Change Your Image
alexwoolcott
Reviews
Star Trek: Voyager: Course: Oblivion (1999)
Tragedy in Space
I have a big soft spot for it, mostly out of appreciation for the fact that the writers made an active choice to make it as tragic as possible. Voyager (and television in general) often tend towards stories that give last minute victories, sometimes at the expense of realism. In this case, the writers went with their better instincts.
Voyager has been duplicated (see Season 4, Episode "Demon") and now they're starting to deteriorate. There's a lot of tension in this episode, both from the fact that anyone can die (including series regulars) and the conflict between the crew. This was still the era when they were having fun exploring the Chakotay / Janeway relationship and there's some real pathos after their divide becomes irrevocable.
Certainly, there's a bit of illogic to the premise - there's no indication in "Demon" that the biomimetic compound can duplicate technology, especially not as complex as a starship or the Doctor's mobile emitter; and it's amazing how their clothes don't deteriorate, even though in "Demon" we see that the clothes are made of the same biomimetic compound as the people themselves. But the premise does allow the writers to force the characters to confront their own mortality in a very real way. Further, Janeway is confronted with a crisis that the real Janeway never has to truly confront: only be giving up any hope of ever returning to Earth can she hope to save her crew
Star Trek: Voyager: Good Shepherd (2000)
Ant's Eye View of Voyager
In a direct rip-off of TNG's episode "Lower Decks", this episode focuses on three other crew members and their attempts to fit in on Voyager. This is a typical episode for Season 6, in which the writers focused on new characters (the Borg children ("Collective", Lt. Barclay "Pathfinder") and interactions with new species ("Dragon's Teeth", "Virtuoso", "Blink of an Eye"). This makes Season 6 slightly disappointing, as the regular characters seem stagnated for much of the season.
"Good Shepherd" does little to advance or explore the regular characters but still succeeds, mostly because of the creative decision to make the three crewmen less than competent. This contrasts directly with the characters of "Lower Decks" and creates a more realistic impression of life upon Voyager: it always does seem rather convenient that the bridge crew never makes mistakes. Further, it introduces new conflicts, the sort that we were promised when Voyager began - this was supposed to be a starship where the crew had interpersonal conflicts all the time, remember.
As a side note, this isn't the first time the show has been connected with "Lower Decks" - Ensign Vorek is first seen on that episode before reappearing in several Voyager episodes throughout the seasons.
Star Trek: Voyager: Endgame (2001)
One for the fans, sort of
"Endgame", like most series finales, is an episode entirely for the fans..and yet in the last few minutes, the writers fail to give the fans a pleasing little coda that would make us all well up with tears. In a way it makes sense: the premise of the series is that the crew wants to get home and so it ends the moment they get home. But it still would have been nice to see Janeway gather everyone together for one rousing little moment.
You should watch this episode when you're in a forgiving mood: the Chakotay / Seven of Nine romance comes more or less out of left field. Certainly the writers have hinted at it in two previous episodes (Human Error and Natural Law); now all of the sudden the two are having their "third" date. It's a little sloppy, like the rushed ending.
The major plot problem, sadly, is pointed out by the Borg Queen in her final moments, which feels like it was the character getting revenge for being killed. She remarks that once her Borg cube has killed Janeway, then the future Janeway will never exist and hence everything she's accomplished will be erased. But the same thing is accomplished if the Borg Queen lets the younger Janeway get home: for of course, this means that she won't have any reason to go back in time to change her past. It's not that I care the writers chose to ignore the paradox of time travel: it's just funny that they would so blatantly call our attention to it.
In a way this episode was quintessential Voyager: goofy, slightly illogical, and yet nonetheless engaging and fun. There were good episodes and bad ones, but on average they hit more balls then they missed. They also did much for the advancement of hologram rights: I mean, this episode shows the Doctor has married a human. This in itself boggles the mind and practically begs for a spin off series: I mean just think what you could do with their children.
Star Trek: Voyager: Worst Case Scenario (1997)
Holodeck fun
A nice strong episode that gives almost everyone (except for Kes) something to do. Rather than make this a "Janeway" episode of a "Chakotay" episode, the story rather cleverly ends up involving everyone. It starts of with B'lanna, but by the end of the show, Tuvok and Paris have taken centre stage.
To quote another reviewer, this episode does contain some of "typical Voyager stupidity" towards the end, but it's not as bad as it is in other shows and in any case, it leads to a lot of fun. This episode is reminiscent of "Ship in a Bottle" (from TNG) which must have been on the writer's brains (in that episode, the holographic Moriarty takes over the Holodeck.). Ship in a Bottle is a much smarter episode - I won't give it away, but let's just say that if Tuvok and Paris had seen it, they'd have saved themselves a lot of trouble.
The only tragic thing of this episode is that we get a glimpse of how exciting Voyager could have been as a show. I remember when the show was launched, the producers spoke of how it would be a show where "not everyone got along" because it would be a crew of both Maquis and Starfleet personnel. This notion quickly vanished in Season One and the Voyager crew became a "family" just like all the other Star Trek crew. "Worst Case Scenario" reveals another path which the show could have taken which certainly would have made it unique. A multi-episode story arc about a true hostile takeover might have made for a very interesting season indeed.
Star Trek: Voyager: Displaced (1997)
Basics Part III
Another above average episode of Voyager that suffers from the fact it's essentially a rehash of "Basics", the Season 2 / 3 two parter that saw the Kazon taking over the ship. The writers seem to know this as the logical things done in "Basics" are completely ignored here, as if the writers were afraid of being accused of copying themselves.
The crew of Voyager is having a bad week - this episode presumably takes place within days of "Distant Origin" (the previous episode) where their ship was commented by a more intelligent species (we know this because Tom and B'lanna make reference to a bet they made in that episode). Now their ship has been commented for the third time in Season 3. By now, you would think the crew would have things down to a science. In Basics, the crew does the logical thing - they put someone in a shuttlecraft and send them to get help; this time, for some reason, they aren't nearly so clever. Since the Doctor has proved himself capable in Basics of sabotaging the ship, Chakotay should not have bothered taking him with him: it would have been much better to download him into the mobile emitter and send him into the ship to sabotage it. It's almost as if nobody remembers the last two times someone took over their ship.
As previous reviewers have stated, this episode needed to be a two parter - everything happens just a little too quickly. Also, there's the usual Star Trek nonsense in which Janeway and Tuvok are able to not only decode an alien computer, but figure out how to master it within seconds. There's lots of other illogical things, but really this is Star Trek and often you just have to ignore it and enjoy the ride.
If you take this episode out of context and judge it on it's own merits (rather than how it fits into the show's mythology)it's a pretty tense and exciting episode that also serves to drive the Tom / B'lanna romance a little further forward. Ultimately, it's a good ride, but you can't help but think that it belonged in Season 1 or 2, when the crew wasn't nearly so experienced in dealing with people trying to take over their ship.
Star Trek: Voyager: Distant Origin (1997)
Galileo in Space
I'm going to go out on a limb and cite "Distant Origins" as one of the strongest episodes of the entire series. Although the central premise is a bit of a leap (dinosaurs evolved on a separate heretofore unknown continent, developed space faring technology and fled 65 million years ago), this remains a strong and compelling episode, mostly because of it parallels not only historical events but modern ones too.
The strongest feature of this episode is the fact that the story is almost exclusively told from the alien's point of view; the Voyager crew are almost secondary to the story. The aliens, called Saurians, are determined to prove a connection between their race and the dinosaurs of Earth, an idea which flies in the face of his society's accepted doctrine. This event and the subsequent trial leads to numerous parallels with Martin Luther, Galileo, Darwin, Copernicus and even Einstien (who was called upon to defend relativity on numerous occasions).
Although there's a bit of speechifying in this episode, it's almost always deserved and the only shame is that they didn't stretch this episode into a two-parter. There was enough potential drama here for a much longer story and it's a shame that the writers had to cram everything into a single show. Also, kudos must be given for being rather clever in the creation of the Saurian culture. Despite technological advancements (all designed with the Saurian's specific physical needs in mind) they are ultimately closed minded racists (they hate mammals and members of one tribe can only marry members of another specific tribe). Too often, races in Star Trek are either benevolent or evil: it's a pleasure to see one that has more shades of grey Finally, the episode also provides an interesting insight into Voyager's environmental footprint on the Delta Quadrant - aside from their technology, they're leaving a lot of themselves behind. This opens questions as to the long term implications of their journey and of space exploration in general (something we presently don't always consider as we venture to Mars and beyond)
Star Trek: Voyager: Favorite Son (1997)
Misogyny in space
A wildly offensive and misogynistic episode, "Favorite Son" opens with an intriguing premise: a alien species claims to have sent their offspring to other worlds where they gestate inside alien wombs Years later the children return to provide new genetic material into the alien culture. It's a Harry Kim episode this time out, so actor Garrett Wang gets to stretch his (limited) acting chops.
Sadly, the society that Ensign Kim is sent into is so sexist that I'm amazed a show as "progressive" as Star Trek ever let this get produced. The Terisians are made up entirely of beautiful women and of course they turn out to be a society of maneaters - like the preying mantis, they kill the man after sex. They tempt Harry Kim with a single thing: sex. They offer the prospect of 3 wives and the women pretty much hang off him like a harem.
Basically, this episode implies that the only way women can ever conquer men is through the use of sexual temptation - a terrible irony given Voyager is the show with the female captain who most often outwits her opponent and never has to resort to seducing them. What's so awful about this episode is that it's all so unnecessary and illogical: for one, the Terisians are presented to be so technologically advanced and powerful that they could kidnap all the men they needed. Since they attack Harry at the end, they clearly don't need the men to be willing participants in the mating ritual. Finally, if the Terisians really do need to create a society that is tempting to ALL visitors, they would need to have a much wider appeal then just giving men the possibility for a foursome. A alien from a polygmous species, for instance, wouldn't be tempted by something he could get a home. Logically, the Terisians would need to find other means of making their society so tempting At the end of the episode, Harry tells Neelix the story of Odysseus and how he lashed himself to the ship so he could hear the siren's songs. This is a mixed metaphor. Odysseus was not presented with a pre-pubescent fantasy by the siren's: he was presented with a song that cast a spell over him. If the Terisians had done this, "Favorite Son" would have been a much smarter and less offensive bit of TV.
Star Trek: Voyager: Before and After (1997)
Almost Clever
An episode that flirts with the being clever, "Before and After" suffers from the usual problem of Star Trek stories that involve trips to the future: if you change the show's mythology too much, you force the show to go into a certain direction. The dangers of this become apparent during Season 4 when Kes (Jennifer Lien) leaves the show, thus creating a paradox: the entire future she experienced is now impossible, rendering the entire episode rather moot.
The reason this episode is "almost" clever is that in Season 4, the writers do return to the very events that Kes experiences (in the episodes "Year of Hell Part 1 and 2") Had the writers been able to stick to ALL the events that Kes experiences (Janeway's death, B'lanna's death, Kes and Tom's marriage etc) then "Before and After" would have been a rather revolutionary piece of television: an episode that told the audience everything that would happen in the next four seasons (they could have even brought back the same actors to play Kes' daughter and grandson). Whether or not this would have worked isn't the point; it would have been one hell of an experiment (and we can already see that these sort of Flash forwards have come into use in shows like Lost, Dollhouse and, well, Flash Forward).
Sadly, this never happens. The episode ends with the usual bit about Kes experiencing "a possible future", thus freeing future seasons from any constraints. We are left, then, with an episode that is a slightly amusing stand-alone; telling a story backwards is always an engaging narrative device (see Harold Pinter's "Betrayal")and it's fun to see the Voyager crew engaging with each other in different ways. However, the episode does suffer from the fact that we as an audience figure out what's going on long before the characters do, and there's a bit of lag time while we wait for them to catch up.
Of course, this episode opens up the usual question about inter species mating. For one, even if Tom and Kes could have a child, chances are the kid would be sterile (as is often the case when animals intermingle). And even if kids were possible, Tom's daughter is 1/2 Ocampa, which means her kid will be 1/4 Ocampa - which means the grandson would probably not be aging according to the Ocampa's usual life cycle and would not be nearly as old as he seems to be.
Star Trek: Voyager: Unity (1997)
Borg return with middling results
Another humdrum episode from the Season Three archives who's only distinction is that it is the show's first episode with the Borg. Basically, Chakotay and Ensign Nobody land on a planet filled with Borg who have been freed from the Collective. Ensign Nobody is shot and killed within the first three seconds and Chakotay goes on to forge a relationship with the Borg lady who saved his life, resulting in a rare instance of sexual intimacy.
This intimacy is a rare thing in Voyager (and Star Trek shows in general) but it isn't used nearly enough to give the episode any bite. The climax of the episode has Chakotay helping the former Borg via some combination of telepathy and mind control, but it would have been a lot more interesting if he considered betraying Voyager all on his own simply because of some mushy feelings for his new friend.
What does make the episode interesting is the political questions raised about the limits of socialism within a democracy. The new Borg are living in a co-op, which is seen as a good thing so long as each of them are still free to make up their own minds about things. But the moment they have united their society into a single collective, the question is raised as to how they will use their new found "power".
The episode features more than a few holes (see the Goofs section for most of them), but watch towards the end of the episode for Harry Kim's imitation of the Flash. No sooner has he been beamed to the transporter room with the Away Team then he's suddenly on the Bridge (with none of his Away Team gear).
Star Trek: Voyager: Warlord (1996)
Surprisingly Subversive Episode
An early episode of Voyager that accidentally touches on a rather subversive topic, "Warlord" is fairly interesting and features a strong performance from Jennifer Lien. Someday, Lien is going to win an award for Best Underused Actress ever - a talented girl, she was forced to play Kes more or less like a soft spoken Vulcan for most of the show.
Finally, in "Warlord" she gets to have a little fun. Without giving too much away, a dying warlord transfers his consciousness into Kes and uses her body to stage a coup on his planet. Here's where the subversion kicks in: the Warlord is a man, but he seems to adjust to his new life inside a woman's body without the slightest problem. With hardly any effort, he uses his new body as a sexual weapon - far from a "warlord", he is more like a femme fatal, trying to use his new body to seduce everyone in sight (At one point, the possessed Kes even kisses Tuvok). The warlord's wife is naturally a little disturbed by this, and frankly the Warlord doesn't seem all that interested in her even though she seems to be the only woman on the whole planet.
I suppose you could chalk this up to lazy directing, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt. The show comes pretty close to giving us a lesbian kiss and the Kes / Tuvok kiss is reminiscent of the Kirk / Uhura moment thirty years before. Voyager never really broke new ground as a show, but it's nice to see them inching towards doing the thing that Star Trek was pretty much created to do: using science fiction to comment on our own culture.
I'll warn you: there's the usual laziness in this episode that was typical of Voyager throughout the entire seres. Voyager tended to shy away from any real creativity regarding creating alien cultures: the make up is lazy and the alien "society" is pretty much a carbon copy of our own, right down to the notion of the first born male heir inheriting the throne.