It is strange to go back to an episode where the Rock is a guest star and he barely stands out. Well, he owns the scenes he is in, but that is maybe only 5 minutes of the episode. Honestly I kinda wish he had been the one to take on the role of training Seven to eventually kill him. It turns out the Rock is a great actor so it would have been awesome, but Martok isn't a bad choice either. Oh yeah, the trainer also played Martok and the sleazy fight promoter played Weyoun making this an episode with some solid guest stars. I can't help but wonder if the writers heard Ridley Scott was directing a gladiator movie when they came up with this one. Sure it came out before the film so it clearly didn't rip it off, but the closeness of their releases makes me wonder if there is any relationship.
We open with a wild crowd cheering on an arena right between two aliens. One defeats the other by hitting it in discs that emit some sort of electric or other charge when hit with glowing panels on their hands and feet. After the fight we see Torres and Chakotay are in the crowd. They return to Voyager very excited about the fight. Janeway leaves just after they arrive on a mission in the Delta Flyer and the rest of the crew are taking shore leave in shifts. Chakotay sticks Torres with the job of running the bridge while he heads down for a fight. Seven and Tuvok though have decided to take a shuttle to check out a collapsing nebula or something which the Doctor considers quite dull. However on their way to the nebula they are attacked and taken captive but the people running the arena fight. Tuvok is injured and they refuse to treat him unless Seven agrees to fight.
In the arena Seven faces off with a slightly aliened up Rock. Chakotay and Neelix are horrified in the crowd to see Seven in the arena and they get Torres to try to beam her out, but it seems she isn't actually there. It is a holographic projection. Seven almost wins the fight but hesitates on the final blow allowing the Rock to best her. After the fight Seven wakes up to a Hirogen treating her wounds. He has been there for 19 years and offers to train her. She agrees and after a while the two hit it off. He convinces her to see her opponent as prey since it is literally kill or be killed in some matches. Tuvok tells Seven to do all she has to do to win her next fight as she is taken to the arena.
Voyager meanwhile has tracked down the fight ship, but it is huge and dangerous. They open fire as Seven enters the arena to learn she will be fighting her trainer to the death. He tells her he wants a good death, he has been here too long. Voyager manages to get Tuvok out but Seven is behind too much shielding. She is hesitant in the fight but eventually gets the best of the Hirogen. Just before she delivers the killing blow the Flyer knocks out the transmitters and the shields drop enough to beam both Seven and her opponent to safety. He leaves to look for his son and she questions whether she has lost her humanity again.
Review: A decent episode with some solid guest appearances and a story with some action. Pretty typical gladiator story ala TOS, but not in a particularily bad way.
6 out of 10
Monday, October 31, 2016
Sunday, October 30, 2016
VOY: Memorial
Sometimes Trek tries to hide its message behind crazy aliens with strange powers, and sometimes it just comes out and says we shouldn't forget attrocities. Which to be fair isn't exactly a controversial message. The idea of a memorial that forces the memories of what happened onto anyone who stumbles across it seems like a good idea, but it seems like it would likely cause some ships to fall apart into mutiny and chaos and almost certainly cause more death so maybe not such a great idea. Still, seeing the crew experience the events from different perspectives was really interesting. Some were much more hands on with the violence and some were just witnesses to it. But all felt the burden of what happened.
The episode opens with the Flyer on its way back from a two week mission and tension is running high. Well, it is for Harry at least. He seems ready to never see Tom, Chakotay or Neelix ever again. The Doctor really helps too by insisting they all come in for physicals really soon. Torres welcomes Paris home with a gift, a television from the 50's! He loves it so much that he can barely pay attention to her. Late that night he realize the controls aren't working and then he sees himself on the screen in a battle. And then he is in the battle, and then he wakes up. The next day Harry is working on a Jefferies tube when he starts hearing voices and sounds of battle and crawls out as fast as he can before heading to sickbay. The Doctor finds nothing wrong and prescribes him two days rest. In the mess hall Naomi stops by to talk to Neelix but he freaks out and grabs a phaser. Chakotay has to talk him down.
The four who were on the mission all meet in the briefing room with the captain. It seems they all share memories of being in a military unit that was sent to evacuate a colony against its will. Things went bad and they ended up massacring all the colonists and covering it up. Janeway decides to go back to where the Flyer visited to find out what happened. As they approach she too is struck by the memories as are many of the crew. They head down to the planet and discover the battle happened centuries earlier. They find a monument that seems to be transmitting the memories, but its' power is failing. Janeway decides to repair the beacon and get the hell out of there.
Review: Pretty straight forward, but not a bad way to examine both soldiers coming back from combat and how we memorialize the horrors of war.
6 out of 10
The episode opens with the Flyer on its way back from a two week mission and tension is running high. Well, it is for Harry at least. He seems ready to never see Tom, Chakotay or Neelix ever again. The Doctor really helps too by insisting they all come in for physicals really soon. Torres welcomes Paris home with a gift, a television from the 50's! He loves it so much that he can barely pay attention to her. Late that night he realize the controls aren't working and then he sees himself on the screen in a battle. And then he is in the battle, and then he wakes up. The next day Harry is working on a Jefferies tube when he starts hearing voices and sounds of battle and crawls out as fast as he can before heading to sickbay. The Doctor finds nothing wrong and prescribes him two days rest. In the mess hall Naomi stops by to talk to Neelix but he freaks out and grabs a phaser. Chakotay has to talk him down.
The four who were on the mission all meet in the briefing room with the captain. It seems they all share memories of being in a military unit that was sent to evacuate a colony against its will. Things went bad and they ended up massacring all the colonists and covering it up. Janeway decides to go back to where the Flyer visited to find out what happened. As they approach she too is struck by the memories as are many of the crew. They head down to the planet and discover the battle happened centuries earlier. They find a monument that seems to be transmitting the memories, but its' power is failing. Janeway decides to repair the beacon and get the hell out of there.
Review: Pretty straight forward, but not a bad way to examine both soldiers coming back from combat and how we memorialize the horrors of war.
6 out of 10
Saturday, October 29, 2016
VOY: Virtuoso
For an episode that after about 10 minutes I had decided I hated this one turned out all right. Certainly not perfect, but for what they have done with the Doctor's singing it is pretty cool. I appreciate a race that talks down to the Federation as much as the Federation seems to talk down to just about everyone they meet. Also an interesting look at fame and how fleeting it can be. One minute someone is the new hot thing, the next minute who cares. Maybe a bit more singing that would be ideal, but I guess I can forgive it in an episode that is all about singing.
We open with the Doctor trying to treat the obnoxious Qomar for their injuries. They constantly belittle everyone around them and especially consider the Doctor to be inferior. After Janeway checks in the Doctor starts singing a bit and they are blown away. They can't get enough of his singing so he has a concert on the ship along with some other musicians, but the Qomar only want him. They become obsessed to the point that he gets invited to the planet to perform there. They modify a lecture hall to his specifications. He starts getting fan mail to the point that Seven is convinced the Qomar must be attacking Voyager. Eventually he thinks he is fallen in love and hesitantly decides to leave Voyager. When he gets down though his lover has designed a superior hologram that can sing a broader range than he can. At the concert that night the Doctor gets polite applause and the replacement a standing ovation. He returns to Voyager crushed but in the end Seven gives him a really nice piece of fan mail from her.
Review: I know my write up is short, but it is a pretty straightforward episode. Well told with some fun bit with the crew getting irritated at his new found fame and a very touching ending.
7 out of 10
We open with the Doctor trying to treat the obnoxious Qomar for their injuries. They constantly belittle everyone around them and especially consider the Doctor to be inferior. After Janeway checks in the Doctor starts singing a bit and they are blown away. They can't get enough of his singing so he has a concert on the ship along with some other musicians, but the Qomar only want him. They become obsessed to the point that he gets invited to the planet to perform there. They modify a lecture hall to his specifications. He starts getting fan mail to the point that Seven is convinced the Qomar must be attacking Voyager. Eventually he thinks he is fallen in love and hesitantly decides to leave Voyager. When he gets down though his lover has designed a superior hologram that can sing a broader range than he can. At the concert that night the Doctor gets polite applause and the replacement a standing ovation. He returns to Voyager crushed but in the end Seven gives him a really nice piece of fan mail from her.
Review: I know my write up is short, but it is a pretty straightforward episode. Well told with some fun bit with the crew getting irritated at his new found fame and a very touching ending.
7 out of 10
Friday, October 28, 2016
VOY: Blink of an Eye
Looking back I don't think I watched Fair Haven, if I saw the preview I can guess why. Which is too bad, I would have really liked Blink of an Eye I suspect, I certainly liked it this time. I don't know if they got the physics exactly right, but time speed differentials are the only form of time travel that seems entirely likely given our current understanding of how the universe works so it is cool to see it played with here. It didn't hurt that the story was well told both from the planets surface looking up at Voyager and from the ship as they gradually figured out what was going on below.
We open with Voyager encountering a strange planet spinning 58 times per minute and when they approach they are trapped in some sort of gravity thing which also knocks out their engines. Cut to the surface of the planet where a primitive man is making offerings to an alter. As soon as he places a red fruit on the stone the ground shakes and a bright star suddenly appears in the sky over him. He starts a new religion based on the star in the sky. His elders don't approve but do help him try to send a message asking why the new sky god is causing quakes. Back on the ship they are aware that there is a civilization developing on the planet below, but it is going at a radically different pace than they are. Every minute on Voyager is 58 days on the planet below. They try sending a probe to look for a way to escape but it doesn't seem to work.
On the planet industrial revolution era astronomers are pointing a telescope at Voyager which they call the Sky Ship. It is an cultural obsession for them and they are trying to send radio communications to Voyager. In astrometrics Seven detects the transmission and is able to slow it down. It is a plea to stop causing quakes on the planet. Janeway decides to send the Doctor down to trying to find a way to escape and he ends up spending 3 years on the surface and somehow fathers a child. Cut to some astronauts from the planet flying to Voyager. They manage to dock but are not in the right time speed so everyone on Voyager appears to be going super slow, until they collapse and shift to our time. One of them is killed but the survivor is super excited to be on the Sky Ship. But then they are under attack, his people have developed warp weapons so he heads down to talk his people into not destroying Voyager. Just as their shields fall the attacks stop and two craft appear which tow Voyager out of the gravity well. The astronaut appears as a projection to say good bye and we cut to the surface where the light in the sky finally disappears.
Review: This is the kind of thing Trek is supposed to be all about. The prime directive, actual science fiction, and a good story make this a truly classic episode.
9 out of 10
We open with Voyager encountering a strange planet spinning 58 times per minute and when they approach they are trapped in some sort of gravity thing which also knocks out their engines. Cut to the surface of the planet where a primitive man is making offerings to an alter. As soon as he places a red fruit on the stone the ground shakes and a bright star suddenly appears in the sky over him. He starts a new religion based on the star in the sky. His elders don't approve but do help him try to send a message asking why the new sky god is causing quakes. Back on the ship they are aware that there is a civilization developing on the planet below, but it is going at a radically different pace than they are. Every minute on Voyager is 58 days on the planet below. They try sending a probe to look for a way to escape but it doesn't seem to work.
On the planet industrial revolution era astronomers are pointing a telescope at Voyager which they call the Sky Ship. It is an cultural obsession for them and they are trying to send radio communications to Voyager. In astrometrics Seven detects the transmission and is able to slow it down. It is a plea to stop causing quakes on the planet. Janeway decides to send the Doctor down to trying to find a way to escape and he ends up spending 3 years on the surface and somehow fathers a child. Cut to some astronauts from the planet flying to Voyager. They manage to dock but are not in the right time speed so everyone on Voyager appears to be going super slow, until they collapse and shift to our time. One of them is killed but the survivor is super excited to be on the Sky Ship. But then they are under attack, his people have developed warp weapons so he heads down to talk his people into not destroying Voyager. Just as their shields fall the attacks stop and two craft appear which tow Voyager out of the gravity well. The astronaut appears as a projection to say good bye and we cut to the surface where the light in the sky finally disappears.
Review: This is the kind of thing Trek is supposed to be all about. The prime directive, actual science fiction, and a good story make this a truly classic episode.
9 out of 10
Thursday, October 27, 2016
VOY: Fair Haven
I rather enjoyed seeing an episode that deals with the potential for relationships with holodeck characters in a more mature way than TNG. Sure Janeway has her share of issues, but she at least has it a lot more together in this regard than Barclay ever pulled off. The idea of being able to program your perfect mate might seem fun, and for Janeway it seemed like basically a fling so honestly why not. It seems like the key is being able to walk away and go back to real life after a while which she also seems capable of doing. Presumably society will face a dilemma just like this at some point in the future so best to start thinking it through now.
We open on Paris' latest holodeck creation, the Irish village of Fair Haven where he and Kim hang out at a pub arm wrestling and the Doctor plays a priest so he can lecture people even more than usual. There is an especially thin B story about a wavefront or something which only really has any effect near the end of the episode and really it doesn't matter even then. It does make them sit in the same place for a while so Janeway decides to let Paris keep the program running all the time and even expands it into another holodeck. The captain stops by for a visit that night and is very taken with the bartender, Michael Sullivan, but after spending a few hours together learns he is married. So she comes back in and makes him smarter, more handsome and most importantly single. She returns and the two dance and she deletes all the other characters and starts kissing him. The next day he is moping in the bar and drinking which his character isn't supposed to do. Paris talks to him and learns it is because Janeway has left him. The wavefront thing hits and they have to delete most of the program but Janeway saves Sullivan and locks herself from modifying him again after a long talk with the Doctor.
Review: An almost 100% character episode during which rather little actually happens other than holodeck stuff. Not a terrible episode, but a bit dull.
4 out of 10
We open on Paris' latest holodeck creation, the Irish village of Fair Haven where he and Kim hang out at a pub arm wrestling and the Doctor plays a priest so he can lecture people even more than usual. There is an especially thin B story about a wavefront or something which only really has any effect near the end of the episode and really it doesn't matter even then. It does make them sit in the same place for a while so Janeway decides to let Paris keep the program running all the time and even expands it into another holodeck. The captain stops by for a visit that night and is very taken with the bartender, Michael Sullivan, but after spending a few hours together learns he is married. So she comes back in and makes him smarter, more handsome and most importantly single. She returns and the two dance and she deletes all the other characters and starts kissing him. The next day he is moping in the bar and drinking which his character isn't supposed to do. Paris talks to him and learns it is because Janeway has left him. The wavefront thing hits and they have to delete most of the program but Janeway saves Sullivan and locks herself from modifying him again after a long talk with the Doctor.
Review: An almost 100% character episode during which rather little actually happens other than holodeck stuff. Not a terrible episode, but a bit dull.
4 out of 10
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
VOY: Pathfinder
I think I did the same double take the writers intended with this episode by opening with Barclay and Troi back on earth. Somewhere in the back of my head I knew this episode existed though so I resisted checking to see if Netflix had messed up or something and just watched. I generally have good feelings about this episode and honestly one of my favorite parts is the fact that people are creeped out that Barclay makes recreations of people he knows to interact with. The idea that the crew on TNG was totally comfortable with Barclay making recreations of them for his own amusement whatever that may have been was just dumb. Kira's reaction Quark trying to get a holoimage of her seemed much more in line while how real people would likely react. At the same time I also liked seeing two character from TNG make an appearance on Voyager, it is rare to get guest stars in roles they have played before.
We open on earth in Barclay's apartment and Troi has stopped by to visit. But it isn't really a visit, he is explaining to her how he has messed his life up this time. It seems he is on a project that may be able to communicate with Voyager and he has become obsessed with the idea. But his boss doesn't believe him or something and they have a big meeting with Admiral Paris coming up so Barclay just needs to shut up. But he doesn't and gets in trouble for it. So he does what he has always done, retreat into the holodeck with his cast of friends, but this time he is obsessed with Voyager and has recreated his own versions of the crew. In the present Troi asks him if he is back to being holoaddicted which he denies but he clearly is. His boss finds him in the holodeck after he was told to take some time office and bans him from the lab and holodeck.
The next day he shows up at the Paris' office and talks his way in but gets told that it is up to his superior so he takes matters into his own hands. That night he breaks into the lab and begins testing the communication link to Voyager, but it doesn't seem to be working. His boss shows up with security so he flees into the holodeck. He is finally caught and Paris shows up for no clear reason other than to be there when they get the reply back from Voyager. They manage to talk for a few minutes and more importantly send a bunch of data back and forth to both give Starfleet and idea what they have been up to and also to get some new tech to try and establish communications in the future. Everything is forgiven with Barclay which I thought was dumb at first, but then again he didn't hurt anything or anybody and he was actually right the entire time so maybe that is how things work in the space future.
Review: A fun episode from a totally different perspective than usual. This episode dealt with how Barclay would fit in at a normal workplace much more than TNG did where Picard didn't seem to think any of his antics were Barclay's problem. Also makes me realize the writers were thinking they had a limited amount of time going forward before they would finally get the crew home so time to start having episodes like this.
6 out of 10
We open on earth in Barclay's apartment and Troi has stopped by to visit. But it isn't really a visit, he is explaining to her how he has messed his life up this time. It seems he is on a project that may be able to communicate with Voyager and he has become obsessed with the idea. But his boss doesn't believe him or something and they have a big meeting with Admiral Paris coming up so Barclay just needs to shut up. But he doesn't and gets in trouble for it. So he does what he has always done, retreat into the holodeck with his cast of friends, but this time he is obsessed with Voyager and has recreated his own versions of the crew. In the present Troi asks him if he is back to being holoaddicted which he denies but he clearly is. His boss finds him in the holodeck after he was told to take some time office and bans him from the lab and holodeck.
The next day he shows up at the Paris' office and talks his way in but gets told that it is up to his superior so he takes matters into his own hands. That night he breaks into the lab and begins testing the communication link to Voyager, but it doesn't seem to be working. His boss shows up with security so he flees into the holodeck. He is finally caught and Paris shows up for no clear reason other than to be there when they get the reply back from Voyager. They manage to talk for a few minutes and more importantly send a bunch of data back and forth to both give Starfleet and idea what they have been up to and also to get some new tech to try and establish communications in the future. Everything is forgiven with Barclay which I thought was dumb at first, but then again he didn't hurt anything or anybody and he was actually right the entire time so maybe that is how things work in the space future.
Review: A fun episode from a totally different perspective than usual. This episode dealt with how Barclay would fit in at a normal workplace much more than TNG did where Picard didn't seem to think any of his antics were Barclay's problem. Also makes me realize the writers were thinking they had a limited amount of time going forward before they would finally get the crew home so time to start having episodes like this.
6 out of 10
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
VOY: The Voyager Conspiracy
In general I find conspiracy theories really boring since they bear so little resemblance to reality. But in this case the idea of studying something so carefully that a series of cooincidences appears to be a conspiracy seems pretty much how things actually work. This was especially effective since they gave us reason to think Seven's strategy of integrating information during the night was working and also by not having it be up to Naomi to talk Seven into backing down. Sure Naomi is awesome, but Seven and the Captain have a long running relationship which they played nicely in the conclusion.
We open with Naomi waiting for Seven in her cargo bay. Seven doesn't have time to play though as she is testing a new way to download information from the ship into her brain as she regenerates. The next day Seven wakes up and immediately calls Torres who is of course not pleased to hear from her. But she takes her issue to the captain, it seems Seven has a theory that space fleas have gotten into the sensors from some fruit Neelix brought aboard weeks ago. It seems unlikely but when they open the panel it is hopping with fleas. This leads Seven to continue the experiment. Later that day they encounter an area of gravimetric distortion and go on for a closer look. They find a single alien dude on a space platform that is emitting the gravimetric distortions. He explains he is making a catapult to get himself home but needs help. Janeway offers assistance and he offers to let them use his tech to get a bit closer to home themselves.
That night Seven includes the data about the space catapult into her download and when she wakes up she calls Chakotay into the cargo bay and deactivates internal sensors. She tells him she is sure the captain is part of a conspiracy by starfleet to use the catapult to colonize the delta quadrant along with the Cardassians. She has found possible evidence that the catapult is powered by the reactor from the caretaker array in the pilot episode and is sure this is proof that the captain and Tuvok are behind the plot. She has enough examples to convince Chakotay to start digging and he drafts Torres to help. She then calls the captain in and tells him she is sure Chakotay is behind a plot to use the catapult to murder Cardassians for the Maquis and again presents enough evidence to convince Janeway to start digging.
A bit later Janeway and Chakotay run into each other in Seven's cargo bay and after some prodding figure out that they both have been sent on a wild goose chase by Seven. We see Seven walking the hallways looking furtively at every passing crewmember and she accuses Naomi of being a Maquis spy or something. Janeway and Chakotay are called to the bridge when Seven steals the Flyer and heads for the array. She evades weapons fire but Janeway beams herself aboard and talks Seven down. We end with them cutting three more years of travel time off their journey with the catapult.
Review: I wish more media were willing to look at what conspiracy theories actually are instead of credulously showing them as almost always being right. Also a pretty solid Seven episode with good bits from the captain and Chakotay.
7 out of 10
We open with Naomi waiting for Seven in her cargo bay. Seven doesn't have time to play though as she is testing a new way to download information from the ship into her brain as she regenerates. The next day Seven wakes up and immediately calls Torres who is of course not pleased to hear from her. But she takes her issue to the captain, it seems Seven has a theory that space fleas have gotten into the sensors from some fruit Neelix brought aboard weeks ago. It seems unlikely but when they open the panel it is hopping with fleas. This leads Seven to continue the experiment. Later that day they encounter an area of gravimetric distortion and go on for a closer look. They find a single alien dude on a space platform that is emitting the gravimetric distortions. He explains he is making a catapult to get himself home but needs help. Janeway offers assistance and he offers to let them use his tech to get a bit closer to home themselves.
That night Seven includes the data about the space catapult into her download and when she wakes up she calls Chakotay into the cargo bay and deactivates internal sensors. She tells him she is sure the captain is part of a conspiracy by starfleet to use the catapult to colonize the delta quadrant along with the Cardassians. She has found possible evidence that the catapult is powered by the reactor from the caretaker array in the pilot episode and is sure this is proof that the captain and Tuvok are behind the plot. She has enough examples to convince Chakotay to start digging and he drafts Torres to help. She then calls the captain in and tells him she is sure Chakotay is behind a plot to use the catapult to murder Cardassians for the Maquis and again presents enough evidence to convince Janeway to start digging.
A bit later Janeway and Chakotay run into each other in Seven's cargo bay and after some prodding figure out that they both have been sent on a wild goose chase by Seven. We see Seven walking the hallways looking furtively at every passing crewmember and she accuses Naomi of being a Maquis spy or something. Janeway and Chakotay are called to the bridge when Seven steals the Flyer and heads for the array. She evades weapons fire but Janeway beams herself aboard and talks Seven down. We end with them cutting three more years of travel time off their journey with the catapult.
Review: I wish more media were willing to look at what conspiracy theories actually are instead of credulously showing them as almost always being right. Also a pretty solid Seven episode with good bits from the captain and Chakotay.
7 out of 10
Monday, October 24, 2016
VOY: One Small Step
Another mixed feelings episode, there seem to be a lot of those lately. I enjoyed the episode for the growth it gave Seven, but I wish they had developed the archeology angle on Chakotay a bit earlier to make his obsession in this ep a little more reasonable. It makes me wonder if this was another adapted TNG script. I read that Barge of the Dead was an adapted DS9 script to it would make more sense for this episode to be about Picard than Chakotay. I do enjoy when Trek tries to predict the near future space program. Sure they are pretty much always wrong, but it is a window into what people in the late 90's thought the future of space would be. I should also point out I worked a prescribed burn in the park today and am super tired as a result so if something I write doesn't make sense today that is probably why.
We open with an astronaut on a mission to Mars. He is alone in the command module when his craft detects a large object incoming. Just before we cut to credits he sees a huge bulging disk shaped object approaching. On Voyager Chakotay is trying to relax with a book when his door starts chiming. He finds no one outside and tries to call the bridge but his combadge doesn't work properly either. For some reason he heads to engineering instead of the bridge and finds Seven working to optimize the computer which has apparently caused the problems. She seems unconcerned which is fine since we never return to this subplot. On the bridge the ship is rocked by gravitational distortions as the same phenomenon from the opening shows up. Seven recognizes it as a graviton ellipse and knows the technobabble solution to the problem. Chakotay recognizes that it may be the same thing that killed Mars astronaut John Kelly who happens to be both Paris and Chakotay's hero.
They decide to scan the thing to look for debris from the missing Mars mission and find evidence. Seven doesn't understand why they are so obsessed but Janeway talks her into joining a mission to try and study/retrieve the spacecraft. They find the thing just find but the ellipse starts freaking out and Chakotay decides to risk their lives to save the ancient craft which really pisses Seven off. Things go badly and Chakotay is hurt and the Flyer crippled. Seven is super pissed with Chakotay when he awakens and he apologizes. Torres figures out that they can save themselves by getting a part from the old ship so Seven gets to job of retrieving it. While there she plays the personal logs of John Kelly and clearly becomes interested as she retrieves both his logs and his body before beaming back to save the day. The episode closes with the burial of John Kelly.
Review: The parts that worked in this episode were quite good, but it seemed like they were trying to cram too much in and some threads got lost along the way. Still fairly fun but not as good as it could have been.
5 out of 10
We open with an astronaut on a mission to Mars. He is alone in the command module when his craft detects a large object incoming. Just before we cut to credits he sees a huge bulging disk shaped object approaching. On Voyager Chakotay is trying to relax with a book when his door starts chiming. He finds no one outside and tries to call the bridge but his combadge doesn't work properly either. For some reason he heads to engineering instead of the bridge and finds Seven working to optimize the computer which has apparently caused the problems. She seems unconcerned which is fine since we never return to this subplot. On the bridge the ship is rocked by gravitational distortions as the same phenomenon from the opening shows up. Seven recognizes it as a graviton ellipse and knows the technobabble solution to the problem. Chakotay recognizes that it may be the same thing that killed Mars astronaut John Kelly who happens to be both Paris and Chakotay's hero.
They decide to scan the thing to look for debris from the missing Mars mission and find evidence. Seven doesn't understand why they are so obsessed but Janeway talks her into joining a mission to try and study/retrieve the spacecraft. They find the thing just find but the ellipse starts freaking out and Chakotay decides to risk their lives to save the ancient craft which really pisses Seven off. Things go badly and Chakotay is hurt and the Flyer crippled. Seven is super pissed with Chakotay when he awakens and he apologizes. Torres figures out that they can save themselves by getting a part from the old ship so Seven gets to job of retrieving it. While there she plays the personal logs of John Kelly and clearly becomes interested as she retrieves both his logs and his body before beaming back to save the day. The episode closes with the burial of John Kelly.
Review: The parts that worked in this episode were quite good, but it seemed like they were trying to cram too much in and some threads got lost along the way. Still fairly fun but not as good as it could have been.
5 out of 10
Sunday, October 23, 2016
VOY: Dragon's Teeth
This felt like one of the most generic Trek episodes I have ever seen. I guess it isn't a terrible idea but it had some many twists and turns that it seems like it lost track of the point. Also I am about 90% sure that at the end of the episode Tuvok was left behind with the hostile aliens under bombardment from orbit in a hopeless situation. Janeway says something about flying away for two days which on top of them hitting warp as soon as they clear the atmosphere makes me think they really didn't have time to save their chief of security. This is especially odd after such a Tuvok heavy episode yesterday.
We open on some planet where a city is being bombarded. Two aliens make their way to a room full of stasis pods and go to sleep for a planned 5 years. On Voyager they encounter some sort of subspace corridor full of junk. Inside they encounter hostile aliens who seems more friendly when Voyager just wants to leave. When they make their way out they find they are 200 light years closer to home in just a few minutes travel. But any thought of working with these guys, the Turei, is spoiled by them insisting on boarding Voyager to destroy all traces of the corridors from their computers. Voyager flees and finds a planet with a radioactive atmosphere and heads in for a landing. On the surface they find vast dead cities that have been wiped out 900 years earlier and detect life signs below the surface. Janeway leads an away team which finds the Vaadwaur still sleeping in their pods. Seven wakes one up for no clear reason and they are forced to take him to sickbay.
The man named Gedrin explains that his people were the ones who found the corridors but the Turei wanted them and tried to wipe out the Vaadwaur when they couldn't get the secrets from them. The Vaadwaur hid in the stasis pods hoping to come out a few years later and find a new home. He convinces Janeway to wake up the rest of his people and assist them in finding a new home in exchange for information on the corridors. Everything seems to be going great but they have a hard time finding a good planet since the Borg have expanded a lot in this part of space. Eventually the Vaadwaur leader decides to screw the plan and take Voyager instead but luckily Neelix found some old fold stories about them being evil and warned Janeway. Janeway avoids the first attack with help from Gedrin who heads to the surface with Tuvok to help the Turei target the Vaadwaur base. Voyager escapes but seems to leave Tuvok behind. Oh well.
Review: This episode is a little too busy with plot twists to actually have a plot that makes much sense. I can see how the idea for the episode seemed like a good idea, but they just didn't execute very well.
4 out of 10
We open on some planet where a city is being bombarded. Two aliens make their way to a room full of stasis pods and go to sleep for a planned 5 years. On Voyager they encounter some sort of subspace corridor full of junk. Inside they encounter hostile aliens who seems more friendly when Voyager just wants to leave. When they make their way out they find they are 200 light years closer to home in just a few minutes travel. But any thought of working with these guys, the Turei, is spoiled by them insisting on boarding Voyager to destroy all traces of the corridors from their computers. Voyager flees and finds a planet with a radioactive atmosphere and heads in for a landing. On the surface they find vast dead cities that have been wiped out 900 years earlier and detect life signs below the surface. Janeway leads an away team which finds the Vaadwaur still sleeping in their pods. Seven wakes one up for no clear reason and they are forced to take him to sickbay.
The man named Gedrin explains that his people were the ones who found the corridors but the Turei wanted them and tried to wipe out the Vaadwaur when they couldn't get the secrets from them. The Vaadwaur hid in the stasis pods hoping to come out a few years later and find a new home. He convinces Janeway to wake up the rest of his people and assist them in finding a new home in exchange for information on the corridors. Everything seems to be going great but they have a hard time finding a good planet since the Borg have expanded a lot in this part of space. Eventually the Vaadwaur leader decides to screw the plan and take Voyager instead but luckily Neelix found some old fold stories about them being evil and warned Janeway. Janeway avoids the first attack with help from Gedrin who heads to the surface with Tuvok to help the Turei target the Vaadwaur base. Voyager escapes but seems to leave Tuvok behind. Oh well.
Review: This episode is a little too busy with plot twists to actually have a plot that makes much sense. I can see how the idea for the episode seemed like a good idea, but they just didn't execute very well.
4 out of 10
Saturday, October 22, 2016
VOY: Riddles
Having Neelix be the main character of an episode is pretty much always a bad idea. I still think it is a bad idea after watching this episode, but maybe not as much as I did before watching. The opening bits where Neelix is being so irritating to Tuvok that he leaves the room are exactly what I was expecting, but when Neelix began taking care of the crippled Tuvok things took a much different turn. As much as I and the rest of the crew clearly find him irritating, in his own way he is clearly a deeply caring person. And as much as I am ready for him and serious Tuvok to never share a scene together again he is right that Tuvok could really handle mellowing out a bit.
We open with Neelix pestering Tuvok as they return from a mission in the Flyer. Neelix is being so irritating that Tuvok heads to the back room to get some reading done, but he is interrupted by a sound from a console. It seems someone is trying to download tactical information from the computer so Tuvok calls Neelix on the comms instead of just opening the door. Before Neelix can head back Tuvok is shot by an invisible foe he is scanning with his tricorder and goes into some sort of shaking shock like state. Neelix calls for help and we cut to Tuvok being treated in sickbay. Neelix helps stabilize him but he remains in a coma after the Doctor does all he can do. Neelix really wants to help and the Doctor suggests familiar stimuli may help so Neelix drags all sorts of stuff from his room to sickbay. He even tries playing traditional Vulcan music which both Neelix and the Doctor hate but as soon as he turns it off he is surprised to find Tuvok sitting up.
But Tuvok isn't himself. Sure his brain is healing but he can't talk and seems to not recognize anybody. He does gradually recover though and eventually learns to speak again. The whole time Neelix keeps doing everything he can for Tuvok and they becoming close. Neelix even teaches Tuvok to cook which is a mistake since everyone instantly likes Tuvok's food better. The new Tuvok is full of emotion and laughter but clearly doesn't have everything he used to have. There is a subplot where they track down the invisible aliens and convince them to give Voyager specs on the weapon used on Tuvok which the Doctor uses to find a cure. But the new Tuvok likes who he is and doesn't want to go back, but Neelix talks him into it. Back in the mess hall a day or two later Tuvok walks in and sits alone just like old times. He resists Neelix's efforts to reach out but finally makes a call back joke to a riddle Neelix told him on the Flyer in the opening which shows he at least learned from his experience.
Review: Normally I would take hella points off for Neelix being on screen so much, but this was actually a rather touching episode. Not one to remember forever and ever, but nice to see Neelix and Tuvok getting along if only for a short time.
6 out of 10
We open with Neelix pestering Tuvok as they return from a mission in the Flyer. Neelix is being so irritating that Tuvok heads to the back room to get some reading done, but he is interrupted by a sound from a console. It seems someone is trying to download tactical information from the computer so Tuvok calls Neelix on the comms instead of just opening the door. Before Neelix can head back Tuvok is shot by an invisible foe he is scanning with his tricorder and goes into some sort of shaking shock like state. Neelix calls for help and we cut to Tuvok being treated in sickbay. Neelix helps stabilize him but he remains in a coma after the Doctor does all he can do. Neelix really wants to help and the Doctor suggests familiar stimuli may help so Neelix drags all sorts of stuff from his room to sickbay. He even tries playing traditional Vulcan music which both Neelix and the Doctor hate but as soon as he turns it off he is surprised to find Tuvok sitting up.
But Tuvok isn't himself. Sure his brain is healing but he can't talk and seems to not recognize anybody. He does gradually recover though and eventually learns to speak again. The whole time Neelix keeps doing everything he can for Tuvok and they becoming close. Neelix even teaches Tuvok to cook which is a mistake since everyone instantly likes Tuvok's food better. The new Tuvok is full of emotion and laughter but clearly doesn't have everything he used to have. There is a subplot where they track down the invisible aliens and convince them to give Voyager specs on the weapon used on Tuvok which the Doctor uses to find a cure. But the new Tuvok likes who he is and doesn't want to go back, but Neelix talks him into it. Back in the mess hall a day or two later Tuvok walks in and sits alone just like old times. He resists Neelix's efforts to reach out but finally makes a call back joke to a riddle Neelix told him on the Flyer in the opening which shows he at least learned from his experience.
Review: Normally I would take hella points off for Neelix being on screen so much, but this was actually a rather touching episode. Not one to remember forever and ever, but nice to see Neelix and Tuvok getting along if only for a short time.
6 out of 10
Friday, October 21, 2016
VOY: Alice
Not a bad episode, but also not the strongest. It is nice to get a Paris episode every once in a while and for once when he is getting up to trouble it really isn't his fault. Well, not entirely his fault. Alice picked well both in terms of someone willing to violate the rules but also someone who really is passionate about flying. It seems like maybe the rest of the crew should have figured something was wrong a little earlier, but then we wouldn't have had much of a story. Also Janeway seems a little too hesitant to believe B'Elanna's story about the ship attacking her. Maybe your chief engineer knows the difference between an accident and an assault.
We open with Paris and Kim trying to figure out how old Tuvok is and both failing. They are interrupted by a large fleet of unknown ships, RED ALERT!!! Oh wait, it is just a junk yard. They find a trader happy to do business and everything seems fine other than Paris spotting a shuttle sized vessel and falling in love. He talks them into buying it for him and along with Harry spends every waking moment working on it. The ship has a neural interface and Paris names her Alice. They eventually get the ship to turn on and Paris connects to the neural interface and things start to get weird. He replicates the uniform the ship's old pilot had and he starts ignoring everyone around him in favor of spending time with Alice. He goes to Chakotay for some spare parts but gets turned down. When he returns to the shuttle bay Alice is there waiting for him, this time in the form of a woman.
She talks Paris into stealing the parts from around Voyager that he needs to complete repairs. In engineering Torres notices the missing parts and goes straight to the shuttlebay. She enters Alice looking for Paris but the door seals and the air drains out. Tom walks in just in time to save her but she heads straight to the captain. Paris realizes something is wrong and tries to head to sickbay so Alice gives him terrible pain until he agrees to do what she says. Paris escapes in Alice and lets her plug into his organs. Janeway tracks down the junkyard guy who sold the shuttle and convinces him to give them information. On Voyager he tells them the shuttle is haunted but his version of Alice appears and tries to kill him. The Doctor saves his life and he agrees to help.
They finally track down Paris by figuring out the course he plotted in astrometrics. It leads straight to a particle fountain and when they arrive Alice is trying to talk Paris into flying straight in. The Doctor figures out a way to send B'Elanna into Tom's head. She and Alice fight but Torres convinces Tom to not resist the bringing down his shields. Kim manages to beam Tom to safety just before the shuttle is destroyed. Paris apologizes to B'Elanna and that's a wrap.
Review: Not bad, but the whole, "Tom loves being a mechanic more than any person" thing has been done before. Also, I know Kirk loved his ship, but Tom REALLY loves this ship.
5 out of 10
We open with Paris and Kim trying to figure out how old Tuvok is and both failing. They are interrupted by a large fleet of unknown ships, RED ALERT!!! Oh wait, it is just a junk yard. They find a trader happy to do business and everything seems fine other than Paris spotting a shuttle sized vessel and falling in love. He talks them into buying it for him and along with Harry spends every waking moment working on it. The ship has a neural interface and Paris names her Alice. They eventually get the ship to turn on and Paris connects to the neural interface and things start to get weird. He replicates the uniform the ship's old pilot had and he starts ignoring everyone around him in favor of spending time with Alice. He goes to Chakotay for some spare parts but gets turned down. When he returns to the shuttle bay Alice is there waiting for him, this time in the form of a woman.
She talks Paris into stealing the parts from around Voyager that he needs to complete repairs. In engineering Torres notices the missing parts and goes straight to the shuttlebay. She enters Alice looking for Paris but the door seals and the air drains out. Tom walks in just in time to save her but she heads straight to the captain. Paris realizes something is wrong and tries to head to sickbay so Alice gives him terrible pain until he agrees to do what she says. Paris escapes in Alice and lets her plug into his organs. Janeway tracks down the junkyard guy who sold the shuttle and convinces him to give them information. On Voyager he tells them the shuttle is haunted but his version of Alice appears and tries to kill him. The Doctor saves his life and he agrees to help.
They finally track down Paris by figuring out the course he plotted in astrometrics. It leads straight to a particle fountain and when they arrive Alice is trying to talk Paris into flying straight in. The Doctor figures out a way to send B'Elanna into Tom's head. She and Alice fight but Torres convinces Tom to not resist the bringing down his shields. Kim manages to beam Tom to safety just before the shuttle is destroyed. Paris apologizes to B'Elanna and that's a wrap.
Review: Not bad, but the whole, "Tom loves being a mechanic more than any person" thing has been done before. Also, I know Kirk loved his ship, but Tom REALLY loves this ship.
5 out of 10
Thursday, October 20, 2016
VOY: Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy
I get that the Doctor is this show's Data but he just isn't as interesting. By making him much closer to human they also make him less interesting. Also my feelings on shows that are composed of hallucinations are quite clear, I don't like them. So despite generally being a fan of the Doctor I found this episode to be rather annoying. Especially the idea that this episode proves that he is unreliable and it is used as justification to move forward with letting him take command of Voyager on occasion. Wait, what?
I didn't really like this one so the summary is going to be extra short. The Doctor spends his time day dreaming and demanding that he be taken more seriously. Some alien taps into his dreams somehow as an effort to scout Voyager for attack. He decides that the Doctor is actually in charge because of what he sees and makes a plan to attack them based on that. But then he realizes he was wrong and contacts the Doctor because saving Voyager will help him save face. The Doctor meanwhile has lost control of his program and now only day dreams. Eventually they come up with a plan for the Doctor to pretend to be in command to save the day and he manages to bluff his way to victory so they give him an award.
Review: Almost nothing actually happens in this episode and while it does have some clever moments that save it from being truly unwatchable, it is still pretty bad.
3 out of 10
I didn't really like this one so the summary is going to be extra short. The Doctor spends his time day dreaming and demanding that he be taken more seriously. Some alien taps into his dreams somehow as an effort to scout Voyager for attack. He decides that the Doctor is actually in charge because of what he sees and makes a plan to attack them based on that. But then he realizes he was wrong and contacts the Doctor because saving Voyager will help him save face. The Doctor meanwhile has lost control of his program and now only day dreams. Eventually they come up with a plan for the Doctor to pretend to be in command to save the day and he manages to bluff his way to victory so they give him an award.
Review: Almost nothing actually happens in this episode and while it does have some clever moments that save it from being truly unwatchable, it is still pretty bad.
3 out of 10
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
VOY: Barge of the Dead
I didn't hate this episode despite it having two strikes against it. First and foremost I don't like hallucination episodes and while this may or may not be a hallucination some parts are no matter how you cut it. Second of all even though I loved Klingons as a kid I find them a lot less interesting as an adult. Especially the spiritual side of them. I do still enjoy a good honor struggle here and there, but I don't really care about their afterlife. I did like that we get a lot more background on B'Elanna than we ever had before. The opening hallucination was actually more interesting than the barge of the dead stuff. Seeing the crew made Klingon was pretty cool.
We open with Torres returning with a badly damaged shuttle. She half crashes into the shuttle bay and Paris finds her in bad shape. After she gets patched up Chakotay shows up with an object found lodged in her shuttle, a piece of a Klingon ship that is several centuries old. That night Torres sees the chunk of metal release a bunch of blood and hears Klingon voices. She takes it to Kim to analyze but he isn't interested at 3 in the morning. Neelix walks in all excited about Klingon history to tell her that they are having a Klingon heritage party that night in her honor. She meets with Tuvok for meditation training but he cuts her with a bat'leth and tells her she has no honor. At the party B'Elanna is uncomfortable and when Janeway gets to her speech everything slows down and Klingon warriors appear and kill all the crew including Torres. She wakes up in the barge of the dead, the boat that takes disgraced warriors to the Klingon hell.
Torres doesn't seem to think she believes in such things but the boatswain seems to think she does. He also tells her it isn't her time to be here yet and just before she wakes up on Voyager she sees her mother appear on the barge and realizes she is there because B'Elanna is a bad Klingon. She wakes up in sickbay, it seems she never made it to Voyager and almost died. Torres becomes obsessed with her experience on the barge and the idea that she has to save her mother. She talks Janeway into having the Doctor put her in a coma so she can go back and save her mother. She finds herself on the barge and offers herself as a trade but the boatswain realizes it is a trick and tells her she can only save her mother if she actually dies. She agrees and goes to hell but finds she is on Voyager. I think she is supposed to realize she is only really fighting with herself and then is told it isn't her time again and wakes up back on Voyager.
Review: Not terrible overall and some good character parts, but also some seriously weak parts that drag it back down to average.
5 out of 10
We open with Torres returning with a badly damaged shuttle. She half crashes into the shuttle bay and Paris finds her in bad shape. After she gets patched up Chakotay shows up with an object found lodged in her shuttle, a piece of a Klingon ship that is several centuries old. That night Torres sees the chunk of metal release a bunch of blood and hears Klingon voices. She takes it to Kim to analyze but he isn't interested at 3 in the morning. Neelix walks in all excited about Klingon history to tell her that they are having a Klingon heritage party that night in her honor. She meets with Tuvok for meditation training but he cuts her with a bat'leth and tells her she has no honor. At the party B'Elanna is uncomfortable and when Janeway gets to her speech everything slows down and Klingon warriors appear and kill all the crew including Torres. She wakes up in the barge of the dead, the boat that takes disgraced warriors to the Klingon hell.
Torres doesn't seem to think she believes in such things but the boatswain seems to think she does. He also tells her it isn't her time to be here yet and just before she wakes up on Voyager she sees her mother appear on the barge and realizes she is there because B'Elanna is a bad Klingon. She wakes up in sickbay, it seems she never made it to Voyager and almost died. Torres becomes obsessed with her experience on the barge and the idea that she has to save her mother. She talks Janeway into having the Doctor put her in a coma so she can go back and save her mother. She finds herself on the barge and offers herself as a trade but the boatswain realizes it is a trick and tells her she can only save her mother if she actually dies. She agrees and goes to hell but finds she is on Voyager. I think she is supposed to realize she is only really fighting with herself and then is told it isn't her time again and wakes up back on Voyager.
Review: Not terrible overall and some good character parts, but also some seriously weak parts that drag it back down to average.
5 out of 10
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
VOY: Survival Instinct
As a child of TNG I kinda have a thing for the Borg. Not that I would ever want to be borg, just that they have always seemed like one of the most alien species in Trek despite being composted at least to some degree of humans. As a result of my predisposition I always look forward to Borgcentric episodes, but lately they don't seem to pay off like they should. This one is an exception though. Looking into what happens to Borg separated from the collective is interesting and the idea that some of them would actively try to escape afterwards is especially interesting. It seems like the direct connection to the collective has a calming and or pacifying effect that they lose quickly if disconnected. Because of this it seems likely that there are subcollectives all over the place given the lack of care the Borg seem to give their wounded.
We open on Dagobah, errr, some random swamp planet not found in a galaxy far far away. A Borg sphere crashes and we see the survivors making their way our of the rubble. Seven of Nine is there in full borg mode and since the collective connection has been severed she orders them to evacuate the area since the ship will explode and to take a dead drone for parts to make a communications system. Back on the ship they have docked at a large space station and have many guests on board. The captain's ready room is filled with gifts and Tuvok stops by to complain about the guests. In astrometrics Naomi interrupts Seven to ask why she isn't ready to go to lunch. After resisting briefly Seven agrees to join her but they are interrupted by a scarred man. He offers Seven some Borg pieces which she instantly recognizes and agrees to barter for the. She leaves to study the pieces and the man starts talking in his head to two other scarred people on board Voyager that the plan is moving forward.
The three disable sensors and break into the cargobay but set off some sort of non-area specific alarm. They find Seven regenerating and attempt to connect to her over the objections of one of the three. They start injecting her with nano-probes but she wakes up and starts fighting back as Tuvok shows up with security. In sickbay Seven recognizes the three as former members of her unimatrix. Janeway has them woken up and they explain that they somehow have their own subcollective that links just their three minds together. It drove them mad inside the collective so they escaped but even after removing most of their implants the link remained. They think the answer lies in a memory none of them including Seven have of what happened on the planet years earlier. It seems that while cooking they started remembering they were individuals and all wanted to break away except for Seven who took charge. But all their memories stop there.
They are determined to get free of each others minds and Seven seems to understand. She agrees to link with them and try to retrieve the memory. It works but it turns out what happened was they fought back against Seven. She wasn't willing to leave the collective so she injected them with nano-probes which made a mini-collective keeping them from leaving. They wake up blaming her and collapse into neural shock. The Doctor tells Seven he can remove the implants that will end the link but it will kill them in just a few weeks. Or they could go back to the collective. Seven insists they be made into individuals over the Doctors objections. After the four of them come together. One wants to stay on the station, one wants to be alone until he dies, and the Bajoran woman wants to stay on Voyager for the rest of her life.
Review: I liked this one quite a bit. It dug as deep as the better TNG episodes into the moral dilemmas of living in a space future. Plus an interesting Borg story doesn't hurt a thing.
8 out of 10
We open on Dagobah, errr, some random swamp planet not found in a galaxy far far away. A Borg sphere crashes and we see the survivors making their way our of the rubble. Seven of Nine is there in full borg mode and since the collective connection has been severed she orders them to evacuate the area since the ship will explode and to take a dead drone for parts to make a communications system. Back on the ship they have docked at a large space station and have many guests on board. The captain's ready room is filled with gifts and Tuvok stops by to complain about the guests. In astrometrics Naomi interrupts Seven to ask why she isn't ready to go to lunch. After resisting briefly Seven agrees to join her but they are interrupted by a scarred man. He offers Seven some Borg pieces which she instantly recognizes and agrees to barter for the. She leaves to study the pieces and the man starts talking in his head to two other scarred people on board Voyager that the plan is moving forward.
The three disable sensors and break into the cargobay but set off some sort of non-area specific alarm. They find Seven regenerating and attempt to connect to her over the objections of one of the three. They start injecting her with nano-probes but she wakes up and starts fighting back as Tuvok shows up with security. In sickbay Seven recognizes the three as former members of her unimatrix. Janeway has them woken up and they explain that they somehow have their own subcollective that links just their three minds together. It drove them mad inside the collective so they escaped but even after removing most of their implants the link remained. They think the answer lies in a memory none of them including Seven have of what happened on the planet years earlier. It seems that while cooking they started remembering they were individuals and all wanted to break away except for Seven who took charge. But all their memories stop there.
They are determined to get free of each others minds and Seven seems to understand. She agrees to link with them and try to retrieve the memory. It works but it turns out what happened was they fought back against Seven. She wasn't willing to leave the collective so she injected them with nano-probes which made a mini-collective keeping them from leaving. They wake up blaming her and collapse into neural shock. The Doctor tells Seven he can remove the implants that will end the link but it will kill them in just a few weeks. Or they could go back to the collective. Seven insists they be made into individuals over the Doctors objections. After the four of them come together. One wants to stay on the station, one wants to be alone until he dies, and the Bajoran woman wants to stay on Voyager for the rest of her life.
Review: I liked this one quite a bit. It dug as deep as the better TNG episodes into the moral dilemmas of living in a space future. Plus an interesting Borg story doesn't hurt a thing.
8 out of 10
Monday, October 17, 2016
VOY: Equinox, Part II
I have to say this manages to be an actually good second half of a two part episode showing that having good second halves is maybe the one thing Voyager does way better than anybody else. This is also the farthest across the line into actually kinda evil behavior we have ever seen from a Starfleet captain with the only debatable example being In the Pale Moonlight. And even then Sisko was less clear on the cost he was paying for getting the Romulans into the war that Janeway, especially with Chakotay there telling her how wrong her behavior is. Now to be fair she didn't overrule him right there and probably didn't even give him the serious mark on his record she left with Kim. It is episodes like these that make me understand why maybe it really didn't make sense for Janeway and Chakotay to end up in a relationship.
We open where we left off with the crew of Voyager fighting the aliens on the bridge and the Equinox fleeing. Neelix finds the Doctor's emitter and Janeway takes it to sickbay to get him started working on Chakotay who was badly hurt in the attack. Nobody figures out that it isn't the right Doctor though and he quickly finds a way to contact Ransom. On the Equinox Ransom alters Voyagers Doctor to get him to start surgery on Seven that will destroy her but get him the codes she used to shut down his engine. She tries to talk him out of it but he doesn't listen, But the next time he turns on his personal holodeck for some beach time sees her there which shouldn't be possible. On Voyager Kim tries to come up with a way to talk to the aliens but they refuse to listen and keep attacking. Chakotay wants to keep trying but Janeway overrules him and gets him to start looking for places the Equinox could be hiding.
They locate the Equinox but the Doctor warns them before they can do any more than beam up two crew from the surface. Ransom manages to get away but Janeway decides she can get what she needs from the captured crew. She puts on in a cargobay and lowers the shields allowing the aliens to enter but Chakotay stops her from letting the man die. He gets the guy to tell him how to find the aliens who sold the Equinox the tech to contact the fuel aliens in the first place. For his trouble Chakotay is relieved of duty. Janeway tracks them down and forces them to help her negotiate. She agrees to let them destroy the Equinox in exchange for not attacking her. On the Equinox Ransom is clearly having ethical dilemmas. He doesn't stop the Doctor from destroying Seven but it is really bothering him.
Voyager tracks them down again but this time the Doctor gives them Voyagers shield frequency. Ransom decides he has had enough though and orders the Equinox's surrender but he is overthrown by his first officer. The lady who is supposed to take him to the brig turns out to be loyal to Ransom though and the two head to engineering. With the shield frequency the Equinox badly damages Voyager but Ransom turns the tables and starts beaming his crew to Voyager after warning Janeway. All but him and the bridge crew make it over including the Voyager Doctor who starts by deleting the Equinox EMH (who I still think comes back, but we shall see). The first officer refuses to give up but he and the bridge crew are all killed by the aliens. Ransom turns on his beach holodeck one more time as his ship explodes around him. The Doctor apologizes to Seven who accepts and then agrees to sing with him again soon.
Review: An interesting look into how determined a captain can be to be right, even when they are wrong. Interesting both from a story perspective and also for the ethical dilemmas it raises.
8 out of 10
We open where we left off with the crew of Voyager fighting the aliens on the bridge and the Equinox fleeing. Neelix finds the Doctor's emitter and Janeway takes it to sickbay to get him started working on Chakotay who was badly hurt in the attack. Nobody figures out that it isn't the right Doctor though and he quickly finds a way to contact Ransom. On the Equinox Ransom alters Voyagers Doctor to get him to start surgery on Seven that will destroy her but get him the codes she used to shut down his engine. She tries to talk him out of it but he doesn't listen, But the next time he turns on his personal holodeck for some beach time sees her there which shouldn't be possible. On Voyager Kim tries to come up with a way to talk to the aliens but they refuse to listen and keep attacking. Chakotay wants to keep trying but Janeway overrules him and gets him to start looking for places the Equinox could be hiding.
They locate the Equinox but the Doctor warns them before they can do any more than beam up two crew from the surface. Ransom manages to get away but Janeway decides she can get what she needs from the captured crew. She puts on in a cargobay and lowers the shields allowing the aliens to enter but Chakotay stops her from letting the man die. He gets the guy to tell him how to find the aliens who sold the Equinox the tech to contact the fuel aliens in the first place. For his trouble Chakotay is relieved of duty. Janeway tracks them down and forces them to help her negotiate. She agrees to let them destroy the Equinox in exchange for not attacking her. On the Equinox Ransom is clearly having ethical dilemmas. He doesn't stop the Doctor from destroying Seven but it is really bothering him.
Voyager tracks them down again but this time the Doctor gives them Voyagers shield frequency. Ransom decides he has had enough though and orders the Equinox's surrender but he is overthrown by his first officer. The lady who is supposed to take him to the brig turns out to be loyal to Ransom though and the two head to engineering. With the shield frequency the Equinox badly damages Voyager but Ransom turns the tables and starts beaming his crew to Voyager after warning Janeway. All but him and the bridge crew make it over including the Voyager Doctor who starts by deleting the Equinox EMH (who I still think comes back, but we shall see). The first officer refuses to give up but he and the bridge crew are all killed by the aliens. Ransom turns on his beach holodeck one more time as his ship explodes around him. The Doctor apologizes to Seven who accepts and then agrees to sing with him again soon.
Review: An interesting look into how determined a captain can be to be right, even when they are wrong. Interesting both from a story perspective and also for the ethical dilemmas it raises.
8 out of 10
Sunday, October 16, 2016
VOY: Equinox
After spending a few seasons seeing how willing to cross the line Janeway is (ala Kirk) we finally get our Omega Glory episode about a captain who goes too far. Instead of arming one side in a conflict Captain Ransom has his crew capturing alien life forms from another plane of reality or something and grinding them up for fuel. I can't imagine why these creatures are upset about all this. I had thought that I didn't watch this far into the series, but I was wrong, I remember the evil Doctor possibly hanging around after this arc was complete and thinking he was the worst, but so far so good. I always really enjoy when they have ships other than ones that are the same class as the main series ship to show how starfleet really is a fleet and not just one set that they switch crews for every once in a while. (Although this bridge certainly looks like a redressed Voyager bridge set.)
We open on the bridge of the Equinox. They are in bad shape and things get worse when they are forced to drop shields and rifts open around bridge allowing aliens to pour through. Most are shot but one manages to touch a crew member who desiccates instantly. Cut to Voyager where they have detected the distress signal and respond at warp 9. They find the Equinox in bad shape and manage to protect it with Voyagers shields. Janeway is excited to meet Captain Ransom who got famous with a first contact years earlier. Everybody is buddy buddy and it even turns out the first officer is Torres' ex. They start working on a plan to contain the creatures to stop them from attacking when they come through but whenever any body starts asking deeper questions about what was happening the Equinox crew clam up. The part of their ship responsible for the containment is flooded with radiation so they download the specs and get working creating a new one. In private Ransom asks Janeway about how she has handled the Prime Directive and seems disappointed she hasn't ignored it more.
That night Ransom meets with his crew to come up with a plan to steal the confinement device and escape back to the Alpha Quadrant. They seem unsure but move forward with the plan to disconnect the device and disable the local sensors. Tuvok has grown suspicious though and talks to Janeway. She agrees to send the Doctor to investigate the irradiated parts of the Equinox. He finds evidence that they were capturing the creatures and turning them into fuel. Janeway arrests Ransom and his crew are confined to a cargobay. The Doctor goes back to try and get more information and activates the local EMH to get more info, but it turns out this EMH has had its ethical subroutines disabled and it steals the mobile emitter and frees the Equinox crew. Just as shields fail on Voyager they break out and steal the containment generator before escaping to the Equinox. The evil EMH turns off his emitter though and is left behind. The Equinox escapes with an unconscious Seven in their engine room.
Review: This was an exciting episode and the fact that I quit watching soon after the conclusion has me worried. But that was also around the time I left for college which may explain why I suddenly had other things to do.
6 out of 10
We open on the bridge of the Equinox. They are in bad shape and things get worse when they are forced to drop shields and rifts open around bridge allowing aliens to pour through. Most are shot but one manages to touch a crew member who desiccates instantly. Cut to Voyager where they have detected the distress signal and respond at warp 9. They find the Equinox in bad shape and manage to protect it with Voyagers shields. Janeway is excited to meet Captain Ransom who got famous with a first contact years earlier. Everybody is buddy buddy and it even turns out the first officer is Torres' ex. They start working on a plan to contain the creatures to stop them from attacking when they come through but whenever any body starts asking deeper questions about what was happening the Equinox crew clam up. The part of their ship responsible for the containment is flooded with radiation so they download the specs and get working creating a new one. In private Ransom asks Janeway about how she has handled the Prime Directive and seems disappointed she hasn't ignored it more.
That night Ransom meets with his crew to come up with a plan to steal the confinement device and escape back to the Alpha Quadrant. They seem unsure but move forward with the plan to disconnect the device and disable the local sensors. Tuvok has grown suspicious though and talks to Janeway. She agrees to send the Doctor to investigate the irradiated parts of the Equinox. He finds evidence that they were capturing the creatures and turning them into fuel. Janeway arrests Ransom and his crew are confined to a cargobay. The Doctor goes back to try and get more information and activates the local EMH to get more info, but it turns out this EMH has had its ethical subroutines disabled and it steals the mobile emitter and frees the Equinox crew. Just as shields fail on Voyager they break out and steal the containment generator before escaping to the Equinox. The evil EMH turns off his emitter though and is left behind. The Equinox escapes with an unconscious Seven in their engine room.
Review: This was an exciting episode and the fact that I quit watching soon after the conclusion has me worried. But that was also around the time I left for college which may explain why I suddenly had other things to do.
6 out of 10
Saturday, October 15, 2016
VOY: Warhead
Things are are cool about this episode: Harry Kim gets to not be the worst in this episode and even saves the day in the end (although he created the crisis he averts). Things are dumb: why would you ever put an actual AI into a warhead? Especially one that distrusts its own orders. If you are going to make a weapon you plan to be able to stop maybe don't do that. Also bad: don't name the episode warhead if you want the audience to not know what the mystery device you are beaming on board actually is.
We open with Paris replicating anniversary gifts for B'Elanna and running into Harry making a coffee run. It seems Harry has been taking over the night shifts lately to get some command experience. On the bridge things seem to be going smoothly until they get a distress call from a planet. It is automated so Harry changes course and wakes up Chakotay. The first officer agrees he did the right thing and sends Kim on the away team along with the Doctor. They find a machine embedded in a rock emitting sounds that the Doctor can decode. It seems it is an AI of some sort and thinks it is alive. The Doctor talks Harry into beaming it onto the ship where they turn it on and start talking to it before realizing it is a warhead. They come up with a plan to transfer it to a holomatrix but that means turning off the bomb but as soon as they do it takes over the Doctor and arms itself threatening to destroy the ship if they take it to its destination.
Janeway doesn't have a lot of choice but works hard to stall. While a plan is worked on to disarm the device Harry gets it to dig into its own memory where it finds an order to disarm but refuses to check to see if it has the confirmation codes insisting this must be a trick of some sort. They manage to fool the warhead into letting Seven into sickbay to treat a fake wound but it doesn't work. To make matters worse its fellow warheads show up to help get it to its destination (which makes absolutely no sense BTW). Harry finally manages to convince the bomb to check for the confirmation code and it accepts that it has been ordered to stand down but realizes the other bombs won't listen so they beam it into space so it can destroy the other warheads.
Review: I like the idea for this episode in theory but much of it didn't seem to make much sense. I totally skipped the part where they tried to get information or something from the parts dealer. It just didn't end up having anything to do with the story which is pretty much my whole point.
5 out of 10
We open with Paris replicating anniversary gifts for B'Elanna and running into Harry making a coffee run. It seems Harry has been taking over the night shifts lately to get some command experience. On the bridge things seem to be going smoothly until they get a distress call from a planet. It is automated so Harry changes course and wakes up Chakotay. The first officer agrees he did the right thing and sends Kim on the away team along with the Doctor. They find a machine embedded in a rock emitting sounds that the Doctor can decode. It seems it is an AI of some sort and thinks it is alive. The Doctor talks Harry into beaming it onto the ship where they turn it on and start talking to it before realizing it is a warhead. They come up with a plan to transfer it to a holomatrix but that means turning off the bomb but as soon as they do it takes over the Doctor and arms itself threatening to destroy the ship if they take it to its destination.
Janeway doesn't have a lot of choice but works hard to stall. While a plan is worked on to disarm the device Harry gets it to dig into its own memory where it finds an order to disarm but refuses to check to see if it has the confirmation codes insisting this must be a trick of some sort. They manage to fool the warhead into letting Seven into sickbay to treat a fake wound but it doesn't work. To make matters worse its fellow warheads show up to help get it to its destination (which makes absolutely no sense BTW). Harry finally manages to convince the bomb to check for the confirmation code and it accepts that it has been ordered to stand down but realizes the other bombs won't listen so they beam it into space so it can destroy the other warheads.
Review: I like the idea for this episode in theory but much of it didn't seem to make much sense. I totally skipped the part where they tried to get information or something from the parts dealer. It just didn't end up having anything to do with the story which is pretty much my whole point.
5 out of 10
Friday, October 14, 2016
VOY: Relativity
I know, you are probably all going to say that I am obsessed with time travel. And yeah, that is pretty much true. I love fiction that tries to explore the possibilities of altering reality with time travel in various ways. In this case a ship from what I assume is the future detects that Voyager has been destroyed by a time traveler and starts recruiting Seven of Nine over and over again to get her to help them save the ship. I rather enjoyed the twist both in that I didn't see it coming and that it made sense. Well, made sense in a time travel kind of way. Finally before I get to the summary, does the time ship guy really think Janeway is going to pay any more attention to the temporal prime directive than she does the regular one?
We open in the Utopia Planitia shipyards with Janeway on her first tour around Voyager. Everything seems pretty normal until she runs into a fully human looking Seven of Nine poking around. She runs into the captain again in the briefing room where they speak briefly before Seven heads to engineering to get flirted with by Lt. Carey. She heads to a Jefferies tube and finds what she refers to an unfamiliar voice as the weapon. But she can't get to it because it is out of phase. Janeway detects her activity from the bridge and puts of a forcefield but the time captain beams her back, unfortunately she is dead. This isn't a huge problem though as they can just travel back in time to get another Seven.
Cut back to Voyager where Seven is having problems with her vision which the Doctor concludes is nothing serious. She gets recruited for a ping pong game but during the game the ball freezes in the air momentarily due to some sort of temporal distortion. Things start getting worse and the ship is in danger of exploding so Janeway orders an evacuation. On her way to an escape pod Seven runs into the time captain who brings her forward into his ship and Voyager is destroyed. The captain is named Braxton of the ship Relativity. It seems Sevens implants give her a unique advantage as a temporal agent. It seems the device was planted on Voyager during a Kazon attack so Seven is sent back there to stop it, but not before warning her about the Janeway factor. Apparently Janeway is notorious for her time travel and messing with chronologies in every way.
Seven manages to get on Voyager and to the location, but she is detected by Janeway who recognizes to signature from when she ran into it on her first tour of the ship. She traps Seven but trusts her enough to bring down the shield and let Seven find the sabatour, Braxton! In the future he is arrested but his future self in the past escapes further into the past (I know right!). Seven tries to shoot him during Janeway's tour but he escapes to the present where a now incapacitated Seven chases him through the ping pong tournament where she recruits herself from that timeline to capture Braxton. It works, but the timeline is now a mess so they recruit Janeway to travel back to the Kazon attack to capture Braxton. That works too and everything seems to be back to normal.
Review: Another interesting take on time travel and while I enjoyed it, I kinda suspect time cops in the future will be a little less likely to radically alter the timeline as they do in this episode. Well, I guess they fix it using a classic Bill and Ted move so that's fine. They should just be glad they don't live in the Terminator universe.
8 out of 10
We open in the Utopia Planitia shipyards with Janeway on her first tour around Voyager. Everything seems pretty normal until she runs into a fully human looking Seven of Nine poking around. She runs into the captain again in the briefing room where they speak briefly before Seven heads to engineering to get flirted with by Lt. Carey. She heads to a Jefferies tube and finds what she refers to an unfamiliar voice as the weapon. But she can't get to it because it is out of phase. Janeway detects her activity from the bridge and puts of a forcefield but the time captain beams her back, unfortunately she is dead. This isn't a huge problem though as they can just travel back in time to get another Seven.
Cut back to Voyager where Seven is having problems with her vision which the Doctor concludes is nothing serious. She gets recruited for a ping pong game but during the game the ball freezes in the air momentarily due to some sort of temporal distortion. Things start getting worse and the ship is in danger of exploding so Janeway orders an evacuation. On her way to an escape pod Seven runs into the time captain who brings her forward into his ship and Voyager is destroyed. The captain is named Braxton of the ship Relativity. It seems Sevens implants give her a unique advantage as a temporal agent. It seems the device was planted on Voyager during a Kazon attack so Seven is sent back there to stop it, but not before warning her about the Janeway factor. Apparently Janeway is notorious for her time travel and messing with chronologies in every way.
Seven manages to get on Voyager and to the location, but she is detected by Janeway who recognizes to signature from when she ran into it on her first tour of the ship. She traps Seven but trusts her enough to bring down the shield and let Seven find the sabatour, Braxton! In the future he is arrested but his future self in the past escapes further into the past (I know right!). Seven tries to shoot him during Janeway's tour but he escapes to the present where a now incapacitated Seven chases him through the ping pong tournament where she recruits herself from that timeline to capture Braxton. It works, but the timeline is now a mess so they recruit Janeway to travel back to the Kazon attack to capture Braxton. That works too and everything seems to be back to normal.
Review: Another interesting take on time travel and while I enjoyed it, I kinda suspect time cops in the future will be a little less likely to radically alter the timeline as they do in this episode. Well, I guess they fix it using a classic Bill and Ted move so that's fine. They should just be glad they don't live in the Terminator universe.
8 out of 10
Thursday, October 13, 2016
VOY: 11:59
This is an episode that is 70% A story that totally works and the B story just doesn't. Most of the episode takes place in a flashback to 21st century America when we built an arcology (which they never describe as such even though that is obviously what they are talking about) in the midwest that paved the way for our transition to a multi-planetary species. Specifically it is about an ancestor of the captain who didn't make it as an astronaut getting involved with a guy protesting the project and eventually getting a job working on it. Also she falls in love with the guy and marry's him getting the name Janeway. That stuff is mostly fine. But they also a Neelix heavy B story back on the ship for no apparent reason. Living Witness would have been half the powerful episode it is if it were intercut this way and I can't help but wonder how much better this could have been.
We open with Neelix and the captain discussing Earth history and Janeway bragging about her ancestor who helped build the Millenium Gate, earth's first arcology. Cut to the year 2000 (I am going to pretty much ignore the cuts back to the ship from here on out). Shannon O'Donnell is driving her gradually failing car through Indiana when she passes a Millenium Gate sign. She pulls off the highway looking for gas and gets into an accident. She doesn't have insurance and is too poor to pay her bill so the guy lets her go. It seems the town is all empty except for one book store and when she goes inside she meets Henry Janeway and his son Jason. They are the only holdouts in the town, everyone else has accepted the generous buyout offers so make way for the Gate. She manages to talk her way into a job help organize the protest since Henry doesn't even have a computer.
Outside the store Henry gets into an argument with the spokes person for the Gate who tells him that if he doesn't sell they will likely move the project somewhere else but that just makes Henry get excited. Later that night Shannon runs into the Gate guy in the bar and he offers her a job on the project if she can convince Henry to sell. He also convinces her that the project is actually worth it. Instead of convincing him though they get into a fight and she leaves to drive to Florida. But before he makes it too far she returns, she is in love with Henry. Just hours before the deadline she returns to the store and convinces Henry to sell and marry her and let her work on the Gate while they build a life together. Back on the ship they have an ancestors party or something.
Review: I wasn't sure but I ended up liking the story set in the past quite a bit. I didn't like the cutting back and forth though. Maybe they didn't think they had enough story? It kinda felt like that a bit.
6 out of 10
We open with Neelix and the captain discussing Earth history and Janeway bragging about her ancestor who helped build the Millenium Gate, earth's first arcology. Cut to the year 2000 (I am going to pretty much ignore the cuts back to the ship from here on out). Shannon O'Donnell is driving her gradually failing car through Indiana when she passes a Millenium Gate sign. She pulls off the highway looking for gas and gets into an accident. She doesn't have insurance and is too poor to pay her bill so the guy lets her go. It seems the town is all empty except for one book store and when she goes inside she meets Henry Janeway and his son Jason. They are the only holdouts in the town, everyone else has accepted the generous buyout offers so make way for the Gate. She manages to talk her way into a job help organize the protest since Henry doesn't even have a computer.
Outside the store Henry gets into an argument with the spokes person for the Gate who tells him that if he doesn't sell they will likely move the project somewhere else but that just makes Henry get excited. Later that night Shannon runs into the Gate guy in the bar and he offers her a job on the project if she can convince Henry to sell. He also convinces her that the project is actually worth it. Instead of convincing him though they get into a fight and she leaves to drive to Florida. But before he makes it too far she returns, she is in love with Henry. Just hours before the deadline she returns to the store and convinces Henry to sell and marry her and let her work on the Gate while they build a life together. Back on the ship they have an ancestors party or something.
Review: I wasn't sure but I ended up liking the story set in the past quite a bit. I didn't like the cutting back and forth though. Maybe they didn't think they had enough story? It kinda felt like that a bit.
6 out of 10
Wednesday, October 12, 2016
VOY: Someone to Watch Over Me
It was just a few minutes into this episode when I realized this was the same story as a play or musical. A bit of googling and I realized it was My Fair Lady but with the titular lady being played by Seven. I know Robert Picard loves to sing as apparently does Jeri Ryan, but I don't know that this episode needed two songs. Also Torres is clearly supposed to be back in full hostile mode although to be fair she clearly has a point with what Seven is up to. The B story about Neelix as a diplomat went about as well as you could expect other than the "twist" at the end, but that was pretty dumb.
We open with Torres trying to start a fight with Seven over Seven observing her romantic interactions with Tom in the mess hall. Later in sickbay the Doctor learns about Seven's interest in romance and decides he should be the one to teach her to go on dates and such. Also the B story starts with some sort of monk/ambassador being left in Neelix's hands while the captain negotiates with their leadership. Instead of sitting around and meditating though it turns out the ambassador wants to party down. Seven and the Doctor meet on the holodeck for a simulated date but Paris walks in and isn't impressed. He ends up betting the Doctor that Seven can't make it through a date at the ambassadors reception near the end of the episode. After Paris leaves the Doctor and Seven sing a duet and she agrees to ask someone on the crew on a date.
She meets with Kim in astrometrics to go over her prospective romantic options and picks a lieutenant who impressed her with his efficiency. They are both pretty nervous but things seem to be going ok. Until she breaks his wrist while dancing that is. But afterwards in sickbay Paris notices how the Doctor looks at Seven and tells him he should tell her how he feels. He doesn't but it does bring her as his date to the reception. Other than the ambassador being super drunk things go ok, well, that is until Seven learns of the bet and walks out on the Doctor. They barely manage to sober up the ambassador in time to get him home and the Doctor wimps out on telling Seven how he really feels.
Review: Not a bad character episode, but still not the best. I am not a huge fan of songs in my television and this episode has two.
4 out of 10
We open with Torres trying to start a fight with Seven over Seven observing her romantic interactions with Tom in the mess hall. Later in sickbay the Doctor learns about Seven's interest in romance and decides he should be the one to teach her to go on dates and such. Also the B story starts with some sort of monk/ambassador being left in Neelix's hands while the captain negotiates with their leadership. Instead of sitting around and meditating though it turns out the ambassador wants to party down. Seven and the Doctor meet on the holodeck for a simulated date but Paris walks in and isn't impressed. He ends up betting the Doctor that Seven can't make it through a date at the ambassadors reception near the end of the episode. After Paris leaves the Doctor and Seven sing a duet and she agrees to ask someone on the crew on a date.
She meets with Kim in astrometrics to go over her prospective romantic options and picks a lieutenant who impressed her with his efficiency. They are both pretty nervous but things seem to be going ok. Until she breaks his wrist while dancing that is. But afterwards in sickbay Paris notices how the Doctor looks at Seven and tells him he should tell her how he feels. He doesn't but it does bring her as his date to the reception. Other than the ambassador being super drunk things go ok, well, that is until Seven learns of the bet and walks out on the Doctor. They barely manage to sober up the ambassador in time to get him home and the Doctor wimps out on telling Seven how he really feels.
Review: Not a bad character episode, but still not the best. I am not a huge fan of songs in my television and this episode has two.
4 out of 10
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
VOY: Juggernaut
I really felt like this episode took Torres' character back at least a few seasons in terms of growing into more of an actual character. But I guess she is just mad all the time. Also the Malon are back and I would have an easier time taking them seriously except for the part where Janeway and Voyager know the solution to their grand societal problems and are willing to give it freely but haven't bothered to offer it again after the first jerk they offered it to turned them down.
We open on a Malon ship which is of course leaking radioactive waste but of course they just call it radiation because the writers aren't actually aware of how reality works. Something goes wrong and the ship is threatening to explode which will contaminate a huge area of space. Back on Voyager Tuvok is trying and mostly failing to teach B'Elanna to meditate which seems to mostly be here for comic relief. They get a distress call from the escape pods from the Malon ship and by the time they arrive there are only two survivors. Once aboard they learn the Malon ship is going to explode which will wipe out everything within 5 light years. Janeway orders the ship to safety but the warp engines go down due to the radiation. For some reason after they learn this the Malon still oppose going back to try and stop the explosion on their ship. For some reason they think Voyager can make it 5 light years in 3 hours without faster than light drive. Or I guess they just wanted to give Torres another reason to get mad, in this case she is clearly right.
Neelix (ugh, I know) comes up with a plan to vent the Malon ship one deck at a time to get to the controls and maybe stop the explosion. Things go ok, but one of the Malon is killed by something we are lead to believe is a fantastical monster from Malon lore created by their radiation. Chakotay gets injured but also makes it to safety leaving Neelix and Torres to work with the surviving Malon to save the day. And they don't. Torres has to kill the monster who turns out to just be an irradiated Malon with an iron bar and Janeway has Tuvok fly the detonating ship into a star which somehow saves the day even though I am pretty sure that isn't how stars work.
Review: Not one I am going to remember very long to be honest. Pretty bland environmental message that is pretty much ruined by the knowledge that the Malon would probably take the tech from Voyager and fix their society, but no, lets not offer it after that one jerk turned it down.
4 out of 10
We open on a Malon ship which is of course leaking radioactive waste but of course they just call it radiation because the writers aren't actually aware of how reality works. Something goes wrong and the ship is threatening to explode which will contaminate a huge area of space. Back on Voyager Tuvok is trying and mostly failing to teach B'Elanna to meditate which seems to mostly be here for comic relief. They get a distress call from the escape pods from the Malon ship and by the time they arrive there are only two survivors. Once aboard they learn the Malon ship is going to explode which will wipe out everything within 5 light years. Janeway orders the ship to safety but the warp engines go down due to the radiation. For some reason after they learn this the Malon still oppose going back to try and stop the explosion on their ship. For some reason they think Voyager can make it 5 light years in 3 hours without faster than light drive. Or I guess they just wanted to give Torres another reason to get mad, in this case she is clearly right.
Neelix (ugh, I know) comes up with a plan to vent the Malon ship one deck at a time to get to the controls and maybe stop the explosion. Things go ok, but one of the Malon is killed by something we are lead to believe is a fantastical monster from Malon lore created by their radiation. Chakotay gets injured but also makes it to safety leaving Neelix and Torres to work with the surviving Malon to save the day. And they don't. Torres has to kill the monster who turns out to just be an irradiated Malon with an iron bar and Janeway has Tuvok fly the detonating ship into a star which somehow saves the day even though I am pretty sure that isn't how stars work.
Review: Not one I am going to remember very long to be honest. Pretty bland environmental message that is pretty much ruined by the knowledge that the Malon would probably take the tech from Voyager and fix their society, but no, lets not offer it after that one jerk turned it down.
4 out of 10
Monday, October 10, 2016
VOY: Think Tank
While Janeway describes the villains of this episode as a think tank I believe it would be more accurate to call them space conmen. And honestly Trek doesn't have enough conmen running around trying to get what they can grab. The Federation is so gullible sometimes it is shocking they haven't been tricked into being vassals to the Ferengi. The Hazari seemed like they gave in a little too easily to Janeway, but at the same time there is no profit in revenge as they say in this episode. Also major props for featuring non-humanoid life forms as actually intelligent creatures. Trek gets lazy with slapping makeup on actors way too often for my taste.
We open with a blue alien showing on in a strange ship looking for Kurros. He arrives looking a bit like a space monk and the blue guy thanks him and the others on the ship for saving his planet. Unfortunately he says he can't transfer the ores he promised for saving the planet so Kurros threatens to undo the solution until he gives in. On Voyager they detect a planetoid filled with dilithium and go to check it out but infornately it explodes with a gas that destroys their warp field. And just then a heavily armed Hazari ship shows up and locks a tractor beam. Janeway threatens to explode the cloud of gas if they don't leave. They don't so she blows up the cloud barely escaping, but for some reason the Hazari don't pursue. But it doesn't take them long to figure out why, Hazari ships are closing in from every side. Janeway struggles to come up with a plan but before she can work anything out a projection of Kurros appears and offers to solve Voyagers problem. Janeway is interested and beams to the think tank ship with Seven. Seven briefly links with a computer intelligence on the ship and Janeway offers a manifest to Kurros to look over.
It doesn't take him long to come back with a list of demands, all of which are easy except one, he wants Seven to join the think tank. Janeway leaves it up to Seven but she isn't interested. They are soon attacked by the Hazari again and barely escape. Kurros makes it clear they can still accept his offer before Janeway cuts off his projection. Despite the Hazari being a dangerous foe Janeway manages to capture one of their ships and finds that it was Kurros that hired them. The Hazari captain recognizes Kurros too, he disguised himself when he hired the Hazari and Janeway makes him realize capturing Kurros would be much more profitable. They trick the think tank into showing up to claim Seven and she disables their communications making them vulnerable. Voyager gets the hell out of their as the Hazari try to break through the think tanks shields and neutronium hull.
Review: A good con episode is always fun and this one mostly works. The Hazari didn't turn out to be very persistent which seemed a bit off, but overall I really liked it.
7 out of 10
We open with a blue alien showing on in a strange ship looking for Kurros. He arrives looking a bit like a space monk and the blue guy thanks him and the others on the ship for saving his planet. Unfortunately he says he can't transfer the ores he promised for saving the planet so Kurros threatens to undo the solution until he gives in. On Voyager they detect a planetoid filled with dilithium and go to check it out but infornately it explodes with a gas that destroys their warp field. And just then a heavily armed Hazari ship shows up and locks a tractor beam. Janeway threatens to explode the cloud of gas if they don't leave. They don't so she blows up the cloud barely escaping, but for some reason the Hazari don't pursue. But it doesn't take them long to figure out why, Hazari ships are closing in from every side. Janeway struggles to come up with a plan but before she can work anything out a projection of Kurros appears and offers to solve Voyagers problem. Janeway is interested and beams to the think tank ship with Seven. Seven briefly links with a computer intelligence on the ship and Janeway offers a manifest to Kurros to look over.
It doesn't take him long to come back with a list of demands, all of which are easy except one, he wants Seven to join the think tank. Janeway leaves it up to Seven but she isn't interested. They are soon attacked by the Hazari again and barely escape. Kurros makes it clear they can still accept his offer before Janeway cuts off his projection. Despite the Hazari being a dangerous foe Janeway manages to capture one of their ships and finds that it was Kurros that hired them. The Hazari captain recognizes Kurros too, he disguised himself when he hired the Hazari and Janeway makes him realize capturing Kurros would be much more profitable. They trick the think tank into showing up to claim Seven and she disables their communications making them vulnerable. Voyager gets the hell out of their as the Hazari try to break through the think tanks shields and neutronium hull.
Review: A good con episode is always fun and this one mostly works. The Hazari didn't turn out to be very persistent which seemed a bit off, but overall I really liked it.
7 out of 10
Sunday, October 9, 2016
VOY: The Fight
Between getting 2 hours of sleep last night and this episode being 75% hallucinations this is going to be a short write up.I don't hate the idea of aliens using someones hallucinations to communicate, but it seems oddly specific that they would understand human genetics so well to be able to turn on a single gene in someone to allow their voices to get through but be unable to communicate any other way. Even the chaotic space thing didn't really bother me. I did however not really like that so much of the episodes was flashbacks to hallucinations. Maybe I am just tired, but the narrative was a bit hard for me to follow at times. Overall I actually think it worked, but still not my favorite.
We open almost at the end of the episode with Chakotay in sickbay. The Doctor is trying to remind him that he is hallucinating to try and communicate with aliens which kinda ruins the suspense through most of the rest of the episode (this is what I am talking about with the narrative being messed up). The Doctor tries to get him to think back to when it started, he was in the boxing ring on the holodeck and just before he got knocked out he saw something strange. Just then the ship is rocked as they enter a region of chaotic space where everything is warped in a way that makes it almost impossible to escape. Chakotay starts hearing voices and the Doctor figures out that a genetic defect that he had blocked as a child has been reactivated causing him to hallucinate. Chakotay decides he needs to go on a vision quest and there is a bunch of hallucinations with his grandfather and boxing coach. It is all centered around the idea of him being in the boxing ring with the aliens. They talk to him through his memories. Somewhere near the end of the episode we catch up with the opening and Chakotay rushes to the bridge and puts in the modifications to the deflector they need to navigate a way out. It works and to celebrate he heads to the holodeck for some boxing.
Review: Even if I wasn't tired I don't really like having to spend a bunch of time summarizing hallucinations. Despite this the story mostly manged to come through, but I think this one needed at least one more rewrite to go beyond good.
5 out of 10
We open almost at the end of the episode with Chakotay in sickbay. The Doctor is trying to remind him that he is hallucinating to try and communicate with aliens which kinda ruins the suspense through most of the rest of the episode (this is what I am talking about with the narrative being messed up). The Doctor tries to get him to think back to when it started, he was in the boxing ring on the holodeck and just before he got knocked out he saw something strange. Just then the ship is rocked as they enter a region of chaotic space where everything is warped in a way that makes it almost impossible to escape. Chakotay starts hearing voices and the Doctor figures out that a genetic defect that he had blocked as a child has been reactivated causing him to hallucinate. Chakotay decides he needs to go on a vision quest and there is a bunch of hallucinations with his grandfather and boxing coach. It is all centered around the idea of him being in the boxing ring with the aliens. They talk to him through his memories. Somewhere near the end of the episode we catch up with the opening and Chakotay rushes to the bridge and puts in the modifications to the deflector they need to navigate a way out. It works and to celebrate he heads to the holodeck for some boxing.
Review: Even if I wasn't tired I don't really like having to spend a bunch of time summarizing hallucinations. Despite this the story mostly manged to come through, but I think this one needed at least one more rewrite to go beyond good.
5 out of 10
Friday, October 7, 2016
VOY: Course: Oblivion
I really appreciated that they waited long enough on this episode that I had forgotten about the duplicate Voyager crew they created on the Demon Planet. I did find it a little odd that Janeway talked about the enhanced warp drive rather than the transwarp coils they had two episodes ago, but I kinda glossed over it. Also starting with Tom and B'Elanna getting married seemed a little out of the blue, but also not particularly out of character for the two of them. After they figure out what is really going on it seemed a bit unreasonable for Janeway to still want to head for earth, but then again that has been her driving force for so long that it makes sense that even a copy of her would be so driven. I also like that in the end they leave essentially no trace of having existed. Sure it is a bummer, but it is also more realistic than much of Trek.
We open with the marriage of Paris and Torres but after the wedding when the rice is thrown we see it falling through the bulkhead into a twisted and moving Jeffries tube below. Their new warp drive will get them home in 2 years so the crew are in fine spirits. Torres is working to get Seven up to speed so she and Paris can have a honeymoon when something goes wrong with the engine and Torres opens the panel to find the same twisting distorted space as we saw in the opening. Torres gets to work but starts feeling bad and that night she gets very cold and then collapses in her quarters. Paris finds her and takes her to sickbay but it is too late, she dies with some strange distortions on her face. They start looking for a cause as it seems everything on the ship is suffering from the same distortions but it is the worst for people in engineering. Eventually Tuvok figures it out, they are the copies from the Demon Planet and the radiation from the enhanced warp drive is damaging them since they aren't actually what they appear to be.
The crew takes the news that they are all copies pretty hard but Janeway is still determined to head for home. But the sickness rapidly spreads through the ship and even the ship starts to fall apart. Chakotay passes away but not before talking Janeway into heading back to the Demon Planet. They start that way but it is getting really bad. Eventually it is just Kim and Seven and they work on a plan to leave a time capsule of their logs as evidence they existed. But it all goes to hell and the ship destroys itself just after they detect the real Voyager. Cut to actual Voyager where they detected the distress call but by the time they arrive it is just a cloud of amorphous debris that gets a note in the log before they move on.
Review: About as close to a Philip K. Dick story as we have ever really had in Star Trek other than maybe the DS9 where it turns out O'Brien is the even copy of himself. A bit odd, but in a way I really enjoyed.
8 out of 10
We open with the marriage of Paris and Torres but after the wedding when the rice is thrown we see it falling through the bulkhead into a twisted and moving Jeffries tube below. Their new warp drive will get them home in 2 years so the crew are in fine spirits. Torres is working to get Seven up to speed so she and Paris can have a honeymoon when something goes wrong with the engine and Torres opens the panel to find the same twisting distorted space as we saw in the opening. Torres gets to work but starts feeling bad and that night she gets very cold and then collapses in her quarters. Paris finds her and takes her to sickbay but it is too late, she dies with some strange distortions on her face. They start looking for a cause as it seems everything on the ship is suffering from the same distortions but it is the worst for people in engineering. Eventually Tuvok figures it out, they are the copies from the Demon Planet and the radiation from the enhanced warp drive is damaging them since they aren't actually what they appear to be.
The crew takes the news that they are all copies pretty hard but Janeway is still determined to head for home. But the sickness rapidly spreads through the ship and even the ship starts to fall apart. Chakotay passes away but not before talking Janeway into heading back to the Demon Planet. They start that way but it is getting really bad. Eventually it is just Kim and Seven and they work on a plan to leave a time capsule of their logs as evidence they existed. But it all goes to hell and the ship destroys itself just after they detect the real Voyager. Cut to actual Voyager where they detected the distress call but by the time they arrive it is just a cloud of amorphous debris that gets a note in the log before they move on.
Review: About as close to a Philip K. Dick story as we have ever really had in Star Trek other than maybe the DS9 where it turns out O'Brien is the even copy of himself. A bit odd, but in a way I really enjoyed.
8 out of 10
Thursday, October 6, 2016
VOY: The Disease
When you have an episode title like this I was guessing it was going to be about Harry's sex life, and sure enough. I honestly don't understand why Janeway is so upset about Harry sleeping with the alien lady in this episode. The suggestion that you need permission from your captain to have sex with an alien has never come up before or since in Star Trek and Riker is certainly glad for it. I guess they just wanted to have some tension in the episode, but when you have an entire scene devoted to Chakotay pointing out how dumb it is that you are punishing Kim for it you have a bit of a problem with the episode.
We open with Kim on some alien ship getting it on with a hot alien lady. Cut to the bridge of the alien ship where Janeway is working to repair it for some reason. The aliens are apparently super xenophobic but for no clear reason have allowed Voyager to dock to help them but we never really learn what Voyager is getting in return. Cut to Kim and the lady in her quarters. Kim is summoned to the bridge but she doesn't want to go. They arrive separately to help with the anti-matter transfer but something goes wrong. Also, Paris notices something is up with Kim. Back on Voyager he asks Kim whats going on but doesn't get much of an answer. That night Kim calls his lady friend but Tuvok notices. Paris manages to end the transmission before they figure out what is going on though since apparently contact with these aliens is forbidden or something. Later in astrometrics Kim starts glowing and Seven sends him to sickbay where he tells the Doctor who tells the captain.
Janeway is pissed and formally reprimands Kim. Which doesn't stop him from having a rendezvous in a shuttlecraft with his girlfriend. On Voyager Tuvok locates a stowaway. It seems the aliens live on a generational ship and don't allow anybody to leave but many want to. They return the refugee to his people and Tuvok notices Kim is gone. He is summoned back to Voyager along with his girlfriend who is apparently a terrorist or something. She made a virus or something that is what is damaging their ship. She offers to help fix it for some reason but it is too late and the ship breaks up. But Kim is still in trouble and still doesn't get to be with his lady friend again. But he does suffer the side effects of glow withdrawl for a few weeks.
Review: Having an episode premised on something that is so contradictory to the rest of Trek is a bit of a problem for me. Also Kim literally never gets to have nice things which is a bit of a bummer.
3 out of 10
We open with Kim on some alien ship getting it on with a hot alien lady. Cut to the bridge of the alien ship where Janeway is working to repair it for some reason. The aliens are apparently super xenophobic but for no clear reason have allowed Voyager to dock to help them but we never really learn what Voyager is getting in return. Cut to Kim and the lady in her quarters. Kim is summoned to the bridge but she doesn't want to go. They arrive separately to help with the anti-matter transfer but something goes wrong. Also, Paris notices something is up with Kim. Back on Voyager he asks Kim whats going on but doesn't get much of an answer. That night Kim calls his lady friend but Tuvok notices. Paris manages to end the transmission before they figure out what is going on though since apparently contact with these aliens is forbidden or something. Later in astrometrics Kim starts glowing and Seven sends him to sickbay where he tells the Doctor who tells the captain.
Janeway is pissed and formally reprimands Kim. Which doesn't stop him from having a rendezvous in a shuttlecraft with his girlfriend. On Voyager Tuvok locates a stowaway. It seems the aliens live on a generational ship and don't allow anybody to leave but many want to. They return the refugee to his people and Tuvok notices Kim is gone. He is summoned back to Voyager along with his girlfriend who is apparently a terrorist or something. She made a virus or something that is what is damaging their ship. She offers to help fix it for some reason but it is too late and the ship breaks up. But Kim is still in trouble and still doesn't get to be with his lady friend again. But he does suffer the side effects of glow withdrawl for a few weeks.
Review: Having an episode premised on something that is so contradictory to the rest of Trek is a bit of a problem for me. Also Kim literally never gets to have nice things which is a bit of a bummer.
3 out of 10
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