DVD, Voyager S5 (Extreme Risk)
The amount of references and bringing back of previously established things in modern Trek, especially when it's 'reimagined' or altered to suit the 'Bigger! Better! Faster!' attitude of the wrongheaded Kurtzman era, is wearing (at its worst in 'Lower Decks' which is a constantly overexcited child dosed up on sugar, in the guise of 'enthusiasm' for Trek's past), and so much so that it's almost hard to remember when that aspect of Trek was such a big draw for me. But this episode is like a quiet balm and a reminder of how they used to make such things work so well with subtlety and care, where the story is king, not overdoing it, but playing into and paying off Trek's great history and continuity. For a start, there's the start, where we finally got to see the famed orbital skydiving that was unceremoniously (and for the best, when you consider the beautiful, mysterious and affecting opening that replaced it), dumped from 'Generations,' proof that nothing was wasted in old Trek - it's not Captain, or was it Admiral, or maybe just retired dignitary, Captain Kirk, in the silver-panelled suit, it's B'Elanna Torres. True, the CGI doesn't hold up so well (figures were difficult to sell even into the 'Enterprise' period of the early-2000s), but it is enjoyable to see such an intriguing aspect of Trek culture that never was, finally realised. It's not 'Generations' that I think of most when I consider this episode, however, it's the ties to 'DS9,' which had been light to say the least over the four and a bit years the series' had co-existed.
No doubt if both series' had been done now they'd have had a lot more crossover (although it seems one thing the Kurtzman era is cautious about is just that, as there really hasn't been much interconnectedness in evidence tying together the five series' released so far from the sausage factory, other than connecting to old Trek), and you'd certainly have thought there might be more cross-promotion as 'DS9' drew steadily to its conclusion in parallel with this season of 'Voyager.' The Maquis had been a major arc of that series (and to a smaller extent, part of 'TNG's final days), and by design, meant to set up the fourth TV series with characters like Torres and Chakotay, who, it can be easy to forget, were members of that renegade body. But if 'Voyager' tended towards emphasising the Starfleet bonds (both characters had been in the service), 'DS9' introduced the divisions, ultimately turning into a trilogy of import on a personal level for Captain Sisko. When Cardassia made its pact with the Dominion it didn't take long for the Jem'Hadar, their loyal foot soldiers, to sweep in and wipe out this band of outlaws, and though it occurred offscreen, it was nonetheless a shocking outcome and a devastating demonstration of the kind of unrelenting power and ruthless efficiency of the Dominion, just one feather in their cap when it came to setting them up as the Federation's ultimate enemy. In Season 4 of 'Voyager' the ship finally made contact with Starfleet after years incommunicado, feared lost, so it was then they learned the tragic news of the Federation's war and the loss of all their Maquis brethren (though it's a shame Eddington's name was never spoken on this series).
In a rare case of the series following through on something (almost in opposition to its sister series, 'Voyager' seemed to regard continuing stories with disdain, gradually becoming more episodic and resetting the status quo in most episodes, with some exceptions, while 'DS9' was becoming more and more serialised), especially something from 'DS9' with whom there appeared to be a certain rivalry, they chose to address the aftermath of the Maquis situation, specifically with B'Elanna, and how she's deadened her feelings and gone into a kind of self-harm spiral in order to try and feel something. I'm not sure there was really the evidence to support her course of action as we don't see any of that listlessness or subterfuge until this episode (when of course they came up with the idea), in much the same way that Bashir was revealed to be a Changeling and hadn't acted any different in the one or two episodes in which he's supposed to have been that. In B'Elanna's case we can say she had been able to hide her non-feelings so well that no one suspected and things carried on as normal, and only now after all this time is she succumbing and becoming almost openly distant and withdrawn. It made me think of O'Brien when he admits in 'The Sound of Her Voice' that he's feeling increasingly isolated, except he didn't go off and start kayaking in the Holosuite down Niagara Falls with the safeties off!
It's fitting that someone with Klingon blood would have found violence as a way out, or at least a distraction, and I only wonder what it would have been like if Worf had been aboard (who knows, maybe they'll meet some day considering how many old characters are coming back...), as he would have certainly understood from the Klingon perspective and would probably have taken her into the Holodeck and knocked her about a bit, or allowed her the opportunity to knock him about, to make her feel better! As it is she has no Klingon outlet, only her human friends whom she's successful at fending off until a crisis brings Chakotay into the mix. This was where the episode really took off. It was good to have a 'DS9' connection in that they're paying off on something that happened in that series, with the people who would be concerned in this one, plus very rare appearances of Cardassians (other than Gul Evek, Dr. Crell Moset and that woman in 'Flesh and Blood,' I'd completely forgotten there were any other examples of the race), even if they are holographic. I did find it somewhat of a disappointment they didn't wholeheartedly embrace the connection, however: we don't get a mention of the Dominion and we certainly didn't get to see any Jem'Hadar, which remain one of those rare major races that never appeared in another series (at least until 'Picard' Season 3 when it sounds likely they'll be back since the Dominion are set to play a part). Their ships had been used in a simulation back in Season 2 I believe, but we don't get to see them storming the good old cave set that counts as a location where the Maquis were slaughtered, or even hear their name.
If the 'DS9' connection isn't fully employed (and you'd think they'd be doing more to cross-promote, ready to receive all those viewers bereft that their station-based Trek was over at the end of the season), we do get a nice return to early 'Voyager' where there was a little more personal familiarity and friendship seen between B'Elanna and Chakotay. In keeping with that theme he gives her some rough Maquis treatment, pushing her into the Holodeck to confront the horror of this program she'd created showing the massacre of their comrades. It's forceful, but it's what she needed, like a slap round the face to sting her into reality. Before this she's been talking like the old, rebellious B'Elanna, scornful of the Captain and her overprotective attitude, calling them 'Starfleet' as if she isn't one of them, while Chakotay plays along and indulges her, overriding her removal of Holodeck privileges in order to build his trap. In public Torres has managed to hide her feelings, or is it non-feelings, so that she doesn't erupt in anger as she used to, but she's not in the mood for any of that, cold and contained, rejecting any attempts at friendship from Tom or understanding from Janeway. When I saw the Captain stride into Sickbay with a face like thunder I thought it was going to be one of those 'disappointed in you' speeches, the kind of dressing down she's given to probably each of her crew at one time or another, but while she's stern and hard with her Chief Engineer, Torres coolly bats back whatever inroad she tries to make, like a tennis match of dialogue - it reminds how good the writing could be in Trek when it wasn't concentrated on special effects and action set-pieces as its staple - it was genuinely moving and fascinating to see the verbal manoeuvring on both sides!
Chakotay's the one who knows her better, though, and he can get behind that facade, and does, even down to the point where she has a change of heart and knows she needs to be there when the newly built Delta Flyer must retrieve a specially shielded probe (and of course saves the day), and he puts up resistance to the idea until she 'convinces' him otherwise. It's a return to the days when Chakotay had real power to his character and wasn't just there on the Bridge sitting next to the Captain or smiling in the background. B'Elanna too, could have been lost a little bit in Season 4 where the actress had a baby and Seven took so much of the limelight, and it's wonderful to see these characters getting their due. It's a return to Season 1 in a way, but then we bring them back to the now and it's lovely to see the faith Chakotay has in her. She mock-threatens him at the end, which is exactly what you'd expect from their long friendship and it ends with a heroic victory. Perhaps the only downside is that there's the suggestion she'll now get over the loss. Chakotay's line was a good one: "Losing people is inevitable, and sometimes it happens sooner than we expect," but at the same time it's the dreaded reset button being pushed at the end. I'm not saying I'd want multiple episodes where she's depressed and it takes a long time to get over it, but at the same time it's the kind of thread that could have carried over a little, at least. I loved the way she tried to do something, but couldn't - going to Neelix, who's always happy to listen and just be a friend, but she can't express herself, she remains inwardly trapped, and even Tom can't get through, it's too intensely personal.
Another way the episode could have ended, which might have put more emphasis on her coming through the darkness was if they hadn't been able to retrieve the probe, that the mission was a failure, but at the same time B'Elanna comes back to them, which is many times more important than a piece of technology, and I just wish that extra level had been there where her value was emphasised over material things as that would have added extra poignancy. At the same it's the Trek way to succeed, and it was truly inspirational to see the small crew of the Flyer each doing their jobs and together winning through on their mission, it's that kind of 'small' victory that is so much more accessible and engaging than the kind of universe-ending rubbish that became so prevalent in modern Trek that it has very little connection to reality. It was a different idea than we'd seen before, to have a rescue operation of a vital piece of tech before an enemy can get their hands on it - the guest star was Hamilton Camp as Vrelk, another Malon malingerer, which is yet another link to 'DS9' as he'd been a semi-recurring character there as Leck, the Ferengi assassin. Although it was only a couple of episodes, he made an impact and I'm glad they gave him a role (though imagine if it had somehow been Leck himself, that would have been an interesting development!), and it would be his final appearance in Trek to date. Also nice to have Vorik back, even if he does exist only for B'Elanna to be short with (stop doing that; get out of my seat)!
The big thing was the introduction of Paris' personally modelled new ship The Delta Flyer, created on the fly as a reaction to the Malon's attempts to get the probe back before they do. I can't help wondering if it wouldn't have been quicker to modify one of the shuttlecraft since they were on a deadline, and also, I'm not sure I really buy the Malon as these tech geniuses who can go up against a crack team of Starfleet engineers and have a hope of defeating them, but I will say that that Starfleet spirit of invention and ingenuity in design is something that was great to see again. I know we don't have a lot of information on the Malon, but that has become a little bit of a trap for the writers as not only can they build this ship to do what needs to be done, they're also capable of seeing through Voyager's shields to spy on what they're doing, able to know how far advanced they are compared to the Flyer's development, which is a bit of a hard sell! I did buy their overall position as experts at salvage operations, so maybe that could translate into an ability to build robust technology in double-quick time more than the average alien race, and I liked the idea of waste as a weapon when they let out some of the gas and attack Voyager with it, so there was some level of unique fidelity to our understanding of the culture, what little we've seen, and I appreciate that.
I was a bit confused at first about the probe and how it could have Borg shielding. Was it from the 29th Century drone in the previous episode or was it just Seven's knowledge or development coming through? If the former that would have been some nice continuity, as I suggested before that no capability they had there would come back, but it would've been better to remind us and reference that specially. It turns out it was actually something developed by Tuvok, which does work as he's responsible for the tactical side of things. It seems the Doc's holo-emitter is back to normal as B'Elanna mentions to Chakotay she thought it was him paying a house call. In a way, the Flyer could be said to be Tom and B'Elanna's first birth, except that she doesn't seem as involved with her mental and emotional situation, and many others were involved (we learn Seven can go a week without regeneration if necessary!). At the time I don't think I was that bothered about him including outdated buttons and levers inspired by his Captain Proton program, though I don't think I ever really liked it, and it doesn't make a lot of sense since everyone would have to be trained on this specific layout, and it comes across as a little bit overindulgent (the creep towards what Trek would become later, mark my words!), and also you'd think Janeway would want things to be done by Starfleet procedure. On the other hand they need to be more open to experimentation, having limited resources and without backup, so I can see why she'd be lenient - Tom says he's tired of tapping panels, so I wonder if that was a sly reference back to 'TOS' when they still used that more tactile control system. Shame he didn't mention the 23rd Century (although judging by 'DSC' all eras look the same anyway - urgh!).
The Flyer itself looks quite nice and continues a design tree that includes the USS Defiant (another sign the series was saying it could do what 'DS9' did or am I reading too much into it?), with integrated nacelles that are part of the main hull. Aesthetics versus function was a discussion I'd have liked them to go into in more detail other than just noting Paris' choice of old control panels, but overall it works quite well. I began to see the series as an extension of 'DS9' as time went on, especially in Season 6 when 'Voyager' became the only new Trek on the air and so any sight of something from the Alpha Quadrant (like the grey-shouldered uniforms, technically introduced by 'TNG' in 'First Contact,' but made their own on 'DS9'), was like a continuation. This episode showed they could deal with continuity as well as other Trek if only they chose to, it was a good, personal story that is well acted and has real meaning for the characters. It's couched in an adventure, a race against time (maybe the importance of the probe needed to be played up as probes generally seem ten a penny and no one usually cares if they're lost in action), and the A and B stories neatly connect, so I'd say this was the first real success of the season, as good as 'Night' was, this is the one that shows what they were capable of in the writing and acting stakes.
***
Friday, 30 September 2022
Friday, 16 September 2022
Drone
DVD, Voyager S5 (Drone)
A few things had their genesis here, or I might say their conception. That's a good word for this episode since it deals with the unexpected 'birth' of a new life form, and as the Doctor says, their primary mission is to explore new forms of life (shame modern Trek doesn't follow that mission, preferring galactic- or cosmos-scale catastrophe, season after season!). Catch is, this one's Borg. I wondered if there was some element of broaching the subject of abortion, as they immediately begin to suggest termination of this Borg foetus before it's even been given a chance of life, while Janeway isn't prepared to 'pull the plug' and is a little more willing to give it a chance, but it does seem like an analogy of unexpected pregnancy and how this new person is going to come in and disrupt our lives, so maybe we should kill it! There isn't a great deal of exploration of the idea of whether they have the right to destroy it (and sanctity of life isn't going to come into it from their point of view, sadly, because being a Godless society means they don't believe in anything being sanctified), and it's not really much about the allowance of a life to exist, and not murdering it (they'd covered similar ground in 'Tuvix'), and in this situation it's about a potentially deadly creature that could have dire consequences for the galaxy as a whole (so there were galactic or cosmos reverberations after all!), because if the Borg get their hands on its mix of Voyager and 29th Century Federation technology, they'd essentially be unstoppable (er, hang on, I thought the Borg were already pretty much unstoppable - witness the gradual weakening of the race to bring them down to the level of weekly bad guys rather than game over harbingers of doom).
As analogies go this one converts into a child wanting to know about its painful, unfortunate and potentially damaging past: the relations that gave it up, the fact it was an unwanted 'accident' (even though in reality every person was planned by God, another reason which makes abortion such a terrible crime against humanity by humanity itself), and at what point it's the right time to give it that information, whether it has matured enough to be able to, shall we say, assimilate such concepts. Then it sort of morphs into the idea of protecting a child from the dangers of the world outside when all it wants is to go off and meet its mates and explore all those experiences waiting for it. From there all analogies break down as a rather too pat conclusion takes over since time has run out and we have to end the story. So 'One,' as he refers to himself, has no ounce of rebellion, and despite his Borg genetics, is able to easily resist and reject his people's advances (I really wanted to hear the alluring whisper of the Collective when he and Seven are both being called back, just like in 'First Contact,' so they missed a trick there), and happily sacrifices himself so Voyager will be safe because he logically recognises that they'll keep coming for him as he's such a prize. There was real danger in allowing latitude at each stage of his development, because if Janeway's trust, which didn't really have any basis in anything, had been proved misplaced, it would have been the single worst thing she'd ever done, unleashing a 29th Century Borg upon the Universe!
Unwarranted trust isn't the only problem with the episode, there's also the fact that One can make modifications to Voyager, improving its shields and weapons, and yet as far as I remember, none of it would stick, it's not like they now have permanently superior mods, and that's a problem because it makes the series look a little backward in how it deals with the rules and realities of the universe it inhabits. The same can be said for the use of the 29th Century holo-emitter that causes so much of the problem - B'Elanna is quite blasé about being able to fix it, yet surely such advanced technology should be beyond 24th Century engineering knowledge. It can be said that this series was where things started to lose a little cohesion, that while 'Enterprise' was responsible for much more casual and contemporary (to our time), dialogue and attitudes, which influenced both the Kelvin Timeline films and the current crop of TV shows, 'Voyager' began to add more serious levels of fantasy into the sci-fi proceedings (and while 'DS9' is vastly superior to either, it also played its part in creating internal conflict and finding ways to undermine the values of Trek's world - while it was so much better written itself, meaning easy to forgive, the concepts, such as Section 31, have unfortunately given rise to poor choices within the bad writing of the current series'). And while I'm complaining, it could also be said that this was close to being a remake of the Hugh story (another character that was utterly misused in recent Trek), in 'I, Borg.'
I did suggest in my previous review that Season 5 could be the best the series reached, but it's been a slow start so far, that's for sure! For some reason I had it in mind 'Drone' was a Season 6 story, but I'm probably thinking of 'Survival Instinct' which was another early season Borg tale. I can't say I was ever that enamoured with this episode in the past, and it hasn't exactly grown on me that much, but perhaps because of all the bad Trek I've forced myself to watch in the last few years, it did seem a little better than it used to. While One's sacrifice came out of nowhere it's just gratifying to see such noble behaviour compared to the off the wall cartoon/superhero antics of the Kurtzman era, and there are things about it that make you ponder - like how One is so drawn to his heritage, and yet how damaging that heritage is. We see such joy and wonder as he assimilates the data that is like nourishing milk to a baby, and he can't get enough. I suppose there is an element of nature versus nurture in that he has these predetermined urges towards certain things, but they're curbed by the people of Voyager. This is where the story isn't satisfying enough, however, and it falls down on there not being compelling enough reason for him to trust, believe and follow his new 'collective,' as it were. He has the strength and ability, and if we're to judge by the pull of the Borg, the potential desire to take over Voyager and do as he will, but Seven's authority is the only thing which holds him back, albeit another good lesson, this time in bringing up children in strict obedience.
He is shown friendship from such as Neelix, though while this is lovely to see, and natural for the friendly Talaxian, it wouldn't have worked if One had remained confrontational, so he could easily have gone another way if his own attitude had been different, it's just fortunate that he turns out good at heart, if unrealistic. Maybe we should have heard more about Ensign Mulcahey, and his qualities since it's his DNA the tubules extract in the Science Lab (an interesting new use of the Borg tech), but he's out of the story, another angle they failed to explore - and why didn't the nano-probes assimilate him? Seven's parental figure is the beginnings of her role in that regard, as she'd later take on a kind of mentor role with Naomi Wildman, later to be seen this season, and the Borg children who'd join in Season 6. After the destruction of the character in 'Picard' it was so refreshing to go back and see how terrific she was originally, such an amazing character that was utterly ruined by modern writers. Here Seven is really compelling, put into the situation she was in only a year ago, only this time she's in the Janeway role. Of course you can't condense an entire season's worth of development into a single episode, perhaps another reason this episode feels a touch light on depth, but it's a hint at the kind of maternal or commanding role Seven had the potential for, her own gifting and contribution to the crew. That's what I'd have liked to have seen: a Seven who, by the end of the 24th Century, was fully adjusted and probably Captain of her own ship in Starfleet, with a great understanding of human behaviour and how to get the best out of people from all the experience she'd had under Janeway. Instead it was all stripped away to be replaced with a nasty vengeance and a twisted Mirror Universe bent. Horrible.
As well as preparing the way for the Borg kiddies, another small contribution to the series comes from her suggestion here: to build a larger shuttle, when Paris is complaining about the size of the one they use. In practical terms I'd imagine they wanted something like the Runabouts in 'DS9' so they could go off with an Away Team in space and have a little more leeway for stories rather than squashing several characters into one shuttlecraft (though I always loved the sleek design of the Class-2s), which would lead to the creation of The Delta Flyer this season. It's a shame they couldn't have done what they did on 'Andromeda' and used an existing ship that had joined the main one, small enough to be housed inside, but large enough to present a different location, except in this case it would've been Neelix' vessel which was almost never seen. The Flyer would be one of those things that set the series apart a little from its predecessors in that they had the latitude to do things differently because they weren't strictly part of Starfleet most of the time, largely on their own with their own resources. And no doubt because 'DS9' had the USS Defiant they wanted their own extra ship to play with. One other detail began in this episode, or if it had already been created in Season 4, was developed further: the Doctor's hobbies. Here he brings along a holo-imager, which can be assumed to be a 3D camera that records holographically as either images or data for a holoprogram. I don't recall if he'd had that before, but it was certainly something he'd return to.
The Doctor made an uncharacteristic mistake when he mentions the 29th Century and says it's four hundred years into the future! Earlier in the episode the same thing is mentioned, and correctly, that it is five hundred years in the future, so that was a bit sloppy, though it can be explained by saying the Doc was excited and still concerned for his all-important holo-emitter and that's why he made the mistake. That was an area that could have done with some exploration: what it could mean for the Doctor if he had to go back to being stuck in Sickbay or the Holodeck, and if they'd worked in a B-story I think that would have been better rather than concentrating all their time on One. The Doc's lack of appropriate regard for personal privacy returns - last time he waltzes into a running Holosuite program, and this time he appears on a monitor in B'Elanna's Quarters when she's about to step into the sonic shower (which I don't think we'd seen since 'The Motion Picture,' if I'm right, when Ilia is in one!). You'd think there'd be some kind of security protocol on monitors that would mean someone couldn't just look in on someone's Quarters unannounced, but then again he is the CMO so he could have overrode such a protocol if it did exist (and he does breezily remind her he's seen it all before, which is true, but still overstepping the bounds of appropriate Starfleet behaviour!).
I liked B'Elanna's glib suggestion that this is the Borg's new strategy for domination: show up and look helpless (well, if it worked for the aliens in Season 3's 'Displaced,' though I don't think patience is part of the Borg idea of perfection!), and I'd forgotten a Borg Sphere actually shows up. It's unfortunate that this was one of those examples where there's almost no level of threat to the deadly race. There is a slight tension when you wonder if One will betray the crew and join with the Borg, but it's all over a bit easily, Janeway's trust is vindicated, the Borg don't have the slightest chance to be threatening because this new Borg wipes them out like swatting a fly, and then he's conveniently too far gone, and he'd be too much of a liability to keep around. What would have been more interesting is if he'd stayed around for a few episodes, perhaps the Borg kept catching up with them and they have to make that choice for themselves about whether they stick with him, despite the danger to themselves, or part. That could have worked as an alternative: allow him the freedom to go off on his own, then they could have brought him back later in the season or at an even later date, either as a bad guy or someone that needs their help. Unfortunately, this is an example of the series' preference to press the reset button, something they'd largely moved away from in the previous season, at least in the sense that Seven was there and she wasn't going away, so they had to find ways of dealing with her each week.
There were plenty of standalone episodes, but she was a large thread running throughout. It was to the detriment of many of the characters that she had so much screen time, but she was worthy of it, too. I wouldn't have wanted the other characters to become expendable extras, but it's a shame they couldn't develop more ongoing arcs as they'd done in the early seasons. Tuvok for example, could have been involved in lecturing One on the value of life and logic, something, he being a partly computerised creature, would understand and find useful, but although it's great to see the Vulcan striding down the corridors, having broken out the hefty Compression Phaser Rifles, he doesn't have much to do here. It was noteworthy that Kim has progressed to leading the night shift, though I'm not sure how that'll work integrating him into stories with the day shift, so they might not have thought that one through! I think that was a problem with the series, and I say that as someone that's always considered it the second best Trek out there. Hopefully their thought and attention will improve and my preconception that this is one of the best seasons isn't proved futile. I did like the symmetry of Seven looking at her own reflection as a bookend to the episode, but even there it could have had more poignancy to it. At least J. Paul Boehmer (previously the German Kapitan in 'The Killing Game,' later to be various roles in 'DS9' and 'Enterprise'), succeeds in creating a sympathetic performance, as he was so integral to the story.
**
A few things had their genesis here, or I might say their conception. That's a good word for this episode since it deals with the unexpected 'birth' of a new life form, and as the Doctor says, their primary mission is to explore new forms of life (shame modern Trek doesn't follow that mission, preferring galactic- or cosmos-scale catastrophe, season after season!). Catch is, this one's Borg. I wondered if there was some element of broaching the subject of abortion, as they immediately begin to suggest termination of this Borg foetus before it's even been given a chance of life, while Janeway isn't prepared to 'pull the plug' and is a little more willing to give it a chance, but it does seem like an analogy of unexpected pregnancy and how this new person is going to come in and disrupt our lives, so maybe we should kill it! There isn't a great deal of exploration of the idea of whether they have the right to destroy it (and sanctity of life isn't going to come into it from their point of view, sadly, because being a Godless society means they don't believe in anything being sanctified), and it's not really much about the allowance of a life to exist, and not murdering it (they'd covered similar ground in 'Tuvix'), and in this situation it's about a potentially deadly creature that could have dire consequences for the galaxy as a whole (so there were galactic or cosmos reverberations after all!), because if the Borg get their hands on its mix of Voyager and 29th Century Federation technology, they'd essentially be unstoppable (er, hang on, I thought the Borg were already pretty much unstoppable - witness the gradual weakening of the race to bring them down to the level of weekly bad guys rather than game over harbingers of doom).
As analogies go this one converts into a child wanting to know about its painful, unfortunate and potentially damaging past: the relations that gave it up, the fact it was an unwanted 'accident' (even though in reality every person was planned by God, another reason which makes abortion such a terrible crime against humanity by humanity itself), and at what point it's the right time to give it that information, whether it has matured enough to be able to, shall we say, assimilate such concepts. Then it sort of morphs into the idea of protecting a child from the dangers of the world outside when all it wants is to go off and meet its mates and explore all those experiences waiting for it. From there all analogies break down as a rather too pat conclusion takes over since time has run out and we have to end the story. So 'One,' as he refers to himself, has no ounce of rebellion, and despite his Borg genetics, is able to easily resist and reject his people's advances (I really wanted to hear the alluring whisper of the Collective when he and Seven are both being called back, just like in 'First Contact,' so they missed a trick there), and happily sacrifices himself so Voyager will be safe because he logically recognises that they'll keep coming for him as he's such a prize. There was real danger in allowing latitude at each stage of his development, because if Janeway's trust, which didn't really have any basis in anything, had been proved misplaced, it would have been the single worst thing she'd ever done, unleashing a 29th Century Borg upon the Universe!
Unwarranted trust isn't the only problem with the episode, there's also the fact that One can make modifications to Voyager, improving its shields and weapons, and yet as far as I remember, none of it would stick, it's not like they now have permanently superior mods, and that's a problem because it makes the series look a little backward in how it deals with the rules and realities of the universe it inhabits. The same can be said for the use of the 29th Century holo-emitter that causes so much of the problem - B'Elanna is quite blasé about being able to fix it, yet surely such advanced technology should be beyond 24th Century engineering knowledge. It can be said that this series was where things started to lose a little cohesion, that while 'Enterprise' was responsible for much more casual and contemporary (to our time), dialogue and attitudes, which influenced both the Kelvin Timeline films and the current crop of TV shows, 'Voyager' began to add more serious levels of fantasy into the sci-fi proceedings (and while 'DS9' is vastly superior to either, it also played its part in creating internal conflict and finding ways to undermine the values of Trek's world - while it was so much better written itself, meaning easy to forgive, the concepts, such as Section 31, have unfortunately given rise to poor choices within the bad writing of the current series'). And while I'm complaining, it could also be said that this was close to being a remake of the Hugh story (another character that was utterly misused in recent Trek), in 'I, Borg.'
I did suggest in my previous review that Season 5 could be the best the series reached, but it's been a slow start so far, that's for sure! For some reason I had it in mind 'Drone' was a Season 6 story, but I'm probably thinking of 'Survival Instinct' which was another early season Borg tale. I can't say I was ever that enamoured with this episode in the past, and it hasn't exactly grown on me that much, but perhaps because of all the bad Trek I've forced myself to watch in the last few years, it did seem a little better than it used to. While One's sacrifice came out of nowhere it's just gratifying to see such noble behaviour compared to the off the wall cartoon/superhero antics of the Kurtzman era, and there are things about it that make you ponder - like how One is so drawn to his heritage, and yet how damaging that heritage is. We see such joy and wonder as he assimilates the data that is like nourishing milk to a baby, and he can't get enough. I suppose there is an element of nature versus nurture in that he has these predetermined urges towards certain things, but they're curbed by the people of Voyager. This is where the story isn't satisfying enough, however, and it falls down on there not being compelling enough reason for him to trust, believe and follow his new 'collective,' as it were. He has the strength and ability, and if we're to judge by the pull of the Borg, the potential desire to take over Voyager and do as he will, but Seven's authority is the only thing which holds him back, albeit another good lesson, this time in bringing up children in strict obedience.
He is shown friendship from such as Neelix, though while this is lovely to see, and natural for the friendly Talaxian, it wouldn't have worked if One had remained confrontational, so he could easily have gone another way if his own attitude had been different, it's just fortunate that he turns out good at heart, if unrealistic. Maybe we should have heard more about Ensign Mulcahey, and his qualities since it's his DNA the tubules extract in the Science Lab (an interesting new use of the Borg tech), but he's out of the story, another angle they failed to explore - and why didn't the nano-probes assimilate him? Seven's parental figure is the beginnings of her role in that regard, as she'd later take on a kind of mentor role with Naomi Wildman, later to be seen this season, and the Borg children who'd join in Season 6. After the destruction of the character in 'Picard' it was so refreshing to go back and see how terrific she was originally, such an amazing character that was utterly ruined by modern writers. Here Seven is really compelling, put into the situation she was in only a year ago, only this time she's in the Janeway role. Of course you can't condense an entire season's worth of development into a single episode, perhaps another reason this episode feels a touch light on depth, but it's a hint at the kind of maternal or commanding role Seven had the potential for, her own gifting and contribution to the crew. That's what I'd have liked to have seen: a Seven who, by the end of the 24th Century, was fully adjusted and probably Captain of her own ship in Starfleet, with a great understanding of human behaviour and how to get the best out of people from all the experience she'd had under Janeway. Instead it was all stripped away to be replaced with a nasty vengeance and a twisted Mirror Universe bent. Horrible.
As well as preparing the way for the Borg kiddies, another small contribution to the series comes from her suggestion here: to build a larger shuttle, when Paris is complaining about the size of the one they use. In practical terms I'd imagine they wanted something like the Runabouts in 'DS9' so they could go off with an Away Team in space and have a little more leeway for stories rather than squashing several characters into one shuttlecraft (though I always loved the sleek design of the Class-2s), which would lead to the creation of The Delta Flyer this season. It's a shame they couldn't have done what they did on 'Andromeda' and used an existing ship that had joined the main one, small enough to be housed inside, but large enough to present a different location, except in this case it would've been Neelix' vessel which was almost never seen. The Flyer would be one of those things that set the series apart a little from its predecessors in that they had the latitude to do things differently because they weren't strictly part of Starfleet most of the time, largely on their own with their own resources. And no doubt because 'DS9' had the USS Defiant they wanted their own extra ship to play with. One other detail began in this episode, or if it had already been created in Season 4, was developed further: the Doctor's hobbies. Here he brings along a holo-imager, which can be assumed to be a 3D camera that records holographically as either images or data for a holoprogram. I don't recall if he'd had that before, but it was certainly something he'd return to.
The Doctor made an uncharacteristic mistake when he mentions the 29th Century and says it's four hundred years into the future! Earlier in the episode the same thing is mentioned, and correctly, that it is five hundred years in the future, so that was a bit sloppy, though it can be explained by saying the Doc was excited and still concerned for his all-important holo-emitter and that's why he made the mistake. That was an area that could have done with some exploration: what it could mean for the Doctor if he had to go back to being stuck in Sickbay or the Holodeck, and if they'd worked in a B-story I think that would have been better rather than concentrating all their time on One. The Doc's lack of appropriate regard for personal privacy returns - last time he waltzes into a running Holosuite program, and this time he appears on a monitor in B'Elanna's Quarters when she's about to step into the sonic shower (which I don't think we'd seen since 'The Motion Picture,' if I'm right, when Ilia is in one!). You'd think there'd be some kind of security protocol on monitors that would mean someone couldn't just look in on someone's Quarters unannounced, but then again he is the CMO so he could have overrode such a protocol if it did exist (and he does breezily remind her he's seen it all before, which is true, but still overstepping the bounds of appropriate Starfleet behaviour!).
I liked B'Elanna's glib suggestion that this is the Borg's new strategy for domination: show up and look helpless (well, if it worked for the aliens in Season 3's 'Displaced,' though I don't think patience is part of the Borg idea of perfection!), and I'd forgotten a Borg Sphere actually shows up. It's unfortunate that this was one of those examples where there's almost no level of threat to the deadly race. There is a slight tension when you wonder if One will betray the crew and join with the Borg, but it's all over a bit easily, Janeway's trust is vindicated, the Borg don't have the slightest chance to be threatening because this new Borg wipes them out like swatting a fly, and then he's conveniently too far gone, and he'd be too much of a liability to keep around. What would have been more interesting is if he'd stayed around for a few episodes, perhaps the Borg kept catching up with them and they have to make that choice for themselves about whether they stick with him, despite the danger to themselves, or part. That could have worked as an alternative: allow him the freedom to go off on his own, then they could have brought him back later in the season or at an even later date, either as a bad guy or someone that needs their help. Unfortunately, this is an example of the series' preference to press the reset button, something they'd largely moved away from in the previous season, at least in the sense that Seven was there and she wasn't going away, so they had to find ways of dealing with her each week.
There were plenty of standalone episodes, but she was a large thread running throughout. It was to the detriment of many of the characters that she had so much screen time, but she was worthy of it, too. I wouldn't have wanted the other characters to become expendable extras, but it's a shame they couldn't develop more ongoing arcs as they'd done in the early seasons. Tuvok for example, could have been involved in lecturing One on the value of life and logic, something, he being a partly computerised creature, would understand and find useful, but although it's great to see the Vulcan striding down the corridors, having broken out the hefty Compression Phaser Rifles, he doesn't have much to do here. It was noteworthy that Kim has progressed to leading the night shift, though I'm not sure how that'll work integrating him into stories with the day shift, so they might not have thought that one through! I think that was a problem with the series, and I say that as someone that's always considered it the second best Trek out there. Hopefully their thought and attention will improve and my preconception that this is one of the best seasons isn't proved futile. I did like the symmetry of Seven looking at her own reflection as a bookend to the episode, but even there it could have had more poignancy to it. At least J. Paul Boehmer (previously the German Kapitan in 'The Killing Game,' later to be various roles in 'DS9' and 'Enterprise'), succeeds in creating a sympathetic performance, as he was so integral to the story.
**
The Seed
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S5 (The Seed)
It features a nice ending where there's a little joking (Ronon's lost his voice, will anyone notice the difference!), and a little recognition from Wolsey, the new head of Atlantis about how difficult it is to stick to the rule book when you're faced with bizarre situations like this one, and that was probably the highlight of the episode, a humbling, real moment for the new commander. But you have to acknowledge this is an episode that has been done repeatedly. I think the earliest example (at least in this franchise, there are plenty of equivalent stories in Trek, such as 'Nothing Human' on 'Voyager' or 'Vox Sola' on 'Enterprise'), was 'Bane,' a Season 2 episode of 'SG-1' where Teal'c gets taken over by some alien organism. They even reference another, more recent example in Sheppard being taken over by a bug, and I'm sure there was at least one story where the SGC got locked down by alien webbing, though I don't recall the name. So it's same old, same old as far as 'Stargate' is concerned: a sci-fi trope that's been done and done and there really isn't anything new brought to the table this time.
You could say it's a chance for this new mix of characters to integrate, or go through an experience together, which will hopefully make it a little easier for them to accept Wolsey as their superior, because there did seem to be some animosity or coldness towards him, as is understandable given that he's never been terribly helpful to our people in the past, and also that he's replaced a much-loved commander. I see the need for that integration, and with the scene at the end it suggests Wolsey has learned something, and he isn't an idiot in the episode, he does err on the side of trusting his people, despite some level of frostiness or aggression from them. So often in the episode he's confronted with the option of doing what he thinks is best, following procedures, and allows himself to be swayed, so there's hope for a good working relationship here. It would seem their idea of isolation is a strange one, as once Keller's problem has become apparent and the others who were in Michael's base are known to be infected, they still seem to meet and talk to each other, or leave quarantine entirely! You'd also expect there would be some kind of process if a member of the team doesn't show up for shift, as Keller didn't, or that they might draft in medical assistance from Earth - what is the situation, by the way? I guess we've lost the Midway station so we can't 'gate back and forth any more, because I did find it strange Wolsey arrived via Daedalus, so that must be the answer.
It's wonderful that the finding of Michael's database in the previous episode meant they could cure, to some degree, the suspended animation Dr. Beckett. I hoped he'd be back, but I'm surprised they brought him into it so quickly, even if he is shuttled off back to Earth at episode's end. He's happy to plunge right in and try to help Keller, which is exactly when you'd expect a team to be sent from home. Anyway, it's handy that he was there and it's good to see him wading into a medical situation again like he's never been away. And what a situation - I felt it was extremely unfeeling to leave poor Jennifer alone in that room when they shut down the power. There was a horror element to the story, with this tentacled entity, which they suggest is the birth of a Hive ship, taking over Keller, then the isolation room, and beyond, but it wasn't that horrible except for when she's left to herself in this room covered in tendrils. It's bad enough that someone would have to go there, but to be the person it was happening to must surely have been terrifying and very lonely so I felt they should never have left her alone for a moment. The closest we come to physical horror is when Zelenka is attacked, or when Ronon is strangled, but in both those occasions they had gone seeking trouble so it still wasn't that horrific.
There also seemed to be a disconnect in what they could do to it, as initially Beckett can't even take off one tiny tendril without putting Keller into arrest, but then later Teyla's boldly spraying bullets to rescue Zelenka and it has no negative effect on Keller. It could be said that by that time she was so far gone that the entity had merged with her so unless the whole thing was dealt with she wasn't going to be harmed any more, but there needed to be some explanation for that, I felt. As usual, Ronon is the brave volunteer who wants to go in and take the vital injection to her, but it's Sheppard who ends up succeeding, and then it's all over, simple as that. Ultimately it's a fairly inconsequential bottle episode. As I noted, it serves to show Wolsey what it's going to be like trying to walk the line between following the rules and appreciating the experience and skills of those under him, and puts a shared experience behind them all, and I hope it does lead to more understanding, though of course there's going to be much conflict as it is (just as there was between certain characters when Carter came in and took charge). It'll be interesting how they deal with Beckett, whether he returns to play a significant part in the season and what the overarching story will be, and how Wolsey will integrate, if he will, but for now this was a relatively generic example of the series.
**
It features a nice ending where there's a little joking (Ronon's lost his voice, will anyone notice the difference!), and a little recognition from Wolsey, the new head of Atlantis about how difficult it is to stick to the rule book when you're faced with bizarre situations like this one, and that was probably the highlight of the episode, a humbling, real moment for the new commander. But you have to acknowledge this is an episode that has been done repeatedly. I think the earliest example (at least in this franchise, there are plenty of equivalent stories in Trek, such as 'Nothing Human' on 'Voyager' or 'Vox Sola' on 'Enterprise'), was 'Bane,' a Season 2 episode of 'SG-1' where Teal'c gets taken over by some alien organism. They even reference another, more recent example in Sheppard being taken over by a bug, and I'm sure there was at least one story where the SGC got locked down by alien webbing, though I don't recall the name. So it's same old, same old as far as 'Stargate' is concerned: a sci-fi trope that's been done and done and there really isn't anything new brought to the table this time.
You could say it's a chance for this new mix of characters to integrate, or go through an experience together, which will hopefully make it a little easier for them to accept Wolsey as their superior, because there did seem to be some animosity or coldness towards him, as is understandable given that he's never been terribly helpful to our people in the past, and also that he's replaced a much-loved commander. I see the need for that integration, and with the scene at the end it suggests Wolsey has learned something, and he isn't an idiot in the episode, he does err on the side of trusting his people, despite some level of frostiness or aggression from them. So often in the episode he's confronted with the option of doing what he thinks is best, following procedures, and allows himself to be swayed, so there's hope for a good working relationship here. It would seem their idea of isolation is a strange one, as once Keller's problem has become apparent and the others who were in Michael's base are known to be infected, they still seem to meet and talk to each other, or leave quarantine entirely! You'd also expect there would be some kind of process if a member of the team doesn't show up for shift, as Keller didn't, or that they might draft in medical assistance from Earth - what is the situation, by the way? I guess we've lost the Midway station so we can't 'gate back and forth any more, because I did find it strange Wolsey arrived via Daedalus, so that must be the answer.
It's wonderful that the finding of Michael's database in the previous episode meant they could cure, to some degree, the suspended animation Dr. Beckett. I hoped he'd be back, but I'm surprised they brought him into it so quickly, even if he is shuttled off back to Earth at episode's end. He's happy to plunge right in and try to help Keller, which is exactly when you'd expect a team to be sent from home. Anyway, it's handy that he was there and it's good to see him wading into a medical situation again like he's never been away. And what a situation - I felt it was extremely unfeeling to leave poor Jennifer alone in that room when they shut down the power. There was a horror element to the story, with this tentacled entity, which they suggest is the birth of a Hive ship, taking over Keller, then the isolation room, and beyond, but it wasn't that horrible except for when she's left to herself in this room covered in tendrils. It's bad enough that someone would have to go there, but to be the person it was happening to must surely have been terrifying and very lonely so I felt they should never have left her alone for a moment. The closest we come to physical horror is when Zelenka is attacked, or when Ronon is strangled, but in both those occasions they had gone seeking trouble so it still wasn't that horrific.
There also seemed to be a disconnect in what they could do to it, as initially Beckett can't even take off one tiny tendril without putting Keller into arrest, but then later Teyla's boldly spraying bullets to rescue Zelenka and it has no negative effect on Keller. It could be said that by that time she was so far gone that the entity had merged with her so unless the whole thing was dealt with she wasn't going to be harmed any more, but there needed to be some explanation for that, I felt. As usual, Ronon is the brave volunteer who wants to go in and take the vital injection to her, but it's Sheppard who ends up succeeding, and then it's all over, simple as that. Ultimately it's a fairly inconsequential bottle episode. As I noted, it serves to show Wolsey what it's going to be like trying to walk the line between following the rules and appreciating the experience and skills of those under him, and puts a shared experience behind them all, and I hope it does lead to more understanding, though of course there's going to be much conflict as it is (just as there was between certain characters when Carter came in and took charge). It'll be interesting how they deal with Beckett, whether he returns to play a significant part in the season and what the overarching story will be, and how Wolsey will integrate, if he will, but for now this was a relatively generic example of the series.
**
Thursday, 8 September 2022
Night
DVD, Voyager S5 (Night)
Much has changed in the three years since I sat down to review the end of Season 4, none of it for the better. We've had a few characters from this series return to be played or voiced by their original actor, something that would have been very unlikely and unforeseen before. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, they ruined the legacy characters of past Trek in this new era (certainly Seven of Nine - I haven't seen 'Prodigy' yet, but don't hold out hope for it), for the most part, and it's got to the point where I actually wasn't looking forward to revisiting a series I've always considered my second favourite (after 'DS9'), the modern writers having sucked the joy out of Trek for me with their emotionalism, agendas, crudity, lack of respect for the established timeline and history, and a general failure to create good drama and attractive, principled characters doing inspirational things. But years ago I always planned to write reviews for the whole series, and Season 5 has gone down in my memory as possibly the best of 'Voyager,' so here I am at the beginning. That's a very suitable word as this appears to have been very much an attempt to, if not reset the series, certainly bring any casual viewers up to speed, while at the same time presenting a similar dilemma to that which stranded them in the Delta Quadrant originally, and they don't shie away from drawing a parallel in case we didn't get it.
I don't know whether it was in an effort to avoid competing with 'DS9' as that series ended its penultimate season on a sort of cliffhanger (the Wormhole shut, Sisko returning to Earth), and opened with a resolution, but they chose to close out Season 4 with a standalone tale, which left them free to begin Season 5 any way they wanted (as opposed to the end of the season which very much ended on a cliffhanger, like a message to those who might have confused them with 'DS9' ending to say they clearly were going to continue). It was the first time since the transition into Season 2 (which is not so easy to pin down anyway with the episodes filmed during Season 1, then shown in 2), that they hadn't plunged into a sequel to the previous episode and so it meant they could try something a little different: the Captain has isolated herself in her Quarters, Chakotay is running the ship, and tempers are fraying as the crew struggle with the psychology of crossing a region of space devoid of all life... or at least of all stars and celestial bodies (so where did the aliens get the materials to make their ships...?), a place of black space and nothing else. It's quite poetic, a lone ship, isolated and alone, a tiny beacon moving through the nothingness, like a summation of the series itself. Only our usually confident, reassuring Captain is wallowing in guilt at having brought her crew into this place - not just the 'void' as they call it (not to be confused with the Season 7 episode of the same name!), but the Quadrant itself, forgetting all the good they've done and blaming herself.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the episode, because I remembered quite liking it, but not how much, and it isn't a classic, that's for sure. It doesn't have the tension and sense of rising heat between crew-members that was done so well in 'The Ship' on 'DS9,' for example. A lot of it is spoken about and perhaps that dangerous mood is lessened with the fun, but frivolous introduction of the Captain Proton Holodeck program Tom Paris loves so much - usually with these programs the writers drop lines here and there about them, but we don't always see them, left to our imagination to fill in the blanks, but for whatever reason, perhaps flush with a new season's budget, they physically created it. The unique spin is that it's all in black and white, aping the old 'Flash Gordon' serials, so that when the Doctor enters, he shows up as the only colour in sight. It does make sense that the crew would be trying to unwind and getting away from their situation of boredom and emptiness in fantasy, but it also doesn't make sense since they're supposed to be conserving power as much as possible for this long, two-year trip across void space. But that's one of the dramatic conventions of the series, that the Holodecks can continue running almost no matter what, a bit like gravity never giving out, even when environmental systems are hit, and you have to accept it and move on.
Harder to accept is the breach of protocol from the Doctor of walking into a running program. He could have called, left a message, maybe even knocked on the door chime, but he just walks right in. Again, it's for the purposes of showing he's in living colour when everything else is monochrome, but that's quite a serious interruption and if I were the occupants I'd certainly feel aggrieved at the breach of privacy. On the other hand, he is the Doctor, he's part of ship's systems, so technically I don't see why he couldn't override the privacy functions and waltz in, and in fact he could even have simply fritzed into place within the holomatrix, which is what he always used to do before he gained the portable holo-emitter, and although we don't see how he entered, either would have worked. The other issue is that with the crew in such a state and using the Holodecks so much, perhaps they weren't locking out anyone that wanted to join in midway during a session, or Paris had forgotten the option to allow extra participants in, and otherwise would have turned it off. So none of it is a big problem in technical terms, it's just the Doctor's lack of finesse, and that comes with the character, even if he had grown significantly since the days of terrible bedside manner.
I do think the episode would have benefited from a more aggressive, boiling tension, but then it wasn't quite the same situation as that in 'The Ship,' they had the space to move around, the ship was functioning normally, it was merely the fact there was nothing new to do, and the prospect of continuing in that vein for so long without a planetary break or anything to alter the tedium - it's gotten so bad Tuvok doesn't even upbraid Harry Kim for playing his clarinet on the Bridge when he's supposed to be nightwatchman, or whatever it was he was doing! I'm sure Tuvok was comfortable with such a long seclusion from outside interference, being Chief of Security, as no threats were likely, but even he prefers to see stars outside, moving to Astrometrics for some accompaniment to his Vulcan meditations. Neelix is the one that really sells the situation best, getting extremely panicky and reacting so badly, and if those two and Chakotay, the characters that got lost in the latter half of the series, are being so well integrated, that can only be a boon for the series. Regarding the others, Seven is typically unaffected, while Tom and B'Elanna argue during their play with Duplo blocks (actually a game called Derada, but as I have no memory of it, unlike Kadis-kot, or Dabo, I'm guessing it never got played again).
If the atmosphere wasn't fully achieved, I could also suggest the story is a little too easy - it's great to have a story with a moral centre again and serious stakes: not the galaxy-ending fantasy, in no way believable or possible to identify with of modern Trek, but very personal and dealing with the psychology of people, as if they're real people and not superheroes or eccentric aberrants. This means you feel for them and sympathise with their plight, they win you over (if I didn't already like the characters). It's great that the choice is between a quick escape from this mentally draining challenge, at the cost of the life of one alien who, don't forget, had attacked the ship - I'd have liked to see Paris' reaction to the news they were going to help these aliens when he'd suffered severe burns from an encounter. It's a replay of their original predicament to stay behind and destroy the Caretaker's array that would send them home, or use it and commit an entire race to the slavery of the Kazon. The Malon (where's Talon? Nah, they didn't do 'Zelda' references in those days, fortunately!), aren't quite the same, they're more like the Ferengi, only interested in profit and not caring about who or what gets hurt along the way, except even the Ferengi have some kind of ideals that we see played out through Quark ('Business As Usual' a perfect example). This Malon, Emck, doesn't care about the harmful radiation he's dumping in the aliens' space, killing them, nor that his people's lives could be improved by Voyager's offer of cleaner technology, all he cares about is his own livelihood and continuing that, which you can tell by looking at his scabby face is doing him physical harm in itself!
There's a bit of an ecological message there, but it isn't rammed in your face the way I'm sure modern Trek would do it, it's just about what's best for all concerned, and that used to be Trek's way: not battering viewers over the head with blatant agendas, but subtly introducing concepts and ideas to think about, which is much more useful and intelligent. It's not really about the damage the Malon are doing (to themselves and others), it's about Janeway, primarily, stepping up and not sinking into depression. Bizarrely I thought of the spoilt brat Kelvin Timeline version of Captain Kirk in 'Beyond,' bored by being out in space where everything's the same, except here it really is, with a long term of perseverance anticipated. Janeway snaps to herself as soon as action is required when the aliens threaten the ship, so it's only the inaction that has produced this damaging introspection. The brilliant thing about this episode is how well her crew knows her, how Tuvok has anticipated that her present mood will drive her into trying to deal with the feelings of guilt by self-sacrifice, so that when she does indeed repeat past behaviour (and it was interesting to hear about when she was Commander on the USS Billings, a little piece of her background), and makes plans to stay behind while Voyager goes through the escape tunnel, the crew are already briefed and ready to mutinously refuse her orders. It's a great character moment for them all, and while I'm often horrified by the repeated insubordination and failure to snap to and follow a superior's orders in modern Trek, this was such a rarity here and in the face of Janeway making the wrong decision, that it fits perfectly and only serves to strengthen their bond with her.
The part where it was a little too easy is how they can come up with an alternative where they'll blow the tunnel themselves, so no one has to remain behind. A greater emphasis on the dangers was necessary to show how much they were willing to risk to keep their Captain, but at the same time, if it seems too risky then Janeway's extreme solution begins to look like the correct course, so it was a difficult literary position. It's also true that the aliens were a little too quick to trust Janeway - the injured one gets beamed away before she's agreed to do whatever she was going to do, so there's a sense of uncertainty about what the aliens are going to do, ideal for the story, but would they have been so easily persuaded by the one injured guy? And what if they weren't just victims, what if they were as nasty as the Malon? Because they are clear victims it makes the choice to side with them very easy and takes away a bit of the dilemma. But if it is too easy at least they still have to go up against the heavily armed rubbish scow (would any race really arm such a ship so powerfully that a state of the art Federation vessel would be challenged?), and they don't have it completely smooth sailing as they come out of the tunnel still within the void. I'd hoped they were going to say they'd need a few more days of travel at least, before getting back to normal space, but I think they had them just on the edge so they could have that moment of the crew joyful at seeing stars again. But they could have done that anyway, just say a few more days of toil had passed and then do the scene.
Still, it was a great concept (later used in 'Enterprise'), and the visuals of streaking stars to denote warp travel, and the fact they draw parallels with sailing ships becalmed, added suitably apt comparisons to the cabin fever, even if the actual cabin fever wasn't very intense. It can also be said that Janeway was quick to trust the creature and they could have been hoping to lure Voyager into a trap, but she's usually a good judge of character and they couldn't make things too complex with the limited running time they had for an episode. I also liked the fact there was a parallel drawn with the Doctor's own situation, how he goes into his own personal void whenever he's deactivated. I wonder if his line about the phrase 'to be continued' was meant to be ironic considering the season opener is usually continuing from that? I would say this was a functional opening that nicely injects some psychological horror into its story, something the series was good at, while getting everyone up to speed on the ship's position away from the Federation. It's not a great episode, but it's solid and uses all the characters, so in that respect it gave a good base from which to work from in the rest of the season.
***
Much has changed in the three years since I sat down to review the end of Season 4, none of it for the better. We've had a few characters from this series return to be played or voiced by their original actor, something that would have been very unlikely and unforeseen before. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, they ruined the legacy characters of past Trek in this new era (certainly Seven of Nine - I haven't seen 'Prodigy' yet, but don't hold out hope for it), for the most part, and it's got to the point where I actually wasn't looking forward to revisiting a series I've always considered my second favourite (after 'DS9'), the modern writers having sucked the joy out of Trek for me with their emotionalism, agendas, crudity, lack of respect for the established timeline and history, and a general failure to create good drama and attractive, principled characters doing inspirational things. But years ago I always planned to write reviews for the whole series, and Season 5 has gone down in my memory as possibly the best of 'Voyager,' so here I am at the beginning. That's a very suitable word as this appears to have been very much an attempt to, if not reset the series, certainly bring any casual viewers up to speed, while at the same time presenting a similar dilemma to that which stranded them in the Delta Quadrant originally, and they don't shie away from drawing a parallel in case we didn't get it.
I don't know whether it was in an effort to avoid competing with 'DS9' as that series ended its penultimate season on a sort of cliffhanger (the Wormhole shut, Sisko returning to Earth), and opened with a resolution, but they chose to close out Season 4 with a standalone tale, which left them free to begin Season 5 any way they wanted (as opposed to the end of the season which very much ended on a cliffhanger, like a message to those who might have confused them with 'DS9' ending to say they clearly were going to continue). It was the first time since the transition into Season 2 (which is not so easy to pin down anyway with the episodes filmed during Season 1, then shown in 2), that they hadn't plunged into a sequel to the previous episode and so it meant they could try something a little different: the Captain has isolated herself in her Quarters, Chakotay is running the ship, and tempers are fraying as the crew struggle with the psychology of crossing a region of space devoid of all life... or at least of all stars and celestial bodies (so where did the aliens get the materials to make their ships...?), a place of black space and nothing else. It's quite poetic, a lone ship, isolated and alone, a tiny beacon moving through the nothingness, like a summation of the series itself. Only our usually confident, reassuring Captain is wallowing in guilt at having brought her crew into this place - not just the 'void' as they call it (not to be confused with the Season 7 episode of the same name!), but the Quadrant itself, forgetting all the good they've done and blaming herself.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the episode, because I remembered quite liking it, but not how much, and it isn't a classic, that's for sure. It doesn't have the tension and sense of rising heat between crew-members that was done so well in 'The Ship' on 'DS9,' for example. A lot of it is spoken about and perhaps that dangerous mood is lessened with the fun, but frivolous introduction of the Captain Proton Holodeck program Tom Paris loves so much - usually with these programs the writers drop lines here and there about them, but we don't always see them, left to our imagination to fill in the blanks, but for whatever reason, perhaps flush with a new season's budget, they physically created it. The unique spin is that it's all in black and white, aping the old 'Flash Gordon' serials, so that when the Doctor enters, he shows up as the only colour in sight. It does make sense that the crew would be trying to unwind and getting away from their situation of boredom and emptiness in fantasy, but it also doesn't make sense since they're supposed to be conserving power as much as possible for this long, two-year trip across void space. But that's one of the dramatic conventions of the series, that the Holodecks can continue running almost no matter what, a bit like gravity never giving out, even when environmental systems are hit, and you have to accept it and move on.
Harder to accept is the breach of protocol from the Doctor of walking into a running program. He could have called, left a message, maybe even knocked on the door chime, but he just walks right in. Again, it's for the purposes of showing he's in living colour when everything else is monochrome, but that's quite a serious interruption and if I were the occupants I'd certainly feel aggrieved at the breach of privacy. On the other hand, he is the Doctor, he's part of ship's systems, so technically I don't see why he couldn't override the privacy functions and waltz in, and in fact he could even have simply fritzed into place within the holomatrix, which is what he always used to do before he gained the portable holo-emitter, and although we don't see how he entered, either would have worked. The other issue is that with the crew in such a state and using the Holodecks so much, perhaps they weren't locking out anyone that wanted to join in midway during a session, or Paris had forgotten the option to allow extra participants in, and otherwise would have turned it off. So none of it is a big problem in technical terms, it's just the Doctor's lack of finesse, and that comes with the character, even if he had grown significantly since the days of terrible bedside manner.
I do think the episode would have benefited from a more aggressive, boiling tension, but then it wasn't quite the same situation as that in 'The Ship,' they had the space to move around, the ship was functioning normally, it was merely the fact there was nothing new to do, and the prospect of continuing in that vein for so long without a planetary break or anything to alter the tedium - it's gotten so bad Tuvok doesn't even upbraid Harry Kim for playing his clarinet on the Bridge when he's supposed to be nightwatchman, or whatever it was he was doing! I'm sure Tuvok was comfortable with such a long seclusion from outside interference, being Chief of Security, as no threats were likely, but even he prefers to see stars outside, moving to Astrometrics for some accompaniment to his Vulcan meditations. Neelix is the one that really sells the situation best, getting extremely panicky and reacting so badly, and if those two and Chakotay, the characters that got lost in the latter half of the series, are being so well integrated, that can only be a boon for the series. Regarding the others, Seven is typically unaffected, while Tom and B'Elanna argue during their play with Duplo blocks (actually a game called Derada, but as I have no memory of it, unlike Kadis-kot, or Dabo, I'm guessing it never got played again).
If the atmosphere wasn't fully achieved, I could also suggest the story is a little too easy - it's great to have a story with a moral centre again and serious stakes: not the galaxy-ending fantasy, in no way believable or possible to identify with of modern Trek, but very personal and dealing with the psychology of people, as if they're real people and not superheroes or eccentric aberrants. This means you feel for them and sympathise with their plight, they win you over (if I didn't already like the characters). It's great that the choice is between a quick escape from this mentally draining challenge, at the cost of the life of one alien who, don't forget, had attacked the ship - I'd have liked to see Paris' reaction to the news they were going to help these aliens when he'd suffered severe burns from an encounter. It's a replay of their original predicament to stay behind and destroy the Caretaker's array that would send them home, or use it and commit an entire race to the slavery of the Kazon. The Malon (where's Talon? Nah, they didn't do 'Zelda' references in those days, fortunately!), aren't quite the same, they're more like the Ferengi, only interested in profit and not caring about who or what gets hurt along the way, except even the Ferengi have some kind of ideals that we see played out through Quark ('Business As Usual' a perfect example). This Malon, Emck, doesn't care about the harmful radiation he's dumping in the aliens' space, killing them, nor that his people's lives could be improved by Voyager's offer of cleaner technology, all he cares about is his own livelihood and continuing that, which you can tell by looking at his scabby face is doing him physical harm in itself!
There's a bit of an ecological message there, but it isn't rammed in your face the way I'm sure modern Trek would do it, it's just about what's best for all concerned, and that used to be Trek's way: not battering viewers over the head with blatant agendas, but subtly introducing concepts and ideas to think about, which is much more useful and intelligent. It's not really about the damage the Malon are doing (to themselves and others), it's about Janeway, primarily, stepping up and not sinking into depression. Bizarrely I thought of the spoilt brat Kelvin Timeline version of Captain Kirk in 'Beyond,' bored by being out in space where everything's the same, except here it really is, with a long term of perseverance anticipated. Janeway snaps to herself as soon as action is required when the aliens threaten the ship, so it's only the inaction that has produced this damaging introspection. The brilliant thing about this episode is how well her crew knows her, how Tuvok has anticipated that her present mood will drive her into trying to deal with the feelings of guilt by self-sacrifice, so that when she does indeed repeat past behaviour (and it was interesting to hear about when she was Commander on the USS Billings, a little piece of her background), and makes plans to stay behind while Voyager goes through the escape tunnel, the crew are already briefed and ready to mutinously refuse her orders. It's a great character moment for them all, and while I'm often horrified by the repeated insubordination and failure to snap to and follow a superior's orders in modern Trek, this was such a rarity here and in the face of Janeway making the wrong decision, that it fits perfectly and only serves to strengthen their bond with her.
The part where it was a little too easy is how they can come up with an alternative where they'll blow the tunnel themselves, so no one has to remain behind. A greater emphasis on the dangers was necessary to show how much they were willing to risk to keep their Captain, but at the same time, if it seems too risky then Janeway's extreme solution begins to look like the correct course, so it was a difficult literary position. It's also true that the aliens were a little too quick to trust Janeway - the injured one gets beamed away before she's agreed to do whatever she was going to do, so there's a sense of uncertainty about what the aliens are going to do, ideal for the story, but would they have been so easily persuaded by the one injured guy? And what if they weren't just victims, what if they were as nasty as the Malon? Because they are clear victims it makes the choice to side with them very easy and takes away a bit of the dilemma. But if it is too easy at least they still have to go up against the heavily armed rubbish scow (would any race really arm such a ship so powerfully that a state of the art Federation vessel would be challenged?), and they don't have it completely smooth sailing as they come out of the tunnel still within the void. I'd hoped they were going to say they'd need a few more days of travel at least, before getting back to normal space, but I think they had them just on the edge so they could have that moment of the crew joyful at seeing stars again. But they could have done that anyway, just say a few more days of toil had passed and then do the scene.
Still, it was a great concept (later used in 'Enterprise'), and the visuals of streaking stars to denote warp travel, and the fact they draw parallels with sailing ships becalmed, added suitably apt comparisons to the cabin fever, even if the actual cabin fever wasn't very intense. It can also be said that Janeway was quick to trust the creature and they could have been hoping to lure Voyager into a trap, but she's usually a good judge of character and they couldn't make things too complex with the limited running time they had for an episode. I also liked the fact there was a parallel drawn with the Doctor's own situation, how he goes into his own personal void whenever he's deactivated. I wonder if his line about the phrase 'to be continued' was meant to be ironic considering the season opener is usually continuing from that? I would say this was a functional opening that nicely injects some psychological horror into its story, something the series was good at, while getting everyone up to speed on the ship's position away from the Federation. It's not a great episode, but it's solid and uses all the characters, so in that respect it gave a good base from which to work from in the rest of the season.
***
Search and Rescue
DVD, Stargate Atlantis S5 (Search and Rescue)
Always a lot going on in a season opener, but it reminded me the Season 4 cliffhanger wasn't that great: a building falling down. On top of our intrepid rescue team. This conclusion to the story is a bit better than that, even if it does move the story on a little bit fast and without really giving enough time for the cast changes which are introduced. It turns out Carter is no longer in the opening credits and I think that fact distracted me enough that I didn't notice Ronon either so I spent the whole episode wondering if he was about to be killed off, and how sad now that I'd got so used to him being around that he wouldn't be there for the final season! I was very pleased to see Jewel Staite come up as Dr. Keller as I'd already suggested she should be boosted up to main cast status for her excellent job replacing Dr. Beckett (even though they very weirdly brought him back and tossed him into storage at the end of last season!), and she certainly deserved it. Robert Picardo bringing Wolsey in...? Not so sure on that one. I like Picardo a lot, he played one of the best characters in Trek, but Wolsey's a very different proposition. I understand the need to put the cat amongst the pigeons for the sake of drama, and if Carter's not going to be around any more then it stands to reason someone's going to have to take over (why not Caldwell, he's served his time defending their missions so many times!), and Wolsey was talking about it last season, but I never saw it coming, I don't know why.
I felt the changeover was a bit sudden, Carter isn't given the chance to say goodbye to what became her team, and though I don't think she had quite the right chemistry, for lack of a better word, you get used to having her around. Maybe they thought she could go off and make a few more 'SG-1' straight-to-DVD films, though sadly only one more would be forthcoming (to date). Maybe it wasn't well enough received, I'll have to watch and report on that one soon. In terms of this series, though, it is strange to jump almost right back into it rather than taking a few months off to review something else, but I didn't want to alternate with the subsequent spinoff, 'Universe,' so it seemed more sensible to make it a marathon and go to the end of this one. I'm relieved to see that all the rest of the cast are safely ensconced (relatively - look what happened to Weir and Beckett...), in the opening titles as I really thought Ronon was a goner, and of course Teyla could also have been written out. McKay is the essential one, as is Sheppard, and the gang's all here. Bizarrely, we even get one flash of a cameo from a past cast member, with Rainbow Sun Francks making a shock appearance in Sheppard's dream, so I'm guessing Ford will be playing some sort of role in an episode at least, because I can't believe they'd bring him in just for one line.
Regarding this episode itself it's mostly all action, all the time, and they don't even hide the fact it's basically all Trek terminology, with talk of beaming in and out, away teams, all the stuff we expect from the Trek world (even the Jumper reminds me of a Runabout), but that's old news, I just bring it up because it seemed especially pronounced after not watching for a few weeks. There was a good sense of tension and terror for Teyla and her baby, it'll be interesting to see if Kanaan has much to do in subsequent stories - can he be saved from Michael's genetic meddling, or is he in fact a plant, the enemy within the walls? Michael isn't going to have been destroyed in the barrage that took out his cruiser, I'm sure, they'd be more likely to give him a definite sendoff, though he's not one of my favourite villains. I thought they were going the tried and tested trope of the underling with a change of heart, and Kanaan would end up doing something to sabotage his master's plans, but that never happened, which makes me suspect he's still under the programming.
One thing is that people keep making rash decisions, quite emotionally motivated, which isn't the best or most rational way to deal with things from a military point of view - obviously the big one is Sheppard so insistent he be on the mission to rescue Teyla (who, by the way, everyone assumes is on Michael's ship, but there was certainly no guarantee of that, he could just as easily have left her on another base somewhere, he seems to have plenty of resources at his disposal), and Carter's insistence that Caldwell not destroy the enemy ship was also not terribly useful when they had no definite intel to back it up. I was sure one or more of these decisions were going to come back to haunt the characters, but everything goes smoothly, unless you're McKay who is the only one available to deliver Teyla's baby! They've got a pretty good thing going with all their technology and the characters, the Daedalus and Atlantis, it's come along nicely over the years. I just hope they succeed with this final season as they have with the past couple and go out on a high. Because this was a fast-moving, entertaining start, with the occasional good little character moment plopped in, but it also suggested it was a bit of a distraction from the fact they were rearranging the pieces of the series, and very quickly, too. Hopefully there'll be chance for things to breathe and develop in the coming episodes.
***
Always a lot going on in a season opener, but it reminded me the Season 4 cliffhanger wasn't that great: a building falling down. On top of our intrepid rescue team. This conclusion to the story is a bit better than that, even if it does move the story on a little bit fast and without really giving enough time for the cast changes which are introduced. It turns out Carter is no longer in the opening credits and I think that fact distracted me enough that I didn't notice Ronon either so I spent the whole episode wondering if he was about to be killed off, and how sad now that I'd got so used to him being around that he wouldn't be there for the final season! I was very pleased to see Jewel Staite come up as Dr. Keller as I'd already suggested she should be boosted up to main cast status for her excellent job replacing Dr. Beckett (even though they very weirdly brought him back and tossed him into storage at the end of last season!), and she certainly deserved it. Robert Picardo bringing Wolsey in...? Not so sure on that one. I like Picardo a lot, he played one of the best characters in Trek, but Wolsey's a very different proposition. I understand the need to put the cat amongst the pigeons for the sake of drama, and if Carter's not going to be around any more then it stands to reason someone's going to have to take over (why not Caldwell, he's served his time defending their missions so many times!), and Wolsey was talking about it last season, but I never saw it coming, I don't know why.
I felt the changeover was a bit sudden, Carter isn't given the chance to say goodbye to what became her team, and though I don't think she had quite the right chemistry, for lack of a better word, you get used to having her around. Maybe they thought she could go off and make a few more 'SG-1' straight-to-DVD films, though sadly only one more would be forthcoming (to date). Maybe it wasn't well enough received, I'll have to watch and report on that one soon. In terms of this series, though, it is strange to jump almost right back into it rather than taking a few months off to review something else, but I didn't want to alternate with the subsequent spinoff, 'Universe,' so it seemed more sensible to make it a marathon and go to the end of this one. I'm relieved to see that all the rest of the cast are safely ensconced (relatively - look what happened to Weir and Beckett...), in the opening titles as I really thought Ronon was a goner, and of course Teyla could also have been written out. McKay is the essential one, as is Sheppard, and the gang's all here. Bizarrely, we even get one flash of a cameo from a past cast member, with Rainbow Sun Francks making a shock appearance in Sheppard's dream, so I'm guessing Ford will be playing some sort of role in an episode at least, because I can't believe they'd bring him in just for one line.
Regarding this episode itself it's mostly all action, all the time, and they don't even hide the fact it's basically all Trek terminology, with talk of beaming in and out, away teams, all the stuff we expect from the Trek world (even the Jumper reminds me of a Runabout), but that's old news, I just bring it up because it seemed especially pronounced after not watching for a few weeks. There was a good sense of tension and terror for Teyla and her baby, it'll be interesting to see if Kanaan has much to do in subsequent stories - can he be saved from Michael's genetic meddling, or is he in fact a plant, the enemy within the walls? Michael isn't going to have been destroyed in the barrage that took out his cruiser, I'm sure, they'd be more likely to give him a definite sendoff, though he's not one of my favourite villains. I thought they were going the tried and tested trope of the underling with a change of heart, and Kanaan would end up doing something to sabotage his master's plans, but that never happened, which makes me suspect he's still under the programming.
One thing is that people keep making rash decisions, quite emotionally motivated, which isn't the best or most rational way to deal with things from a military point of view - obviously the big one is Sheppard so insistent he be on the mission to rescue Teyla (who, by the way, everyone assumes is on Michael's ship, but there was certainly no guarantee of that, he could just as easily have left her on another base somewhere, he seems to have plenty of resources at his disposal), and Carter's insistence that Caldwell not destroy the enemy ship was also not terribly useful when they had no definite intel to back it up. I was sure one or more of these decisions were going to come back to haunt the characters, but everything goes smoothly, unless you're McKay who is the only one available to deliver Teyla's baby! They've got a pretty good thing going with all their technology and the characters, the Daedalus and Atlantis, it's come along nicely over the years. I just hope they succeed with this final season as they have with the past couple and go out on a high. Because this was a fast-moving, entertaining start, with the occasional good little character moment plopped in, but it also suggested it was a bit of a distraction from the fact they were rearranging the pieces of the series, and very quickly, too. Hopefully there'll be chance for things to breathe and develop in the coming episodes.
***
Friday, 2 September 2022
Goldeneye 007 (Wii)
Wii, Goldeneye 007 (2010) game
How, is the question. How could you? How could you even consider remaking one of the best games ever made? Because it's a guaranteed bait to hook a sizeable proportion of the potential customer base, to bring it down to marketing basics: you stand to make a packet, even if it's a poor game, based on the name alone (after all, isn't this what licensed titles have been doing forever, and isn't this one of the most amazing things about the original that it defied the trend and turned out better than the film it was based on?). Why they didn't simply do an exact copy of the original with improved graphics and enemy AI, with maybe the odd surprise thrown in ('hey, that corridor wasn't in the original Bunker,' that kind of thing), I cannot fathom. I suppose there wasn't much creativity in simply porting and tidying up an old, established title, but I suspect most gamers, especially anyone that ever played on an N64, would have preferred a direct port. At least include an exact replica within whatever monstrosity you deem to be worth tarnishing the name of a golden-eyed classic! But no, they wanted to entirely remake it in their own image. Not only that, but even more commercial interests meant booting out the original cast (other than Judi Dench's 'M,' since she appears in that role across both eras), and replacing Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Robbie Coltrane, etc, with Daniel Craig, the guy that played Tanner, and a new voice cast. It surely can't have been expense that meant they couldn't get these old actors back to reprise their roles fifteen years after the film, so it must have been purely motivated by brand recognition: Craig's the current Bond so we must have him.
I know it makes sense from a business point of view, and perhaps the market wasn't quite as nostalgia-heavy then as it is now, but to me, getting the cast involved would have seemed like an exciting way to inject newness into an old property. Instead, they preferred their newness to be of a lesser quality, and I don't mean the acting skills of the replacements, I'm talking about the gameplay itself. The Wii wasn't best suited to first-person shooters, as I discovered playing 'Red Steel,' the sword and gunnery game that started it all. Aiming directly on screen is fiddly and no substitute for the immediate control and range of movement of an analogue stick. It's at this juncture I have to come clean and admit I didn't enter into the spirit of the game entirely, expecting it to be a fairly poor knockoff, a cynical cash-in on the love generated by the amazing original (still amazing - I played it earlier this year, which is what prompted me to want to tackle this version). So I didn't play it the way it was intended, with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. And I didn't start at one of the lower difficulty levels (Operative or Agent), I went straight to the toughest one, 007 (although that's debatable as 007 Classic, where you don't have the ability to regenerate health by standing still, is back to the original's style of health gauge that can only be bolstered by finding body armour, making the game a different prospect from charging around trying to find cover before you die).
My rationale was that I didn't want to spend months going through a game I didn't expect to like, pootling through each difficulty level until they were all done, much the same as I'd approached both 'Goldeneye' and 'The World Is Not Enough' earlier in the year, though in those cases I'd already completed them plenty of times and there wouldn't have been a challenge in wasting time on the lower difficulties. In this case it was purely a time-saver and my confidence was up after going through those former games with flying colours. I also refused to mess about with the ugly control scheme based on the Remote and went straight in with the option of the GameCube's controller. These choices didn't particularly endear me to the game, it must be said, because 007 is quite tough, and when you don't know exactly what you're doing or the idiosyncrasies of a game, especially one you're expecting to be a certain way, it makes things less accessible and you feel more aggrieved at certain changes in gameplay and style. The 'Cube pad also reminded me why FPS' on that system had never worked very well, unlike the N64 which was renowned for the genre (as well as 'Goldeneye' and 'TWINE' the Turok series and 'Perfect Dark' stood out). The main problem is the C-stick is no substitute for C-buttons that give that precise and immediate control. Then there are the terrible analogue shoulder buttons that must have seemed like a grand idea when first implemented for things such as 'Wave Race: Blue Storm,' but are not helpful when you're using them as the trigger of a gun!
All in all the control scheme, though I got it as close to the original style as possible, wasn't entirely satisfactory. In the interests of balance I should say that once I'd completed the game I did go back and try the first Time Trial with the Wii Remote setup, but quickly reverted to a 'Cube pad within a few minutes! All of this speaks to the fact I found the game harder to play than I expected and when you add in the irritations and changes I wasn't very drawn in by the game. What irritations, you may ask? Grenades. I get it, they're there to prevent the player from hunkering down and picking off soldiers one by one, forcing you to break cover or retreat to avoid these explosives all the guards seem to carry. They can be extremely frustrating, especially if you get caught on a piece of scenery. You can't run backwards, either (yes, there's a run button, but more on that later), and turning could be slow, so I found it frustrating to constantly have to deal with these grenades rather than playing through in my own way. Restrictive is the word I'd use for the gameplay. Sure, 'Goldeneye' had a lot of levels that were mostly linear, as did 'TWINE,' but within the structure you still had a feeling of empowerment, for the most part. You knew, for example, when a guard was about to throw a grenade, if you shot him before he pulled the pin, you could go and grab the weapon and use it yourself - there was that Mario sense of freedom and experimentation, things weren't locked in stone.
In 'Goldeneye' Wii (as I choose to denote it), everything is very much a rigid, programmed, linear sequence. Even levels that are versions of the N64 game's most freeform parts, such as 'Facility,' 'Archives' and 'Bunker' (and even the 'Surface'), are tightly controlled A-to-B journeys. And there's a personal radar! At first I really didn't like that aspect, why would you need what is essentially a multiplayer component in a single-player environment? But I did come round to it eventually because you do need to know roughly how many red dots (I mean enemy soldiers), are in the immediate area, and more importantly where you are to go. That's the biggest culture shock, really, as the levels are so disorienting by their graphical choices and uncertain options that without a map and compass it's easy to get lost, even though they are pretty linear: the smoke effects and sense of confusion of a battlefield are well worked, I will say that, but too many of the levels are so incredibly dark that if you play during the daytime you have to turn the brightness level to maximum and still it can be hard to see! It doesn't seem to affect whether enemies see you, either, nor is there the ability to shoot out lights (as in 'PD'), so it's not like they were taking 'Splinter Cell' and such, and bringing that side of gameplay into the tactics. Granted, a lot of it is knowing the levels, and if you play through on the easier difficulties that's how you learn the layouts and become familiar with where to go and what to do, so I had made it more tricky than I needed to, so getting bottlenecked and dying over and over again before eventually getting past a squad, was partly my own fault for trying to get through the game quicker.
Another issue is really just a common one in all games: consistency. Sometimes you can climb up or over something, other times the game won't let you, but I'm not going to rag on that too much since it's a common trope of games, and total freedom would be very difficult to achieve, especially within the confines of a story-led experience. The levels tend to be quite long, at least for first exposure, many taking over an hour on my first attempt so I couldn't imagine how it would be possible to get even close to the Time Trial times, giving me a sense of my own lack of ability. But again, knowledge is power... The addition of Checkpoints where progress is automatically saved, made things easier and the length of the levels made it seem an obvious necessity. But there were still other irritants to get my goat. For instance, yes, it's ridiculous that Bond (or anyone for that matter), can lug ten different weapons around with him, so in the interests of realism the makers limit the player to three in this game - you can't drop your PP9 Silenced Pistol, naturally, which means you have to decide which two weapons you find along the way are most germane to that particular point of a given mission. Do I really need a Sniper Rifle or is an automatic a better choice here? It's supposed to give you a sense of tactics in the real world where you can only carry so much, but it adds another layer of restriction on proceedings, though I did come to accept it as I got used to the idea.
Another bizarre concession to realism is that in certain levels you're forced to walk around at a snail's pace because in a public area people would be alarmed if someone started running around at top speed, I suppose. But in both the 'Nightclub' and the start of the 'Carrier' level it's supremely frustrating (especially in the Time Trials), when you've got used to slapping the A-button for a burst of running speed (a necessary addition to the style of gameplay), to be limited to ambling along! And while we're on that subject, the fact you have to sit through the cutscenes... Every. Single... Tiiiiiiiiiiime... is hair-tearingly annoying. Even the original let you skip them and they were short back then. These can go on for minutes and it's just another example of the lack of intuition for how people are going to play. It's possible it was done for technical reasons, that the game couldn't cope if you jumped straight to the action, or, and I hope this isn't the case, it was deliberate so as to increase your coiled springiness that when you finally get past a scene you want to burst out at top speed. I suspect the technical side, though - these weren't Rare coders, after all. The other thing that gets a bit old is how everything is geared towards throwing you into things, in the spirit of the Craig-era films where the camera was whirling around until you felt like you were right there in the midst of the action, taking part, rather than watching it from a superior vantage point. Again, I see why they were doing all this, and it makes more sense from the perspective of trying to integrate the Wii's motion sensitive, gesture-based controls, but it's all gimmick, mostly like the Wii itself.
For most of the time I was playing I felt it was an average game, not one that I hated or was a painful chore to get through, so in that sense I was thinking 'two stars plus' as a rating (if I did 'pluses'), just under three stars, the benchmark of a good game. Like a few titles I've played in recent years (I think of 'Jet Force Gemini' and 'TWINE' as good examples), it was really once the main game was over that I started to enjoy it more and get into it - in this case the Time Trials. Where once I couldn't imagine getting close to the draconian time limits, I began to see that with careful use of speed and picking your fights, you could rush through many areas, which actually made the game a little easier, rather than getting bogged down in firefights before progressing. Learning a new way of playing and feeling more empowered through knowing what you were doing and where you were going gave the game a new lease of life and pushed it into the three star category for me. I'm not going to say it's anywhere close to being a great game as the original was, and still is, but it's a game I'll take fond memories of, and I can imagine in a decade or so coming back to it again. I'm tempted to try the 007 Classic mode if I can get through all the Time Trials, but the multiplayer is something I'm not likely to play, not having internet buddies, and the fact there's not a single Bot to play against, which is criminal when you think that as far back as 'TWINE' and 'PD' they were able to have AI-controlled opponents.
There were occasional technical issues (one that stands out is in the 'Bunker' where if you crouch through a doorway at the top you can fall through into a part of the lower levels, but can't progress), but the artificial intelligence was certainly of a higher standard, enemies able to run and jump for cover, not staying in one place, but dashing around, firing as they went, even shooting from cover. One of the things that grew on me as I came to accept the game was the takedown option where you use a button combination to punch out an opponent silently, but it also meant the enemy could do the same to you. Unlike the slapping in 'PD' (one of the worst additions in that game!), which made the screen blur sickeningly, there's only the roller-coaster action of attack seen through your eyes, which is over in seconds, and it made a useful option in your armoury, for example, if you ran out of ammo or were suddenly surprised. There is still a partial emphasis on staying quiet and taking out the enemy silently where you can, though headshots can sometimes fail to be fatal, which is bizarre, but I think it's more to do with the inaccuracy of the game - sometimes you can be shooting at the enemy, aiming at them, but hitting the scenery in front of you, so it's far from perfect (though it is dark).
I didn't like the updating of the story, along with all the other changes, because you go in expecting 'Goldeneye' and that's what you want. Early on among my first thoughts were that it was a military grade slog, though I came to understand, in the ways I've highlighted above, that there were good things about the game, and while the early experiences were more of a challenge to my patience and forbearance than my ability, I came through and out the other side to be fairly positive about the game. I could even go so far as to say some parts were better than the original (not many, but the 'Statue' level in the first game was fairly basic, whereas it was a bit more involving in this version). But for every good thing there was something that annoyed - what about that screen blurring when you change clips in your weapon? Again, an attempt at realism, since your eyes wouldn't be focused on the background if you're looking down at a weapon, but it was just one of those things that really made life more difficult and seemed designed to annoy rather than improve the game! And while there were hints of the original's music (such as when you die, and the blood runs down the screen), I found myself thinking more of the 'Mission: Impossible' films than Bond, and talking of dying, you don't even get the satisfaction of seeing who or what killed you, and from where, something that mitigated the helplessness of wiping out in the original, and enabling you to learn from your mistakes.
It was fun to recognise a couple of names in the credits (Jonathan Aris has been in so many things, including 'BUGS,' and Alec Newman made an impact on 'Enterprise,' even though I hated Robbie Coltrane's Valentin Zukovsky being replaced!), I quite liked that the game hit the majority of the locations from the original, and most importantly, it was impressive that it grew on me rather than ending up being hated by me for daring to tread on the toes of a superb original. Because you can't redo the best things, and to try is to be arrogant and unwise. But taken as its own thing, putting up with the various niggles and flaws, I would say it can be a game to be enjoyed. As long as you forget about the original and don't try to compare the two. James Bond, in some ways, did return.
***
How, is the question. How could you? How could you even consider remaking one of the best games ever made? Because it's a guaranteed bait to hook a sizeable proportion of the potential customer base, to bring it down to marketing basics: you stand to make a packet, even if it's a poor game, based on the name alone (after all, isn't this what licensed titles have been doing forever, and isn't this one of the most amazing things about the original that it defied the trend and turned out better than the film it was based on?). Why they didn't simply do an exact copy of the original with improved graphics and enemy AI, with maybe the odd surprise thrown in ('hey, that corridor wasn't in the original Bunker,' that kind of thing), I cannot fathom. I suppose there wasn't much creativity in simply porting and tidying up an old, established title, but I suspect most gamers, especially anyone that ever played on an N64, would have preferred a direct port. At least include an exact replica within whatever monstrosity you deem to be worth tarnishing the name of a golden-eyed classic! But no, they wanted to entirely remake it in their own image. Not only that, but even more commercial interests meant booting out the original cast (other than Judi Dench's 'M,' since she appears in that role across both eras), and replacing Pierce Brosnan, Sean Bean, Robbie Coltrane, etc, with Daniel Craig, the guy that played Tanner, and a new voice cast. It surely can't have been expense that meant they couldn't get these old actors back to reprise their roles fifteen years after the film, so it must have been purely motivated by brand recognition: Craig's the current Bond so we must have him.
I know it makes sense from a business point of view, and perhaps the market wasn't quite as nostalgia-heavy then as it is now, but to me, getting the cast involved would have seemed like an exciting way to inject newness into an old property. Instead, they preferred their newness to be of a lesser quality, and I don't mean the acting skills of the replacements, I'm talking about the gameplay itself. The Wii wasn't best suited to first-person shooters, as I discovered playing 'Red Steel,' the sword and gunnery game that started it all. Aiming directly on screen is fiddly and no substitute for the immediate control and range of movement of an analogue stick. It's at this juncture I have to come clean and admit I didn't enter into the spirit of the game entirely, expecting it to be a fairly poor knockoff, a cynical cash-in on the love generated by the amazing original (still amazing - I played it earlier this year, which is what prompted me to want to tackle this version). So I didn't play it the way it was intended, with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. And I didn't start at one of the lower difficulty levels (Operative or Agent), I went straight to the toughest one, 007 (although that's debatable as 007 Classic, where you don't have the ability to regenerate health by standing still, is back to the original's style of health gauge that can only be bolstered by finding body armour, making the game a different prospect from charging around trying to find cover before you die).
My rationale was that I didn't want to spend months going through a game I didn't expect to like, pootling through each difficulty level until they were all done, much the same as I'd approached both 'Goldeneye' and 'The World Is Not Enough' earlier in the year, though in those cases I'd already completed them plenty of times and there wouldn't have been a challenge in wasting time on the lower difficulties. In this case it was purely a time-saver and my confidence was up after going through those former games with flying colours. I also refused to mess about with the ugly control scheme based on the Remote and went straight in with the option of the GameCube's controller. These choices didn't particularly endear me to the game, it must be said, because 007 is quite tough, and when you don't know exactly what you're doing or the idiosyncrasies of a game, especially one you're expecting to be a certain way, it makes things less accessible and you feel more aggrieved at certain changes in gameplay and style. The 'Cube pad also reminded me why FPS' on that system had never worked very well, unlike the N64 which was renowned for the genre (as well as 'Goldeneye' and 'TWINE' the Turok series and 'Perfect Dark' stood out). The main problem is the C-stick is no substitute for C-buttons that give that precise and immediate control. Then there are the terrible analogue shoulder buttons that must have seemed like a grand idea when first implemented for things such as 'Wave Race: Blue Storm,' but are not helpful when you're using them as the trigger of a gun!
All in all the control scheme, though I got it as close to the original style as possible, wasn't entirely satisfactory. In the interests of balance I should say that once I'd completed the game I did go back and try the first Time Trial with the Wii Remote setup, but quickly reverted to a 'Cube pad within a few minutes! All of this speaks to the fact I found the game harder to play than I expected and when you add in the irritations and changes I wasn't very drawn in by the game. What irritations, you may ask? Grenades. I get it, they're there to prevent the player from hunkering down and picking off soldiers one by one, forcing you to break cover or retreat to avoid these explosives all the guards seem to carry. They can be extremely frustrating, especially if you get caught on a piece of scenery. You can't run backwards, either (yes, there's a run button, but more on that later), and turning could be slow, so I found it frustrating to constantly have to deal with these grenades rather than playing through in my own way. Restrictive is the word I'd use for the gameplay. Sure, 'Goldeneye' had a lot of levels that were mostly linear, as did 'TWINE,' but within the structure you still had a feeling of empowerment, for the most part. You knew, for example, when a guard was about to throw a grenade, if you shot him before he pulled the pin, you could go and grab the weapon and use it yourself - there was that Mario sense of freedom and experimentation, things weren't locked in stone.
In 'Goldeneye' Wii (as I choose to denote it), everything is very much a rigid, programmed, linear sequence. Even levels that are versions of the N64 game's most freeform parts, such as 'Facility,' 'Archives' and 'Bunker' (and even the 'Surface'), are tightly controlled A-to-B journeys. And there's a personal radar! At first I really didn't like that aspect, why would you need what is essentially a multiplayer component in a single-player environment? But I did come round to it eventually because you do need to know roughly how many red dots (I mean enemy soldiers), are in the immediate area, and more importantly where you are to go. That's the biggest culture shock, really, as the levels are so disorienting by their graphical choices and uncertain options that without a map and compass it's easy to get lost, even though they are pretty linear: the smoke effects and sense of confusion of a battlefield are well worked, I will say that, but too many of the levels are so incredibly dark that if you play during the daytime you have to turn the brightness level to maximum and still it can be hard to see! It doesn't seem to affect whether enemies see you, either, nor is there the ability to shoot out lights (as in 'PD'), so it's not like they were taking 'Splinter Cell' and such, and bringing that side of gameplay into the tactics. Granted, a lot of it is knowing the levels, and if you play through on the easier difficulties that's how you learn the layouts and become familiar with where to go and what to do, so I had made it more tricky than I needed to, so getting bottlenecked and dying over and over again before eventually getting past a squad, was partly my own fault for trying to get through the game quicker.
Another issue is really just a common one in all games: consistency. Sometimes you can climb up or over something, other times the game won't let you, but I'm not going to rag on that too much since it's a common trope of games, and total freedom would be very difficult to achieve, especially within the confines of a story-led experience. The levels tend to be quite long, at least for first exposure, many taking over an hour on my first attempt so I couldn't imagine how it would be possible to get even close to the Time Trial times, giving me a sense of my own lack of ability. But again, knowledge is power... The addition of Checkpoints where progress is automatically saved, made things easier and the length of the levels made it seem an obvious necessity. But there were still other irritants to get my goat. For instance, yes, it's ridiculous that Bond (or anyone for that matter), can lug ten different weapons around with him, so in the interests of realism the makers limit the player to three in this game - you can't drop your PP9 Silenced Pistol, naturally, which means you have to decide which two weapons you find along the way are most germane to that particular point of a given mission. Do I really need a Sniper Rifle or is an automatic a better choice here? It's supposed to give you a sense of tactics in the real world where you can only carry so much, but it adds another layer of restriction on proceedings, though I did come to accept it as I got used to the idea.
Another bizarre concession to realism is that in certain levels you're forced to walk around at a snail's pace because in a public area people would be alarmed if someone started running around at top speed, I suppose. But in both the 'Nightclub' and the start of the 'Carrier' level it's supremely frustrating (especially in the Time Trials), when you've got used to slapping the A-button for a burst of running speed (a necessary addition to the style of gameplay), to be limited to ambling along! And while we're on that subject, the fact you have to sit through the cutscenes... Every. Single... Tiiiiiiiiiiime... is hair-tearingly annoying. Even the original let you skip them and they were short back then. These can go on for minutes and it's just another example of the lack of intuition for how people are going to play. It's possible it was done for technical reasons, that the game couldn't cope if you jumped straight to the action, or, and I hope this isn't the case, it was deliberate so as to increase your coiled springiness that when you finally get past a scene you want to burst out at top speed. I suspect the technical side, though - these weren't Rare coders, after all. The other thing that gets a bit old is how everything is geared towards throwing you into things, in the spirit of the Craig-era films where the camera was whirling around until you felt like you were right there in the midst of the action, taking part, rather than watching it from a superior vantage point. Again, I see why they were doing all this, and it makes more sense from the perspective of trying to integrate the Wii's motion sensitive, gesture-based controls, but it's all gimmick, mostly like the Wii itself.
For most of the time I was playing I felt it was an average game, not one that I hated or was a painful chore to get through, so in that sense I was thinking 'two stars plus' as a rating (if I did 'pluses'), just under three stars, the benchmark of a good game. Like a few titles I've played in recent years (I think of 'Jet Force Gemini' and 'TWINE' as good examples), it was really once the main game was over that I started to enjoy it more and get into it - in this case the Time Trials. Where once I couldn't imagine getting close to the draconian time limits, I began to see that with careful use of speed and picking your fights, you could rush through many areas, which actually made the game a little easier, rather than getting bogged down in firefights before progressing. Learning a new way of playing and feeling more empowered through knowing what you were doing and where you were going gave the game a new lease of life and pushed it into the three star category for me. I'm not going to say it's anywhere close to being a great game as the original was, and still is, but it's a game I'll take fond memories of, and I can imagine in a decade or so coming back to it again. I'm tempted to try the 007 Classic mode if I can get through all the Time Trials, but the multiplayer is something I'm not likely to play, not having internet buddies, and the fact there's not a single Bot to play against, which is criminal when you think that as far back as 'TWINE' and 'PD' they were able to have AI-controlled opponents.
There were occasional technical issues (one that stands out is in the 'Bunker' where if you crouch through a doorway at the top you can fall through into a part of the lower levels, but can't progress), but the artificial intelligence was certainly of a higher standard, enemies able to run and jump for cover, not staying in one place, but dashing around, firing as they went, even shooting from cover. One of the things that grew on me as I came to accept the game was the takedown option where you use a button combination to punch out an opponent silently, but it also meant the enemy could do the same to you. Unlike the slapping in 'PD' (one of the worst additions in that game!), which made the screen blur sickeningly, there's only the roller-coaster action of attack seen through your eyes, which is over in seconds, and it made a useful option in your armoury, for example, if you ran out of ammo or were suddenly surprised. There is still a partial emphasis on staying quiet and taking out the enemy silently where you can, though headshots can sometimes fail to be fatal, which is bizarre, but I think it's more to do with the inaccuracy of the game - sometimes you can be shooting at the enemy, aiming at them, but hitting the scenery in front of you, so it's far from perfect (though it is dark).
I didn't like the updating of the story, along with all the other changes, because you go in expecting 'Goldeneye' and that's what you want. Early on among my first thoughts were that it was a military grade slog, though I came to understand, in the ways I've highlighted above, that there were good things about the game, and while the early experiences were more of a challenge to my patience and forbearance than my ability, I came through and out the other side to be fairly positive about the game. I could even go so far as to say some parts were better than the original (not many, but the 'Statue' level in the first game was fairly basic, whereas it was a bit more involving in this version). But for every good thing there was something that annoyed - what about that screen blurring when you change clips in your weapon? Again, an attempt at realism, since your eyes wouldn't be focused on the background if you're looking down at a weapon, but it was just one of those things that really made life more difficult and seemed designed to annoy rather than improve the game! And while there were hints of the original's music (such as when you die, and the blood runs down the screen), I found myself thinking more of the 'Mission: Impossible' films than Bond, and talking of dying, you don't even get the satisfaction of seeing who or what killed you, and from where, something that mitigated the helplessness of wiping out in the original, and enabling you to learn from your mistakes.
It was fun to recognise a couple of names in the credits (Jonathan Aris has been in so many things, including 'BUGS,' and Alec Newman made an impact on 'Enterprise,' even though I hated Robbie Coltrane's Valentin Zukovsky being replaced!), I quite liked that the game hit the majority of the locations from the original, and most importantly, it was impressive that it grew on me rather than ending up being hated by me for daring to tread on the toes of a superb original. Because you can't redo the best things, and to try is to be arrogant and unwise. But taken as its own thing, putting up with the various niggles and flaws, I would say it can be a game to be enjoyed. As long as you forget about the original and don't try to compare the two. James Bond, in some ways, did return.
***
The Enemy Within
DVD, BUGS S4 (The Enemy Within)
It's hard to let go. After a year of going through the series, revisiting, reviewing, analysing, enjoying, it feels like the last time I'm going to watch what is one of my favourite series' of all I've seen. It doesn't have to be, of course, and perhaps in future, now that I don't have to watch with a critical or analytical eye I might perhaps sling on an episode any time I feel like it - the main reason I didn't watch it since the late-2000s was because I knew I'd have to go into detail and write reviews. But the series has truly ended for me now, where that wasn't entirely the case in previous watches: in 1999 I didn't even realise this would be the last we'd ever get, these three episodes chopped off the tail-end of Season 4 in 1998, but there was still the prospect of seeing more of the series and within a couple of years I had a video of the first two episodes, which I'd never seen before. Then the DVDs coming out in 2004 gave me access to every episode, including one or two I'd missed and the whole of the first series, and then again, finally in 2007, meeting Craig McLachlan and having him say there might be more 'BUGS' coming, so watching through that last time came with new hope of what might be to come. But that never materialised, the message boards fell silent and there seemed no more likelihood of it returning as the actors aged and technology moved on. And I've even come to the conclusion, having seen what was done to first 'Dr. Who,' then 'Star Wars,' and finally 'Star Trek,' that it's a good thing there won't be a revival, as it would be twisted and used for whatever agenda suited the 'bright young things' of today.
In a sense, then, the series is dead, but it will always live on in my memory as a formative experience of childhood. I don't remember sitting down to view this final ever episode, probably because it wasn't known as that, it was just the last in the current series, but it doesn't work as well for being a finale as it might have done as just another episode between others. It has a great ending, a great beginning, it's just the middle where it sags a little, despite there being plenty of good ideas. The biggest is the way it actually ends, they were clearly trying to replicate the success they'd had with 'Renegades' at the end of Season 3, hoping they'd be picked up for Season 5, but that was much better put together, the whole episode being a rip-roaring success, whereas this was significantly more low-key: it's 'another' kidnapping, only this time we're allowed to witness it take place, both Ros and Beckett held at gunpoint in a limousine by Stefano, an old friend of Adam's from his university days, then the guy driving, who gives the impression of being a chauffeur, the little we see of him, possibly one of those caps on, an impression of being quite large, arched eyebrows... surely it can't be Jean-Daniel, the series' standout villain? I do think this is what we were intended to think, it's a shame they couldn't stretch to getting Gareth Marks and to show him for definite, but this way the mystery can be preserved: it's someone with an artificially disguised voice, someone Beckett seems to recognise, and someone he thought was dead...
If they did get Season 5 they might not have been able to get Marks. If they didn't get Marks they couldn't do JD. This way they leave their options open, and there's certainly no telling for sure that they intended to bring back the evil Frenchman from the dead, but it would have been an absolute jaw-dropper if they had. It's hard to see where wishful thinking ends and reality begins, but bringing back characters was something they liked to do (in this episode we have Dent of The Hive, Adam Mosby, Christa, Ros' Mother, Coral, and not forgetting Wagner the cat, too!), and you can read the 'clues' of the blue digital face from the previous episode, and I'd completely forgotten we actually see 'Technopolis' and the Technopolis Tower (or at least the building upon which a digital extension was added in 'A Cage For Satan'), as they run around in the same locations used for that (complete with those statues of people, and the deserted streets that would bring to mind the modern babel of Season 2). It's hard, when the series was so insistent on reminding viewers of past continuity, not to take these hints as deliberate clues, though even if it was all intentional rather than mere production conveniences, it could have been a misdirect for whatever the real story was - I'm under the impression the writers (Frank De Palma and Terry Borst for these last couple of stories), didn't know what they were going to do, and as Stephen Gallagher (always keen to point out he had nothing to do with the fourth year!), said in his interview on the boxed set, he suspects that, too, as that's how you end on a cliffhanger and try to get your audience excitedly speculating.
I've always liked to think it was JD - you can explain the distorted voice by his vocal cords being damaged in the explosion at the Tower, and as we know from Season 3's 'Fugitive,' his body was never found. Whether that means it was incinerated or he somehow crawled away, half-dead, we'll never know, but that kind of miraculous survival and return is what films and TV are made of - you can never keep a great villain down. Except in 'BUGS' it does go against the tradition of most of the enemies being killed off - even here we see half of the dangerous duo falling to his death from an external inspection lift. Wymark didn't do anything in this episode to make him seem cleverer, and the dunce-like behaviour of not accepting Ed's hand to help him up onto the roof because he refuses to leave without 'his' money was ludicrous. Clearly he wasn't going to be able to keep the money, but he was too dim to realise and instead slips and plunges to a glass and concrete death, suitably for the final episode among some good 'BUGS' buildings. As well as Technopolis we also see old favourites such as the dock area with the black chains, used a number of times, the Docklands Light Railway, the Millennium Dome and even Canary Wharf Tower one last time, so they really enjoyed showing off London sights, just as in the first part (and was the wedding reception held at Kew Gardens?). It was also especially well directed with a fluidity and an in your face approach, while also using little tricks like a canted angle to assist the impression of Jan's spiralling sense of grief and confusion as she stumbles away down a corridor at the hospital, the picture blurring out.
The strong direction somewhat covers the fact that the episode isn't one of the stronger examples: in its defence it has one of the best teasers of the entire run, expertly weaving together a montage of key scenes from previous episode 'Money Spiders,' before giving us Adam doing for the Mini what hadn't been done since 'The Italian Job,' swinging it around the tight spaces of a car park atop The Hive like a pro (and we get to see more of that building than we'd ever seen since the first episode, a nice touch that the first and last episodes filmed there), while being shot at by agents (is the implication supposed to be these are Hive agents or could they be a contingent of SSD - Dent does throw out one last reference later on, saying Wymark and Zephyr can be picked up by them), and then it's into those wonderful opening credits that never fail to bring waves of nostalgia and excitement crawling up the back, reminding me how much I'm going to miss going through the series. The ending lives up to things, too, the shocking death of Adam, Alex' grief as Ed and Jan move back out of her space, and then Ros and Beckett captured... Then we have Jan's emotional breakdown, fleeing her role as DOIC, and Dent pouncing, showing up as Acting DOIC - I can't help feel that was a plot that should have been part of the cliffhanger: will Dent remain in command, or will Jan be reinstated? It was terrific to see him in the environs of Bureau 2 and it was the backlash of the cooperation between services that had been, if not building across the season, certainly in evidence, and it's typical that such a positive thing could be turned against our team, especially, as Beckett says, Jan is the Bureau. Without her this incarnation wouldn't exist!
I felt there was more to explore there, and a Season 5 that began with half the team resigning and Beckett trying to keep things together while being disgusted with Dent's conflicting ideology, would have created some unique drama for the series. Dent's belief is that Bureau 2 has been given too much latitude so he's going to come in and see that everything is done by the book, a threat to the very nature of the organisation, which is why it's somewhat triumphant when Jan pulls herself together and comes in confidently zapping electronic devices and taking charge again. I'm not quite sure what caused her to change her mind, and it could have been played up more, but it's the right idea. No, I think the problems of the episode are to do with the fact that one of the team, Ros, is almost entirely confined to a hospital bed other than an amazing recovery in time for Alex and Adam's wedding. It's never a good idea to remove one of the key characters for the majority of an episode, and it also means we're robbed of the team working together as a trio, plus Alex and Jan, one final time. Instead, it's more like Ed and Beckett chasing down the villains, with Jan, Adam and Alex joining in. The other issue are the small stakes the villains are playing for: yes, £150 million is a lot, but the only victim is going to be the bank who they defraud, and we're not meant to like Chichester, this fake-smile, suave and untrustworthy type. The impression is the bank is a bit slimy and operates with no questions asked, very unethical, so the only motivation is in catching the villains to make them pay for what they did to Ros.
Ah yes, what they did to Ros... Somehow, despite facing upwards toward Zephyr's gun, she actually got shot in the back of the head, the bullet seen to go up towards her brain, so I'm not sure that was physically possible from the way she was hanging at the end of the last episode! Not that that's a particular problem, we can skip over such things without too much thought - it is an action series, after all! Another odd thing was Zephyr calling Wymark by his surname. They seem quite close so you'd think she'd call him Gordon, or some pet name. Maybe he likes her stern insistence on using the surname? While I'm making observations, it seems Adam follows the Bureau team in his refusal to countenance gun use - instead of picking up Zephyr's dropped weapon and training it on her, he instead takes the time to remove the bullets so when she manages to grab it and is about to fire on Alex, she comes up short! I understand it's for dramatic convention, we think this is it, and then surprise, but you'd think a Hive agent would have been fully firearms-trained and happy to use it judging by all the gunplay that goes on when they're hunting the disk-stealer at The Hive. I suppose there was the chance Zephyr might have used Alex as a shield, and Adam didn't want that...
There were a few references mentioned - Angela is called by Alex when she needs a new car after Adam's taken her mini, though we don't see or hear her. She was seen in 'Absent Friends' and credited in 'Sacrifice To Science,' both at the start of the season. Then there's the fun reference to Gizmo's Alex makes. Okay, maybe this was just her talking about one of her gadgets, but I'm sure the writers deliberately had her refer to it as a gizmo as one last tribute to the original organisation our team comprised. And on the list of locations that have the new G5 computer chip, Marine Command is included, which must be a reference to Beckett's time there. I believe the G4 Power Macs were just coming out in the late-90s, or were at least on the horizon (I had one in 2000), so I'm guessing that's why they chose 'G5' as the chip name to make it sound a little more futuristic. It's typical 'BUGS' coincidence that the one our villains go for at Central Teaching Hospital at exactly the same time as a specialist is using the technology to remove Ros' bullet! And there must be backups for this tech, surely? I don't mean the electrical backup as that was accounted for - Wymark shot up both mains and backup when Ed's chasing them (that was one thing the two Ed's had in common as McLachlan's version chased after Elena as she shot at him in 'Out of The Hive'!). Though it doesn't seem a good idea to have both systems in the same place! No, I mean what if the computer failed, wouldn't they have a manual system for the operation? If not it shows the limits of relying on technology.
I'm not sure I'd have entirely believed Ed sitting vigil at Ros' bedside when he's usually the one to be in the thick of the action, while Beckett thinks he has to catch those that put her there. Then again, this Ed has been more reticent to get involved: you only have to look at the first episode of the season where Beckett refuses to accept Ros' 'death' while Ed's already advising him not to go chasing after evidence she's not really dead, so maybe he lost a little backbone or something. It's academic anyway as he soon joins Beckett in the hunt. I must mention that female doctor who seems so interested and fascinated by Ros' case, explaining the operation in detail to a distraught Mother with all the tact and sensitivity of a scientist lecturing on experiments! But the series always did do a strange mix of minor characters - take the non-speaking role of the delivery man in the car park, he's a typically eccentric addition, first moving out the way, taking cover when he hears gunshots and finally having to leap clear of the speeding mini! The series never forgot its roots in English ITC-type fun drama, even though this season had taken things more into traditional dramatic style with subplots of marriages and friction between characters. It can't be denied that it remains the weakest season, but for the series it's still good fun for the most part.
But what of those tallies I've had going throughout? Well, I counted twenty-one explosions this season with a grand total across the series of one hundred and thirty-seven, while there were a mere four countdowns and a total of forty-two in the series, and apparently only five deaths on screen (I was very strict in only counting those that you see the actual moment of death rather than, for example in this episode, Wymark plunging to his doom, but we don't see the impact, naturally!), with the total being sixty-one. And that pretty much sums up the series. The Bureau building appeared in nineteen episodes, The Hive in six, with the replacement Grand Cherokee Jeep making it to fourteen. And if that was indeed Jean-Daniel at the end he'd have been on his ninth appearance, Dent was on his fourth, Christa on her fifth (Beckett looked like he was having second thoughts about bringing her to the wedding!), and Adam sixth, with Coral on her third. Continuity definitely seemed to be the watchword for the season, it's just a shame they moved away from the pulse-pounding escalations of tension, though they did their best to try and inject it here and there. Saturday nights would never be the same again for me, and they haven't been since it ended. It wasn't a perfect series, but it forever made its mark on me and will never be forgotten. What a series overall, one that will never be equalled for me in its unique blend of action and friendship. Thank you to all the writers, directors, actors and production staff, you did a great job. Oops, got to go: there's a countdown and I've got three seconds to get out of the–
***
It's hard to let go. After a year of going through the series, revisiting, reviewing, analysing, enjoying, it feels like the last time I'm going to watch what is one of my favourite series' of all I've seen. It doesn't have to be, of course, and perhaps in future, now that I don't have to watch with a critical or analytical eye I might perhaps sling on an episode any time I feel like it - the main reason I didn't watch it since the late-2000s was because I knew I'd have to go into detail and write reviews. But the series has truly ended for me now, where that wasn't entirely the case in previous watches: in 1999 I didn't even realise this would be the last we'd ever get, these three episodes chopped off the tail-end of Season 4 in 1998, but there was still the prospect of seeing more of the series and within a couple of years I had a video of the first two episodes, which I'd never seen before. Then the DVDs coming out in 2004 gave me access to every episode, including one or two I'd missed and the whole of the first series, and then again, finally in 2007, meeting Craig McLachlan and having him say there might be more 'BUGS' coming, so watching through that last time came with new hope of what might be to come. But that never materialised, the message boards fell silent and there seemed no more likelihood of it returning as the actors aged and technology moved on. And I've even come to the conclusion, having seen what was done to first 'Dr. Who,' then 'Star Wars,' and finally 'Star Trek,' that it's a good thing there won't be a revival, as it would be twisted and used for whatever agenda suited the 'bright young things' of today.
In a sense, then, the series is dead, but it will always live on in my memory as a formative experience of childhood. I don't remember sitting down to view this final ever episode, probably because it wasn't known as that, it was just the last in the current series, but it doesn't work as well for being a finale as it might have done as just another episode between others. It has a great ending, a great beginning, it's just the middle where it sags a little, despite there being plenty of good ideas. The biggest is the way it actually ends, they were clearly trying to replicate the success they'd had with 'Renegades' at the end of Season 3, hoping they'd be picked up for Season 5, but that was much better put together, the whole episode being a rip-roaring success, whereas this was significantly more low-key: it's 'another' kidnapping, only this time we're allowed to witness it take place, both Ros and Beckett held at gunpoint in a limousine by Stefano, an old friend of Adam's from his university days, then the guy driving, who gives the impression of being a chauffeur, the little we see of him, possibly one of those caps on, an impression of being quite large, arched eyebrows... surely it can't be Jean-Daniel, the series' standout villain? I do think this is what we were intended to think, it's a shame they couldn't stretch to getting Gareth Marks and to show him for definite, but this way the mystery can be preserved: it's someone with an artificially disguised voice, someone Beckett seems to recognise, and someone he thought was dead...
If they did get Season 5 they might not have been able to get Marks. If they didn't get Marks they couldn't do JD. This way they leave their options open, and there's certainly no telling for sure that they intended to bring back the evil Frenchman from the dead, but it would have been an absolute jaw-dropper if they had. It's hard to see where wishful thinking ends and reality begins, but bringing back characters was something they liked to do (in this episode we have Dent of The Hive, Adam Mosby, Christa, Ros' Mother, Coral, and not forgetting Wagner the cat, too!), and you can read the 'clues' of the blue digital face from the previous episode, and I'd completely forgotten we actually see 'Technopolis' and the Technopolis Tower (or at least the building upon which a digital extension was added in 'A Cage For Satan'), as they run around in the same locations used for that (complete with those statues of people, and the deserted streets that would bring to mind the modern babel of Season 2). It's hard, when the series was so insistent on reminding viewers of past continuity, not to take these hints as deliberate clues, though even if it was all intentional rather than mere production conveniences, it could have been a misdirect for whatever the real story was - I'm under the impression the writers (Frank De Palma and Terry Borst for these last couple of stories), didn't know what they were going to do, and as Stephen Gallagher (always keen to point out he had nothing to do with the fourth year!), said in his interview on the boxed set, he suspects that, too, as that's how you end on a cliffhanger and try to get your audience excitedly speculating.
I've always liked to think it was JD - you can explain the distorted voice by his vocal cords being damaged in the explosion at the Tower, and as we know from Season 3's 'Fugitive,' his body was never found. Whether that means it was incinerated or he somehow crawled away, half-dead, we'll never know, but that kind of miraculous survival and return is what films and TV are made of - you can never keep a great villain down. Except in 'BUGS' it does go against the tradition of most of the enemies being killed off - even here we see half of the dangerous duo falling to his death from an external inspection lift. Wymark didn't do anything in this episode to make him seem cleverer, and the dunce-like behaviour of not accepting Ed's hand to help him up onto the roof because he refuses to leave without 'his' money was ludicrous. Clearly he wasn't going to be able to keep the money, but he was too dim to realise and instead slips and plunges to a glass and concrete death, suitably for the final episode among some good 'BUGS' buildings. As well as Technopolis we also see old favourites such as the dock area with the black chains, used a number of times, the Docklands Light Railway, the Millennium Dome and even Canary Wharf Tower one last time, so they really enjoyed showing off London sights, just as in the first part (and was the wedding reception held at Kew Gardens?). It was also especially well directed with a fluidity and an in your face approach, while also using little tricks like a canted angle to assist the impression of Jan's spiralling sense of grief and confusion as she stumbles away down a corridor at the hospital, the picture blurring out.
The strong direction somewhat covers the fact that the episode isn't one of the stronger examples: in its defence it has one of the best teasers of the entire run, expertly weaving together a montage of key scenes from previous episode 'Money Spiders,' before giving us Adam doing for the Mini what hadn't been done since 'The Italian Job,' swinging it around the tight spaces of a car park atop The Hive like a pro (and we get to see more of that building than we'd ever seen since the first episode, a nice touch that the first and last episodes filmed there), while being shot at by agents (is the implication supposed to be these are Hive agents or could they be a contingent of SSD - Dent does throw out one last reference later on, saying Wymark and Zephyr can be picked up by them), and then it's into those wonderful opening credits that never fail to bring waves of nostalgia and excitement crawling up the back, reminding me how much I'm going to miss going through the series. The ending lives up to things, too, the shocking death of Adam, Alex' grief as Ed and Jan move back out of her space, and then Ros and Beckett captured... Then we have Jan's emotional breakdown, fleeing her role as DOIC, and Dent pouncing, showing up as Acting DOIC - I can't help feel that was a plot that should have been part of the cliffhanger: will Dent remain in command, or will Jan be reinstated? It was terrific to see him in the environs of Bureau 2 and it was the backlash of the cooperation between services that had been, if not building across the season, certainly in evidence, and it's typical that such a positive thing could be turned against our team, especially, as Beckett says, Jan is the Bureau. Without her this incarnation wouldn't exist!
I felt there was more to explore there, and a Season 5 that began with half the team resigning and Beckett trying to keep things together while being disgusted with Dent's conflicting ideology, would have created some unique drama for the series. Dent's belief is that Bureau 2 has been given too much latitude so he's going to come in and see that everything is done by the book, a threat to the very nature of the organisation, which is why it's somewhat triumphant when Jan pulls herself together and comes in confidently zapping electronic devices and taking charge again. I'm not quite sure what caused her to change her mind, and it could have been played up more, but it's the right idea. No, I think the problems of the episode are to do with the fact that one of the team, Ros, is almost entirely confined to a hospital bed other than an amazing recovery in time for Alex and Adam's wedding. It's never a good idea to remove one of the key characters for the majority of an episode, and it also means we're robbed of the team working together as a trio, plus Alex and Jan, one final time. Instead, it's more like Ed and Beckett chasing down the villains, with Jan, Adam and Alex joining in. The other issue are the small stakes the villains are playing for: yes, £150 million is a lot, but the only victim is going to be the bank who they defraud, and we're not meant to like Chichester, this fake-smile, suave and untrustworthy type. The impression is the bank is a bit slimy and operates with no questions asked, very unethical, so the only motivation is in catching the villains to make them pay for what they did to Ros.
Ah yes, what they did to Ros... Somehow, despite facing upwards toward Zephyr's gun, she actually got shot in the back of the head, the bullet seen to go up towards her brain, so I'm not sure that was physically possible from the way she was hanging at the end of the last episode! Not that that's a particular problem, we can skip over such things without too much thought - it is an action series, after all! Another odd thing was Zephyr calling Wymark by his surname. They seem quite close so you'd think she'd call him Gordon, or some pet name. Maybe he likes her stern insistence on using the surname? While I'm making observations, it seems Adam follows the Bureau team in his refusal to countenance gun use - instead of picking up Zephyr's dropped weapon and training it on her, he instead takes the time to remove the bullets so when she manages to grab it and is about to fire on Alex, she comes up short! I understand it's for dramatic convention, we think this is it, and then surprise, but you'd think a Hive agent would have been fully firearms-trained and happy to use it judging by all the gunplay that goes on when they're hunting the disk-stealer at The Hive. I suppose there was the chance Zephyr might have used Alex as a shield, and Adam didn't want that...
There were a few references mentioned - Angela is called by Alex when she needs a new car after Adam's taken her mini, though we don't see or hear her. She was seen in 'Absent Friends' and credited in 'Sacrifice To Science,' both at the start of the season. Then there's the fun reference to Gizmo's Alex makes. Okay, maybe this was just her talking about one of her gadgets, but I'm sure the writers deliberately had her refer to it as a gizmo as one last tribute to the original organisation our team comprised. And on the list of locations that have the new G5 computer chip, Marine Command is included, which must be a reference to Beckett's time there. I believe the G4 Power Macs were just coming out in the late-90s, or were at least on the horizon (I had one in 2000), so I'm guessing that's why they chose 'G5' as the chip name to make it sound a little more futuristic. It's typical 'BUGS' coincidence that the one our villains go for at Central Teaching Hospital at exactly the same time as a specialist is using the technology to remove Ros' bullet! And there must be backups for this tech, surely? I don't mean the electrical backup as that was accounted for - Wymark shot up both mains and backup when Ed's chasing them (that was one thing the two Ed's had in common as McLachlan's version chased after Elena as she shot at him in 'Out of The Hive'!). Though it doesn't seem a good idea to have both systems in the same place! No, I mean what if the computer failed, wouldn't they have a manual system for the operation? If not it shows the limits of relying on technology.
I'm not sure I'd have entirely believed Ed sitting vigil at Ros' bedside when he's usually the one to be in the thick of the action, while Beckett thinks he has to catch those that put her there. Then again, this Ed has been more reticent to get involved: you only have to look at the first episode of the season where Beckett refuses to accept Ros' 'death' while Ed's already advising him not to go chasing after evidence she's not really dead, so maybe he lost a little backbone or something. It's academic anyway as he soon joins Beckett in the hunt. I must mention that female doctor who seems so interested and fascinated by Ros' case, explaining the operation in detail to a distraught Mother with all the tact and sensitivity of a scientist lecturing on experiments! But the series always did do a strange mix of minor characters - take the non-speaking role of the delivery man in the car park, he's a typically eccentric addition, first moving out the way, taking cover when he hears gunshots and finally having to leap clear of the speeding mini! The series never forgot its roots in English ITC-type fun drama, even though this season had taken things more into traditional dramatic style with subplots of marriages and friction between characters. It can't be denied that it remains the weakest season, but for the series it's still good fun for the most part.
But what of those tallies I've had going throughout? Well, I counted twenty-one explosions this season with a grand total across the series of one hundred and thirty-seven, while there were a mere four countdowns and a total of forty-two in the series, and apparently only five deaths on screen (I was very strict in only counting those that you see the actual moment of death rather than, for example in this episode, Wymark plunging to his doom, but we don't see the impact, naturally!), with the total being sixty-one. And that pretty much sums up the series. The Bureau building appeared in nineteen episodes, The Hive in six, with the replacement Grand Cherokee Jeep making it to fourteen. And if that was indeed Jean-Daniel at the end he'd have been on his ninth appearance, Dent was on his fourth, Christa on her fifth (Beckett looked like he was having second thoughts about bringing her to the wedding!), and Adam sixth, with Coral on her third. Continuity definitely seemed to be the watchword for the season, it's just a shame they moved away from the pulse-pounding escalations of tension, though they did their best to try and inject it here and there. Saturday nights would never be the same again for me, and they haven't been since it ended. It wasn't a perfect series, but it forever made its mark on me and will never be forgotten. What a series overall, one that will never be equalled for me in its unique blend of action and friendship. Thank you to all the writers, directors, actors and production staff, you did a great job. Oops, got to go: there's a countdown and I've got three seconds to get out of the–
***
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)