From the moment this episode starts, the plausibility of it is so stretched it nearly insults a Star Trek fan's intelligence, or anyone else for that matter. This episode was a season opener, designed to welcome back the Trek faithful, and to possibly integrate new viewers who might be curious. I'm surprised both didn't run as far away from this show as possible after viewing this monstrosity. And, for those that are ardent Trek fans dating back to The Original Series, it illustrates in someways how the later franchises drifted from what made TOS special, and the later attempts struggle with. They didn't understand the essence of TOS, as Shatner once said Roddenberry admitted "I'm writing Greek morality plays"; these later franchises focused on bells and whistles, techno-babble, and convenient resolutions in the final moments that stretch credulity. TOS focused on soul, humanity, and character development. At least in it's best episodes. In it's worst ones, well, they were more like this one.
Continuing their return voyage that hopefully one day lead them home, Voyager encounters unusual compounds detected within the spacial expanse of the Delta Quadrant, ferric oxide: rust. That's peculiar! And an examination of this anomaly leads to... A '36 Ford pickup! In space! In the Delta Quadrant! I was expecting ZZ Top to appear! Well, OK, now the viewer's interest is piqued. How can this be? Let's find out. It's brought aboard ship, and the crew examines, looking for clues. Conveniently, Tom Paris is an expert in such ancient vehicles, explaining to the crew (in great detail) what year, make, and model the vehicle is, and how everything about it works. Not only how it works, but THAT it works! That's right, a 400 year old Ford pickup floating 70,000 light years from it's origin in temperatures not all that warmer than 0º Kelvin miraculously fires up it's engines once Mr. Paris locates the keys! I guess they really didn't make them like they used to! Lt. Torres even notes some strange biomass in the bed of the vehicle, which Janeway surmises even without the use of a tricorder that it's manure. Yeah, well Capt., you certainly can smell that emanating from this episode.
Tom also plays around with the vehicles archaic "AM Radio", and manages to pick up a heretofore undiscovered frequency modulation emanating from a nearby planet! Yeah! Wow! Whodathunkit?? 24th Century state-of-the-art scanning equipment that can detect trace amounts of ferric oxide at Warp Speeds seems to have missed a AM band distress call emanating from a nearby planet, but the radio on a '36 Ford floating in space for 400 years, THAT will detect it! Has your head exploded yet??
Inconveniently, the planet, upon inspection, will not allow for the usual Away Team beam down, in fact atmospheric conditions won't even allow a shuttlecraft to land. Nope. For this, we're going to have to break out the big guns and land Voyager! Yay! You know they must be hiding a complete lack of script development when they need to distract the viewer with some razzle-dazzle like this, seeing as no Federation starship has ever been shown to land on a planet before. And, as we discover later, for no real particular reason to the plot device other than "gee, we just can't do it any other way. Enjoy!" BTW, not to be too nitpicking, but when it does land, and our brave away team exits the craft with our faithful Voyager resting in the background, the perspective is off so much that it appears that they would be lucky to fix the entire number of the Away Team within it's structure, let alone the dozens and dozens of crew Voyager holds. Must be a little cramped in there. They could have made that a little more believable, but seeing as that doesn't seem to be the case from the outset of this episode, I guess I should understand.
More anachronistic Earth vehicles are discovered, along with integrated alien technology. Instead of Janeway surmising this could be some kind of trap to lure the crew (I mean, after all, HOW THE HELL DOES A WORKING '36 FORD END UP IN THE DELTA QUADRANT!!) the investigation blithely continues until they discover a number of humans cryogenically frozen including Amelia Earhart!! What? No Bruce Lee? No Woody Allen (see Sleeper)? And, although Capt. Janeway apparently had no idea what a '36 Ford was, or what an SOS distress beacon is, she DOES, in fact, know virtually everything there is to know about Amelia Earhart. Well, that's probably why she's in command.
Janeway's primary mission since the first episode of this series is to find a way home in less than 75 years. She seems more interested in solving what happened to Earhart than fulfilling her primary mission.
I personally couldn't continue with this farce any longer. Not only am I not interested in how these anachronistic elements of Earth history ended up out here, I also don't see how this is going to further any character development, add to the story arc, or posit some poignant question about The Human Condition that will make one think "hmmm" It's just a childish exercise of playtime; "oh, what's that? Let's land here! Amelia Earhart! Run diagnostic scans! Reroute power couplings! Maybe with a tri-phasic inversion to the deflector array! Torres is on it!" Blah, blah, blah. The lines are stiff and forced, plot devices unbelievable and unoriginal,and I'm not really sure any of the actors are buying this premise of an episode either. They're mailing this one in; it's filler. And this is the Season Opener!
If you care to subject yourself to any more of this vapid and confusing plot, enjoy the rest of the show. Perhaps you can have enjoyment laughing at it's ridiculousness? Otherwise, skip ahead and find something a little less insulting to the intelligence.
Continuing their return voyage that hopefully one day lead them home, Voyager encounters unusual compounds detected within the spacial expanse of the Delta Quadrant, ferric oxide: rust. That's peculiar! And an examination of this anomaly leads to... A '36 Ford pickup! In space! In the Delta Quadrant! I was expecting ZZ Top to appear! Well, OK, now the viewer's interest is piqued. How can this be? Let's find out. It's brought aboard ship, and the crew examines, looking for clues. Conveniently, Tom Paris is an expert in such ancient vehicles, explaining to the crew (in great detail) what year, make, and model the vehicle is, and how everything about it works. Not only how it works, but THAT it works! That's right, a 400 year old Ford pickup floating 70,000 light years from it's origin in temperatures not all that warmer than 0º Kelvin miraculously fires up it's engines once Mr. Paris locates the keys! I guess they really didn't make them like they used to! Lt. Torres even notes some strange biomass in the bed of the vehicle, which Janeway surmises even without the use of a tricorder that it's manure. Yeah, well Capt., you certainly can smell that emanating from this episode.
Tom also plays around with the vehicles archaic "AM Radio", and manages to pick up a heretofore undiscovered frequency modulation emanating from a nearby planet! Yeah! Wow! Whodathunkit?? 24th Century state-of-the-art scanning equipment that can detect trace amounts of ferric oxide at Warp Speeds seems to have missed a AM band distress call emanating from a nearby planet, but the radio on a '36 Ford floating in space for 400 years, THAT will detect it! Has your head exploded yet??
Inconveniently, the planet, upon inspection, will not allow for the usual Away Team beam down, in fact atmospheric conditions won't even allow a shuttlecraft to land. Nope. For this, we're going to have to break out the big guns and land Voyager! Yay! You know they must be hiding a complete lack of script development when they need to distract the viewer with some razzle-dazzle like this, seeing as no Federation starship has ever been shown to land on a planet before. And, as we discover later, for no real particular reason to the plot device other than "gee, we just can't do it any other way. Enjoy!" BTW, not to be too nitpicking, but when it does land, and our brave away team exits the craft with our faithful Voyager resting in the background, the perspective is off so much that it appears that they would be lucky to fix the entire number of the Away Team within it's structure, let alone the dozens and dozens of crew Voyager holds. Must be a little cramped in there. They could have made that a little more believable, but seeing as that doesn't seem to be the case from the outset of this episode, I guess I should understand.
More anachronistic Earth vehicles are discovered, along with integrated alien technology. Instead of Janeway surmising this could be some kind of trap to lure the crew (I mean, after all, HOW THE HELL DOES A WORKING '36 FORD END UP IN THE DELTA QUADRANT!!) the investigation blithely continues until they discover a number of humans cryogenically frozen including Amelia Earhart!! What? No Bruce Lee? No Woody Allen (see Sleeper)? And, although Capt. Janeway apparently had no idea what a '36 Ford was, or what an SOS distress beacon is, she DOES, in fact, know virtually everything there is to know about Amelia Earhart. Well, that's probably why she's in command.
Janeway's primary mission since the first episode of this series is to find a way home in less than 75 years. She seems more interested in solving what happened to Earhart than fulfilling her primary mission.
I personally couldn't continue with this farce any longer. Not only am I not interested in how these anachronistic elements of Earth history ended up out here, I also don't see how this is going to further any character development, add to the story arc, or posit some poignant question about The Human Condition that will make one think "hmmm" It's just a childish exercise of playtime; "oh, what's that? Let's land here! Amelia Earhart! Run diagnostic scans! Reroute power couplings! Maybe with a tri-phasic inversion to the deflector array! Torres is on it!" Blah, blah, blah. The lines are stiff and forced, plot devices unbelievable and unoriginal,and I'm not really sure any of the actors are buying this premise of an episode either. They're mailing this one in; it's filler. And this is the Season Opener!
If you care to subject yourself to any more of this vapid and confusing plot, enjoy the rest of the show. Perhaps you can have enjoyment laughing at it's ridiculousness? Otherwise, skip ahead and find something a little less insulting to the intelligence.