Faith

 DVD, Stargate Universe S1 (Faith)

Much more positive this time. For the most part. An unknown planet, Earth-like, sunshine, fruit, grass, green and trees... With a mystery to solve, but no time to solve it, got to be moving on. That's Destiny's curse, she can never stop for long. In this case it's a good month available for a team to harvest and explore this place while the ship 'slingshots' very slowly around a star, but it's still not enough time and the mystery must remain unanswered. It gives some of them the chance to discuss viewpoints on faith and belief, some interpreting things cynically, others with a baseless wonder and hope. It sort of shows that no one there has genuine faith in a specific God since it's all rather vague and based on their feelings rather than revelation and certain hope. I suppose that's the trouble with most TV depictions of faith, that it's got to be some kind of weird, uncertain vagueness that has to be embraced without any evidence or experience. That way lies accepting anything, regardless of any facts, but either way it becomes a bit of a downer for what had been an upbeat episode of people enjoying life on land as it was meant to be lived. Obviously we don't get to see much of it, it being only one episode, the time lapse suggested by a montage intercutting exploration and life on the planet with exploration and life on the ship.

It is a bit frustrating, we can feel Rush's disappointment in being unable to have enough time to even approach an understanding of how an alien race could have built this planet and the star which lights it, leaving their mark with a giant obelisk. I don't recall if there was any further discussion of what happened, whether we see any of those people who stayed behind, or whether that was it, but they do at least have a faulty shuttle to use in emergencies, so like Rush escaping his doomed situation on the planet Young exiled him to, it does suggest the possibility of meeting up again in future. I wasn't actually entirely sure that anyone had stayed, but I assume they did - this is at a time of peace between military and civilian, to the extent that even Greer is forcing grumblers to co-op-er-ate, as he likes to e-nun-ci-ate! That was quite a fun moment, as was Eli's reference to the Genesis Device and 'Wrath of Khan,' though no one else seems to have a clue what he's on about. 'Stargate' became a sort of home for those of us who were missing Trek in the late 2000s and most of the 2010s, so it's a shame it was all cut short as Trek had been before it, but at least they sometimes showed an understanding of the audience they'd inherited.

The trouble comes when after being treated so equitably it gives some of these happy campers ideas above their station - it may be the military that are under orders, but every one of them is an expert in something and has a great deal of use and importance to the survival of the community. It made me think of the 1970s BBC series, 'Survivors' (something I watched in the time since I first saw this series), for thoughts of how you go about building a life in such conditions. I don't know what the minimum requirement would be of beginning a new community, and I know some of them were pinning their hopes on the possibility the aliens who built the place would come back, take pity on them, and give them a free ride back to the Milky Way and Earth, as slim a chance as any of that happening within their lifetimes as it was. But still, they must have expected to live there for some time and how could you? It would be really roughing it. Sure you have fruit to eat and water to drink, warm sun to feel on your skin, but what then? What if someone was sick, what if... those what-if's are endless, and as Young says at one point, everything they do is a risk. But it's still less risky to remain on Destiny than try to start a new life on an alien world you know nothing about for who knows how long, no matter what your 'feelings' lead you to believe. It's so ironic that when it suits his purpose Rush is very keen for the military to flex their muscles and stop people leaving, in direct opposition to his previous position, but that's the key: when it suits his purpose.

It was a bit of a shock that Scott would be one of the people who chose to stay, even though he's not allowed in the end, but I couldn't work out if that was because of his devotion to Chloe, despite their distance after she sided against him in a previous episode, or if he genuinely felt an obligation to help those leaving, especially TJ whom we discover is pregnant from her time on Icarus Base. I could imagine him being a very capable leader, though he can be a little too soft sometimes, going with what people want, because he wants to keep everyone happy, and that's not always possible, as he's found out on occasion. But his strong compulsion to duty means he's not going to go against the Colonel's decision, because he is a good man: a discreet friend, he doesn't tell anyone about TJ; someone who genuinely wants people to get along; optimistic, but also able to obey orders he doesn't like when he has to. He still seems rather conflicted about his beliefs, not opening up about what he personally thinks when the others are talking of such things, and considering how much we've seen of his past it makes you wonder where he is in that, but however you look at it you'd want him on your side, and Young isn't about to lose his strongest ally.

It was good that the Colonel had learned enough from his recent experiences not to force the issue, other than with those under his command, not going in all guns blazing for the greater good, allowing these people to make their own mistake, because why would you abandon ship just for the chance of a bit of sunlight and fresh food - it does show how shallow human decision-making can be, that those comforts that remind of home can be enough to sway people from their jobs and their role in the Destiny community. On the other hand you can understand to some degree Johansen's horror at the thought of raising a child in such a dark, miserable environment, but it's the closest they have to civilised existence and there is always that possibility of the Stargate, which shouldn't be discounted, not to mention the many other areas of the ship that haven't been explored, the technologies and potential improvements that aren't yet known. It's a relatively gentle episode, much needed after recent events, but it's one of those that doesn't really go anywhere and could easily have been extended across multiple episodes, but they seem to prefer keeping things tight when it comes to alien worlds, not spending too long there, but getting back to the heart of the series: the ship itself.

**

Barge of The Dead

 DVD, Voyager S6 (Barge of The Dead)

It's Klingon time! Ronald D. Moore, in his last ever contribution to Trek, writing a story on his specialist subject? What could be better and a more fitting, if curtailed, end to his career with Trek? If only it were so simple - for one, this was a 'Story By' credit with Bryan Fuller, and the latter actually wrote the teleplay. While it's always debatable with these things on how much was done by whom, it does appear to lesson Moore's involvement or influence than if he'd been entirely responsible, and, despite the fact I think Fuller was also one of the greats of the 'DS9' and 'Voyager' era, perhaps a collaboration didn't work out well in this case. It's not a bad episode, far from it, it's very close to being a good one when looked at in context of the wider journey of B'Elanna Torres across the series, but it draws attention to deficiencies, and relies on her reaction to this episode in future to give it meaning. Because there really isn't a resolution within the episode, she's simply surrounded by voices representing the people she has roles towards, allows her to express confusion over her identity, and then she wakes up and it was all a dream! Okay, so it is ambiguous whether this really happened or not, and I don't remember if we ever learned of her Mother's fate later, but it was almost like they'd wanted to do a Klingon story, they'd wanted Moore to do what he was best at, and then either this was when he left, or he was having problems preparatory to leaving, and what was an intriguing premise failed to come together sufficiently.

I say sufficiently because there is some great stuff in here. Not least the terrific creation of this Klingon barge of mythology, all creaking timbers and swinging lamps as it travels to Gre'thor, the Klingon Hell (you'd think, considering their love of hardship and trial that in their culture Hell would be more desirable than Sto-Vo-Kor, Paradise), which reminded me of the old BBC production of 'Voyage of The Dawn Treader.' A ship full of Klingons, a couple of familiar actors brought in... Actually this would have been a great way to bring back Robert O'Reilly's Gowron since he'd only died the previous season at the end of 'DS9,' so why couldn't he have been there to think better of his actions and guide Torres? It was supposed to be all about B'Elanna and her Mother so I can see how a cameo or role like that would have moved the focus away from that. Then there's the trademark Fuller weirdness: is this real, is it in her head, and the stuff where everyone slowly becomes more Klingon-like, represented best by Tuvok, the least likely person to fit that mould, but Tim Russ superbly shifts from stolid, dependable Vulcan guide, to harsh disciplinarian, disgusted by B'Elanna's weakness, admiring the blade of a Bat'leth as he expertly swings it around like Worf at his best (I'd have loved to see those two face off with such weapons, that could have been a sight!). I always love the uncertainty of reality, that moment when things have been strange, but then it goes one jot further that shows this is all wrong and you're actually in a nightmare, and Fuller was a master.

I will also give the episode credit for integrating all the characters: what would become the minor characters, Chakotay, Tuvok, Neelix, maybe even Kim, are all involved through the use of B'Elanna's dreams or visions. It makes sense for Chakotay to be the one to come and discuss the situation she's facing since he's a believer in things beyond that which science can explain ("I accept there are things in life that can't be scanned by a Tricorder," was an elegant way to put it), has his own firm beliefs, so isn't a 'science-ist,' or arrogant enough to believe that everything has been satisfactorily explained at this point, and he's also one of B'Elanna's oldest confidants on the ship. Tuvok, too, has always been someone to guide in such matters, which is why it makes sense she consults him, though that's when we start to suspect the bump on the head was worse than first thought (that makes me think of a joke: Why are Klingons so erratic? Because of all the bumps on the head!). Neelix is especially chilling when his jovial, helpful attitude is tinged with mockery, as is the Doctor. All good things in this episode, but what was missing was something to tie it all together. It's ultimately a get-out-quick mentality with the episode suddenly over, and that does hurt it a little. I like a thoughtful conclusion in which to ponder what happened, leaving it open to interpretation and all that, but this demanded more.

Part of the problem was how the character had been handled across the series in recent seasons. She started out as a combative member of the crew that would butt heads with her Captain on a regular basis, slowly gaining her trust and coming to a rapport in much the same way as Seven was taken through difficult first steps to come to trust and be trusted by Janeway, B'Elanna was the model for that. But she'd calmed down a lot before Seven joined the scene and I'm not sure they had a good idea of where she fit in, other than as the Starfleet fixer that is often required in stories. Even that role had been dialled back to some extent, and I think it was a combination of Seven's advancement as a key crew-member, but also Roxann Dawson's pregnancy which reduced her appearances in Season 4. They got more for her with the reaction to the slaughter of the Maquis, but they'd stopped examining her Klingon nature, and perhaps she was one of the characters in Season 5 to be used less effectively in what was generally one of the strongest years. She'd matured under Janeway's care, had flourished as an Engineer and we saw so many strong episodes for her in the early seasons, but they must have realised they weren't pushing her in the best way, merely concentrating on her bond with Tom Paris. As with Tuvok, a way to explore Vulcans while being so far from familiar space, she was designed to be a way to have your Klingons and eat them, too. Not literally, but it was a way to touch on Klingon culture and that hadn't been addressed as much.

I can't say this marked a turning point towards a much greater use of the warrior race on the series, but they must have realised that one of the things many people enjoyed about 'DS9' was its integration of the Klingons, harking back to so many classic stories and connections, and now the other series had ended they had free rein to play with that if they so wished. Not that they didn't before, and not that they hadn't, but being the only Trek series on air gave them the opportunity to appeal to people that loved the race and B'Elanna was the way to do it. There'd be other Klingon stories to come, most notably her own child being considered some kind of messiah by a wandering generational Klingon ship, but I still don't feel they did as much with either B'Elanna or the Klingons as they could have (maybe should've dispensed with the Borg children and had some Klingons aboard instead, for example!). Seeing this episode in that context I wonder if Moore's involvement, leaving as he did, put them off what was his chosen subject, or that it was so heavily tied with 'DS9,' and they embraced the Borg as their Klingons, or maybe there simply wasn't a clear idea of how to progress the series beyond continuing to do these individual stories. It could also be they felt Klingons had been done to death (today is a good season to die!), and weren't inspired on how to explore them in new ways. I could be wrong, maybe B'Elanna had some great Klingon moments this season that I've forgotten, but if so they don't stand out in the memory.

I don't know if it is the case, but there's also the sense of a muddled worldview with the Klingons in this episode, like maybe Moore came up with a lot of the mythology, but left and Fuller did what he wanted. This is coming from the sense that Fuller became someone who didn't care much for canon and continuity judging by his, essentially, rebooting 'TOS' era when he was drafted in to head 'Discovery,' which may not be fair, especially as he was so great at writing for the 24th Century as a younger writer. There's this Kortar guy who pilots the barge to Gre'thor, and this Viking, I mean Klingon, is said to be the first of his race, rose up and killed the gods who created him. Okay, so his gods weren't very godlike is what I would say to that, but then we hear that he was punished by being condemned to ferry the dishonoured dead on their way to Gre'thor, but who punished him? The gods were dead, what are they not telling us? I know myth is supposed to be story, it doesn't need to make sense, but one of the things I liked about 'DS9' for example, was that they were careful to craft these belief systems for characters. It is a harsh system, but then that befits the Klingon character: off to Hell with you because of the sins of your child! Wow, so no grace in this religion then, unless it be the child taking the parent's place, which would seem just as dishonourable for a parent to accept, so they should go to Gre'thor too, after all!

It's a tricky place for Trek, even though by this time they were much more comfortable exploring Faith --- Spirituality --- Religion. The big questions that Roddenberry seemed to like to suggest were all resolved in 'TNG.' It's fascinating to see the worldview of Trek shift and change over the decades (one God in 'TOS,' no God in 'TNG,' alien gods ten a penny in 'DS9,' to the lack of interest beyond action in 'Enterprise' and the modern era), someone should write a dissertation on it all. As I'm sure they have! Janeway being a scientist does make her specially close to the Roddenberry ideal (even if in reality Gene was harder to pin down as an atheist, etc, because he wasn't, and had some very different views than appeared to be expressed through 'TNG' - see 'Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation' book by Yvonne Fern), that people like to assume is Trek's attitude, and so it does make sense for her to be against B'Elanna's request to try to recreate the conditions that gave her her vision in the first place. Janeway also has a duty of care to her crew and it was an interesting part of the episode when the argument of freedom of worship came up - it's not what you generally see in Trek! Janeway herself had gone through her own experiences in 'Sacred Ground' which had the same idea behind it: ritual can be meaningless, something deeper and simpler is required. But as she says, she's not going to permit something dangerous in the name of faith, such as sacrificing a child to someone's god.

That's a useful reminder of rational beliefs that were more common when this episode was made compared with today when we seem to be heading towards whatever you choose your reality to be is what everyone else has to accept, even if it's not true (and we already sacrifice children on the altar of pleasure to allow for looser living, so even that which sounds abhorrent when put in Janeway's terms is a sanctioned and protected right in our culture!). In this case B'Elanna wants to put herself at risk, and it doesn't matter that it appears an irrational reason to a scientist, that's beside the point - it's the risk to B'Elanna's life that is most important. If Chakotay wanted to go on a vision quest, take a shuttle and rendezvous with Voyager later, she would allow it, and in fact he did do that in the past, but though she wouldn't believe in his beliefs it wasn't a risk (okay, so he ran into the Kazon and it ended up being so, but the act in itself wasn't inherently risky from a physical point of view and since Janeway doesn't appear to believe in spiritual effects, then she wouldn't have a problem with that either!). Anyway, I found that part of the episode to be a fascinating glimpse into the uncertain worldview of Trek at that time where spiritual things were still not as ingrained in Western culture, though this series helped to move towards that more with Chakotay, B'Elanna and Tuvok, to different degrees, and away from 'boring' Christian theology that had held society together for so long.

Interesting, yes, but also a little troubling from my perspective, even though I rarely had issues with 'DS9' which had faith and belief systems baked into it through and through. The Klingon stuff is bleak and muddled, but perhaps it's less about that than it is about B'Elanna's own identity, and that's where the problem really lies. You can't exactly just say she's suddenly pro-Klingon, but also that side of her had had so little exploration in the past two or three seasons that it really hadn't been an issue. It's like if Kira was portrayed as being a devout believer in Bajoran religion at first, then it never got mentioned and late in the series we learn she doesn't believe any more. There isn't a progression - people should be operating under and acting on how they think, and what they believe is what guides them, but if you don't see evidence of that then it's hard to take seriously. It's a bit of a stretch that she goes from not caring about her heritage to wanting to risk death. It could all have been a dream, but because it was so vivid to her she's willing to take the risk. And it is fun to see B'Elanna in full Klingon regalia - it's almost like they knew they were going to be doing this so they made her hair frizzier in preparation, though of course in reality she had style change at the end of Season 5, long before this episode was even thought of. There are the stabbings and brandings that make this a full Klingon story, 'the smell of the bat'leths, the roar of the blood,' for that full theatrical approach.

And I do enjoy much of it, the blood bubbling up from that piece of Klingon wreckage B'Elanna snagged - I especially enjoyed the thought that a Klingon ship could have discovered the Delta Quadrant centuries before Starfleet, and maybe that's what gave them the idea for the later episode, 'Prophecy,' but they also suggest it could have been a ship gobbled up by the Borg and flushed out an airlock later. Couldn't they have dated the piece of metal to determine its age? That would have made it more definite either way, though it was supposed to be an episode about mythology and using scientific techniques to date something would have rather removed the mystery. And it's not that important. In fact, wasn't that only in the dream part of the episode? I don't recall, but if so then it wouldn't matter how it looked, what it did, or anything! We do get to see our best view of the Shuttle Bay than ever before as B'Elanna pulls off a 'Star Trek V' manoeuvre to whip in, hence her bump on the head - they should have had forcefields to grab the craft and slow it, but then that was in the dream, too, and I think they actually found her shuttle floating in space. Still, it made for an energetic introduction. I also greatly enjoyed the familiar Klingon drinking song that Seven and the Doc duet on, and later we hear most of the senior staff singing, which was from 'The Way of The Warrior' when Worf sings with his crony, so excellent continuity there and presumably included because Moore was involved with it on 'DS9.'

B'Elanna's certainly no Jadzia, though, considering the bat'leth to be clumsy rather than elegant as Tuvok deems it... Well, the Tuvok of her nightmare. I really can't emphasise enough how impressed I was with Russ' handling of it! I also appreciated how visceral was B'Elanna's reaction when she wakes up, hugging her Captain as if she were her Mother, and in my mind they were connected in her mind - maybe that's why she was so difficult to get on with in the early episodes, because Janeway reminded her of her Mother, only exacerbating that thorn in her side, the Captain as dedicated to Starfleet principles as Miral was to Klingon ones. So it does hint at something deeper that hadn't been revealed before, I'll give credit to the episode there. And it ends hopefully, she's unsure if she'll see her Mother alive again, but Miral reassures her that they'll meet again in the next life and maybe yet in this one, too. The use of a Captain's uniform was also very well done as Miral appears at the end in Janeway's guise as the two become further blurred by Torres. Karen Austin worked well in the role, and this time I recognised her from her other character of Dr. Kalandra from 'Nor The Battle To The Strong,' ironically an episode in which she was a human at risk from Klingons. It's a shame they never felt it necessary to bring Miral back, or that Austin was ever in Trek again as both her roles were good. Eric Pierpoint, however, had a longer history and future, in 'TNG,' 'DS9' and a couple of roles on 'Enterprise,' (on that subject RIP Manny Coto, helmer of the last great period of Trek's existence, who died recently at 62), most notably Section 31 agent Harris in four episodes, though he was unrecognisable as Kortar. I should also mention John Kenton Shull playing a Klingon, since he'd played others of the race on 'TNG' and 'DS9' amid other roles, including on 'Voyager.'

In the end this episode doesn't quite do it because it is so lacking in resolution. It could all have been a dream, which, while it can sometimes work, is what's commonly called a cop-out. I wouldn't go so far as to say the episode itself is a cop-out, it's nicely written and I've commented on a number of things that worked about it, but it is hard to take out of the blue like this when B'Elanna's issues seemed to have been long resolved and she'd moved onto other troubles like mourning, or failing to mourn, the Maquis. B'Elanna rages against her confusion, but as her Mother said, it was really just the start, the first step, towards her greater acceptance of her nature and heritage, something that strangely makes it feel more like an episode from a serialised series, except without the ongoing examination, and so it has the worst of both worlds: not much satisfaction as a story on its own, but also no further exploration, and while there's much to appreciate, a few things to think about, and a visual quality that reaffirms this is later in the series thanks to the look of B'Elanna and where things are at this stage, but like the trip to Gre'thor, it's ultimately unrewarding.

**

Divided

 DVD, Stargate Universe S1 (Divided)

At last we get an episode worthy of the 'Stargate' name. Not that there haven't been oodles of mediocre or less than satisfying examples of that name, and not that this is remotely related to the general type of stories they used to do in its heyday - but it was undeniably tension filled, works well and the 'good' guys win out. If you can go about calling Young good when he did leave Dr. Rush on that planet to die that one time... Won't happen again, no sir... It isn't exactly mitigated by his own guilt and remorse at those actions and relief that Rush survived, even not forgetting he did save the guy's life on that alien ship. And not that that makes up for the earlier action, but there is some mitigation. And he admits to Camille that he knows it was wrong. Not that that's mitigation... I'm going in circles, but what I'm trying to say is that Colonel Young is at heart a good guy. He doesn't always do what's right, he's not flawless, and he can give in to temptation, but on balance, very much so, he sways towards doing what's right, and as TJ said, they need a leader. That was one of the fascinating little side thoughts the episode throws out: democracy versus military rule. Camille is trying to make out that their situation is that of a small country, when in reality it's nothing like that. Yes, they are self-sufficient and living under military-backed rule. But Young was in charge of the mission, a military mission, the civilians were part of it, but they weren't in the hierarchy. Most importantly, Camille compares herself to the government, but she wasn't elected to that role, she's taken it, so she's no better than Young, and worse really since he is the recognised authority.

Despicably, human nature rears its ugly head. This is certainly no aspirational series showing what could be, this is a down in the trenches view of what people are like under pressure. And it isn't pretty. Agendas, division, summary action, mutiny, dissent, an actual coup. You have to give it to Rush and the others, they certainly made a good effort to take the ship, but as TJ pointed out, they turned the situation into war, and against experienced military officers they were never going to win, no matter how clever Rush thought he was being. In his defence he could have solved the problem by openly letting Young (and Scott), die, refusing to abandon the transfer of control so the shuttle would have been blasted when Destiny went into faster-than-light. But whatever his reasoning, and perhaps he isn't a coldblooded killer or likes to keep his options open, that sways the balance in his favour somewhat that he didn't murder when he had the chance. Again, he helps to cause great upset by jointly effecting a coup with Camille, but like Young's regret and actions to reverse his earlier mistake, this can be said to be his.

It really did succeed in the tension levels, and Young becomes some kind of hero, appearing out of the shadows like Batman to defeat The Joker, if we can stretch the analogy for Rush. That whole sequence was great as we see the soldiers circumvent the best laid plans of these scientists and civilian workers who seemed to think they were doing right, but in reality were merely rebelling against the hard treatment they'd had to endure. But there was always going to be hardship, they aren't on a pleasure trip, and they presumably signed up to the Stargate programme knowing the dangers and possibilities of the job. I don't recall how much is public about the SGC, whether it was all revealed in 'SG-1,' or it had remained a state secret, but either way they're part of the privileged few to be where they are and they need the support and guidance, not to mention protection and strong leadership the military has given them. Not to suggest Young has always done right, or that things couldn't be a little more generous sometimes, taking into consideration these people aren't military and shouldn't be treated as if they are, but that's why Camille is essential, she's there as a check and balance, but hasn't performed as well as she could.

The standout character for me, however, was Johansen. Rather than encourage the one airman who had a gun to take a hostage or start rebelling against the rebellion, she quietly and sensibly advises him to put it down, submitting herself and him to the control of these rebels. But she's confident Young will find a way, and her trust is not misplaced. She's definitely military, but as a medical person she also cares about the lives of everyone on that ship, so she's in a special position, one that she, of all people, can't abuse. She's actually pushed further than she should go since during the operation she becomes surgeon (it goes from takeover in civilian uprising, to attack by more of those aliens, to a major operation for Rush who has a homing device surgically implanted next to his heart - talk about escalation in tension!). As I've previously suggested, they get in a genuine surgeon using Chloe's body to perform the operation, but as always has to happen, there are complications when the attack on the shields affects the communication stones and suddenly it's Chloe, not the doc, and TJ is the closest thing to backup! Terrific. Again, Rush could easily have been allowed to die if Young was really a bad sort, and he certainly thought he might be got rid of, not knowing the inner damage Young did to himself by leaving him on the planet. Knowledge is the real issue, everyone's keeping secrets. Even Chloe acts rather dastardly by being Rush's eyes and ears before the coup, though of course she wasn't going to accept her boyfriend being allowed to die, and didn't mean to act as a distraction to Eli, either.

We get to know more of these characters, we see the actions and reactions that make them interesting people. Greer, for example, is only too pleased to be in the position to make these pipsqueak civilians pay. Okay, so he knocks out a couple and he never fires at anyone, but he's the rabid attack dog that Young can let loose if he'll only give the word. I can certainly imagine him killing Rush if he was told to. It would be a pleasure. But even he isn't without heart. Scott is the one to remind his people that force may be necessary, but remember we have to live with these people tomorrow. Eli is in the most difficult position as a Young ally that also works closely with Rush, and it's only by his delaying Rush from turning the shield to full that allows Young and Greer to get in through the aliens' hole, but only just! So the coup is thwarted, partly because of a larger external enemy, though it's not the banding together that really solves things, it's Young taking back control himself. It's not just drama, we also learn more important details: for example, the reason why Young ended up on the alien ship, he guesses, is because Rush took one of the stones and hid it on his person, leading to them having it on their ship. And then the pulling back of the curtain of a part of Destiny's existence: these aliens have been following and attacking for a long time, and I don't just mean since our people came aboard, but it's been an obsession for them. That makes it so much grander in scale that this ship of the Ancients has withstood attack after attack and they keep coming back.

All adding up to one of the best episodes of the series so far, not a difficult bar to traverse, it must be said, but despite all those negative attitudes and impressions between characters, despite the use of contemporary music for Chloe's slightly irritating nightmare at the beginning (which did at least serve to show the bond between her and Rush, who'd been through similar experiences), there was a flushing out of all the things that had brought the situation to a head. No longer simmering, despite Greer and Young believing it's not over, there was a relieving release that was very satisfying to witness, especially in the way it's effected. They built to this and it paid off. Where they go from here to make it work as an ongoing series I don't remember, but hopefully we can start to see more friendship and cooperation, more positivity and a sense of progression, things that hark back to old 'Stargate,' and less moody troubles and issues.

***

Survival Instinct

 DVD, Voyager S6 (Survival Instinct)

Ronald D. Moore's first, and penultimate, credit for Trek post-'DS9,' and he manages to answer the question of how you can tell a story about Seven of Nine's past when all she did after becoming assimilated as a child was to be a Borg drone, hardly the most varied and interesting career (although I have some thoughts on that for later), and he does it by exploring a moment when she was severed from the Collective. It's not about having sympathy for this drone, it's about discovering the horror her fear led her to: clamping down on the freedom of her colleagues (if that's the right word, fellow slaves would be more appropriate), who are beginning to revert to their pre-assimilation personalities, disgusted and horrified at what's been done to them, while Seven, who hasn't experienced adult life other than as part of the Collective, is entirely motivated by fear into restoring all their status quos in the most arbitrary and remorseless way. It's a good way to get at the heart of the character, something Moore had plenty of experience with on 'DS9,' and the fact it's about one of the least accessible pasts a character can have, shows he was up for a challenge in his transition to 'Voyager.' It's not that you suddenly see the Moore greatness enacted on the 'Voyager' characters, and in fact it must have been somewhat of a comedown when you think the previous Borg story he wrote was the smash hit film 'First Contact,' and now he's called upon to write some small personal story of Borg dissent, but he uses all the characters quite nicely, if briefly.

Neelix is the only character barely to appear, and you'd think a role could have been found for him scavenging on this alien space station Voyager is docked at, but you can see the male friendship side of Moore's writing so ably demonstrated in such pairings as Bashir and O'Brien, with the scene of Tom and Harry having to report to Janeway after partaking in a brawl during some alien racquet game. Chakotay is a good person for Seven to confide in, and Tuvok is operating in his proper role of Security when he rescues Seven from her former Borg's episode of losing it in the Cargo Bay. And Janeway, while not being front and centre, gets her hair caught in a plant! Even B'Elanna is thanked for her assistance by Seven, so there are plenty of evidences for the desire to see everyone having something meaningful, if small. Seven is the focus, with a side order of Naomi Wildman to once again remind us of her position as a reminder of the little girl Seven was before she was Borg, and the Doctor is there for all the medical requirements. But the guest characters are about equally important, something that doesn't always work out on Trek, but in this case we have three previously established Trek actors to varying degrees: Tim Kelleher who'd been in the 'TNG' series finale, Bertila Damas, who'd been the atypical Vulcan Sakonna in 'DS9' two-parter 'The Maquis,' and, key to it all, Vaughn Armstrong in his middle period, beyond the earliest episodes of 'TNG' and 'DS9,' but before 'Enterprise' (also his second of five appearances on this series as he was memorably its first Romulan in Season 1's 'Eye of The Needle').

It helps to have these semi-familiar faces because they all knew how Trek worked and they all come across as sympathetic, notwithstanding Lansor ignoring Naomi's friendly attempt at introduction, but it was quite refreshing to see a child full of herself get completely ignored! Not that Naomi is precocious or anything less than charming most of the time, but it's good for her to learn that things aren't always going to go well in first contact situations, to frame it in a Seven-style lesson! They needed to be sympathetic because they do look to a lesser or greater degree, like ruffians, the scars and damage done to them, first by the Borg, then by the removal of as much Borg residual technology as possible, leaves them somewhat forbidding in appearance, other than the Bajoran woman, Wilkarah who probably has more desire to look as normal as possible compared with the men. It's a Borg story that isn't your typical Borg story. Of course even here we've seen a similar tale before with Hugh in 'I, Borg,' but where that was about a severed drone captured and held prisoner, these are the opposite, doing all they can to free themselves from the Collective forever, even the echo of their slavery solidified as it is in the form of a constant mental bond between the three that prevents them a moment's peace. That's a good idea in itself, that the vastness of so many Borg voices becomes background noise, but bringing it down to a small number makes it so much more unavoidable and distressing.

I wish Chakotay had been included a little more since he had experience with Borg that had escaped the Collective and wished to live their lives apart from it ('Unity'), but there's limited time as always. There are a lot of questions about these three, and indeed the Borg operating procedure: how did they escape assimilation? Unlike Seven who was taken by the Voyager crew and forced to accept it, we never hear how they escaped. Are drones interchangeable? They and Seven were all 'of Nine' so what happened when either she left or they did, whichever was first? Were other drones drafted in to replace their role or were the designations changed, so Eight of Nine became Three of Four, or something like that? Is the higher the number the more senior the position? That doesn't seem right for the Borg and their lack of individuality, it's just that Seven was the one who appeared to lead them on the planet. But that could have been from her stronger desire to return to the comfortable embrace of the Collective while they were susceptible to the voice of command even in their slightly more individualistic state. I wondered if Seven had had any other designation, by which she wouldn't always have been Seven of Nine, but if she performed another function she'd be called something different at a different time in her 'career' - for example, she was a child when assimilated, the others were adults, so there must have been a long period when she wasn't working with them. I suppose it goes back to whether drones are merely drafted in to take on designations of other drones until their usefulness ends.

It's all very intriguing because for all that we know of the Borg there's still so much that we don't. Not that that's a bad thing, mystery is integral to being able to tell stories and if all is known what is left to uncover? On the other side, as I've said numerous times before, if you don't tie down the lore as tightly as you can others can come along and make a complete mockery of it all, but even with absolute, definite examples of canon there can still be those who ignore or bust it wide open (as happened recently with the Eugenics Wars supposedly now 'moved' to the 21st Century thanks to the idiocy of 'Strange New Worlds,' perhaps the most egregious attack on Trek continuity we've seen - and there have been plenty in this modern era!). Lore isn't the only thing at risk, as sometimes even the little visual details can be affected by budget or inconsistency. We have a lot of aliens in this episode thanks to the space station, but unfortunately too many were visibly recognisable as previously created faces when in the Delta Quadrant we shouldn't be seeing anyone familiar, except in the most extreme cases (as with Wilkarah's Bajoran heritage). I spotted Voth (to be fair, a Delta Quadrant race), those short Evora aliens from 'Insurrection,' and most criminally, a Dopterian (I think that's the name of the race with a long, bald, horizontal skull and small, mouselike face). It's tough with the time constraints and strict budget to pull off a station full of aliens, but for once I felt they didn't do a good enough job in that area.

It is very nice to see a rare example of a Bajoran, and in fact one whom served in Starfleet (I wonder when she joined up and where she was assimilated...), especially in a 'DS9' writer's story, though I would have liked a little Bajoran culture in there to remind us of her heritage, more than simply a ridged nose. It makes sense for the story, I'll admit, since she's spent years, presumably, under Borg domination, and then time after that trapped in a mental triumvirate with her fellows, so she would probably have felt quite far from her Bajoran life, and yet at the same time I felt she should have had a stronger desire to reconnect with her pre-assimilation existence - what about asking if there were other Bajorans aboard Voyager (we know there are), meeting them, or going on the Holodeck to recreate a walk on Bajor. There were a lot of ways I can imagine the episode to be more powerful and more moving, because although it is sad and horrifying from the perspective of what Seven did (not that she's to blame now, she was still basically a child, had never moved beyond those childhood fears when under the Borg's dominion), I didn't feel there was a great deal of juice squeezed out of the final decision on whether it's better to live a full lifespan in slavery or to experience even a short time of freedom. That seemed to me to have been the heart of the story, less so the experience Seven went through, and perhaps if this had been a 'TNG' episode they'd have spent more time on the philosophical musings of such a situation rather than the horror or action, even if it isn't an action-packed sort of story anyway.

I'm sure Jeri Ryan wasn't pleased to be back in the full Borg makeup she'd so rarely had to endure, but it's a good visual continuity to go back to a time when she was like that. We even get a little touching on why she continued to use her Borg designation rather than adopting her old name: she felt it was inappropriate. At one time I'd probably have speculated that she might one day resume her full human identity as Annika Hansen, becoming more human as she grew older and as the technology was gradually lessened within her, but having seen 'Picard' all such speculation is quashed where they ruined the character forever, a final putting in of the boot on the legacy of Trek, and specifically 'Voyager.' So there is no longer a hopeful, happy future to wonder about (unless things radically change in Season 3 of 'Picard' or beyond!), but that can't remove the brilliance of the character in her original guise. It made total sense that Naomi would begin to emulate her friend in little ways, memorising Borg species designations, for example, and just as true to Seven that she would discourage such behaviour since it does diminish a race's dignity to have it reduced to a number, in the same way as humans are denigrated and degraded in captivity by becoming merely a number. It made me think of 'Hero Worship' on 'TNG' when a young boy starts to act like Data, though Naomi is much more rounded. It continues to be a pleasure to see this simple, fledgling friendship between the two relative outsiders: Voyager's only child and its only Borg lady.

I must say, however, you'd think Seven would learn to lock the Cargo Bay door when she regenerates so no one can enter without permission. It is the closest thing she has to Quarters, and in fact you'd think they could have stored at least one of the regeneration chambers in Quarters so she could have her own little space. But maybe they don't work unless they're all plugged in together, and the room wouldn't be big enough, and perhaps living on Borg vessels means Seven requires large emptiness around her as is the case on those vast, airy ships, and the Cargo Bay is the closest she can come to that. And maybe they need to use the Bay for other things at the same time so that's why the door doesn't get locked? We see the chambers being used for the first time by other Borg (or former Borg - I refuse to use the term 'ex-B' since 'Picard' sullied so much about the 24th Century!), since the false history seen in 'Living Witness' when they believed the ship to have had a whole squad of Borg ready to act at Janeway's whim. And it wouldn't be the last use of them, either, as we'd be getting the (groan), Borg children later in the season. There were a couple of things I didn't feel measured up to what we knew about the Borg: wouldn't they simply be able to scan the planet, it shouldn't make that much difference that Lansor smashed the distress beacon, surely? Unless the planet was covered in some kind of ore that affected sensors. And cooking and eating meat? Surely their stomachs wouldn't be able to take solid food after all that time without it?

I'd love to know what a Voyager medallion is. Chakotay mentions they've been trading them with aliens - I'm surprised they didn't turn it into a merchandising opportunity (Gene Roddenberry would have approved!). And there's another win for Christmas, when Janeway mentions all these gifts in her Ready Room make it seem like Christmas morning. So, if we didn't already know it, Christmas does still exist, and it hasn't been turned into 'Xmas' or 'Holiday Festival' or any other watering down from Christian tradition: Christ-mas (even if it is still considered to be about presents!). Having Armstrong there to anchor the story with his presence helps it to have weight. Not that he's ever been one of my favourite recurring actors in Trek, but always a solid, dependable, almost reassuring presence, and he does sell the importance of their plan succeeding - as we later hear they'd become nothing, trapped between being Borg and yet not Borg, something Seven knows something about, but not to the same extent as she wasn't inflicted with their affliction, having found a measure of peace and a role that suited her temperament and situation on Voyager. It shows how fortunate she has been, and though things have been pretty rough at times, particularly in the early days but plenty of times since that, too, it reinforces the unspoken idea that she is at rest, for all of Voyager's constant travel. Moore may not have been responsible for a stunner or a classic, but he gave us a solid, dependable Borg story that allowed us to see Seven in another new light, and after she'd been around for two seasons already that's an accomplishment.

***

Space

 DVD, Stargate Universe S1 (Space)

Better. Even though it does do a big reset, in the grand Trek tradition: we have aliens, we get Rush back, and an uneasy truce is declared between him and Young. That's really what it's all about, as a joint enemy that wants Destiny means all other cares must be put aside, especially when they kidnap Chloe. But there were a few questionable decisions in the episode, not least from Chloe herself, who rather than stay safe in her Quarters, decides to go and investigate the small craft that has attached itself to the hull, even to the extent that she goes and stands right under the hole they've just made! Not the brightest tool on the ship, is she? Then there was that whole business with Scott and Greer going out on a shuttle to attack the incoming craft - do they really know that ship well enough to be able to fly it around and take it into battle against a force they know nothing about? It did seem rather reckless. There was something else, maybe that Young did, too, but I can't remember. At least it didn't make us wait for the inevitable conversation between he and his nemesis, happening before the episode had concluded, neither really believing the other's agreement, I'm sure - and we're certainly shown what Rush really thinks when he confides in Camille, who's already got designs upon removing Young, but Eli had secretly captured an earlier conversation she was having with other civilians and showed it to the Colonel, so he knows about their dissent...

It's all still rather negative. Why can't we simply have aliens to deal with, that whole situation was good, they looked pretty good, these long-limbed, crystal-faced, fishlike creatures, as did the inside of their ship - I miss them creating alien cultures and settings other than ice-scapes or deserts. I especially enjoyed when the communication stones sent Young to their ship instead of all the way back to Earth - talk about convenient for the plot! Actually it could be very inconvenient because what if they can never contact Earth again and it always gets 'intercepted' to the aliens' ships? That would be rather awkward and dispiriting! Ah, I've remembered his questionable decision now: he should have had at least one other person go 'with' him through the stones so they could work together instead of going in alone. Still, it was great that he was the one to save Rush, that boosts his moral stock a little after dropping him off a cliff leaving the man to die (even if he was clearly regretting that decision, and admitted as much to Rush). Maybe they should have kept it running for an episode more before the Dr.'s back aboard as it does all seem rather, that word again, convenient. But we want Rush back, no matter his deviousness and deceitful designs, he's a fascinating character and he gets the plots moving because of his brain. Eli's all very well, and loyal to Young, but he can't do what Rush does, he doesn't have the experience.

Again, I don't really find all the factions and in-fighting to be that interesting. It drags out and in the end what good does it do? It's supposed to foster an atmosphere of distrust and uncertainty, especially in the general absence of outside threats (though that can change now), but I don't really like seeing that in 'Stargate.' It was the same in 'Battlestar Galactica,' a big reason why I never fully warmed to that series, either, for all its drama and hard choices. I prefer searching out strange new worlds and civilisations, learning about the Ancients and their technology, and finding something, some hook, to hang the ongoing adventures on. And that doesn't need to be people getting at each other, political machinations and all that. That isn't fun. Solving problems, not making them (credit to James for her brave effort to shut down the power in the corridor so they could rescue the people who'd been electrocuted - more of that kind of thing wouldn't go amiss!), that's what makes enjoyable programming for me. I want heroism, not misery, and although the montage at the end had some positivity, it was also clouded in depression and sadness. No wonder the series never made it past two seasons, it was just too negative!

**

Justice

 DVD, Stargate Universe S1 (Justice)

They dispense with Spencer, and Rush is no longer in a rush, stuck on a planet... This one was certainly eventful, with political ambitions and scientific ones motivating various people. I'd have to say for most of it Young comes across very well, both as a leader and as someone willing to obey the rule of law when he's under suspicion of murdering the unstable Spencer. Before this episode I thought the soldier committed suicide, but this story threw doubts on it and I really couldn't guess who might be responsible unless it was some kind of cop-out where it was someone we'd not known before, like the guy who gets a few lines on the planet about his shoes, but whom I don't ever recall seeing previously. But in fact my original remembrance was correct, and at the same time someone we know was responsible for casting suspicion on Young: Rush. I should have guessed. Although they've become fairly civil in more recent episodes Rush isn't one to forget a grudge, so I can well believe he did frame him. My only slight suspicion was that the chubby scientist who had an altercation with Spencer recently might possibly have felt strongly enough to have done it, but then that falls flat since Young was the one to put Spencer right when he was pushing the other guy around. But Rush makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that Young ends up as badly behaved as his nemesis. It was one thing for the doctor to implicate Young when there was no real evidence other than the gun being hidden in his room, but quite another for the Colonel to respond by beating him unconscious in a fistfight and leaving him to die on a planet the Destiny is warping away from. The saving grace is that Rush has the necessary tools to get back since the whole reason he was willing to push it was because they've discovered the first evidence of (physical, not forgetting the sand entity), alien life with a crashed ship. If anyone can get inside and get it working again, especially when his grudge is solidified even more, it's Dr. Rush! And since I knew he wasn't being written out of the series, it's bound to happen. But that doesn't let Young off the hook - while he's proved many times he's a fair and reasonable man, and again in this episode, he still obeys the higher authority of Earth even though he could just as easily clamp down and declare martial law, that doesn't give him permission to vent his anger. The Stargate programme, for all its civilians, is a military operation, and though the brainies are integral and important to the success of the mission (and now everyone's survival), they are under the authority of their military superiors, but equally that can't equate to Young bullying those in his care, which, to be fair, he's been very good at handling so far.

The opposing sides had always been a mode of approaching drama, that conflict between civilian and military, science and violence perhaps, but it's never been quite so stark as it is in this series. It was sad to see Young give in to his worse nature and strand Rush, even though he had strong reason after all that had been done to him, a sort of coup that he had to accept or use the military and end any sense of democracy and rules of law, cutting off from Earth which he, and they all, need as a last connection to their old lives. Rush wanted to work on the recently discovered chair and chubby guy (can never remember his name), sits in it of his own volition and goes into a coma, or something. So Rush gets all he wants, even firing off a barb that Young isn't capable of leading the mission since he turned down the post of SG leader (is that the role O'Neill has now?), not wanting the responsibility. But still, it's hard to see this constant bickering or meaningful looks between people. After all they've been through, Young risking his life to bring back the water, for example, many times having to make difficult decisions that have got them to where they are, and some people still don't trust him. Who should be in command and why was quite an issue, but Young has proved himself plenty of times.

It's the story that doesn't quite do it, going from murder mystery to courtroom drama to... something else, but never really exploring each aspect enough, like it feels the audience don't have the patience. I must admit solving a murder isn't the most interesting idea, any police or detective series can do that, and while a courtroom can provide plenty of great drama (see the many Trek episodes in that vein), it can also be a bit predictable. The aftermath, then, of Colonel Young's self-imposed stepping down, must be the most interesting part, but it doesn't last too long and as I pointed out, ends in ignominy. Up to that point I'd have said it was quite a 'suitable' episode in terms of content, but then you have the brutal fight on the planet so even what little innocence (if we leave aside Spencer's suicide, which is tastefully not shown), is offed. I don't know, I keep getting the feel of a series that is unsure about itself, rarely going below the surface, relying on stylistic and contemporary choices to make it work, and so it remains at the level of not quite succeeding where any other 'Stargate' would have given us a few good episodes by this point. They're a little handicapped by the serialised format, despite the immense promise of the premise.

**

Equinox, Part II

 DVD, Voyager S6 (Equinox, Part II)

A new era dawns. The era of 'Voyager' striking out on its own as the only Trek series in production after seven years of two series' running concurrently, as this is the first episode made post the finale of 'DS9.' It also sets the tone for what I remember to be the problems with the final couple of years of the series: when you look at what 'DS9' was doing at the beginning of its sixth season it was pulling off a ground-breaking major six-part serial which featured the scale and scope of the entire Federation being at stake and the station occupied by enemy forces. In comparison we have one little starship under a despot Captain chasing another little starship under a despot Captain. See the difference? And this comes from someone who can't stand the self-important melodrama of Galactic stakes and proportions of too much of the current Trek era. Usually I'd be glad of a small, personal story, but the trouble with 'Equinox' is that it doesn't make time for the personal, it remains small in more ways than one, and certainly in my eyes it began the failure to follow through on Season 5's good use of the ensemble - there's a moment at the end of the episode when everyone's trooping out of the Briefing Room and Tuvok politely waits for others to leave, and it's just he and Janeway in the frame and you think he's going to turn to her and discuss their recent experience and her extreme behaviour, but there's not even a flicker of that, he simply walks out on the heels of everyone else.

That's due to the fact this is about to be a Janeway/Chakotay scene, fair enough, that was equally as needed, but the fact she was so dismissive of her Security Chief and he used to be her confidante, there really needed to be a scene where they talk over what happened so that Tuvok can seek some understanding or provide some wisdom, but no. And what we do see between the Captain and her First Officer is merely papering over the gulf that developed between them that seemed more severe during the episode when Chakotay was opposed to alliance with the Borg during 'Scorpion'! For that to be brushed aside, Janeway suspending him from duty, and now just sort of admits she went over the top, well, it wasn't enough. That's my general feeling towards the episode as a whole, there's much that remained unexplained, but rather than being a subtle omission designed to allow speculation it appears to be merely a lack of attention to detail. The most bizarre of these was how the Doctor went from having his ethical subroutines deleted, not disabled, deleted (!), to somehow rescuing Seven, or not even that, he just reappears back on the ship almost as if nothing had happened, he's back to his old self although the last time we saw him he was happy to carve his protege up to get the information she had! Unless I missed something that was a huge unexplained moment  of transition there.

I think of Season 6 as the one where they largely abandoned some of the characters, namely Tuvok, Neelix and Chakotay. I already mentioned a scene where I expected the Vulcan to have some closure or response to what happened, but I don't even remember Neelix appearing at all. If he did it must have been brief and of no consequence. The only one of the three that is visible and an important part of the episode is Chakotay, and even then he's weakened to the point he can't do anything about Janeway's startling decisions. That's not quite true, he does go in and rescue Lessing when she's tied him to a chair and left the room unshielded so the aliens can swoop in. While on the subject of them swooping in, that was a pretty soft way to conclude the cliffhanger we were left with at the end of Season 5: Janeway is shown to be under attack and falls out of frame, but here she's shown to be merely bruised (or the equivalent), the alien failing to do her more damage than a slightly melted cheek, so up she pops and continues as if nothing had happened. Surely the point of a cliffhanger is to provide an exciting resolution, not find a way out of it as quickly as possible. I don't know what they could have done, but perhaps have a character leap in and prevent her death at the cost of severe damage to themselves. It couldn't have been Chakotay, he was too central to the conflict between Janeway and Ransom, but someone, maybe Harry or Tom? I've since read a contemporary interview where Kate Mulgrew was sending mixed messages - she'd said in a press release at the start of the year (about halfway through Season 5), she wasn't sure she'd be staying with the series, perhaps family troubles, the discontent over Jeri Ryan's part in the series, and a need to blow off steam, and she later clarified she wouldn't be leaving, but it sounded a bit tentative and I suspect this cliffhanger was meant to give fans cause for concern, though of course she did come back.

It's usually the case that second-parters are never as strong as the story that set them up, and I know I originally thought this was great on original transmission, though in seeing it again on DVD in the past I'd already downgraded it in my own mind. When you've been treated to so much with 'DS9,' the expert use of the characters, the building up of the recurring cast, the stories, the action, the whole thing puts an episode like this in the shadow, when 'Voyager' should have been showing what it was capable of! It's not even that it's a bad episode, it is pretty good with some nice ship effects, the chase handled well and plenty of drama. But do we need to have Janeway go off the rails, nearly killing a crewman, hunting down Ransom like 'Ahab gotta go and hunt his white whale,' to quote Lily Sloane in 'First Contact'? They did it again with Captain Archer in 'Enterprise' when he threatened to push someone out of an airlock to get what he needed, so the implication seems to be that it's okay to go to extremes if the situation requires it. Of course in both cases the worst doesn't happen and especially here Janeway is looked on with horror, so it's not that Trek is suggesting this is good, but surely this should all be part of the holding on to your principles no matter what? She acts no better than Ransom himself! And I was with her at first, the fact she essentially saw herself as the only force in this entire Quadrant that could police Ransom and bring him to justice was right and good, even if it meant wasting resources chasing him down, but she goes too far and is not justified.

I understand she's got two crew-members trapped on the Equinox so it's not purely about stopping Ransom, that's further incentive, but even so she goes wild in a way that had become a little too typical of the character: inconsistency. And what about Ransom himself? Are we supposed to take from the visions of Seven he sees in the beach scenes of his personal 'Holodeck' that he's cracking up, that his conscience is getting to him? Is it because he's drawn to this woman, which would be typically self-serving, given what we've seen of his relentless quest to return himself and his crew home, or has his Starfleet training finally got through? It's hard to believe after he's in so deep, it's not like he can get out of this now, he's killed so many of these aliens for fuel and left a fellow Starfleet ship (the only other Starfleet ship in the Quadrant, to boot!), at the mercy of their vengeance, and now he suddenly has qualms? It's not that there shouldn't be redemption, even at the last moment, but I found it hard to believe that he'd come this far and only now does he decide to call it a day and give himself up. His First Officer is more depraved than he, and again, this is supposedly a Starfleet officer, acting in such a way, it's pretty terrible. He has absolutely no care for anyone, his former friend B'Elanna tries to talk him out of it and he has no reaction to her at all! Should Janeway have allowed Ransom to go down with his ship? I know that's the poetic end to it all and a kind of justice for his crimes, but he may not be entirely stable, should he not be captured and held until they can return to the Federation? It would also have thrown up a whole lot of new moral quandaries if Ransom hadn't had the easy way out - the ship itself had to be sacrificed to the aliens, that was the deal, but what if they decided they wanted Ransom, too, and Janeway refused to give him up to summary justice, requiring fair trial and due process instead of what would amount to vigilante or mob 'justice' from the aliens?

Things might have been very different if they could have banded together and worked in tandem, that would have been a fascinating development for the series to begin a new season, one of hope and new promise. There is a tiny degree of that in the handful of Equinox crew that come aboard, reduced to Crewmen, but they don't feature ever again, another story resource discarded for the sake of convenience. That's a real shame as both Gilmore and Lessing could have been interesting new characters to play around with, seeing them integrate with their new crew, try to adjust to their new positions, come to be accepted, and eventually excel because they had the will and the training to prove themselves. What a waste. They could have skipped the Borg children we'd get later in the series and explored these people instead. What we do see in the episode are the beginnings of the triumvirate that would take the lion's share of the stories and scenes to come: Janeway, Seven and the Doctor. The latter two duet again, but in a far different way from their performances in 'Someone To Watch Over Me,' a very creepy moment. At least they were given the courtesy to resolve this moment of horror between them at the end, even if, much like Garak almost killing Nog in 'DS9,' the Doc was effectively under the influence and not himself. It was a good idea and one that could have been explored, but as it stood it was really just there for shock value, another plot detail thrown in without much beyond its purpose for jeopardy.

Come to think of it you'd have thought the Doctor's program would be locked so no one could interfere with it so easily. And what happened to his evil twin from the Equinox? I think they said he was deleted, but isn't there a case for keeping him in the database, disabled, as another prisoner to face justice should they eventually reach Federation space? Might he not be more than merely a holo-character as we discovered with our EMH? That in itself could have provided a later sequel where this evil Doc somehow gets out and causes havoc. Not that we haven't seen plenty of Evil Doctor (just recently in 'Warhead' for one, then the first part of this story, and 'Darkling'), but they seemed ever eager to move on from each new story rather than fully explore potential. And while we're on the subject of technological details, shouldn't Voyager be ideally suited to travelling into a planet's atmosphere? It is designed for landing on planets, after all, yet it sustains a lot of damage following Ransom in! I understand that this could be because they were already damaged so it wasn't going to do the ship any good having that extra strain, but even so... And was the Voyager plaque falling down meant to be a symbol of Janeway's fall from grace? She says it had never fallen down before in all these years and Chakotay says time to put it back up again, showing his support for her continuing as Captain now that she's come back to her right mind? It could have worked except it was all too pat and easy.

Mind you, they could hardly have run with Chakotay secretly plotting mutiny against her over the course of the season, enlisting various people and ordering a court martial or some other hearing to look into Janeway's behaviour. Actually that throws up another question: usually if the Captain is acting erratically or against ethical norms they have the Chief Medical Officer to fall back on as someone who can relieve them of duty, but what if, as in this episode, the CMO is also out of action or compromised? A tricky question and one I'm not sure has ever been addressed in Trek. Early in the episode Chakotay has a funny line saying Janeway would make a great First Officer, but I wonder what the series might have been like if she'd voluntarily downgraded her own rank and put Chakotay in charge - he basically was at the start of Season 5 when in 'Night' Janeway had become a recluse, but that wasn't official and he wanted her to get back to being the leader she should be. But it would have been interesting to explore that dynamic of Chakotay as Captain. And I did like that Chakotay warns her about her behaviour, as is right and fitting of a good First Officer, a position that requires obedience to the Captain, but also has a responsibility to measure the best interests of the crew if the Captain should stray beyond the bounds of protocol.

The episode is only forty-two minutes long, I don't know if this was the new standard length, but it seems a bit short, and when you factor in the recap at the start, it's no wonder the story comes across as rather truncated and unfinished. They could easily have added scenes explaining or addressing the various elements I've mentioned, Chakotay ping-pongs from First Officer to suspension, then back to First Officer and there's very little sense of progression. They could have done with a more positive scene of the crew relaxing at Neelix' party, more reflection was needed, perhaps B'Elanna could have confided in Paris about her incredulity that Burke would calmly sentence her to death along with everyone else on Voyager. There needed to be something more to it. Even the value of the lesson learned is hard to pick out. From what Ransom says to Seven early in the episode about how Janeway clung to her morality at the expense of her crew, you'd think that would be it, but Janeway can hardly take the moral high ground with her actions in this episode and I wonder if Ransom knew what he'd caused her to do, would he have been relieved he isn't the only Captain to bend or break his moral code to achieve his ends, or even more horrified with the situation he'd wrought? I noticed that Jeri Taylor (whose book, 'Pathways,' I'm currently enjoying as one of the best Trek novels), was listed as Creative Consultant in the opening credits. I have to wonder how much input she had on this one. Ron Moore also contributed in his short stint with the series, and I had to agree with the comments he made (see Memory Alpha), such as: "It has no coherence. You're not sure what's really going on," and "Why are we doing this episode?" I wouldn't be quite as harsh, but his criticisms were very valid and it's a real shame the writers couldn't take such things onboard as the series with Moore would have been a much better one than it was without.

***

Perfect Dark

 

N64, Perfect Dark (2000) game

Why now? Why replay this particular game at this particular time? Three reasons: it's one of the only big games on the N64 that I hadn't revisited in recent years (along with 'Ocarina of Time' - I may make that right at Christmas), I really enjoyed playing N64 games in early Summer the last couple of years ('Goldeneye' and 'TWINE' last year, 'Body Harvest' in 2021), and lastly, and perhaps most importantly, 2023 was the year in which this 'futuristic' shooter was set, so I'd been holding off for a few years waiting to play it in the time it's supposedly happening. What I didn't realise is it's not just set in 2023, it's actually set in June, so that was a coincidence. Strangely, I found it quite difficult to find any reference to the exact time period, I would have thought it had been made obvious since I always had in mind it was supposed to be either 2023 or '24, but the only reference I can remember finding was in an internal dataDyne email, perhaps from something in your inventory, that gave a date in June 2023. That's the thing about this game, it's really quite full, whether that be of the kind of tiny secrets as the date, or the fun little unofficial side mission to spot a piece of cheese in every level (failed on that one, but I did spot quite a few), or the huge variety of options for both single and multiplayer. I was just now flicking through the manual and I found a reference to something I'd never even knew existed all the years I played it (and that was many in the 2000s!): the option to set a lock on who chooses the next multiplayer setup, so you can have it be the last winner, last loser, randomly selected player, specific player, or no lock at all.

That is the kind of attention to detail that is truly mind-blowing in its minutiae, which is of course the reason we never used it: it took long enough to set up a match in the Advanced Setup for an experienced player so you wouldn't want to be leaving it to just anyone! But the key is that the option was there. That goes for so much in this game, not that it wasn't worth using, but that the options were open, so it's almost hard to point out any flaws in such a polished product, but since I brought it up I might as well get it out of the way: the worst thing in this game is the confused blur on your screen which happens when you've been slapped, shot with a tranquilliser gun or fallen victim to an N-bomb. Everything in your vision warps and twists unless you stand stock still, and while one slap is bad enough it gets worse with each attack (or if you're in the heart of the N-bomb's blast), coupled with the shrieking or grunting of your character (depending whom you play as - 'yaddagay, yaddagay,' or 'pattacake, pattacake' as we used to interpret the Maian aliens' gibbering cries), and a reddening screen as if the game was putting into physical form an empathy for the embarrassment it felt at your mistake in being caught. This was all bad enough, but the real crime, and a heinous one at that, was the fact that even after you'd died and reappeared (or 'respawned' to use suitable gaming parlance), YOU WERE STILL AFFECTED! An absolute outrage, an egregious choice that negatively affected the experience.

It was mainly the experience of multiplayer because in single games (other than the Combat Simulator), you would either be warded off by a quick blow and would take your medicine before running off to hide in a corner and recover, or you'd be killed, and since you had to start the level over again from the beginning there were no lingering blur effects. I only mention this and the multiplayer for balance because this time around I wasn't playing that, it was purely a single-player experience, but I had to mention it because the multiplayer was what kept this game alive for many hours, potentially the most played game ever in that regard, not just on N64. The real meat, and what I'm concentrating this review on, are the missions. Even there you have the incredible option to play them teamed up with a second player, either human or computer-controlled, impressive enough as it is, though what little I remember of playing it back in the day was a bit jerky with framerate issues, something that can sometimes be a problem even in the main game when there are lots of enemies on screen or explosions, something that showed this game was pushing the hardware to its limits, even with the required Expansion Pak. There was even the option to play against another player who would take on the role of all the guards one at a time until they were all killed, a more inventive idea I can hardly imagine in an N64 title!

That was far from the only inventiveness in this game, it was chock full of further development from the already terrifically accomplished 'Goldeneye,' the engine upon which this was based and the unofficial sequel to that platform- and even genre-defining production. The best you could hope for in interaction from those silent soldiers was stumbling upon one in a level who audibly sneezed, but here you have guards saying all kinds of things to a greater or lesser frequency (I much appreciated the language filter which weeded out the swearwords, although this did have the odd side effect that a portion of the President himself's dialogue at the start of the Air Force One mission, is left out when all he says is the most minor swearword, but at least it shows they were taking it seriously!). Even footsteps can be heard and used to work out how close an enemy is - sure you have to turn off the music to get the full experience, but in real life you wouldn't be running around with music blaring in your ears, you'd be listening carefully to every sound. I wouldn't say the soundtrack is weak, but that is perhaps another area where it isn't as accomplished as every other department (sorry Grant Kirkhope and co.). Grant was well known for his superb 'Banjo-Kazooie' music in both of those games and worked on other top Rare titles, too, but that meant with the relatively limited sound set available for the N64, you could hear sounds and styles from other games, and since they were all much more cartoony it didn't always fit with the serious business at hand. It's only a small complaint, after all they didn't have the James Bond theme and a specific film to base everything on as they had with 'Goldeneye,' but I found I wasn't drawn to many of the level's themes. That derivativeness also extended to some of the visuals, with 'Jet Force Gemini' in particular coming up as a visual or sound effects link a little too much (the yellow and black hazard strips, the architecture of certain areas, the alarm or door lock sounds).

It's perhaps churlish to complain since as I say, this came fairly late in the system's lifespan so they couldn't have done much better, but if it had come from another development company I suspect it would have been more original from that standpoint of not having so many readymade sounds to draw from. Of course it wouldn't have been anywhere near as accomplished, so I can take a few riffs on previous games when the meat of this one works so well. Would I have preferred a setting of contemporary times? Probably, seeing as how exciting it was to explore the realistic levels of 'Goldeneye,' but then it would have been harder to work in the many great ideas that are bursting out of this game, such as the sci-fi weapons and gadgets (there is a lot of crossover with the earlier game, some of the guns are quite reminiscent of the ones in that, which were in themselves based on real weapons). And sometimes you don't even get to fully appreciate the varied options (that word again), in the main game, multiplayer the place to run free with the many ways to kill. Of course that is also open to hardworking players of the main missions as you can unlock various cheats that enable different guns to be used in levels where they were never found, and various other, yes, options! When I replayed 'Goldeneye' I didn't play to time trial, I was using my original file so if anything I didn't want to overwrite my original times for each level (though it happened on occasion by accident - I just don't know my own skill, obviously!), but on 'PD,' as I had with 'TWINE,' I was able to start a new file and could come to the game completely fresh.

The upshot of this was that where in 'Goldeneye' I was just playing through as quickly as possible, so many games to see and do, this time I was in no hurry. I also discovered there were a number of cheats I'd failed to unlock back in the day, a surprising thing for me since I was always so stringent on accomplishing almost everything in a game if I could, but perhaps that was a sign of the time in which I got it that I didn't have quite as much patience then: you see I was under eighteen when the game was released in 2000 so I wasn't allowed to buy it, but amazingly, a year later I won it! It's one of the few prizes I've ever won in life, and probably the best. It happened like this: in the great N64 Magazine they had a little directory section listing all the games to have been released on the system and in the margin you'd get people writing in with their Top 5 anything to do with games. Mine was quirkily the Top 5 windmills in games ('Diddy Kong Racing,' 'Snowboard Kids,' 'Top Gear Rally,' 'Top Gear Rally 2' and 'Zelda: Ocarina of Time,' leading to my oft-repeated slogan, "Ah, that windmill helped me win 'Perfect Dark'" whenever I encountered one of these in those games), and it won the prize for that issue (#57), a game of my choice, which was, of course, 'PD.' It wasn't as easy as all that, I patiently waited months and it never arrived so I eventually rang up the mag and spoke to Dan Geary, I believe, who promised to send it, and I still remember the excitement when it dropped onto the mat... Even if it was eight months after I'd won it!

I don't think it was quite the revelation it might have been if I'd come to it fresh with little foreknowledge, but I'd been fed a steady diet of hype and details, pored over the screenshots and anticipated it for so long that by the time I was finally playing it in 2002, nothing could live up to such a buildup. It still made a jolly good go of it however, and thanks to the multiplayer, remained a stalwart and one of my absolute top games of the N64. But it was also a time when the time of the machine was coming to an end and Dolphin, soon to be GameCube, was just around the corner, and I had spent many, many hours playing around in 'Goldeneye' having completed everything, just mucking about, experimenting, so I had used up that kind of patience over the years and with 'PD' being so similar I didn't have the appetite to so thoroughly munch on every facet of the game, hence why I never got around to playing repeatedly until every last cheat was unlocked. On the positive side, that gave me the fresh challenge now of doing things I'd never done before, closing the circle on the game and gaining great satisfaction in doing so. But it wasn't easy, there were levels I had to play and play, honing every last bit of the level before I could beat some really tough time trials. The final level (proper), the Skedar Ruins, was possibly the toughest of the lot in that regard, and actually was the hardest mission in the game (though I'm finding Maian SOS, the second bonus mission, as tough on Perfect difficulty!), in keeping with the idea throughout (and before, and after), the N64's life that a final level must be hair-tearingly, painfully challenging to the extent it's probably not going to be much fun to get through!

That was certainly the case with 'PD,' they didn't win any originality awards for the standard approach of difficulty curve, but in its defence I will say the curve was pretty well implemented, however the fun curve started to dip with some of those later levels. The main thing is they slowly begin to incorporate the alien enemies, the Skedar, beginning with what I call the mini-Skedars, pipsqueak-size versions of the big daddies that are nonetheless a pain to aim at since they stand less than a foot off the floor and have the annoying habit of launching themselves right in your face from a distance, but at least you can take a few nips from them, whereas when you meet the full-sized variety a couple of slaps (on Perfect Agent, at least), is enough to finish you off. And they don't just slap, they can also carry guns, and they run for you, and once again they're more difficult to hit than humans since their centre of gravity is much lower so your automatic straight ahead aim will be slightly over their heads. And they don't react to the first few bullets, unlike humans, whom, once you get a bullet into them, unless they have body armour on, will react and give you time to adjust your aim for more deadly shots. The levels where they appear are also much more constrained or constricted, whatever the word is: claustrophobic might suit, especially for those tight corridors of the Attack Ship, the penultimate mission, but the Ruins, with their high walls and jutting masonry which is easy to get caught on as you run about, is full of dead ends which lead to a dead end for you.

Success in the last levels is that much sweeter due to the toughness of what you have to overcome, but shooting Skedar can never replace the satisfaction of pitting yourself against fellow humans, even computer-controlled facsimiles, because humans just have that unique way of moving and operating and it's a pleasure to defeat enemies that think and move like that: leaping to the side (as they used to do in 'Goldeneye'), rolling, running away, running for you, walking towards you as they let loose their entire clip... There was more intelligence in their behaviour as befitting a game made with the preparation they'd had from the earlier game. I don't know whether the feature in N64 Magazine of reader suggestions was ever seen or acted upon by the makers, but the majority of ideas made it into the game, whether it was great minds thinking alike or they really did act on what they saw, it doesn't matter. But guards that give up? That plead for their lives and stand there with hands in the air at your mercy (be kind, let them live). Guns that can be shot out of the enemies' hands so they have to run back and pick them up? These were masterstroke additions to the already winning 'Goldeneye' style. I will say that perhaps, sometimes the guns and enemies aren't quite as indefinably 'meaty' as in the original game, though it's close. Precision has more to do with things this time - take the fact that now, not only can you duck down, you can go even lower with a secondary crouch. Maybe they could have made that an option to lie on the floor, but I just take it as a superb addition, and a sometimes necessary move when under fire.

Such options added new levels of detail and precision that bring you into this world and this role even more. The fact that you're playing some twenty-three year old girl (see, she was born the year the game came out - clever, eh?), rather than James Bond, doesn't matter because it's a first person shooting game so you only see yourself in the cutscenes, which are also nicely done and lightyears ahead of the basic and short examples from the earlier game. They showed how dramatically advanced games on the N64 could be. There are plenty of improvements that could have been made, but not the ones which would make it less taxing for the player as I like a challenge - I listened to a review on podcast Ultra 64 and was amazed to hear how much complaining went on: it's too difficult, there's no mini-map, you're not told exactly what to do and where and when... It sounded so weak to me, maybe it's just a different generation raised on games that are designed in the decades since to be ever more accessible, perhaps even ever easier so as not to put off more casual players. Well I wasn't put off, I saw the toughest parts as a great challenge, one I was willing to work at over and over and over again until I'd cracked it. Some of that is knowledge: the game is part exploration, things aren't supposed to be given to you, and you should be penalised by restarting at the beginning of the level again ('there're no checkpoints to save your progress,' they whined), but you learn and develop, everything isn't handed to you on a plate, that's what makes it enjoyable and where the satisfaction comes from.

Is the idea of earning things in games disappearing? I don't know, not being a player of anything more recent than a Wii, but the voices on Ultra 64 seemed to suggest that modern players are spoiled and not used to having to battle through. I fully accept that the same could be said for 'PD' in light of earlier systems: I began on the Commodore 64 and I think there was only one game on that computer I actually completed ('Yogi Bear' on cassette tape!), because the idea in those days was to make the game as hard as possible in order to lengthen the lifespan, but then they were dealing with players raised on the arcades where you had to pay financial penalties for losing or dying! By the N64's time players were expecting to finish games (or at least I was, but then I had been a child in the C64 days so I had less chance than my later, experienced gaming self), but still, only the most dedicated would take the time to unlock everything. I have to admit there were parts of the Combat Simulator Challenges that were beyond my capabilities, and that's an area I haven't attempted for this review, though I may try to win as many as I can, it's just that fighting Sims in those levels doesn't appeal on the level of the missions. I gained great pleasure from working out how to succeed at certain tasks, and then again at learning to do them at the optimum speed (such as realising you could chuck one of the target amplifiers over a wall in the Ruins to avoid having to trek round to that big pillar).

My desire to beat every single one of the times I originally achieved was born from the same challenge playing 'TWINE' last year where sometimes I could only knock one second off, but I'm glad to say (other than the bonus missions I still have to complete), I succeeded on that mission, too, often by some margin, though there is one level I don't think is possible to knock even a single second off, and that was The Duel since the first round can't be done quicker than four seconds as far as I can tell. Perhaps the best levels aren't as good as the best on 'Goldeneye' (I think of Facility, Archives, Bunkers, Frigate, etc), but they managed to avoid the mid-game slump of some of those dull, brown levels such as Depot. There's a nice variety in length, you have some quite compact areas like the G5 Building or Chicago before it (and dataDyne is really only four floors, including the roof, despite the impression of a vast office block within a skyscraper), while others can be vast outdoor locations (Crash Site), or labyrinthine (Area 51 - that would have been terrific as a multiplayer arena, I feel, but perhaps it would have put too big a strain on the system). DataDyne doesn't have the same wonder and impressive start to the game that the Dam had, but that would have been hard to follow up - as much as having 'Goldeneye' as a template must have been an advantage, it was such a great game that it must also have been a major challenge to equal or surpass. It's not as simple as adding more technical improvements, the game design and story have to succeed as well.

The voice acting is one area that looks rather amateurish in most cases, which is unsurprising as we were still in an era when getting the office bods to do voices wasn't farfetched as this relatively new technology was incorporated into games (according to Ultra 64 Joanna Dark was played by a girl who worked on the sound design). The Playstation had an advantage in that area since CD could pack on a lot more sound easily, which is only more impressive when you see how much a part of 'PD's cartridge it is. And I quite like the slightly ropey acting skills, there's a sort of charm that makes you smile, and some of it is quite fun in and of itself: I'm thinking of Elvis who is often quite amusing in his offbeat, familiar style with use of Earth slang ("...Plus it's got no style, you know what I'm saying?"). Animation is superb, the way people move works really well and takes the work of 'Goldeneye' further, and while I didn't enjoy taking on the Skedar as much, it's hard to argue with how well they moved and their design (reminding me of Species 8472 from 'Voyager'). Going through the levels in my mind I can sometimes think of ways they could have been improved (take the Carrington Institute for an example - I'd have much preferred a scenario where the place was already taken and you had to creep round both lower and upper levels to rescue hostages like in the Bunker or Frigate, rather than the emphasis on quick action and dashing about like a mad march hare!), but on the whole they were very good, varied and gave you many different tasks to accomplish beyond merely shooting foes.

I haven't even mentioned some of the revolutionary aspects of the game aside from copious speech: the real-time lighting was a magnificent addition, allowing you to shoot out lights and plunge an area into darkness (though sadly it didn't have an effect on how well the enemy could come after you, except in specific instances such as dataDyne Extraction where you have a certain amount of time with the lights off and enemies don't shoot unless you're near them). The blood was a controversial choice, splattering on walls or floor, but not over the top like 'Turok,' and could even be useful if you'd injured a guard who left a trail of bloodspots to follow - and they were careful to include a paintball mode to turn the blood into multicoloured paint and make it much more tasteful. Then there are the Simulants, a major new addition to the multiplayer, also enabling a single player to play in it, too, which can't be underestimated, though of course it's better with human minds to pit yourself against. I first encountered these in 'TWINE' having bought that before I ever got to play 'PD,' but they were much simpler compared with the level of... options... for the bots in this game, and at varying skill levels. The downside is that they always honed in on you through their own internal radar, they didn't simply run around and have strong enough AI to be able to compete that way, but they were a huge step up for the time, especially as they didn't exist in 'Goldeneye.' Maybe, maybe the single-player isn't quite as much fun as that game's: I mentioned the real world nature of that, and its weapons, but there is something undefinably solid about it I can't put my finger on. But when it comes to the complete package 'PD' is the overall winner, simply because it does everything so well and has so many, many... options.

One option was to have an onscreen timer which was a great help in times of trial (time trials), giving you a good idea of where you needed to be to win, and was very unobtrusive, too - perhaps a little too much so since it was a tiny counter on the bottom left of the screen which would even get covered by notifications that would appear where I felt it should always be 100% visible at all times (though I will say the game never looked better than through VGA, even the little digits of timer or scope magnification sharp and clear). There were moments when it seemed impossible to be able to accomplish the target time, but gradually, by whittling away at the level, finding new ways to shave seconds off or in some cases whole chunks of time, you would plot a path through the level that allowed you to achieve what was at first a mystery. My favourite 'trick' was in the G5 level where you're given a target of one minute and forty seconds, and yet the bit with the safe-cracking where you come under attack has the decoder alone taking a minute to work its magic, so how can it be even remotely possible? Ah, you had to leave the CamSpy just outside the meeting, then head up to the safe, activate the decoder, then switch back to the gadget and watch the meeting as the decoder did its work. It was easier since you didn't have to fight off the guards and a clever trick that showed Rare expected you to think laterally, not just run and gun the whole time. There were other little facets of brain work like that which elevated the game and promoted great satisfaction, and that's probably the aspect that most impressed me returning all these years later.

Even more: unlike the older game they gave you a hub to explore in which players new to the genre could learn the necessary skills of movement, combat, weaponry and gadgets, a kind of optional training level, and yet if you chose you could just jump right into the first mission. Rare at this time, and indeed, Nintendo, were great at allowing for the growth of players that had been with the machine for a while: 'Majora's Mask' was a more complex experience than 'Ocarina of Time,' while 'Banjo-Tooie' assumed you'd played 'Banjo-Kazooie' and obviously this was an enhancement on 'Goldeneye,' so you never felt like you had to regress in your abilities in order to fit into a new game, and that's something I always appreciate because it can be very hard to make something accessible to the less developed while still a challenge for the experienced (in the same way as 'DS9' took and ran with so many ideas from 'TOS' and 'TNG' in the 'Star Trek' world, making it the most satisfying series of all). At the Institute there were plenty of places to gather information, a firing range to try out and win medals for every gun you'd discovered in the game, combat training and gadget testing. But not only was it an impressively large hub from which to explore how the game worked, it also served the purpose of preparing you for a future mission when it was attacked, so all that exploring and knowledge could be put to good use later on. In one sense you could say it was lazy to reuse the level (a case of the Bunkers maybe?), but they could just as well have had no hub and this would have still been a level later on, but I like the fact you were given the chance to get your bearings.

One thing I really do miss from 'Goldeneye' is the death animation where you see yourself die in third person from various angles. I'm sure the idea back then was merely to have a snazzy, shock moment to rub in the fact you'd failed, but it also had the unexpected boon of being able to see how and why you'd been killed so you could make adjustments on your next attempt: perhaps it was a guard behind you where you hadn't expected one to be, or maybe a railgun on the ceiling, but either way it gave you an advantage, but sadly 'PD' takes that away, as while you sink to the floor and can sometimes see what's going on in your vicinity it's by no means guaranteed, a rare example of an oversight. It would also have been handy to have the later 'Goldeneye 007' Wii remake's ability to whack people with your weapon when up close (just as the guards do to you in this game, busting out all kinds of martial arts moves in great form!), while as it stands here you have to actively change to Punch or Disarm, but then games are always going to find new little enhancements to improve your options, and as I may have noted before, 'PD' certainly had options. One major improvement to its predecessor is that you could access your inventory instantly rather than being shot to pieces as Bond leisurely lifted his wrist to look into his watch face. That was a big help, but you can also switch weapons and items using a 'wheel' that appears on screen at your bidding. In time trial it was always preferable to pause the game to access the inventory for the quickest weapons change, but it's good to have that... choice.

I often complain about games that require trial and error to progress, so it may seem hypocritical that I seem so positive towards a game that requires just that kind of approach to succeed at the mission objectives and is so unforgiving if you kill the wrong person or use an item in the wrong way. For once the options are closed down - take the target amplifiers you have to attach to the pillars in the Skedar Ruins (it being fresh in my mind). Would it have hurt to be able to pick up any amplifier you'd misplaced instead of instantly failing the objective! It's only a small thing, but I had to mention it, to be objective about the objectives... It's true that sometimes you're left baffled because you did something wrong and it's not explicitly explained how in the objective briefing in fine detail, but that's part of the experience to explore and experiment until you work it out for yourself and gain experience and a sense of progress, rather than rushing from set-piece to set-piece, constantly being stimulated (like in 'Goldeneye' Wii to some degree), progress being achieved by thought and by experimentation - there are so many times when that was evident in the game and yes, sometimes you'd get it wrong and have to start again, but it was encouraging more than discouraging, I found, and the process of repetition itself was enjoyable because the game was so well put together, unlike some games where it's a trudge. The controls were so perfectly formed to the Controller, that 'look around with the Analogue Stick, sidestep and adjust your view up and down with the C-Buttons' ideal for a shooting game, and of course having a trigger to pull.

Another little area I can imagine the game being improved was in dealing with the arbitrarily imposed inventory for each level. It makes some sense if it's a separate mission, but when it follows on directly, like dadaDyne or Area 51 why would you suddenly have a piece of equipment or a weapon removed? They could even have had a reason to make it understandable if the game required that setup: my idea would be to have the ability to choose what to carry for a limited number of slots, with the catch being items you 'should' be using would have no trouble being resupplied with ammo, while those not designed for that level would come only with the ammo in the clip, that way it wouldn't unbalance the difficulty of the mission. Or you could auto-select the recommended inventory the game recommended. Either way you'd feel like you had more control and it wouldn't seem unfair when your silenced pistol is replaced by a scope or whatever. Asking for more options in a game heavy with them? Maybe, but just a suggestion, especially as I hear a new game in the series (the fourth after the Game Boy Color and XBox versions), is being made for the current XBox, whatever they call that (must be up to XBox 1080 by now...).

I think at this stage it's fair to say the game has OPTIONS. It's undeniable, unarguable and right there in front of you, and yet it doesn't swallow you up, you don't have to click through menu after menu to get started, the layout is nicely designed. If you want to play an Advanced game of Combat Simulator you have a cornucopia of delights to toy with, from what the Sims look like to what you call yourself, not to mention a comprehensive stats list that I forgot to mention and makes playing the Simulator more desirable because it actually means something since you move up your ranking as you improve (and if you don't want to play a 'meaningful' game you don't have to load your player). Pretty much everything that could be included, is included, other than the famed Game Boy Camera option which would have give you an editor to map faces onto characters for that ultimate personalised touch - even the three-dimensional nature of the faces is a big improvement on the flat ones of 'Goldeneye.' What else is there to say? I could go through every level and talk about the highs and lows, or review every weapon (I haven't even discussed the brilliant idea of every one having a secondary function - the ability to pilot a missile around a level is unbelievably good fun, especially chasing someone down in multiplayer!), discuss the story (which is so-so, but does have its twists and turns), and go on and on about those endless options. But I think you get the idea that this is one of the absolute top-tier releases on the system. I'm giving you the excuse, or should I say option, to stop reading... now.

*****