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Star Trek: Voyager: Bride of Chaotica! (1999)
Buck Paris Across the 5th Dimension
Actually, this is a pretty fun, lighthearted episode. Yeah, we have yet another holodeck malfunction plot device, but once you suspend that disbelief, it's easy to tell that the cast was having some fun with the split roles, and the writers keep the dialogue fun and snappy.
Paris and Kim play their Buck Rodgers knockoff serial heroes, where Kim reveals his true motivation for playing along, saving hot holodeck chicks. But as Voyager gets pulled into a subspace quantum gravity techno-babble situation, cross dimensional beings mistake the fantasy of the holodeck for Voyager's reality, and find themselves at war with Chaotica, the Merciless, or something like that.
Naturally, the only solution is to play out the holodeck fantasy to its conclusion, and the hilarity ensues.
Kate Mulgrew obviously has a lot of fun throwing herself into the role of the Arachnia queen, and even the Doctor plays an amusing President of Earth. And they stay pretty true to the melodramatic serial style of the old '30's Sci Fi. Kick back, enjoy a little fun in what's usually the dreary, foreboding Delta Quadrant for a change.
Star Trek: Voyager: In the Flesh (1998)
Voyager Clichés
If it hasn't already, by five seasons into Voyager it's become apparent what the producers use as their template to crank out cookie cutter episodes. The Voyager Clichés. This one is full of them.
First off, for a series that based itself on flinging the ship 70,000 light years away from ANYTHING previously known with the enticement of discovering "strange new worlds and seek out new civilizations", once AGAIN, we end up back with familiar characters and locations. Just plain lazy. The first shots open and we're back in that mysterious, mystical, 70,000 light year away location
. San Francisco! What, what? Well, I guess nothing sets a genuine Star Trek puppy to tail wagging than a breathtaking look at Star Fleet Command.
Once again Voyager starts the episode somewhere in the middle of the narrative, leaving you to figure out what the hell is happening. San Francisco? Chakotay? That's funny, because I THOUGHT WE WERE 70,000 LIGHT YEARS AWAY?? Kind of a lazy way to surprise the viewer, because you're basically cheesing out and only giving them a portion of the information. Now, while this basically can work once and still make for a good episode, they use it in Voyager more than Neelix uses some unheard of Delta Quadrant makeshift ingredient to make an ordinary dish even less palatable.
Love? Exciting and new? Well, you've got to have a love interest! And why not employ the least passionate character and force passion on him. Again. Yup, our calm, cool, spiritual Mexican Elvis gets the "girl" once again, using that wooden gaze and cement tongue to land himself a Delta Quadrant faux hottie MILF. Which leads to another popular Star Trek gag. Got to have someone make out with someone that really isn't human, only pretending, so we have that underlying "creepout factor". Tongue you some alien species, dude! Soon we discover it's not Star Fleet Headquarters at all but a war game simulation by Species 8472. You remember those fun cats? Kicking Borg ass from some liquefied dimension, vowing to eradicate inferior species from the Galaxy? A race so flipping frightening and all powerful, even the Aryan Borg wet their pants, and sucked up to Janeway and the SS Minnow to bail their cybernetic asses out. Even though Skipper Janeway sent them packing with a mean cocktail of Borg nano-babble (and no one thought to ask how the Aryan Borg didn't think of THAT one), 8472 figured it was time to infiltrate Starfleet. Apparently, in their exhaustive search on everything there is about Starfleet, someone must have watched Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers and felt inspired.
But wait! It's all just misunderstanding! The Skipper isn't a war monger! These aren't xenophobic inter-dimension dwellers eradicating the inferior! Even over the two dimensional protests of one of the "Admirals", both species apologize and play nice. To highlight part of this ridiculousness, not but a few scenes before Janeway was warned dozens of similar simulations scattered throughout the quadrant implying these fellas mean business. But, hey, wait, perhaps we should be reasonable? Oh, sounds great to me! Faster than a teenage klatch of bitchy young girls making up and once again becoming BFFs, we've arrived at our mutual admiration conclusion. It's another beautiful day in faux San Francisco! Ultimately as a viewer I feel cheated. They start the episode in the middle of the plot, and before you now it, it's neatly wrapped up in a little bow, sun shining, birds singing, everything right in the Delta Quadrant, and I'm thinking "where the hell did this episode go?" Nowhere.
Star Trek: Voyager: The Thaw (1996)
Wow, they got it right
Wow! Someone must have made them sit down and study what the true nature and beauty of TOS was, and said if you don't finally write and produce an episode of that calibre, we're going to take your first born. Only through that kind of duress of Biblical proportions could such a turnaround in quality be made. The first episode of this season, the 37s, is probably without a doubt the single most preposterous episode in Star Trek Cannon, soon followed by several worthy steaming piles of dung throughout this season.
But, I have to admit a few shining, hopeful signs of good, honest, Trek like inspiration started to shine through in recent episodes, culminating with this; an episode that undoubtedly deserves it's place among the very BEST Trek, of any and all flavors. This is Star Trek, not just Roddenbery ST, but Gene L. Coon Trek. And it feels so good....
Even the set is simple, hearkening back to the '60's era Post-Modern, Spartan-esque, colorful vision. Gone are flashy bells, whistles, touchpads, Level 2 Diagnostics, Phase inverted Tachion Pulses; techno-babble. Returned is imagination, characters, and the Greek morality examinations of human existence that made Trek groundbreaking Science Fiction.
Guest star Michael McKean delivers a highly entertaining performance, right up there with Frank Gorshwin, or Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd). He is the embodiment of Fear, and he delights in frightening his victims. And that delight is palpable.
Kate Mulgrew also give possibly her strongest performance yet as Janeway, with almost a Kirk like swagger and demeanor, as against the odds, she cheats not death, but death's companion; fear. And she does it with Kirk's own confident, brash smile. Would Kirk bed her, or would she bed Kirk? A question we can only ponder.
I started to have a criticism that the plot device of the interfaces was a little too Matrix-esque, until I realized this was years BEFORE The Matrix, and it could be said perhaps The Matrix stole from them? Harry and B'Lanna get "jacked in" way before Neo, Trinity, and Morpheus do. And their foe is much more entertaining.
TOS fans, and Trek fans everywhere: rejoice! They got this one right, and they got it good.
Star Trek: Voyager: Non Sequitur (1995)
Kim's Unexpected Journey
Only the 2nd Season, and even though the entire premise of the series is our hapless crew flung 70,000 light years away in a completely mysterious, unknown quadrant, we have to whisk our characters back to Earth. What's the point of even putting them out there to begin with? Have we run out of mystery in the Delta?
The episode focuses on Harry Kim. He wakes up 70,000 light years back to his warm, cozy bed, and along side his hottie! That's good, right? Well, not for Harry. He needs to find answers, even if it means sleepwalking through the rest of the episode to find them! Can a strange, compelling mystery of an altered reality also be a complete snooze-fest? Yes! Yes it can!
Eventually, Harry learns the reason for his unusual circumstance, from a watchful alien coffee shop barista, no less (I'm sure 24th Century San Francisco has one on every street corner, if they don't currently in our century). Seems there was an unfortunate "badda bing, badda BOOM" with a shuttlecraft, and, well, you know, things went all screwy! I guess this is a more remedial version of the Q Continuum, I don't know. The Jersey Q. Forgettaboutit! Their advice? "Here kid, this is where it happened. You might make it back. Or, you might not. Rotsa ruck!"
Oh, and by the way, did we mention that now Starfleet is suddenly convinced Kim is a spy, and must be stopped at all costs? Well, we didn't see that development coming, now did we? Starfleet is always right on top of these kinds of things. It's not difficult enough to have to pilot a Runabout in a one-in-a-million shot through a spacial anomaly. You need Starfleet's finest on your tail beating down your shield generators for some extra drama! But if anyone can do it, it's Tom Paris. That's why he's conveniently in this altered reality as well. Since the past 40 minutes of the episode has been almost completely devoid of any action, we'll go out with a bang!
The time honored Temporal anomaly saves the day as always, and within the last few moments, everything is back to normal. Yay! Just in the nick of time, too, with absolutely no unpleasant reflection about what happened, how he touched home, his woman poised to marry him, or the strange Jersey Q beings he encountered that were a cause of it. Nope! We're just rockin' and rollin' back in the Delta Quadrant! Woo! Next please!
Star Trek: Voyager: The 37's (1995)
Mind Numbingly Vapid
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.
Star Trek: Voyager: Twisted (1995)
Phenomena (doot doo da doo doo)
5 minutes of plot drug out into a 45 minute episode.
Twisted shows our faithful heroes perplexed by an ever confusing series of hull changes, which become even more confusing when they show the current shape of Voyager, which really doesn't explain at all why they're seeing what they are seeing.
Apart from some of the mutual admiration society where Father Chakotey lectures Neelix on love, Janeway gives Kim an atta boy, and Chakotey and Tuvak agree, they're both stolid, unembraceable dictators, along with a soaring climax of "well, that's it then, time to shuffle off this mortal coil" as yet another Star Trek universe collapses in on itself, the majority of this episode is a bewildering "huh", followed with an ending of "wha-?" And just as quickly, they're off at light speed to the next "phenomena". Time clock punched, this one's been mailed in.
Star Trek: Voyager: Elogium (1995)
The Love Boat
With love in the air, Kes appears to go into heat, which is a bit of a problem for her, because that's apparently only something she does once. And on this Love Boat, Issac serves up bugs! Yum! Thanks for that ambush, Berman! Of course, Kes is in her own quadrant, and is married to Neelix. In most sane environments, having a child with her husband seems like a slam dunk. But, of course not in the world of Star Trek where family planning must be taken very, very, very seriously. Despite a hot blonde nymph of a wife (with some creepy, "barely legal undertones"), and this is their one shot, he's just not sure if he's ready for that commitment, even though they're committed. It's also a 6 day process of love making, which sounds like a wild one! But, he needs to sleep on it. Maybe Neelix is a Friend of Dorothy? Maybe Kes is just a beard? But there is no blatant examination of Neelix's true sexuality. He's just skeerd.
Well, eventually Neelix comes around and is ready to do the deed, when now Kes has cold feet. And when we say cold feet, we mean it, after a disturbing "foot fetish" scene with The Doctor. The creep-out factor is high with this episode simply all around.
Meanwhile, there's some strange, intergalactic bull elephant seals on the interstellar beach to be reckoned with, and they see Voyager as it's sexual competition. O-kay. They'd better get out of this quadrant soon. And don't drop the soap! Albeit kind of original, it's still a rather strange, boring, and forgettable episode. And rather creepy.
Star Trek: Voyager: Projections (1995)
The Lonely Doctor
The doctor surprisingly, even disconcertingly, finds himself completely alone on board Voyager. As his primary function is to care for those crewmen, a crewless ship makes him, well, useless. For a brief moment the Doctor begins to contemplate the Human condition of Usefulness. But, soon, the Universe takes a turn for the good Doctor.
Robert Picardo's adept acting skills bring pathos, humor, even his character learns compassion while he's a merely computer generation. In fact, he's pretty much the Voyager's version of Data, which lacks some originality, but he's the series link into examining "Humanity" with the most humane component of a crew, it's Doctor. We also get plenty of back story regarding The Doctor and his genesis, a one Dr. Zimmerman.
As with most later franchise series' after The Original, there's a typical need for techno-babble which is about the only use for B'Lanna Torres' character here. Yawn. Conduits, power relays, phase inverters. That should be a Star Trek drinking game. Every time some worthless techno-babble gets throw around, one should have to take a drink! Be more enjoyable that way.
Kazons appear again as the nemesis du jour, and the always entertaining Neelix, also ably acted by actor Ethan Phillips plays the foil keeping the mood light; a refreshing diversion from the techno-babble normally used to strengthen a Star Trek plot.
The episode is directed by Next Generation star Johnathan "Two Takes" Frakes, who understands well the Star Trek universe, and keeps the pace lively as well as intriguing, divulging only enough information to push the plot forward and keep the action moving. His experience is evident at shaping an entertaining episode. There's some shifts, some feigns, and the viewer is often kept guessing what's REALLY going on here.
Barclay makes a rather awkward, and inexplicable appearance, I guess as a vehicle to shoe-horn him into the script some way, and give Trek geeks something to get all giggily about. It's kind of a stretch, but fortunately the strength of the script thus far makes it merely a distraction than a detriment. Past the novelty of a Starfleet officer popping into a series set 70,000 light years away in a different quadrant, the story carries on well scripted and well acted.
On par with some of the stronger TNG episodes, it exhibits however some of the faults of TNG as well, where the resolutions become dependent on a increasing level of techno-babble which is a little disappointing. I think they started to either have to stretch the ending to fill time, or just got stumped where to go with it. The climax feels a little weak compared to the strength of the rest of the episode.
Still, so far the best of the 2nd Series, even though for some reason it was produced in the 1st Season, and held to the 2nd. They would have done well to air it earlier.
Star Trek: Voyager: Initiations (1995)
Klingons with a bad hair day
Delta Quadrant's version on the Klingons, the Kazons, return to the line-up from Season One, and they're just as ill tempered and poorly coiffed as always. 70,000 light years away, and it seems the Klingon's sensibilities are intergalactic. But apparently not their barbers.
The episode focuses on Chakotay, ably performed by Robert Beltran, one of the more talented members of the cast. The episode begins to flush out the sensibilities of the Kazon, or attempts to, that which they seem to be. And we begin to see more development of Chakotay, who is one of the more intriguing characters of the series, thanks largely in part to Beltran's talented performance, and Chakotay's Native American spirituality. This is juxtaposed upon the alien beliefs he encounters and interacts with as a potential victim of their manhood rituals.
This episode tries to examine the Kazon deeper thru the tribulations of one of their young warriors attempting to "make a name for himself" (a little heavy handed with THAT plot device!), but it's very difficult to see them as anything original, and simply a regurgitation of Klingons; a 2 dimensional shadow of sacred Klingon honor or the convoluted politics of deception they enjoy playing on themselves as well as other species. Once we've seen it flushed out to the level The Next Generation accomplished through the character of Worf and his development, Kazon culture just seems like a copy cat version, a cheap knock off. Yawn.
Also making a guest appearance is Aron Eisenberg, who portrayed the often irritating young Ferengi Nog in Star Trek Deep Space Nine. "Nog's" annoying staccato delivery isn't as welcome to the Delta Quadrant. While some Trek fans may welcome his guest appearance, I personally found it difficult to see him rise above anything but the annoying Nog.
Every drama needs conflict, and there's plenty of conflicting values and action, which does set the tone early in the episode, as well as some decent a shuttlecraft space battle sequences, but the pace of the episode starts to drag as they examine each other's culture's "values". Yeah, I get it. We're different. Only you're the same as the Klingons....
Vasquez Rocks makes an appearance, which any true Trek fan does admittedly enjoy, if not simply for the amusement of seeing Star Trek's most famous "alien landscape".
The ending brought an unexpected and a welcome twist, and after winding our way to it, left us with a mediocre and at some times entertaining episode, but not an awful one.