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
Friday, October 7, 2016
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
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
VOY: Dark Frontier
After I finished watching this episode I described it to my wife as the Dark Empire of Voyager and that was completely forgetting the name. Now I realize that Seven didn't rejoin the collective specifically to kill the queen, but there are many other similarities. I didn't think I was going to like the bits about her family but they ended up adding a lot to the episode. I was also relieved to see that the ease with which they dealt with the Borg in the opening was because it was a trap. Of course it is a trap, this is the Borg we are talking about. I still found the queen to be a bit of a disappointment, but some of that certainly comes from my increasingly harsh feelings towards First Contact. I am not really sure what she got by keeping Seven as an individual either, maybe it is just a hobby of hers or something, but it seems like if she actually wanted her for a plot to destroy earth she would have just fully assimilated her and taken her memories. Especially since she points out that is exactly what she did to Seven's father.
We open with Voyager kicking the holy hell out of Borg probe ship but blasting their shields and then beaming an armed photo torpedo aboard. Unfortunately it destroys the entire probe since it was apparently the plan to try and capture a trans warp coil. They do get a bunch of stuff though including data on all nearby Borg vessels. Janeway spots a damaged scout ship limping home and decides it is the perfect target. She has Seven start reading her parents logs. It seems they followed a Borg cube for over a year and were even able to board and take notes. There are a bunch of flashbacks of them following and eventually getting caught by the Borg, but I am mostly going to stick with the main story as this is already going to be a long write up. Soon we see Janeway beaming onto the Borg sphere with a team of Seven, Tuvok and Kim. Tuvok and Kim destroy the ships shields while Janeway and Seven steal the coil. Things go well but Seven seems distracted by being back on a Borg ship. They have a system giving them two minutes before the Borg detect them but they don't quite make it. They do all manage to make to to the beam out location after getting the coil but the Borg get onto Voyager using the transporter beam and start attacking just and Chakotay stops the holodeck program.
That evening in the cargo bay Seven hears a Borg voice and gets a vision of being surrounded by drones. The voice explains that she knows all about Voyagers plan to take the coil and it will fail leading to the assimilation of Voyager unless Seven rejoins the collective. Seven doesn't tell anybody about her vision but does find something in her parents logs, they developed a device to hide a person from Borg sensors which they can use against the sphere. Janeway can see something is bothering Seven, but Seven insists on going on the mission anyway. They make it onto the sphere and the devices do seem to be masking them from detection. Everything goes great and they get the coil out but as they turn to leave Seven tells Janeway she is staying. Before Janeway care argue very much a forcefield goes up between the two and the drones start pouring in. Janeway returns to the ship without her and the sphere suddenly powers up despite being "damaged" and disappears into a transwarp conduit.
The sphere emerges in the middle of a huge Borg complex in space and flies right inside. Seven is taken to a room where the Borg Queen shows up classic dangling spine dramatic fashion. She tells Seven that she wants her to stay as a unique individual for some vague reason. Seven is opening hostile and it doesn't help that the queen shows her the plan to go assimilate an entire species before lunch. Back on Voyager they have learned about the queen from Seven's parent's notes and have a plan to use their masking technology on the Delta Flyer along with the trans warp coil. The modifications work and they track the sphere to the Borg space complex. Inside the queen sends Seven to go help with the assimilation. The screams of individuals being painfully turned to Borg is too much for her and she helps a group of them escape. As soon as she returns to the queen she is found out though but for no apparent reason the queen spares their lives.
The queen seems to have maybe figured out that Seven isn't being the most useful so she tells her the grand plan to wipe out humanity with a nanoprobe virus but for some reason she needs Seven to enhance it or something. Seven refuses but is threatened with assimilation. Just then she gets a message from Janeway but the queen instantly figure out what is going on. The Flyer manages to evade the Borg while Janeway and Tuvok beam over to attempt a rescue. Janeway makes it to the throne room alone and there is a showdown. I guess we are supposed to think Seven is considering staying, but really it is obvious she is going to go with Janeway. She tells the captain where to shoot to disable the queens command powers and they beam to the Flyer which heads to transwarp with the queen's ship right behind. They make it to Voyager which seals the conduit with a torpedo destroying the pursuing ship. In the epilogue Janeway says the coil took them 20,000 light years closer to home taking 15 years off their flight time.
Review: I fun action episode that actually worked as a two parter. Usually the second half really lags but this one worked, especially without interruption on netflix. I am going to take one point off for them sending the Doctor with his mobile emitter on the rescue mission. First of all Paris is already their backup doctor and second they just say the super Borg the emitter created when merged with just a few nanoprobes. If the Borg of today were to capture it presumably they could conquer the entire galaxy. At least the planets not occupied but gods or whatever.
7 out of 10
We open with Voyager kicking the holy hell out of Borg probe ship but blasting their shields and then beaming an armed photo torpedo aboard. Unfortunately it destroys the entire probe since it was apparently the plan to try and capture a trans warp coil. They do get a bunch of stuff though including data on all nearby Borg vessels. Janeway spots a damaged scout ship limping home and decides it is the perfect target. She has Seven start reading her parents logs. It seems they followed a Borg cube for over a year and were even able to board and take notes. There are a bunch of flashbacks of them following and eventually getting caught by the Borg, but I am mostly going to stick with the main story as this is already going to be a long write up. Soon we see Janeway beaming onto the Borg sphere with a team of Seven, Tuvok and Kim. Tuvok and Kim destroy the ships shields while Janeway and Seven steal the coil. Things go well but Seven seems distracted by being back on a Borg ship. They have a system giving them two minutes before the Borg detect them but they don't quite make it. They do all manage to make to to the beam out location after getting the coil but the Borg get onto Voyager using the transporter beam and start attacking just and Chakotay stops the holodeck program.
That evening in the cargo bay Seven hears a Borg voice and gets a vision of being surrounded by drones. The voice explains that she knows all about Voyagers plan to take the coil and it will fail leading to the assimilation of Voyager unless Seven rejoins the collective. Seven doesn't tell anybody about her vision but does find something in her parents logs, they developed a device to hide a person from Borg sensors which they can use against the sphere. Janeway can see something is bothering Seven, but Seven insists on going on the mission anyway. They make it onto the sphere and the devices do seem to be masking them from detection. Everything goes great and they get the coil out but as they turn to leave Seven tells Janeway she is staying. Before Janeway care argue very much a forcefield goes up between the two and the drones start pouring in. Janeway returns to the ship without her and the sphere suddenly powers up despite being "damaged" and disappears into a transwarp conduit.
The sphere emerges in the middle of a huge Borg complex in space and flies right inside. Seven is taken to a room where the Borg Queen shows up classic dangling spine dramatic fashion. She tells Seven that she wants her to stay as a unique individual for some vague reason. Seven is opening hostile and it doesn't help that the queen shows her the plan to go assimilate an entire species before lunch. Back on Voyager they have learned about the queen from Seven's parent's notes and have a plan to use their masking technology on the Delta Flyer along with the trans warp coil. The modifications work and they track the sphere to the Borg space complex. Inside the queen sends Seven to go help with the assimilation. The screams of individuals being painfully turned to Borg is too much for her and she helps a group of them escape. As soon as she returns to the queen she is found out though but for no apparent reason the queen spares their lives.
The queen seems to have maybe figured out that Seven isn't being the most useful so she tells her the grand plan to wipe out humanity with a nanoprobe virus but for some reason she needs Seven to enhance it or something. Seven refuses but is threatened with assimilation. Just then she gets a message from Janeway but the queen instantly figure out what is going on. The Flyer manages to evade the Borg while Janeway and Tuvok beam over to attempt a rescue. Janeway makes it to the throne room alone and there is a showdown. I guess we are supposed to think Seven is considering staying, but really it is obvious she is going to go with Janeway. She tells the captain where to shoot to disable the queens command powers and they beam to the Flyer which heads to transwarp with the queen's ship right behind. They make it to Voyager which seals the conduit with a torpedo destroying the pursuing ship. In the epilogue Janeway says the coil took them 20,000 light years closer to home taking 15 years off their flight time.
Review: I fun action episode that actually worked as a two parter. Usually the second half really lags but this one worked, especially without interruption on netflix. I am going to take one point off for them sending the Doctor with his mobile emitter on the rescue mission. First of all Paris is already their backup doctor and second they just say the super Borg the emitter created when merged with just a few nanoprobes. If the Borg of today were to capture it presumably they could conquer the entire galaxy. At least the planets not occupied but gods or whatever.
7 out of 10
Tuesday, October 4, 2016
VOY: Bliss
Another decent episode that might have made it into the actually good category with another rewrite or two. Specifically the idea that Seven and Naomi weren't affected by the psychic alien monster because they didn't share the crews desire to be home. While at the same time showing how the rest of the crew all had their own unique fantasies that it was fulfilling. Maybe make it about the borg implants or something, but the way it played out didn't work in that specific way. The idea of the monster hunter obsessed with getting out also seemed like it was more likely to be an illusion than not, but that part at least didn't seem obviously silly. I did really like they way they continued the Naomi/Seven relationship. They are both learning how to fit in on Voyager and I really enjoy seeing them work together.
We open with a small ship with a haggard looking alien captain attacking a huge cloud monster thing in space and shouting defiantly at it. On Voyager they are discussing the appearance of a huge wormhole leading directly back to Earth and everybody is super excited. Well, everybody but Seven who seems convinced the wormhole isn't possible and must be some sort of trap. But no one believes her. She goes to the Doctor after watching the crew fawn over letters from home, each offering exactly what that person wanted. The Doctor agrees to help but gets turned off by Paris since the wormhole will allegedly interfere with his program. Seven returns to astrometrics and manages to contact a ship inside the alleged wormhole and we see the guy from the opening warning her to stay away, but then the power goes out. Chakotay shows up at tells Seven they are turning off astrometrics until they are through. Seven returns to her cargo bay where she finds Naomi who is also freaked out that everybody is acting so strange.
Chakotay shows up to turn off Seven since they are allegedly worried about the borg detecting their passage through the wormhole but she isn't having it. She puts up a forcefield before heading to engineering. She takes over there but Janeway knocks her out with am EM pulse just as they enter the wormhole. And then literally everyone on board other than Seven and Naomi pass out. The two of them contact the alien and convince him to come aboard. He has apparently been fighting the monster for 36 years after it killed his family. They get the Doctor running and along with the alien come up with a plan to make them less digestible and hopefully get expelled from the creature. After one attempt it seems to have worked, but only to Seven who is now apparently being influenced but doesn't pass out for no apparent reason. They do finally escape and the crew recover but in the final shot we see the alien captain flying back in for another attempt to kill it.
Review: Overall an interesting scifi episode that does have a few problems following the rules it sets up for itself. Still always cool to see Seven and Naomi kicking ass and the alien ship eating creature wasn't the most original, but it was well executed.
5 out of 10
We open with a small ship with a haggard looking alien captain attacking a huge cloud monster thing in space and shouting defiantly at it. On Voyager they are discussing the appearance of a huge wormhole leading directly back to Earth and everybody is super excited. Well, everybody but Seven who seems convinced the wormhole isn't possible and must be some sort of trap. But no one believes her. She goes to the Doctor after watching the crew fawn over letters from home, each offering exactly what that person wanted. The Doctor agrees to help but gets turned off by Paris since the wormhole will allegedly interfere with his program. Seven returns to astrometrics and manages to contact a ship inside the alleged wormhole and we see the guy from the opening warning her to stay away, but then the power goes out. Chakotay shows up at tells Seven they are turning off astrometrics until they are through. Seven returns to her cargo bay where she finds Naomi who is also freaked out that everybody is acting so strange.
Chakotay shows up to turn off Seven since they are allegedly worried about the borg detecting their passage through the wormhole but she isn't having it. She puts up a forcefield before heading to engineering. She takes over there but Janeway knocks her out with am EM pulse just as they enter the wormhole. And then literally everyone on board other than Seven and Naomi pass out. The two of them contact the alien and convince him to come aboard. He has apparently been fighting the monster for 36 years after it killed his family. They get the Doctor running and along with the alien come up with a plan to make them less digestible and hopefully get expelled from the creature. After one attempt it seems to have worked, but only to Seven who is now apparently being influenced but doesn't pass out for no apparent reason. They do finally escape and the crew recover but in the final shot we see the alien captain flying back in for another attempt to kill it.
Review: Overall an interesting scifi episode that does have a few problems following the rules it sets up for itself. Still always cool to see Seven and Naomi kicking ass and the alien ship eating creature wasn't the most original, but it was well executed.
5 out of 10
Monday, October 3, 2016
VOY: Gravity
I feel like this episode was a bit of a missed opportunity. It is nominally about Tuvok having to deal with the training he had a child to repress his emotions butting against the love he feels for a lady in the present. The problem is they don't actually show any of his training and the plot on the planet seemed kinda glossed over. I do appreciate that they made the events on the planet take place over more than a few days which made it easier to accept that maybe Tuvok really had fallen in love, but since so much was cut out it also didn't feel very earned. The same thing with his training, we see him meeting his master and then fighting with him, but we don't go back until after he has completed his training. And from the look on young Tuvok's face it doesn't really seem like it worked back then either.
We open with a young Tuvok being sent to study with a Vulcan master. He resents being there but the master is patient and talks him into staying to study. Cut to a desert planet where we see a woman out hunting spiders until she sees a shuttle come through an anomaly in the sky and crash. Cut to her at the shuttle looking for things to scavenge when Paris returns. She points a gun at him and takes the stuff he was carrying before fleeing. But she doesn't make it far, several other aliens ambush her and try to rob her but Tuvok steps in and beats them all up before taking her back to the shuttle. The woman is named Noss, but they are unable to talk to her. They do manage some basic communication though as more of the hostile aliens show up forcing the three of them to flee to her also crashed ship with some supplies and the Doctors emitter. Her ship has a rudimentary shield keeping them safe there and Tuvok manages to get the mobile emitter working and luckily the Doctor is able to talk to Noss.
We aren't told how much time, but evidently more than a few days pass and they settle in to life on the planet. To keep his emitter working they keep the Doctor powered off most of the time while Paris and Noss hunt spiders. One night after telling Noss about B'Elanna Paris figures out that Noss is in love with Tuvok. After she goes to sleep the two talk about it and Tuvok is deeply offended that Paris would suggest he could love someone other than his wife. Cut to young Tuvok again and he is telling his master about the girl he fell in love with. The master is able to provoke him easily and he lashes out, but also seems to see that he is out control a bit. Back on Voyager they are aware of the shuttles absence, but it doesn't seem like it has been gone very long. While looking for it they find a spacial anomaly with a star system inside. While checking it out another ship locks a tractor beam on. Janeway hails them and they explain they are trying to save Voyager, they have lost many ships to the anomaly and plan to seal it in a few days. They come up with a plan to use a probe to relay a transporter signal through the anomaly.
On the planet two months have passed and Paris returns to the ship with Tuvok, badly injured. The Doctor is able to treat him which relieves Noss. After he recovers a bit she asks Tuvok if he feels for her and he says that he cannot after she kisses him. She gets upset and storms out. Paris argues with Tuvok about what he did so Tuvok tries to explain what happened when he was a child. On the ship they have the relay working but they only have 29 minutes before the aliens seal the rift. They send a message though to stand near the beacon in 30 minutes but there is a time distortion so it will actually be in a few days. They survive one last attack by the hostile aliens and Tuvok has to rescue Noss but they do make it back in time and return to Voyager. They take Noss back to her planet but before dropping her off she and Tuvok mindmeld and she finally seems to understand him. The final shot is of young Tuvok finally accepting the Vulcan way and being returned to the world by his master.
Review: Not bad, but not nearly as good as it seemed like it should have been. This episode does do some exploring of the inherent contradiction of being Vulcan and I am always down with that.
4 out of 10
We open with a young Tuvok being sent to study with a Vulcan master. He resents being there but the master is patient and talks him into staying to study. Cut to a desert planet where we see a woman out hunting spiders until she sees a shuttle come through an anomaly in the sky and crash. Cut to her at the shuttle looking for things to scavenge when Paris returns. She points a gun at him and takes the stuff he was carrying before fleeing. But she doesn't make it far, several other aliens ambush her and try to rob her but Tuvok steps in and beats them all up before taking her back to the shuttle. The woman is named Noss, but they are unable to talk to her. They do manage some basic communication though as more of the hostile aliens show up forcing the three of them to flee to her also crashed ship with some supplies and the Doctors emitter. Her ship has a rudimentary shield keeping them safe there and Tuvok manages to get the mobile emitter working and luckily the Doctor is able to talk to Noss.
We aren't told how much time, but evidently more than a few days pass and they settle in to life on the planet. To keep his emitter working they keep the Doctor powered off most of the time while Paris and Noss hunt spiders. One night after telling Noss about B'Elanna Paris figures out that Noss is in love with Tuvok. After she goes to sleep the two talk about it and Tuvok is deeply offended that Paris would suggest he could love someone other than his wife. Cut to young Tuvok again and he is telling his master about the girl he fell in love with. The master is able to provoke him easily and he lashes out, but also seems to see that he is out control a bit. Back on Voyager they are aware of the shuttles absence, but it doesn't seem like it has been gone very long. While looking for it they find a spacial anomaly with a star system inside. While checking it out another ship locks a tractor beam on. Janeway hails them and they explain they are trying to save Voyager, they have lost many ships to the anomaly and plan to seal it in a few days. They come up with a plan to use a probe to relay a transporter signal through the anomaly.
On the planet two months have passed and Paris returns to the ship with Tuvok, badly injured. The Doctor is able to treat him which relieves Noss. After he recovers a bit she asks Tuvok if he feels for her and he says that he cannot after she kisses him. She gets upset and storms out. Paris argues with Tuvok about what he did so Tuvok tries to explain what happened when he was a child. On the ship they have the relay working but they only have 29 minutes before the aliens seal the rift. They send a message though to stand near the beacon in 30 minutes but there is a time distortion so it will actually be in a few days. They survive one last attack by the hostile aliens and Tuvok has to rescue Noss but they do make it back in time and return to Voyager. They take Noss back to her planet but before dropping her off she and Tuvok mindmeld and she finally seems to understand him. The final shot is of young Tuvok finally accepting the Vulcan way and being returned to the world by his master.
Review: Not bad, but not nearly as good as it seemed like it should have been. This episode does do some exploring of the inherent contradiction of being Vulcan and I am always down with that.
4 out of 10
Sunday, October 2, 2016
VOY: Bride of Chaotica!
First I want to start by saying I loved this episode. But something also felt a bit off. Well, it turns out what felt off was that they never go to the bridge. Why you ask? Well, I looking into it and it turns out there was a fire on the bridge set and they had to make an episode that totally stayed off the bridge as a result. Up to this point I haven't been totally sold on the Captain Proton bits, but having Janeway as Queen Arachnia was just awesome. Especially the bit in the meeting where Janeway assumes Seven will be playing Arachnia and then realizes everyone on the room is looking at her. The part of the story about the photonic life forms mistaking the holodeck for reality was pretty silly, but then again their experience with carbon based life was clearly non-existent so I guess it works well enough.
The episode opens on the holodeck with Paris and Kim trying to save Constance Goodhart, secretary to Captain Proton. They are interrupted by a distortion showing up on the holodeck and they find they are unable to shut it off or exit. Harry manages to beam them out though. The ship meanwhile gets stuck in a patch of space where subspace is leaking in or something. The real point being we see two aliens who are apparently from a dimension that is entirely photonic appear on the holodeck in the form of two men in suits. They meet the villain of the serial, Dr. Chaotica. His henchman kills on of the aliens and a war starts between the aliens and the evil doctor. Detecting weapons fire on the holodeck Paris and Tuvok investigate. They find the program in chaos with characters dead who shouldn't be. They eventually run into one of the aliens but he refuses to believe they are alive since they aren't photonic.
In the briefing room Paris explains that until the war between the aliens and Chaotica is resolved they won't be able to move the ship. The only solution is for someone to play Queen Arachnia and sedude/trick Chaotica into turning off his lightning shield. Janeway reluctantly accepts the promotion to queen. The Doctor gets to play president of Earth/ambassador to the aliens. He convinces them to stop shooting for Proton to try and save the day. Janeway shows up in Chaotica's lair as Arachnia and soon has the lighting shield down. Proton/Paris saves the day by destroying the deathray and the aliens close their portals. We end with a the end or is it closing on the holodeck.
Review: My summary is a bit brief because there is a lot of messing around, but unlike the normal kind of messing around this stuff actually seems really fun. For an episode that exists to solve a problem with a set, it is a damn good on.
7 out of 10
The episode opens on the holodeck with Paris and Kim trying to save Constance Goodhart, secretary to Captain Proton. They are interrupted by a distortion showing up on the holodeck and they find they are unable to shut it off or exit. Harry manages to beam them out though. The ship meanwhile gets stuck in a patch of space where subspace is leaking in or something. The real point being we see two aliens who are apparently from a dimension that is entirely photonic appear on the holodeck in the form of two men in suits. They meet the villain of the serial, Dr. Chaotica. His henchman kills on of the aliens and a war starts between the aliens and the evil doctor. Detecting weapons fire on the holodeck Paris and Tuvok investigate. They find the program in chaos with characters dead who shouldn't be. They eventually run into one of the aliens but he refuses to believe they are alive since they aren't photonic.
In the briefing room Paris explains that until the war between the aliens and Chaotica is resolved they won't be able to move the ship. The only solution is for someone to play Queen Arachnia and sedude/trick Chaotica into turning off his lightning shield. Janeway reluctantly accepts the promotion to queen. The Doctor gets to play president of Earth/ambassador to the aliens. He convinces them to stop shooting for Proton to try and save the day. Janeway shows up in Chaotica's lair as Arachnia and soon has the lighting shield down. Proton/Paris saves the day by destroying the deathray and the aliens close their portals. We end with a the end or is it closing on the holodeck.
Review: My summary is a bit brief because there is a lot of messing around, but unlike the normal kind of messing around this stuff actually seems really fun. For an episode that exists to solve a problem with a set, it is a damn good on.
7 out of 10
Saturday, October 1, 2016
VOY: Latent Image
As someone who suffers from generalized anxiety at times I can really feel for the Doctor in this episode. The problem he has of getting stuck in a loop thinking the same thoughts until he self destructs is something I know way too much about. I also kinda wish they had someone to try and talk the Doctor through it rather than just leaving him to stew. Janeway says that is what she is there for and a certainly believe she is trying her best, but have they totally forgotten about cognitive behavioral therapy in the future? Also, can't he accept that triage is a thing he has to do? It seemed obvious to me as and EMT that Kim was in better shape than Jetal, he is conscious, she isn't, and she has burns to a much larger part of her face. I realize that people have problems dealing with problems with even more obvious answers, but it would have been nice if they had set it up as a more realistic medical dilemma.
We open with the Doctor taking holoscans of all the of the crew as a part of their annual checkups. There is some comedy with Naomi before we get to Kim who the Doctor discovers has scars from a surgery, performed by the Doctor. Kim claims to have no memory of it a and later that day the Doctor mentions it to the captain while performing her exam but she denies knowing about it as well. The Doctor asks Seven for help but when she arrives to help several hours later he has no memory if it. She helps him recover data deleted from his holocamera and there are pictures he doesn't remember taking and include an ensign he has no memories of. She manages to restore some of his memories of that day and he recalls being in a shuttle with Kim and Jetal, the missing ensign, and being attacked by an unknown alien. He tells the captain and she orders an investigation but also tells him to deactivate for his own safety.
But the Doctor is getting suspicious and sets his program to restore memories if they are deleted and his camera to take a picture of whoever comes into sickbay next. He wakes up after having his memories erased and restored and finds an image of Janeway doing the altering. He confronts her on the bridge and she finally tells him he was altered after something happened that damaged him. Sevent argues with the captain to let him know and after some resistance she goes to the Doctor to tell him what happened. It seems he was on the shuttle with Kim and Jetal when they were attacked. They were both badly injured but Jetal much more so than Kim. In sickbay he only had time to save one of them and he saved Kim and Jetal died. Soon he started breaking down unable to deal with his choice to the point that he couldn't perform his duties.
Seeing what happened causes the Doctor to enter the same feedback loop so the captain deactivates him. She consults with Seven asking of Seven would do things the same way again and she agrees that she would. This leads Janeway to decide that the Doctor is going to have to learn to live with himself again so they all take shifts sitting with him in the holodeck as he goes over what happened again and again. Janeway stays for 16 hours despite being sick and we see that the Doctor is very concerned with her health. He talks her into going to bed before he picks up her poetry book and reads the line, "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words: Here begins a new life."
Review: A really touching episode somewhat hindered by a lack of medical knowledge by the writers. It doesn't ruin the story, it just helps to turn off triage mode when the actual trauma scenes are taking place to accept the dilemma.
7 out of 10
We open with the Doctor taking holoscans of all the of the crew as a part of their annual checkups. There is some comedy with Naomi before we get to Kim who the Doctor discovers has scars from a surgery, performed by the Doctor. Kim claims to have no memory of it a and later that day the Doctor mentions it to the captain while performing her exam but she denies knowing about it as well. The Doctor asks Seven for help but when she arrives to help several hours later he has no memory if it. She helps him recover data deleted from his holocamera and there are pictures he doesn't remember taking and include an ensign he has no memories of. She manages to restore some of his memories of that day and he recalls being in a shuttle with Kim and Jetal, the missing ensign, and being attacked by an unknown alien. He tells the captain and she orders an investigation but also tells him to deactivate for his own safety.
But the Doctor is getting suspicious and sets his program to restore memories if they are deleted and his camera to take a picture of whoever comes into sickbay next. He wakes up after having his memories erased and restored and finds an image of Janeway doing the altering. He confronts her on the bridge and she finally tells him he was altered after something happened that damaged him. Sevent argues with the captain to let him know and after some resistance she goes to the Doctor to tell him what happened. It seems he was on the shuttle with Kim and Jetal when they were attacked. They were both badly injured but Jetal much more so than Kim. In sickbay he only had time to save one of them and he saved Kim and Jetal died. Soon he started breaking down unable to deal with his choice to the point that he couldn't perform his duties.
Seeing what happened causes the Doctor to enter the same feedback loop so the captain deactivates him. She consults with Seven asking of Seven would do things the same way again and she agrees that she would. This leads Janeway to decide that the Doctor is going to have to learn to live with himself again so they all take shifts sitting with him in the holodeck as he goes over what happened again and again. Janeway stays for 16 hours despite being sick and we see that the Doctor is very concerned with her health. He talks her into going to bed before he picks up her poetry book and reads the line, "In that book which is my memory, on the first page of the chapter that is the day when I first met you, appear the words: Here begins a new life."
Review: A really touching episode somewhat hindered by a lack of medical knowledge by the writers. It doesn't ruin the story, it just helps to turn off triage mode when the actual trauma scenes are taking place to accept the dilemma.
7 out of 10
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