While investigating a rare series of supernovae, Voyager is again visited by Q - and this time he wants Janeway to have his child. No, he's not trying to pawn off a baby he somehow came into the possession of, he wants to impregnate Janeway. A second, female Q arrives as Janeway is turning Q down for the eighth time, and it is revealed that the solar explosions are a side effect of a war within the Q Continuum. Q abducts Janeway to show her first-hand; this time, instead of a dust-swept shop in the middle of nowhere, the Continuum is rendered as a Civil War battlefield. Janeway does not share Q's hope that a human-Q hybrid child would be an effective quick-fix for this war (that was started by Q's part in the death of another Q in Death Wish) - but is equally confident that a child that is the product of two Qs would be. She is unable to convince the opposing faction, who captures her and Q and plans to execute them, but fortunately the Voyager crew shows up (with the help of the female Q) in the nick of time and uses the Civil War weaponry to defeat the Q and save the day.
John DeLancie is as delightful as ever. He essentially crashes the constant condescension awards show that is Janeway's captaincy, to tell her that he is very happy for her, and that he'll let her finish, but that he is the most condescending being of all time. These moments are very satisfying to me; Janeway's arrogant, patronizing attitude is so pervasive, so unrelentless, that when Q shows up and calls her Kathy, when he feeds her the cheapest lines in the book and expects them to work on someone so simple, when he just tries to buy her love with a puppy, I squee with joy. Suzie Plakson (Female Q), on the other hand, would be significantly more tolerable if she never opened her mouth again, or even appeared on screen again. Okay, that's not completely fair. I don't remember her being bad at K'Ehleyr, but in this role she takes the over-the-top Q-style presentation and flattens it, to the point where it is neither flamboyant nor subdued nor worth watching.
In my Death Wish review, I neatly categorized all the Q episodes, so where does this one fall? Well, at first glance, it seems to be of the "humanity is better than gods" type. After all, Q is behaving badly, impulsively, shallowly, while the humans get a chance to moralize to him about how much better it is to be thoughtful and hard-working. But maybe it is because this episode is informed by the post-Deja Q mentality, where Q is outwardly extolling humanity's virtues, or maybe it is the whole civil war setting making the Continuum seem less god-like, but the atheist themes seem diminished her - leaving the feel-good humans-are-great stuff to stand on its own. In this episode, the Q are just another species, who just happen to be omnipotent and petty at the same time. Not that I necessarily think that this way is better or worse, but it is perceptibly different.
This is an episode that I pretty clearly remember abandoning half-way through; I recall being pretty disgusted at how goofy and unimaginative the Civil War interpretation of the Continuum seemed to me. I'm not nearly as turned off by it this time, but it is probably for the best that I didn't complete the episode originally - the solution, wherein the metaphor is stretched paper-thin to allow the Voyager crew to save the day (by force!) in the Continuum by using the "figurative" era-appropriate rifles, would have been an even bigger letdown. For me, that the end still is frustrating, but I liked the rest of the episode enough to look past it.
The episode ends with Q genuinely appreciative towards Janeway, and it seems a bit like a hollow victory without Q sending them home as a token of his appreciation. I like the interactions with Q and this crew (Chakotay is now Chuckles, and Neelix is the "bar rodent"), but it's probably just as well that there's only one Q episode left.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: Q continues to entertain, but the substance is a bit diminished here.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
S3 E10: Warlord
Three survivors are beamed off an unidentified, exploding alien (Illari) ship, but one dies in sickbay shortly after arrival - while that would normally disqualify him as a survivor, there are some extenuating circumstances. Kes begins behaving oddly (including brutally dumping Neelix), and reveals that she is now possessed by the consciousness of the third survivor by murdering a crew member and a delegate from the Illari homeworld. Under the influence of this new [male Illari warlord's] mind, Kes' full powers are once again unlocked, and he/she quickly overthrows the Illari government and kills its leader. The first attempt to remove the new guy's identity fails, and Tuvok is captured and Kes/Tieran attempts to torture him - with little success. Kes and Tieran are fighting an internal battle, distracting him from the second attempt (an all-out assault), which is successful.
The possession of a main character with the mind of another person in order to give him or her a chance to act in a different role is a Trek trope as old as time, but it has produced some great results in the past, and I'm reasonably happy with what we've got here, too. In general, I haven't exactly been thrilled with Kes' acting so far (her character, on the other hand, has grown on me a lot), so I was pleased to see that she could handle her part in this episode well. In particular, her conflict with Tuvok was perfectly executed, with good back-and-forth and gripping performances that underscore the subtle but significant relationship between the two. I was also very happy with the illustration of the internal conflict, with Kes and Tieran arguing inside (her? his? their?) mind, Kes with her quarters in the background and Tieran backed by his portrait - until he starts losing and his background is replaced with her quarters.
The break-up of Neelix and Kes, before we know that she is possessed, is also powerful. She gives reasons that would have been perfectly good a season ago, reasons that I was practically shouting to her through the screen at the time, but now that Neelix has calmed down a lot I sorta feel bad for him. No, not just sorta - Kes is his life. As useless as Neelix is, as much of a chump as he can be, he is completely devoted to Kes - and while Kes' reasons are still solid, and Neelix probably couldn't really grow without losing her, I do genuinely feel bad for him. I was really surprised when the denouement of the episode focused only on Kes and Tuvok, without any sort of closure for Neelix. Did she really mean what she said while possessed? I'd like to know. While it is nothing short of a triumph to get me to want to hear more about Neelix and Kes' relationship, the ending feels pretty hollow as a result.
Any time Trek messes with gender roles, or, in this case, puts a male character in a female's body, it is hard not to think of one of the glaring omissions of Trek: the lack of homosexual characters. When, early in the possession, Kes almost (but not quite!) kisses Tieran's wife/girlfriend/whatever, I became very concerned that this was going to be one of those episodes where Trek kind of, but not really, apologizes for that inadequacy. I've gotten the impression from things I've read over the years (sorry, no quotes that I could find) that part of the problem is that Roddenberry himself was not terribly open-minded on the matter. But you know what, after The Original Series, I'm willing to give him a pass on that. It was unfortunate that the absence continued into TNG, but to still - throughout the course of all of TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise - be missing any gay or lesbian crew members is inexcusable. Oh, wait, Brannon Braga has prepared an excuse in an interview on the topic:
"I think it was, not so much a young man’s [issue], it was a syndicated family show, showing at six o’clock, you know, in Salt Lake City, so you had to deal with each separate affiliate rather than one network. And things like that."
Really? Do you even know what show it is that you wrote for? Do you have any idea who it is that you were writing for? You water down your science to the point that it isn't science anymore, and you won't touch on social commentary because it is too controversial? You had a duty as the bearer of the Trek torch. You know what? I'll let Picard tell you about it:
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!"
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: My tangential rant aside, it was fun to see Kes tackle another acting style, and we got some good character scenes which built off of it.
The possession of a main character with the mind of another person in order to give him or her a chance to act in a different role is a Trek trope as old as time, but it has produced some great results in the past, and I'm reasonably happy with what we've got here, too. In general, I haven't exactly been thrilled with Kes' acting so far (her character, on the other hand, has grown on me a lot), so I was pleased to see that she could handle her part in this episode well. In particular, her conflict with Tuvok was perfectly executed, with good back-and-forth and gripping performances that underscore the subtle but significant relationship between the two. I was also very happy with the illustration of the internal conflict, with Kes and Tieran arguing inside (her? his? their?) mind, Kes with her quarters in the background and Tieran backed by his portrait - until he starts losing and his background is replaced with her quarters.
The break-up of Neelix and Kes, before we know that she is possessed, is also powerful. She gives reasons that would have been perfectly good a season ago, reasons that I was practically shouting to her through the screen at the time, but now that Neelix has calmed down a lot I sorta feel bad for him. No, not just sorta - Kes is his life. As useless as Neelix is, as much of a chump as he can be, he is completely devoted to Kes - and while Kes' reasons are still solid, and Neelix probably couldn't really grow without losing her, I do genuinely feel bad for him. I was really surprised when the denouement of the episode focused only on Kes and Tuvok, without any sort of closure for Neelix. Did she really mean what she said while possessed? I'd like to know. While it is nothing short of a triumph to get me to want to hear more about Neelix and Kes' relationship, the ending feels pretty hollow as a result.
Any time Trek messes with gender roles, or, in this case, puts a male character in a female's body, it is hard not to think of one of the glaring omissions of Trek: the lack of homosexual characters. When, early in the possession, Kes almost (but not quite!) kisses Tieran's wife/girlfriend/whatever, I became very concerned that this was going to be one of those episodes where Trek kind of, but not really, apologizes for that inadequacy. I've gotten the impression from things I've read over the years (sorry, no quotes that I could find) that part of the problem is that Roddenberry himself was not terribly open-minded on the matter. But you know what, after The Original Series, I'm willing to give him a pass on that. It was unfortunate that the absence continued into TNG, but to still - throughout the course of all of TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise - be missing any gay or lesbian crew members is inexcusable. Oh, wait, Brannon Braga has prepared an excuse in an interview on the topic:
"I think it was, not so much a young man’s [issue], it was a syndicated family show, showing at six o’clock, you know, in Salt Lake City, so you had to deal with each separate affiliate rather than one network. And things like that."
Really? Do you even know what show it is that you wrote for? Do you have any idea who it is that you were writing for? You water down your science to the point that it isn't science anymore, and you won't touch on social commentary because it is too controversial? You had a duty as the bearer of the Trek torch. You know what? I'll let Picard tell you about it:
"The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it's scientific truth or historical truth or personal truth! It is the guiding principle on which Starfleet is based! And if you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened, you don't deserve to wear that uniform!"
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: My tangential rant aside, it was fun to see Kes tackle another acting style, and we got some good character scenes which built off of it.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
S3 E09: Future's End, Part II
After outsmarting Voyager once, Sterling now has the lowdown on the ship's systems and an emergency medical hologram - which he kindly equips with a mobile holo-emitter. The Voyager crew regroups and attempts to capture him by baiting him with Sarah Silverman, and briefly succeeds before he outsmarts them again. In the attempt, Chakotay and Torres are captured by some militia nuts, but Tuvok and the Doctor rescue them. Paris and Robinson (I guess I should use her character name) have a car chase in a VW bus against a tractor trailer which they believe has the timeship in it, but once again they have been outsmarted by Sterling, who prepares to fulfill his destiny by going to the future to steal more technology (and kill billions by mistake). Voyager destroys his ship at the last minute, thereby somehow restoring the timeline. The timeship pops up again, this time with its original commander, unaware of what has transpired, and transports Voyager back to its own time - and to the delta quadrant.
Well, that's a lot of outsmarting for one paragraph, but hey, the crew was being exceptionally incompetent. Nothing they did seemed to matter, except for the one stray torpedo they fired at the end. But as long as this two-parter seems to be about temporal causality, why did they even fire that shot? It was a direct parallel to the timeship's approach with Voyager in part one: "Hey you, I don't want you to do bad things by time-traveling, so I'm going to blow you up." That tactic is what got them into this whole mess, you'd think they'd have learned something. Oh, right, incompetent. But, because it is Voyager doing the shooting, the problem is solved and everything but Voyager is restored to normal, which also doesn't make sense. The writers had the option in Time and Again for Voyager to be the accidental cause of mass casualties, to teach the crew a lesson about messing with temporal mechanics lightly, but I cut them some slack then because it was only the second episode. The time for that is done.
I was annoyed that they implied that stolen technology is the reason why humans developed computers in the 20th century (for reasons I went into in the Tattoo review), but if there is one good thing about the reset button in this episode, it is that the timeship's presence on earth was (may have been?) erased. With this ending, we revert to computers being a creation of human ingenuity (at what seems to have been the same rate that the stolen technology would have delivered it).
The odd, pointless side-plot with the militia did at least point out something that demands to be explored: why doesn't Chakotay act like (or have any personal beliefs congruent with) a captain of a terrorist ship. When the lead captor delivers his ridiculous rant about the evil government and his fight against it, Chakotay begins saying "I was a freedom fighter like you too, once..." and I'm really curious where he was going with that. Does he not believe in the Maquis fight anymore? Why? Some sort of explanation would certainly be appreciated. Well, a good explanation would be appreciated. And I don't think the writers have one.
Watchability: 1/5
Bottom Line: The panning will continue until my morale improves. At least the Doctor got a mobile holo-emitter out of all this.
Well, that's a lot of outsmarting for one paragraph, but hey, the crew was being exceptionally incompetent. Nothing they did seemed to matter, except for the one stray torpedo they fired at the end. But as long as this two-parter seems to be about temporal causality, why did they even fire that shot? It was a direct parallel to the timeship's approach with Voyager in part one: "Hey you, I don't want you to do bad things by time-traveling, so I'm going to blow you up." That tactic is what got them into this whole mess, you'd think they'd have learned something. Oh, right, incompetent. But, because it is Voyager doing the shooting, the problem is solved and everything but Voyager is restored to normal, which also doesn't make sense. The writers had the option in Time and Again for Voyager to be the accidental cause of mass casualties, to teach the crew a lesson about messing with temporal mechanics lightly, but I cut them some slack then because it was only the second episode. The time for that is done.
I was annoyed that they implied that stolen technology is the reason why humans developed computers in the 20th century (for reasons I went into in the Tattoo review), but if there is one good thing about the reset button in this episode, it is that the timeship's presence on earth was (may have been?) erased. With this ending, we revert to computers being a creation of human ingenuity (at what seems to have been the same rate that the stolen technology would have delivered it).
The odd, pointless side-plot with the militia did at least point out something that demands to be explored: why doesn't Chakotay act like (or have any personal beliefs congruent with) a captain of a terrorist ship. When the lead captor delivers his ridiculous rant about the evil government and his fight against it, Chakotay begins saying "I was a freedom fighter like you too, once..." and I'm really curious where he was going with that. Does he not believe in the Maquis fight anymore? Why? Some sort of explanation would certainly be appreciated. Well, a good explanation would be appreciated. And I don't think the writers have one.
Watchability: 1/5
Bottom Line: The panning will continue until my morale improves. At least the Doctor got a mobile holo-emitter out of all this.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
S3 E08: Future's End, Part I
Voyager is assailed by a Federation timeship from the 29th century - according to its captain, Voyager is involved in a time travel incident with kills billions of people in the future - so the only possible course of action is to destroy them. Voyager fends off the attack, disabling the timeship, and thrusting both ships, out of control, into a temporal vortex. Once on the other side, they find themselves orbiting 1996 earth, and begin trying to locate the timeship. Janeway and Chakotay locate the captain, who arrived thirty years earlier and is now a raving lunatic/hobo, and points them to the current owner of the timeship (Henry Starling). In the meantime, Tuvok and Paris locate a young woman who has spotted Voyager from her observatory, and befriend her by helping her not get killed by Sterling's goons. Janeway and Chakotay are captured by Sterling, who reveals that he used the 29th century tech he stole to start the 20th century computer revolution. When they beam out, Starling manages to download Voyager's computer over the transporter beam - including the Doctor. To be continued...
Oh, and also Kes and Neelix are transfixed by soap operas the whole time.
The introduction of what are essentially "time police" into the Trek universe is fairly troubling. Where were they when other crews have recklessly traveled through time? And why won't they talk to Voyager first, before coming in, guns blazing. Even if by the 29th century Federation is sinister and evil, you'd think that they'd be a bit more practical - it would be a lot easier to convince a 24th century Starfleet captain that it would be a bad idea to kill billions than it would be to disintegrate her ship and risk being the paradoxical cause of your own disaster.
Wait, was the whole "catch" of this episode obvious from the first five minutes? It drives me crazy to see the writers pat themselves on the back by saying episodes like these are "high concept" (they love that phrase in particular), when the episodes themselves aren't terribly complicated. It is even worse when they say that the reason why an episode like Parallax failed is that it was too complicated. Here's a clue: when your audience is composed of nerds, write for nerds. If they don't understand it, they'll look it up. Parallax wasn't too complicated, it was too dumbed-down - if they'd actually used the more complicated science of black holes rather than switching to "magical space phenomena" so that they could just do whatever they want, it could have been a 5/5. In a world where a movie like Memento can be a commercial success, writers can be more adventurous with their complicated plots. The Voyager writers seem to prefer to play it safe - where safe means "hemorrhaging viewers."
There are some reasonably entertaining scenes in this episode, even though a lot of it feels kind of been-there-done-that. Oh my, don't we look strange to outsiders, tee hee! Although the "Kes & Neelix watch soaps" part was used as a pat-TV-writers-on-the-back moment, watching them drink in the ridiculous plot unfolding with rapt and awe-filled attention was probably the best part of the show.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: As I said before, reasonably entertaining, but I'm hungry for an episode with some meat on its bones.
Oh, and also Kes and Neelix are transfixed by soap operas the whole time.
The introduction of what are essentially "time police" into the Trek universe is fairly troubling. Where were they when other crews have recklessly traveled through time? And why won't they talk to Voyager first, before coming in, guns blazing. Even if by the 29th century Federation is sinister and evil, you'd think that they'd be a bit more practical - it would be a lot easier to convince a 24th century Starfleet captain that it would be a bad idea to kill billions than it would be to disintegrate her ship and risk being the paradoxical cause of your own disaster.
Wait, was the whole "catch" of this episode obvious from the first five minutes? It drives me crazy to see the writers pat themselves on the back by saying episodes like these are "high concept" (they love that phrase in particular), when the episodes themselves aren't terribly complicated. It is even worse when they say that the reason why an episode like Parallax failed is that it was too complicated. Here's a clue: when your audience is composed of nerds, write for nerds. If they don't understand it, they'll look it up. Parallax wasn't too complicated, it was too dumbed-down - if they'd actually used the more complicated science of black holes rather than switching to "magical space phenomena" so that they could just do whatever they want, it could have been a 5/5. In a world where a movie like Memento can be a commercial success, writers can be more adventurous with their complicated plots. The Voyager writers seem to prefer to play it safe - where safe means "hemorrhaging viewers."
There are some reasonably entertaining scenes in this episode, even though a lot of it feels kind of been-there-done-that. Oh my, don't we look strange to outsiders, tee hee! Although the "Kes & Neelix watch soaps" part was used as a pat-TV-writers-on-the-back moment, watching them drink in the ridiculous plot unfolding with rapt and awe-filled attention was probably the best part of the show.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: As I said before, reasonably entertaining, but I'm hungry for an episode with some meat on its bones.
Friday, February 4, 2011
S3 E07: Sacred Ground
Okay, I'm going to try not to get too sarcastic in the synopsis.
*Deep Breath*
While the crew visits a temple on another worldbecause they can't be bothered with going home, Kes is struck by a forcefield that she wanders into and almost dies. The monks at the temple won't let the crew bring instruments to scan the field and figure out how to make Kes better, but Neelix finds precedent in the culture's mythology for a family member of someone in Kes' predicament to beseech the monks to allow him or herself to go through a ritual, pass through the field, and beg the gods to cure the dying person. Instead of going with the obvious person (Neelix), Janeway has been busy setting herself up as the hubris-filled science strawman by being extra dismissive of the natives' beliefs, so she goes down to the planet instead. What follows is a string of cliche-driven sequences that "teach" Janeway that since science can't explain everything, she should just have faith, and that science is really faith too, so, in closing, faith is the best. The Doctor then starts explaining everything that happened to cure Kes, and Janeway, changed by her experiences, says "That's a very thorough, scientific explanation, thank you Doctor," then flashes her best condescending smile, and walks off.
When I was new to the internet, I used to read forum debates about things like science vs. religion for fun. For the first couple of pages, I'd see some interesting points, and then it would invariably devolve into a handful of people using more rhetoric than logic, dead set on changing their opponents' minds. I would never participate, because the futility of doing so was readily apparent, but I would seek these things out for years. So not only have I seen just about every piece of rhetorical flair out there, but, particularly relevant in this case, I have seen many, many misunderstandings of what science actually is.
When Janeway admits that though she can't yet explain what the field is, and she still believes that it is possible to explain it with more study, the spirits have this to say: "Even when her science fails right before her eyes she still has full confidence in it. Now that's a leap of faith" (in the smarmiest tones imaginable). To the scientist, the lack of ability to describe something in scientific terms is not a failure, it is just an unknown. An opportunity to know more. And maybe that is what the spirits are attempting to criticize. But to then have that "lesson" be the central point of the show, for Janeway to have "learned" to not be curious anymore, and have that be the happy ending? Of a Star Trek episode no less?!
Furthermore, the "leap of faith" that Janeway needs to take to rescue Kes, by doing what the spirits tell her and taking her physically into the field, isn't even really a leap of faith. A dilemma, for sure: but a risk/benefit analysis of the situation puts doing what the spirits say waaaay on top. Either (A) lose Kes for sure, or (B) take a chance that the spirits aren't trying to teach her a lesson by killing her (no benefit to them to do that) and have an opportunity to save Kes with negligible risk to herself. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
We really didn't need this kind of character assassination for Janeway either. I understand that the writers felt that without making Janeway act so intolerant at the beginning, they couldn't make her grow; but this isn't the growth she needs. It doesn't even really count as character growth if you just make the character worse for part of one episode so that you can "correct" it later in the episode. Up until now, Janeway's certainly taken a pretty agnostic view of things (see in particular Emanations); contrast with Picard's atheism or Sisko's whole "being the emissary of the Prophets"* thing, and I should be thrilled. After all, that's me. She's representing me on the world's stage - no she's representing me to the whole delta quadrant. And, when it counts, she turns out to just be a sock puppet, set up to show that science, learning, and intellectual inquiry is a kind of quaint endeavor; the real goal is to jump off a cliff when your gods tell you to.
The talent of Harry Groener (Tam Elbrun, Nathan Samuels, but most importantly, The Mayor) is completely wasted here. He plays the political leader of the Nechani, and he's just a useless politician the whole time. I guess there's some misdirection here; I kept expecting him to turn out to be devious, sociopathic, or at least a little complicated, but got nothing.
The minute or so that Torres has in the show at the beginning is good at least. She's decisive and authoritative, and continues to be well characterized, and it gets me thinking: how much more awesome would the show be with her as the captain? Sure, I don't always agree with her philosphically, but she's got enough insight to know her limits and not so overconfident that she wouldn't take the advice of others into account, while still being sufficiently pragmatic to not get sidetracked with worry and doubt. I think the writers are a lot less cautious with her and have seen a lot of success as a result.
Watchability: 0/5
Bottom Line: This episode was finely crafted to my exacting specifications for the worst episode of all time. Say what you will about TNG seasons 1 & 2 being bad; they were bad because they simply didn't know how to make a television show. The problems were mostly in pacing, dialogue, and characterization - or just flat out being uninteresting. Other than Up the Long Ladder (season 2, where we learn that it is okay to slaughter clones because cloning is evil), I can't think of any episode that I was nearly as disappointed by on a philosophical level. Voyager has dug itself a huge hole with this entry.
*Actually, for all of his being the mouthpiece of the gods to the Bajoran people, he plays the much more comfortable agnostic. Curious about Bajoran religion in an anthropological sense, respectful of the important role it has played in the survival of their species, yet still guarded when it comes to the unobservable.
*Deep Breath*
While the crew visits a temple on another world
When I was new to the internet, I used to read forum debates about things like science vs. religion for fun. For the first couple of pages, I'd see some interesting points, and then it would invariably devolve into a handful of people using more rhetoric than logic, dead set on changing their opponents' minds. I would never participate, because the futility of doing so was readily apparent, but I would seek these things out for years. So not only have I seen just about every piece of rhetorical flair out there, but, particularly relevant in this case, I have seen many, many misunderstandings of what science actually is.
When Janeway admits that though she can't yet explain what the field is, and she still believes that it is possible to explain it with more study, the spirits have this to say: "Even when her science fails right before her eyes she still has full confidence in it. Now that's a leap of faith" (in the smarmiest tones imaginable). To the scientist, the lack of ability to describe something in scientific terms is not a failure, it is just an unknown. An opportunity to know more. And maybe that is what the spirits are attempting to criticize. But to then have that "lesson" be the central point of the show, for Janeway to have "learned" to not be curious anymore, and have that be the happy ending? Of a Star Trek episode no less?!
Furthermore, the "leap of faith" that Janeway needs to take to rescue Kes, by doing what the spirits tell her and taking her physically into the field, isn't even really a leap of faith. A dilemma, for sure: but a risk/benefit analysis of the situation puts doing what the spirits say waaaay on top. Either (A) lose Kes for sure, or (B) take a chance that the spirits aren't trying to teach her a lesson by killing her (no benefit to them to do that) and have an opportunity to save Kes with negligible risk to herself. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.
We really didn't need this kind of character assassination for Janeway either. I understand that the writers felt that without making Janeway act so intolerant at the beginning, they couldn't make her grow; but this isn't the growth she needs. It doesn't even really count as character growth if you just make the character worse for part of one episode so that you can "correct" it later in the episode. Up until now, Janeway's certainly taken a pretty agnostic view of things (see in particular Emanations); contrast with Picard's atheism or Sisko's whole "being the emissary of the Prophets"* thing, and I should be thrilled. After all, that's me. She's representing me on the world's stage - no she's representing me to the whole delta quadrant. And, when it counts, she turns out to just be a sock puppet, set up to show that science, learning, and intellectual inquiry is a kind of quaint endeavor; the real goal is to jump off a cliff when your gods tell you to.
The talent of Harry Groener (Tam Elbrun, Nathan Samuels, but most importantly, The Mayor) is completely wasted here. He plays the political leader of the Nechani, and he's just a useless politician the whole time. I guess there's some misdirection here; I kept expecting him to turn out to be devious, sociopathic, or at least a little complicated, but got nothing.
The minute or so that Torres has in the show at the beginning is good at least. She's decisive and authoritative, and continues to be well characterized, and it gets me thinking: how much more awesome would the show be with her as the captain? Sure, I don't always agree with her philosphically, but she's got enough insight to know her limits and not so overconfident that she wouldn't take the advice of others into account, while still being sufficiently pragmatic to not get sidetracked with worry and doubt. I think the writers are a lot less cautious with her and have seen a lot of success as a result.
Watchability: 0/5
Bottom Line: This episode was finely crafted to my exacting specifications for the worst episode of all time. Say what you will about TNG seasons 1 & 2 being bad; they were bad because they simply didn't know how to make a television show. The problems were mostly in pacing, dialogue, and characterization - or just flat out being uninteresting. Other than Up the Long Ladder (season 2, where we learn that it is okay to slaughter clones because cloning is evil), I can't think of any episode that I was nearly as disappointed by on a philosophical level. Voyager has dug itself a huge hole with this entry.
*Actually, for all of his being the mouthpiece of the gods to the Bajoran people, he plays the much more comfortable agnostic. Curious about Bajoran religion in an anthropological sense, respectful of the important role it has played in the survival of their species, yet still guarded when it comes to the unobservable.
Thursday, February 3, 2011
S3 E06: Remember
The Enterprise Voyager takes on a group of friendly telepathic aliens (Enarans). While they're on board, Torres begins experiencing vivid dreams of another person's life on the Enaran homeworld. At first, they are highly erotic, but those dreams give way to the story of an ambitious woman, played by Torres, who finds herself to be a pawn in a plan to kill all the members of a social movement, at the behest of her father. Through a combination of fatherly lies, self-deception, and an unwillingness to believe that people she trusts would be so brutal, she plays her part, even sentencing her lover to death. Once awake, she confronts the Enarans, who deny everything, but one of the younger engineers consents to telepathically gaining the memories second hand from Torres, giving hope that the truth that the Enarans have denied about their past will someday come to light.
The first half of this episode is highly reminiscent of Violations (TNG, season 5), to the point where I was wondering why I was still watching. In fact (according to memory alpha), this episode started out as a discarded premise for a TNG episode, with Troi being the one to receive the memories. I actually like Torres a lot better as the recipient, because, as the writer put it, it was more effective to have a less "sensitive" character be affected by the revelations.
As an intentional holocaust allusion, I think this episode works well. In the sixties, psychologists set about to find out if Americans were fundamentally different from Germans; to see if it were possible that they'd allow themselves to commit murder when called upon to do so by authority figures. In particular, the Milgram experiment (familiar to anyone who has taken an intro psychology course ever) showed that it was not only possible, it was probable. This episode gives us a case study to illustrate the point, though even with knowledge of the study, sometimes the "protagonist" of the dreams doesn't seem to have sufficient motivation for following her course of action - I'm thinking in particular of the scene towards the end where she begins chanting along with the crowd after the public execution of her lover. Things seemed to move awfully quickly between covert mass killings to burning people alive in front of a throng of followers.
What really frustrates me about the episode isn't really that central to the plot: I am sick of the tired "luddites are better people" trope. The genocidees (screw you spell check, it's a word because I said so!) in this parable are persecuted because they don't like technology. It's especially bad in Insurrection, where the enlightened Ba'ku are the ones who live fulfilled lives because they got rid of technology, while their creepy, disgusting, murderous offspring, the Son'a, chose to embrace it, and gee shucks, look where it got them! Comparatively, it is just a footnote here, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I am extraordinarily thankful for the DS9 episode Paradise (season 2), wherein the luddites are actually huge jerks - the only counterexample I can think of in all of Trek. I touched on this a bit in my Jetrel review, where I was concerned that the episode would move in a "science is bad" direction, but I watch Trek (in part) because I believe that science and technology can be used as a tool in creating a better future. Technology is not good or evil, it is just an instrument that can be used for beneficial or nefarious ends. There are tons of shows you can watch to get the message that scientific advancement is bad. I want Trek to be the show that deviates from that path.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: Good episode, frustrating elements. I feel like I keep saying variations on that for every bottom line. I want an episode that I can just call a good episode.
Side Note: This is the first episode I've seen for this project that I haven't seen ever before, or even had spoiled from reading synopses. That was nice.
Side Side Note: The lover is played by Charles Esten, otherwise known best as "Chip" on Whose Line Is It Anyways?, the show that eroded my Voyager watching habits in the pre-DVR days. Well, I guess I still don't have a DVR...
The first half of this episode is highly reminiscent of Violations (TNG, season 5), to the point where I was wondering why I was still watching. In fact (according to memory alpha), this episode started out as a discarded premise for a TNG episode, with Troi being the one to receive the memories. I actually like Torres a lot better as the recipient, because, as the writer put it, it was more effective to have a less "sensitive" character be affected by the revelations.
As an intentional holocaust allusion, I think this episode works well. In the sixties, psychologists set about to find out if Americans were fundamentally different from Germans; to see if it were possible that they'd allow themselves to commit murder when called upon to do so by authority figures. In particular, the Milgram experiment (familiar to anyone who has taken an intro psychology course ever) showed that it was not only possible, it was probable. This episode gives us a case study to illustrate the point, though even with knowledge of the study, sometimes the "protagonist" of the dreams doesn't seem to have sufficient motivation for following her course of action - I'm thinking in particular of the scene towards the end where she begins chanting along with the crowd after the public execution of her lover. Things seemed to move awfully quickly between covert mass killings to burning people alive in front of a throng of followers.
What really frustrates me about the episode isn't really that central to the plot: I am sick of the tired "luddites are better people" trope. The genocidees (screw you spell check, it's a word because I said so!) in this parable are persecuted because they don't like technology. It's especially bad in Insurrection, where the enlightened Ba'ku are the ones who live fulfilled lives because they got rid of technology, while their creepy, disgusting, murderous offspring, the Son'a, chose to embrace it, and gee shucks, look where it got them! Comparatively, it is just a footnote here, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I am extraordinarily thankful for the DS9 episode Paradise (season 2), wherein the luddites are actually huge jerks - the only counterexample I can think of in all of Trek. I touched on this a bit in my Jetrel review, where I was concerned that the episode would move in a "science is bad" direction, but I watch Trek (in part) because I believe that science and technology can be used as a tool in creating a better future. Technology is not good or evil, it is just an instrument that can be used for beneficial or nefarious ends. There are tons of shows you can watch to get the message that scientific advancement is bad. I want Trek to be the show that deviates from that path.
Watchability: 3/5
Bottom Line: Good episode, frustrating elements. I feel like I keep saying variations on that for every bottom line. I want an episode that I can just call a good episode.
Side Note: This is the first episode I've seen for this project that I haven't seen ever before, or even had spoiled from reading synopses. That was nice.
Side Side Note: The lover is played by Charles Esten, otherwise known best as "Chip" on Whose Line Is It Anyways?, the show that eroded my Voyager watching habits in the pre-DVR days. Well, I guess I still don't have a DVR...
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
S3 E05: False Profits
Voyager encounters a world on the unstable end of a wormhole which has been bouncing around the delta quadrant. On this world, they find that a pair of Ferengi have been posing as gods for a pre-industrial society - Ferengi that were stranded in the delta quadrant in The Price (TNG, season 3). Initially, Janeway just beams them out, but Arridor convinces her that abducting the natives' "gods" would do irreparable harm, so she sets about finding a sneakier plan. The first plan is to disguise Neelix as the grand proxy of the Grand Nagus, but that fails. Plan two: learn the rest of the prophecy that foretold the arrival of the "sages," figure out how to abduct them while remaining true to the prophecy. That works, but now, instead of going back to the alpha quadrant through the wormhole (which they'd lured back to this planet), the Ferengi overcome their guard and disable Voyager with their shuttle, and bumble into the wormhole - which leaves again before Voyager can take it home.
The Ferengi were intended to be the next "big bad"* when they were introduced in TNG. Since they were pretty goofy and one-dimensional, they fell pretty flat in that role, and were relegated to simply being walking, ham-handed metaphors for how ugly greed is. They started out that way in DS9, but I feel they hit a turning point with Quark's fantastic speech to Sisko in The Jem'Hadar: "The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. ...But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lock to pick." From that point forward, the Ferengi were used as a much more likable comic-relief troop. And that was the goal for their use here.
The "moral dilemma" as to whether or not the crew should try to intervene in the Ferengi's meddling is glossed over quickly, which is good because I can't think of any situation in which a Federation captain has hesitated before stopping a third party from breaking the prime directive. I don't quite get the reasoning for needing to send the Ferengi back and trying to remove the Ferengi in a less intrusive way. Certainly, Picard would have just beamed down and told the inhabitants that the Ferengi weren't their gods, and, by the way, all religion is a lie. Maybe that's not the best way to do it either, but there's got to be some middle ground, right? The way Voyager goes about it, they actually seem to legitimize the Ferengi's regime on the planet by making their departure fit with the prophecies. I'd rather that they just showed up with a bunch of phaser rifles, in plain view of the natives, and stormed off with the Ferengi without saying a word, at least leaving some doubt that they were actually the sages in the minds of the people there. Of course, if they did that, we wouldn't have an episode.
Neelix makes an entertaining Ferengi, but of course, he has portrayed one before. I don't have much else to say about that.
It also seems like a cheap ending to just have Ferengi MeddlingTM ruin Voyager's chances to get home. The Voyager crew is constantly being outsmarted by everyone they meet, and for me it is starting to add up - especially when it is done by two people who were being portrayed as the epitomes of incompetence for the entire rest of the episode. The director, Cliff Bole, was pretty apologetic for this episode, claiming that the reason why it wasn't terribly good is that it was "too silly." I disagree. Silly is fine. But this episode is just meaningless - a contrived conflict, and a chance to get home foiled by bumbling.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: People are often very quick to generalize and say that there's an overarching rule that caused an episode (or series) to not be very good. Silly isn't bad, even a meaningless episode isn't necessarily bad, but a combination of those factors with one-dimensional villains and generally uncreative dialogue produced a pretty boring result.
*Now I've lost another perfectly good hour to tvtropes.
The Ferengi were intended to be the next "big bad"* when they were introduced in TNG. Since they were pretty goofy and one-dimensional, they fell pretty flat in that role, and were relegated to simply being walking, ham-handed metaphors for how ugly greed is. They started out that way in DS9, but I feel they hit a turning point with Quark's fantastic speech to Sisko in The Jem'Hadar: "The way I see it, hew-mons used to be a lot like Ferengi: greedy, acquisitive, interested only in profit. We're a constant reminder of a part of your past you'd like to forget. ...But you're overlooking something: Hew-mons used to be a lot worse than the Ferengi. Slavery. Concentration camps. Interstellar wars. We have nothing in our past that approaches that kind of barbarism. You see? We're nothing like you. We're better. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lock to pick." From that point forward, the Ferengi were used as a much more likable comic-relief troop. And that was the goal for their use here.
The "moral dilemma" as to whether or not the crew should try to intervene in the Ferengi's meddling is glossed over quickly, which is good because I can't think of any situation in which a Federation captain has hesitated before stopping a third party from breaking the prime directive. I don't quite get the reasoning for needing to send the Ferengi back and trying to remove the Ferengi in a less intrusive way. Certainly, Picard would have just beamed down and told the inhabitants that the Ferengi weren't their gods, and, by the way, all religion is a lie. Maybe that's not the best way to do it either, but there's got to be some middle ground, right? The way Voyager goes about it, they actually seem to legitimize the Ferengi's regime on the planet by making their departure fit with the prophecies. I'd rather that they just showed up with a bunch of phaser rifles, in plain view of the natives, and stormed off with the Ferengi without saying a word, at least leaving some doubt that they were actually the sages in the minds of the people there. Of course, if they did that, we wouldn't have an episode.
Neelix makes an entertaining Ferengi, but of course, he has portrayed one before. I don't have much else to say about that.
It also seems like a cheap ending to just have Ferengi MeddlingTM ruin Voyager's chances to get home. The Voyager crew is constantly being outsmarted by everyone they meet, and for me it is starting to add up - especially when it is done by two people who were being portrayed as the epitomes of incompetence for the entire rest of the episode. The director, Cliff Bole, was pretty apologetic for this episode, claiming that the reason why it wasn't terribly good is that it was "too silly." I disagree. Silly is fine. But this episode is just meaningless - a contrived conflict, and a chance to get home foiled by bumbling.
Watchability: 2/5
Bottom Line: People are often very quick to generalize and say that there's an overarching rule that caused an episode (or series) to not be very good. Silly isn't bad, even a meaningless episode isn't necessarily bad, but a combination of those factors with one-dimensional villains and generally uncreative dialogue produced a pretty boring result.
*Now I've lost another perfectly good hour to tvtropes.
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