but as a human again. We quickly learn the Hirogen hold Voyager and have turned the holodeck into their hunting grounds but insist the crew keep being healed up for more. Also the crew all have neural control thingys that make them think they are holodeck characters. Next we cut to Seven singing in cafe in occupied France. Janeway runs the place which claims to be neutral but fits all the tropes of being a hub of the resistance. Two Hirogen including the leader Karr stop by dressed as nazis to push people around. Despite loving WWII movies I found a lot of this part really dull. So apparently do the Hirogen and one shoots Seven and Neelix. We also see that Kim is free running around keeping the ship running for the Hirogen. He is also secretly working with the Doctor on a plan to retake the ship.
Luckily for them Seven is just who they needed and she is removed from the holodeck and taken to sickbay. The Doctor uses one of her implants to block the Hirogen neural thingy and the Doctor tells her he will turn it off again in the holodeck. Of course in the holodeck Janeway suspects Seven and since she no longer has the needed memories Seven can't do the things she needs to. The Americans invade the town as the resistance is supposed to be bombing the nazi headquarters. Janeway pulls a gun on Seven when she sees her opening a panel to work on taking control of Voyager but luckily the Doctor manages to turn of Janeways thingy just in time. The two try to take over ships controls but realize they are in the nazi headquarters and run as the allied artillery levels the building. They also blow a hole in the side of the holodeck.
Review: Clearly half an episode without much conclusion and so far I am not entirely sold. Not terrible or anything, just more dull that it seemed like it should be.
4 out of 10
We open with a Klingon Janeway fighting a Hirogen hunter and she takes a knife to the chest. She is taken to sickbay but as a human again. We quickly learn the Hirogen hold Voyager and have turned the holodeck into their hunting grounds but insist the crew keep being healed up for more. Also the crew all have neural control thingys that make them think they are holodeck characters. Next we cut to Seven singing in cafe in occupied France. Janeway runs the place which claims to be neutral but fits all the tropes of being a hub of the resistance. Two Hirogen including the leader Karr stop by dressed as nazis to push people around. Despite loving WWII movies I found a lot of this part really dull. So apparently do the Hirogen and one shoots Seven and Neelix. We also see that Kim is free running around keeping the ship running for the Hirogen. He is also secretly working with the Doctor on a plan to retake the ship.
Luckily for them Seven is just who they needed and she is removed from the holodeck and taken to sickbay. The Doctor uses one of her implants to block the Hirogen neural thingy and the Doctor tells her he will turn it off again in the holodeck. Of course in the holodeck Janeway suspects Seven and since she no longer has the needed memories Seven can't do the things she needs to. The Americans invade the town as the resistance is supposed to be bombing the nazi headquarters. Janeway pulls a gun on Seven when she sees her opening a panel to work on taking control of Voyager but luckily the Doctor manages to turn of Janeways thingy just in time. The two try to take over ships controls but realize they are in the nazi headquarters and run as the allied artillery levels the building. They also blow a hole in the side of the holodeck.
Review: Clearly half an episode without much conclusion and so far I am not entirely sold. Not terrible or anything, just more dull that it seemed like it should be.
4 out of 10
Sunday, September 11, 2016
VOY: Retrospect
In this episode, as in real life, issues of accusations of assault are not simple or straightforward. But also like in real life sometimes people are so unwilling to question their own choices that it almost leads to their own destruction. Sure, it makes sense that after the investigation failed to find solid proof that Janeway would think that maybe she had been wrong and maybe Seven was mistaken. But to risk all their lives by continually refusing to defend the ship from the alleged assaulter as he fires his allegedly dangerous weapons at you. Remember, this isn't just some guy, he is an arms broker and possible dealer in illegal weapons, who knows what he can do. But no, Janeway is here to apologize so she will do that even it if literally kills her and her crew and probably the guy she is apologizing too. Also Seven is 100% right about Janeway, she only gives Seven freedom when she needs something done that only she can do. Not clear why Seven would keep working with any of them at this point.
We open with a sleazy arms dealer trying to sell them an alleged super weapon. Janeway negotiates a deal and assigns Seven the job of working with the guy to get it installed. In engineering he is disrespectful to both Seven and Torres and grabs Seven at one point and she breaks his nose. The captain is pissed and tells Seven she is in trouble again, but it isn't clear if she was ever not in trouble. In any case Seven gets examined by the Doctor who finds evidence of repressed memories. He pulls some psychoanalysis BS and brings back memories of her being assaulted by he arms dealer and having her nanoprobes stolen. She feels violated and the captain agrees and starts an investigation. They can't find any hard proof though but the arms dealer feels like he is being subjected a witchhunt and runs. They follow and he almost destroys Voyager before blowing up his own ship. In the end we have no idea what really happened, only that Janeway is getting increasingly reckless.
Review: A so so episode that probably could do with another round of rewriting. Society has also gone through several more cycles of celebrities being accused of rape and sometimes it is true and sometimes not. Kinda unsatisfying to have an episode where they show the assault happening and tell us that it is an actual event, but no justice is served in the end.
3 out of 10
We open with a sleazy arms dealer trying to sell them an alleged super weapon. Janeway negotiates a deal and assigns Seven the job of working with the guy to get it installed. In engineering he is disrespectful to both Seven and Torres and grabs Seven at one point and she breaks his nose. The captain is pissed and tells Seven she is in trouble again, but it isn't clear if she was ever not in trouble. In any case Seven gets examined by the Doctor who finds evidence of repressed memories. He pulls some psychoanalysis BS and brings back memories of her being assaulted by he arms dealer and having her nanoprobes stolen. She feels violated and the captain agrees and starts an investigation. They can't find any hard proof though but the arms dealer feels like he is being subjected a witchhunt and runs. They follow and he almost destroys Voyager before blowing up his own ship. In the end we have no idea what really happened, only that Janeway is getting increasingly reckless.
Review: A so so episode that probably could do with another round of rewriting. Society has also gone through several more cycles of celebrities being accused of rape and sometimes it is true and sometimes not. Kinda unsatisfying to have an episode where they show the assault happening and tell us that it is an actual event, but no justice is served in the end.
3 out of 10
Saturday, September 10, 2016
VOY: Prey
I remember thinking the first time I watched VOY that Janeway was the most unhinged captain we have seen. Up to right around now I haven't been able to figure out why I thought that. Sure Janeway likes to shoot first and ask questions later sometimes, but no more so than Kirk. To start with I think it is important to remember that she literally kidnapped Seven of Nine from the Borg at this point only a few months earlier. Seven was essentially raised by the Borg and not only doesn't understand individuality, she doesn't understand how an officer is supposed to act on a starship. This is totally aside from her unwillingness to acknowledge that Seven saved all their lives in the incident she is being punished for. I also understand that Janeway as a captain is right to be outraged by someone disregarding orders like that, but as I said, Seven was just kidnapped by this captain and while that used to be a thing in navies I feel like that isn't exactly the starfleet way. Also, WTF is up with being so compassionate for species 8472 all of a sudden?
We open with two Hirogen tracking a Species 8472 ship to an asteroid field. It leaves its ship and they pursue on foot and seem to kill the creature. On Voyager Seven is taking lessons in dealing with people from the Doctor which at first seemed silly, but he faces many of the same challenges as her so I guess it makes at least some sense. They come across a badly damaged Hirogen ship and Seven immediately assumes it is a trap but Janeway ignores her and sends Chakotay over. He and Paris find one dead Hirogen, ripped apart too, and one badly hurt. The beam him to sickbay behind a forcefield and the Doctor is able to stabilize him. Suddenly the ship is ripped open, seemingly for no reason. But it wasn't no reason, 8472 isn't dead and manages to make its way to engineering before fleeing into the Jeffrey's tubes.
They agree to work with the Hirogen to hunt 8472 on Voyager but Janeway insists they use nanites designed to disable but not kill 8472 which is clearly a terrible idea. When they track the thing down not shockingly the Hirogen ignores the no kill rule and has to be put down by Tuvok. They now have both aliens in forcefields and a bunch more Hirogen ships are on the way. All of a sudden Janeway decides she needs to get 8472 instead of just throwing it into space or onto a planet or something. Seven refuses to help and is relieved of her duties for it. Eventually the Hirogen show up and start beating on Voyager badly. Voyagers weapons can't damage their armor and they have her totally surrounded. They take damage and loose forcefields allowing the Hirogen to knock out or kill the guards in sickbay before attacking 8472. Janeway demands nanites from Seven so she is already with 8472 when the Hirogen arrives and they start wrestling so Seven beams them both to a Hirogen ship and the Hirogen break off the attack and leave. Janeway is super pissed and confines Seven to her cargobay and astrometrics since she still apparently needs Seven.
Review: Not a bad episode, but one where I lost a lot of respect for Janeway. She has been a generally good captain so far. Well, not always, but still generally competent and sane. This one has me questioning both those assessments.
5 out of 10
We open with two Hirogen tracking a Species 8472 ship to an asteroid field. It leaves its ship and they pursue on foot and seem to kill the creature. On Voyager Seven is taking lessons in dealing with people from the Doctor which at first seemed silly, but he faces many of the same challenges as her so I guess it makes at least some sense. They come across a badly damaged Hirogen ship and Seven immediately assumes it is a trap but Janeway ignores her and sends Chakotay over. He and Paris find one dead Hirogen, ripped apart too, and one badly hurt. The beam him to sickbay behind a forcefield and the Doctor is able to stabilize him. Suddenly the ship is ripped open, seemingly for no reason. But it wasn't no reason, 8472 isn't dead and manages to make its way to engineering before fleeing into the Jeffrey's tubes.
They agree to work with the Hirogen to hunt 8472 on Voyager but Janeway insists they use nanites designed to disable but not kill 8472 which is clearly a terrible idea. When they track the thing down not shockingly the Hirogen ignores the no kill rule and has to be put down by Tuvok. They now have both aliens in forcefields and a bunch more Hirogen ships are on the way. All of a sudden Janeway decides she needs to get 8472 instead of just throwing it into space or onto a planet or something. Seven refuses to help and is relieved of her duties for it. Eventually the Hirogen show up and start beating on Voyager badly. Voyagers weapons can't damage their armor and they have her totally surrounded. They take damage and loose forcefields allowing the Hirogen to knock out or kill the guards in sickbay before attacking 8472. Janeway demands nanites from Seven so she is already with 8472 when the Hirogen arrives and they start wrestling so Seven beams them both to a Hirogen ship and the Hirogen break off the attack and leave. Janeway is super pissed and confines Seven to her cargobay and astrometrics since she still apparently needs Seven.
Review: Not a bad episode, but one where I lost a lot of respect for Janeway. She has been a generally good captain so far. Well, not always, but still generally competent and sane. This one has me questioning both those assessments.
5 out of 10
Friday, September 9, 2016
VOY: Hunters
This episode has a very strange division between the A and B stories. I am going to have to say that the crew getting letters from home is the A story and the race of hunters who almost kill Seven and Tuvok is a fairly distant B. I guess after all the hostile aliens they have encountered that is fine, but it seemed like they maybe should have had these two events be part of different episodes. Having the crew finally hear from home was one of those things that only works on Voyager, but at least it did work. Kim was so excited to hear from his parents, Chakotay was super depressed to hear all his friends are dead and Janeway seemed to be taking the news her fiance had left her fairly well.
We open with the crew receiving a garbled message from Starfleet and see hostile aliens witnessing the use of their relays with anger. Seven sets to work trying to retrieve the messages and discovers they are letters from home. She also learns that she can't get the messages without getting closer to the relay. Janeway takes the ship in but there is intense gravity distortion coming from the relay, it seems it is powered by a black hole. Messages start coming in and Neelix gets the job of delivering them which of course means he reads some of each letter first, you wouldn't want someone trustworthy doing a job like that. The relay itself is hundreds of thousands of years old and puts out the energy of a star over a year every day. They are having a problem though and the only way to keep getting the messages and the hidden encrypted message from Starfleet is to get closer, but the ship can't do that so Seven and Tuvok take a shuttle.
As they approach the hunter aliens from the opening show up and quickly overwhelm the shuttle. Seven and Tuvok wake up tied up in a room full of skeletons. The hunter is sad they didn't put up more of a fight but is looking forward to having their remains in his collection. His buddy calls for backup and they head to confront Voyager. Voyager doesn't put up with being bullied and destabilizes the black hole powering the relay. The three additional hostile ships that just showed up are pulled in and Kim barely manages to get Seven and Tuvok to safety before the final alien ship is destroyed. They escape but the relay network is broken and the hunter aliens are presumably pissed off about it.
Review: A fairly average episode that does at least move the overall story of the series forward. I strongly question Janeways decision to have Neelix distribute the letters but otherwise there is some nice character stuff here.
5 out of 10
We open with the crew receiving a garbled message from Starfleet and see hostile aliens witnessing the use of their relays with anger. Seven sets to work trying to retrieve the messages and discovers they are letters from home. She also learns that she can't get the messages without getting closer to the relay. Janeway takes the ship in but there is intense gravity distortion coming from the relay, it seems it is powered by a black hole. Messages start coming in and Neelix gets the job of delivering them which of course means he reads some of each letter first, you wouldn't want someone trustworthy doing a job like that. The relay itself is hundreds of thousands of years old and puts out the energy of a star over a year every day. They are having a problem though and the only way to keep getting the messages and the hidden encrypted message from Starfleet is to get closer, but the ship can't do that so Seven and Tuvok take a shuttle.
As they approach the hunter aliens from the opening show up and quickly overwhelm the shuttle. Seven and Tuvok wake up tied up in a room full of skeletons. The hunter is sad they didn't put up more of a fight but is looking forward to having their remains in his collection. His buddy calls for backup and they head to confront Voyager. Voyager doesn't put up with being bullied and destabilizes the black hole powering the relay. The three additional hostile ships that just showed up are pulled in and Kim barely manages to get Seven and Tuvok to safety before the final alien ship is destroyed. They escape but the relay network is broken and the hunter aliens are presumably pissed off about it.
Review: A fairly average episode that does at least move the overall story of the series forward. I strongly question Janeways decision to have Neelix distribute the letters but otherwise there is some nice character stuff here.
5 out of 10
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