DVD, Stargate: Atlantis S2 (Coup d'Etat)
The Genii were never one of the more attractive parts of the series, with their ugly uniforms and ugly technology on an ugly planet, but for better or worse they've been used as a recurring adversary and a latent threat. So it isn't a big surprise that they cause our team some problems again. What is a surprise is that they put up the money to get Colm Meaney back as Commander Cowen, duplicitous leader of this threatening race. Previously they avoided showing him again, so it's good that they brought him back, even if it was only to set him up for an assassination masterminded by one of the men that tried to take over Atlantis at the end of Season 1/ start of Season 2: Ladon. Meaney's Cowen was never that much of a draw, being a fairly straightforward, uncompromising enemy, even if Atlantis had a tentative peace with him until now. Ladon at least had more nuance to him, and not just in the cunning turnaround to take control of the Genii from Cowan. Having a sister humanises him to some degree, even if you still can't trust him much more than Cowen, but as they say at the end, at least he was willing to let Sheppard and the others go.
The episode begins by juggling a couple of seemingly unrelated plots, the one being the apparent death of Major Lorne and his team in a fire on another planet. While Ronon and Teyla investigate this, much to Sheppard's disapproval, he's tasked by Weir to deal with Ladon who promises a ZPM if they do a deal with him. I thought this was going to turn into something that made a rift between Sheppard and Weir, but it really didn't go anywhere. To some extent that's good, but I still would have liked to see them at loggerheads, as Janeway and Chakotay sometimes were on 'Voyager,' just to spike things up a bit, and also so we could end on a return to trust and friendship. At least show Sheppard struggling with his orders because he so wants to search for his missing men. Things converge as we move along, and it seems Lorne and the team were actually captured and sold to the Genii, all part of Ladon's plan. Now, if the Atlantis gang hadn't been as treacherous as the Genii they wouldn't have walked into the trap, but because they didn't place value on an alliance with Ladon, and instead tried to shore up their ties with Cowen (why did he, the leader of his race, meet them in a cramped, dingy tunnel?!), by telling him what Ladon was up to, even after he spun a story on how bad Cowen was becoming, they end up getting captured and doing exactly what Ladon and Cowen, working together, expected them to do. Just as Cowen's desire for Jumpers (and anything was better than that fascistic uniform, I'm sure!), got him to the location where Ladon could blow him to smithereens.
On the whole, the episode works fairly effectively - I began by buying Lorne's death because he just seems like someone introduced to be killed off at some point, and rather him than someone like Zelenka, who has more personality than a soldier. But Lorne survives again, though for how long I don't know. I wondered how Ladon was communicating through the Stargate visually since they hadn't sent a MALP at that point. I understand they wanted to tell the story like that, so he could provide visual evidence that he had a ZPM, but it would have worked just as well via audio and would have given them just as much reason to trust him, or not, than showing what turns out to be an empty one. And as to that, can't a ZPM be powered up? Is there no way? If our people seemed dishonest in their dealings with Ladon by going behind his back to Cowen and then holding his people hostage, at least Dr. Beckett leads the way in showing that they're not all devious military types, when for no other reason than that he's a healer, he attempts to cure Ladon's castoffs that were actually terminally ill volunteers for the mission (I didn't even believe she was really his sister, but she was), impressing upon them at least that humanity can be very benevolent and helpful. So well done, Beckett.
I liked the ultimate twist with Ladon revealing that his goal was to take out Cowen, the lure of Jumpers too strong an incentive not to bring him out personally, but my opinion of the Genii as a piece of the pie still remains low. It's difficult to have Wraith as an enemy from episode to episode when they don't know Atlantis still exists, but I'm betting by the end of the season we'll be finishing on a cliffhanger when that existence becomes, or is about to be, known. Whether the Genii will have further part in the fate of Atlantis, I don't know, but I suspect they will. Though Ladon's coup is 'bloodless' on his planet, he's still not to be trusted as evidenced by his deep machinations here. Allies are all well and good, but they need to be trustworthy. It would be great if his sister became a bridge between the two peoples as she was clearly impressed by Beckett's dedication to heal even those opposed to him.
**
Tuesday, 30 July 2019
Star Trek: Picard - Teaser Trailer 2
Star Trek: Picard - Teaser Trailer 2
I finally got to see 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 1 and I had to acknowledge that it wasn't worth the wait, plummeting to the bottom of my all-time list of Trek to steal the lowest spot from 'Enterprise,' which though flawed, still had plenty to please me, even in its first season, which had a very strong start. I've seen it written by some that the first couple of episodes of 'DSC' were the series they would have preferred, and I'd have to say I agree, though upon second viewing, the rest of the season had effectively neutered any goodness I saw in them. All this to say that consequently all anticipation for future Trek productions from the Kurtzman team dropped. It had been:
another cartoon series: *
Section 31: **
Lower Decks: *
Picard: ****
Khan: **
Starfleet Academy: *
more Discovery: ***
And then it became:
another cartoon series: -
Section 31: *
Lower Decks: -
Picard: ***
Khan: *
Starfleet Academy: -
more Discovery: **
Everything dropped a good star downwards and I had little hopes that any new Trek would be appealing to me, a frustrating and demoralising turn of events. However, seeing the new teaser trailer (the second, after the vineyard one?), for 'Picard' has at least made me perk up towards this series. I even had a slight tear in the eye at the end! Yes, it is still melodramatic, focused on some mysterious girl seeking Jean-Luc's protection, with lots of fighting and quick cuts, far from the thoughtful Trek of 'TNG,' but just seeing that combadge again… Seven of Nine making an appearance… and most spectacularly of all, Mr. Data (or perhaps B4), speaking to his former Captain! Wow, if the whole series is a washout, just to see those few seconds makes it worthwhile! I genuinely thought Data would be the last character to ever appear, as Brent Spiner was always saying how he wouldn't play the famous android again, he's too old, but there he sits! Amazing.
It's also special to realise that any time they bring back something like a 'Voyager'-era combadge they've had to manufacture it as new because all the old props from the Berman-era were sold off. Perhaps that's why Seven's eyebrow implant is huge when, as I recall, in the final season of 'Voyager' it was reduced as she regained more of her humanity. This suggests she is either a figment of Picard's fracturing mind (if Irumodic Syndrome from the possible future seen in 'All Good Things…' is still coming into play), has reverted back to being more Borg, or is just a mistake. From the level of detail shown, I don't think it's a mistake. It could be as simple as keeping her as recognisable as the character people remember that they can (though I don't see having a larger implant would make any difference), and it can't be that she's more Borg because the way she speaks and her body language is very much more human, following the route she was going when we last saw her.
These kinds of details are just great fun to have to pore over and wonder on, because it's been too, too long we've had to wait for the 24th Century to return to screens. I still have some slight caution, such as concerns they're going to redesign the famous races like they did with the awful Klingons in 'DSC' - for example, the many Romulans in the trailer (and you can tell they are Romulans by their emotive faces), don't have the pronounced 'V' forehead, which was specific to this era. Granted, in 'Star Trek XI' they didn't, either, but there was some kind of tribute paid to the look by a slight pattern on the forehead. Here, they're completely smooth and the main cast Romulan looks like an Elf from 'The Lord of The Rings'! So I hope I don't end up watching the series through gritted teeth, waiting for the next thing that doesn't make sense, as I did with 'DSC,' but in general I'm actually excited for some new Trek again, and I've long wanted a Romulan character to explore, since the secretive race are about the only main one not to have been properly represented - I just hope that time is given over to such exploration of differing culture and history rather than jumping to the next plot device or action scene.
I can't end on a negative, however - it's just too exciting. It really looks like my era of Trek is back. It's too early to say, as yet, but it does look like Patrick Stewart's assertion that this would be a ten-hour film, might be true! Now it's just a question of having to wait (especially as it's been pushed back from November 2019 to January 2020), and bubble up with the excitement of possibilities: will we see Captain Nog? Captain La Forge? Worf? Dr. Crusher? Quark? Garak? Admiral Janeway? Tuvok? Chakotay? Will this encourage further spinoffs for other great characters? I really believed the 'TNG' cast when they said they hadn't been approached and weren't likely to appear in the series, but it seems this was a ploy to cover them so they could carry on in secret. I don't like it when people outright lie, though I can see they probably felt it was the only way to keep the secret rather than say 'wait and see' which isn't what anyone seems able to do nowadays in our 'instant' culture, but despite all that I'll take their involvement gratefully and forgive them for misleading!
Anticipation Rating: ****
I finally got to see 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 1 and I had to acknowledge that it wasn't worth the wait, plummeting to the bottom of my all-time list of Trek to steal the lowest spot from 'Enterprise,' which though flawed, still had plenty to please me, even in its first season, which had a very strong start. I've seen it written by some that the first couple of episodes of 'DSC' were the series they would have preferred, and I'd have to say I agree, though upon second viewing, the rest of the season had effectively neutered any goodness I saw in them. All this to say that consequently all anticipation for future Trek productions from the Kurtzman team dropped. It had been:
another cartoon series: *
Section 31: **
Lower Decks: *
Picard: ****
Khan: **
Starfleet Academy: *
more Discovery: ***
And then it became:
another cartoon series: -
Section 31: *
Lower Decks: -
Picard: ***
Khan: *
Starfleet Academy: -
more Discovery: **
Everything dropped a good star downwards and I had little hopes that any new Trek would be appealing to me, a frustrating and demoralising turn of events. However, seeing the new teaser trailer (the second, after the vineyard one?), for 'Picard' has at least made me perk up towards this series. I even had a slight tear in the eye at the end! Yes, it is still melodramatic, focused on some mysterious girl seeking Jean-Luc's protection, with lots of fighting and quick cuts, far from the thoughtful Trek of 'TNG,' but just seeing that combadge again… Seven of Nine making an appearance… and most spectacularly of all, Mr. Data (or perhaps B4), speaking to his former Captain! Wow, if the whole series is a washout, just to see those few seconds makes it worthwhile! I genuinely thought Data would be the last character to ever appear, as Brent Spiner was always saying how he wouldn't play the famous android again, he's too old, but there he sits! Amazing.
It's also special to realise that any time they bring back something like a 'Voyager'-era combadge they've had to manufacture it as new because all the old props from the Berman-era were sold off. Perhaps that's why Seven's eyebrow implant is huge when, as I recall, in the final season of 'Voyager' it was reduced as she regained more of her humanity. This suggests she is either a figment of Picard's fracturing mind (if Irumodic Syndrome from the possible future seen in 'All Good Things…' is still coming into play), has reverted back to being more Borg, or is just a mistake. From the level of detail shown, I don't think it's a mistake. It could be as simple as keeping her as recognisable as the character people remember that they can (though I don't see having a larger implant would make any difference), and it can't be that she's more Borg because the way she speaks and her body language is very much more human, following the route she was going when we last saw her.
These kinds of details are just great fun to have to pore over and wonder on, because it's been too, too long we've had to wait for the 24th Century to return to screens. I still have some slight caution, such as concerns they're going to redesign the famous races like they did with the awful Klingons in 'DSC' - for example, the many Romulans in the trailer (and you can tell they are Romulans by their emotive faces), don't have the pronounced 'V' forehead, which was specific to this era. Granted, in 'Star Trek XI' they didn't, either, but there was some kind of tribute paid to the look by a slight pattern on the forehead. Here, they're completely smooth and the main cast Romulan looks like an Elf from 'The Lord of The Rings'! So I hope I don't end up watching the series through gritted teeth, waiting for the next thing that doesn't make sense, as I did with 'DSC,' but in general I'm actually excited for some new Trek again, and I've long wanted a Romulan character to explore, since the secretive race are about the only main one not to have been properly represented - I just hope that time is given over to such exploration of differing culture and history rather than jumping to the next plot device or action scene.
I can't end on a negative, however - it's just too exciting. It really looks like my era of Trek is back. It's too early to say, as yet, but it does look like Patrick Stewart's assertion that this would be a ten-hour film, might be true! Now it's just a question of having to wait (especially as it's been pushed back from November 2019 to January 2020), and bubble up with the excitement of possibilities: will we see Captain Nog? Captain La Forge? Worf? Dr. Crusher? Quark? Garak? Admiral Janeway? Tuvok? Chakotay? Will this encourage further spinoffs for other great characters? I really believed the 'TNG' cast when they said they hadn't been approached and weren't likely to appear in the series, but it seems this was a ploy to cover them so they could carry on in secret. I don't like it when people outright lie, though I can see they probably felt it was the only way to keep the secret rather than say 'wait and see' which isn't what anyone seems able to do nowadays in our 'instant' culture, but despite all that I'll take their involvement gratefully and forgive them for misleading!
Anticipation Rating: ****
Tuesday, 23 July 2019
The Long Goodbye
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (The Long Goodbye)
Good ideas can start off well, but it depends where it goes. I really wondered what kind of episode this was going to turn out to be when they discover a couple of life pods floating in space, bring them back and open 'em up. Actually, I was confused to begin with as I thought the old woman looked very much like an aged Carter from 'SG-1,' especially in that green and black outfit that, at a glance, seemed reminiscent of their uniform. I found it hard to believe they'd bring her in again after appearing a couple of episodes ago, but finding an aged Carter hanging in space within an alien life pod was certainly a high concept story idea! I quickly realised it couldn't be that, and then it becomes a supposed reunion between an old couple, man and wife, who wish to say goodbye before the consciousness that imprints on whoever goes near the pod, degrades and is lost after a few hours. As Caldwell said, it was a creepy idea to allow the consciousness of an almost dead body to be a living black box recorder so that upon opening it would jump to an alien to be able to tell what happened. That's not a nice way to go, but it turns out to be even nastier than that: far from being pleased to see each other after all this time it's the typical 'last of their kind wanting to wipe each other out so that they'll finally have victory for their people' (see 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield' on 'TOS,' otherwise known as the one with the half-black, half-white faces), conveniently nonlethal in their initial escape with stunners rather than the more likely proper military weapons!
If it wasn't exactly original (even for this season, since McKay was invaded by another member of staff earlier), the invasion of another being's consciousness into someone's mind, whether by consent or not, is always ripe with story potential. Could it be that this would be a slow, quiet sort of episode, reliving an ancient war as two old people try to enjoy their final hours together, possibly as a catalyst for bringing Sheppard and Weir closer, as that seems to be what's been happening in the long game? No, it becomes a bottle episode with the pair of them on the run through the city in an attempt to murder each other, and of course the stakes are no less than Sheppard and Weir's own lives. It's a hollow victory they're pursuing and they use their wiles to try and fool their hosts' friends and colleagues, but there is a horror to an aged couple suddenly finding the use of young bodies and glorying in the age-old desire to crush the opposition as a final gesture of victory and defiance. So it's all about hatred, but it's also about trust. Some people make mistakes, and McKay is the one to save the day, as expected with any technical situation (Weir's gremlin takes control of the city and threatens life support), but there's some redemption there: Teyla and Ronon are a bit overconfident as they go about tracking down the two - Ronon thinks he understands how Sheppard thinks, but forgets it's not Sheppard's thinking he needs to be concerned with, and Teyla believes she'll have no trouble overcoming Weir, when it's not Weir she's up against.
Later, she makes up for it by allowing 'Sheppard' a gun to shoot 'Weir,' but it's only a stunner, and she kicks it away as soon as that task is accomplished, refusing to believe in his return to the real Sheppard. Ronon didn't get the chance for redemption because he gets shot by Weir and needs an operation in old-fashioned style by Beckett, without the power on, to survive. I will say that things were a little chaotic at first, so I wasn't sure if the warriors really understood what was going on, but they must have. The big surprise for me came early on when Colonel Caldwell comes waltzing into Weir's office almost as if nothing had happened, and he must have some gall to return after being outed as a Goa'uld parasite-controlled operative. I really did not expect to see him again, but here he is, apparently forgiven - it wasn't his doing, they say, but how do they know he didn't allow the Goa'uld in? It seems hard to be able to trust someone like that, but not to say I wasn't glad to see him again as he does bring some drama and shakeup to the comfy situation of authority on Atlantis, so he serves a purpose. None more than here where he takes over the operation, to McKay's dissatisfaction, though the Doctor is easily beaten down by the logic of the situation, and there's even some amity between Caldwell and the others by the end.
I can't help feel that this is a bit of a nonentity on the whole: the best reason to have main characters taken over by an outside influence is to give the actors a challenge, but it was blurry this time. They were trying not to appear other than their hosts when around others, but it would have been far more impressive to see them acting completely differently in both speech and action. I don't mean they did the same things as normal, because even Weir doesn't get so upset with the denizens of the city as to threaten their lives with fire suppressant gas usually, but she did at least move and talk a little peculiarly, while Sheppard seemed pretty much the same. The cadence and tone of what they said could have been so much different (see the Doctor in 'Darkling' on 'Voyager,' or Dr. Bashir in 'The Passenger' on 'DS9' for good examples), and really stretched them. Have them slip out of uniform, anything that jars the perception of the characters they usually play. As it was, it remained a slightly unsatisfactory action runaround, at least until Teyla is faced with an impossible situation: Weir orders her to kill Sheppard on camera or everyone in the living area will die. There was strong drama in that scene. It's always good to have episodes that aren't bound up with The Wraith, and I like that they can do an 'SG-1' style of stories from time to time, but it can also mean episodes that are forgettable in the grand scheme, and this largely falls into that category, even with that amusing scene in the Jumper at the start where they attempt to explain TV to the warriors.
**
Good ideas can start off well, but it depends where it goes. I really wondered what kind of episode this was going to turn out to be when they discover a couple of life pods floating in space, bring them back and open 'em up. Actually, I was confused to begin with as I thought the old woman looked very much like an aged Carter from 'SG-1,' especially in that green and black outfit that, at a glance, seemed reminiscent of their uniform. I found it hard to believe they'd bring her in again after appearing a couple of episodes ago, but finding an aged Carter hanging in space within an alien life pod was certainly a high concept story idea! I quickly realised it couldn't be that, and then it becomes a supposed reunion between an old couple, man and wife, who wish to say goodbye before the consciousness that imprints on whoever goes near the pod, degrades and is lost after a few hours. As Caldwell said, it was a creepy idea to allow the consciousness of an almost dead body to be a living black box recorder so that upon opening it would jump to an alien to be able to tell what happened. That's not a nice way to go, but it turns out to be even nastier than that: far from being pleased to see each other after all this time it's the typical 'last of their kind wanting to wipe each other out so that they'll finally have victory for their people' (see 'Let That Be Your Last Battlefield' on 'TOS,' otherwise known as the one with the half-black, half-white faces), conveniently nonlethal in their initial escape with stunners rather than the more likely proper military weapons!
If it wasn't exactly original (even for this season, since McKay was invaded by another member of staff earlier), the invasion of another being's consciousness into someone's mind, whether by consent or not, is always ripe with story potential. Could it be that this would be a slow, quiet sort of episode, reliving an ancient war as two old people try to enjoy their final hours together, possibly as a catalyst for bringing Sheppard and Weir closer, as that seems to be what's been happening in the long game? No, it becomes a bottle episode with the pair of them on the run through the city in an attempt to murder each other, and of course the stakes are no less than Sheppard and Weir's own lives. It's a hollow victory they're pursuing and they use their wiles to try and fool their hosts' friends and colleagues, but there is a horror to an aged couple suddenly finding the use of young bodies and glorying in the age-old desire to crush the opposition as a final gesture of victory and defiance. So it's all about hatred, but it's also about trust. Some people make mistakes, and McKay is the one to save the day, as expected with any technical situation (Weir's gremlin takes control of the city and threatens life support), but there's some redemption there: Teyla and Ronon are a bit overconfident as they go about tracking down the two - Ronon thinks he understands how Sheppard thinks, but forgets it's not Sheppard's thinking he needs to be concerned with, and Teyla believes she'll have no trouble overcoming Weir, when it's not Weir she's up against.
Later, she makes up for it by allowing 'Sheppard' a gun to shoot 'Weir,' but it's only a stunner, and she kicks it away as soon as that task is accomplished, refusing to believe in his return to the real Sheppard. Ronon didn't get the chance for redemption because he gets shot by Weir and needs an operation in old-fashioned style by Beckett, without the power on, to survive. I will say that things were a little chaotic at first, so I wasn't sure if the warriors really understood what was going on, but they must have. The big surprise for me came early on when Colonel Caldwell comes waltzing into Weir's office almost as if nothing had happened, and he must have some gall to return after being outed as a Goa'uld parasite-controlled operative. I really did not expect to see him again, but here he is, apparently forgiven - it wasn't his doing, they say, but how do they know he didn't allow the Goa'uld in? It seems hard to be able to trust someone like that, but not to say I wasn't glad to see him again as he does bring some drama and shakeup to the comfy situation of authority on Atlantis, so he serves a purpose. None more than here where he takes over the operation, to McKay's dissatisfaction, though the Doctor is easily beaten down by the logic of the situation, and there's even some amity between Caldwell and the others by the end.
I can't help feel that this is a bit of a nonentity on the whole: the best reason to have main characters taken over by an outside influence is to give the actors a challenge, but it was blurry this time. They were trying not to appear other than their hosts when around others, but it would have been far more impressive to see them acting completely differently in both speech and action. I don't mean they did the same things as normal, because even Weir doesn't get so upset with the denizens of the city as to threaten their lives with fire suppressant gas usually, but she did at least move and talk a little peculiarly, while Sheppard seemed pretty much the same. The cadence and tone of what they said could have been so much different (see the Doctor in 'Darkling' on 'Voyager,' or Dr. Bashir in 'The Passenger' on 'DS9' for good examples), and really stretched them. Have them slip out of uniform, anything that jars the perception of the characters they usually play. As it was, it remained a slightly unsatisfactory action runaround, at least until Teyla is faced with an impossible situation: Weir orders her to kill Sheppard on camera or everyone in the living area will die. There was strong drama in that scene. It's always good to have episodes that aren't bound up with The Wraith, and I like that they can do an 'SG-1' style of stories from time to time, but it can also mean episodes that are forgettable in the grand scheme, and this largely falls into that category, even with that amusing scene in the Jumper at the start where they attempt to explain TV to the warriors.
**
Hope and Fear
DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Hope and Fear)
Too good to be true. Hope wants to believe that this alien with a skill for decoding languages can decipher the scrambled message from Starfleet that was the last part of the data stream earlier in the season. Fear wonders if she can fit in on Earth. Hope wants to trust this convenient new starship that has been delivered to aid them. Fear wants to leave the ship and run away from the trip to Earth. It's like a tennis match (or 'Velocity' match, though I'd have liked to see the pair playing on a real tennis court, especially as Janeway is supposed to have been a bit of a pro at it!), between Janeway and Seven, and few episode titles can be more perfect a description of what a story boils down to: the desire to get home and the anxiety over that home. The two sides are neatly wrapped in a tight little package, literally, during the course of the episode, as Arturis is able to capture both of them in his diabolical revenge scheme (shouldn't there be some kind of emergency Transporter hierarchy so that the most senior figures are beamed out first, rather than letting the Captain be last in line?). When we come in at the start, Seven of Nine has reverted back to her combative stance, arguing constantly with the Captain, perhaps her experiences with the crew having made her more arrogant, maybe her fear of fitting in on this ship having been overcome and now she knows how things work familiarity is breeding contempt? She's become comfortable so she's become complacent, not looking at what has happened over the course of the months she's been aboard, and so taking freedom and purpose for granted.
This has to be the explanation, because while the episode could have explained this reversion in behaviour by her worries over assimilation into Earth culture, away from the micro culture of a starship, it occurs before the prospect of going to a home she doesn't remember, to people she doesn't know is an immediate possibility, and not a welcome one. The unknown is so disconcerting to her that she'd rather jump ship and be left behind to fend for herself in the Delta Quadrant - she doesn't even discount returning to the Borg Collective as a place of familiarity and order. But the events of this episode reinforce the decision to stay with the crew, with what have become her friends, as unbelievable as that seemed in the beginning. She even smiles at one point when Harry says he'll miss having her around, something incredibly rare for her. B'Elanna jokes they'll be in the same boat of being outcasts together when Seven starts to put her fears into words by suggesting it won't be a happy reunion for the former members of the Maquis. Tellingly, B'Elanna responds in true Starfleet fashion, saying she'd rather go back and face the music, the very opposite of what Seven wants to do, than remain lost in the Delta Quadrant. These scenes are very well written and the episode as a whole is beautifully structured to bring Seven from restlessness in her position on Voyager, to a channeling of that into extreme discomfort with the idea of returning to Earth, almost leading into action to desert (though there is never an opportunity, I sensed she was ready to fly if the chance arose), and finally back around to acceptance and belonging.
Sometimes we take for granted the settled life we have, becoming disillusioned with the familiar, while fearful of the future and the unknowns of change in the offing, but as Seven discovers, in times of stress and danger, we can come to a realisation that we're in a good place - not a perfect one, but not one where we really wish to go backward to the comforting embrace of the past which we have come from: when faced with the immediate threat of being forcibly returned to the Collective by Arturis, Seven sees the advantages of her new life and sobers up. Life is not perfect, but it is better than that she had under the yoke of the Borg. With them, a possibility she'd had at the back of her mind as a possible option all along this season, she can bury her newfound identity, put her head in the sand and throw off all personal responsibilities to herself or others, but remaining free, while a scary prospect, means she can continue to explore who she is as a human, find her purpose and live the way she was designed to. For all these reasons the episode is a fulfilling one in terms of character, and an inspiring tale that ends with a warning: to throw everything out for the sake of revenge only leads to destruction, the wages of sin is death, the living death of assimilation by the Borg for Arturis, the manipulator who engineered the whole ruse to repay Janeway for her inadvertent removal of his hope.
Hope wasn't all on her side: his people had successfully fended off the Borg somehow, whether it was their abilities to see patterns and decode data and language, or the use of technology, they had succeeded, and with the appearance of Species 8472 (we were so close to hearing what their actual name was, or at least the name Arturis' race gave them as he agrees that 8472 was the designation given them in 'your colourful language'), that hope for Borg annihilation was needed at a time when his race's defences were failing. It was then extinguished by Janeway's alliance with the Borg against 8472 and he bitterly blames the Captain for his people's assimilation, so much so that he wants to go out in a blaze of hatred, spitting his 'last breath at thee' to quote Khan, by bringing his captives along into Borg space where he will share their fate. Janeway, ever the Starfleet Captain, tries to make him see that there is still hope. She doesn't criticise his logic or point out that 8472 would have been a far worse threat to the galaxy, their plans for destruction much more final than any assimilation plot. No, she apologises for not knowing and tries to remind him of everything he is. When Seven is facing a kind of identity crisis by considering giving it up to avoid the pain of fitting in to a new society, Arturis is ignoring his own identity as if it were worthless. As Janeway says, he represents so much knowledge and experience from his race - if anything he's even more essential an individual than when his race was thriving. Like the scattered Vulcans of the Kelvin Timeline, or the El-Aurians of our own, there's only a remnant of a few thousand left, so throwing away an important member of this small group is unthinkable.
There was no way Arturis was going to let go of his hatred and savage need for revenge, but even so Janeway begs him to give it up and come with her, just as he spits that last breath of contact with another, sympathetic being, by trying to shoot her as she's beamed away. He doesn't even get his revenge, only self-destruction at the hands of his enemy. It's a terribly sad image of this one, lone alien, consumed by hatred, yet resigned as he sits in the centre seat, listening to the age-old spiel of the Borg. He could be said to be a mirror of Seven, someone who chose to cast off her fear when confronted by reality, given the chance to realise where her place is. Though the spectre of returning to Earth has been put off, it's something she will have to face eventually, but better to do so in the company of people she trusts than to run away. Janeway had groomed her for most of the season to take her place among the ranks of humanity again, tried to restore what was stolen from her by the Borg, and had marginal success, but the story isn't over. I love the exchanges between them through this episode, like a recap of their experiences over the season, and like never before this is a Mother preparing her daughter for the real world, going through the growing pains together despite the spitefulness and anger directed at her. Seven was truly a fascinating character like we've not seen in Trek since, nor has there been a better Captain than Janeway since this time. I noted that it wasn't the emotional way the characters were reacting that made it satisfying, it was the emotional undercurrent they bring to the audience - 'Discovery' takes the opposite approach, making the characters very emotional, and so you feel nothing towards them.
In the softest moment in the episode, Janeway is almost literally grooming Seven, in the positive meaning of that word: she uses a microfilament (out of those good old versatile combadges, useful in all situations!), to adjust her Borg implants as a way through the forcefield, and they talk intimately together as she does. Seven really has come a long way, and her testing of Janeway has also added something new to the Captain, who never had any children. Like Kirk she's been practically married to her ship, her children the crew - some almost literally childlike in the form of the young and inexperienced Harry Kim, the older, cockier, but still in need of guidance, Tom Paris, and now the adolescent ball of confusion that is Seven, not to mention learning with Kes or the Doctor as those fledglings discovered themselves. But Seven has proven the biggest challenge at a time when the series needed to deepen and be more than travelling from one planet to the next, or avoiding the Kazon and Vidiians. Seven provides the backbone to the series, and became an essential component even across her first season. Few episodes have nothing to do with her, and many examine her in detail. I've always said she was added at the detriment of the other characters (Neelix is the one to be short-shrifted this time, though he does throw in an intriguing comment about trying to communicate with a xenon-based life form!), but at the same time she was the most compelling, which is astonishing when you think that adding a character isn't necessarily the best thing to do to an established series.
It worked on 'DS9' because they were using the components of 'TNG,' so Worf was just one more thing added to the mix. Unlike Seven he didn't become the backbone of his series, though he was integral. I can't imagine that making Shran a permanent addition to 'Enterprise' would have dramatically altered the balance, either, or that he's have been given the lion's share of stories if Season 5 had come to be. Pulaski was so 'good' she only lasted one season, and Ezri, while throwing a last-minute spanner in the works to shake things up a little, was also not the main focus of her season on 'DS9.' Seven was the only radical addition to a cast, really, and they played with her very effectively. Yes, I do wish Chakotay had been front and centre as he was in a number of episodes this season. And I wish Janeway's unique friendship and understanding with Tuvok hadn't faded into the background - they do share a scene here that hearkens back to that 'special relationship' when she discusses how convenient all that has happened is, but for a Security Chief he wasn't as integral as he had been, some of his uniqueness absorbed by Seven: superior strength, ability, mind, and the lack of emotion meant that Seven was the best female Vulcan ever to grace a Trek series, without actually being Vulcan.
Seven's place and future were just one more added interest to the question of getting home that had been raised in earnest this season, like never before. Early in the series they were all acting very positively, having faith they'd find a wormhole or alien technology to get them home, and occasionally getting their hopes up by finding just that, only for it to be flung back in their faces again. The faith and the hope continued, but other concerns took over for the most part, the fear of other races - not fear in the sense of cowardice, but in wise respect of enemy forces and the need for survival that turned their quest for home into more of a need to survive, as well as a desire to take advantage of being the first ship in the quadrant to explore and learn for Starfleet's sake, as well as their own innate nature of curiosity. But home was always on their minds, and with direct contact through the Hirogen array and the puzzle of an incomplete coded message, this urge towards home had become greater in the second half of this season. In that respect this episode works well, playing on those hopes in a credible way: Arturis (whose dome is even greater than the Klingon heads of 'DSC'!), is like Hoshi Sato, with his natural skill for language of all kinds - he even throws out a Klingon phrase, though sadly without subtitles! Speaking Klingon gets a couple of mentions: Janeway struggles with basic Klingon and Torres only knows a few phrases herself, having always been hateful of that side of her.
Arturis was well played by Ray Wise (previously Liko in 'Who Watches The Watchers?' on 'TNG'), but wasn't a 'best guest actor' that you remember forever. He's quite a restrained figure, even at his most emotive. Admiral Hayes, however, I always think of being Romulan since Jack Shearer, who played him, is best remembered by me as Ruwon in 'Visionary,' though he had other roles in both 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' including reprising Hayes in 'Life Line,' a role he originated, fantastically, in film 'First Contact'! Love that continuity! The surprise with Arturis is that his beef is not with the Borg. It's very specifically Janeway and her crew he blames for the Borg's emancipation from 8472's ferocious power. He even displays a philosophical attitude to the Collective likening it to a storm, and not feeling anger toward such a force of nature, you just avoid it. At first I thought he was just covering his true feelings, but later he still claims he doesn't blame them for being what they are. It was a good use of the Borg as motivator for a story without them featuring (beyond audio on Arturis' ship at the end), something the series would increasingly do since there was so much of Seven's story to mine. With the revelation next season that the Borg Queen had her hand in whatever happened to Seven, it makes me wonder if Janeway and Seven would have been assimilated even if they hadn't escaped from the 'USS Dauntless'? I can't remember exactly what the Queen's plot was - to get hold of Voyager or to implant a drone into Starfleet, but it does colour whatever we see of the Borg before that (a very clever retcon). The Borg would now know where Voyager is, but if you take into account the Queen's interest this isn't a problem, just makes it easier for her to keep track, I suppose.
The Dauntless was a nice looking ship, like a continuation of the Voyager design aesthetic, coupled with a Stealth fighter jet. Yet another connection with 'DSC' is the new way to travel, a faster, more efficient technology. No, not spores, but quantum slipstream drive technology. Transwarp even gets a mention as the slipstream is compared to the Borg conduits their ships travel through. I was trying to work out why this particular method of extreme propulsion didn't seem too outlandish to buy when the spore drive and its mycelial network (which basically threw in a whole new dimension to the universe while it was at it!), or the almost mythical transwarp (in 'Star Trek III'), did throw up red flags. I think it's perhaps the fact that although it gets used, even a modified version on Voyager eventually carries them three hundred light years along (so three years off the journey?), it can't be sustained. Voyager's structural integrity isn't designed to take the stresses of that speed (whatever the warp equivalent is, we don't know), so there's nothing to suggest Starfleet couldn't come up with it for ships at a later date (will 'Star Trek: Picard' address things like this? If it doesn't, it won't be fully doing its job), but for now it has to be abandoned, as spore drive will have to be eventually. It's also alien technology, and Arturis' people (sadly we never got their name), were obviously highly advanced to be able to fend off the Borg so long. The only downside is that with his assimilation and that of the Dauntless, they now have that technology, though they probably had it already by assimilating his people - perhaps that was the origin of the Borg transwarp corridors?
As well as the easy, scalpel-like removal of this technology that made life far too easy for Voyager's crew, excising it for the good of the drama (though there would have been plenty of dramatic potential if they'd come shooting out right into the Dominion War, not to mention the music to face for so many of the characters that B'Elanna mentioned, something we were gravely shortchanged on by the series finale!), something else that helps to garner approval is the adherence to established canon with the designation of the Dauntless as NX-01A. Sure, I could have done without the 'A,' I'm not sure what purpose it served, maybe Arturis slipped up on that one, but NX-01 has even greater meaning post-'Enterprise,' and also continues that tradition of naming experimental vessels with the 'NX' prefix (something that happened for the first time this season with the USS Prometheus in 'Message in a Bottle'). It's surprising what a little thing like that can add to the authenticity of Trek as a continuing history (and one more reason I don't understand by the USS Discovery didn't have that, or at least its sister ship, the USS Glenn). Arturis did an amazing job, he was like some crazed Trek fan that had remodelled his own house only to trap other fans inside it, and though it was sparse, there were enough touches to give it that Starfleet feel, though I'm not sure the wraparound touchscreen consoles were ergonomically designed (another sign this was an alien's interpretation of Starfleet?), with buttons sloping below where the wrist would be to operate the others!
The only real downside was Engineering with that zappy ball thing in the middle - it all looked relatively cheap compared to the glory of the pillar Warp Core in Voyager's own Engineering. Miniaturisation seems to always be the direction of travel with technology, so I give them that, but maybe it could have looked a little better than it did, though again, any flaws we can put down to Arturis and his interpretation. I will say there was some nice shooting of the set by Director Winrich Kolbe (who also directed the pilot, 'Caretaker,' among many other Treks), where he has Seven, Torres and Kim each framed from low down in the engine core so we see their small heads cluttered all around by the closeup of the machinery as we cut to each one. There were some other nice shots that stood out in the episode, too: that of the Voyager splitting off from the Dauntless' slipstream (makes me think of the Stargate wormholes in 'SG-1' and 'Atlantis'), was one, and there's a moment on the Bridge of Voyager where Janeway stands close to camera with Arturis on one shoulder out of focus behind her, and Seven on the other, like the angel and devil on each side. The intercutting montage of Janeway and Seven's logs was another effective scene and I really loved the closing 'shot' (in more ways than one!), of the episode where Seven and Janeway are playing Velocity on the Holodeck and as the spinning disc flies towards camera, Seven blasts it as it hits camera! I love a great final shot (like that of 'Affliction' from 'Enterprise' I watched recently).
The shooting game on the Holodeck takes us right back to 'TNG' where we saw Picard and Riker doing some target practice, and later, Picard and Guinan - it's obviously something Starfleet officers like to do, though I'm surprised Janeway didn't have holographic cushions to bounce off on the walls. Maybe she likes to play rough and keep tough? The importance of those scenes is twofold: for one it takes the episode full circle as we see Seven's attitude change, but also Janeway's - she didn't want one more game in the earlier scene, but she gets Seven to go for one more in the latter. It also shows how far Seven has come, that she can be persuaded to play games with her Captain, a form of socialising, though couched in the suitable terms of competitiveness. She's become more human, and the episode ends on a high of positivity where she admits to belonging, yet with promise of much more to explore for her character. Her place on Voyager has also come a long way from distrust and incarceration: when Arturis tries to throw suspicion on Seven in a last-ditch effort not to reveal his plan (perhaps working from out of date knowledge about how trusted Seven was), Janeway doesn't even blink. There have been plenty of times when Seven has lied or acted against the ship, but although she claims not to share human values in this episode, she has demonstrated them time and time again: the Voyager crew have rubbed off on her, like the DS9 crew did on Quark, though they both had to have that inherent seed of promise within them that was watered by Starfleet. Janeway's intuition about Seven is right (and it made me laugh when she says it's only intuition if I'm right!), as it is about Arturis, despite the hope.
It's strange to have a season finale that doesn't end on a cliffhanger as so many in the 'modern' era (80s onwards), have done. This ends in similar manner to the first season of 'TNG' where there was the potential for more story if they chose to take it up (the Romulans announcing that their period of isolation is over), but nothing immediately to continue on at the start of the following season. The advantage to this approach is that you can do whatever you want with the season opener, but the downside is that it lacks the impression of a large scale event. 'DSC' did something similar with the end of Season 1 where we see the Enterprise-1701 hanging in space - it's not directly a cliffhanger except you want to go aboard her and meet Captain Pike, but it could go anywhere. There are also big cliffhangers that were done in an understated way: I think of the Season Four finale to 'DS9' where the crew are watching a speech by Gowron, head of the Klingon Empire, and Odo says he's a Changeling. It's not an action spectacular, but it has far-reaching ramifications you just can't wait to see. That's not the case with this episode - the only crumb of a cliffhanger is in Seven's wish to continue working on the slipstream drive to perhaps iron out the problems with it, but it's far from being an immediate scenario you wish to see conclude. Later season-enders all went big on the cliffhanger, and this episode was not the last finale to end with the prospect of Borg assimilation…
Revisiting Season Four has been a real pleasure, especially now I've been exposed to the uncomfortable style of Trek that the new wave of productions has chosen to follow. Though 'Voyager' could be at fault for dipping into the more fantastical approach from time to time (I think of the Doctor's 29th Century holoemitter, or the ablative shields from the future that clunk over the surface of the ship in 'Endgame', or even throwing in vastly superior technology like in this episode), it generally stayed relevant and grounded in Trek. With the addition of Seven of Nine they were able to inject some new blood and much new potential to unlock, and while the series never reached full potential, I think each season was a step up from the previous, culminating in Season 5 when I believe it was at its best and so look forward to reviewing that pinnacle season of the second best Trek series ever made. In this era of Trek that feels like it's strayed too far from the almost indefinable something that makes Trek so great, 'Voyager' is a relief to remind me that there was terrific Trek once, and who knows, maybe there will be again.
***
Too good to be true. Hope wants to believe that this alien with a skill for decoding languages can decipher the scrambled message from Starfleet that was the last part of the data stream earlier in the season. Fear wonders if she can fit in on Earth. Hope wants to trust this convenient new starship that has been delivered to aid them. Fear wants to leave the ship and run away from the trip to Earth. It's like a tennis match (or 'Velocity' match, though I'd have liked to see the pair playing on a real tennis court, especially as Janeway is supposed to have been a bit of a pro at it!), between Janeway and Seven, and few episode titles can be more perfect a description of what a story boils down to: the desire to get home and the anxiety over that home. The two sides are neatly wrapped in a tight little package, literally, during the course of the episode, as Arturis is able to capture both of them in his diabolical revenge scheme (shouldn't there be some kind of emergency Transporter hierarchy so that the most senior figures are beamed out first, rather than letting the Captain be last in line?). When we come in at the start, Seven of Nine has reverted back to her combative stance, arguing constantly with the Captain, perhaps her experiences with the crew having made her more arrogant, maybe her fear of fitting in on this ship having been overcome and now she knows how things work familiarity is breeding contempt? She's become comfortable so she's become complacent, not looking at what has happened over the course of the months she's been aboard, and so taking freedom and purpose for granted.
This has to be the explanation, because while the episode could have explained this reversion in behaviour by her worries over assimilation into Earth culture, away from the micro culture of a starship, it occurs before the prospect of going to a home she doesn't remember, to people she doesn't know is an immediate possibility, and not a welcome one. The unknown is so disconcerting to her that she'd rather jump ship and be left behind to fend for herself in the Delta Quadrant - she doesn't even discount returning to the Borg Collective as a place of familiarity and order. But the events of this episode reinforce the decision to stay with the crew, with what have become her friends, as unbelievable as that seemed in the beginning. She even smiles at one point when Harry says he'll miss having her around, something incredibly rare for her. B'Elanna jokes they'll be in the same boat of being outcasts together when Seven starts to put her fears into words by suggesting it won't be a happy reunion for the former members of the Maquis. Tellingly, B'Elanna responds in true Starfleet fashion, saying she'd rather go back and face the music, the very opposite of what Seven wants to do, than remain lost in the Delta Quadrant. These scenes are very well written and the episode as a whole is beautifully structured to bring Seven from restlessness in her position on Voyager, to a channeling of that into extreme discomfort with the idea of returning to Earth, almost leading into action to desert (though there is never an opportunity, I sensed she was ready to fly if the chance arose), and finally back around to acceptance and belonging.
Sometimes we take for granted the settled life we have, becoming disillusioned with the familiar, while fearful of the future and the unknowns of change in the offing, but as Seven discovers, in times of stress and danger, we can come to a realisation that we're in a good place - not a perfect one, but not one where we really wish to go backward to the comforting embrace of the past which we have come from: when faced with the immediate threat of being forcibly returned to the Collective by Arturis, Seven sees the advantages of her new life and sobers up. Life is not perfect, but it is better than that she had under the yoke of the Borg. With them, a possibility she'd had at the back of her mind as a possible option all along this season, she can bury her newfound identity, put her head in the sand and throw off all personal responsibilities to herself or others, but remaining free, while a scary prospect, means she can continue to explore who she is as a human, find her purpose and live the way she was designed to. For all these reasons the episode is a fulfilling one in terms of character, and an inspiring tale that ends with a warning: to throw everything out for the sake of revenge only leads to destruction, the wages of sin is death, the living death of assimilation by the Borg for Arturis, the manipulator who engineered the whole ruse to repay Janeway for her inadvertent removal of his hope.
Hope wasn't all on her side: his people had successfully fended off the Borg somehow, whether it was their abilities to see patterns and decode data and language, or the use of technology, they had succeeded, and with the appearance of Species 8472 (we were so close to hearing what their actual name was, or at least the name Arturis' race gave them as he agrees that 8472 was the designation given them in 'your colourful language'), that hope for Borg annihilation was needed at a time when his race's defences were failing. It was then extinguished by Janeway's alliance with the Borg against 8472 and he bitterly blames the Captain for his people's assimilation, so much so that he wants to go out in a blaze of hatred, spitting his 'last breath at thee' to quote Khan, by bringing his captives along into Borg space where he will share their fate. Janeway, ever the Starfleet Captain, tries to make him see that there is still hope. She doesn't criticise his logic or point out that 8472 would have been a far worse threat to the galaxy, their plans for destruction much more final than any assimilation plot. No, she apologises for not knowing and tries to remind him of everything he is. When Seven is facing a kind of identity crisis by considering giving it up to avoid the pain of fitting in to a new society, Arturis is ignoring his own identity as if it were worthless. As Janeway says, he represents so much knowledge and experience from his race - if anything he's even more essential an individual than when his race was thriving. Like the scattered Vulcans of the Kelvin Timeline, or the El-Aurians of our own, there's only a remnant of a few thousand left, so throwing away an important member of this small group is unthinkable.
There was no way Arturis was going to let go of his hatred and savage need for revenge, but even so Janeway begs him to give it up and come with her, just as he spits that last breath of contact with another, sympathetic being, by trying to shoot her as she's beamed away. He doesn't even get his revenge, only self-destruction at the hands of his enemy. It's a terribly sad image of this one, lone alien, consumed by hatred, yet resigned as he sits in the centre seat, listening to the age-old spiel of the Borg. He could be said to be a mirror of Seven, someone who chose to cast off her fear when confronted by reality, given the chance to realise where her place is. Though the spectre of returning to Earth has been put off, it's something she will have to face eventually, but better to do so in the company of people she trusts than to run away. Janeway had groomed her for most of the season to take her place among the ranks of humanity again, tried to restore what was stolen from her by the Borg, and had marginal success, but the story isn't over. I love the exchanges between them through this episode, like a recap of their experiences over the season, and like never before this is a Mother preparing her daughter for the real world, going through the growing pains together despite the spitefulness and anger directed at her. Seven was truly a fascinating character like we've not seen in Trek since, nor has there been a better Captain than Janeway since this time. I noted that it wasn't the emotional way the characters were reacting that made it satisfying, it was the emotional undercurrent they bring to the audience - 'Discovery' takes the opposite approach, making the characters very emotional, and so you feel nothing towards them.
In the softest moment in the episode, Janeway is almost literally grooming Seven, in the positive meaning of that word: she uses a microfilament (out of those good old versatile combadges, useful in all situations!), to adjust her Borg implants as a way through the forcefield, and they talk intimately together as she does. Seven really has come a long way, and her testing of Janeway has also added something new to the Captain, who never had any children. Like Kirk she's been practically married to her ship, her children the crew - some almost literally childlike in the form of the young and inexperienced Harry Kim, the older, cockier, but still in need of guidance, Tom Paris, and now the adolescent ball of confusion that is Seven, not to mention learning with Kes or the Doctor as those fledglings discovered themselves. But Seven has proven the biggest challenge at a time when the series needed to deepen and be more than travelling from one planet to the next, or avoiding the Kazon and Vidiians. Seven provides the backbone to the series, and became an essential component even across her first season. Few episodes have nothing to do with her, and many examine her in detail. I've always said she was added at the detriment of the other characters (Neelix is the one to be short-shrifted this time, though he does throw in an intriguing comment about trying to communicate with a xenon-based life form!), but at the same time she was the most compelling, which is astonishing when you think that adding a character isn't necessarily the best thing to do to an established series.
It worked on 'DS9' because they were using the components of 'TNG,' so Worf was just one more thing added to the mix. Unlike Seven he didn't become the backbone of his series, though he was integral. I can't imagine that making Shran a permanent addition to 'Enterprise' would have dramatically altered the balance, either, or that he's have been given the lion's share of stories if Season 5 had come to be. Pulaski was so 'good' she only lasted one season, and Ezri, while throwing a last-minute spanner in the works to shake things up a little, was also not the main focus of her season on 'DS9.' Seven was the only radical addition to a cast, really, and they played with her very effectively. Yes, I do wish Chakotay had been front and centre as he was in a number of episodes this season. And I wish Janeway's unique friendship and understanding with Tuvok hadn't faded into the background - they do share a scene here that hearkens back to that 'special relationship' when she discusses how convenient all that has happened is, but for a Security Chief he wasn't as integral as he had been, some of his uniqueness absorbed by Seven: superior strength, ability, mind, and the lack of emotion meant that Seven was the best female Vulcan ever to grace a Trek series, without actually being Vulcan.
Seven's place and future were just one more added interest to the question of getting home that had been raised in earnest this season, like never before. Early in the series they were all acting very positively, having faith they'd find a wormhole or alien technology to get them home, and occasionally getting their hopes up by finding just that, only for it to be flung back in their faces again. The faith and the hope continued, but other concerns took over for the most part, the fear of other races - not fear in the sense of cowardice, but in wise respect of enemy forces and the need for survival that turned their quest for home into more of a need to survive, as well as a desire to take advantage of being the first ship in the quadrant to explore and learn for Starfleet's sake, as well as their own innate nature of curiosity. But home was always on their minds, and with direct contact through the Hirogen array and the puzzle of an incomplete coded message, this urge towards home had become greater in the second half of this season. In that respect this episode works well, playing on those hopes in a credible way: Arturis (whose dome is even greater than the Klingon heads of 'DSC'!), is like Hoshi Sato, with his natural skill for language of all kinds - he even throws out a Klingon phrase, though sadly without subtitles! Speaking Klingon gets a couple of mentions: Janeway struggles with basic Klingon and Torres only knows a few phrases herself, having always been hateful of that side of her.
Arturis was well played by Ray Wise (previously Liko in 'Who Watches The Watchers?' on 'TNG'), but wasn't a 'best guest actor' that you remember forever. He's quite a restrained figure, even at his most emotive. Admiral Hayes, however, I always think of being Romulan since Jack Shearer, who played him, is best remembered by me as Ruwon in 'Visionary,' though he had other roles in both 'DS9' and 'Voyager,' including reprising Hayes in 'Life Line,' a role he originated, fantastically, in film 'First Contact'! Love that continuity! The surprise with Arturis is that his beef is not with the Borg. It's very specifically Janeway and her crew he blames for the Borg's emancipation from 8472's ferocious power. He even displays a philosophical attitude to the Collective likening it to a storm, and not feeling anger toward such a force of nature, you just avoid it. At first I thought he was just covering his true feelings, but later he still claims he doesn't blame them for being what they are. It was a good use of the Borg as motivator for a story without them featuring (beyond audio on Arturis' ship at the end), something the series would increasingly do since there was so much of Seven's story to mine. With the revelation next season that the Borg Queen had her hand in whatever happened to Seven, it makes me wonder if Janeway and Seven would have been assimilated even if they hadn't escaped from the 'USS Dauntless'? I can't remember exactly what the Queen's plot was - to get hold of Voyager or to implant a drone into Starfleet, but it does colour whatever we see of the Borg before that (a very clever retcon). The Borg would now know where Voyager is, but if you take into account the Queen's interest this isn't a problem, just makes it easier for her to keep track, I suppose.
The Dauntless was a nice looking ship, like a continuation of the Voyager design aesthetic, coupled with a Stealth fighter jet. Yet another connection with 'DSC' is the new way to travel, a faster, more efficient technology. No, not spores, but quantum slipstream drive technology. Transwarp even gets a mention as the slipstream is compared to the Borg conduits their ships travel through. I was trying to work out why this particular method of extreme propulsion didn't seem too outlandish to buy when the spore drive and its mycelial network (which basically threw in a whole new dimension to the universe while it was at it!), or the almost mythical transwarp (in 'Star Trek III'), did throw up red flags. I think it's perhaps the fact that although it gets used, even a modified version on Voyager eventually carries them three hundred light years along (so three years off the journey?), it can't be sustained. Voyager's structural integrity isn't designed to take the stresses of that speed (whatever the warp equivalent is, we don't know), so there's nothing to suggest Starfleet couldn't come up with it for ships at a later date (will 'Star Trek: Picard' address things like this? If it doesn't, it won't be fully doing its job), but for now it has to be abandoned, as spore drive will have to be eventually. It's also alien technology, and Arturis' people (sadly we never got their name), were obviously highly advanced to be able to fend off the Borg so long. The only downside is that with his assimilation and that of the Dauntless, they now have that technology, though they probably had it already by assimilating his people - perhaps that was the origin of the Borg transwarp corridors?
As well as the easy, scalpel-like removal of this technology that made life far too easy for Voyager's crew, excising it for the good of the drama (though there would have been plenty of dramatic potential if they'd come shooting out right into the Dominion War, not to mention the music to face for so many of the characters that B'Elanna mentioned, something we were gravely shortchanged on by the series finale!), something else that helps to garner approval is the adherence to established canon with the designation of the Dauntless as NX-01A. Sure, I could have done without the 'A,' I'm not sure what purpose it served, maybe Arturis slipped up on that one, but NX-01 has even greater meaning post-'Enterprise,' and also continues that tradition of naming experimental vessels with the 'NX' prefix (something that happened for the first time this season with the USS Prometheus in 'Message in a Bottle'). It's surprising what a little thing like that can add to the authenticity of Trek as a continuing history (and one more reason I don't understand by the USS Discovery didn't have that, or at least its sister ship, the USS Glenn). Arturis did an amazing job, he was like some crazed Trek fan that had remodelled his own house only to trap other fans inside it, and though it was sparse, there were enough touches to give it that Starfleet feel, though I'm not sure the wraparound touchscreen consoles were ergonomically designed (another sign this was an alien's interpretation of Starfleet?), with buttons sloping below where the wrist would be to operate the others!
The only real downside was Engineering with that zappy ball thing in the middle - it all looked relatively cheap compared to the glory of the pillar Warp Core in Voyager's own Engineering. Miniaturisation seems to always be the direction of travel with technology, so I give them that, but maybe it could have looked a little better than it did, though again, any flaws we can put down to Arturis and his interpretation. I will say there was some nice shooting of the set by Director Winrich Kolbe (who also directed the pilot, 'Caretaker,' among many other Treks), where he has Seven, Torres and Kim each framed from low down in the engine core so we see their small heads cluttered all around by the closeup of the machinery as we cut to each one. There were some other nice shots that stood out in the episode, too: that of the Voyager splitting off from the Dauntless' slipstream (makes me think of the Stargate wormholes in 'SG-1' and 'Atlantis'), was one, and there's a moment on the Bridge of Voyager where Janeway stands close to camera with Arturis on one shoulder out of focus behind her, and Seven on the other, like the angel and devil on each side. The intercutting montage of Janeway and Seven's logs was another effective scene and I really loved the closing 'shot' (in more ways than one!), of the episode where Seven and Janeway are playing Velocity on the Holodeck and as the spinning disc flies towards camera, Seven blasts it as it hits camera! I love a great final shot (like that of 'Affliction' from 'Enterprise' I watched recently).
The shooting game on the Holodeck takes us right back to 'TNG' where we saw Picard and Riker doing some target practice, and later, Picard and Guinan - it's obviously something Starfleet officers like to do, though I'm surprised Janeway didn't have holographic cushions to bounce off on the walls. Maybe she likes to play rough and keep tough? The importance of those scenes is twofold: for one it takes the episode full circle as we see Seven's attitude change, but also Janeway's - she didn't want one more game in the earlier scene, but she gets Seven to go for one more in the latter. It also shows how far Seven has come, that she can be persuaded to play games with her Captain, a form of socialising, though couched in the suitable terms of competitiveness. She's become more human, and the episode ends on a high of positivity where she admits to belonging, yet with promise of much more to explore for her character. Her place on Voyager has also come a long way from distrust and incarceration: when Arturis tries to throw suspicion on Seven in a last-ditch effort not to reveal his plan (perhaps working from out of date knowledge about how trusted Seven was), Janeway doesn't even blink. There have been plenty of times when Seven has lied or acted against the ship, but although she claims not to share human values in this episode, she has demonstrated them time and time again: the Voyager crew have rubbed off on her, like the DS9 crew did on Quark, though they both had to have that inherent seed of promise within them that was watered by Starfleet. Janeway's intuition about Seven is right (and it made me laugh when she says it's only intuition if I'm right!), as it is about Arturis, despite the hope.
It's strange to have a season finale that doesn't end on a cliffhanger as so many in the 'modern' era (80s onwards), have done. This ends in similar manner to the first season of 'TNG' where there was the potential for more story if they chose to take it up (the Romulans announcing that their period of isolation is over), but nothing immediately to continue on at the start of the following season. The advantage to this approach is that you can do whatever you want with the season opener, but the downside is that it lacks the impression of a large scale event. 'DSC' did something similar with the end of Season 1 where we see the Enterprise-1701 hanging in space - it's not directly a cliffhanger except you want to go aboard her and meet Captain Pike, but it could go anywhere. There are also big cliffhangers that were done in an understated way: I think of the Season Four finale to 'DS9' where the crew are watching a speech by Gowron, head of the Klingon Empire, and Odo says he's a Changeling. It's not an action spectacular, but it has far-reaching ramifications you just can't wait to see. That's not the case with this episode - the only crumb of a cliffhanger is in Seven's wish to continue working on the slipstream drive to perhaps iron out the problems with it, but it's far from being an immediate scenario you wish to see conclude. Later season-enders all went big on the cliffhanger, and this episode was not the last finale to end with the prospect of Borg assimilation…
Revisiting Season Four has been a real pleasure, especially now I've been exposed to the uncomfortable style of Trek that the new wave of productions has chosen to follow. Though 'Voyager' could be at fault for dipping into the more fantastical approach from time to time (I think of the Doctor's 29th Century holoemitter, or the ablative shields from the future that clunk over the surface of the ship in 'Endgame', or even throwing in vastly superior technology like in this episode), it generally stayed relevant and grounded in Trek. With the addition of Seven of Nine they were able to inject some new blood and much new potential to unlock, and while the series never reached full potential, I think each season was a step up from the previous, culminating in Season 5 when I believe it was at its best and so look forward to reviewing that pinnacle season of the second best Trek series ever made. In this era of Trek that feels like it's strayed too far from the almost indefinable something that makes Trek so great, 'Voyager' is a relief to remind me that there was terrific Trek once, and who knows, maybe there will be again.
***
Tuesday, 16 July 2019
The Tower
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (The Tower)
When they find themselves up to their arms in the filth of an alien culture's unjust society they can't help but thrust their hands in deeper, it seems to me. Sheppard does a fine impression of Captain Kirk, who seemed happy to show up and disrupt a civilisation if he was opposed to it. There doesn't seem much argument that it was an unfair society, but the SGC personnel always seem heavy-handed the way they butt in and start mucking about with things. The situation this time is that the rich live in their ivory tower, or to be precise, Ancient Atlantis-alike tower, which has protected the planet from Wraith attack for many generations due to the Royals having the necessary gene that controls the chair that controls the tower that controls the drones that protects the planet, but he's not the fairest of them all, demanding half the villages' crop and treating the slightest insubordination extremely harshly, or at least the tower guards do. What worked in this one was in showing the vast difference in the living conditions of the two tiers of society as the rural poor subsist as best they can in their simple rags and hovels, while the Lord Protector and his court lord it over them, wearing fine linen, gorging themselves with ample feasts and living in splendid luxury within the Ancient 'tower' walls. The team stumble in propitiously just as the Lord Protector is about to die from poisoning so they can't fail to get ever more mixed up in things, just as they love to do.
Just is the apposite word, as neither Sheppard nor Ronon can stand by while injustice abounds, and it doesn't help that Sheppard is made an honoured guest/prisoner, one the leader's daughter, Mara, sees as a direct route to succession, since of course John has the all-important Ancient gene. But, oh no! it's the clipped English-sounding Chamberlain who turns out to be the real baddie, and after he seemed so reasonable, too. I have to admit I suspected the daughter since the son was too obvious a terrible successor and potential tyrant. But no, it was the Chamberlain, played well by Peter Woodward, an English actor I was very pleased to see since he guest-starred in an episode of my favourite English TV series, 'BUGS,' back in the Nineties - I thought I recognised the bald head and glassily piercing eyes from somewhere and upon checking the name I found I was right, though this would only have been about ten years after. The subplot, if it can be called one, features McKay and a villager searching out the 'catacombs' for the ZPM which, if interfered with, can stop a hail of drones descending on the defiant villagers which have been encouraged to stand up and fight by the warriors Teyla and Ronon. For one thing, it didn't seem the wisest thing to stand in the middle of the village in a clump, awaiting fiery destruction and you'd think the experts would have led them into the woods to carry out guerilla warfare, but everything was a bit rushed.
Another problem is that the catacombs beneath the ground, merely corridors of the Ancient vessel/city are said to be prone to earthquakes, yet everything's nice and shiny and spotless until McKay and his mate go down there. They did a good job ageing the Jumpers by trawling cobwebs all over (wonder what those spiders looked like!), so it's a shame the production values didn't stretch quite far enough, especially in an episode where they're reusing Atlantis standing sets, even if dressed differently with opulent hangings, suits of armour, and weaponry adorning the walls. And McKay was taking a big risk trying to blast a drone up through the ground to get a radio signal out - seems to me it would have been just as likely to explode on impact with the ceiling and fry McKay and his man! Leaving logic and sense aside, the episode looks nice with its outdoor scenes, and the court intrigue, while nothing spectacular, is entertaining enough. The real issue should have been whether it was right to intervene, how to intervene, should they remove the ZPM and leave the planet unprotected if it allowed the villagers to have a fairer life? That would have given the story much more depth, but they don't tend to go in for that very much, it's about the action. I'm not even sure we had adequate explanation for the consequences, either - it's clear that around half the villagers, with gene treatment, will be able to operate the chair, but that could just as easily degenerate into a new societal division! These things need to be addressed if the series is to make for thoughtful viewing, so as it is, it ends feeling half done.
**
When they find themselves up to their arms in the filth of an alien culture's unjust society they can't help but thrust their hands in deeper, it seems to me. Sheppard does a fine impression of Captain Kirk, who seemed happy to show up and disrupt a civilisation if he was opposed to it. There doesn't seem much argument that it was an unfair society, but the SGC personnel always seem heavy-handed the way they butt in and start mucking about with things. The situation this time is that the rich live in their ivory tower, or to be precise, Ancient Atlantis-alike tower, which has protected the planet from Wraith attack for many generations due to the Royals having the necessary gene that controls the chair that controls the tower that controls the drones that protects the planet, but he's not the fairest of them all, demanding half the villages' crop and treating the slightest insubordination extremely harshly, or at least the tower guards do. What worked in this one was in showing the vast difference in the living conditions of the two tiers of society as the rural poor subsist as best they can in their simple rags and hovels, while the Lord Protector and his court lord it over them, wearing fine linen, gorging themselves with ample feasts and living in splendid luxury within the Ancient 'tower' walls. The team stumble in propitiously just as the Lord Protector is about to die from poisoning so they can't fail to get ever more mixed up in things, just as they love to do.
Just is the apposite word, as neither Sheppard nor Ronon can stand by while injustice abounds, and it doesn't help that Sheppard is made an honoured guest/prisoner, one the leader's daughter, Mara, sees as a direct route to succession, since of course John has the all-important Ancient gene. But, oh no! it's the clipped English-sounding Chamberlain who turns out to be the real baddie, and after he seemed so reasonable, too. I have to admit I suspected the daughter since the son was too obvious a terrible successor and potential tyrant. But no, it was the Chamberlain, played well by Peter Woodward, an English actor I was very pleased to see since he guest-starred in an episode of my favourite English TV series, 'BUGS,' back in the Nineties - I thought I recognised the bald head and glassily piercing eyes from somewhere and upon checking the name I found I was right, though this would only have been about ten years after. The subplot, if it can be called one, features McKay and a villager searching out the 'catacombs' for the ZPM which, if interfered with, can stop a hail of drones descending on the defiant villagers which have been encouraged to stand up and fight by the warriors Teyla and Ronon. For one thing, it didn't seem the wisest thing to stand in the middle of the village in a clump, awaiting fiery destruction and you'd think the experts would have led them into the woods to carry out guerilla warfare, but everything was a bit rushed.
Another problem is that the catacombs beneath the ground, merely corridors of the Ancient vessel/city are said to be prone to earthquakes, yet everything's nice and shiny and spotless until McKay and his mate go down there. They did a good job ageing the Jumpers by trawling cobwebs all over (wonder what those spiders looked like!), so it's a shame the production values didn't stretch quite far enough, especially in an episode where they're reusing Atlantis standing sets, even if dressed differently with opulent hangings, suits of armour, and weaponry adorning the walls. And McKay was taking a big risk trying to blast a drone up through the ground to get a radio signal out - seems to me it would have been just as likely to explode on impact with the ceiling and fry McKay and his man! Leaving logic and sense aside, the episode looks nice with its outdoor scenes, and the court intrigue, while nothing spectacular, is entertaining enough. The real issue should have been whether it was right to intervene, how to intervene, should they remove the ZPM and leave the planet unprotected if it allowed the villagers to have a fairer life? That would have given the story much more depth, but they don't tend to go in for that very much, it's about the action. I'm not even sure we had adequate explanation for the consequences, either - it's clear that around half the villagers, with gene treatment, will be able to operate the chair, but that could just as easily degenerate into a new societal division! These things need to be addressed if the series is to make for thoughtful viewing, so as it is, it ends feeling half done.
**
One
DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (One)
'One' and 'Doctor's Orders.' Compare and contrast. I saw the one first and 'One' second, having missed it on original transmission and only getting to it in the late 2000s when I was first re-watching the series on DVD, so I never had any past connection to it, and instead, the 'Enterprise' episode had taken that spot as one of the good, creepy solitary stories, so this one felt like a slightly lesser version. The production values and subtlety of the later episode makes me prefer it, and because I had it in mind that they reused the twist as well, I wasn't as impressed that the 'Voyager' version didn't have such a poetic realisation: I thought the Doctor was going to be revealed as just another figment of Seven's imagination, but he was there, another reason why Phlox' predicament was a more deftly realised idea. It also helped that that episode jumped right in without preamble, while it takes some time before the Voyager crew submit themselves to stasis and leave Seven alone, but for the EMH. It also reserves the creepiness until deep into the episode, whereas Phlox' nervousness becomes apparent quite early, if I recall correctly. It's fascinating to examine the two different character types the similar stories feature and play with, because Seven and Dr. Phlox are very different Trek archetypes: Seven is confident in her abilities to serve the crew in this manner, indeed, you feel at first that this is an ideal situation for her where she can run everything as efficiently as she wishes, without meddling crewmembers or superiors in rank causing complication.
Seven is free to pursue, effectively, her own command style, with the exception of the Doctor's overall authority. I got the sense she felt she was proving her approach to life on Voyager was the superior one, so it's really a comedown for her pride when things don't go according to plan. For Phlox, he was not entirely happy about the situation, doesn't have a desire to take over the command functions of his ship and do things the way he thinks they should be done - he's mostly quite satisfied with his Captain's style and prefers to concern himself with the medical wellbeing of the crew, and the anthropological interest they give him. So when things go wrong for him, it's quite a different experience, he's on the verge of panic, and it's more about holding himself together, but it isn't a question of him losing face, it's more about his own self-belief and worry that his crew's confidence in him is misplaced. Seven never has that concern. One reason 'One' doesn't work quite as well (and we're talking fractions here, it's still a perfectly good episode), is because it's in the position, and seems designed, to be the culmination of her character's arc for the season: there have been numerous ups and downs, she's gained the trust of Captain and crew, only to promptly lose it again, and it hasn't been smooth sailing. To go through all that and still have Janeway's faith in both her ability and will to get them through this deadly nebula, is inspiring and very Trekky, but I didn't feel it was played up enough for the purposes that arc deserved.
Finally being forced to trust this ex-Borg drone with their lives for an extended period of time should have had a greater impression of gravity, but the only dissent, and it isn't really dissent, more like a questioning of this being the best option, is when Chakotay asks his Captain for reassurance. He's once again being a good First Officer as he's been allowed to be many times this season, so I appreciated his query, but I felt there should have been more discussion over Seven - perhaps Tuvok could also have raised doubts, only for Harry to jump on him and show support for Seven. Maybe Torres and Paris could have had a conversation where they expressed either uncertainty or support, and while we were at it, we could have had a nice scene with Neelix where he gives Seven a little Talaxian advice. You'd think with the amount of time given over to coming to the decision of going through the nebula with Seven and the Doc running things, we could have explored how the other characters felt in more detail. My other issue, if it can be called that, is how much of what happens is genuine. Because I was expecting the Doctor to be revealed as not actually there for most of the story, I wasn't sure how much to take of the strange malfunctions Seven has to deal with: were the gel packs really failing due to them being organic material? In that case, what is it about Seven that stopped her from being affected? It seemed to be her Borg nanoprobes, but that doesn't really explain why this protects her organic majority.
Some of the things that happened, didn't, but which ones? Why would the Doctor's mobile holoemitter fail, what was it about the nebula that would affect it? Was the computer really experiencing failures in the way it seemed? If a lot of these things had happened in a normal episode I'd have been questioning them severely, because it's a bit much for the ship to suddenly develop so many dire faults, but because I'm not sure of the veracity of what happened, it's difficult to know whether to complain or not. I felt the irritation between Seven and the Doctor was another part of the story that failed to play itself up into a meaningful contribution, as at first I thought this was just her rationale for keeping away from him as much as possible, another clue that he's not really there. I think also I wanted the alien intruder to have some real connection to Seven (I suppose he was closest to the T'Pol twist in 'Doctor's Orders'), some person she'd personally assimilated in her time as a Borg that had come back to haunt her, and only at the end when she's returned to full sanity would she recall that this figment was once a real person whom she'd had difficulty assimilating. So it's not as much the story that was at fault as my requirements asking for more development. Once we get to the tough time at the end it makes up for any lack earlier in the episode as she puts everything into trying to keep the stasis tubes powered up for the last few minutes, heroically, or more precisely, dutifully, sacrificing her own life support power to do it!
Seven is shown to be a moral person - early in the season she would have saved herself rather than the people she saw as keeping her captive, but she's learned so much and come so far as to want to prove to Janeway that her task is top priority. Once she found her niche in Astrometrics her attitude changed: she had her own space and role to fulfil, which satisfied her. It's strange to think that she actually did better when she was left alone to be one, rather than clamouring for the comfort of voices and bustle. Perhaps she was better adjusted to being alone than the episode makes out, though this pushed her into new territory of isolation. I would have thought the Doctor would have been happy to have so much time for he and his pupil to explore social graces, as we see at the beginning of the episode, but that's not an avenue they explore across this month of travel. It's just another missing element that makes me wish they'd bulked up the episode a little more. But it's the penultimate episode of the season, and that can sometimes be a lesser story - this time it was a bottle episode, which is by no means a lesser sub-genre, but it does rely on the interactions of the characters, or in this case, the trial of a single character. Seven certainly proved herself worthy of the trust placed in her, all but sacrificing herself for the crew - which raises the point of how the crew came round: were the pods designed to wake them automatically when the nebula was cleared, as otherwise how would they know it was time to come out? I know they had the ability to open them from the inside, as Paris does in his sleep, but could it be that the pods ran out of power and they were forced awake, except it was okay because they'd cleared the danger area?
What I saw as another missed opportunity, and one 'Enterprise' couldn't capitalise on, was the Holodeck recreation of Voyager. Early on, Seven is having another lesson in conversation from the Doctor, but it would have been much more sinister later if we weren't sure if and when she was in the simulation. It never seems like a good idea to recreate the ship and members of the crew within the Holodeck, partly because of ethical issues over whether you can recreate a person without their permission (I can't imagine B'Elanna agreeing to her template being used for an aid to Seven's social skills!), but also for the bizarreness of getting confused over reality. There's no reason for them to get confused ordinarily because it's like us switching on a TV, they know where they are and what they're doing when they enter a Holodeck, but with Seven's faculties failing it would only add to the horror. Instead they ignore this potential story tool and opt for hallucinations of the crew, badly burnt by the radiation and bantering between themselves about the likelihood of Seven failing, and vocalising all the worries and concerns that Seven must have hanging in her mind. The horror in 'Doctor's Orders' was sparingly used, mainly the visual of a zombified Hoshi, and the creepiness worked better, but in this one, going against the trend (Trek tends to get more horrific as time passes), 'One' is the episode which has more graphic nastiness: the crewman dead of extreme radiation burns to the face is lingered on for a second or two, as are the bodies in flames. This actually makes the episode less tense than if they'd flitted a short glimpse and cut to Seven's reaction.
Saying that, an atmosphere is still successfully created with the casually insulting crew, the age-old cries for help and a person just around the next bend in the darkened corridors, as well as the confrontation with a Borg drone. But the alien was the best source of tension because that's the most uncomfortable thing for Seven: to have a rogue element running around the ship upsetting her ordered regime. The fact that he was so assured and casual is another part of Seven's discomfort with the social. Even then, until he actually goes on the run as a disruption to her, you never feel as if she's in any danger because of her enhanced strength and senses, so she'd be a physical match for an attack from that quarter, it's the psychological that is problematic for her. Hallucinating a collective of the Voyager crew's voices begging for help is the utmost proof that she feels obligated to them and letting them down is a grave fear. Even so, the whirlpool of hallucination and confusion can't clear up all the holes: a big one for me was why some of the crew couldn't remain awake, or have shifts in EV suits - if a stasis pod could protect them, why not these? And in the first place you'd think the ship's sensors would be honed enough to detect anything so harmful it would cause instant burns and incapacitate the crew, with only Tuvok's Vulcan endurance able to reach the conn and turn the ship around (I liked that his face showed green burns from his Vulcan blood), his only real contribution.
There's also the delicate nature of the Doctor's program coming up again, that he might be irretrievable if his emitter goes offline when he's out of Sickbay. I could buy that as something Seven imagined, but for the real tech it was hard to swallow. While I'm looking at the negatives I should also point to the Cargo Bay CGI set extension which didn't look quite right, especially as we get an upper level where more of the pods are stored that we'd never seen before. But even with all this uncertainty and possible plot holes there's a lot to enjoy, such as little technical details of Seven activating her personal log by tapping her combadge, or when the computer she's talking to later in the episode becomes faulty until she instructs it to bypass the affected gel packs and then it speaks normally again, instantly, showing how advanced it is. And even Harry Kim getting in a mention of Parrises Squares, a game he's dabbled in. Janeway's assertion that Starfleet crews have been in stasis much longer than a month set my speculation meter going wildly as it makes you wonder what ship and crew did that (aside from Khan and company's three hundred year travel), and whether we'll ever see it now that Trek is back (though probably not as I can't see them doing stasis and that kind of thing in modern Trek). The most important thing Janeway asserts is her belief in Seven's redemption, despite the insolent attitude she'd had to contend with, and that, combined with the lonely horns and emotive violins of the soundtrack in the episode, is the most inspiring part of it. Seven hadn't reached the end of her journey by a long way, but this episode demonstrates how far she'd come across the season, and far from being one, she was now one of many.
***
'One' and 'Doctor's Orders.' Compare and contrast. I saw the one first and 'One' second, having missed it on original transmission and only getting to it in the late 2000s when I was first re-watching the series on DVD, so I never had any past connection to it, and instead, the 'Enterprise' episode had taken that spot as one of the good, creepy solitary stories, so this one felt like a slightly lesser version. The production values and subtlety of the later episode makes me prefer it, and because I had it in mind that they reused the twist as well, I wasn't as impressed that the 'Voyager' version didn't have such a poetic realisation: I thought the Doctor was going to be revealed as just another figment of Seven's imagination, but he was there, another reason why Phlox' predicament was a more deftly realised idea. It also helped that that episode jumped right in without preamble, while it takes some time before the Voyager crew submit themselves to stasis and leave Seven alone, but for the EMH. It also reserves the creepiness until deep into the episode, whereas Phlox' nervousness becomes apparent quite early, if I recall correctly. It's fascinating to examine the two different character types the similar stories feature and play with, because Seven and Dr. Phlox are very different Trek archetypes: Seven is confident in her abilities to serve the crew in this manner, indeed, you feel at first that this is an ideal situation for her where she can run everything as efficiently as she wishes, without meddling crewmembers or superiors in rank causing complication.
Seven is free to pursue, effectively, her own command style, with the exception of the Doctor's overall authority. I got the sense she felt she was proving her approach to life on Voyager was the superior one, so it's really a comedown for her pride when things don't go according to plan. For Phlox, he was not entirely happy about the situation, doesn't have a desire to take over the command functions of his ship and do things the way he thinks they should be done - he's mostly quite satisfied with his Captain's style and prefers to concern himself with the medical wellbeing of the crew, and the anthropological interest they give him. So when things go wrong for him, it's quite a different experience, he's on the verge of panic, and it's more about holding himself together, but it isn't a question of him losing face, it's more about his own self-belief and worry that his crew's confidence in him is misplaced. Seven never has that concern. One reason 'One' doesn't work quite as well (and we're talking fractions here, it's still a perfectly good episode), is because it's in the position, and seems designed, to be the culmination of her character's arc for the season: there have been numerous ups and downs, she's gained the trust of Captain and crew, only to promptly lose it again, and it hasn't been smooth sailing. To go through all that and still have Janeway's faith in both her ability and will to get them through this deadly nebula, is inspiring and very Trekky, but I didn't feel it was played up enough for the purposes that arc deserved.
Finally being forced to trust this ex-Borg drone with their lives for an extended period of time should have had a greater impression of gravity, but the only dissent, and it isn't really dissent, more like a questioning of this being the best option, is when Chakotay asks his Captain for reassurance. He's once again being a good First Officer as he's been allowed to be many times this season, so I appreciated his query, but I felt there should have been more discussion over Seven - perhaps Tuvok could also have raised doubts, only for Harry to jump on him and show support for Seven. Maybe Torres and Paris could have had a conversation where they expressed either uncertainty or support, and while we were at it, we could have had a nice scene with Neelix where he gives Seven a little Talaxian advice. You'd think with the amount of time given over to coming to the decision of going through the nebula with Seven and the Doc running things, we could have explored how the other characters felt in more detail. My other issue, if it can be called that, is how much of what happens is genuine. Because I was expecting the Doctor to be revealed as not actually there for most of the story, I wasn't sure how much to take of the strange malfunctions Seven has to deal with: were the gel packs really failing due to them being organic material? In that case, what is it about Seven that stopped her from being affected? It seemed to be her Borg nanoprobes, but that doesn't really explain why this protects her organic majority.
Some of the things that happened, didn't, but which ones? Why would the Doctor's mobile holoemitter fail, what was it about the nebula that would affect it? Was the computer really experiencing failures in the way it seemed? If a lot of these things had happened in a normal episode I'd have been questioning them severely, because it's a bit much for the ship to suddenly develop so many dire faults, but because I'm not sure of the veracity of what happened, it's difficult to know whether to complain or not. I felt the irritation between Seven and the Doctor was another part of the story that failed to play itself up into a meaningful contribution, as at first I thought this was just her rationale for keeping away from him as much as possible, another clue that he's not really there. I think also I wanted the alien intruder to have some real connection to Seven (I suppose he was closest to the T'Pol twist in 'Doctor's Orders'), some person she'd personally assimilated in her time as a Borg that had come back to haunt her, and only at the end when she's returned to full sanity would she recall that this figment was once a real person whom she'd had difficulty assimilating. So it's not as much the story that was at fault as my requirements asking for more development. Once we get to the tough time at the end it makes up for any lack earlier in the episode as she puts everything into trying to keep the stasis tubes powered up for the last few minutes, heroically, or more precisely, dutifully, sacrificing her own life support power to do it!
Seven is shown to be a moral person - early in the season she would have saved herself rather than the people she saw as keeping her captive, but she's learned so much and come so far as to want to prove to Janeway that her task is top priority. Once she found her niche in Astrometrics her attitude changed: she had her own space and role to fulfil, which satisfied her. It's strange to think that she actually did better when she was left alone to be one, rather than clamouring for the comfort of voices and bustle. Perhaps she was better adjusted to being alone than the episode makes out, though this pushed her into new territory of isolation. I would have thought the Doctor would have been happy to have so much time for he and his pupil to explore social graces, as we see at the beginning of the episode, but that's not an avenue they explore across this month of travel. It's just another missing element that makes me wish they'd bulked up the episode a little more. But it's the penultimate episode of the season, and that can sometimes be a lesser story - this time it was a bottle episode, which is by no means a lesser sub-genre, but it does rely on the interactions of the characters, or in this case, the trial of a single character. Seven certainly proved herself worthy of the trust placed in her, all but sacrificing herself for the crew - which raises the point of how the crew came round: were the pods designed to wake them automatically when the nebula was cleared, as otherwise how would they know it was time to come out? I know they had the ability to open them from the inside, as Paris does in his sleep, but could it be that the pods ran out of power and they were forced awake, except it was okay because they'd cleared the danger area?
What I saw as another missed opportunity, and one 'Enterprise' couldn't capitalise on, was the Holodeck recreation of Voyager. Early on, Seven is having another lesson in conversation from the Doctor, but it would have been much more sinister later if we weren't sure if and when she was in the simulation. It never seems like a good idea to recreate the ship and members of the crew within the Holodeck, partly because of ethical issues over whether you can recreate a person without their permission (I can't imagine B'Elanna agreeing to her template being used for an aid to Seven's social skills!), but also for the bizarreness of getting confused over reality. There's no reason for them to get confused ordinarily because it's like us switching on a TV, they know where they are and what they're doing when they enter a Holodeck, but with Seven's faculties failing it would only add to the horror. Instead they ignore this potential story tool and opt for hallucinations of the crew, badly burnt by the radiation and bantering between themselves about the likelihood of Seven failing, and vocalising all the worries and concerns that Seven must have hanging in her mind. The horror in 'Doctor's Orders' was sparingly used, mainly the visual of a zombified Hoshi, and the creepiness worked better, but in this one, going against the trend (Trek tends to get more horrific as time passes), 'One' is the episode which has more graphic nastiness: the crewman dead of extreme radiation burns to the face is lingered on for a second or two, as are the bodies in flames. This actually makes the episode less tense than if they'd flitted a short glimpse and cut to Seven's reaction.
Saying that, an atmosphere is still successfully created with the casually insulting crew, the age-old cries for help and a person just around the next bend in the darkened corridors, as well as the confrontation with a Borg drone. But the alien was the best source of tension because that's the most uncomfortable thing for Seven: to have a rogue element running around the ship upsetting her ordered regime. The fact that he was so assured and casual is another part of Seven's discomfort with the social. Even then, until he actually goes on the run as a disruption to her, you never feel as if she's in any danger because of her enhanced strength and senses, so she'd be a physical match for an attack from that quarter, it's the psychological that is problematic for her. Hallucinating a collective of the Voyager crew's voices begging for help is the utmost proof that she feels obligated to them and letting them down is a grave fear. Even so, the whirlpool of hallucination and confusion can't clear up all the holes: a big one for me was why some of the crew couldn't remain awake, or have shifts in EV suits - if a stasis pod could protect them, why not these? And in the first place you'd think the ship's sensors would be honed enough to detect anything so harmful it would cause instant burns and incapacitate the crew, with only Tuvok's Vulcan endurance able to reach the conn and turn the ship around (I liked that his face showed green burns from his Vulcan blood), his only real contribution.
There's also the delicate nature of the Doctor's program coming up again, that he might be irretrievable if his emitter goes offline when he's out of Sickbay. I could buy that as something Seven imagined, but for the real tech it was hard to swallow. While I'm looking at the negatives I should also point to the Cargo Bay CGI set extension which didn't look quite right, especially as we get an upper level where more of the pods are stored that we'd never seen before. But even with all this uncertainty and possible plot holes there's a lot to enjoy, such as little technical details of Seven activating her personal log by tapping her combadge, or when the computer she's talking to later in the episode becomes faulty until she instructs it to bypass the affected gel packs and then it speaks normally again, instantly, showing how advanced it is. And even Harry Kim getting in a mention of Parrises Squares, a game he's dabbled in. Janeway's assertion that Starfleet crews have been in stasis much longer than a month set my speculation meter going wildly as it makes you wonder what ship and crew did that (aside from Khan and company's three hundred year travel), and whether we'll ever see it now that Trek is back (though probably not as I can't see them doing stasis and that kind of thing in modern Trek). The most important thing Janeway asserts is her belief in Seven's redemption, despite the insolent attitude she'd had to contend with, and that, combined with the lonely horns and emotive violins of the soundtrack in the episode, is the most inspiring part of it. Seven hadn't reached the end of her journey by a long way, but this episode demonstrates how far she'd come across the season, and far from being one, she was now one of many.
***
Tuesday, 9 July 2019
Beyond The Farthest Star
DVD, Star Trek: The Animated Series S1 (Beyond The Farthest Star)
I hadn't watched this series in over twenty years, back when I was a child in the 90s, partly because I never thought that well of it at the time, remembering the amount of reused animation that made it seem a little staid and boring compared to live action Trek, but also because I came to know it as not being part of the official canon, merely an offshoot, a bit of fun, extra Trek for those that wanted more.
It was more outlandish as they weren't constrained by a physical effects budget, and although it's wonderful they got the original cast back together so soon after 'TOS' had been cancelled, it always remained an oddity of the missing years of the 70s when Trek came into its own in reruns and its popularity exploded. I suppose I always intended to revisit the series at some time - it had been on DVD for many years, but never at a price I was willing to pay. It finally reached that point, and also the news of two further animated series' and two other 'Short Treks' animations came to my attention as further additions to the Kurtzman era, so it seemed like an apposite time to revisit, if not reevaluate.
I'm still fully holding to the non-canon position in terms of how to accept it, and as always I maintain that if Trek does use anything from within 'TAS' lore, I'm fine with it, that piece becomes canon. That doesn't mean it all becomes canon because bits of it have been dribbled into 'Enterprise' or 'Discovery,' it just gives me more reason to view it again. Some seem to want all Trek productions to be canon, but 'only live action films and TV' is the ideal rule, because no matter how good a cartoon is, nor some of the books in the vast literary universe, if they contradict what's established they are overridden, as they should be.
'TAS' and the novels have always played second fiddle, and that's how they should stay: a bonus extra, an alternative view on the real history, and despite 'DSC' messing things up majorly in terms of how things look, the wrong uniforms for the era, and introducing a Holodeck a century too early (one reason I suspect Roddenberry wished to strike 'TAS' off the official canon so he could use some of its ideas for the 'first' time in 'TNG'), that doesn't mean 'TAS' is suddenly freed of constraints, let loose on our beloved universe. I'm fully with the Okudas leaving it out of all, even the latest, editions of 'The Star Trek Encyclopedia.' That said, I will look forward to rediscovering and rating these animated adventures, and in keeping with their shorter length, I intend to write only micro reviews as I don't expect to have that much to say. Apart from this first review, of course!
First thing to note is how beautiful it looks. I already knew that, however, as I've always found the simple lines and colours of the animation in pictures I've seen over the years to be a lovely approximation of the 'TOS' aesthetic. In some ways it's simpler, in others they added more detail. Not just in the standard visuals, either, as we see new technology here: the Bridge security Phaser array that can fire in all directions, but is more of a liability than a safety feature when taken over by an entity; the life support belts that mean free and easy movement in extra-ship activity (the first time we see Starfleet officers walking in space, I'll warrant, but another cost saving instead of drawing EVA suits!); and a self-destruct mechanism that has the disadvantage of needing to be activated from Engineering. Engineering itself is bigger and more varied than we saw on 'TOS,' though the Bridge was perfect.
The story plays out very much like 'TOS' except we get down to business very quickly, and the tension was good, better than I expected from a cartoon of 1973! When the unknown entity is attempting to break into the closed room on the alien ship, while presumably its Captain's log repeats a dire warning, worked very well. The music was also very accurate to the 'TOS' audio, the theme and incidental scores like a slightly funkier 70s version of familiar tones, and I also loved the sound effects that constantly played in the background.
Having the cast do the voices of their much-loved characters is a great touch, as any old soundalikes could have been used if they were intent on saving money. Where they saved was in not having Chekov, banished from the ship for all eternity (well, until 'The Motion Picture'), but it could just be a case of 'TOS' Season 1 where he may have been on another deck and role that we never saw until Season 2. In his place is the so far unnamed Lieutenant Arex, one of two famous characters created for the series, and an alien with multiple limbs that would have been difficult to achieve in live action (I'm surprised it hasn't been done even in the CGI-happy century we're now in!).
Nurse Chapel is seen, but not heard (something Mr. Spock would probably approve of), and Mr. Kyle is at his place at the Transporter, now sporting a moustache and a voice like that of an English toff (I thought he was supposed to be an Aussie)! Actually, James Doohan (Scotty), did an excellent job with multiple character voices, though if you know he did most of them, you can hear it even though he was broad in the changes he made - the alien's cries of how lonely it is are quite haunting.
As a first episode it's clearly designed to throw people right back into the Enterprise and its missions without preamble, and it is as if 'TOS' had never ended. It was even written by Samuel A. Peeples who fittingly began it all (for the second time), with second pilot of 'TOS,' 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' which was another nice touch. Even the titles are very close to that of the series this followed.
**
I hadn't watched this series in over twenty years, back when I was a child in the 90s, partly because I never thought that well of it at the time, remembering the amount of reused animation that made it seem a little staid and boring compared to live action Trek, but also because I came to know it as not being part of the official canon, merely an offshoot, a bit of fun, extra Trek for those that wanted more.
It was more outlandish as they weren't constrained by a physical effects budget, and although it's wonderful they got the original cast back together so soon after 'TOS' had been cancelled, it always remained an oddity of the missing years of the 70s when Trek came into its own in reruns and its popularity exploded. I suppose I always intended to revisit the series at some time - it had been on DVD for many years, but never at a price I was willing to pay. It finally reached that point, and also the news of two further animated series' and two other 'Short Treks' animations came to my attention as further additions to the Kurtzman era, so it seemed like an apposite time to revisit, if not reevaluate.
I'm still fully holding to the non-canon position in terms of how to accept it, and as always I maintain that if Trek does use anything from within 'TAS' lore, I'm fine with it, that piece becomes canon. That doesn't mean it all becomes canon because bits of it have been dribbled into 'Enterprise' or 'Discovery,' it just gives me more reason to view it again. Some seem to want all Trek productions to be canon, but 'only live action films and TV' is the ideal rule, because no matter how good a cartoon is, nor some of the books in the vast literary universe, if they contradict what's established they are overridden, as they should be.
'TAS' and the novels have always played second fiddle, and that's how they should stay: a bonus extra, an alternative view on the real history, and despite 'DSC' messing things up majorly in terms of how things look, the wrong uniforms for the era, and introducing a Holodeck a century too early (one reason I suspect Roddenberry wished to strike 'TAS' off the official canon so he could use some of its ideas for the 'first' time in 'TNG'), that doesn't mean 'TAS' is suddenly freed of constraints, let loose on our beloved universe. I'm fully with the Okudas leaving it out of all, even the latest, editions of 'The Star Trek Encyclopedia.' That said, I will look forward to rediscovering and rating these animated adventures, and in keeping with their shorter length, I intend to write only micro reviews as I don't expect to have that much to say. Apart from this first review, of course!
First thing to note is how beautiful it looks. I already knew that, however, as I've always found the simple lines and colours of the animation in pictures I've seen over the years to be a lovely approximation of the 'TOS' aesthetic. In some ways it's simpler, in others they added more detail. Not just in the standard visuals, either, as we see new technology here: the Bridge security Phaser array that can fire in all directions, but is more of a liability than a safety feature when taken over by an entity; the life support belts that mean free and easy movement in extra-ship activity (the first time we see Starfleet officers walking in space, I'll warrant, but another cost saving instead of drawing EVA suits!); and a self-destruct mechanism that has the disadvantage of needing to be activated from Engineering. Engineering itself is bigger and more varied than we saw on 'TOS,' though the Bridge was perfect.
The story plays out very much like 'TOS' except we get down to business very quickly, and the tension was good, better than I expected from a cartoon of 1973! When the unknown entity is attempting to break into the closed room on the alien ship, while presumably its Captain's log repeats a dire warning, worked very well. The music was also very accurate to the 'TOS' audio, the theme and incidental scores like a slightly funkier 70s version of familiar tones, and I also loved the sound effects that constantly played in the background.
Having the cast do the voices of their much-loved characters is a great touch, as any old soundalikes could have been used if they were intent on saving money. Where they saved was in not having Chekov, banished from the ship for all eternity (well, until 'The Motion Picture'), but it could just be a case of 'TOS' Season 1 where he may have been on another deck and role that we never saw until Season 2. In his place is the so far unnamed Lieutenant Arex, one of two famous characters created for the series, and an alien with multiple limbs that would have been difficult to achieve in live action (I'm surprised it hasn't been done even in the CGI-happy century we're now in!).
Nurse Chapel is seen, but not heard (something Mr. Spock would probably approve of), and Mr. Kyle is at his place at the Transporter, now sporting a moustache and a voice like that of an English toff (I thought he was supposed to be an Aussie)! Actually, James Doohan (Scotty), did an excellent job with multiple character voices, though if you know he did most of them, you can hear it even though he was broad in the changes he made - the alien's cries of how lonely it is are quite haunting.
As a first episode it's clearly designed to throw people right back into the Enterprise and its missions without preamble, and it is as if 'TOS' had never ended. It was even written by Samuel A. Peeples who fittingly began it all (for the second time), with second pilot of 'TOS,' 'Where No Man Has Gone Before,' which was another nice touch. Even the titles are very close to that of the series this followed.
**
Grace Under Pressure
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (Grace Under Pressure)
Mid-season money-saver ahoy! About as exciting as being stuck in a submarine with Rodney, waiting to be rescued. Which is precisely what the episode is all about. From early on I was wondering if Amanda Tapping's Samantha Carter would be part of the story in the flesh or as some kind of hallucination, and even when McKay's stuck underwater I thought she might be contacted to help with the rescue operation thanks to her great scientific brain. It was no surprise that she was only in Rodney's head, especially as stories about people being trapped, whether in space or under the sea, tend to be an excuse to put two characters together for a bit of a chinwag, and maybe work out some issues or tell backstories, that sort of thing. With good writing that can be a pleasure as we get to know these people more under pressure and in the face of imminent death, or perhaps worse, in the face of hope. That's the best thing I took away from this story, though I'm not sure I haven't seen it in other rescue stories before, but the difference between having to accept the end, while also having hope spring from the rudimentary resources left for survival, and how far you can go in either direction. Rodney didn't want to leave his fate in the hands of the colleagues whom he considers himself superior to, at least mentally, but because he tries to operate his own plan it only makes his predicament worse.
I can see what they did by putting Carter in there as a figment of his imagination. Without her it's a run of the mill episode, literally treading water. We know he's most likely to live to think another day, and the method of extraction could be the hook: how are they going to solve this problem? Reality is that Carter was thrown in partly to provide more continuity between the two 'Stargate' productions while they were both on the air at the same time, but also to push up a simple budget-saving episode that was otherwise just filling a slot. If we'd had to take Rodney and Atlantis' most irritating pilot bickering for forty-five minutes we might want to dash our own heads under cold water to simulate a slow drowning, but in a partly surprising move, and partly an inevitable one, Griffin sacrifices himself very early on so that McKay can live. It was a strong moment, but the reality for TV is that he was Mr. Expendable and unless he was going to coax some deep inner turmoil out of the Doctor, he was superfluous. At least with Carter, albeit as a facet of McKay's subconscious, she's got a lot more going for her. Of course it all depends on the quality of the writing in this case, and 'Stargate' is unlikely to win any awards in that regard (apologies if it ever did!). It tends to set out a stall of being standard space opera in an updated version of old 'Star Trek,' and maybe later Treks in terms of the style and approach, but otherwise it's just sci-fi tropes repackaged (at least it wasn't a clips episode!).
In consequence, this episode has very little consequence. Filling a set with water is always fun to see, and the effects of creating a tunnel between the two Jumpers using Sheppard and Zelenka's shields, looked very nice. And I loved the touch of Carter waving goodbye from Rodney's Jumper. But it's really not that good an episode, sadly. You have to expect that sometimes with a series that smashes out twenty-plus episodes a season (back in the good old days when this was still the norm), and if it's a series you love, and characters you love, you're just glad to have another instalment in which to spend in their company. Even so, I don't love the series enough to fully enjoy filler episodes, I need something more to it than that. I'd have much preferred the situation to take a creepier tone with McKay not knowing reality from fantasy. Again, it's been done before (even on 'Stargate'), but that would be more fulfilling than having everything straightforwardly explained as we go along, that way when the crucial moment of reality came in the form of the otherwise improbable form of Sheppard standing on the seabed outside, there would be significant drama to mine from Rodney's uncertainty over whether he really should release the hatch, rather than a slight hesitation. Growing paranoia would have been preferable, and Carter's presence could have been used to further that. Otherwise it would have been good to have more on Zelenka and his team of boffins back at base as we see the rising pressure upon them to secure a solution in the limited time. In all, the episode wasn't tense enough and is merely passable, with a little thumbs up for cramming Carter in there in an Atlantis uniform.
**
Mid-season money-saver ahoy! About as exciting as being stuck in a submarine with Rodney, waiting to be rescued. Which is precisely what the episode is all about. From early on I was wondering if Amanda Tapping's Samantha Carter would be part of the story in the flesh or as some kind of hallucination, and even when McKay's stuck underwater I thought she might be contacted to help with the rescue operation thanks to her great scientific brain. It was no surprise that she was only in Rodney's head, especially as stories about people being trapped, whether in space or under the sea, tend to be an excuse to put two characters together for a bit of a chinwag, and maybe work out some issues or tell backstories, that sort of thing. With good writing that can be a pleasure as we get to know these people more under pressure and in the face of imminent death, or perhaps worse, in the face of hope. That's the best thing I took away from this story, though I'm not sure I haven't seen it in other rescue stories before, but the difference between having to accept the end, while also having hope spring from the rudimentary resources left for survival, and how far you can go in either direction. Rodney didn't want to leave his fate in the hands of the colleagues whom he considers himself superior to, at least mentally, but because he tries to operate his own plan it only makes his predicament worse.
I can see what they did by putting Carter in there as a figment of his imagination. Without her it's a run of the mill episode, literally treading water. We know he's most likely to live to think another day, and the method of extraction could be the hook: how are they going to solve this problem? Reality is that Carter was thrown in partly to provide more continuity between the two 'Stargate' productions while they were both on the air at the same time, but also to push up a simple budget-saving episode that was otherwise just filling a slot. If we'd had to take Rodney and Atlantis' most irritating pilot bickering for forty-five minutes we might want to dash our own heads under cold water to simulate a slow drowning, but in a partly surprising move, and partly an inevitable one, Griffin sacrifices himself very early on so that McKay can live. It was a strong moment, but the reality for TV is that he was Mr. Expendable and unless he was going to coax some deep inner turmoil out of the Doctor, he was superfluous. At least with Carter, albeit as a facet of McKay's subconscious, she's got a lot more going for her. Of course it all depends on the quality of the writing in this case, and 'Stargate' is unlikely to win any awards in that regard (apologies if it ever did!). It tends to set out a stall of being standard space opera in an updated version of old 'Star Trek,' and maybe later Treks in terms of the style and approach, but otherwise it's just sci-fi tropes repackaged (at least it wasn't a clips episode!).
In consequence, this episode has very little consequence. Filling a set with water is always fun to see, and the effects of creating a tunnel between the two Jumpers using Sheppard and Zelenka's shields, looked very nice. And I loved the touch of Carter waving goodbye from Rodney's Jumper. But it's really not that good an episode, sadly. You have to expect that sometimes with a series that smashes out twenty-plus episodes a season (back in the good old days when this was still the norm), and if it's a series you love, and characters you love, you're just glad to have another instalment in which to spend in their company. Even so, I don't love the series enough to fully enjoy filler episodes, I need something more to it than that. I'd have much preferred the situation to take a creepier tone with McKay not knowing reality from fantasy. Again, it's been done before (even on 'Stargate'), but that would be more fulfilling than having everything straightforwardly explained as we go along, that way when the crucial moment of reality came in the form of the otherwise improbable form of Sheppard standing on the seabed outside, there would be significant drama to mine from Rodney's uncertainty over whether he really should release the hatch, rather than a slight hesitation. Growing paranoia would have been preferable, and Carter's presence could have been used to further that. Otherwise it would have been good to have more on Zelenka and his team of boffins back at base as we see the rising pressure upon them to secure a solution in the limited time. In all, the episode wasn't tense enough and is merely passable, with a little thumbs up for cramming Carter in there in an Atlantis uniform.
**
Demon
DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Demon)
More important as a prequel to a great episode in Season 5, this isn't quite as strong an episode (and is not a prequel to the 'Enterprise' episode 'Demons'!), though it is a classic Trek story of finding new life where it shouldn't exist and truly going boldly where no man has gone before. And the man to boldly go? Harry Kim. That's a turn up for the books, but our fresh, green Ensign isn't so fresh or green any more, as he tells pal Paris, has gained in confidence and almost overnight has stepped up his contribution as part of the crew. One of the good things about the series at this time is that no one had yet been forgotten - here we have the lesser used characters getting much of the attention, whether it be Harry's mission on the planet or Neelix getting up the Doctor's nose in the slight B-story that results from the low power mode Voyager's entered into to conserve draining deuterium. That's another good point in the episode's favour: when was the last time we heard Voyager was hard up on a vital resource? It's a source of drama that should have been ever-present except for the diplomatic encounters that tended to ensure they were able to procure most things as required, and the fact that Voyager is the latest and greatest starship in Starfleet's arsenal and in that regard is the most efficient and self-sustaining vessel ever built. Still, now and again they do run low on essentials, and since they don't have the option of seeking out the nearest Federation supermarket in the form of a Starbase, they must rely on their scientific knowledge and use their resources to maximum.
I do question how they could have got so low on deuterium that they were forced to put the ship into 'Grey Mode,' but I can't come up with anything other than the dramatic needs of the episode. They're apparently hours away from running out of power, and they commit resources to exploring this Class Y planet, inhospitable to say the least, but that promises a rich vein of the necessaries, and Janeway acts recklessly when she completely commits, taking the ship down for a landing, where, if they don't recover the supply, they'll be stuck in a corrosive atmosphere. You can chalk it up to her boldness and confidence in her ship and crew, but to stake everything when the sensible option would be to continue on at low power and hope for a better bet… but then that's probably why I'm not a starship Captain and Janeway is! If this had been made in the current, Kurtzman-era of Trek production, they would probably have gone to 'Grey Alert,' but we do get the third of such alert colours in Trek history when they return to Blue Alert, the condition for landing a starship. Grey Mode must have debuted here and wasn't an everyday occurrence, but then neither were planetary landings, something we'd only seen previously in 'The 37s' and 'Basics.' The original idea was that starships couldn't land because it was too expensive to show, but by the time 'Voyager' debuted in the mid-90s they were capable of much more and this was one of those unique selling points that gave the ship an added newness.
Due to the lack of power across the ship, only certain decks are open for business, meaning everyone living on them has to bunk up somewhere else. This leads to a comedic conflict between Neelix and the Doctor when the former leads a group to Sickbay as a suitable place to spend the night (it could have degenerated in 'A Night in Sickbay' from 'Enterprise,' but thankfully doesn't drop that low, and is quite funny), much to the Doctor's protestations that Sickbay is his residence! Once again Chakotay is a good First Officer, steamrollering over the Doc's prissy fusses and leading to his grudging agreement that they can stay. Then he proceeds to keep them awake with his singing and clattering about, so Neelix gets his revenge by proceeding with the motion for a singsong since they can't sleep (though not Klingon war chants this time, unlike in 'The Killing Game'), thus beating the Doc's hand and winning a little peace and quiet to sleep in. Once again we see the Doctor's unique capability of perpetual working through the night, like Data, sleep unnecessary. He wins the final payback when, with Tom and Harry having been discovered on the planet out of their environmental suits, he wakes them all in the overreaction of calling it a medical emergency. His glee is turned to guilt, however, when Neelix acts with good grace, fully accepting the requirements he agreed to by vacating Sickbay in the event of an emergency, surprising the Doctor and reminding us why the Talaxian is such a dependable fellow: he went from being very self-seeking when we first met him, to fully embracing the Starfleet culture he was exposed to, and is one reason why he's such a loveable character.
The A-story is the one that really matters, and I'm not sure the B's comedy fits so well. It's not that the planet-based scenes are that creepy, because they aren't. There is an edge of weirdness to proceedings, beginning with Harry's sudden radio silence and disappearance, only the ugly bloop of bubbles indicating he's fallen into the mysterious silver pool (CG? It looked amazing!). Did they learn nothing from Armus, the nasty black gloopy puddle that mercilessly and casually murdered Tasha Yar way back in 'TNG' Season 1? Never take alien pools lightly, that should be Starfleet General Order Number 2 (conversely, I don't actually know what the real sub-prime directive is). But things don't go quite the way of malevolent entities, though identity is a strong unifying theme shared with 'Skin of Evil.' The important part of the episode is that sentient life is introduced to this mimicking silver substance and so it recreates it in the only image it has encountered. Kim and Paris are duplicates, and these duplicates know very little except that they aren't the originals and survival instinct forces them to cling onto this newfound life. It's not that they're threatening Voyager because of a nefarious reason, they're just like newborns gripping onto whatever touches their grasp. A cruel Captain would have been happy to let them suffer in order to escape the clutches of the silver blood, but Janeway is reasonable even when put under the gun. She has compassion for this unknown quantity and even agrees to put it to the crew that they leave behind DNA samples so the silver stuff can make more of itself.
I can't help feeling this should have been the crux of the story, peering into the murky waters of cloning and whether it's acceptable, whether it's right and safe to do this, especially since pretty much the whole crew apparently agreed to the proposition. It's a very strange decision, even though it's to help this sentient being or group of beings, and you have to wonder what they'd get up to on this planet that wasn't built for humanoid life. Kim and Paris have an instinctual urge to remain on the planet, even though at first they're somewhat open to Chakotay's orders since the imprint of this authority is still fresh in their… minds? But like one of 'The Animated Series' episodes I vaguely remember, in which Kirk and Spock become adapted to living underwater and can't survive breathing air, they can't live in the environment upon which the bodies they've duplicated are sustained. It is a very strange thing to do, to allow your crew to be duplicated - for one thing why couldn't they just create more copies of Harry and Tom, why did they need to be individuals? Not enough time was given to exploring this new alien species, I felt, nor the hard question of helping them by allowing them to copy people. It paid off in 'Course: Oblivion,' inspiring a great sequel, but in this episode Janeway's decisions are hard to fathom.
The planet set was very important in selling this completely alien environment, and I love that we get another class of planet to add to the others we know about. Perhaps we'll even see more of this alphabet unfold now Trek continues, which it did't when I last watched this episode, though I do doubt it since they seem more concerned with perfunctory plot rather than delving into, and expanding, the universe. Thankfully, despite this series taking place in the far reaches of the galaxy they were still able to add to the canon, even if they still reused the classic old cave set. The redressing work that went into this one was exemplary and I don't know how many more variations they could squeeze from such a well used set! This time they have a golden backdrop of reds and oranges, giving the browns of the rock a rich clay colour. Details such as the spouting of hissing steam from geysers and a red, lava-like glow coming from the rocks really sold it. The only thing that didn't quite work was how calm everything seemed for such a dangerous planet, and perhaps they should have emphasised the extreme heat by showing the intense corrosion on the outside of the EV suits. Otherwise it was faultless, and it's difficult to show heat and corrosion - in a way it was scarier that the surface seemed normal from sight, because you know that as soon as flesh was exposed to the five hundred degrees kelvin temperatures, it would mean a horrible death.
That side of things worked very well - I've always loved the EV suits that debuted in 'First Contact,' and it was great that 'Voyager' was able to benefit from their use. They seem to be a more incredible technology than we ever realised because somehow Kim and Paris were saved by the backup functions that kept vital systems going - yet it seems they had no air to breathe! So is it some medical marvel or did it mean there was a backup air supply? That wouldn't make sense as the computer was very insistent (and I love how she uses their individual names when telling them how much air they have!), and we've seen other instances of air running out, such as when Tom and B'Elanna were stranded in space in 'Day of Honour.' At last we see the half-Klingon again after a couple of episodes out of it, and a number of episodes where she was very lightly used. Having had her baby in real life, Roxann Dawson continues to wear the Engineering jacket, probably so it didn't seem such a wrench for her to immediately return to just the ordinary uniform. The characterisation of the main cast continues to be true to what had been developed (even the recurring cast with a welcome return for Vorik), with Torres butting up against Chakotay in her concern for Tom, even going as far as suggesting he take Seven of Nine with him as having the coolest head (though I'd dispute that anyone's head is cooler than Tuvok's). The Vulcan himself is wise as usual, and I was glad he pointed out the amount of energy expended by landing the ship, instead of Janeway just ordering it and no one giving any input into the decision.
Chakotay and Seven searching the planet location, a different pairing, worked well, since she's so sure of everything she says and does, while Chakotay is more introspective and openminded, while also certain when it comes to his authority. I liked how he used her own words to try and get her to stop when she continues to use the modified sensors of Astrometrics to search for sources of deuterium, something she'd once again have run into Janeway over if she hadn't been successful in tracking down the Class Y planet. She even throws back the line, "Efficiency is relative, Commander," so maybe they should use that next time she complains of the crew's lack of same! Good to see Chakotay use his tracking skills on the planet when there's no sensor data - it proves that Starfleet training is more than just operating technology, but teaches survival and using all the faculties, not solely reliant on Tricorders, which means he's able to surprise Seven by pointing out the footprints. Not that technology isn't essential to Trek, because it is: we see the Science Lab used again and wide beam transport is specified when they can't get precise life-sign readings on everyone that needs to be beamed up. I also appreciated having the buddy-buddy pairing of Tom and Harry again, something much played in earlier seasons, but less common in Season 4 once B'Elanna was on the scene, sadly. This is another to add to Harry's tally of bizarre events, and he even lists some of them: fighting the Borg ('Scorpion'), transformed into an alien ('Favourite Son'), helped defeat the Hirogen (various), and come back from the dead (could be 'Emanations' or 'Deadlock,' depending on point of view!). It's good that Seven and the Doctor hadn't completely taken over most stories at this time - while Kim isn't my favourite, he's still likeable and I want to see him thrive. The only thing missing was a closeup I wanted of duplicate Harry looking up gratefully and awestruck as Voyager lifts off and pulls away.
***
More important as a prequel to a great episode in Season 5, this isn't quite as strong an episode (and is not a prequel to the 'Enterprise' episode 'Demons'!), though it is a classic Trek story of finding new life where it shouldn't exist and truly going boldly where no man has gone before. And the man to boldly go? Harry Kim. That's a turn up for the books, but our fresh, green Ensign isn't so fresh or green any more, as he tells pal Paris, has gained in confidence and almost overnight has stepped up his contribution as part of the crew. One of the good things about the series at this time is that no one had yet been forgotten - here we have the lesser used characters getting much of the attention, whether it be Harry's mission on the planet or Neelix getting up the Doctor's nose in the slight B-story that results from the low power mode Voyager's entered into to conserve draining deuterium. That's another good point in the episode's favour: when was the last time we heard Voyager was hard up on a vital resource? It's a source of drama that should have been ever-present except for the diplomatic encounters that tended to ensure they were able to procure most things as required, and the fact that Voyager is the latest and greatest starship in Starfleet's arsenal and in that regard is the most efficient and self-sustaining vessel ever built. Still, now and again they do run low on essentials, and since they don't have the option of seeking out the nearest Federation supermarket in the form of a Starbase, they must rely on their scientific knowledge and use their resources to maximum.
I do question how they could have got so low on deuterium that they were forced to put the ship into 'Grey Mode,' but I can't come up with anything other than the dramatic needs of the episode. They're apparently hours away from running out of power, and they commit resources to exploring this Class Y planet, inhospitable to say the least, but that promises a rich vein of the necessaries, and Janeway acts recklessly when she completely commits, taking the ship down for a landing, where, if they don't recover the supply, they'll be stuck in a corrosive atmosphere. You can chalk it up to her boldness and confidence in her ship and crew, but to stake everything when the sensible option would be to continue on at low power and hope for a better bet… but then that's probably why I'm not a starship Captain and Janeway is! If this had been made in the current, Kurtzman-era of Trek production, they would probably have gone to 'Grey Alert,' but we do get the third of such alert colours in Trek history when they return to Blue Alert, the condition for landing a starship. Grey Mode must have debuted here and wasn't an everyday occurrence, but then neither were planetary landings, something we'd only seen previously in 'The 37s' and 'Basics.' The original idea was that starships couldn't land because it was too expensive to show, but by the time 'Voyager' debuted in the mid-90s they were capable of much more and this was one of those unique selling points that gave the ship an added newness.
Due to the lack of power across the ship, only certain decks are open for business, meaning everyone living on them has to bunk up somewhere else. This leads to a comedic conflict between Neelix and the Doctor when the former leads a group to Sickbay as a suitable place to spend the night (it could have degenerated in 'A Night in Sickbay' from 'Enterprise,' but thankfully doesn't drop that low, and is quite funny), much to the Doctor's protestations that Sickbay is his residence! Once again Chakotay is a good First Officer, steamrollering over the Doc's prissy fusses and leading to his grudging agreement that they can stay. Then he proceeds to keep them awake with his singing and clattering about, so Neelix gets his revenge by proceeding with the motion for a singsong since they can't sleep (though not Klingon war chants this time, unlike in 'The Killing Game'), thus beating the Doc's hand and winning a little peace and quiet to sleep in. Once again we see the Doctor's unique capability of perpetual working through the night, like Data, sleep unnecessary. He wins the final payback when, with Tom and Harry having been discovered on the planet out of their environmental suits, he wakes them all in the overreaction of calling it a medical emergency. His glee is turned to guilt, however, when Neelix acts with good grace, fully accepting the requirements he agreed to by vacating Sickbay in the event of an emergency, surprising the Doctor and reminding us why the Talaxian is such a dependable fellow: he went from being very self-seeking when we first met him, to fully embracing the Starfleet culture he was exposed to, and is one reason why he's such a loveable character.
The A-story is the one that really matters, and I'm not sure the B's comedy fits so well. It's not that the planet-based scenes are that creepy, because they aren't. There is an edge of weirdness to proceedings, beginning with Harry's sudden radio silence and disappearance, only the ugly bloop of bubbles indicating he's fallen into the mysterious silver pool (CG? It looked amazing!). Did they learn nothing from Armus, the nasty black gloopy puddle that mercilessly and casually murdered Tasha Yar way back in 'TNG' Season 1? Never take alien pools lightly, that should be Starfleet General Order Number 2 (conversely, I don't actually know what the real sub-prime directive is). But things don't go quite the way of malevolent entities, though identity is a strong unifying theme shared with 'Skin of Evil.' The important part of the episode is that sentient life is introduced to this mimicking silver substance and so it recreates it in the only image it has encountered. Kim and Paris are duplicates, and these duplicates know very little except that they aren't the originals and survival instinct forces them to cling onto this newfound life. It's not that they're threatening Voyager because of a nefarious reason, they're just like newborns gripping onto whatever touches their grasp. A cruel Captain would have been happy to let them suffer in order to escape the clutches of the silver blood, but Janeway is reasonable even when put under the gun. She has compassion for this unknown quantity and even agrees to put it to the crew that they leave behind DNA samples so the silver stuff can make more of itself.
I can't help feeling this should have been the crux of the story, peering into the murky waters of cloning and whether it's acceptable, whether it's right and safe to do this, especially since pretty much the whole crew apparently agreed to the proposition. It's a very strange decision, even though it's to help this sentient being or group of beings, and you have to wonder what they'd get up to on this planet that wasn't built for humanoid life. Kim and Paris have an instinctual urge to remain on the planet, even though at first they're somewhat open to Chakotay's orders since the imprint of this authority is still fresh in their… minds? But like one of 'The Animated Series' episodes I vaguely remember, in which Kirk and Spock become adapted to living underwater and can't survive breathing air, they can't live in the environment upon which the bodies they've duplicated are sustained. It is a very strange thing to do, to allow your crew to be duplicated - for one thing why couldn't they just create more copies of Harry and Tom, why did they need to be individuals? Not enough time was given to exploring this new alien species, I felt, nor the hard question of helping them by allowing them to copy people. It paid off in 'Course: Oblivion,' inspiring a great sequel, but in this episode Janeway's decisions are hard to fathom.
The planet set was very important in selling this completely alien environment, and I love that we get another class of planet to add to the others we know about. Perhaps we'll even see more of this alphabet unfold now Trek continues, which it did't when I last watched this episode, though I do doubt it since they seem more concerned with perfunctory plot rather than delving into, and expanding, the universe. Thankfully, despite this series taking place in the far reaches of the galaxy they were still able to add to the canon, even if they still reused the classic old cave set. The redressing work that went into this one was exemplary and I don't know how many more variations they could squeeze from such a well used set! This time they have a golden backdrop of reds and oranges, giving the browns of the rock a rich clay colour. Details such as the spouting of hissing steam from geysers and a red, lava-like glow coming from the rocks really sold it. The only thing that didn't quite work was how calm everything seemed for such a dangerous planet, and perhaps they should have emphasised the extreme heat by showing the intense corrosion on the outside of the EV suits. Otherwise it was faultless, and it's difficult to show heat and corrosion - in a way it was scarier that the surface seemed normal from sight, because you know that as soon as flesh was exposed to the five hundred degrees kelvin temperatures, it would mean a horrible death.
That side of things worked very well - I've always loved the EV suits that debuted in 'First Contact,' and it was great that 'Voyager' was able to benefit from their use. They seem to be a more incredible technology than we ever realised because somehow Kim and Paris were saved by the backup functions that kept vital systems going - yet it seems they had no air to breathe! So is it some medical marvel or did it mean there was a backup air supply? That wouldn't make sense as the computer was very insistent (and I love how she uses their individual names when telling them how much air they have!), and we've seen other instances of air running out, such as when Tom and B'Elanna were stranded in space in 'Day of Honour.' At last we see the half-Klingon again after a couple of episodes out of it, and a number of episodes where she was very lightly used. Having had her baby in real life, Roxann Dawson continues to wear the Engineering jacket, probably so it didn't seem such a wrench for her to immediately return to just the ordinary uniform. The characterisation of the main cast continues to be true to what had been developed (even the recurring cast with a welcome return for Vorik), with Torres butting up against Chakotay in her concern for Tom, even going as far as suggesting he take Seven of Nine with him as having the coolest head (though I'd dispute that anyone's head is cooler than Tuvok's). The Vulcan himself is wise as usual, and I was glad he pointed out the amount of energy expended by landing the ship, instead of Janeway just ordering it and no one giving any input into the decision.
Chakotay and Seven searching the planet location, a different pairing, worked well, since she's so sure of everything she says and does, while Chakotay is more introspective and openminded, while also certain when it comes to his authority. I liked how he used her own words to try and get her to stop when she continues to use the modified sensors of Astrometrics to search for sources of deuterium, something she'd once again have run into Janeway over if she hadn't been successful in tracking down the Class Y planet. She even throws back the line, "Efficiency is relative, Commander," so maybe they should use that next time she complains of the crew's lack of same! Good to see Chakotay use his tracking skills on the planet when there's no sensor data - it proves that Starfleet training is more than just operating technology, but teaches survival and using all the faculties, not solely reliant on Tricorders, which means he's able to surprise Seven by pointing out the footprints. Not that technology isn't essential to Trek, because it is: we see the Science Lab used again and wide beam transport is specified when they can't get precise life-sign readings on everyone that needs to be beamed up. I also appreciated having the buddy-buddy pairing of Tom and Harry again, something much played in earlier seasons, but less common in Season 4 once B'Elanna was on the scene, sadly. This is another to add to Harry's tally of bizarre events, and he even lists some of them: fighting the Borg ('Scorpion'), transformed into an alien ('Favourite Son'), helped defeat the Hirogen (various), and come back from the dead (could be 'Emanations' or 'Deadlock,' depending on point of view!). It's good that Seven and the Doctor hadn't completely taken over most stories at this time - while Kim isn't my favourite, he's still likeable and I want to see him thrive. The only thing missing was a closeup I wanted of duplicate Harry looking up gratefully and awestruck as Voyager lifts off and pulls away.
***
Tuesday, 2 July 2019
Critical Mass
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S2 (Critical Mass)
I must say, I'm impressed. They've hit a seam of success with the series, and this is another one that works. It works because they've been able to build up a set of characters here, on Atlantis, tap into the 'SG1' pool on Earth, and those on the Daedalus between. There are more than enough suspects for who could be a human agent working for the Goa'uld, one that has planted a bomb, or that's what they think at first, but then it becomes the city itself as the bomb when the ZPM will become overloaded, at least I think that was the idea. The exact details don't really matter because they throw just about everything into the pot and masterfully manipulate us so that you could never guess who the bad guy is. It would be too obvious for Colonel Caldwell to be the man, and I suppose because of that he made an excellent choice. Because I don't necessarily credit the writers with being able to be revolutionary or particularly intricate in their plotting it actually worked in their favour. I was thinking it could be Cadman and then they bring her up as a suspect early on - that could mean they're deliberately discounting her too early, but then Kavanagh is the obvious choice and they often do the obvious in 'Stargate.' For a moment I even suspected Hermiod the Asgard aboard Daedalus (why did they never make a spinoff series set aboard her?).
It couldn't be the main cast because that would be way too far out of the series' purview, and it couldn't be the familiar faces back at Stargate Command because they were out of the picture around halfway through the emergency, if not before. That should have been the clue, because Caldwell effectively disobeys his orders to stay in position in case the SGC needs to relay further intel to Atlantis, and instead he doesn't wait for confirmation to head to the city. I was surprised General Landry wasn't furious with him! It was good to see Landry, even if it was a bit of a culture shock to suddenly be back in the concrete and metal environs of the SGC which is such a visual contrast to Atlantis' colourful, glass-featured surrounds, but if I was watching the two series' as intended, I'd be seeing both shows simultaneously, one of each per week. I prefer to concentrate on one at a time, and with all the characters and places being injected hurriedly into the story I was finding it hard to remember who was who and what season of this series corresponds with which season of 'SG-1.' But it was a nice muddle, I liked having to keep up with all these faces I knew. It would have been even better if SG-1 itself could have got involved (there is but a reference to Colonel Carter), we haven't really had a proper, full-on crossover yet, and with only Season 2 and 3 of 'Atlantis' to work in it's got to happen soonish, if it's going to. This episode showed how well interlocking the lore can work.
As I said, I'd have liked a little more reminder of who's who and what's what, maybe using Ronon who could stand in for the audience since he didn't even know what a Goa'uld was (I think I got that one figured out…), but it didn't harm the episode, and they did a fine job of upping the tension with each 'shap,' to coin a term from 'DS9.' I found it curious that they squeezed in a B-story with Teyla having to deal with the dying, and death, of an old woman called Charin whom I couldn't recall if she'd been in it before, but must have by the amount of closeness and affection between them, the only person Teyla looks on as family. I wonder what it must be like for an old actor (and I'm sure she wasn't as decrepit as she seemed - it is called acting, after all!), to play out something that's potentially in your relatively near future. Then again, anyone could die at any time (cheery thought, I know), it's not exclusive to the aged, but when you are old it must have some added resonance. Maybe it's helpful? The other thing with that side story was seeing an actual Athosian ritual of the Ring, as I think it was called. There didn't seem to be much to it other than putting rocks round the dead body as a symbol of the Stargate of their ancestors, and Teyla sings a song, so it appeared to be a way to mourn or celebrate the person. Did the actress really sing? According to the end credits she did and it was called 'Beyond The Night.'
It very much reminded me of 'The Lord of The Rings' films with their close association with music and singing, which was fitting since Dr. Lee gets the best laugh in the episode when he uses the analogy of the lighting of the beacons to explain how they'll piggyback a message to Atlantis using the Daedalus (when none in the briefing room get his Twilight Barking '101 Dalmatians' reference!). 'There's no time to argue about morality,' says Caldwell, tellingly, or some similar sentiment, but they do have a little time for that at the end, so it was a well rounded episode: Weir suitably guilt-stricken that she allowed her personal dislike of the troublesome Kavanagh to push her into allowing Ronon to beat the needed access code out of him, erroneously as it turned out. I wasn't happy with the idea of having the new tough guy working over a suspect on the basic evidence that had been found, but it was very 'Stargate' that, although it cuts away from the scene where Ronon enters Kavanagh's room ominously and purposefully, later we see that he didn't get a chance to pummel the guy as he fainted with fright! It's humorous and gets them off the hook of having one of their main characters unjustifiably beat another crewmember, especially when he looked like he was going to relish it. I know that post 11th September American TV responded by throwing harder decisions and harsher actions into its dramas, with '24' famously using torture, 'Enterprise' doing a whole season mirroring a terrorist attack that changed how the characters behaved, and no doubt other series' did the same kind of thing. Effectively they played up to the terrorism and allowed it to change things, to give freer rein to emotional outburst and going with the gut rather than building evidence or thinking things through.
To be fair to this episode they did pretty well for the most part, Rodney, as ever, coming into his own as the brain-box reacting to each escalation. And there was escalation: the problems on the city become much worse with the approach of two warring Hive ships that stop they're quarrelling when a distress beacon is activated by the Goa'uld, so we're on a countdown until the city has to cloak, leaving it more open to power surges and destruction. Having the Goa'uld play a part made for more fun, and the rationale had sense: they don't want The Wraith getting to our galaxy so the best way to prevent that is blow Atlantis out of the water (just like avoiding the Dominion in 'DS9' by taking out the Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant). The pieces of lore were nimbly juggled, and it was fun to see all these characters while not losing the focus of the story and allowing time for Teyla's personal moments. As I said, impressive. I hope the series continues to progress in this way - even having Zelenka off-world on a planet of children to keep him out of the suspect game, because you could never believe he'd be the traitor. Caldwell you could, because of all the opposition between he and Weir, and it was fortuitous that she stood up to him when he wanted to have the questioning on his ship. My only disappointment is that we won't have that any more, although I'm not sure if Caldwell was in control or was a victim of the Goa'uld inside. Inevitably for someone that doesn't follow 'Stargate' fanatically (which would seem obvious from the fact I'm only now, in the last ten years, watching most of it for the first time), a few things slipped my mind: like the floppy-haired guy at the SGC, couldn't remember his name. Couldn't remember exactly what The Trust were (a group of people that act against the Goa'uld, or was it that they were breakaway Goa'uld?), but I reiterate that it didn't matter, I picked up all the detail I needed to enjoy it, and enjoy it I did.
***
I must say, I'm impressed. They've hit a seam of success with the series, and this is another one that works. It works because they've been able to build up a set of characters here, on Atlantis, tap into the 'SG1' pool on Earth, and those on the Daedalus between. There are more than enough suspects for who could be a human agent working for the Goa'uld, one that has planted a bomb, or that's what they think at first, but then it becomes the city itself as the bomb when the ZPM will become overloaded, at least I think that was the idea. The exact details don't really matter because they throw just about everything into the pot and masterfully manipulate us so that you could never guess who the bad guy is. It would be too obvious for Colonel Caldwell to be the man, and I suppose because of that he made an excellent choice. Because I don't necessarily credit the writers with being able to be revolutionary or particularly intricate in their plotting it actually worked in their favour. I was thinking it could be Cadman and then they bring her up as a suspect early on - that could mean they're deliberately discounting her too early, but then Kavanagh is the obvious choice and they often do the obvious in 'Stargate.' For a moment I even suspected Hermiod the Asgard aboard Daedalus (why did they never make a spinoff series set aboard her?).
It couldn't be the main cast because that would be way too far out of the series' purview, and it couldn't be the familiar faces back at Stargate Command because they were out of the picture around halfway through the emergency, if not before. That should have been the clue, because Caldwell effectively disobeys his orders to stay in position in case the SGC needs to relay further intel to Atlantis, and instead he doesn't wait for confirmation to head to the city. I was surprised General Landry wasn't furious with him! It was good to see Landry, even if it was a bit of a culture shock to suddenly be back in the concrete and metal environs of the SGC which is such a visual contrast to Atlantis' colourful, glass-featured surrounds, but if I was watching the two series' as intended, I'd be seeing both shows simultaneously, one of each per week. I prefer to concentrate on one at a time, and with all the characters and places being injected hurriedly into the story I was finding it hard to remember who was who and what season of this series corresponds with which season of 'SG-1.' But it was a nice muddle, I liked having to keep up with all these faces I knew. It would have been even better if SG-1 itself could have got involved (there is but a reference to Colonel Carter), we haven't really had a proper, full-on crossover yet, and with only Season 2 and 3 of 'Atlantis' to work in it's got to happen soonish, if it's going to. This episode showed how well interlocking the lore can work.
As I said, I'd have liked a little more reminder of who's who and what's what, maybe using Ronon who could stand in for the audience since he didn't even know what a Goa'uld was (I think I got that one figured out…), but it didn't harm the episode, and they did a fine job of upping the tension with each 'shap,' to coin a term from 'DS9.' I found it curious that they squeezed in a B-story with Teyla having to deal with the dying, and death, of an old woman called Charin whom I couldn't recall if she'd been in it before, but must have by the amount of closeness and affection between them, the only person Teyla looks on as family. I wonder what it must be like for an old actor (and I'm sure she wasn't as decrepit as she seemed - it is called acting, after all!), to play out something that's potentially in your relatively near future. Then again, anyone could die at any time (cheery thought, I know), it's not exclusive to the aged, but when you are old it must have some added resonance. Maybe it's helpful? The other thing with that side story was seeing an actual Athosian ritual of the Ring, as I think it was called. There didn't seem to be much to it other than putting rocks round the dead body as a symbol of the Stargate of their ancestors, and Teyla sings a song, so it appeared to be a way to mourn or celebrate the person. Did the actress really sing? According to the end credits she did and it was called 'Beyond The Night.'
It very much reminded me of 'The Lord of The Rings' films with their close association with music and singing, which was fitting since Dr. Lee gets the best laugh in the episode when he uses the analogy of the lighting of the beacons to explain how they'll piggyback a message to Atlantis using the Daedalus (when none in the briefing room get his Twilight Barking '101 Dalmatians' reference!). 'There's no time to argue about morality,' says Caldwell, tellingly, or some similar sentiment, but they do have a little time for that at the end, so it was a well rounded episode: Weir suitably guilt-stricken that she allowed her personal dislike of the troublesome Kavanagh to push her into allowing Ronon to beat the needed access code out of him, erroneously as it turned out. I wasn't happy with the idea of having the new tough guy working over a suspect on the basic evidence that had been found, but it was very 'Stargate' that, although it cuts away from the scene where Ronon enters Kavanagh's room ominously and purposefully, later we see that he didn't get a chance to pummel the guy as he fainted with fright! It's humorous and gets them off the hook of having one of their main characters unjustifiably beat another crewmember, especially when he looked like he was going to relish it. I know that post 11th September American TV responded by throwing harder decisions and harsher actions into its dramas, with '24' famously using torture, 'Enterprise' doing a whole season mirroring a terrorist attack that changed how the characters behaved, and no doubt other series' did the same kind of thing. Effectively they played up to the terrorism and allowed it to change things, to give freer rein to emotional outburst and going with the gut rather than building evidence or thinking things through.
To be fair to this episode they did pretty well for the most part, Rodney, as ever, coming into his own as the brain-box reacting to each escalation. And there was escalation: the problems on the city become much worse with the approach of two warring Hive ships that stop they're quarrelling when a distress beacon is activated by the Goa'uld, so we're on a countdown until the city has to cloak, leaving it more open to power surges and destruction. Having the Goa'uld play a part made for more fun, and the rationale had sense: they don't want The Wraith getting to our galaxy so the best way to prevent that is blow Atlantis out of the water (just like avoiding the Dominion in 'DS9' by taking out the Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant). The pieces of lore were nimbly juggled, and it was fun to see all these characters while not losing the focus of the story and allowing time for Teyla's personal moments. As I said, impressive. I hope the series continues to progress in this way - even having Zelenka off-world on a planet of children to keep him out of the suspect game, because you could never believe he'd be the traitor. Caldwell you could, because of all the opposition between he and Weir, and it was fortuitous that she stood up to him when he wanted to have the questioning on his ship. My only disappointment is that we won't have that any more, although I'm not sure if Caldwell was in control or was a victim of the Goa'uld inside. Inevitably for someone that doesn't follow 'Stargate' fanatically (which would seem obvious from the fact I'm only now, in the last ten years, watching most of it for the first time), a few things slipped my mind: like the floppy-haired guy at the SGC, couldn't remember his name. Couldn't remember exactly what The Trust were (a group of people that act against the Goa'uld, or was it that they were breakaway Goa'uld?), but I reiterate that it didn't matter, I picked up all the detail I needed to enjoy it, and enjoy it I did.
***
Living Witness
DVD, Star Trek: Voyager S4 (Living Witness)
I came to this not expecting much at all, even though I'd rated it highly in the past. I hadn't seen it for years and I knew all about the Voyager crew portraying evil versions of themselves, and that's all of the episode that stuck, so as I watched I began to wonder if I'd merely enjoyed the novelty of it, and false caricatures of the crew were as interesting as it was going to get. But I was wrong, it became as good as I had noted it to be, though it doesn't really start until some way into the episode when the Doctor, or to be precise, a backup module of his program, is activated and the process of revealing the truth begins, the way that will ultimately lead to the two alien races finally coming to an understanding and acceptance of each other. Because, though we're seven hundred years in Voyager's future (and this could easily be an episode misconstrued as irrelevant in today's serialised form of storytelling for having no bearing on the series as a whole), we're not at the end of time, not even at the end of the era we see in the episode, and when this revelation literally pulls back in front of us, our eyes uncovered, it's an incredible piece of dramatic storytelling that shows just what Trek can do with its format. If only the episode's co-writers, Bryan Fuller and Joe Menosky, had been able to pull off this kind of depth with 'Discovery' before their association with it was cut short, because this is the Trek that means so much and carries so much weight compared to the relatively uninteresting question of physical violence and conflict, as we see in the episode.
Physical violence and conflict is the basis for the inaccurate extrapolations of the Voyager crew, and makes up much of their time in the story - one thing I really appreciated was that the Doctor was able to tell his side of his-story without the episode resorting to the expected flashbacks to the 'current' period of the series that we usually see. The entirety took place in this far-flung future and the only way he does portray the truth of his shipmates was in a recreation via simulation (something he'd repeat much later with his Voyager 'inspired' novel in 'Author, Author,' another time when the crew are misinterpreted, though under the guise of fiction - in fact he does the opposite of what he does here, though sadly they are two different 'hes' so the real Doctor wouldn't know about this or he might not have been so quick to abuse his colleagues and surroundings for the sake of creativity, although this is happening long, long after that episode's time despite the fact we saw it long before!). The Kyrians skewed or completely fictional, abhorrent and bizarre speculation on the crew of this famed ship gives us the closest we'd get to seeing their Mirror Universe counterparts as, in common with 'TNG,' it's the only other series not to visit (though Mirror Tuvok cropped up on one of the 'DS9' MU episodes). The MU is really only partially interesting as a mirror on our fine, upstanding Federation citizens, and as such this episode displays why, beyond the first novelty of seeing them acting up, it can become a little tiresome.
This is an extreme version of what other sci-fi shows are like without the positive future humanity that Trek strives to portray (however farfetched in reality). Obviously most sci-fi isn't about nasty, violent or depraved characters, but there is a trend, or perhaps it's just a cul-de-sac, for bitterness, nastiness, dark shades of grey (and knowledgeable Trek viewers know that not every shade of grey is worth seeing!), which has even come to Trek, with 'DSC' leading the way into a less civilised version. In Trek, this began with the sequel after 'Voyager,' when further 24th Century adventures were eschewed for a visit to the theretofore unexplored 22nd Century, with a desire to move closer in kind to our own society's more identifiable foibles, flaws, attitudes and problems for the sake of drama and being different. 'Enterprise' wasn't all that bad, but it certainly lost much of the spirit of what made the Trek spinoffs so appealing until that time, and 'DSC' has continued that new tendency. Whether 'Star Trek: Picard' can bring things back around and give me once more the optimistic, uplifting variety of Trek I've been missing since the start of this century, I don't know (and have doubts since it's from the same people who thought bringing a murderous Empress of the MU into our universe, and even giving her her own series, was a viable idea for another spinoff!). I suppose what I'm getting at is that the unpleasant version of Voyager wasn't as much of a draw as it used to be because I see too much nastiness or thoughtlessness in post-'Voyager,' modern Trek.
The other side of the story, that of a museum curator and historian, was also somewhat lacking at first. He was a bit bland as a character, although I wouldn't expect the alien Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, there was nothing much to him. Added to that, I wasn't sure about either the Kyrian or Vaskan alien designs, they seemed almost half done (though Michael Westmore's experience working on 'Rocky' must have been useful for the ugly bruises and swelling on the prisoner Kim beats). The Kyrians had a sort of Bajoran nose with disconcerting extra nostrils at the brow with some kind of tiny antennae protrusions which were like staring at a snail. And the Vaskans weren't much better with their lizard-like brows. I was surprised to see that seven hundred years in the future, even granting that this is an alien world, they were still using flat, two-dimensional displays to watch the 'historical' events of Voyager's important role, though it could have been deliberate to fit with that era. As the episode progressed, however, things came neatly, if slowly, together: with the activation of the EMH backup (which I'm sure we've never heard of before, a rather convenient way to get our character into the story, but it doesn't matter because of how good that story is - see, you can justify bending canon if the payoff's worth it!), the first glimmers of greatness shimmer into existence, and I don't just mean the Doc himself! Suddenly we're with him, thrust hundreds of years beyond his time, opening up manifold possibilities and sadnesses that we don't necessarily think about in the day-to-day of Voyager's adventures when there isn't time to wonder about the future, beyond getting home.
I felt a warm joy creep through me as the Doctor began to have an impact on the curator, whose name I can't even remember because he was so quiet and bland. But he was an example of the average person of his world, I felt. Intelligent, but accepting the mistaken 'facts' and explanations that had become the history they believed. There's a theme in here about history not being certain, and I think that's a useful theme - it shows over the course of it that history needs to be examined and everything brought to light because otherwise injustices can abound. Such as the Kyrians seeing the leader of their world at that time as a noble martyr, executed at the hands of callous Captain Janeway, when in the Doctor's impartial view, he was the instigator of hostilities and was killed by a Vaskan, much to Janeway's displeasure. Did the Vaskans even have the ability to send Voyager home as the simulation claimed? Such a simple fact, yet it seems impossible, and the alien history is full of such things. I don't take it that the message of the story is not to trust history at all, just that we should be careful not to imprint our own viewpoints, and how we've learnt to see things now, as the filter through which we interpret the past. Perhaps we have to accept that there are things we can't know instead of filling in the details with what we believe most plausible?
The greatest part of Trek is in its desire to put things right, the bringing of justice, whether that be on a personal level, or planet-wide, because the whole of creation groans for things to be made right, and while Trek crews aren't God, they can give us a small sense of fulfilling that ultimate goal in each small adventure, the reason I felt a glow of satisfaction and happiness as the Doctor worked to set the record straight. Of course they weren't simply going to believe him right away, but as the curator says in his personal log, the Doctor himself represents a fact they got wrong, and he's maintained from the first moment a story he says is true. Deception and the entanglements of lie or half-lie can be apparent even without proof, while truth shines forth and makes the most sense upon reflection. An important component of why this episode works is that the curator takes time to think about the Doctor's claims. Thinking time is not something encouraged in today's world, at least not in our entertainment. Who wants to put in mental effort when we can just experience vicarious thrills? What value is there in simply thinking things through? A lot, and I appreciated this side of the story. It wasn't going to be that easy, even once the curator is won over, the authorities and politicians aren't just going to accept something that may affect their position, both racially and societally, but also potentially change the balance of power. They're sceptical and suspicious, but it's more from the Kyrian side as they have more to lose from the new narrative, while we see the advantage to be gained by the Vaskans makes them open to its investigation for their own self interest.
The shocking thing is that the divisions bubbling under Vaskan and Kyrian society rise to the surface, and while we see the two species living or working side by side (and it might have been very interesting if the curator had had a Vaskan assistant to hash out the arguments with, though perhaps unnecessary), the tensions and cracks remain not healed. We're in another part of their history when they thought they had it together and things were moving along pretty smoothly, and they looked back at the past believing themselves to have moved on from that time, yet the episode ends with us pulling back from the museum, shattered and broken by angry rioters, and we see another group watching the curator and the Doctor search for the missing Tricorder that contains proof of which weapon shot their 'great' leader seven hundred years ago, realising that even this is a simulation in the same, restored museum further into a future where there is genuine peace and tranquility between the races. It's a crushingly beautiful moment that breaks the fourth wall in a way, but not into our viewing reality, into their own descendants', and shows that even the 'advanced' period was just another period, just as that former period in which Voyager is still travelling was only a past that had yet to become one, and that things can change for good or ill, a warning not to become complacent with the achievements we've made or the successes we've had because they can be reversed, and whether it's a people group or a person, we're all part of a stream of time, and we don't know when it will end, either individually or totally.
Revisionist history, time itself, these are big themes to tackle, but they don't forget about the personal amid all this, and for the Doctor, it's a deeply tragic moment when he realises his crew are all long dead and wonders if they ever made it home. It's sweet and stirring, and even though this isn't technically 'the' Doctor, it is him until the point of this episode, so for all intents and purposes, it is him, a very clever way of sending someone into the far future without real time travel, similar to Scotty's method of storing himself in the Transporter only to be brought out decades later by the Enterprise-D crew (I thought there was a subtle reference to him in the aliens believing B'Elanna was Chief Transporter Operator when she was really the Chief Engineer, both jobs that Scotty did - it could also apply to O'Brien who began as Transporter Operator on 'TNG' and became Chief Engineer on DS9!). As the curator puts it so eloquently, 'when your program is inactive, a moment or a millennium are the same to you,' which is incredibly poetic about holographic life. He's likely to live 'forever,' but unlike Data, who also confronted this issue of outliving all his friends, and was permanently on, he can be unconscious of vast passages of time. Just as the curator is slow to believe him, the Doc doesn't believe what he's told at first (it's not the first time he's been activated and manipulated with the nature of reality - 'Projections,' for example), so it's lovely to see the mutual distrust between the pair fall away.
Another cool side to the story is that it's set seven hundred years after the 24th Century, which places it in the 31st Century, the same time period that mysterious temporal agent Daniels originated from in 'Enterprise.' So when the Doctor wants to try and contact Starfleet and wonders if there even is one in this time, he would be okay after all, thanks to that retcon, if you can call it that since it's all in the distant future. What's fun is that even the Doc's futuristic holographic emitter (which this version obviously doesn't have), is from the 29th Century, so he's travelled further even than the series had ventured before, and I think was the furthest into the future we'd seen to this point, until 'Enterprise' and Captain Archer's trip to an alternate 31st Century, and now, from what I hear, 'DSC' will be going into the 33rd. Even better, we have a perfect ending, not just through seeing the observers of the history that the Doctor's activation becomes, but in hearing what happened afterwards: things were made right, the curator died only six years later, the Doctor served on the planet for many years, and especially, that the Doctor eventually chose to leave and pursue the course Voyager took and one day return home. It wouldn't matter to him if it took sixty years to return to the Federation, even if he never found any faster way, so I'd like to think that he did find his way (no excuse not to get Robert Picard on 'DSC' - they're very familiar with holograms, after all…), and if he did, he might even have met thine own self that had lived through those seven centuries (now it sounds like 'Highlander - The Animated Series'!), and hear the story of Voyager's voyage home firsthand.
'The Voyage Home' is an apt connection because, although 'Star Trek IV' isn't one of my favourites in the film series, whenever I watch it I have a similar pervasive feeling of rightness and goodness as I felt with this episode. It has to have the negatives: those that react as if the Doctor is a liar, refusing to allow for the truth that must be released, and those that react to that truth in the wrong way, with violence and hatred, smashing the museum's exhibits in rage - I mentioned earlier the Kyrian similarity to Bajorans, and they also seem to be the more passive, and lower in the joint system. The Vaskan that calls into question the curator's view of history as presented in the museum reminded me of a Cardassian from the way he wore his hair, the clothing, and the anger in his questioning, storming off when the curator responds as if there could be no other sensible view. Also the fact that he's at the forefront of the rioters charging through the museum. I doubt there was supposed to be a hint of Bajoran/Cardassian politics or Jew/Nazi as those races can often be seen in the light of, because the Vaskans and Kyrians weren't as easy to pigeonhole, nor do we see enough of them to confirm any direction in that regard, but there did seem unconscious inspiration. And while I'm looking at potential inspiration or possible reference, what about Janeway in the Doctor's recreation, when they're creeping up on a raid aboard Voyager she says, 'we're approaching section thirty-one.' Section 31 was created in Season 6 of 'DS9,' for 'Inquisition' an episode aired on 8th April 1998. 'Living Witness' was released 29th April 1998. Coincidence? One for the conspiracy theorists out there… though I'm not sure why they'd bother referencing something from one episode that they didn't know was going to become a controversial addition to canon for decades to come!
The fun side of the episode is in spotting the outlandish conjectures made in the simulation: we get to see Neelix dressed in the gold of Security (unless it's operations - he did seem to be at Kim's post), for, what, the third time after 'Before and After' and 'Year of Hell'? We get a Kazon (part of their 'three hundred' strong contingent of soldiers), for the only time this season, and what's a season without at least one Kazon in it (it was as much fun as when there was a Ferengi serving on the Enterprise-D bridge in that episode where it happened!), the Doctor is an android with weird eyes like he had in 'Darkling,' Seven of Nine is leader of a group of Borg shock troops (I'll bet Jeri Ryan was 'overjoyed' to be back in the cybernetic prosthetics again!), using the Borg alcoves aboard Voyager for more than just her, something that wouldn't become the norm until Season 6, and for once we actually see a USS Voyager that has been augmented with alien technology, something that some viewers wanted for the real ship, though I maintain it would have ruined the lines and curves unless they made very subtle, slight changes, which would almost be pointless. With all that you could be forgiven for thinking it was set in the Mirror Universe as it takes some time before we realise what's going on, and this isn't real. When you know that twist it's more like waiting to get past it, which is why the real twist at the end was so awe-inspiring.
Having just had Garak actor, Andrew Robinson, direct an episode, we have another Trek cast member, this time the Vulcan himself, Tim Russ, behind the camera, and he did a great job, so much that it's astonishing he never directed another (official), Trek again, an oversight I hope will be rectified in the coming years with the current multiple productions, as I believe he still directs. Again, it's the draw you get that really makes a difference, and he got a terrific script to play with and did a grand job creating a whole other large set for the museum, as well as turning the standing sets into part of an alien simulation. The reason why it all works was because we'd already had the experience of an unhappy ending: 'Distant Origin' was very similar in that Voyager comes along to prove a history far different from the accepted version, and those in authority care only about keeping the status quo. It was one thing for the curator to overcome his doubts, but it seemed a long shot that a world of two entire races would submit to a new understanding of their joint history. And that's how it appeared it would go, with the Doctor threatened, the museum and its irreplaceable artefacts wrecked in a fury of passion, the Doctor feeling himself to be the flashpoint of division for the two integrated races, horrifying him enough that he'd rather abandon the truth and sacrifice himself by decompiling his program because of the damage he's caused this society, his concern for the people leading him astray, showing that even good intentions and noble aspirations can be twisted through fear.
He even goes as far as suggesting that history is unimportant, it's the now that matters and if it mars that then it would be better to forget it all, in much the same result of the Voth in 'Distant Origin,' the Doctor basically taking the bad guy role through his horror. But the curator is able to talk him down and we witness the result of the truth becoming accepted, the maelstrom of violence only a passing storm to be waited out. It's very true to his character that he'd become so distraught as to wish to try and hide the truth, but also that he's rational enough for reasoned thought to sway him. That old curator might not have been the most exciting character, but he was the ideal opposite of the excitable Doctor and together they were able to instigate change.
In the spirit of the curator's research of true history I did a spot of background reading myself, in the latest edition of 'The Star Trek Encyclopedia' I discovered the DNA of this episode is even richer than it's dramatic credentials appear, because Henry Woronicz, the actor who played the museum curator, Quarren, had previously played the same role in 'Distant Origin': Gegen, the scientist trying to prove another alien authority's understanding of history to be incorrect. Not only that, but previous to that he'd played yet another similar role as the Klingon scientist J'Dan in yet another episode concerned with finding the truth, 'The Drumhead' on 'TNG'! That adds more perfection to an already wonderful story, and I take back what I said about him seeming bland. Of far less importance, but still some interest, is the fact that Rod Arrants (Daleth, the Vaskan Ambassador), had been in 'Manhunt' on 'TNG' as Rex the holographic Dixon Hill bartender, and Morgan Margolis (the Vaskan visitor to the museum, whom I take to be the angry young man, though there were several visitors), played Crewman Baird in 'Vanishing Point' on 'Enterprise,' and even the Vaskan arbiter was played by Craig Richard Nelson: Krag in 'A Matter of Perspective' on 'TNG'). I suppose I could say my own view of history was changed by watching this story as I had the impression I wasn't going to like it nearly as much as I used to, and now I like it a little more: Whaddanepisode! Makes me want to watch more Trek, and it doesn't get more inspiring than that!
****
I came to this not expecting much at all, even though I'd rated it highly in the past. I hadn't seen it for years and I knew all about the Voyager crew portraying evil versions of themselves, and that's all of the episode that stuck, so as I watched I began to wonder if I'd merely enjoyed the novelty of it, and false caricatures of the crew were as interesting as it was going to get. But I was wrong, it became as good as I had noted it to be, though it doesn't really start until some way into the episode when the Doctor, or to be precise, a backup module of his program, is activated and the process of revealing the truth begins, the way that will ultimately lead to the two alien races finally coming to an understanding and acceptance of each other. Because, though we're seven hundred years in Voyager's future (and this could easily be an episode misconstrued as irrelevant in today's serialised form of storytelling for having no bearing on the series as a whole), we're not at the end of time, not even at the end of the era we see in the episode, and when this revelation literally pulls back in front of us, our eyes uncovered, it's an incredible piece of dramatic storytelling that shows just what Trek can do with its format. If only the episode's co-writers, Bryan Fuller and Joe Menosky, had been able to pull off this kind of depth with 'Discovery' before their association with it was cut short, because this is the Trek that means so much and carries so much weight compared to the relatively uninteresting question of physical violence and conflict, as we see in the episode.
Physical violence and conflict is the basis for the inaccurate extrapolations of the Voyager crew, and makes up much of their time in the story - one thing I really appreciated was that the Doctor was able to tell his side of his-story without the episode resorting to the expected flashbacks to the 'current' period of the series that we usually see. The entirety took place in this far-flung future and the only way he does portray the truth of his shipmates was in a recreation via simulation (something he'd repeat much later with his Voyager 'inspired' novel in 'Author, Author,' another time when the crew are misinterpreted, though under the guise of fiction - in fact he does the opposite of what he does here, though sadly they are two different 'hes' so the real Doctor wouldn't know about this or he might not have been so quick to abuse his colleagues and surroundings for the sake of creativity, although this is happening long, long after that episode's time despite the fact we saw it long before!). The Kyrians skewed or completely fictional, abhorrent and bizarre speculation on the crew of this famed ship gives us the closest we'd get to seeing their Mirror Universe counterparts as, in common with 'TNG,' it's the only other series not to visit (though Mirror Tuvok cropped up on one of the 'DS9' MU episodes). The MU is really only partially interesting as a mirror on our fine, upstanding Federation citizens, and as such this episode displays why, beyond the first novelty of seeing them acting up, it can become a little tiresome.
This is an extreme version of what other sci-fi shows are like without the positive future humanity that Trek strives to portray (however farfetched in reality). Obviously most sci-fi isn't about nasty, violent or depraved characters, but there is a trend, or perhaps it's just a cul-de-sac, for bitterness, nastiness, dark shades of grey (and knowledgeable Trek viewers know that not every shade of grey is worth seeing!), which has even come to Trek, with 'DSC' leading the way into a less civilised version. In Trek, this began with the sequel after 'Voyager,' when further 24th Century adventures were eschewed for a visit to the theretofore unexplored 22nd Century, with a desire to move closer in kind to our own society's more identifiable foibles, flaws, attitudes and problems for the sake of drama and being different. 'Enterprise' wasn't all that bad, but it certainly lost much of the spirit of what made the Trek spinoffs so appealing until that time, and 'DSC' has continued that new tendency. Whether 'Star Trek: Picard' can bring things back around and give me once more the optimistic, uplifting variety of Trek I've been missing since the start of this century, I don't know (and have doubts since it's from the same people who thought bringing a murderous Empress of the MU into our universe, and even giving her her own series, was a viable idea for another spinoff!). I suppose what I'm getting at is that the unpleasant version of Voyager wasn't as much of a draw as it used to be because I see too much nastiness or thoughtlessness in post-'Voyager,' modern Trek.
The other side of the story, that of a museum curator and historian, was also somewhat lacking at first. He was a bit bland as a character, although I wouldn't expect the alien Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, there was nothing much to him. Added to that, I wasn't sure about either the Kyrian or Vaskan alien designs, they seemed almost half done (though Michael Westmore's experience working on 'Rocky' must have been useful for the ugly bruises and swelling on the prisoner Kim beats). The Kyrians had a sort of Bajoran nose with disconcerting extra nostrils at the brow with some kind of tiny antennae protrusions which were like staring at a snail. And the Vaskans weren't much better with their lizard-like brows. I was surprised to see that seven hundred years in the future, even granting that this is an alien world, they were still using flat, two-dimensional displays to watch the 'historical' events of Voyager's important role, though it could have been deliberate to fit with that era. As the episode progressed, however, things came neatly, if slowly, together: with the activation of the EMH backup (which I'm sure we've never heard of before, a rather convenient way to get our character into the story, but it doesn't matter because of how good that story is - see, you can justify bending canon if the payoff's worth it!), the first glimmers of greatness shimmer into existence, and I don't just mean the Doc himself! Suddenly we're with him, thrust hundreds of years beyond his time, opening up manifold possibilities and sadnesses that we don't necessarily think about in the day-to-day of Voyager's adventures when there isn't time to wonder about the future, beyond getting home.
I felt a warm joy creep through me as the Doctor began to have an impact on the curator, whose name I can't even remember because he was so quiet and bland. But he was an example of the average person of his world, I felt. Intelligent, but accepting the mistaken 'facts' and explanations that had become the history they believed. There's a theme in here about history not being certain, and I think that's a useful theme - it shows over the course of it that history needs to be examined and everything brought to light because otherwise injustices can abound. Such as the Kyrians seeing the leader of their world at that time as a noble martyr, executed at the hands of callous Captain Janeway, when in the Doctor's impartial view, he was the instigator of hostilities and was killed by a Vaskan, much to Janeway's displeasure. Did the Vaskans even have the ability to send Voyager home as the simulation claimed? Such a simple fact, yet it seems impossible, and the alien history is full of such things. I don't take it that the message of the story is not to trust history at all, just that we should be careful not to imprint our own viewpoints, and how we've learnt to see things now, as the filter through which we interpret the past. Perhaps we have to accept that there are things we can't know instead of filling in the details with what we believe most plausible?
The greatest part of Trek is in its desire to put things right, the bringing of justice, whether that be on a personal level, or planet-wide, because the whole of creation groans for things to be made right, and while Trek crews aren't God, they can give us a small sense of fulfilling that ultimate goal in each small adventure, the reason I felt a glow of satisfaction and happiness as the Doctor worked to set the record straight. Of course they weren't simply going to believe him right away, but as the curator says in his personal log, the Doctor himself represents a fact they got wrong, and he's maintained from the first moment a story he says is true. Deception and the entanglements of lie or half-lie can be apparent even without proof, while truth shines forth and makes the most sense upon reflection. An important component of why this episode works is that the curator takes time to think about the Doctor's claims. Thinking time is not something encouraged in today's world, at least not in our entertainment. Who wants to put in mental effort when we can just experience vicarious thrills? What value is there in simply thinking things through? A lot, and I appreciated this side of the story. It wasn't going to be that easy, even once the curator is won over, the authorities and politicians aren't just going to accept something that may affect their position, both racially and societally, but also potentially change the balance of power. They're sceptical and suspicious, but it's more from the Kyrian side as they have more to lose from the new narrative, while we see the advantage to be gained by the Vaskans makes them open to its investigation for their own self interest.
The shocking thing is that the divisions bubbling under Vaskan and Kyrian society rise to the surface, and while we see the two species living or working side by side (and it might have been very interesting if the curator had had a Vaskan assistant to hash out the arguments with, though perhaps unnecessary), the tensions and cracks remain not healed. We're in another part of their history when they thought they had it together and things were moving along pretty smoothly, and they looked back at the past believing themselves to have moved on from that time, yet the episode ends with us pulling back from the museum, shattered and broken by angry rioters, and we see another group watching the curator and the Doctor search for the missing Tricorder that contains proof of which weapon shot their 'great' leader seven hundred years ago, realising that even this is a simulation in the same, restored museum further into a future where there is genuine peace and tranquility between the races. It's a crushingly beautiful moment that breaks the fourth wall in a way, but not into our viewing reality, into their own descendants', and shows that even the 'advanced' period was just another period, just as that former period in which Voyager is still travelling was only a past that had yet to become one, and that things can change for good or ill, a warning not to become complacent with the achievements we've made or the successes we've had because they can be reversed, and whether it's a people group or a person, we're all part of a stream of time, and we don't know when it will end, either individually or totally.
Revisionist history, time itself, these are big themes to tackle, but they don't forget about the personal amid all this, and for the Doctor, it's a deeply tragic moment when he realises his crew are all long dead and wonders if they ever made it home. It's sweet and stirring, and even though this isn't technically 'the' Doctor, it is him until the point of this episode, so for all intents and purposes, it is him, a very clever way of sending someone into the far future without real time travel, similar to Scotty's method of storing himself in the Transporter only to be brought out decades later by the Enterprise-D crew (I thought there was a subtle reference to him in the aliens believing B'Elanna was Chief Transporter Operator when she was really the Chief Engineer, both jobs that Scotty did - it could also apply to O'Brien who began as Transporter Operator on 'TNG' and became Chief Engineer on DS9!). As the curator puts it so eloquently, 'when your program is inactive, a moment or a millennium are the same to you,' which is incredibly poetic about holographic life. He's likely to live 'forever,' but unlike Data, who also confronted this issue of outliving all his friends, and was permanently on, he can be unconscious of vast passages of time. Just as the curator is slow to believe him, the Doc doesn't believe what he's told at first (it's not the first time he's been activated and manipulated with the nature of reality - 'Projections,' for example), so it's lovely to see the mutual distrust between the pair fall away.
Another cool side to the story is that it's set seven hundred years after the 24th Century, which places it in the 31st Century, the same time period that mysterious temporal agent Daniels originated from in 'Enterprise.' So when the Doctor wants to try and contact Starfleet and wonders if there even is one in this time, he would be okay after all, thanks to that retcon, if you can call it that since it's all in the distant future. What's fun is that even the Doc's futuristic holographic emitter (which this version obviously doesn't have), is from the 29th Century, so he's travelled further even than the series had ventured before, and I think was the furthest into the future we'd seen to this point, until 'Enterprise' and Captain Archer's trip to an alternate 31st Century, and now, from what I hear, 'DSC' will be going into the 33rd. Even better, we have a perfect ending, not just through seeing the observers of the history that the Doctor's activation becomes, but in hearing what happened afterwards: things were made right, the curator died only six years later, the Doctor served on the planet for many years, and especially, that the Doctor eventually chose to leave and pursue the course Voyager took and one day return home. It wouldn't matter to him if it took sixty years to return to the Federation, even if he never found any faster way, so I'd like to think that he did find his way (no excuse not to get Robert Picard on 'DSC' - they're very familiar with holograms, after all…), and if he did, he might even have met thine own self that had lived through those seven centuries (now it sounds like 'Highlander - The Animated Series'!), and hear the story of Voyager's voyage home firsthand.
'The Voyage Home' is an apt connection because, although 'Star Trek IV' isn't one of my favourites in the film series, whenever I watch it I have a similar pervasive feeling of rightness and goodness as I felt with this episode. It has to have the negatives: those that react as if the Doctor is a liar, refusing to allow for the truth that must be released, and those that react to that truth in the wrong way, with violence and hatred, smashing the museum's exhibits in rage - I mentioned earlier the Kyrian similarity to Bajorans, and they also seem to be the more passive, and lower in the joint system. The Vaskan that calls into question the curator's view of history as presented in the museum reminded me of a Cardassian from the way he wore his hair, the clothing, and the anger in his questioning, storming off when the curator responds as if there could be no other sensible view. Also the fact that he's at the forefront of the rioters charging through the museum. I doubt there was supposed to be a hint of Bajoran/Cardassian politics or Jew/Nazi as those races can often be seen in the light of, because the Vaskans and Kyrians weren't as easy to pigeonhole, nor do we see enough of them to confirm any direction in that regard, but there did seem unconscious inspiration. And while I'm looking at potential inspiration or possible reference, what about Janeway in the Doctor's recreation, when they're creeping up on a raid aboard Voyager she says, 'we're approaching section thirty-one.' Section 31 was created in Season 6 of 'DS9,' for 'Inquisition' an episode aired on 8th April 1998. 'Living Witness' was released 29th April 1998. Coincidence? One for the conspiracy theorists out there… though I'm not sure why they'd bother referencing something from one episode that they didn't know was going to become a controversial addition to canon for decades to come!
The fun side of the episode is in spotting the outlandish conjectures made in the simulation: we get to see Neelix dressed in the gold of Security (unless it's operations - he did seem to be at Kim's post), for, what, the third time after 'Before and After' and 'Year of Hell'? We get a Kazon (part of their 'three hundred' strong contingent of soldiers), for the only time this season, and what's a season without at least one Kazon in it (it was as much fun as when there was a Ferengi serving on the Enterprise-D bridge in that episode where it happened!), the Doctor is an android with weird eyes like he had in 'Darkling,' Seven of Nine is leader of a group of Borg shock troops (I'll bet Jeri Ryan was 'overjoyed' to be back in the cybernetic prosthetics again!), using the Borg alcoves aboard Voyager for more than just her, something that wouldn't become the norm until Season 6, and for once we actually see a USS Voyager that has been augmented with alien technology, something that some viewers wanted for the real ship, though I maintain it would have ruined the lines and curves unless they made very subtle, slight changes, which would almost be pointless. With all that you could be forgiven for thinking it was set in the Mirror Universe as it takes some time before we realise what's going on, and this isn't real. When you know that twist it's more like waiting to get past it, which is why the real twist at the end was so awe-inspiring.
Having just had Garak actor, Andrew Robinson, direct an episode, we have another Trek cast member, this time the Vulcan himself, Tim Russ, behind the camera, and he did a great job, so much that it's astonishing he never directed another (official), Trek again, an oversight I hope will be rectified in the coming years with the current multiple productions, as I believe he still directs. Again, it's the draw you get that really makes a difference, and he got a terrific script to play with and did a grand job creating a whole other large set for the museum, as well as turning the standing sets into part of an alien simulation. The reason why it all works was because we'd already had the experience of an unhappy ending: 'Distant Origin' was very similar in that Voyager comes along to prove a history far different from the accepted version, and those in authority care only about keeping the status quo. It was one thing for the curator to overcome his doubts, but it seemed a long shot that a world of two entire races would submit to a new understanding of their joint history. And that's how it appeared it would go, with the Doctor threatened, the museum and its irreplaceable artefacts wrecked in a fury of passion, the Doctor feeling himself to be the flashpoint of division for the two integrated races, horrifying him enough that he'd rather abandon the truth and sacrifice himself by decompiling his program because of the damage he's caused this society, his concern for the people leading him astray, showing that even good intentions and noble aspirations can be twisted through fear.
He even goes as far as suggesting that history is unimportant, it's the now that matters and if it mars that then it would be better to forget it all, in much the same result of the Voth in 'Distant Origin,' the Doctor basically taking the bad guy role through his horror. But the curator is able to talk him down and we witness the result of the truth becoming accepted, the maelstrom of violence only a passing storm to be waited out. It's very true to his character that he'd become so distraught as to wish to try and hide the truth, but also that he's rational enough for reasoned thought to sway him. That old curator might not have been the most exciting character, but he was the ideal opposite of the excitable Doctor and together they were able to instigate change.
In the spirit of the curator's research of true history I did a spot of background reading myself, in the latest edition of 'The Star Trek Encyclopedia' I discovered the DNA of this episode is even richer than it's dramatic credentials appear, because Henry Woronicz, the actor who played the museum curator, Quarren, had previously played the same role in 'Distant Origin': Gegen, the scientist trying to prove another alien authority's understanding of history to be incorrect. Not only that, but previous to that he'd played yet another similar role as the Klingon scientist J'Dan in yet another episode concerned with finding the truth, 'The Drumhead' on 'TNG'! That adds more perfection to an already wonderful story, and I take back what I said about him seeming bland. Of far less importance, but still some interest, is the fact that Rod Arrants (Daleth, the Vaskan Ambassador), had been in 'Manhunt' on 'TNG' as Rex the holographic Dixon Hill bartender, and Morgan Margolis (the Vaskan visitor to the museum, whom I take to be the angry young man, though there were several visitors), played Crewman Baird in 'Vanishing Point' on 'Enterprise,' and even the Vaskan arbiter was played by Craig Richard Nelson: Krag in 'A Matter of Perspective' on 'TNG'). I suppose I could say my own view of history was changed by watching this story as I had the impression I wasn't going to like it nearly as much as I used to, and now I like it a little more: Whaddanepisode! Makes me want to watch more Trek, and it doesn't get more inspiring than that!
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