Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

The Tomtrek

Love Wookiee
The Equinox's first officer Max Burke (Titus "Smoke Monster" Welliver) is an old boyfriend of B'Elanna's and calls her "BLT."

This always bugged me because surely her initials are BET. FUCK.

(why did Harry and B'Elanna decide to play the Doc's fantasies in the Holodeck? Just to laugh at him?)

Because it happened in TNG so it has to happen in Voyager, too!
 

whisky

Boobie inspector
We klingons have no hell Kirk, but we know the meaning of yours.
Kang, day of the dove.
 

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
Maybe B'Elanna's mum just made it up to scare her.
 

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
Neelix's fantasies would not have been suitable for family viewing.
 

Cassie

Touching the monolith
Staff member
I never want to see his feet again. :rwmad:
 

Cassie

Touching the monolith
Staff member
Too far :rwmad:
 

Cassie

Touching the monolith
Staff member
Toe fur, you mean.
 

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
 

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
I'd tell him what memes to post.
 

CaptainWacky

I want to smell dark matter
Alice - Voyager comes across a space junkyard, run by a suprisingly friendly alien (maybe the last shred of Ron Moore's influence.) Most of his junk is useless but Tom spots a shuttle that he instantly falls in love with. Chakotay mentions that Voyager has a "full compliment of shuttles" in a line that HAS to be an in joke but Tom persuades him to take the alien shuttle as it has a cool neural interface and Tom will fix it up by himself. Tom names the shuttle "Alice" after a girl he tried to shag in in the Academy. Alice scans Tom's brain then spookily creates a female voice for herself. She calls to Tom and he begins working on her non-stop, wearing a new "Alice flightsuit" outfit for all you Tom Paris action figure collectors. He turns down Captain Proton with Harry. He shows B'Elanna the newly cleaned up Alice and they have a date inside her, but gets annoyed when B'Elanna tries to press Alice's buttons. He takes a list of parts he needs for Alice to Chakotay but the first officer tells him he's working too hard on her and to take a rest (and put his fucking uniform on.) He sees Alice as a human woman, who looks a bit like human B'Elanna but isn't as good an actress. She tells him no one understands him but her.

Tom interfaces with Alice again and she takes over his brain, forcing him to continue the repairs. Tom even STOPS SHAVING which no one ever does but Riker (and he does it in a cool way.) She modifies his flight suit so he can hear her all the time. Seven becomes curious about this. Harry and B'Elanna discover that Tom's been stealing parts for Alice. B'Elanna goes to Alice to investigate and the evil shuttle tries to gas her to death. Tom saves her just in time and B'Elanna runs off to tell Janeway. Tom realises Alice has gone too far but she starts torturing him when he turns against her and forces him back into the shuttlebay. Tom flies off in Alice and they become "one" by her inserting coloured straws into his body. Tom and Alice escape and she keeps saying weird things. Voyager returns to the space junkyard and manage to get the owner to talks to them using a valuable crystal he accidentally traded to Neelix. The junkyard guy is revealed to have his own Head Alice who tortures him when he tries to reveal the truth about her. He reveals that Alice made him find a new pilot for her (he was too slow for her.) Seven finds that Tom and Alice are flying to a "particle fountain." Alice calls it "home." Voyager can't shoot Alice because it'll hurt Tom so the Doctor projects an image of B'Elanna into Tom's head using Alice's technology. Tom says stuff like "ALICE NEEDS ME" while B'Elanna tries to convince him that flying into a weird space thingy is a bad idea. Tom is saved just in time and Alice blows up. Tom apologises to B'Elanna for going a bit mad for a while there and everything's back to normal.

Why would someone build an evil shuttle? That's the big question I have right now. I guess we don't know how Alice came too be, maybe she was an evil entity that built a shuttle around herself, and I guess you could say the episode doesn't really tell us what she is in order to keep an air of mystery about it. But I think it's just that they wanted an episode about an evil shuttle and couldn't really come up with an explanation that made sense. Worst thing is that it's not even a good character episode for Tom because he isn't himself for most of it. He's just a brainwashed Tom repeating the same lines about "needing" Alice. We don't learn anything about him and even just as a spooky haunted shuttle episode it doesn't work either because it isn't scary. It's pretty bad!

SCORE: 3.5/10


Riddles - Tuvok and Neelix are in a shuttle together. As usual, Neelix is being annoying and Tuvok is being annoyed. Neelix wants to play a riddle game with him but Tuvok doesn't like stupid wordplay! An invisible alien shoots Tuvok. The Doctor saves Tuovk's life but the Vulcan man is left brain damaged. An investigator from the aliens Tuvok and Neelix were meeting with comes to Voyager and reveals that he believes Tuvok was attacked by a member of a secretive and xenophobic (typical Delta Quadrant then) race who few others on his planet believe in. Neelix won't leave Tuvok's bedside and moves all of Tuvok's stuff there. It's the typical kind of sweet but also annoying Neelix gesture. Tuvok wakes confused and Neelix has to perform scans on him because he's scared of the Doctor. The investigator manges to create an image of the mythical invisble aliens, enhanced by Seven to reveal tentacls. The Doc explains that Tuvok's weird Vulcan brain is doing weird Vulcan things and for now Tuvok doesn't really know who he is. Neelix looks after Tuvok and takes him to the Bridge, then to Tuvok's quarters. Seven and the investigator track down the aliens in their cloaked ships but there's lots of them and they fly away. Tuvok recovers the power of speech to tell Neelix he feels safe with him (aww.)

The investigator questions Tuvok about the attack but Tuvok can't remember much. Tuvok turns down lunch with Janeway to hang out with Neelix instead (he really is brain damaged!) Harry tries to teach Tuvok how to play Vulcan chess and it goes badly. Tuvok reads about his life and gets emotional with Neelix, scared that he'll never be a big smart Vulcan again. Seven and Neelix talk about the riddles each are trying to solve: finding the aliens and helping Tuvok get his logic back. Seven suggests it might not be possible to get the old Tuvok back and Neelix has to help him become the person he can be rather than the person he was. Neelix tells Tuvok that he's better at some things now, like making presents for Neelix. Tuvok is shocked that they weren't friends before. Neelix teaches Tuvok how to cook desserts and he has fun. Janeway asks him again about his attack and this time he remembers something important, drawing the alien's cloaking frequency with frosting. Voyager finds the aliens. They want to destroy Voyager because the investigator is onboard, but he genoursly offers to destroy his technology that exposed the aliens, so his people will never learn of them. They give information on their weapon to the Doctor and he comes up with a treatment. Tuvok isn't excited when Neelix tells him he could be cured. He wants to keep having fun with Neelix rather than going back to being all stuffy. Neelix talks him into going through with it. Tuvok goes completely back to normal and Neelix asks him to cook with him again. Tuvok tells him to fuck right off, but throws Neelix a bone by giving an alternative answer to his riddle from the start of the episode.

It's a sweet episode. Ethan Philips is actually a good actor in episodes like this and Tom Russ is always reliable. The scenes between the are really nice. My problem is it kind of doesn't go beyond sweet. Tuvok and Neelix hang out a couple of times, then he goes back to normal after only one moment of conflict. It just all ends up feeling a bit light. The ending is nice but it would have been better to show a permanent change in Tuvok and Neelix's relationship (I know, it's Voyager and that will never happen.) The investigator character being a bit like Mulder is knd of fun but the xenophobic paranoid aliens thing is so played out by now.

SCORE: 7.5/10
 

Eggs Mayonnaise

All In With The Nuts
Yeah, but there's several pretty good ones before we hit that wall.

Alice was a true dud.
 

Cassie

Touching the monolith
Staff member
I don't even remember Alice and I've been rewatching Voyager for the past couple years and it was just on last week! I think I fall asleep every time. Riddles is one of the best Neelix episodes, I almost don't hate him after I watch it. I love Tuvok, most episodes with him are great.
 
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