Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Season 3 Evaluation
Homosexuality in Star Trek: Warlord.
Sexuality in general in Star Trek: Blood Fever.
How it is I came to be a Star Trek fan: Scorpion, Part I.
Season Review:
There were a lot of forgettable episodes this season. Even several of the "passing grade" episodes don't have much of a hook, nothing for me to mull over afterwards. The notable exceptions, Unity and Distant Origin are of such drastically better quality in comparison with the rest of the season that I am growing increasingly concerned that they were flukes, especially considering that their writers were long-time contributors. I've got to hope, got to believe that each time I play a new episode that it could be one of the great ones, but my reactions are beginning to diverge from the average results on the Global Episode Opinion Survey. This helps to confirm my suspicion that the hardcore fans of Voyager, the ones willing to log on and give a 1-10 score for each individual episode, are not the same people who cherished TNG and TOS. In fact, last weekend, when discussing this project with people I had met for the first time, two of them admitted to loving Voyager; and neither one knew what I was talking about when I started discussing the differences between Voyager Borg and TNG Borg. Not just because it was a dichotomy that they hadn't considered, but because they didn't know what I meant when I said "TNG". Maybe this show just wasn't meant for me.
In this season the blatant disregard for science is really coming to an ugly head. Only two episodes actually had any science fiction (one, Rise, was marred by its Neelix-related faults) - and other episodes will get science things wrong that could have been fact checked in any old encyclopedia they had lying around. One of the episodes was even written by one of the show's science consultants (Fair Trade), and it contains no science at all. Certainly there are plenty of other bad science episodes in other Trek incarnations, or episodes with magical space phenomena instead of something at least distantly related to something known (or even hypothesized), but to be this obstinate about including correct information is appalling. I tried to not let it bother me at the start of this project, but I'm running out of slack.
Still, there were enjoyable episodes. I've gone through TNG and rated each of the episodes for reference (I'm sure I'll post them sometime that I'm behind on reviews), and on average this season still comes out ahead of TNG season 2. There were some genuinely great episodes, and I do still like half the characters that will be in the next season. That's something.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: This has been the worst season so far by a fair margin, but at least there were fewer episodes with a rating less than two than last season. It could be a function of having more episodes to compare against, but I feel like the ratings are flattening out: there were fewer overall miserable episodes, but also fewer great ones. I've got my fingers crossed for season four.
Character Status: (Edit - I have gone back and ordered this list as I did for the Season 4 evaluation)
9. Kathryn Janeway: Janeway is quickly plummeting down the chasm of irredeemable awfulness. Her constant condescension has perhaps let up almost imperceptibly, and we've been spared some of the "told you so" lectures she gave in season two, but this "Captain Martyr McStandsalone" business in Scorpion is enough to give me a brain aneurysm. It is as if the writers polled people about the attributes they'd least like to see in a leader, and incorporated them all into one person. I'd almost rather have Michael Scott for a captain at this point.
8. Neelix: Other than his terrible appearances in Rise and Fair Trade, Neelix doesn't have much to show for his role in season three. He's still clinging to Jetrel in the top five, but that feels like a long time ago. I wish it were Neelix leaving, not Kes.
7. Tom Paris: Other than The Chute, which had him near death most of the time, the little development we've gotten for Paris has almost been completely consumed with setting up a relationship between him and Torres. That's okay, they've got some decent chemistry, but I keep hoping for more. As I've mentioned before, the writers set up a gold mine with this character, but they seem uninterested in sending anyone in to dig up any ore.
6. Chakotay: While he had leading roles in both of the five point episodes this season, there's still not much going on with him. He really is just Riker with a Tattoo now. Not bad, but not anything unique.
5. The Doctor: As a secondary character, the Doctor remains a scene-stealer with exceptional timing and delivery. However, I have been consistently disappointed in his character-vehicle episodes, which are often trite and boring.
4. B'Elanna Torres: Torres only got a couple episodes this season (mainly Remember and Blood Fever), but she delivered good performances for both. She shares the problem that Paris has, namely that her screen time was largely monopolized by the build-up of their relationship, though her character was in a better place to start out with.
3. Kes: I know she leaves early next season (though I don't know many details beyond that), and I'm going to miss her. It feels like only now have the writers started to become comfortable with what it means to be a member of a species that only lives for nine years, just in time for her to leave. Her break-up with Neelix was poorly handled (which is to say, not handled at all), but the relationship was really holding her back, so I'm glad it is over.
2. Tuvok: He was great in Alter Ego, but his character is becoming a little too outwardly exasperated with those around him. I also understand that they didn't have Blood Fever focus on his own pon farr as an effort to throw a curve-ball, but it would have been nice to get another vehicle for a favorite character.
1. Harry Kim: Harry's best outing this season was easily The Chute; he's definitely becoming the Miles O'Brien of the series - the character that has relatively normal motivations, who is easy to sympatize/empathize with, and, as a result, has a lot of bad things happen to him. That's okay, so far he's carried it well. Here's hoping that the writers can keep it up. I do miss the Kim/Paris friendship, I feel like we haven't received much development for that pair since The Chute (which was very early in the season).
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