Menu
What's new
Troll Kingdom

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

Wacky Reviews: Star Trek

Dragon's Teeth - There's a pretty cool scene of CGI spaceships attacking a planet to a start. An alien named Gedrin and his wife go to sleep in stasis pods, planned to be for five years. Voyager finds some kind of "space tunnel" that takes them 200 light years in seconds. As usual, some hostile aliens show up to kick them out and threaten to delete all informations on the "space tunnel" (it's not really called that) from Voyager's computers. Voyager hides out on the planet from the start of the episode, a radioactive wasteland that was nuked 900 years ago. Voyager lands (it's back!) and it's just a few seconds rather than a big sequence. Janeway, Seven and Tuvok explore and find the pod people. Seven is compelled to wake Gedrin up (his wife is dead though.) Gedrin reveals his species are known as the Vaadwaur and they controlled a large area of space with their space tunnels before several rival species teamed up to nuke them. Interstingly he recognises the Borg and even the Talaxians (and "Vaadwaur" is a word in the Talaxian's old language that means "foolish.") Gedrin gets a lot of depth pretty quickly as there's also a scene where he calls his dead wife a coward, then helps Voyager defend itself against the hostile aliens (the Turei.) He offers to help Voyager get closer to home if Janeway wakes up his battalion and helps them off the planet. Chakotay is reminded of the myth of "Dragon's Teeth" (the name of the episode!) when he sees the battalion in an ominous scene but this doesn't stop Janeway reviving them. There's a scene where Neelix visits Naomi in his bedroom and it makes it look like they live together? Like not in a creepy way, but like he's her parent. Is he sleeping with Samantha (or IS SHE DEAD?) Naomi says the Vaadwaur children were mean and said Neelix was stupid (lol.) I think this scene is meant to be a warning that the Vaadwaur are bad guys but children from any specis can be pricks.

Gedrin learns Klingonese to impress B'Elanna. Neelix does more research into the Vaadwaur and finds many other species have tales of the Vaadwaur,none of them flattering. Seven and Gedrin have a hard time finding a home of the Vaadwaur. Tuvok makes a plan for Voyager and the Vaadwaur ships to escape the planet. Their leader Gaul (Robert Knepper, returning to Trek for the first time since TNG season 1) wants access to Voyager's weapons but of course Janeway won't allow it. He makes secret plans to take control of Voyager so the Vaadwaur can take a planet by force. Seven and Gedrin kind of bond as he tells her how the Borg weren't a big deal back in the day. Neelix tells Seven of all the stories he's found of the Vaadwaur. Janeway confronts Gedrin with the knowledge that the Vaadwaur were an aggressive species who used their corridors to conquer other worlds and were only defeated when their victims thought back. Gedrin says that was 900 years ago and things change as there's only six hundred Vaadwaur left alive now. Janeway tells Gaul to disengage the weapons on most of his ships and trust Voyager to defend them. Gaul refuses and instead attacks Voygar with the Vaadwaur fleet. There's some more nice effects work as Gaul sends dozens of ships after Voyager. Janeway calls the Turei and joins forces with them to stop the Vaadwaur once and for all (she doesn't tell them it was her who woke them up.) Gedrin pretty quickly turns on his own people and helps epose their ships to the Turei. Basically Voyager escapes, Gedrin is killed, and a few of the Vaadwaur ships get away. Oh, and Tuvokw as on the planet's surface with Gedrin and we don't see him back on the ship (and surely they couldn't beam him with the shields up) but I guess he somehow got back because nobody mentions Tuvok dying. Janeway aplogises for waking Gedrin and Janeway says it was a big mistake (not mentionng her own even bigger mistake in helping them) then warns that the remaining Vaadwaur will (somehow) become a huge threat to the whole galaxy.

It's a frustrating episode because the start is really good. There's some of the best special effects in Voyager yet and Gedrin is a very strong guest character who (in the first half at least) feels like a real person. The first sign it's not going to live up to its potential comes when Chakotay gives his "DRAGON'S TEETH" warning...and Janeway just ignores it and wakes up the Vaadwaur anyway. And arms them. Everything goes horribly wrong for Voyager and at NO POINT does Janeway admit "oh yeah I made a big mistake helping these guys!" It's an episode about Janeway making a mistake but she has no moment of reflection at all! Instead she just blames Seven at the end and it's weird. Everything gets really rushed once the bad Vaadwaur wake up and Gedrin switching sides so easily feels wrong. The action bits are fun to watch, yeah, but the episode sadly ends up feeling empty. Great first half though.

SCORE: 7.5/10


One Small Step - The episode starts in 2032 with an Earth spaceship around orbit of Mars. The astornaut (Phil Morris who was a great Jem'Hadar in 'Rocks and Shoals') onboard sees some kind of weird space thing. Systems starts to malfunction on Voyager (Chakotay has to jump through his door!) Seven is responsible, carrying out unauthorised improvements to the ship's computer. Voyager comes across the same weird space thing as the astronaut from the teaser. Janeway recognises it as a graviton ellipse and Chakotay remembers that an early mission to Mars was disrupted by one. Seven and Tuvok discover that the Ares 4 command module is inside the Graviton Ellipse. Chuckles volunteers to lead a mission inside to rescue the module. Seven asks Janeway what the fucking point is in doing this and Janeway explains that humans have an appreciation of their own history that Seven can't understand because she was a Borg. Chakotay and Tom watch astronaut John Kelly's final logs from the command module. Chakotay is suddenly a big fan of Earth history in this episode, the role Tom usually takes. Seven is going on the mission with them but isn't happy about it. This is an episode where Seven just keeps talking about everything being a waste of time and it feels slightly forced. The Doctor asks her to take photos inside the ellipse. The three fly inside in the Delta Flyer and provide commentary to Voyager. They find artifacts from other civlisations inside, and even evidence of metallic life, but Seven isn't impressed and doesn't understand why Chakotay loves old stuff so much.

The Flyer finds the Ares and Chakotay wants to tractor beam it out, but a space thing is about to hit the ellipse so Janeway orders them out. Chakotay disobeys orders as he doesn't want to leave without the module. It slows them down and the Flyer doesn't get out in time. Chakotay is electrocuted too. When Chakotay wakes up he just wants to salvage the module even though the Flyer's engines aren't working. Seven tells Chakotay off for disobeying orders and nearly getting them killed for an old command module. She has a point. Chakotay kind of apologises a bit. Voyager comes up with a way to get the Flyer free but it'll require Seven visiting the Ares (I can't remember why.) Chakotay asks her to take a look around when she's there. Seven explores the Ares in a spacesuit (there's no gravity obviously.) She finds logs Kelly made after he was taken away by the ellipse and plays them for Tom and Chuckles (who thought he'd died instantly.) We get flashbacks showing Kelly inside the ellipse recording his logs. Chakotay and Tom are moved by his recordings and even Seven seems to start feeling something as she finds a photo of Kelly with his wife. In his final log Kelly says they were right to go into space despite it costing him his life. Seven frantically downloads Kelly's database and beams his body back to the Flyer with her. Voyager manages to pull the Flyer out of the Ellipse. Voyager has a funeral for Kelly on the Bridge. Janeway makes a speech about how important the early space exploration was. Seven makes a speech about how important Kelly was and tells him who won the baseball thing. His body is shot out into space in a torpedo tube.

It's a good episode because it's all about exploring space! Like Star Trek! I do have issues with Seven being a bit over the top in the first half of the episode. I can understand her not caring so much about history as the others, but she has one too many "this is all a waste of time!" moment. It's all to set up the scene of her watching Kelly's logs, which is very good, so it's pretty much worth it. This is is an episode that gets better as it goes on, the opposite of the previous one!

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
The Voyager Conspiracy - We start with a scene of Naomi wanting to hang out with Seven and Seven being busy, which means we'll end with a scene of Seven agreeing to hang out with Naomi because the events of the episode have made her desire the kid's company. Seven's been working on a way to download loads of information at once. Janeway and Chakotay have dinner together(!) Seven's new information downloading leads her to correctly determine that "photonic fleas" have been eating energy on Voyager. The ship meets a guy whos' working on a "spaceship catapult" that can potentially send a ship thousands of light years across space. He can't get it to work so Janeway agrees to help him out because obviously she wants to use his catapult too. But Seven does more data analysis and comes to Janeway with the news that the catapult is made of the same technology as the Caretaker's array (we get flashbacks to 'Caretaker' as she's explaining it which is a nice touch.) She thinks catapult dude therefore must have some connection to the Caretaker. The Doctor does some scans on the alien and determines he isn't a "caretaker" as if that's the name of the species (they have a real name but I can't reember it!) Seven does some more triggering, examining the detonation that destroyed the Caretaker's array five years ago. She spots what looks like a tractor beam pulling something from the array as it explodes. The confronts Tuvok and Paris with her theory that the tractor beam stole the technology that was used to make the space catapult. She visits Neelix who admits he also thinks the Caretaker's "I'm looking for a mate!" reason to bring all those ships to the DQ was a bit weird. Voyager helps the alien get home using his catapult. Seven calls Chakotay away and tells him Voyager was sent to the DQ on purpose...BY JANEWAY.

Seven lays out her conspiracy theory to Chakotay. She has answers for all his questions and gets his attention. Jeri Ryan does a great job delivering all the paranoid rantings here and making them sound kind of plausible, though it's still pretty clear that what she's saying can't be true (Janway isn't going to turn out to be a bad guy.) She brings up Tuvok using tricobolt bombs to blow up the array, which aren't standard issue on a ship like Voyager. She brings up more and more "evidence" and while Chakotay isn't exactly won over he is curious. She tells him not to let Janeway get control of the catapult. Chakotay plots with B'Elanna to slow down Voyager attempt at using the catapult. Then the big twist: Seven comes to Janeway and tells her that she's concluded that Chakotay and others are plotting to resurrect the Maquis! She presents more "evidence" to Janeway, including the suggestion that Tuvok is secretly a Maquis operative on Chakotay's side. Janeway doesn't buy Seven's rantings for a second, because she's much smarter than Chakotay. Seven goes completely nuts and asks Naomi Wildman who she's really working for. Janeway and Chakotay have a tense meeting in Seven's cargo bay where each tries to determine if the other is up to something. They find out that Seven has told each of them different theories with the same evidence. Seven runs away on a shuttle. The Doc reports that she's downloaded more informations than she can progress and her brain is going to explode or something. Janeway beams over to the shuttle. Seven has a third theory now: it's all about her. Voyager came to the DQ to retrieve Seven and take her home to be experimented on by scientists. Janeway starts laying out facts of her own, giving the dates of significant moments in Seven's life since she came onboard Voyager. It's a nice scene due to the always great chemistry between Mulgrew and Ryan. Voyager uses the catapult (off camera) and gets three years closer to home. Seven turns off her new processor and hey, guess what, Naomi comes to visit her and cheer her up!

The scenes of Seven ratting off her conspiracy theories to Janeway and Chakotay are pretty fun but also really silly. They do a pretty good job of showing how peope can get carried away with conspiracy theories (JFK DID 9/11), but I don't buy for a second that Chakotay would be taken in by her. Both he and Janway should have thought "oh there's something wrong with her new processor" right away. Having them suspect each other doesn't really ring true. The best part of the episode is Janeway talking Seven around with her list of nice Seven moments. It elevates the episode slightly. Slightly! Otherwise it's just all pretty stupid but watchable. And we never find out why Voyager had the tricobolt bombs.

SCORE: 6.5/10


Pathfinder - Deanna Troi(!) goes to visit Reg Barclay(!) on Earth. She soon suspects something is up with him. His cat Neelix (HMM) eats her chocolate ice cream! She name drops Geordi, Data and Data's cat spot within two minutes of each other. Reg admits he's become obsessed...with Voyager. He tells her how he's been working on a way to contact Voyager and the story plays out in flashback. He and his superior office Pete on the Pathfinder project are due to meet with Admiral Paris (and Reg mentions "Deep Space Nine" in here because why not) and Reg thinks he has a way to create a wormhole and speak with Voyager live. Pete tries to set Reg up with a girl but he's too obsessed with Voyager (and girls are scary.) He's also been running a holodeck simulation of Voyager. All the holo Voyager crew think Reg is a COOL GUY and the Maquis still wear Maquis clothes instead of Starfleet uniforms. He gets a massage from the Doctor. He even sleeps in quarters in the holo Voyager. Pete briefs Admiral Paris on the latest Voyager news. He doesn't want Reg to do anything weird, but of course Reg speaks up in a stuttering, autism-y way. Admial Paris is very patient with him, not at all like how Tom described him. Pete gives him the day off so of course Reg goes back to hang out on holo Voyager. He brainstorms with the Voyager crew (except Seven who I guess he doesn't know about) and comes up with the idea for a "micro wormhole."

Pete catches him out. He thinks Reg's holo addiction has come back and kicks him off the project. Instead of going home, Reg hangs around the office of Admiral Paris. The Admiral finally agrrees to speak with him, telling him he finds it a bit weird that Reg hangs out with a hologram of his son. Paris promises to review Reg's findings and determine if his micro wormhole idea could work, bt Reg tells Deanna the Admiral was just trying to get rid of him and he needs to be allowed to reeturn to work. Deanna refuses to speak up on his behalf as Reg is obviously off his rocker. But she wants to help Reg and has asked Picard (yes another name drop) for time off to spend it with Reg and fix his brain. It's a nice moment but Reg just breaks into the Pathfinder the next day and tries to create his micro wormhole to talk to Voyager. How does he know Voyager's exact location? The last time Starfleet talked to them was in season four and Voyager's cut over thirty thousand light years from their journey since then, something Reg couldn't possibly know about. They could have at least come up with some technobabble explanation. He sends his message just as Pete shows up to arrest him. Reg goes on the run in his holo Voyager. The holo crew help him out, which is kind of sweet. He keeps sending the message to different trajectories (again this would be a good time for an explanation as to how he knows where Voyager is!) Pete sets Voyager's warp core to breach. Barclay can't stand to see his holo friends die so ends the program right before the ship would explode. On the REAL Voyager, Seven and Neelix detect the micro wormhole. Voyager picks up his message. Admiral Paris comes to Pete and tells him Barclay's plan is worth an attempt. It's convenient, because it's right then that Janway calls back. They exchange information. Admiral Paris gets to tell Tom he's proud of him and it's nice. Paris tells Reg that Project Voyager is just beginning. Everyone on Voyager talks about Barclay and how he came through for them (they don't manage to reference his appearance in season two, which is weird considering all the references to other shows this episode made.) Reg tells Deanna he's going on a date with the girl.

I remembered this as being one of the best Voyager episodes, but for the first half I was kind of wondering why? I mean, it's good. Dwight Schultz always does great work as Reg and it was certainly nice to see Deanna again, but it all just felt too derivative of several TNG episodes (mainly 'Holo Persuits' and the one where Geordi falls in love with a hologram.) We've already seen Reg's holo addiction in TNG and I wondered why we had to see it agian here on Voager, as nicely played as it was. The name dropping got a bit out of control too ("WEATHER REPORTS FROM DEEP SPACE NINE") and felt a bit distracting. HOWEVER I could be the end why I remembered it so fondly: that scene where Voyager talks to Barclay and particularly Admiral Paris talking to his son. It's a great moment. I just don't know if the rest of the episode is up to that level? Why we're watching a TNG character making friends with holograms instead of just watching the Voyager crew do something? I do think it's a very good episode though! Maybe I'm just trying too hard to "review" it.

SCORE: 8.5/10
 
No, you're on the right track with Pathfinder. The payoff will always be the last scenes, and repeated viewings just allow us to pick apart the buildup as we anticipate it. "Maybe we should introduce him to Data's cat, Spot" was the most cringeworthy namedrop. Because cat owners always set up playdates.

But I will admit I've watched the episode about a thousand times.
 
Given how I wss, and still are a massive A team fan, any episode with Dwight is always a favourite.

I did hear rumours they wanted to make him a TNG regular, but some of the cast vetoed it, presumably so as not to impact on their own screen time.
 
Fair Haven - Tom is hanging out in his latest Holodeck creation, the most stereotypical Irish village you could possibly imagine (someone says "the good Lord..." within thirty seconds.) Harry wants to modify the program so a girl will shag him (as usual) but Tom says "Fair Haven is perfect." OH NO IT ISN'T. The Doctor is playing a priest for some reason. Harry improbably beats a local tough at arm wrestling. Janeway shows up and tells Tom he's outdone himself (she's an expert on Irish history too...so how the fuck can she think that.) The ship runs into a space anomaly so generic I'm not going to mention it agian. Janeway goes to the Fair Haven bar and hangs out with barman Michael Sullivan after hours. She supposedly has a good time. The next day she modifies his character to make him more intelligent and more physically attractive (and, in the only funny line of the episode, "delete the wife.") Tom, Harry and Neelix act like fucking children trying to make Tuvok throw up.

Janeway hangs out with the new, well-read Michael. He still talks about fairies and shit though. Chakotay catches her with Michael and she's embarrassed. He makes fun of her for making him sexier but says it was nice to see her have fun. Janeway does an Irish dance with Michael in the pub then deletes all characters but him. They kiss. Even fucking Seven hangs out in Fair Haven (as if) and plays darts. Neelix tends bar while Michael is sad that Janeway hasn't been to see him since the kiss. He gets drunk and demands Tom tell him where "Katie" is. This plays out like a dramatic scene even though he's a fucking hologram. A pub brawl breaks out hahaha they're Irish. The Doc tells Janeway he's worried about her. She "confesses" (he's a priest, see) that she made Michael into the perfect man. That made him feel less real so she walked out on him. The Doctor says Janeway can't have a relationship with a member of the crew so she should have one with a hologram, claiming it's the "same thing" as a real romance. No it fucking isn't. The Doc advises her to stop editing Michael and see how things go. The Fair Haven program is damaged by the space thingy. More than 90% of it is lost but Michael of course survives. Janway tells him she's leaving town, but then changes her mind and says maybe she'll come back when the program is fixed.

The thing is, you could have actually done a decent episode about falling for a hologram. TNG did it. With Voyager being stranded in the DQ, it makes sense that Janeway might have looked for love on the Holodeck. You could explore the difference between romance and just her phsyical needs. And the thing about her editing his program to make him the perfect man is almost interesting and the only slightly redeemable part of the episode. But, at the end of the day, he's a fucking stereotypical Irish hologram. He's not the Doctor, he's not Moriarty, he's not a reaction of a real person like Leah. He's just (the most over-used line on Voyager) "photons and forcefields" so suggesting that Janeway could have a real relationship with him (as the Doc does) is laughable. And I just don't buy it from Janeway. If that was all there was to the episode it would be pretty bad but forgettable, but there's also the setting. The worst setting in the history of Star Trek. It's painful watching the characters act like they love Fair Haven when any sane person would never want to visit.

SCORE: 1.5/10


Blink of an Eye - Voyager finds a strange planet that seems to be rotating super fast. They investigate and are caught in the weird field around it. The primative aliens below see Voyager as a new light in the sky. They believe Voyager is a new god and place offerings to it. In Astrometrics, Seven explains that Voyager's arrival is causing earthquakes on the planet below. Due to time moving faster on the planet, they can watch seasons pass in seconds. The planet has evolved enough that the aliens who live there can now attempt to send a message to Voyager using a hot air balloon (that won't work!) Balloon guy believes that each star in the sky contains a city and they can get "The Groundshaker" (Voyager) to stop sending earthquakes if they ask nicely. We see a scribe writing the letter IN ENGLISH which is really dumb? Is the Universal Translator translating the viewer's perception? Chakotay and B'Elanna watch the citizens of the planet create roads and use lots of iron to hold their buildings up because of all the earthquakes. A guy in an observatory on the planet now has a good look at Voyager and his young co-worker tries to send a radio message to it. They've worked out that the "skyship" isn't causing the earthquakes on purpose. Chakotay and Seven manage to pick up the radio message the older of the two sent, but of course he's been dead for years by then. Tuvok says they can't send a message back because of the Prime Directive but Chakotay points out that Voyager's already affected their society by being stuck in the sky for thousands of years. Janeway comes up with the idea to send the Doctor down to the planet to observe. He's only supposed to be beamed won for three seconds but something goes wrong and B'Elanna and Janeway lose him.

They manage to get the Doctor back, after he's been on the planet for three years. He gives them an update on what's been going on and reveals that Voyager's presence in he sky has inspired the people's development. He mentions an apparent girlfriend. Naomi comes to bother Seven at work again as she's written a story about the "weird planet." Two astronauts on the planet (one played by the great DANIEL DAE KIM) launch a rocket and fly to Voyager. They're just supposed to take scans but the non-DDK one has them go inside. They find the Voyager crew frozenin time like in the TNG episode 'Timescape' (I'm not sure how this makes sense, shouldn't they be moving at Voyager speed as soon as they arrive?) They collapse and time starts moving normally. The non-DDK one dies, but he soon understands what's going on after Janeway talks to him. He sings a child's prayer about Voyager to Janeway. Even though he knows everyone who ever knew is dead by now, he doesn't regret coming to Voyager as it was always hid ream. He talks to the Doc about recent sporting results. He tells Seven's he's worried his people will stagnate without Voyager in the sky to inspire them. They watch as the planet experiments with warp technology then fire anti-matter torpedos at Voyager. Janeway won't fire back and instead sends DDK back below to tell them to stop firing. Before he leaves the Doc asks DDK to look up what happened to someone...his son. It's very intriguing and we'll never find out any further details! No one believes who DDK is as he's supposed to have been dead for fifty years, but he lands his spaceship anyway. A more advanced ship flies up from the planet and pulls Voyager away with tractor beams. DDK beams over and tells them that his people are still moving super fast so Voyager can't talk to them yet. Later an older DDK watches Voyager finally leave the sky.

This is more like it! It's a proper science fiction story! Yeah it's obviously inspired by a TOS episode with a similar name, but it's much better than that one and makes a lot more sense. I like the various stages of the planet's development being shown and how they each view Voyager (even if some of the guest actors aren't as strong as others.) The part with the Doctor visiting the planet totally could have been an episode all by itself. And Daniel Dae Kim does a great job in the final segment, one of the strongest guest stars Voyager's had in a long time. This is the type of episode they should be doing ever week.

SCORE: 9/10
 
Didn't the doc end up married and have a kid on the planet, or am I mixing this up with a different episode?
 
He had a lover and later asks DDK to look up what happened to his son (presumably the woman had a child from a previous relationship and the Doctor adopted him.)
 
Virtuoso - The Doctor treats the crew of a damage alien (the Qomor) ship. They're pretty rude to him and to Janeway. And guess what, they never interact with other species! Just like ever fucking DQ race. They are however fascinated when the Doctor starts singing as music doesn't exist on their world. They're obsessed with maths (not "math") and the mathematical properties of music. They invite Voyager to visit their planet and the Doctor puts on a recital for their president. He lets Harry's band (Harry's got a band, guys) play too, but the Qomor insist on the Doctor singing. The Qomor want the Doctor to put on a concert on their planet and he has cute Qomor girl Tincoo and B'Elanna help him design an opera house for him (B'Elanna is typically disinterested.) After the Doctor's performance, broadcast to the entire Qomor society, Seven orders a red alert on Voyager. She believes the Qomor are trying to sabotage their comm system by sending fan letters to the Doctor. Yeah, they've made Seven stupid for the purpose of a joke. There's a tedious scene of Janeway explaing fandom to Seven. Loads of Qomor come Voyager to see the Doctor, some even cutting their hair to look more like him. The Doctor signs little mini singing replicas of himself for them and instantly turns into a big pop diva. He calls Janeway "Kathryn" and has to be ordered to Sickbay. In Sickbay Tom is treating two young women who fainted when waiting to see the Doctor (like girls used to do with the Beatles!) They try to seduce him when he's alone with them (unlike the Beatles he doesn't fuck them.)

Tincoo uses her mathematical skills to create a new composition for the Doctor. Tincoo tries to talk the Doctor into staying on the planet. Her acting is pretty bad. The Doc mistakenly think she's in love with him too. He resigns his commission from Voyager. That's...kind of weird. Surely he'd be programmed to be uanble to do that? Janeway doesn't want to let him leave and the Doc accuses her of treating him differently from the rest of the crew. She brings up the medical needs of the crew but he doesn't give a fuck about that anymore, apparently. He claims Tincoo appreciates him in a way no one in the crew ever has. Janeway points out that the Qomor might become bored of him and once Voyage's gone he'll be stuck there. But she decides to accept his resignation because they're friends. The Doc leaves Tom in charge of Sickbay and they have a kind of sad goodbye. Seven isn't happy at the Doc for leaving. He explains that he's never felt appreciated on Voyager and the Qomor respect and even love him. But Seven just tells him to fuck off. Tincoo calls the Doc down to the planet and tells him she's created a superior hologram to sing for her people. Now the Doc can stay on Voyager and the Qomor can enjoy the better singer! The Doc is upset she'd replace him so easily and realises she never really loved him. She still wants him to sing tomorrow in his farewell performance. The Doc tries to get B'Elanna to delete his medical database (really?) so that he'll have more space in his database for singing and be able to perform Tincoo's special song. B'Elanna won't do it as it'll take away what makes the Doctor who he is. He sings an opera song (I'm not looking up the name) for the Qomor in a heartfel performance. Janeway is moved but the Qomor just applaud politely. Tincoo's new hologram then sings her song and it's all weird but the Qomor like it! The Doctor goes crawling back to Janeway and wants to be punished but she lets him go back to work. Seven then reads out a fan letter she wrote to the Doctor make him feel better. Aww.

The big problem I have with this episode is the Doctor actually asking to leave the ship. Surely that violates his Hippopotamus Oath? There's no way Tom Fucking Paris can be as good a Chief Medical Officer as him. People will die! Because the Doctor wants to sing. And speaking of singing, it's another episode that feels at times like it just exists as an excuse for Robert Picardo to sing again. The actress playing Tincoo gives a weird performance. Having said that, there's good stuff here. It's quite funny and the scene at the end where the Doctor singins his heart out but the Qomor prefer the weird maths song is genuinely very good. Jeri Ryan and Picardo always have strong chemistry in their scenes too. So I don't know. I hate the Doc being a total prick but some of it's quite well done.

SCORE: 6/10


Memorial - Chakotay, Tom, Harry and Neelix have been on a two week away mission (wow that would be horrible) in the Delta Flyer. B'Elanna has replicated a 1950's tv for Tom and he watches cartoons with her on it (weirdly he needs B'Elanna to explain adverts to him when he's supposed to be the 20th century expert?) Later that night, Tom sees himself on the tv, fighting in a war. He has a flashback to be being shot in the jungle. Harry has similar flashbacks, causing an anxiety attack, and goes to Sickbay but the Doctor think he's just exhausted. Naomi comes to see Neelix (Seven must be busy) while he's cutting vegetables in the Mess Hall and he has war flashbacks and starts freaking out. Chakotay has dreams of the same war (I think we get the idea by now.) Tuvok calls him to the Mess Hall where Neelix is hiding out with Naomi and threatening to shoot people. Chakotay talks him down by convincing him the war is over. Everyone tries to work out what's going on in a staff metting with Janeway and the Doc. They remember more details of the conflict and we get a flashback to an army briefing type scene with some aliens. They try to rescuse some villagers but something goes wrong and fighting breaks out. Villagers are shot to stop them from running away. The away team all argue with each other over if they did the right thing. Harry remembers freaking out in some tunnels and shooting unarmed civilians.

B'Elanna tries to cheer Tom up with 20th century stuff but he's still sad about slaughtering all those people. He doesn't believe his memories have been altered. Voyager returns to the system the DF visited and Janeway starts experiencing the flashbacks now. More crewmembers start experiencing the same thing. Janeway finally decides once and for all that it can't be real since it seems unlikely that the whole crew could have took part in a massacre and forgot about it. But she still wants to find out who is responsible and make sure it wasn't them. Neelix asks Seven if she ever feels shame for the things she did as a Borg. She says her feelings of remorse help her from ever repeating those horrible acts in the future. Voyager goes to the planet where the massacre took place and Harry visits the tunnels where he freaked out and killed those people. He nearly has a panic attack but Tuvok helps him through it. They find the tunnels full of COBWEBS (a sure sign of TIME PASSING) and the remains of two people who died three hundred years ago. Harry couldn't have done it (unless he time travelled!) Janeway and Chakotay find a war memorial. It's been trasmitting memories of the massacre to anyone who comes near it. It's so old it's been malfunctioned and that's why the memories are out of sequence and confusing. Most of the crew want to shut the memorial down, but Neelix points out that the memorial is there to help people remember the mistakes of the past. Janeway agrees with Neelix and orders the crew to keep the trasmitter active, but repair it so it works properly (it's not really clear what it does when working properly?) and leave a warning so no one experiences it without expecting it (which kind of defeats the purpose, really?)

It's an okay episode but it feels very familiar. It reminds me of 'Nemesis' at times and parts of other episodes. There's some good stuff like Neelix's scene with Seven (and Ethan Philips I think is the most convincing here during the freakout scenes) but there's nothing really new or super interesting. Janeway's decision at the end seems controverisal, at fist. You think "Janeway's going to let the memorial mind rape other people!" but then she mentions she's leaving a warning so no one will experience the flashbacks without wanting to. I don't think many people are going to want to volunteer to experience the flashbacks? So leaving the memorail operational doesn't end up being a big deal (and it's not clear how traumatic the experience is once the memorial's repaired.) It's an average episode of Star Trek.

SCORE: 6.5/10
 
Interrupting here because I've been watching the TNG movies tonight, and I came across this bit of trivia about Insurrection on IMDb:
This movie takes place shortly after the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) season six finale, "Tears of the Prophets".
Click to expand...
What the fuck? So Worf had just lost Jadzia when he crossed paths with the ENT crew, and it never gets mentioned? In fact, one could argue that in this movie Worf appears happier and more devil-may-care than in any other movie. SO WTF.
 
I always thought it took place halfway into season seven (since that was when it was released.)

(I'm had a lot of tv shows to watch lately so the thread has slowed...the quality of some recent offerings doesnt' help probably.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top