Heroes and Demons

DVD, Voyager S1 (Heroes and Demons)

A standout episode in that it gave the Doctor his first chance to do something away from sickbay, and so it's special for that, although perhaps it doesn't quite deliver on the Beowulf story. It is fun, but the phony beards detract a little (although Michael Keenan does a great turn as King Hrothgar, long before he had the role of Patrick on DS9), and I was a little disappointed that the great horror of Grendel was a bigger version of what they'd captured by transporter.

There was a good shot I noticed. Near the end, Paris is in the background doing something at a console, and in the foreground is the mini photonic lifeform in it's forcefield. They do one of those pretty common devices on Voyager, where the camera stays in the same position, but the focus is on the foreground, then changes so the foreground is blurry and we see Paris clearly. Normally that would be an unremarkable shot, but since the alien isn't real it becomes a clever effect that fits the illusion into the scene even better than elaborate effects. Clever.

I was quite taken by surprise at Freya's death as I'd forgotten that, and it was a good reason for the Doc not to keep his name of Schweitzer (in case the name itself wasn't reason enough!). I love the way Kes always teases information out of him by simply standing there and gazing into him - she should have been a counselor! Kim's mentioned a lot, but what seems like what may be another Kim episode turns into the Doc's. No Neelix, but some different pairings, such as Torres and Paris, and Tuvok and Chakotay... and Janeway and her new hairstyle! Does that count?

I have a feeling she had a similar style to this in some early work on the pilot, but then had to reshoot when the bun was preferred. So I'm not sure why they're doing it here, maybe they wanted to play around a bit in case there was something better. I don't think this one quite suited, it made her look like Colonel Kira! The first Holodeck malfunction story, although the setting is only that, and it's the outside problems that affect things. The best scene is probably the Doc eating a massive joint of meat as he tells of his great warrior prowess at... curing an epidemic.

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