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!

****

Wave Race 64

 N64, Wave Race 64 (1996) game

Hard to believe this game is 30 years old, one of the launch games of the N64, or at least one of the very earliest titles. My connection with it was a mere few days borrowing from a mate in 2000, my nostalgia-meter centred on the GameCube sequel, 'Blue Storm' which was obviously far more technically impressive being, again, a launch game or close enough, and one to show off the new consoles' capabilities. The earlier title (which actually wasn't even the first in the series - that honour goes to the humble Game Boy, a proving ground for many later great Nintendo franchises like 'Zelda' and 'Metroid'), still holds its charms despite being little more than a tech demo for the amount of game actually there: it's very easy to finish everything within a few hours, and despite the tough difficulty curve, any experienced racer will see the end very swiftly. If it can be called an end when there isn't even any rolling credits that was becoming standard! The slim content can't hide the fun and challenge, however brief it may be, and why I call this a technical demo is down to the incredibly advanced physics and realistic movement of the waves - I think this would have been Nintendo's first truly 3D racer and on the N64 the start of an unofficial mini 'extreme' sports series that encompassed greats '1080º Snowboarding' and 'Excitebike 64,' but the important thing here is its ability to successfully evoke riding the waves.

Not enough to simply slalom between the bouncing buoys, you also have to read the currents and pull of the water in much the same way you'd later experience with the snow of '1080' and the soil of 'Excitebike,' giving it a unique quality not often seen in the racing genre, other than perhaps rally games, and certainly uncommon in the late-90s. There are only three opponents to race against (who'd return for the sequel), the usual small/manoeuvrable, medium, and unwieldy/high top speed custom racing options, so it's not doing anything outrageous, at the same time it's a beautifully crafted experience in every way (perhaps my only criticism, other than the extreme brevity, would be the absence of a rear view since you can see icons of racers close on your tail at the bottom of the screen and it would have been useful to get a better idea of distance sometimes, though not essential). It's also beautiful graphically speaking, another harking to its tech demo style in my eyes, with the expected wide range of water conditions and locations: the smooth glide of Drake Lake (with its tricky weave through wooden posts at the end), to the inherent glow of Sunset Bay, and includes little flourishes such as dolphins or the odd killer whale, even a helicopter, to show off some power and it's all so well judged and designed and relies on such pure control skill - just the kind of racing I like.

The lack of options can't prevent it from being considered a classic, and there are still a few things to do: aside from the Championship which consists of four difficulty levels (including an actual reverse of all tracks rather than the usual mirror mode, which puts a different spin on things), there's Time Trial in which you have to decide whether to corner sharply and drop in speed, or keep the speed up, but corner more widely, and if you should take jumps or weave around them. Only two-player simultaneous play was possible at this point in the N64's young life, but another technical limitation was evident in the black borders at top and bottom of the screen which has the advantage of making it appear to be a surprisingly early widescreen display, unless you play it on a widescreen monitor and realise it's not the aspect ratio! Lastly, there's Score Mode with scattered rings to amplify your score, and a number of fancy tricks to be performed. Fun, but basic, and I always feel score-based gameplay is only ever of interest if you have other humans on the scoreboard. But as the origins of a Nintendo sub-genre which they should bring back if they haven't already on Switch, it deserves a place in positive memory.

***

Sid Meier's Pirates!

 Wii, Sid Meier's Pirates! (2010) game

 

The original on the Amiga somehow passed me by - I didn't like strategy games at first, your 'Settlers,' 'X-Com' or 'Dune II,' but after spending enough time with them I came to love these games as favourites of the machine (and in gaming generally), but for some reason, maybe a suspicion of too much disk-swapping, perhaps a perceived lack of variety, it could have been I didn't have my own copy, I don't know, I never actually played 'Pirates!' and as a result it both retained some vague draw, of the exotic and unknown category, and a seed of interest that eventually grew into getting a copy for the Wii thinking it would be a far more advanced version. As it turned out I was to be rather disappointed, and I'm sure they were going for a strong nostalgia factor for those who'd loved the original back in the 90s (or was it late-80s?), because this was almost an exact copy in gameplay terms. There is the obvious addition of motion sensitive gameplay (though this is few and far between, limited to the dancing and fighting minigames, most of the game controlled from the D-pad), and a fairly pointless collectable accoutrements section that allows you to dress your pirate up in all manner of clothing like a Ken doll (which may have been part of the original anyway), but it's pretty pointless other than for the joy of customisation and putting your mark on your character. In every other respect it's the same gameplay. Though I never played it I somehow gained the knowledge of what the game entailed, and also heard firsthand in the now from one who had played it, but even if I knew nothing about this version, it's archaic systems and rigid gameplay would have tipped me off that it hadn't moved on in the two decades since!

The graphics are far more detailed, 3D and lushly colourful, and I will say that playing it in a heatwave with a fan blowing at me and my wooden door creaking in the background of air pressure gave me an almost 4D-enhanced experience of sailing the high seas at times, but overwhelmingly my impression was one of trudging through thick mud to get to something shiny, then turning round and doing it all again. Over and over again. It may be that this was a realistic depiction of piratical life: slow, tiresome, punctuated by occasional moments of excitement, delight and success, but it really did feel as if I was at sea on long voyages the way travel was so laborious. It could be painfully slow, especially when you're going against the wind (yes, I know all about tacking), inching forward while days are passing in-game and your character is literally ageing in the meantime! And then whenever you do reach port half the time was spent waiting for loading screens to the extent I didn't know which was slower: the sailing or being a landlubber! It didn't help, nor put me in the best frame of the mind that the Wii booklet was so slim and uninformative, telling you to download the full manual online. Fine, but when I did download the manual for the Wii version it was the same as the paper copy! Admittedly much time has passed and there were other versions I could have used, but it put me off trying to search out the proper manual and consequently I had to work things out for myself.

 

All well and good, sometimes it's ideal to approach a game that way, and the loading screens were at least full of helpful hints for the gameplay. At the same time there were key points it took me a long while to work out, and one or two I never did (such as how to attack a port - I assume you have to be at war with that nation, presumably by attacking enough of their ships...), and I felt on the whole there was no reason to have made the game anything other than a series of menu screens (and the fact that every different screen is accompanied by loading times didn't inspire confidence), everything else was mere bonus trappings - if we're talking Amiga games one aspect made me think of a specific genre of that era in style and relevance: the Don Bluth titles, specifically 'Dragon's Lair' and 'Space Ace' which were amazingly like being in a cartoon at the time, but could only achieve such heretofore unattainable graphical prowess at the expense of actual gameplay where it was merely a case of timing button presses to advance, a memory and reaction game, basically. The duelling brought this to mind very strongly since it's all about timing and the fancy graphics (not all that fancy now), were mere window dressing. I couldn't get a handle on them at first (nor the dancing), yet another game affected detrimentally by Wii controls not precise enough for purpose, so you're left uncertain if it's your own timing at fault or the sensors themselves (then there's the issue of 'A' being so close to the D-pad it's easy to roll down onto it and select an option by mistake). As time drew on and I was able to collect items that improved my skill in such areas and gradually made my way up the ranks of each country, the game opened up and I started to enjoy it instead of bumbling around. For a time I even considered it a 3-star game, though even then I'd have felt generous awarding it that. As it turned out, one last sting in the tail dropped the experience back down to my initial impressions.

There was certainly plenty to do, searching for lost cities, romancing governor's daughters, collecting, trading, ship battles, hunting for your kidnapped relatives, tracking down treasure and dealing with the pirates that put it there... And once I understood the landscape of this 'World' map and where to go for this or that, it's quite satisfying ticking things off lists, achievements being a modern addition I assume, that at least gives you more reason to keep playing, but eventually pales as you find yourself having to run the length of the ocean to catch up with your nemesis (or nemeses' since there's more than one!). But it was in the final battle against Montalban, the man who stole away your childhood by taking your family, my negative impression was sealed. The 'story' such as it was, at first appeared to be something more than I was expecting, and I assumed this wouldn't have been part of the original game and would be a far more developed part of the experience than it turned out to be - it was in the original and there isn't really any story other than giving you more of an impetus to explore and goals to aim for. But back to that final sword fight: to get to it you have to blast his secret city base, an on-rails 'light gun' shooting section, fun the first few times, but when it takes a couple of minutes to get through and at the end of it Montalban chops you to pieces in a few hits then it's one of those most ancient gaming headaches of the kind found in so many platform games and the like which is more trial than challenge.

It took me hours of repetitive, trying attempts, and I seemed to make no progress: I might get a strike in on him, only for the favour to be returned immediately, and defence moves seemed no avail as he'd simply recover faster. I actually did feel like I was starting to get RSI from the repetition of the two sequences, aiming and shooting my ship's cannons, then sword-fighting, and I got to the stage where I contemplated the shame of potentially having to give it up - perhaps at 88 my man, Robeye The Worthy, was simply too old for the necessary reaction speed, but there was no way I was going to start at the beginning again to find out! I tried various tactics, each sword (the attacking one, the defending one, the one in the middle), then I started bringing in another remote in to play as the second player - it enables a parrot to fly in and attack if you make a successful hit, giving a slight advantage, though repeatedly mashing buttons with one hand while at the same time trying to have a sword fight with the other, was certainly a challenge of dexterity! After days of attempts I somehow got the right timing and won the fight, but it was a major low point of the game that sealed my opinion. It's not that it was a terrible game, and once you understand the values of the few goods you trade, reach the top rank with free repair work on your fleet of ships, get a fleet of ships, tick off the tasks, it could be quite fun - I even pulled some late shifts, even an all-nighter at one point so I was clearly sucked into the world, but there were just too many irritations, tasks that took too long, and a growing sense of simply repeating the same few tasks over and over.

I grant that there is something enjoyable about being able to play a game one-handed (it didn't use the Nunchuk attachment so you could have a cup of tea or a sandwich in one hand, while controlling your ship with the other!), and I once ate a meal while playing, something I don't think I could say about any other game. But the motion controls didn't add much to the experience and once again I think of annoyances: the fact that if you leave a port it pushes you fast out into the sea, and if there's a reef, or rocks in the way you'll run right over them causing all kinds of damage! It's realistic in that food is used up over time and your crew grow restless and eventually mutinous if you don't do enough plundering, yet at the same time the other ships in your fleet will follow you blindly, running over rocks instead of steering their ships sensibly. I'm sure the greatest difficulty in a pirate Captain's life would have been dealing with people, a commodity with their own mind and short tempers, so it adds some internal threat to your plans that the crew need to be kept, if not happy, then merely miserable instead of mutinously angry! Early on I found it so hard to recruit new crew and they seemed to mutiny so often or get killed in battle that it was very demoralising, though once I got the hang of hopping into a port with the hope the bad apples would desert and the ship would go back to normal operations, or I was successful enough with countries I could recruit more easily, it became a much better experience.

It was a very gradual, if addictive game, which had the feeling of climbing a hill to get somewhere or make money, but when you get near the top it became much more enjoyable. But once you've beaten all the pirates, have a solid fleet and have taken on the majority of the tasks there isn't much reason to keep playing, though you can. One other flaw was it was almost impossible to actually lose the game, maybe a concession to 'modern' gamers? If you lose your ship you're picked up by someone else, if you're marooned on a desert island someone will come along and make you their Captain. The graphics reminded me of 'Age of Empires III,' colourful, bright, detailed, but it also reminds you there are much better resource management games you could be playing so it's hard to justify starting again (though I applaud the idea that everything you need to collect is reset in a new game so you can replay without feeling you know where everything is). The bottom line is that it's very old-fashioned, and not in a good way, it didn't succeed in updating the format to give you a greater sense of control and options - 'mouse'-controlled strategy games could be ideal for the console, as shown by how great 'Star Trek Conquest' was, but Sid's 'Pirates!' didn't cut it, me hearties.

**

Natural Law (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Natural Law) (2)

The final scene between Chakotay and Seven in the Cargo Bay is really like any final scene from the series: the two people who've just gone through an experience together reflect on it in some way, mutual understanding results. But it's the only mildest hint in the episode of the direction the pair were heading in, and that's probably the most surprising thing about the episode when you know how they end up at the conclusion of the series. You could say the shared experience, coupled with Seven's already seen interest in the Commander (to the audience), in 'Human Error,' as out of the blue as it was, is what jogged things along after this, but I was somehow heartened to see there was some kind of development rather than the impression of instant change in their affiliation that I tend to think of. That said, this is hardly the most important outcome of the episode, nor is it played up at all, it's most definitely a subtle alteration. The big issue is that of the treatment of primitive natives, and strangely it's left far too late to give it any really strong examination. I often think of this as one of the weaker instalments of the season, and the season as one of the weaker of the series, perhaps because there's very little development for the characters or addition to the lore when they should have been going out big, bringing back recurring characters, showing the community that was missing on screen (slightly mitigated by Carey popping up in the previous episode and the Bolian Chell getting a reference here), and increasing the connection with home that would become so crucial at the very end.

Instead, this could just as easily be a Season 1 story: a couple of characters trapped on an alien world with something of the Prime Directive issues at play, while the B-story features Tom Paris having to learn diplomacy when he makes a minor traffic violation in alien space and is forced to go through a pilot training scheme. As amusing as it is (and his friends clearly have a whale of a time ribbing him about it in one of the few scenes showing multiple characters on Voyager), it doesn't really have much bite to it, Paris is hardly going to become Mr. Humble, so the story doesn't go anywhere other than giving us the enjoyment and/or dismay of seeing him failing to navigate this crusty old test instructor. It's thrilling when he's called back to reality when Janeway orders him to beam out the 'invading' Ledosians from the Ventu safe haven, and pulls off some piloting excellence to do it, but it also undermines the lesson of his story, which would be that to comply with their own values Starfleet sometimes has to be humble and accept the rules imposed by alien cultures - instead, once it becomes inconvenient Paris is off the hook and can go back to boy racer in the cause of the greater good! Satisfying, but not entirely in keeping with the Starfleet ethos on display. At the same time the Ledosians didn't exactly give them much choice, turning hostile and attacking, so their rules were no longer the issue when they're behaving in a warlike manner.

The episode was far too much taken up with the minor adventures of Chakotay, and especially Seven, on the planet's surface - not in the sense that this wasn't of interest, but if you're going to introduce a strong moral component into the story, waiting for the last few minutes doesn't allow for much latitude of exploration! I enjoyed the pair of them together, it's a setup we didn't often see, and as the series wound down it makes you long for more of that kind of thing that they should have been doing throughout the series, but suffered when the series 'opened up' and tended more toward bigger action stories rather than the more intimate two or three character situations of the early seasons. In those days you needed such situations to explore these new characters and get to know them, but I don't feel they've been explored as much as they should have been across the entire series. Therefore it's a difficult quandary, as I want these kinds of stories, yet this one doesn't really go anywhere and so appears insubstantial as a result, being neither an in-depth character piece where we learn new things about our people, nor a serious social commentary, and suffers in both cases.

The real meat was the idea of an alien race forcing a segregation between a more advanced culture that was fighting a more primitive one. We never learn who these aliens were, though not advanced enough to defy the Borg as it's suggested they may have been assimilated (which is the reason Seven knows how she might deal with the unique forcefield preventing all entry and exit into Ventu territory), and it recalled a sci-fi book I once read about a tribal culture, Mayans or Inca, something like that, who were preserved on an asteroid. It's a fascinating idea, the preservation of a culture, but at the same time it throws up questions of whether it's right to 'protect' something at the expense of the people within it - for example, it may be that these Ventu were expert healers, but what of things they couldn't heal? If no one 'interfered' and helped them to develop in education and knowledge, they could die out. I suppose that would be considered acceptable as 'the natural order,' but while knowledge can (and often does), bring more trouble, even destruction, we have to remember that we're seeing this idea from within our own culture so we're no better to judge than the aliens who performed the segregation. I suppose Starfleet's general idea is to avoid getting involved because they could just as easily mess things up and make their lives worse, as better, and if they make it to warp level then fair enough (again, even that point of view is flawed when you realise warp travel isn't the final development that makes humans perfect, it's just an arbitrary cutoff point for convenience!).

Clearly in this case the Ledosians, while they gave the impression that they'd learned from the past and regretted what they'd done (and I'm sure it wasn't all one-sided, even then - no culture is immune from 'human' nature, after all), it was really only because they couldn't get into the territory and as soon as they have the slightest inkling of a chance they charge in and plan on carving it up or whatever, no doubt lucrative minerals, oil, or whatever resources are of value to them, could be in abundance, and even if it's unknown, the potential is there! So we see that high ideals don't necessarily last longer than the forceful implementation of them, which is maybe a more truthful moral of the story than the slightly vague idea of non-interference. But again, why leave it so late to approach the topic - there was even the obvious parallel of Chakotay's own culture's history on Earth. They could have tied in the Sky Spirits and how this alien species affected his ancestors, or at the very least shown his consideration of the parallels, but the closest we get to that is Janeway's oblique reference to Earth having it's own, similar problems. I will say that if there were two people most suited to being stranded with, it would be Chakotay and Seven. On his side, he's always been remarkably patient and adaptable to such situations - I think of 'Basics' or 'Resolutions.' Maybe he's too quick to accept the new reality, but it also shows he'll happily keep living, content wherever he is. Seven is the opposite, on her side intent on using every technological solution possible to extricate them from their prison, but slow to accept the natives.

Together then, they made an excellent team and I enjoyed their simple interactions. Perhaps drama was missing, ire and two different points of view contesting with each other, as in O'Brien and Bashir when they were trapped in 'Hippocratic Oath,' but it made for a gentler experience. I'm not quite sure how Chakotay sustained his serious leg injury unless part of the shuttle hit him just as they beamed away, but we didn't see that, he's just suddenly injured. I'm not sure it would have made all that much difference if he'd been in perfect health, except it adds a little more danger to Seven's position when she's forced to search for shuttle parts alone, in turn learning to depend on her young native friend, and of course they might never have come into contact with these natives in the first place. After a night out in the wilds Seven gradually becomes more and more dishevelled, eventually looking like her future self from 'Picard' - fortunately she doesn't talk or act like that unpleasant future version! It was actually quite nice to see them using one of the shuttlecraft since the Delta Flyer was so often the craft of choice in these latter seasons (but of course they had other plans for that and needed to shatter this vessel, too). You might think the natives being impressed by Chakotay's facial tattoo was surprising and wouldn't make much difference, but you have to remember it's a new symbol to them, and in such a simple culture would be a major dramatic difference in their lives.

Both Chakotay and Paris seemed to hark back to the early days, with the latter presenting a bit of a maverick attitude in the face of all these rules and regulations, while when the Impulse engines go offline above the planet, Chakotay orders Seven to go to warp, when surely you can't do that in a planetary atmosphere, so it seemed a bit of a Maquis course of action. But it was a good Starfleet trick to punch through the barrier with Phasers in order to beam through the hole as the shuttle exploded! They must have saved a packet on the actors as the Ventu never speak which presumably means they only get paid as extras despite having that interesting gestural language (although a couple of them were given titles). It means they can have a few other speaking guest stars, I suppose, including one of my favourite names: Ivar Brogger (he'd also appeared before as one of the former Borg drones in 'Unity'). Neil Vipond was also good as Tom's instructor, Kleg - he'd previously played Darok, the old manservant of Martok in 'Once More Unto The Breach,' a very memorable performance, so it's nice to see he had another Trek role in him. Ultimately the episode isn't bad, it has nice sets or location work (so good it was difficult to distinguish), but is almost a placeholder story, a slot that could have made better use of the impending closure of the series.

**

Friendship One (2)

 DVD, Voyager S7 (Friendship One) (2)

The ideal mix of a moral quandary, a tense situation, and character and general history provide a standout for Voyager's first official assignment in seven years. And it doesn't get any easier knowing they're doing this on behalf of Starfleet rather than their own survival. Of course the Carey in the room is bringing back an established recurring character only to kill him off so unceremoniously! It underlined the danger of the situation with this unstable alien leader who may or may not have been mentally affected by radiation, but who was most certainly emotionally affected by his and his people's situation to the point of complete distrust and expectation of betrayal. I was surprised to see Carey was only in a handful of Season 1 episodes (most famously having B'Elanna break his nose in almost an actual physical vying for the post of Chief Engineer - at least that didn't happen in his final appearance, though I'm sure he'd have wished he could have gotten off so lightly), then showed up once in each season from 5 to now 7. He was a casualty of the series' attempt to be different to 'DS9' when, in fact, dealing with regular faces on an ongoing basis would have made the most sense and provided a much stronger ship-wide community and continuity (I wonder if anyone's actually gone through the whole series and counted off every Starfleet extra and named crewman to see whether they were accurate in their supposed 200-odd crew roster!). They did that a fair amount in the first couple of seasons, but gradually got away from it, perhaps too much of a headache to juggle so many characters when they really wanted to make more sci-fi-focused stories than character-based.

Yet they weren't above bringing back an old face once in a while, which only makes it odder that they weren't willing to build up the crew community. But I'll take it, if that's the only way we get someone like Carey back. I'm not sure if we knew he was married, nor is it clear from this episode if his wife was aboard, except that there'd have to be a scene where Janeway goes to tell her what's happened to her husband, so unless that's yet another example of not showing the community, it would be confirmation that as far as she'd been concerned for several years she'd lost Joe when Voyager was sucked into the Delta Quadrant. Painful that it's just now, near the end (even though the characters don't know it's the end, but they've reached some kind of end with regular contact with Starfleet), now is when Carey is lost. It wasn't even a great last role for him, he's just there, along for the ride. It could have been any of the engineering staff, but it's a little gift for longterm viewers to be rewarded, if a bit of a double-edged reward! Even the final scene, presumably in Carey's Quarters where he'd been working on a model Voyager in a bottle (would you really need to work on it inside the bottle in the age of Transporters - authenticity, I suppose, although didn't they usually have masts that folded down and would spring back up when the ship was pushed down the neck!), isn't so much about Carey as it is the Captain and Chakotay musing on the trouble caused, whether to a civilisation or an individual.

Still, I appreciated the sense of continuity and harking back to the series' past, and Carey was far from being the only example of that: the whole premise is about a probe that was launched in 2067, only four years after Zefram Cochrane's first warp flight which itself was an example of technology bringing about a new era of improvement to living conditions and first contact with the Vulcans, so you can completely understand the desire to reach out to other species as the Vulcans did to them, a spirit of eager cooperation and hopefulness that sadly backfired in the case of this particular race. It might be a little hard to believe that this probe would have survived in space for so long, and apparently they were still tracking it up till one hundred and thirty years ago, which would be the early part of the 23rd Century. And somehow they were tracking it in the Delta Quadrant when they wouldn't have been able to 'see' that far out, nor would they have coordinates since there'd be no frame of reference beyond known space, and if it had got that far, how would it be in the same area over a century later... As you can see there are a lot of problems with the entire premise, and yet that doesn't bother me when it's written so beautifully and is such a sharp reminder of Prime Directive issues, while also showing the goodness and rightness of our heroes. They continue to do right by these people despite the cold reception, hostility, even coldblooded murder - when they attempt to set the atmosphere right, even at this critical moment they're threatened with the unused missiles of this world, the leader happy to blast them out of the sky rather than trust what they're doing is for his people's good.

At the same time I can see his point of view: if you've lived with a terrible, devastating affliction that you believe was caused by outsiders, it would take a lot to get past that hate and distrust - even curing the baby and sending it back could be viewed as a trick to lure them into complacency so they can be completely destroyed. The key was that although Verin had kept them alive for so long, survival was no longer enough - he was like a wartime leader in a time when peace had come, in much the same way Winston Churchill so ably led the country in the crisis of World War II, yet after the war was ousted. Everything and everyone has their time and it's about recognising that, a fascinating side issue of the episode. Janeway, too, is really put through it, characteristically more than willing to help, despite the overt enmity of those she's dealing with, until their response of killing Carey hardens her towards them. It takes an impassioned plea from Tom and Neelix, as former eyes on the ground, to give these people one last chance - and they were there and saw Carey executed in front of their eyes. But they also saw the pain in the eyes of their captors, the squalid, hopeless existence they were forced to endure. As the Doctor and Seven (once again donating nanoprobes from her own bloodstream), gradually heal Otrin, the stowaway from the Flyer and we see his face lose the horrible mottled bumps of the radiation poisoning (reminding me of the Vidiians in its visual repulsiveness), so the rift between the two peoples is also healed, Tom and Neelix both trying to connect to their captors in different ways.

For Neelix it was a harsh reminder of his own traumatic past, recalling the destruction of his home planet by the Metreon Cascade, but of course Verin, while expressing a cold regret that he had to lose his family, still doesn't sympathise or empathise and warns him not to compare their lives. It's so good to be reminded of Neelix' past, not to mention him taking on his self-appointed role of Ambassador again. His roles have so often been whatever was needed at the time, he's always striven to fit in to whatever mould Voyager needed, but he's also learned a lot and his compassion always shines through so it was a pleasure to see that side of him again. Tom as Nurse is also something that tended to fall by the wayside for much of the series, so again, its good to get that aspect of his character again as he does what he can to save the alien baby - really good model of one, too! In fact, everything worked: the sets, whether the familiar caves or the snowstorm-whipped outdoors (somehow reminding me of the Skedar planet from 'Perfect Dark' - must have been all that black metal and snow!), the CGI enhancements, even the use of those great EVA suits, all gave the episode a quality and a reality that shows how far Trek's production values had come (and would only continue with the next series).

The best thing about it, though, was the decision to repay evil with good, a very Biblical response to what are essentially enemies - the crew had no real responsibility to these people, even as representatives of Starfleet: as they mentioned, the probe was launched pre-Starfleet (which I take retroactively as a nice reference to 'Enterprise' - I know that wasn't the intention, I doubt the episode's writers, Michael Taylor and Bryan Fuller, even knew what the next series would be, even though it would have been in development at that time!), and humans can't be held responsible for the actions of their ancestors, no matter what terrible things they may have done. I grant that it's expected these aliens would suspect and distrust the descendants of those they blame for devastating their planet, but it wasn't their fault and they had no obligations to them other than their own sense of fairness and justice. That Janeway does the good deed at risk to her own ship only shows the strong moral core of her character and the Starfleet she represents (far from the one depicted, for the most part, in modern Trek). Even before Carey's senseless murder she's clear that she wants to keep all options open as a good Captain would (there's even a tidy comparison by the Admiral at the beginning to James Kirk when he says she's made more first contacts than anyone since him, another nice little Trekference to add to the canvas of this episode's use of canon), negotiating, warning, and eventually making use of her great Tactical Officer, Mr. Tuvok, in a clever ruse to gain access to the caves - I thought it was out of character for the Vulcan to so easily be captured, but he was only 'caught' by the Doctor, as someone who could withstand the radiation. Clever! Except that there was no guarantee the Doctor would be the one sent to take him back, nor that he wasn't asked for some kind of code to gain entrance past the guards...

Once again intelligence is valued over force and only makes our characters more inspiring. Mind you, it was much-needed tactics or they'd have had three years of ferrying these aliens to the closest M-class planet, which would take us to Season 10 (aha, a way to extend the series!), though I don't imagine it would have necessarily made the best TV to have three seasons of that... I felt there were some other good messages in the episode, too, with B'Elanna adamant she wasn't going to be treated like an invalid during her pregnancy, while Tom brought her up short, reminding her of the toxic atmosphere down on the planet and that she's breathing for two. In other words her responsibility to herself and their child inside come first above any feelings of pride and the need to feel useful. And who knows, maybe she'd have been the one to be killed if she'd gone instead of Carey, a stark potential reality to think of. (There's an impression B'Elanna's changed by the fact Chakotay bets with Neelix that she'll get her way, obviously the Torres he knew, a nice touch to show Motherhood does alter perceptions and behaviour). Unfortunately Paris lets things down a bit by later saying something about Fatherhood tends to regress the male psyche by a few thousand years, but he meant well and really only meant they become over-protective.

There was also a little reminder that science, for all its uses (much like logic), shouldn't be the be-all and end-all when Otrin states he's a scientist so he believes what he sees when they're trying to convince him they aren't responsible for what happened to his world, nor was it the intention of their ancestors - and they're right. It may have been unwise to send out this information on antimatter, but it was still up to the aliens how they used it. It also shows that knowledge in itself isn't always empowering, sometimes it can be destructive, and wisdom is required. Saying that, I thought it a bit reckless for the Away Team to pick up the child's musical toy when it could just as easily have been a bomb or grenade (I know they scanned it with their Tricorders, but even so, you never know if something's shielded, as was the case with the life-signs), not to mention they later give it to the little girl, and as Verin said, it could be a weapon! There was also the implication from the aliens who originally encountered Friendship One that they didn't know what music was since they seemed not to understand what it was that was playing. If that was the case then how could they have any technology at all since they'd need to have mastered mathematics which in turn is extremely connected to music! It could simply be they were referring to the musical piece itself, or the general idea of this probe, but it stood out to me.

We have some interesting Trek names in the guest cast, for example a rare connection to one of the modern Trek films (can we still call them modern when it's a decade since the last one?), as Yun was played by Ashley Edner who had a role in 'Star Trek Beyond' (Natalia, whoever she was). I presume Yun was the little girl. We also have a previous guest star back from this series: Admiral Hendricks (whom I didn't think much of while watching, a bit too 'soft,' but I enjoy the connection now I know it), was played by Peter Dennis who'd had a more visible role as Sir Isaac Newton in 'Death Wish.' Then there were a couple of people who'd been in 'DS9,' with John Prosky as scientist Otrin, previously Brathaw in 'For The Cause' (don't recall the character - interestingly his episode was only two episodes away from 'The Quickening,' another episode about a race blighted by illness that our people get involved with fixing), and Bari Hochwald who played Bashir's rival, Dr. Elizabeth Lense in 'Explorers' (Brin must have been the alien woman who gave birth, not that you'd recognise Bari under all that ugly makeup - always remembered the actress' name as quite memorable!), and would go on to appear in 'Enterprise' ('Marauders'), while John Rosenfeld, here credited as 'Technician #1' (must have been the male scientist who discovers the probe at the start), would also go to 'Enterprise' ('Silent Enemy'), so a nice selection of Trek connections that only enhance my enjoyment of what is a pretty strong and affecting story all round that helps to round out the series' history and gives a taste of what the series may have been with the conventional Starfleet hierarchy in place.

***