Shades of Green

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Shades of Green)

Whoops. The kind of episode that makes me think maybe it's actually a good thing that Trek is no longer in production any more if this is the kind of extreme ideological stuff and weak plotting they were knocking out... It seems identifying the title with the weakest episode of 'TNG' may have been portentous! Where to start, then? I actually didn't have much to think about during this story, it just seemed to have so little of interest. Start with the good, I suppose: T'Lyn trying to keep Rutherford occupied since she's noticed he hasn't been himself since Tendi left. She may be the best character the series produced, and I've said it before, certainly the best Vulcan in modern Trek (not a high bar, admittedly, but she does a creditable job of being a believable example of the logical race, unlike most aliens who never seem that alien - case in point the Tellarite, Gorm, who doesn't argue incessantly!). I enjoyed the little tribute to Data standing and staring into space while waiting for Picard to go to sleep, in this case T'Lyn waiting patiently for Rutherford to finish his work - although... would that be an efficient use of her time, surely she could have done some work on a PADD or something? The fact I'm starting to nitpick shows I was at least invested in this C-plot of the episode, though I can't say as much for the A- and B-plots.

I can understand the writers poking fun at the ridiculousness of Trek's 'post-scarcity' future, since it's never made any sense, or why would there be wars for resources or control of areas? (For that matter, aren't gold and jewels all obsolete anyway since they can be replicated, that's why Latinum was precious: because it can't be! So why would Orions want this junk?). I always go back to Picard's mumbled, 'holier-than-thou' speech about how the Federation doesn't need money any more, or use it (and the fun 'DS9' ribbing of the concept when Jake wants to buy his Dad an antique baseball card, but doesn't have any money because he's an 'evolved' human of the 24th Century - 'if you don't need money,' says Nog, 'then you don't need my money!'). It demonstrated why it's best not to think too deeply into how Trek's universe works, details modern Trek has mistakenly shown too much of (not just regarding money, but even basic domestic details like people cleaning their teeth, the kind of thing it would be better to leave to the imagination, but lack of imagination is one of this era's defining characteristics!). The reality is there is still a cost to everything, and that's energy, and while we can say they have technology that enables vast amounts of energy to be released (warp, Phasers, etc), something doesn't come from nothing. If they were seriously pointing out how terrible capitalism is then I don't think they'd have had the questionable act at the end where Freeman hands over all the planet's wealth to the family of her crewmember! Nepotism? It comes across as if they 'conned' a planet out of its wealth with Replicators and then ditched their economy. All of which was a bit uncomfortable in today's polarised political climate.

It's always important to remember the series is primarily a comedy, and while it's 'supposed' to make sense in the world of Trek, and be considered canonical, they are going to be wacky at times. Frequent times. The real story, in any case, is Boimler trying to be a fun boss, never a sensible idea in the first place since authority needs to have some distance to enable it to function properly and enforce discipline. Not that discipline is high on the agenda of modern Trek where everyone does what they want and argues with their superiors as a matter of course, but generally 'LD' has been better at such things than the others, one reason I suspect it feels more like Trek than they do, and is so liked by many in consequence. With Boimler's four-hair moustache and the new 'Bointers' to give advice (the inspiration being Lefler's Laws from 'TNG,' but in this case he clearly got the idea from his alternate rather than her), Boimler's arc this season of trying to emulate his alternate self is rather transparent, and therefore somewhat pointless since you can see where that storyline would lead: just be yourself. I have to say I found his and Mariner's roles rather lacklustre, didn't really go anywhere (other than to a fancy hall in a posh house that looks like it was out of 'The Matrix Reloaded,' though perhaps it was merely a generic posh hall, since no martial arts take place, in slow motion or otherwise). No, nothing really to comment on, it was just the pair of them tracking down his lost Away Team.

The A-story is Tendi's messing up of her entire family's position in the Orion Syndicate (I suppose you could see loose parallels with Worf's discommendation, but if that was intended it wasn't very well executed). The war between her family and the blue 'Oree-ons' has meant less profits, or something, so they pull the old space race challenge out of the back pocket of discarded sci-fi concepts. It's never a good idea and suggests a series rather running out of them, even with the solar sailing ships that gives it a more piratical feel. Add to that the culture is incessantly and simplistically feministic (green Tendi girls good, blue 'Oree-on' men bad), and it quickly becomes tiresome, the two sisters competing with each other or Tendi trying to protect D'Erica since she's read her Personal Log and discovered her pregnancy. I also don't buy the Orions would have a Queen (Sabor, voiced by Debra Wilson, Captain Cusak in 'DS9,' her second and final role in modern Trek here), since the whole point was that the true situation of women being the dominant force was meant to be a closely guarded secret. The best we can suggest is they don't allow outsiders on their planet, but in an age of recording devices and easy broadcasting from anyone it's hard to see how the secret would stay secret. It's also all too girly with choice lines like D'Erica telling her sister at the end that she doesn't want her girl growing up to see her doing anything other than what her heart tells her. Ick. This is where Trek had come to, though to be fair 'DSC' started it all in that direction right from the beginning and 'LD' has still been far more realistic than the other recent series'.

It's rather rich of a mega-franchise that requires payment to watch nowadays to be pointing out the 'evil' of the system in which it's made, Trek being a product manufactured in order to make money! It's hard to take any satire about profit or the extremes of capitalism seriously in such a setting, but there's always been a tug-of-war between 'art' and 'profitability.' Still, some people do genuinely watch Trek believing this world will one day come to reality, but unfortunately that's meant modern Trek had to dumb characters down, and in keeping with the modern ideals of 'being yourself,' even if that encourages selfishness, focus on oneself, and lack of care towards anyone else, made them more like 'us,' to the extent people from old Treks that went back in time and found people to be so different to them, could now go to their fellow Trek series' and find the same thing: modern Trek characters are us now! (With the exception of the odd superhero character like Burnham who could almost do no wrong, and even when she did, escaped real punishment and was soon shown to be righter than right!). When an episode only leads me down the rabbit hole of denigrating its stablemates I know it hasn't succeeded, and while I wouldn't say it's on a par with the worst Treks of recent years, it is one of those episodes that shows up the weaknesses in the modern crowd. Not least the excessive swearing I noticed again! And the fact Tendi just turns up back in Starfleet as if you can waltz in and out however and whenever you feel like it (rather than the real world reason of having her leaving be a cliffhanger ending). But the real issue was barely seeing any of the supporting cast at all (even if some of them do voice other characters instead). The blazzard squawking was amusing. As was seeing Goodgey poking his head up in the Cargo Bay. Yep, that's all I've got.

**

Dos Cerritos

 Blu-ray, Lower Decks S5 (Dos Cerritos)

The final season of yet another Trek series begins already, but that seems to be the way with streamers, ten episodes a season and done in five seasons or less, a far cry from the depth and latitude afforded to the old 'factory' production of the 90s. It was meant to be a new Golden Era with all these different Treks, at one point five series' appearing in a single year, I think, but the quality just wasn't there, so in reality this Golden Era was much more factory-like than the so-called classic period which was bashing out greats on a regular basis. But there was one shining example in all the new Trek sludge... well, maybe a lightly glinting example, anyway, and that was this 'Lower Decks,' a series that had its ups and downs, for which we can be grateful there were ups at all since most were almost entirely downs, but as with this opener, even the stories I couldn't say were particularly outstanding had plenty of little pleasures to savour and if there was one bright spot of this era, this was it (and with the recent suggestion of a potential spinoff film from creator Mike McMahan, perhaps the days of 'LD' aren't quite over just yet?). To recap: I disliked Season 1 apart from the finale, which showed promise, grudgingly purchased Season 2 and was more than pleasantly surprised to find it the best modern season of Trek with a finale that was the single best episode of the Kurtzman Era, followed by a pretty good third season, a slightly disappointing fourth (with the caveat of a strong and Trekky resolution to all three of its homegrown villains), and so, while I was onboard for more 'LD' by this point, I also didn't have high expectations for the final season.

First impressions are the slickness (and sharpness of this beautiful Blu-ray edition - for all its faults, the series looks the best with its clean and gleaming Starfleet style), followed by remembering how much out of place swearing and inappropriate laxness there is! After watching 'Voyager' the last few months it takes some getting used to return to the low standards of modernity, but in fairness most of it comes from Mariner herself rather than being spread around, and somehow the casual or contemporary speech never bothered me quite as much in animation and with the fast-paced style of this series - it's not that I can overlook it, but I've got used to it much more and come to at least like the characters, something I can't say for any of the other casts of recent times! I'd forgotten what the overarching storyline was for the season until they mention the rift in space and then it all came flooding back. It's very lightly introduced here, no indication we'll be dealing with this sort of thing season-long. They'd done Cerritos doubles before on the series, but only the comedic way of other California-class ships (or ship, I can't remember which), having almost identical crews with slight differences (like a male version of Freeman or a Boimler that looks like a fly) - what am I saying? It's all comedic! But in this case it was played a little more seriously in that it's the old trope of them meeting an alternate reality version of their ship and selves, a time-honoured tradition in Trek that I felt missed a lot of opportunities to examine humorously in this episode.

They could hardly have Other T'Lyn with a beard! And we do get bearded Boimler (which also becomes a bit of a recurring theme for the season), an entirely cybernetic Otherford, Captain Becky (so is her full name Rebecca Mariner Freeman? Either way I actually largely preferred this professional version as it showed what she could be, minus the extreme discipline!), King Billups (why is he still serving on a starship - to avoid his regal duties?), but Freeman ended up at Starbase 80 (something else to be revisited later), and Tendi left to become a pirate, devastating Otherford and turning him inwards to become our Rutherford's warning. Some nice little character work going on and after an absence it is nice to get back to these people. I just don't think the story had that much going for it - very slight. Surprisingly, Tendi isn't back with the crew at end of episode as she refuses to leave her responsibilities behind when the blue 'Oree-ons' declare war against the greens (not environmentalists, the Orions!). The series has always shown a great love and affection for 'The Animated Series' of the 1970s, and this was up there with the return of the Kzinti to Trek. They really were ridiculous (even more than green aliens usually are), but their overconfident stupidity was somewhat endearing - they came across much like Pakleds so it would be interesting to go back to 'TAS' and see if they were potentially the seeds of inspiration for the least intelligent race in Trek (to the extent they were used for one 'TNG' episode, then only ever seen as background until 'LD' - even the great 'DS9' didn't see fit to expand upon them, a service they made to so many of the 'TNG' aliens).

Tendi shines through as the most Starfleet of all, constantly restraining her bloodthirsty crew from killing, secretly healing a casualty and generally striving to impart Starfleet values to a very un-Starfleet situation, but not looking like she was striving to impart Starfleet values to a very un-Starfleet situation! If you were drawing morals from the story, her emphasis on non-lethality and not being forced into extremes of enmity by others, wasn't a bad take-home. And we learn her crew secretly wish they weren't pirates anyway - they want to bake or dance (I thought she was going to break out in the famous 'Animal Woman' dance of 'The Cage'), or teach, all typically feminine practices, which was a nice way to show that even Orion women are 'human' at heart and are drawn to the things modern society considers stereotypical and 'beneath' them, which was a nice twist. Tendi's own sister, D'Erica, holding her in hock, sums up her sibling's true desires quite effectively, even couched as a teasing insult ("You miss debating the ethics of goop"), but Tendi earns respect for staying to deal with the 'Oree-ons' who call Tendi's tactics 'un-piratical' for using laughing gas to capture this old and rare Orion medical ship that may have been used to cure The Great Plague.

We know so little (probably nothing, actually), about Orion history, so any little detail concerning them is of interest, though modern Trek is so bad at world-building and the development of species that even if it was in full production rather than ground to a halt and limping to a closure with the final seasons of 'SNW' and 'Academy' I doubt they'd ever have expanded upon anything mentioned here. There are of course the usual little Trekferences put in for the fun of it, such as Captain Becky's swagger stick (or riding crop, here - hadn't we seen a similar callback to 'Star Trek III' before on the series?), or her statement that 'no interpersonal conflict is allowed on my ship,' a dig at the Roddenberry edict that has gradually been lost through such casual and loose interpretations of Trek in recent times, but which 'LD' excels at calling attention to. You could say they call attention to the Kelvin Universe again since they have Becky's crew standing at attention whenever she walks past, something we saw on the USS Kelvin (and one aspect I actually rather liked, amazingly!), and it made sense that this alternate Cerritos considered their existence as in the Prime Universe (another concept introduced, or at least named, in 'Star Trek XI'). It was very in keeping with this series that Freeman views their closing of these rifts as the kind of 'second tier' job the Cerritos is used to carrying out, describing them as fixing 'space-time potholes.' She has a way with words, but a shame she demeans her ship as a matter of course...

The big thing for Boimler is meeting his alternate who is much more like Riker - confident, an achiever, even wearing the same beard (it looked good!), while our self-doubting fellow is pushed out of a magazine feature on the top 30 under 30 officers in Starfleet - the greater insult being not only is he not in the top 30, he's not even in the honourable mentions below, pushed out by a ten-year old Naomi Wildman (I can believe it). This Official Starfleet Magazine, 'Fleet,' as it was called, was quite obviously a pastiche or tribute to the Titan mag made in England for almost thirty years, right down to the layout of the cover. Too sad that after finally getting as close as it could to appearing in Trek, the magazine itself ended just the year after this was made (2025), but I'm sure they wouldn't have been aware that was about to happen when they were making this episode. It was my constant companion during the height of Trek's greatness, through the declining years and the fallow period, and survived to see almost all the new Treks debut, so it was nice to see it acknowledged in some way. And in the same way we get other tributes with the 'LD' logo now sporting ghost trails behind it, duplicating the effect used for Season 5 of 'TNG' - and of course they add more to the major battle in the opening credits, now joined by the green hand of 'TOS,' the Tholian web and to cap it all, when you think it can't get any more extreme, V'Ger shows up to twang its presence. Even the use of a Palor Toff-like character (not Kivas Fajo - he's the name I always remember, but it was Toff who had the metal band woven in and out of his face. Hilarious when he cries it's 'prescription' when one of Tendi's women tries to rip it out!). But did they break canon when one of his Hupyrian servants speaks? It was speaking to him, but I thought they never uttered a word in front of anyone else due to a vow of silence?

Although there were some good morals on display, I also had to question Rutherford's tampering with Otherford to program him to want to make friends. That seems a bit presumptuous to force a change in someone like that, especially as it was to benefit Rutherford! It's only a brief moment and it was for his own good, but it stood out as a kind of un-Trekky thing to do that sometimes betrays that these modern writers don't always stick as close to Trek's manner of doing things in the good times. If nothing else it shows a disadvantage to being cybernetic if you can be so easily manipulated, and of course I'm making more of it than was meant since Rutherford saw he could do some good by interfering, but still, it would have been better if he could have used his charm or logic or something other than a direct adjustment to his program to help him make a change, though time was limited, I grant. Just a little nitpick, too: I don't see Hupyrians being bested by Orions in a fight. There's a reason the Grand Nagus used them as personal bodyguards - they were big and tough. I know, it's silly trying to maintain some semblance of Trek reality in something that's little more than a half hour comedy, but that's one of the tugs of war within the series that they want to be true to Trek, and are, in so many ways compared to the live action productions, so you want them to stay true in every aspect, so when they aren't, it can stick out. Otherwise it was a fine start to the season, nothing special, but that's also the point of 'LD': to be short, individual stories that can delve into any aspect of Trek, the way Trek used to be, allowing for the broad gamut of choice from week to week. But why is Gabrielle Ruiz (T'Lyn), still not in the opening credits, she steals the show? The slight twitch around the line of the mouth was like all-out merriment for a Vulcan!

**

Endgame (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Endgame) (2)

First, I have to apologise to 'Star Trek: Picard' - I was so sure Seven of Nine ended 'Voyager' with a smaller Borg implant above her eye and ridiculed them for not staying true to that, and then I finally get around to the end of the series again and find she has just the same large implant as the rest of the series! I must have been confusing 'Human Error,' in which we see her without implants on the Holodeck, and the operation the Doctor wants to do on her in 'Endgame' which will unspool her emotional side, as strong and visual evidence Seven was adjusting to become more human, but there isn't a visual change and I wasn't even sure the Doc had had time to perform the op - my other complaints about the 'Picard' version of Seven still stand, so I'm not about to recant and come around to the awful choices they made with her, and I will say I found her to be at her most pleasant in this episode. But enough about Seven, it isn't really about her, other than her future death acting as a catalyst for the most grievous temporal violations from a regular temporal violator. Just as she used to wryly observe the 'TOS' era would all be kicked out of Starfleet in her day for their cowboy diplomacy, I can imagine a new generation saying the same thing about her for all her failures to abide by the Temporal Prime Directive. Or did that even exist at this point, I don't remember? Either way she'd be very harshly criticised for all the incursions and alterations, and I would too if there was potential for me not to exist based on a decision she made (except those 'unborn' voices would never get a chance to accuse).

If it isn't a Seven story then it has to be a Janeway story, and here we get two for the price of one: Admiral Janeway come from the future to make sure every member of her crew makes it back to the Alpha Quadrant. Except she seems to have forgotten that risk is part of life, no one can know what the future holds, that's entirely the point - the best line came from Chakotay when he states not even an Admiral from the future can guarantee what's going to happen tomorrow, and therein lies a critical flaw with the story. A Janeway that has forgotten what she was there for, lost sight of the bigger picture and the reality of life being death and loss, and typically stubborn Janeway, refusing to accept any defeat. At least there was some kind of backlash against her with Captain Janeway and the crew acknowledging it was the journey that was most important, not the destination, an uncharacteristically wise speech from Harry saying it best. And that Janeway's decision to strand her crew in the Delta Quadrant in the first place was not the wrong one, she did what was right which often carries a sacrifice making it even harder, but no less right. But Trek is supposed to be optimistic so of course it had to end happily in spite of the nefarious ways in which they got themselves there.

I do feel quite conflicted in a lot of ways about this as a finale. You can clearly see they were trying to duplicate the weight of the time-based story of 'All Good Things...' in which we jumped between different points of 'TNG,' its beginning, its current end, and the future beyond, only not to be quite so direct about it we only have the future beyond. That in itself was good to see as it reminds us of time and the passing of such, that bittersweetness of living out life, but also knowing everything ends, the changes, the heartaches, the losses, so it was fertile ground for a Trek finale to explore, even if it doesn't do it as effectively as 'TNG' did. They also had to bring in the Borg, and specifically the Borg Queen one last time as being the closest they had to a recurring villain, one of the disadvantages of the series being that they were always moving on, making it very tricky to be able to deal with the same people for long. We see the heart of the Borg's power with one of their Transwarp Hubs, something which enables them to travel anywhere in the Galaxy within minutes - it strikes me as a rather big plot hole that they haven't showed up at Earth to assimilate it again. Or Qo'noS. Or Vulcan. Or... you get the idea. When trying to work with big ideas you're more likely to slip up, and I don't recall any excuse for why the Borg don't just sweep the entire galaxy away (as they did in an alternate universe in 'Parallels').

It was a nice touch to have Alice Krige back as the originator of the Queen, even if the setting has none of the scale or menace of the past and in fact I found all the Borg stuff to be rather small fry, other than the actual Hub itself. I'm not sure we even saw any Borg drones with the Queen. It's a nice callback, but she's hardly Dukat to Janeway's Sisko, simply a confounded enemy who is quite petty. Another nice touch was in keeping with the future uniforms seen in 'All Good Things...' and the combadge, the latter of which would be the only part of the setup to make it to the 'actual' future as seen in 'Picard.' That's the thing, we've now gone beyond all this time period, even in the future and although we know here that the future will be changed, it's still a lessening of the impact the future scenes have when seeing them now. But with Trek seemingly about to come to an end (and not before time, many would cry), with only the dribs and drabs of a couple of poor series' to come, it seems the right time to be reaching the end of one of the great and classic series', the first I watched from the very beginning to the very end, and which will always hold a special place in my affections.

Seeing it end now is a very different feeling, the abruptness of the success at the very end was always galling, but back then there was still some hope they might continue into films when 'TNG' had had its fill, but of course it wasn't allowed that, 'Voyager' never given its dues. We've since had 'Prodigy' as an animated follow-up that brought back a few characters (and across all the modern Treks the only characters not to be reprised were B'Elanna and Neelix, so that's pretty good going when you think how few 'DS9' and 'Enterprise' cast-members were allowed to return), but none of the cameos or other can give us the satisfying conclusion the series needed. And I do like this episode - the technical qualities are there to see with the two Janeways acting off each other superbly, the beauty of the Hub, the pleasure to notice little details like future Reg Barclay being so much more assured, only reverting to his nervous tics under pressure. Old Janeway showing her mettle with the Klingons is one of my favourite things - we get to see Tom and B'Elanna's daughter, Miral Paris, setting things up for Janeway with the dishonourable Korath, protective of her commander, but when it comes to it Janeway goes in alone and doesn't need her 'protection.' If anything, I wished there was more of that side of things, Korath an atypical member of the race, an inventor, but one Janeway easily bests, and not through violence, but guile.

Something the episode does well is the personal: Janeway and Janeway, Tom and B'Elanna, Harry coming to the realisation he's already lost his best mate to marriage and Fatherhood even before the baby's born - that was one of the strongest parts of the episode, Tom's vehement belief that he's already home, Voyager is their home and he's not going to be doing anything to jeopardise it, himself or his family. Chakotay and Seven is a bit strange if we didn't already know Seven had been trying holo-Chakotay on for size recently. It does almost come out of nowhere, but that's another aping of the end of 'TNG' with its Worf and Deanna direction. I'm not sure the poignancy quite works as well for me now, there isn't much of it and the episode barrels along without as much of that necessary closing out of these people and the place they'd inhabited for so long. And of course it would have been so much more affecting if we could have seen them reach home, their families, set foot on Earth, the strangeness of leaving the confines of Voyager for good - they'd been off the ship many times, but always to return before long, it would be a huge wrench to suddenly find complete freedom again.

I've never been a fan of the future technology being used (though on this occasion I noted how the crew were doing all the work out on the hull themselves because there are no drones or robot assistants in this universe, unlike what was portrayed in modern Trek), and it seems all too easy they can have this physical shield come up around the ship, or blast Borg Cubes into oblivion with single Torpedoes. It was all a little easy. Which contrasts with the toughness of the future scenes, whether it be Janeway dealing with the Klingons (good use of the cave set once more!), to her mourning of Tuvok in his presence as his degenerative disorder has taken hold (she leaves him a cast photo as a parting gift - how thoughtful!). But it was clearly wrong what she did, as heroic as it was. At the same time there were unlikely to be any ramifications for the writers to deal with since the next series, they knew, was going to be in the past, and the 'TNG' films could stand alone (and as it happened would get only one more outing), so I can see why they did it. I can imagine that Kim speech closing out the episode if they hadn't forced the trip home and that the point was they were still out there. That would have been the more 'romantic' route to take and left the possibility open for further adventures in the future, and perhaps even the return home as a big draw for a film. I don't really know what was the right way to go, it's so long past that the end of the series has little relevance in Trek for good or ill, we haven't explored the ramifications because Trek has never fully returned to the science fiction, science-based, thoughtful, canonically sound world it had been.

Melodrama, comic book unreality, fantasy and emotion are what makes Trek these days, and you can see some of the seeds of what was to come even as far back as 'Voyager.' I think for me, the entirety of Trek has become less engaging in general. Partly for no longer being in want: either for new Trek or the ability to see any episode or film any time. It's lost its specialness. Part of that is ageing, but the far larger part is the poor directions and major flaws of what it became, so different to what I grew up with and that accompanied me on the journey, to the extent that even writing reviews has lost a lot of its joy. I no longer need to get out my thoughts on Trek because it's becoming increasingly less important - it still has importance, but it's as much about the nostalgia and sentiment, grabbing back to a time that is rapidly fading away, an unreal world and life where the joys of the past almost only exist in memory. That's quite sad, but I've really reviewed all the old Treks, and other than finishing 'Lower Decks,' have no interest in writing about modern Trek because it's too dreary, uninteresting and irrelevant to me. These last two seasons of 'Voyager' were actually my second run through at reviews since I started with them and felt I needed to expand on the shorter reviews I made in those days.

But I digress... Before I go, I do want to mention a few things: Neelix gets a small scene playing Kadis-Kot with Seven, a nice touch, and the same for Icheb with Tuvok and Harry, unaccountably beating the Vulcan and Kal-Toh (all futuristic games must begin with a 'K'!). Voyager's status as a museum would be borne out in 'LD.' Chell has volunteered to take over from Neelix as master of the Mess Hall, and it's a shame we never saw that as I imagine he'd have been a bit Neelix-like (only much more sensitive towards the crew's dislike of his dishes, I imagine). The Majel Barrett computer voice was still being used in Admiral Janeway's time, at least in this alternate timeline - in that same time the Doctor decided on 'Joe' as a name, but how could a computer man marry a flesh and blood living being? They throw in all kinds of issues like this knowing they'll never have to examine the workings of them, so it's a bit of a cheat. It's claimed Chakotay was never the same after the death of his wife, Seven, but that doesn't ring true for his character who was always so philosophical and capable of adapting to any situation, as seen by how quickly he bowed to Janeway's authority as Captain, or in 'Resolutions' he was much more ready to settle on a planet and make the best of it. The Doctor suggests Seven is running more simulations with holo-Chakotay, which still strikes me as wrong (even though we know the whole crew apparently has holographic templates in the ship's database according to the previous episode!), and I'm really not keen on the Admiral's micro SD in the brain so she can connect with a neural interface. Harry made it to Captain to shut up all the complainers he was still an Ensign (even then he was worried about being busted back down to that rank!). And Tuvok quotes Spock's needs of the many, but for me it was more special to have the symmetry of a scene with his Captain in her Ready Room, like the pilot.

They close out, typically, with some old faces on board, with Vaughn Armstrong in his eighth Trek role (and fourth on 'Voyager,' soon to become a recurring face on 'Enterprise' - it's truly unbelievable that not one single modern production has used him!), as Korath. Richard Herd (also known as a Klingon on 'TNG'), returned for his fourth appearance as Admiral Paris and his final Trek role (he died in 2020). Manu Intiraymi in his eleventh and final appearance as Icheb. Alice Krige as her second and last live-action appearance as the Borg Queen. And Dwight Schultz as his twelfth time playing Reg Barclay, the sixth on 'Voyager.' As I mentioned before, it was the last time Roxann Dawson played B'Elanna Torres and Ethan Phillips played Neelix. But how would I rank 'Endgame' with the other series finales? 'DS9' would still be king, 'TNG' second. I don't know, but I think I prefer 'Enterprise' to this one now, I'd have to watch again. I've since seen a further three Trek series end (four if you count 'Prodigy,' but that was cancelled), though none of those are even in the conversation! I felt generous with my former rating for 'Endgame,' so had to mark it down, but it also marks a definite end to childhood and transition to the next stage, so for all its flaws, easier to see with the passing of time, I still retain a fondness for it and the time in life it stands for, and the series as a whole remains my second best after 'DS9,' something that will never change.

***

No News Is Something News - The State of Star Trek

No News Is Something News - The State of Star Trek

Hearing nothing about the future of Trek beyond the limping out of the final seasons of 'Strange New Worlds' and 'Starfleet Academy' is bad news in the sense that it's sad news - no more Trek for the foreseeable future in a world where everything keeps being redone over and over? But it's good news for the fact that Trek has been done so badly for so long that we're at the stage where it's a relief not to have to watch any more of it. At one time I would have still held hope that the next iteration created by a different generation might recapture the essence and qualities so long lost, but now I don't even have that slight optimism, and in all likelihood when they do bring back the Trek name it'll be even worse: you like the fact that they brought back so many past Trek actors returning to their characters (even though there was a whole list of bizarre choices like the Punk on the bus, the outrageous Okona, or Shelby... okay, the last one I mention for being a poor way to finish out a character), well in the 4th generation it'll be all gender rebootings and recastings to better balance the ethnic mix of the world. You like canon (even though it's been broken, stomped underfoot and maybe even spat on), well it'll all be 'free' from canon, unrestrained and unconstrained, and if you think 'but they can't ever entirely get away from canon since everything they do becomes canon and they have to stick to their own internal logic and consistency even if it conflicts with past Trek's canon,' I would just refer you back to the 3rd generation of Trek (2009-2027: 'Star Trek XI'-'Academy'), in which they didn't even seem to regard their own details as important to stick to!

As you can see, I view the state of 'Star Trek' as not good, to put it lightly. Since last year's examination of its state I've finished two more series' and got up to date on another: 'Discovery' Season 5 was the usual stuff, the same old flaws, the same contemporary dialogue and manner, the same empty, meaningless 'adventure' for the sake of it, with the same annoying characters. 'Lower Decks' was at least more of the reasonably entertaining, but not going to set the Trek world alight, fun, but streaming series' never seem to be made to 'bed in,' have time to become a staple of viewer's lives in the way the 2nd generation did (1987-2005: 'TNG'-'Enterprise'), when they were making 26-52 episodes a year, watching on a weekly basis as part of life, where now it's about cramming in as many different TV shows and films as possible, bingeing them to keep up with everyone else for fear of missing out. In that landscape Trek is just one tiny morsel of flavour devoured in the mad rush to get to the next thing before it's spoiled for you, and where does Trek fit in a world where people no longer make an appointment (whether that be on TV or a trip down to the video shop to get the latest VHS tape), to view, can just watch whenever they want and move on to the next empty production?

When I think of old Trek I tend to think about the homeliness of it all, Tuvok sitting at his accustomed seat in the Mess Hall, or Bashir and O'Brien playing darts at the back of Quark's bar, those bits between all the adventures that made the adventures more real, more a part of their everyday lives, and by extension, ours. Every modern Trek series has its equivalent bar or Mess Hall, but the characters are so barely developed as people and the time is so much taken up with wacky stuff that there's so little reality to modern Trek, even if it weren't trying so hard to be 'hip' or relevant. It's become a parody of itself - intentionally with 'LD,' that's the whole point, and if anything it's pulled back on that a touch to allow those characters a little more room for growth, successfully or not, but with 'SNW' it's a whole different thing: we need to bring in Scotty and Korby and Trelane and the Gorn and the Metrons and... endless rehashing, and not for the sake of being true to the history since they're so far gone from that they seem not to even try. But then it is subtly hinted it's all an alternate universe, even if they publicly appear to claim it'll all marry up in the end.

I have no anticipation for how 'SNW' will end, presumably next year unless they're desperate to drag out the little new Trek content they have in the hopes people will still care for longer. The characters from the word go were not the characters from the 1st generation (hmmm, would that be 1966-1973, or 1966-1991, or 1965-1994...?: 'TOS'-?), but completely overhauled modern people that have no connection with the mythical 23rd Century at all. They talk like us, they think like us, they act like us... even the Vulcans are barely Vulcan and it's a real travesty to see how badly such classic characters could be handled, or mishandled. Not to say I didn't enjoy any of Season 3, but not as Trek in the style of 'TOS,' merely as less dull 'SNW,' and after the low points of Season 2 it could be argued it would've been difficult to sink that low again (though they tried).

This is all before the absent film series even enters the mix: what happened? They've claimed a film here and a film there nonstop for years, I can't even remember what the latest imaginary film production was aiming to be or when it was supposed to be coming, but then TV Trek has become the same as film Trek pretty much always was: only interested in the melodrama and big, sweeping grandness of visuals and action rather than the steady learning and getting to know the people over twenty-odd episodes a season. And it really is noticeable if you do go back and watch the old stuff (especially the 2nd gen), as I've been coming to the end of 'Voyager' (again), and enjoying it.

I'd actually forgotten that it will be the 60th Anniversary of Trek in September - not so much forgotten as phasing in and out of memory like I'm stuck in the Nexus or something, the echo of me recalling that things weren't always this way. Now and again I see something with a 60th logo on it, but in the same way as at the 50th we were slightly lost in terms of the celebratory traction, only 'Beyond' there to mark anything at all, and the promise of a new series still a year away, in the inverse of the 40th when we'd just lost series Trek, but a film was on the way. It seems the 30th will be the only 'recent' anniversary to succeed at making it feel special (even the 35th in 2001 was sort of between houses, 'Voyager' having ended, 'Enterprise' just begun, but not in a position to do something special for the whole of Trek, as it were). So it's hard to believe this year we'll be as far away from the 30th as it was from the first broadcast of 'TOS,' many more actors have been lost, not to mention creatives behind the camera (but William Shatner still goes on!), and it all just goes to show how short human life is, the space of two 30-year chunks has mostly taken a man's lifetime.

Why am I meandering away from Trek itself to philosophical musings on time? Because there's not really much to say. Trek in 3rd gen hasn't quite come to a stop, but that was simply the size of the train whose brakes had been pulled, and I expect most people had abandoned ship long ago as it grinds inexorably to a halt in the middle of nowhere, forgotten in the wilderness.

As I've taken to doing, I'll rank the 3rd gen seasons in merit order, with the caveat that after the first three they're all much of a muchness and mere guesswork to say where they stand (apart from the bottom three):

- Lower Decks S2
- Picard S3
- Lower Decks S3
- Lower Decks S4
- Lower Decks S5
- Lower Decks S1
- Picard S1
- DSC S4
- Prodigy S1
- DSC S5
- DSC S3
- SNW S1
- DSC S1
- Short Treks
- SNW 3
- DSC S2
- Prodigy S2
- SNW S2
- Picard S2
- very Short Treks

As expected, 'LD' S5 was in the upper tier since I do actually enjoy seeing most of those episodes and look forward to reviewing them soon, while 'DSC' S5 was about on the same level as S3, being quite unremarkable, but I liked the Vulcan woman Saru marries and I can't really think of anything else (other than Callum Keith Rennie failing to get anything to explore a very lightly established alien race from 'DS9,' a waste of talent and potential, and of course Tilly was back...). 'Prodigy' S2 never went anywhere for me. That leaves 'Academy' as a series I really don't want to watch, other than the shameless use of Jake Sisko to make me want to see that episode so I'll probably have to buy the season (even though I suspect Picardo will be wasted). Nothing really changes in my anticipation as new Trek is so unappealing, it's just about ticking it off the list rather than enjoying, hoping there'll be at least one episode a season I get something out of:

SNW S4: *
S31: -
SFA: *
next film: **
TNG Blu-ray: ****

Last year's anticipation was:

Lower Decks S5: ***
DSC S5: **
SNW S3: *
S31: -
SFA: *

I haven't touched on the business side of things with Paramount being under new management and a merger with Warner Bros. which will both have affected Trek's future, but whether for the good or bad, who knows? One thing's for sure, we're losing the Trek, and perhaps only a want of it is our only hope - failing that, forget all that's been made in the last twenty years and get stuck in on the old stuff! I got the 'TNG' Blu-ray collection for Christmas and it got me through Season 2 where I'd been languishing for literally years, every episode an undiscovered country thanks to the sharpness and detail on display. I'd certainly consider splashing out for 'Enterprise' on Blu-ray as it makes such a difference, and I now fully understand all those who've been bemoaning the lack of 'DS9' and 'Voyager' in such form. 'TNG' (and finishing up 'Voyager'), has by far been the highlight of my Trek viewing year and that's the way it's looking likely to be for the foreseeable future, maybe even forever! 

Renaissance Man (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Renaissance Man) (2)

What better way to close out the standard run of episodes before we get the feature-length series finale than with a Doctor story that cleverly integrates most of the characters in a 'Mission: Impossible' type of spy drama where he's wearing the 'face masks' of his friends and colleagues to save the Captain's life? I do think it's a classic of the series, completely standalone, which may or may not irk, depending on your stance on how they chose to close out the series without preamble or setup. I just think of it as a strong episode rather than a stepping stone towards the conclusion of the series and its characters, one you could watch without consideration for what went before or after - for example, Neelix' absence has no effect, it simply feels like he's on the ship, but not involved as was too often the case (he even gets a mention by the Doctor at the end which had nothing to do with his leaving, so again, if you didn't know he was gone it wouldn't be out of place at all). At the same time there are noticeable little bits of ephemera that allow a keen observer of the series to realise they're deliberately throwing in a few 'last' things - Vorik has no bearing on the story, he's just there, but it's nice that he got one more appearance. Mr. Ayala, the Maquis guy who was quite visible in the pilot as one of Chakotay's men, simply because he was quite lanky, and was seen as an extra throughout the series, generally without lines, gets a prominent position on the Bridge at Helm, and even some lines. We see a holographic emitter on the ceiling of Sickbay, which hadn't been there before, and nooks and crannies of the ship, like the upper level in Engineering or a little side cupboard behind the Doc's office. They know this is the only time they have to do such things and despite the lack of connection to the series winding down, it still gives out a slight atmosphere of that.

It's really a bottle episode, but while it's mostly the Doctor running round the ship, they also have some fun with various special effects, from his leap through the office window in Sickbay, to running up the wall and flipping over Tuvok, to a Holodeck full of Doctors, they didn't hold back and had some fun (to the extent I kept thinking of 'The Matrix' and sequels, which was only two years old at the date of this production, while the sequels had yet to arrive - in both cases the effects were less realistic seeing them nowadays, but it was the intent and use that worked). I'm not entirely sure on the tone of the episode, whether it veers too much into comedy when there's a strong undercurrent of horror and creepiness, or if it should have been even more broad (the Doctor's deathbed confession would fit plum into that category!). Right from the first scene in which the Doc sings opera while piloting the Flyer (and we also learn he's writing a paper and taking holo-photos at the same time), a sprightly, energetic pace flows throughout, while also setting the humorous style, in keeping with the Doc's personality. It could just as easily have been played more sinister from the moment 'Janeway' turns on Chakotay to hypospray him and the First Officer isn't strong enough to push 'her' arm away since it's really the Doctor in disguise and holograms have seemingly no limit to their strength as it's merely programming (although later that's called into question as the Doc grapples with the Hierarchy alien and holds him at an impasse without being able to overpower him - they must have dense muscular structure in their large potato-head bodies that test a hologram's limits).

The sets are quite murky throughout which only adds to the sense of foreboding and uncertainty, with Janeway highly suspicious right away, returning from a mission and summarily deciding the only option is to settle on an M-class world, though that creepiness is stripped away quite early when we learn the Doctor is in control of his actions, he's only trying to save his Captain's life by obeying the instructions of their captors. Again, the tone isn't sure of itself as the Hierarchy were very much comedic villains in the Ferengi vein, and while it's nice to have an established 'Voyager' species be behind the villainy (we learn they like mud baths, which was fitting!), there is some question over whether they have the cachet to cause real harm to trained Starfleet officers, especially when there's only two of them. The lead is the only true villain, the other guy was more of a tinkerer whose skills were being exploited and along with the simple desire to get some cash together in order to open a used parts shop since he loves fixing things - incidentally, although Janeway was trying to get on his side by suggesting they could purchase his entire inventory, I don't think she quite understood he wouldn't want to sell everything, he'd want to potter around in an acquired location, make a name for himself as a fixer of old parts and so on, it wasn't just the selling that interested him, but he never has a chance to respond to her offer before his boss or partner intervenes. Still, the Hierarchy would provide a suitable opponent to the Doctor, whom, for all his abilities, can still be quite naive.

We'll have to lay it down to that, that he failed to trust his friends enough to find a way to warn them about their Captain's situation. I know he was being watched all the time, everything he saw and heard was relayed back, but surely he could have found a way to alert them somehow (as with the musical clue). I rather think it was more to do with that worrying attitude he displayed at the start when saying how he used to wish he could be flesh and blood, but came to the conclusion holograms are superior. It's a concerning admission, especially because it seems to be a recurring belief among holograms - we'd seen such examples as Dejaren in 'Revulsion' who killed his entire crew because he was disgusted by organic life, and the holograms the Hirogen fought in 'Flesh and Blood' had similar beliefs about themselves. But the scene between the Doctor and Janeway is played humorously, it's just the same old pomposity we've grown to love in him, and yet I also felt there was room for exploration of that theme - to some degree you could say it was explored in the sense that the Doctor needs the help of his 'inferior' organic fellows and is unable to win out alone, as might have been the outcome if showing holographic superiority were the goal. Strangely, it's his humanity that actually betrays him because he does take it all on himself and does a good job of tricking people for some time (a bit like Data in 'Brothers' where he takes over the Enterprise, except that was overt rather than clandestine), but ultimately slips up.

If he'd been coldly logical and computer-like he may have carried it on longer, but either way he's betrayed by his manipulator. Whenever someone tells you to lower your shields you have to have a bad feeling - when the alien villain gives him that order it made me think of Kirk doing the same to Khan in 'Star Trek II' ("Here it comes"). I did wonder when they decide to send a shuttle after the aliens and the Flyer, why not use all the shuttles and pursue with an attack fleet? For that matter we don't actually know how many they have aboard and have always liked to keep it vague (unlike 'DS9' where you could just about keep track of the Runabouts' fortunes over the years, which were all named), and perhaps it wouldn't have been stealthy enough, but it is interesting that we don't see Starfleet use their shuttles like fighters - could be budgetary reasons, but I like to think it's because the shuttles aren't considered offensive weapons, like a Tricorder they're there to perform sensor scans and other non-invasive necessities, and I like that. It's not about fitting heavy weapons on and blasting enemies out of the space-lanes, although in this case they could've done with all the firepower they could muster.

There isn't all that much room for development, but even this late in the day we learn the Doctor wishes he could socialise more with the Captain, citing her dinners with Chakotay and playing Velocity with Seven (which I think we only saw once in Season 4), as signs of her behaviour with others. It makes sense for him to have an individual connection with Janeway since he is the Chief Medical Officer and you could say that even after all these years there is some unconscious bias about him, but it's more that he's very sensitive and Janeway has a lot to deal with, it's not a normal situation being stuck in the Delta Quadrant for years. Still, it ends the episode on a happy note when Janeway takes him up on his suggestion - I also like that rather than the usual dressing down he'd earned by disobeying her orders and thinking he knew best, she punishes him by denying access to his mobile emitter for a week, and as he's been reclusive in Sickbay for that time, he's already served the punishment. I do think there was something to be played with Seven in all this - it's ironic, isn't it, that she's really taken quite a back seat over the season, especially the second half and in recent episodes has been mostly background, but in this one it felt like there should be some response to the Doctor's declaration of love for her. It was done in a theatrical way while he thinks he's dying, but it was so sensitively handled in 'Someone To Watch Over Me' that I can't help feel it was not quite right to throw it out there in front of her and the others, and they were only doing it because there'd be not time for repercussions. But a scene in which she shows up in Sickbay and sets things right again would have been appropriate.

Chakotay, Tuvok and B'Elanna all benefit in this one, characters too often overlooked - we even get a shot of Torres not pregnant as a little gag since unlike other times (Season 4), or characters (Kira), she was playing pregnant, but actually wasn't so they could do that, the only time we see her that way in the season. I do have to ask why the crew have holo-templates of themselves in the first place, that seems a very strange idea. I could understand if the Doctor had tapped into the leftovers of the Maquis program or something similar, but no mention was made and it appeared they simply have templates of themselves in the ship's database. Creepy! Though necessary for the story, I suppose. Another idea that barely had any airing was how the 'R'Kaal' were anti-warp travel as they believed it damaged subspace, an issue dealt with on 'TNG,' then never mentioned again, but the rationale (non-canon I suppose, since it was never mentioned onscreen), for Voyager's Warp Nacelles angled up for warp travel was a direct answer to the problems discussed in 'Force of Nature' and this would have been the perfect time to make that canon and give insight into a key ship's system in its penultimate appearance, but at the same time the story wasn't relevant because the R'Kaal were an invention of the Doctor. It was fun to see the Warp Core eject (though I think it'd been done before), though it must have been a budgetary constraint that they fail to show a Core-less Engineering when scenes are there post-ejection - we view the angle from the Core's POV.

I considered it should be more difficult for the EMH to become the ECH, Emergency Command Hologram, than the Doctor ordering it without any authorisation from Janeway since he'd be a major security risk if anyone tampered with him, but the point of it is so that if the Captain is somehow incapacitated he can take over (even though there is a hierarchy, which is the whole point...), but then it was generally a little bit of amusement and a touch hard to take the Doctor being in command seriously (as we saw last time with Kim). The horror aspect of the Doctor going around knocking people out, impersonating them and then hiding their bodies in the Morgue (have we see that location before?), then collecting their Combadges together like trophies, could have been played up quite uncomfortably, but since we knew the Doctor was in the right it couldn't be, so that was a small flaw. Maybe it'd have been better to keep the tension and not let on what was happening until later. One thing Janeway got right was suggesting the Doctor would outlive them all, and according to 'Starfleet Academy' (the series that finally broke the back of modern Trek, and which I have yet to see), he survived a thousand years!

I suspected it wasn't Robert Picardo in the Hierarchy makeup when they give him the potato-head skin to infiltrate their own planet and use him for other nefarious criminal activities, since it was unnecessary and would take time for Picardo to get in the makeup - it's confirmed in the end credits with J.R. Quinonez noted as 'Overseer/Doctor' (who also appeared uncredited as Kol in 'The Price' on 'TNG,' apparently). It was another actor, David Sparrow, playing the R'Kaal alien the Doctor impersonated. As well as being Alexander Enberg's final appearance as Vorik the Vulcan (and indeed his last part in all of Trek), and Tarik Ergin getting a rare credit (Tactical N.D. - usually stands for Non-Dialogue, except he definitely spoke, but he usually appeared in blue, though I'm sure he also showed up in gold, so either he fulfils multiple roles in various departments, or it's a case of Mr. Leslie in 'TOS' and there's more than one of him!), we also have another returning face as Andy Milder played Nar, one of the Hierarchy aliens - he couldn't have been more unrecognisable from his previous role as Boq'ta in 'Empok Nor' from 'DS9,' the Bolian quite thin and small, while Nar was as burly as all the other potato-heads we'd seen, though they were both gentle, concerned types.

If you don't mind the uneven tone and just go with the comedy, and you're not concerned about 'wasting' a precious story on what amounts to a 'mere' bottle episode without the dignity of allowing a seven-year series to wind down, this is great fun and continued to demonstrate the quality of action and adventure they could achieve. It was clever in that while the Doctor is the focus, another character to be noted for taking more than his fair share of the limelight over the years, they found a way to make sure other characters were more involved thanks to the impersonations. For that reason I would say it stands the test of time, and even while the CGI isn't quite right at times, provided a good ensemble story to finish a season that can be maligned and in general isn't as strong as the last few (as is usually the case with final seasons). The Doctor is a ham, but he shows he can also act subtly if the stakes are high enough, and they were high for him with the protection of Janeway. Loyal to the end, a hologram is a Captain's best friend.

****

Trolls

 Amiga 1200, Trolls (1993) game

This must be about the easiest Amiga game to complete I've ever played! I was very surprised it only took me three sessions, a smattering of hours to complete every level and hit the big wooden door at the end expecting 'the final challenge' mentioned in the manual. All I got was a 'Congratulations' screen. An admittedly bright and attractive piece of artwork, very Hobbity, maybe even a touch 'Settlers,' but still... I was anticipating at least one last partial level, maybe a difficult boss battle, something to increase the chances of dying and having to play through all the levels again. But no, unless I'm missing something, that's it, you get seven levels of mostly well-worn themes (Toyland! Candyland! Fairground Land!), with the toughest challenge in the game being thumbing through the manual and counting down the lines of text on a given page to find the correct word for inputting to satisfy the copy protection... That's another thing, I couldn't copy the disks, they come up as NDOS, meaning not a DOS disk and therefore Workbench, the Amiga operating system, won't let you copy them. I'm always wary of using original disks, especially today, so long after they were manufactured, so I went into this game with the mental caveat I might not be able to finish it, reliant on the disks holding out. I needn't have worried, the game didn't last long enough for me to experience any issues like that, and I can't say I'd have been disappointed if it had, other than for the sake of completeness.

Actually, I did experience some issues like that: the game was a bit glitchy - I understand, as I said, it's very old and a wonder it even still works (they used to make things to last back then!), but I did once get stuck in the scenery with only the relief of a nearby monster moth killing me to prevent me having to restart from the beginning (the manual claims you can restart by pressing F2, or quit with ESC, but neither of those options worked, so maybe that was referring to the PC version only?), and that was only in a few hours of play. The worst glitch was when the Bonus levels for each world, doorways with spinning question marks only accessible when a world has been completed, would crash the game if you tried to enter them (on a side note: are these Worlds or Levels, because the manual calls them Level Doors, but then mentions how 'you can see a silhouette of the World you will enter through that door' and later calls them 'Multi-Level Worlds' - I just like to get the terminology right in a game. And don't get me started on the weird choice not to have the name over the door, but to have to guess from the silhouette what level/world you're about to enter!). Oddly, the Bonus (or Bogus, depending on which of the B-O-N(or G)-U-S letters you collected), levels that automatically loaded up after a successful completion of a level with all letters collected, worked fine, so I don't understand what the problem was?

Let's tally up so far: extremely short, confusing, options that don't work, glitches... It's not that I went in with high expectations, I was fully anticipating a basic 2-star average joe of a game, and now that I've played it I feel bad for having marked 'Sleepwalker' and 'Magic Pockets' down to that last year when they were more inventive or a far more energising challenge (though it was for specific reasons: the glitchy end of the former, the hard graft for the latter). I selected 'Trolls' as my big Amiga title this year simply due to the fact it was about the only platform game I could find in our collection that worked, worked on the 1200, and was a platformer, as I wanted to recreate the fun of the last couple of years where I've rediscovered the genre on the console. In truth I really wanted to play the James Pond games (especially Robocod), but couldn't locate them. I had absolutely no connection to 'Trolls' whatsoever, having never played it back in the day (I don't even know what 'era' we got it in, I imagine it was among one of the later batches of collections that came our way). There are some titles I'd love to play: 'Fire and Ice' (begun, then forcibly abandoned due to the 1500 dying), 'Soccer Kid' (where are the disks?), 'Zool' (doesn't work on the 1200, or maybe just doesn't work), but 'Trolls' had to suffice and just shows what a gap there is between the greats and the also-rans of the genre.

I will give it credit for a cheery little intro sequence as if all the energy and time went on that to sell the game, a jaunty theme, and even game credits (which is why I suppose they're missing at the end). Then you have a colourful image of the titular Troll and some of his enemies before the game starts properly. I will also give credit for allowing the player to tackle the seven Worlds in any order he likes: once I'd got a handle on how the game played, what the various collectables meant, and explored the levels, it made sense to start with the last one, 'Candyland,' and work backwards since the difficulty was slightly upped with the later ones, as is the norm for these things. Not that there was ever much real difficulty, it's far from taxing for any experienced platformer veteran and even with the slight impression of an unresponsive control scheme, you can win through quickly - you're helped by the occasional hidden warping area that if jumped into will deliver you to the end of the level, bypassing all the threats, the main ones being falling off the bottom of the screen since you get three hearts to start with, and space for a fourth to be filled, three lives (falling off uses one), and maybe four continues? Find a 'Super Cool White Rabbit' and it adds another continue, score 5000 points and get another life... Even if you die the number of Baby Trolls collected is held over so you don't have to pick them up again, so there are a lot of helping hands - if you're careful and don't go bouncing off the screen too much, you can get through with minimal losses.

It can get confusing over what you can and can't do - early on I wasn't sure if I was losing a heart every time I bounced on a monster, or not (you have to hit them directly from above or you suffer damage). And when I collected various items I'd often see no change in the score, so does it wait for the end of level screen to award the points? I think so, but then some things do give you points there and then, like the essential Baby Trolls (a number of which you have to rescue before heading for the 'Pigstop' - it's a flying pig, the 'Pigasus,' rather than a bus for reasons of game creator whimsy, though I do wish they'd put a little more thought into Troll culture, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, and worked the worlds around that, rather than just flinging in the usual environmental features and creatures you'd expect), of which you have to collect a certain number in each level, so it didn't seem to be very consistent. To make it even easier there are 'Big Red Elephants' (which look a bit like Welephant, the fire safety mascot, if you remember him!), which will mark your position in a level so if you lose a life you'll jump to him instead of starting at the beginning. They were nothing if not generous, but maybe this was the dawn of games becoming easier since they were cottoning on to the fact that players will be more likely to buy your game if they can actually do well in it.

Some minor irritations are that you collect items hidden in balloons by hitting the balloon, but then have to wait for the item to jump into the air and come back down, and if you move from that spot, you'll miss it. It had the effect of slowing the game down because instead of bouncing madly round screens as you would in most games of this style, you have to wait, or at least leap into the air in a direct line above you, to ensure you collect the points, and when you have enemies approaching, that's not always possible. Even more so when you're in the Bonus/Bogus levels (the difference between them being that you double the points collected if you play a Bogus level, but lose all, including a life, if you fail to get to the exit in time), where you have a strict time limit in which to explore and gather up as many points as possible, while still making it to the Elephant-shaped Exit before the time runs out. I never saw any correspondence between the balloon's colour and what it contained, either, so you don't know if something's worth waiting for until you hit the balloon and play close attention to what flies out of it. Then there are the enemies that all reappear the moment you come back into their area after stepping away, even if you've dispatched them! The Troll's hair changing colour depending on what Special Power he gets was a nice touch (that's the kind of thing I'm talking about when I say 'Troll culture' - expand on that!), but a couple of them are negative effects (Ball & Chain slowing you down, Beer making movements unresponsive - realistic, but is this really suitable for a game aimed at children!), so there's a bit of penalising the player for the sake of it.

To cap it all, I wasn't able to note down my score (153,000, or thereabouts? I'm not sure), at the very end because unlike every other level door, you don't need to press down on the Joystick to access the final wooden door, just touch it, which was a final annoyance since when the 'Congratulations' message comes up that's it, there's no way back, no saving, nothing, you have to reset the Amiga to exit, how annoying is that! In gameplay terms it was pleasant enough, though disappointing you only get music in the Toymaker's Shelves hub (the Toymaker himself seems to be a dog for some reason...), or the Bonus/Bogus levels, though sound effects were attractive enough, as were the visuals. 'Fableland' with its rolling green hills and little Hobbit dwellings in the hillside, was probably the best looking. 'Candyland' just seems like a complete rip-off of 'Zool,' though I suppose 'Media Land' was trying something different with its largely black and white landscape and amusing giant-sized Troll-related headlines. You've got to have the obligatory underwater levels with Sodapop Land (with added jeopardy thanks to the need to reset oxygen before it depletes by collecting bubbles from balloons, though again you have no idea which balloons hold them!), so where was the 'Space Land' where you jump higher or fly in zero-gravity? The Yo-Yo was a fun addition, allowing you to swing from platforms and even jump up to higher ones, but it could be fiddly to use (press fire and the direction you want to throw it, but if you get it wrong you'll end up running in that direction and hitting an enemy with your body, taking damage instead of damaging the foe - argh!), and should have been standard equipment rather than something you had to track down every level (and lose every time you die, sometimes stifling your progress).

Maybe I was expecting too much, but I don't think so, I think 'Trolls' just comes across as a bit of a rush job and even the artwork on the box looks quite amateurish. Translated into the digital environments it's a lush, happy funscape, but when you're even feeling inclined to be critical of the product's box and manual you can't help but feel that there's something fundamentally wrong with it! Not really true, I did get some enjoyment, but it was very far from being a challenge and when you've steeled yourself to battle through seven levels and an eighth final challenge, probably taking a good few weeks of teeth-grindingly repetitive effort, to complete it so quickly makes me feel like I've been let out of work halfway through the shift and don't know what to do with the rest of my day.

**

Homestead (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Homestead) (2)

I did wonder if this story would have the same power as it used to - it's been a long time since I last watched it, 'Voyager' and its conclusion has always been patchy in my mind and the series didn't always show the qualities that it was capable of, but the exit of the friendly Talaxian, Neelix, remains as sensitive and fitting as ever and is really the kicking off of the end, as late as it was, the decision having been made not to conclude with multiple episodes, bring back all the old faces, or really do anything other than show the unexpectedness of the ship's success or failure in its main mission of returning home, no one knowing until the last moment whether the drive of the series would be satisfied or left hanging. I'd love to know what it would have been like to see this episode without knowing it was Neelix' last - at the time its terrestrial premiere was first broadcast on TV in 2002 I'd been reading Star Trek Monthly for years and had become well used to knowing all about episodes before seeing them, but I can imagine for more casual viewers it would have been quite a shock to see a member of the main cast leave out of the blue, even if you were aware the series was almost at an end, and while Neelix could be something of a divisive character for many, those of us who loved his foibles and flaws, and saw his heroism and usefulness, were very sad to say goodbye, and in some ways for me this was more of a series finale than 'Endgame' which was much more concerned with sweeping action and high-concept drama, much in the way of 'All Good Things...' While the 'DS9' finale, 'What You Leave Behind,' had its share of slam-bang action, it was more notable for the sensitive handling of the characters and the sense of closure - 'Homestead' is more along those lines.

We didn't get to see much of a farewell among the crew in the series finale so perhaps that's one of the main draws for me here, but the atmosphere is also heavy with expectation of the change in Neelix' life: the next chapter of a varied existence that has thrived on moving from place to place, doing odd jobs, fitting in wherever he can. There's also a sadness about the character best summed up when he shows Dexa the Bridge and her son, Brax (brats?), asks where Neelix' station is. It's both rewarding, but also telling when Kim and Chakotay praise him as being multi-talented (the 'most versatile' member of the crew), the series essentially pointing out his mercurial nature: enough to fit any role he was given, and while his friends and crew-mates were well-intentioned, he really didn't have an essential position within the hierarchy of the crew. It makes you realise that despite being welcomed into the family of Voyager, with it also a professional organisation, that's still not quite enough, and Neelix was left with a gap in his life, not helped by the split from Kes and her subsequent exit at the beginning of Season 4. He was resourceful and he always found a new role that needed him, but if you think back to the early seasons his only other major turning point was with 'Fair Trade' when he realised his unique usefulness as guide was at an end when Voyager was leaving the territory he knew - interestingly that was another episode that featured a Talaxian, his friend Wixiban and may have been the last time he ever met a real life member of his species until this episode which once again shows a missing piece in his life that he wasn't able to commune with those that shared his culture, history and the personal things that made him: his home, his people.

Neelix was gregarious and put effort into getting to know others, he was kind, which covered a multitude of ineptitudes or mistakes and made him such a lovable character, but rarely did he get the chance to show his inner vulnerabilities, he was always putting on the brave face, always the strong, optimistic one, even while struggling to restrain his emotions and all this comes out in that one scene where he realises he doesn't really have a strong anchor tying him to Voyager any more. I'm so glad they got Naomi Wildman in the episode (I was surprised to realise this was her final appearance - you could even say it's a bit harsh in the way Neelix learns his job is pretty much done in that quarter as Naomi is so blasé) - he goes to her in his confusion or disquiet to remind himself of his responsibility on a personal level, but finds she's becoming an independent child already whom no longer needs the kind of personal care and attention he'd devoted to her. I say sadly, but this was the only thing really holding him back from embracing a new life and I feel sure that his principles were so strong that if she had still needed him as Godfather, he would have sacrificed all potential happiness and fulfilment in order that she got what she needed from him - he was just that kind of man, the biggest heart in Trek, I think it's fair to say. That understanding allowed him to reach his decision, or at least start him considering going where he was most needed and could fulfil an essential role that tied in with his own personal needs, leaving the place he'd come to call home to expand and develop, which makes it such an affecting story.

For that reason it is the closest we got to goodbyes as Neelix is pleasantly surprised and moved to find the corridors lined with the crew come to salute him off the ship. A terrific scene and I love that Neelix says not a word as if he couldn't trust himself to speak, it's such a powerful moment and nothing need be said, the others do that for him. But even earlier when he's almost sneaking off Voyager to his own ship, head down, body language suggesting a slinking, sheepish exit until he's intercepted by Janeway, it reinforces the impression that he is a bit of a man alone, not constrained by the crew's adherence to the Prime Directive, still holding onto a piece of his old life with the small ship Voyager's kept in its belly the whole trip since the pilot. He doesn't go to anyone, doesn't confide in his friends, just sees a way he can help - all thanks to Tuvok's surprise encouragement that boosts him up and helps him realise he could do more to realise his full potential. Being the self-effacing person he is, it was needed. Now there are some issues with all of this: it's a bit convenient that the Prime Directive is cited since the Talaxians aren't a pre-warp species and are dealing with a similarly warp-capable opponent in the miners so I don't see how it applies at all, I'm sure Voyager has stepped in many times when a greater force was bullying a smaller, it's purely to set up Neelix as the only man who can help the Talaxian colony, in turn giving him the importance required to develop. But again, Neelix is just as bound by the Directive as anyone else under Janeway's command, though it helps to spell out that, for example, while Tuvok might have the skill to lead them in a tactical engagement, Neelix has the understanding of the Talaxians themselves, historically a 'beaten' people.

It's a fudging and it's a grey area, but it sets up a wonderful 'Seven Samurai'/'The Magnificent Seven' (or for that matter the Andy Lau film, 'Battle of Wits'), situation with Neelix as the lone gunslinger coming in to help the surrounded villagers who need leadership to defend themselves, so I don't have a problem with it - when it comes to it Janeway gets fully involved anyway, zipping in aboard the Delta Flyer to take out the last explosive when Neelix was about to make the ultimate sacrifice of himself and his ship, stopping it with his own life, and there was something of the Han Solo manoeuvre at the end of 'Star Wars' in her sudden and unexpected appearance. But we know Janeway's interpretation of when to invoke the Prime Directive or not was one of her most unstable characteristics so again, I don't mind in the context of the story - even though I knew Neelix was going to survive to stay with the colony at the end I still felt the imminence of death when he chooses to put himself in the path of the weapon and he's all the more endearing for his choice. I think the only real problem with the episode is the lack of Samantha Wildman - if you hadn't followed the story you could easily be forgiven for assuming she'd died seasons back since she'd only made three appearances since the end of Season 2, the last in the previous season's 'Fury,' and her absence is keenly felt in such moments as Neelix realising Naomi doesn't need him any more (I could imagine seeing it on her face - reading the situation, pained she can't do anything to help him, while potentially giving him a little nudge towards his convictions to go and help those people), and especially when his friends line the corridor, her absence is surprising.

I can imagine only a select few of the crew were able to see Neelix off, the ship's operations coming first, of course (an excuse for why there are clearly not two hundred people there!), and it's easy to make a case for any absentees being unable to get away from their duties, but in Wildman's case she was so close to him that it makes no sense for her not to be there. I can see she was just one of those elements deemed unnecessary in the time they had, maybe Nancy Hower was unavailable, but either way I do wish they'd made an effort to bring her back. It could have seemed a bit out of the blue since she and the other recurring characters (even the upper tier ones like Naomi and Icheb), hadn't been used consistently, unlike 'DS9' where you had great development and closure for everyone, and even though she hadn't been showing up on a regular basis (something that made the early seasons have so much more of a family or community feel), it would have felt right to see her in a couple of scenes as we can imagine her being around even when we don't see her. But the series had moved on from a lot of the things that made it what it was, as all series' do change over time so I can't judge too harshly, especially as this was such a strong episode to showcase Neelix, whether it be that sense of isolation of a man out of his culture, or someone willing to stand up for others: probably his strongest moment is when he stands in front of Brax when the miners are going to punish him for throwing a rock at their leader, Neelix pushed aside by one of the Cardassian-like aliens only for the Talaxian to use all his training from Voyager (right down to the famous Starfleet double-fisted hammer punch possibly created by Captain Kirk!), take him down and disarm him, the aliens surprised that one of these pacifist aliens would stand up to them.

That's the message of the story, all about violence not being the answer, but also the necessity to be bold and stand up for yourself or your family even if the consequences can be at high cost (as Dexa's husband found out at a previous colony). In this regard Neelix is exemplary, though his own sense of being inferior to the intelligence and skill of his Starfleet friends is what held him back from realising his full potential as someone who is diplomatic (like Janeway), tactical (like Tuvok), with the sense of when to act offensively or not (like Chakotay). It's pleasing to see all these qualities he's learned or unearthed through his time on Voyager and most gratifying for it to be Tuvok who inspires him. It's quite ironic it should be the Vulcan who suggests an emotional attachment to their colony could be an asset in getting them to defend themselves, but then Mr. Vulcan makes a few un-Vulcan moves in this episode: he claims that some of Neelix' tendencies can be annoying, but surely Vulcans are in control of whether they allow annoyance to annoy them. Similarly, he claims Vulcans do not experience fear - is this an example of the old issue of 'Vulcans never lie,' except they do if it's convenient or logical to do so? I like the idea that Vulcans can so bury such things as fear that they essentially don't experience it, one of the things I love most about the race which has sadly been lost in modern depictions (or I should say post-'Voyager' depictions!). More than anything it's his compliment that Neelix is perhaps (still with the typical Vulcan qualification in the sentence, you've got to have that!), the most resourceful individual he'd ever known, and 'more than capable.'

I'd have liked more information on how this group of Talaxians came to be so far from the homeworld since we know Dexa lived there at some point and shares Neelix' preferences about it, but she didn't look that old (difficult to tell alien ages, of course), so they must have made the journey, staying in various places, in a few years - but we know Voyager has travelled thousands of lightyears from that area of space, mainly thanks to bonuses like Kes pushing them along, so it's hard to get the idea of how they could end up so far out. All we hear is that they were a caravan of ships (again, if they were stopping at other planets to build a life why didn't they dismantle the ships there for whatever colony they made, or did they have to reassemble them to move on, like American Indians and their teepees?), and had bad experiences with aliens that have made them suspicious and slow to trust outsiders. It was fun to imagine there could be others out there called Neelix, as Dexa says her Uncle had the same name, but it also brings home a sense of homeliness for him: people that know the significance of names or places and share his experiences. He'd kept a bottle of some Talaxian beverage for fifteen years and opens it for Dexa (symbolic of opening himself up to her, maybe?), which is surprising when you think how close he was to Kes that he never shared it with her - you'd think he'd have cracked it open in 'Caretaker' after saving her to celebrate joining Voyager (perhaps she was too young to drink - she was only a one-year-old then, and Neelix was more going along with Kes who was enthused by Voyager and its mission - he'd have been happy enough to fly off into the sunset with her instead!).

Something else the episode did well was to remind us of history: the state of Neelix' homeworld, Talax, still controlled by their enemies, the Haakonians, was a stark reminder of this race being forced to live nomadic lives if they want to be free, a tragic part of Neelix' existence that rarely, if ever, got spoken about. The Talaxians are a little bit like the Jews in that regard and so this colony mirrors their home situation (so it's interesting the aliens were very Cardassian in style and attitude since that race appeared heavily influenced by the Nazis with the Bajorans as the Jews in that case). Had 'Voyager' returned in some way (and now hopes of ever seeing a revival other than the semi-return of 'Prodigy' are just about extinguished), it would have been fascinating to be able to see the Talaxians return home and live in their promised land in freedom once again, but more than likely if 'Voyager' had made a film it would have been generic action featuring the Borg, I expect! I was surprised the miners weren't furious at Voyager getting involved in helping the Talaxians, but perhaps they realised their mining ships were no match for the plucky Federation starship - may even have been why they agreed to a meeting on Voyager in the first place. They certainly came across badly, but at the same time they weren't entirely devoid of reason, they were more like the Ferengi or the Malon, intent on their own self-interest and the pressure of their society's needs rather than out-and-out villains as the Cardassians tended to be portrayed (I did like the silvery-grey chessboard square design of their makeup though I feel we'd seen it before).

Levar Burton's last role as Director on the series was a good one for him, though he'd be back the following season for 'Enterprise,' this being his third episode of the final season after 'Nightingale' and 'Q2,' 'Homestead' by far the best of the three. I can imagine they didn't have a whole lot of money at this point in the season as they were gearing up for the big finale, but they sold the idea of this asteroid colony very well, presumably that's the age-old cave set, yet that never occurred to me once while watching as it was so well disguised with all kinds of equipment and mechanical structure. The effects were pretty good - the Flyer's crash-landing on the asteroid wasn't nearly as spectacular as Burton's 'Timeless' where Voyager crashed on the ice planet, but it was more than functional, and seeing Neelix' ship one last time was a pleasant reminder of how the series started for him as it's been rare to glimpse it through the series even though they chose to keep it in storage which always seemed a little unlikely considering how little space (and how many shuttlecraft!), they had aboard. But the asteroid field worked well as it always does to see such a variety of shapes to break up the blackness of space and give us a better sense of scale and position when space is usually mostly empty and... spacious!

What I found most entertaining was the idea that First Contact Day (celebrating the 315th anniversary here), is an invention of Neelix! At least that was the impression I was left with when Tuvok says the ceremony was entirely an invention of Neelix, though it would be just as easy to say he was referring to the need for a Vulcan to say the first words spoken by a Vulcan to humans at first contact. But I just like the idea the whole thing was Neelix' to boost morale for the wayward ship - it's also such a nice way of connecting this series, so far from home and all they held dear, to the wider Trek universe by referencing the key history of Zefram Cochrane and First Contact with the Vulcans, the former of which dated back to 'TOS,' the latter depicted in the most recent film but one ('Insurrection' taking the title of most recent, released during Season 5). It was always a good, strong link to bring in, ramped up even further with 'Enterprise' (where they actually brought Cochrane himself in briefly), and much, much later, 'Lower Decks' (a ridiculous, but amusing First Contact theme park complete with holo-Cochrane), a character running through the entirety of Trek like a name through a stick of rock that helps to bind the Universe together (until it was so badly messed around with in recent productions - couldn't miss a swipe, could I?). It was also a chance to show Mr. Neelix at his best: as morale officer, the host of a party, and an excuse to get the main cast together since most of them don't actually have meaningful scenes with Neelix, so at least they're in the same room.

Perhaps we are missing scenes shared with Neelix between such people as Seven or Tom Paris who loomed large in his life aboard the ship, but then they needed to emphasise the loneliness of being away from his own kind in order for the story to fit. Ethan Phillips always (well, after the first two or three seasons), played his character with a hint of sadness or pain behind the eyes, I don't know whether this was planned or just a reaction to the difficult makeup he had to endure for so long, but it added so much depth to the character and the mark of a great episode is that it can make you look again and reappraise a character and a performance and this one certainly does that: it brings out so much of what made Neelix a terrific character, and even those who felt he was the Jar Jar Binks of Trek (another hated character I love!), must surely buy into this finale for him as both fitting finale and showcase for Phillips. It's only sad he wasn't given more of this calibre in the latter seasons, too often relegated to minor appearances as if they, like the Captain, could never quite find a definitive role for him. It's really very moving that Janeway makes it so easy for Neelix to leave - she immediately cottons on to his drift about joining the colony and even holds open the door that it's a position she wants him to hold as Ambassador to the Delta Quadrant. It's just words in terms of making him feel he's not abandoning his duties, because when you think about it, had the series and mission continued for more seasons, Neelix would have left a gaping hole in the Mess Hall and in the lives of so many of his shipmates that it would have been painful not to have this cheery, upbeat, heart-on-his-sleeve jack-of-all-trades, master of fun along any more and it's only thanks to the series ending we can take it.

It wouldn't be Neelix' final appearance, he'd stay in comm-range as long as possible, but for the character as a regular member of the crew, it was over. The episode benefits from some Trek guest stars to shore it up even further: I recognised Julianne Christie's voice as Dexa, but it wasn't until the end I made the connection with Xyrillian Ah'Len, in 'Enterprise' (when Brax asks what a Holodeck is Dexa should have turned round and said 'we invented it, dear'!), which she'd have performed the following season, though no other Trek roles to her name. I loved how real she played Dexa, you can tell she's pained by living without her husband and sees in Neelix many of the good qualities he exhibits, but she's not overt about anything, she's very restrained, appreciating his help, disappointed in him when he can't help them, there's so much subtext which you don't get in modern Trek when everything is so on the nose and simplistic because people act so unguardedly and don't restrain themselves. There are also some returning faces from past 'Voyager' with Christian R. Conrad as 'Miner' (one of), most recognisable as villain Henry Starling's henchman, Dunbar, in the 'Future's End' two-parter, and John Kenton Shull as Nocona, leader of the miners, who dated back to Season 3's 'Basics, Part II' as the Hanon medicine man, but had most recently portrayed a Klingon in previous season's 'Barge of The Dead,' (among other Trek roles in 'TNG' and 'DS9'). Lastly, Rob LaBelle completed his trilogy of 'Voyager' roles (and his only ones in Trek), with Oxilon, the Talaxian leader - he'd played another Talaxian in Season 1's 'Faces' and another role in 'False Profits,' though more recognisable to me for a recurring role on 'Smallville.' A nice cadre of Trek names with which to usher Neelix out of the series. Three cheers for Neelix, perhaps the most underrated character (and maybe actor, too), in Trek history: hurrah!

****