DVD, Stargate SG-1 S4 (Crossroads)
Like most of the mythology episodes involving the Jafar this is very absorbing, partly because you have to concentrate to take in all the names and events they're talking about, and partly because of the Shakespearean grandeur of the language and gravity put into the performances, particularly of Teal'c and his good friend Shan'auc, lit by candles and shot in a careful, serious manner. This does accentuate the way SG-1 are pushed into the background as it is mainly about or between the Tok'ra and Jafar representatives, the people of the Tar'e (humans), therefore looking a bit powerless and unimportant except as friends of Teal'c. I wouldn't say it hurts the episode, there's plenty to keep the mind busy without giving the regulars involving plots too, although it would have been nice to have either Master Bre'tak or Sam's Dad, a member of the Tok'ra, taking part. Instead we get the same female Tok'ra representative as the previous episode, which is good for continuity, but will it have a bearing on future episodes, since O'Neill has the dichotomy of liking the host, but despising the symbiont inside her?!
The whole idea is that this old friend of Teal'c's, formerly a Goa'uld priestess, has apparently found a way to communicate with her symbiont through visions when in deep meditation of Kel Nor Reem, and, inspired by Teal'c's stand against Apophis believes her symbiont is willing to communicate secrets. Of course things are never that simple and even initially things look suspicious since Bre'tak has sent her alone - he just couldn't come, apparently. Teal'c tries this new level of Kel Nor Reem and sees a vision of his Father being murdered at the hand of Cronus, so confirms it is possible to do what Shan'auc claims, but if this were always possible how can it be so simple as just trying a bit harder to meditate? Surely if it were that easy he'd have received messages from his symbiont long ago!
I distrusted Shan'auc from the start, but it turns out that she was telling the truth, though the Goa'uld symbiont inside her, calling itself Tanith when it takes a willing Tok'ra host, was the liar, the purpose to become a spy in the Tok'ra ranks. This all seems rather obvious, especially as he kills his former host, much to Teal'c's dismay, since he'd decided to leave to take up the rebellion with her on his home planet. The fact that Hebron, the host who agrees to take the Goa'uld symbiont has an English accent was like hanging a big sign over his head with the flashing the word 'BADDIE' on it. And the way he sneeringly commiserates with Teal'c over Shan'auc's apparently accidental death (they were meant to think her new symbiont came too late to save her), is a bit too obvious to be taken seriously. Does Tanith really think he's fooling the Tok'ra? Do the Tok'ra really think he doesn't guess that they suspect him? Is anyone on the winning side in this spy versus spy situation?
It sounds more complex than it was, and a bit boring, but it's actually a good episode, the moving theme music for Teal'c whenever sad things happen to him coming on as usual and adding to the visuals a wistful mood that couldn't be conveyed merely with the images. The twist was better than if it had been Shan'auc as a villain, but I feel I've either seen this episode before or Tanith is sure to reappear since I recognised his sneering face. It became obvious Shan'auc had to die because no way was Teal'c leaving the SGC. His story does rather mirror Worf's in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', with a traitor killing his intended mate, and the two characters have always been quite similar, but I won't hold that against this series because you should always plunder from the best!
***
Monday, 28 March 2011
Monday, 21 March 2011
Fade
DVD, Smallville S5 (Fade)
Lois Lane is the new Pete, she's always attracting dangerous, psychopathic types, and you have to feel sympathy for her really. I don't know if the Chameleon, as he called himself, was an original 'Smallville' creation or an existing DC villain (I know Marvel had one of the same name in the Spiderman universe), but it seems likely the former since he admits to gaining his power of invisibility from the meteor rocks on a trip through the area when the first strike hit. Plus it looked like he died at the end, so we can assume he was a one-episode guest villain. As much as Lois falling for the bad boys is a cliche, I'm sure Clark making a powerful friend who then helps him out by doing things for him (such as attempting to kill Lex) has been done before, though episode specifics don't 'fade' into mind. Invisibility certainly had been used in Season 1's 'Shimmer' so I don't know why Chloe's Wall of Weird, now seemingly transformed into a searchable database, has no occurrences listed.
The Database of Weird doesn't have the same attraction as a crazy wall full of papers, but it's not her office at the Torch any more, it's the basement of the Daily Planet, so such displays of personal oddness would be frowned upon. There are links back to those Torch days when Chloe tries to get Clark back into reporter mode, one aspect of his character that has fallen by the wayside after being so successfully set up in the early seasons. But there are echoes of destiny too, with his continued presence at the Planet, and his decision to save Graham Garrett at the start, as well as his interesting discussion with Chloe on whether it was right to save people who had done, or would do evil - a theme that could have stretched out to the length of an episode, but sadly 'Smallville' doesn't do a lot of 'thoughtful'. Lois and Martha's conversation at the end also hints at the possible future Lois and Clark could have if she realised what a good chap he is, without openly saying anything.
The episode begins strongly with a pretty good effects sequence of Clark saving Garrett, but didn't live up to the promise shown in the teaser, which was well shot, exciting and impressive. I'm amazed not one person in the busy street noticed the guy with the bright red jacket was one side of the road, then a few seconds later he's over the other side having pushed the guy out of the way of a speeding car! The episode comes full circle with another sequence in which Clark saves the unknowing Lex and his now-public girlfriend Lana, from the bullet of the baddie, except Lana thinks Lex saved her life now! I really hoped, futilely, as it turns out, that the big circle of doom had been broken and we wouldn't have to see scenes between Clark and Lana where they softly rant at each other, moan about trust, etc, etc, etc. It's like they can't go too many episodes without ending one with the pair getting all het up with each other, but there was a time when it didn't happen, honest it really didn't! Those happier days are long since gone, and signs are there that spell further trouble - Lana's trust in Lex may be misplaced since he appeared to be in email contact with Milton Fine, the missing Kryptonian, who is still sure to show up for a rematch with Clark before long.
***
Lois Lane is the new Pete, she's always attracting dangerous, psychopathic types, and you have to feel sympathy for her really. I don't know if the Chameleon, as he called himself, was an original 'Smallville' creation or an existing DC villain (I know Marvel had one of the same name in the Spiderman universe), but it seems likely the former since he admits to gaining his power of invisibility from the meteor rocks on a trip through the area when the first strike hit. Plus it looked like he died at the end, so we can assume he was a one-episode guest villain. As much as Lois falling for the bad boys is a cliche, I'm sure Clark making a powerful friend who then helps him out by doing things for him (such as attempting to kill Lex) has been done before, though episode specifics don't 'fade' into mind. Invisibility certainly had been used in Season 1's 'Shimmer' so I don't know why Chloe's Wall of Weird, now seemingly transformed into a searchable database, has no occurrences listed.
The Database of Weird doesn't have the same attraction as a crazy wall full of papers, but it's not her office at the Torch any more, it's the basement of the Daily Planet, so such displays of personal oddness would be frowned upon. There are links back to those Torch days when Chloe tries to get Clark back into reporter mode, one aspect of his character that has fallen by the wayside after being so successfully set up in the early seasons. But there are echoes of destiny too, with his continued presence at the Planet, and his decision to save Graham Garrett at the start, as well as his interesting discussion with Chloe on whether it was right to save people who had done, or would do evil - a theme that could have stretched out to the length of an episode, but sadly 'Smallville' doesn't do a lot of 'thoughtful'. Lois and Martha's conversation at the end also hints at the possible future Lois and Clark could have if she realised what a good chap he is, without openly saying anything.
The episode begins strongly with a pretty good effects sequence of Clark saving Garrett, but didn't live up to the promise shown in the teaser, which was well shot, exciting and impressive. I'm amazed not one person in the busy street noticed the guy with the bright red jacket was one side of the road, then a few seconds later he's over the other side having pushed the guy out of the way of a speeding car! The episode comes full circle with another sequence in which Clark saves the unknowing Lex and his now-public girlfriend Lana, from the bullet of the baddie, except Lana thinks Lex saved her life now! I really hoped, futilely, as it turns out, that the big circle of doom had been broken and we wouldn't have to see scenes between Clark and Lana where they softly rant at each other, moan about trust, etc, etc, etc. It's like they can't go too many episodes without ending one with the pair getting all het up with each other, but there was a time when it didn't happen, honest it really didn't! Those happier days are long since gone, and signs are there that spell further trouble - Lana's trust in Lex may be misplaced since he appeared to be in email contact with Milton Fine, the missing Kryptonian, who is still sure to show up for a rematch with Clark before long.
***
The Communicator
DVD, Enterprise S2 (The Communicator)
'The Original Series' was a continued source of inspiration for the latest branch of the legacy, and this episode was one of the more obvious tips of the hat since it directly follows on (retrospectively) from Dr. McCoy's comments in an episode (was it 'A Piece of The Action'?), in which, after suffering at the hands of a pre-warp civilization who had been influenced by a book left behind on a previous ship's visit, he realises he's left his communicator down on the planet. In that episode it was only meant as a lighthearted way to end the episode, no doubt with Kirk pulling a long-suffering expression and Spock raising an eyebrow. In this however, it's a serious story, which shows the difference between the two series', I suppose - 'TOS' tended to be more straightforward 'fun', where 'Enterprise' took things a little more seriously sometimes than was necessary.
It may not have been a particularly rich vein to mine as the story is fairly bland, as in we've seen it all before - the aliens are rather uninspiring to look at, we don't learn enough about their culture to care about them, and what should have been the heart of the narrative, the fact that cultural contamination should be avoided at all costs, was neither delved into in a new way, or deep enough. If Malcolm had refused to die for the sake of the race knowing he was an alien, and had confessed against Archer's orders it might have spiced things up (although he'd have had to redeem himself somehow). Even worse, there's no real B-story, only Trip and Travis pottering sedately around the Suliban ship they've been carrying since the pilot in an attempt to get the cloak working. The most exciting thing that happens is Trip's arm going invisible!
If there had never been a 'TNG', a 'DS9' or a 'Voyager', this might be okay, but we've had so many episodes that rolling out another identikit, half-hearted story doesn't cut it. It would be different if the characters were used to their full potential and we learnt about them through the story, but although it's always interesting to see Archer and Reed together, they don't move on from the 'Minefield' episode, and there's nothing new going on. So that's the bad, but I can't say there weren't good points - the lush planet views were beautiful, and show just what we're missing in space when we only get distant stars pinging by. In this, the NX-01 orbits gracefully, and the surface views are equally attractive with verdant forests and realistic cityscapes. The effects budget was well allocated, with an airborne chase, the invisibility effects and T'Pol rolling out of the pod firing! The sets were also quite nice, the cosy pub best, and the very well-lit, sunset-like glow of the prison cell showed off modern ability to create high quality visuals.
There was a break down in intelligence with the soldiers and the bar man as he clearly remembered Hoshi, but although the soldiers were in waiting for Archer and Malcolm no one ever asked them where the third member of their team had gone! This episode was the closest they ever got to having Guinan appear, but only because a guest actor's name was Francis Guinan, which shows how little they bothered about getting regular faces on the series. I felt the story could have done with a scene in which the leader of the soldiers told his men that none of it had happened and that they were to tell no one, as that might have made a better ending dramatically instead of the usual conversation where T'Pol tries to cheer up Archer by saying it didn't go as badly as it might have done. Perhaps if Archer really had left his scanner behind instead of dropping it on the floor of the Suliban pod, in 35 years a new 'Star Trek' series might have had an episode called 'The Scanner'.
**
'The Original Series' was a continued source of inspiration for the latest branch of the legacy, and this episode was one of the more obvious tips of the hat since it directly follows on (retrospectively) from Dr. McCoy's comments in an episode (was it 'A Piece of The Action'?), in which, after suffering at the hands of a pre-warp civilization who had been influenced by a book left behind on a previous ship's visit, he realises he's left his communicator down on the planet. In that episode it was only meant as a lighthearted way to end the episode, no doubt with Kirk pulling a long-suffering expression and Spock raising an eyebrow. In this however, it's a serious story, which shows the difference between the two series', I suppose - 'TOS' tended to be more straightforward 'fun', where 'Enterprise' took things a little more seriously sometimes than was necessary.
It may not have been a particularly rich vein to mine as the story is fairly bland, as in we've seen it all before - the aliens are rather uninspiring to look at, we don't learn enough about their culture to care about them, and what should have been the heart of the narrative, the fact that cultural contamination should be avoided at all costs, was neither delved into in a new way, or deep enough. If Malcolm had refused to die for the sake of the race knowing he was an alien, and had confessed against Archer's orders it might have spiced things up (although he'd have had to redeem himself somehow). Even worse, there's no real B-story, only Trip and Travis pottering sedately around the Suliban ship they've been carrying since the pilot in an attempt to get the cloak working. The most exciting thing that happens is Trip's arm going invisible!
If there had never been a 'TNG', a 'DS9' or a 'Voyager', this might be okay, but we've had so many episodes that rolling out another identikit, half-hearted story doesn't cut it. It would be different if the characters were used to their full potential and we learnt about them through the story, but although it's always interesting to see Archer and Reed together, they don't move on from the 'Minefield' episode, and there's nothing new going on. So that's the bad, but I can't say there weren't good points - the lush planet views were beautiful, and show just what we're missing in space when we only get distant stars pinging by. In this, the NX-01 orbits gracefully, and the surface views are equally attractive with verdant forests and realistic cityscapes. The effects budget was well allocated, with an airborne chase, the invisibility effects and T'Pol rolling out of the pod firing! The sets were also quite nice, the cosy pub best, and the very well-lit, sunset-like glow of the prison cell showed off modern ability to create high quality visuals.
There was a break down in intelligence with the soldiers and the bar man as he clearly remembered Hoshi, but although the soldiers were in waiting for Archer and Malcolm no one ever asked them where the third member of their team had gone! This episode was the closest they ever got to having Guinan appear, but only because a guest actor's name was Francis Guinan, which shows how little they bothered about getting regular faces on the series. I felt the story could have done with a scene in which the leader of the soldiers told his men that none of it had happened and that they were to tell no one, as that might have made a better ending dramatically instead of the usual conversation where T'Pol tries to cheer up Archer by saying it didn't go as badly as it might have done. Perhaps if Archer really had left his scanner behind instead of dropping it on the floor of the Suliban pod, in 35 years a new 'Star Trek' series might have had an episode called 'The Scanner'.
**
Prototype
DVD, Voyager S2 (Prototype)
Robots. We don't get many of them on these series'. Androids, Cyborgs, holocharacters, yes, but a simple robot? Not often. There are plenty of them in this episode, two sides of a never-ending war, but to begin with we don't know anything, even what's going on, as the decision was taken to be a little more experimental with the teaser, which shows the robot's-eye view of floating adrift, beaming up and being poked and prodded by Starfleet officers, only revealing what it looks like when it focuses in on a monitor displaying a video link of itself. Director Jonathan Frakes, as ever, does a good job on the visual side. There were some well-shot scenes that stick in my mind, such as B'Elanna's late-night visit to her mechanical man, shown from high up in Engineering with the warp core throbbing away and evoking the empty night hours suitably. I particularly enjoyed the shuttle sequence when Paris flys towards the robot ships as they battle each other, the tiny shuttle vastly out-sized by the others, the opposing robot craft suddenly looming over the other robot's vessel, like a storm cloud rising above a mountain. And the tiny shuttle is heading into this maelstrom!
The simple, clean design of the robots, though it could be seen as a generic, sci-fi style, emphasised their seeming innocence with the blank faces and equally measured, unemotional voices. The clothing, something that might be considered extraneous gave them a more relatable humanoid texture, a uniform design to mark them out as servants, and the subconscious idea they could be hiding something. When Torres gets in a reference to Data it's a really good tying together of the universe, though as the ship is lost in the Delta Quadrant B'Elanna didn't know the ship Data was on had been destroyed by then, so at that precise moment he wouldn't have been serving as she assumed.
The design of the ships, pyramidal, formidable, were quite different compared with the 'Star Trek' style we usually see, though they still seemed a part of the universe thanks to their blinky lights and windows. Voyager was pummeled again, but this was long before the days when they regularly went nacelle to nacelle with the Borg, or could take on multiple enemies with a snap of Janeway's coffee-stained fingers. It was a simpler time, when the crew still hadn't been defined; Neelix is there to give advice to a weary Torres, Janeway has an understanding chat with her engineer at the end, for once not giving a crewmember a 'chewing out' over disobeying orders, since this time Torres was under duress and thought she was doing the best she could for her ship by co-operating. It was also before she realised the terrible mistake she'd made in helping the Pralor robots.
The story of artificial lifeforms destroying their makers wasn't new to the franchise, as I think Ruk in 'TOS' was responsible for killing off the 'Old Ones' as he called them, but again, it's probably an old staple of the genre. I'm not sure why the Pralor ships didn't destroy Voyager when it was left dead in the water as it would have saved them having to worry about it. If they were intelligent they'd have realised B'Elanna wouldn't have helped if her shipmates were annihilated. Rick Worthy, heard as one of the robot voices, would later be seen as a member of the Equinox crew, and also played a Klingon in 'Enterprise' if I remember correctly, as well as appearing in 'Star Trek: Insurrection'.
***
Robots. We don't get many of them on these series'. Androids, Cyborgs, holocharacters, yes, but a simple robot? Not often. There are plenty of them in this episode, two sides of a never-ending war, but to begin with we don't know anything, even what's going on, as the decision was taken to be a little more experimental with the teaser, which shows the robot's-eye view of floating adrift, beaming up and being poked and prodded by Starfleet officers, only revealing what it looks like when it focuses in on a monitor displaying a video link of itself. Director Jonathan Frakes, as ever, does a good job on the visual side. There were some well-shot scenes that stick in my mind, such as B'Elanna's late-night visit to her mechanical man, shown from high up in Engineering with the warp core throbbing away and evoking the empty night hours suitably. I particularly enjoyed the shuttle sequence when Paris flys towards the robot ships as they battle each other, the tiny shuttle vastly out-sized by the others, the opposing robot craft suddenly looming over the other robot's vessel, like a storm cloud rising above a mountain. And the tiny shuttle is heading into this maelstrom!
The simple, clean design of the robots, though it could be seen as a generic, sci-fi style, emphasised their seeming innocence with the blank faces and equally measured, unemotional voices. The clothing, something that might be considered extraneous gave them a more relatable humanoid texture, a uniform design to mark them out as servants, and the subconscious idea they could be hiding something. When Torres gets in a reference to Data it's a really good tying together of the universe, though as the ship is lost in the Delta Quadrant B'Elanna didn't know the ship Data was on had been destroyed by then, so at that precise moment he wouldn't have been serving as she assumed.
The design of the ships, pyramidal, formidable, were quite different compared with the 'Star Trek' style we usually see, though they still seemed a part of the universe thanks to their blinky lights and windows. Voyager was pummeled again, but this was long before the days when they regularly went nacelle to nacelle with the Borg, or could take on multiple enemies with a snap of Janeway's coffee-stained fingers. It was a simpler time, when the crew still hadn't been defined; Neelix is there to give advice to a weary Torres, Janeway has an understanding chat with her engineer at the end, for once not giving a crewmember a 'chewing out' over disobeying orders, since this time Torres was under duress and thought she was doing the best she could for her ship by co-operating. It was also before she realised the terrible mistake she'd made in helping the Pralor robots.
The story of artificial lifeforms destroying their makers wasn't new to the franchise, as I think Ruk in 'TOS' was responsible for killing off the 'Old Ones' as he called them, but again, it's probably an old staple of the genre. I'm not sure why the Pralor ships didn't destroy Voyager when it was left dead in the water as it would have saved them having to worry about it. If they were intelligent they'd have realised B'Elanna wouldn't have helped if her shipmates were annihilated. Rick Worthy, heard as one of the robot voices, would later be seen as a member of the Equinox crew, and also played a Klingon in 'Enterprise' if I remember correctly, as well as appearing in 'Star Trek: Insurrection'.
***
Identity Crisis
DVD, TNG S4 (Identity Crisis)
Much better than I remembered, this story, linked to one of Geordi's previous postings, is slow-burning, but with enough intrigue to keep you going. I love it when we hear about (or even better, in this case, see) previous missions people have been on prior to the series. They got the period detail of five years before, correct, with the tighter uniform designs and their 'go-faster' stripes on the shoulders! I'm not sure if we'd heard much about Geordi's previous career, or the USS Victory, but either way we get more information to add to our knowledge.
There's always something special about recreating a real scene on the holodeck, perhaps a more important function than the recreational use it's mostly employed for. There was something rather creepy about the shadow that can't be accounted for in the scene, and that computer extrapolation, unfinished, untextured, was strangely menacing. Effects are always important for helping to create believability, and 'TNG' sometimes suffers in this department - the shuttle crash into the atmosphere of the planet was a bit weedy. It's surprising that some visuals can be so drab, yet others are incredible, up there with the best in the series - I'm thinking of the chameleon effect La Forge uses to get to the transporter room, which was tremendous. The holodeck recreation was pretty good, although whenever they do something like this, it always works better when the subjects are locked off (as in 'Journey's End' or 'the 'DS9' episode 'Duet') as you can't rely on the actors not to sway slightly or move almost imperceptibly, which nonetheless diminishes the effect somewhat. Saying that, the 'rewind' sequence looked brilliant, as did all the business with the shadows, and La Forge removing individual elements from the scene.
While the visual effects were worthy of praise, the prosthetics took the series to another level of quality and experimentation - the alien's translucent, blue-veined exterior, added to the webbed hands and glowing yellow eyes, crafted an image of fear and instinctual behaviour. When Geordi is torn between following the other two, who are too far gone to ever revert to their humanity, or to trust his friend Susanna Leitjen, the eyes are so expressive of his desire to flee like an animal, and it's a very touching moment when he takes her hand and takes the first step back to his humanity. There is great poignancy in his returning to normal as the others couldn't make it back, and though we never knew them, it's still very sad.
There are a couple of hiccups in the story - why didn't Riker simply deactivate the holoprogram rather than leaving it running when they search for Geordi, and in the first place, why didn't Picard order a twenty-four hour watch on his Chief Engineer since they knew he was going to turn into a creature that couldn't be tracked, at some point? It was quite surprising to have a Nordic or Scandinavian helmswoman, as it wasn't a people I'd thought of, but as soon as she spoke I wished we had a regular character of that extraction! On the cast front Nurse Ogawa gets to be in it, and we get some really nice scenes between Geordi and Dr. Crusher, and Geordi and Data, both of whom show their concern for their friend. It's one of those well mixed episodes (not talking about sound, although that was fine), which you can sink into, there are some good moments and everything, well almost everything, turns out alright by the end, which is the style of the series I really like - the warm bath effect, shall we say.
Ideas in 'Star Trek' often get recycled, and the genetic reproduction was also seen in 'Voyager' story 'Ashes To Ashes', though that race brought the dead of other races back to life to serve as hosts to new genetic material. The same series' (and also written by Brannon Braga) 'Threshold' is also about genetic mutation, and of course 'TNG's own 'Genesis' had a similar theme. No doubt there were others too!
***
Much better than I remembered, this story, linked to one of Geordi's previous postings, is slow-burning, but with enough intrigue to keep you going. I love it when we hear about (or even better, in this case, see) previous missions people have been on prior to the series. They got the period detail of five years before, correct, with the tighter uniform designs and their 'go-faster' stripes on the shoulders! I'm not sure if we'd heard much about Geordi's previous career, or the USS Victory, but either way we get more information to add to our knowledge.
There's always something special about recreating a real scene on the holodeck, perhaps a more important function than the recreational use it's mostly employed for. There was something rather creepy about the shadow that can't be accounted for in the scene, and that computer extrapolation, unfinished, untextured, was strangely menacing. Effects are always important for helping to create believability, and 'TNG' sometimes suffers in this department - the shuttle crash into the atmosphere of the planet was a bit weedy. It's surprising that some visuals can be so drab, yet others are incredible, up there with the best in the series - I'm thinking of the chameleon effect La Forge uses to get to the transporter room, which was tremendous. The holodeck recreation was pretty good, although whenever they do something like this, it always works better when the subjects are locked off (as in 'Journey's End' or 'the 'DS9' episode 'Duet') as you can't rely on the actors not to sway slightly or move almost imperceptibly, which nonetheless diminishes the effect somewhat. Saying that, the 'rewind' sequence looked brilliant, as did all the business with the shadows, and La Forge removing individual elements from the scene.
While the visual effects were worthy of praise, the prosthetics took the series to another level of quality and experimentation - the alien's translucent, blue-veined exterior, added to the webbed hands and glowing yellow eyes, crafted an image of fear and instinctual behaviour. When Geordi is torn between following the other two, who are too far gone to ever revert to their humanity, or to trust his friend Susanna Leitjen, the eyes are so expressive of his desire to flee like an animal, and it's a very touching moment when he takes her hand and takes the first step back to his humanity. There is great poignancy in his returning to normal as the others couldn't make it back, and though we never knew them, it's still very sad.
There are a couple of hiccups in the story - why didn't Riker simply deactivate the holoprogram rather than leaving it running when they search for Geordi, and in the first place, why didn't Picard order a twenty-four hour watch on his Chief Engineer since they knew he was going to turn into a creature that couldn't be tracked, at some point? It was quite surprising to have a Nordic or Scandinavian helmswoman, as it wasn't a people I'd thought of, but as soon as she spoke I wished we had a regular character of that extraction! On the cast front Nurse Ogawa gets to be in it, and we get some really nice scenes between Geordi and Dr. Crusher, and Geordi and Data, both of whom show their concern for their friend. It's one of those well mixed episodes (not talking about sound, although that was fine), which you can sink into, there are some good moments and everything, well almost everything, turns out alright by the end, which is the style of the series I really like - the warm bath effect, shall we say.
Ideas in 'Star Trek' often get recycled, and the genetic reproduction was also seen in 'Voyager' story 'Ashes To Ashes', though that race brought the dead of other races back to life to serve as hosts to new genetic material. The same series' (and also written by Brannon Braga) 'Threshold' is also about genetic mutation, and of course 'TNG's own 'Genesis' had a similar theme. No doubt there were others too!
***
Night Terrors
DVD, TNG S4 (Night Terrors)
I like to imagine that this episode shows what the cast looked like at the end of a long week of shooting! The unsettling nature of the music helped to create the right sort of atmosphere for the crew's gradual descent into madness, but as a whole I didn't feel the story went far enough in upping the tension. There are some striking images that stick in the mind, most impressive of all were the corpses Dr. Crusher was examining in the morgue (was that the morgue or just a temporary space to store the bodies). She hears rustling then looking round she sees all the silent shapes, wrapped in their sheets, sitting bolt upright. Very effective indeed, without any need for gore. The snakes Riker sees enveloping his legs when in bed also worked well, but there weren't many of these moments, or enough to keep the uneasiness going.
Once we know it's a simple matter of not being able to dream, the solution gets all techy, slowing the story. Data again proves how handy he is with the ability to work normally while everyone else succumbs to irritability and tiredness, and Troi shows herself useful too, though this involves floating rather gracelessly through her dream - I bet Marina Sirtis cringed when she saw that sequence! I like it when they go to the trouble of showing the guest ship's name on it's hull, rather than just telling us its name, even if it was a reuse of the Reliant model. The aliens were a bit cryptic, as it would have been much simpler to explain what they meant, but this must have been the only way they could communicate. I just think that if they could speak English, they'd know the word 'hydrogen', but it's nitpicking really.
It was about time we had a look in on the newly-weds, Miles and Keiko, but sadly it was only an argument, presumably brought on by lack of REM sleep. They should really have had a scene to cap it off where Keiko forgives Miles for his outburst, but that's the price of not having a regular for a husband - when she did get that, on 'DS9', she went off to Bajor anyway, so there's no pleasing some people! Guinan's appearance too, was slightly off-kilter compared to her usual role - I never saw her as the type to carry around a hulking great gun, but she certainly knows how to keep order. It was also fitting that she didn't seem to show any effects of not dreaming, as she's so often 'above' whatever happens to the ship, existing almost separately to her colleagues on board.
I thought Worf was showing his Klingon strength by seemingly not becoming affected, but as usual he was bottling it all up until he bolts off the bridge to his quarters, planning to kill himself. An over-reaction? It was worth it for the scene where the petite Troi takes his hand and leads him off to sickbay like a great bear behind her. Crews going mad in response to alien stimuli or spatial phenomena is almost a regular thing, so they should really sort out some protocols for this eventuality, starting with not leaving it too long before they try out any plan to escape. John Vickery, the catatonic Betazoid, also played Gul Rusot in the last episodes of 'DS9'.
***
I like to imagine that this episode shows what the cast looked like at the end of a long week of shooting! The unsettling nature of the music helped to create the right sort of atmosphere for the crew's gradual descent into madness, but as a whole I didn't feel the story went far enough in upping the tension. There are some striking images that stick in the mind, most impressive of all were the corpses Dr. Crusher was examining in the morgue (was that the morgue or just a temporary space to store the bodies). She hears rustling then looking round she sees all the silent shapes, wrapped in their sheets, sitting bolt upright. Very effective indeed, without any need for gore. The snakes Riker sees enveloping his legs when in bed also worked well, but there weren't many of these moments, or enough to keep the uneasiness going.
Once we know it's a simple matter of not being able to dream, the solution gets all techy, slowing the story. Data again proves how handy he is with the ability to work normally while everyone else succumbs to irritability and tiredness, and Troi shows herself useful too, though this involves floating rather gracelessly through her dream - I bet Marina Sirtis cringed when she saw that sequence! I like it when they go to the trouble of showing the guest ship's name on it's hull, rather than just telling us its name, even if it was a reuse of the Reliant model. The aliens were a bit cryptic, as it would have been much simpler to explain what they meant, but this must have been the only way they could communicate. I just think that if they could speak English, they'd know the word 'hydrogen', but it's nitpicking really.
It was about time we had a look in on the newly-weds, Miles and Keiko, but sadly it was only an argument, presumably brought on by lack of REM sleep. They should really have had a scene to cap it off where Keiko forgives Miles for his outburst, but that's the price of not having a regular for a husband - when she did get that, on 'DS9', she went off to Bajor anyway, so there's no pleasing some people! Guinan's appearance too, was slightly off-kilter compared to her usual role - I never saw her as the type to carry around a hulking great gun, but she certainly knows how to keep order. It was also fitting that she didn't seem to show any effects of not dreaming, as she's so often 'above' whatever happens to the ship, existing almost separately to her colleagues on board.
I thought Worf was showing his Klingon strength by seemingly not becoming affected, but as usual he was bottling it all up until he bolts off the bridge to his quarters, planning to kill himself. An over-reaction? It was worth it for the scene where the petite Troi takes his hand and leads him off to sickbay like a great bear behind her. Crews going mad in response to alien stimuli or spatial phenomena is almost a regular thing, so they should really sort out some protocols for this eventuality, starting with not leaving it too long before they try out any plan to escape. John Vickery, the catatonic Betazoid, also played Gul Rusot in the last episodes of 'DS9'.
***
Resistance
DVD, Voyager S2 (Resistance)
For the most part this comes across as a standard planet-based story, with an Away Team captured or in hiding from the unfriendly local security force. The way it was shot, with close-ups and hardly any establishing shots of the locations, such as the prison or the market, makes the place seem claustrophobic and a bit small scale - would the head of security really be patrolling this small town market when there could be an entire planet of towns to hide in? So Janeway might have had difficulty getting out of the town, but it would have been good to see more of the place to give a larger perspective. The introspection does serve one particular character, who becomes the centre of our attention - Caylem, a little old man who has become slightly confused after his wife and daughter were both captured, and his gentle care of Janeway, thinking her his daughter is a sad, but warm thread running through the story, culminating in his unfortunate death in the prison break, though Janeway is able to set his mind at ease in the most touching way before he goes. I love the scene in her ready room at the end in which she holds the necklace he gave her, which belonged to his wife, showing without the need for words, how much the encounter meant to her, and how she will not forget his bravery. It's better to have a closing scene like that rather than just go off to the next stop.
Though Kes and the EMH don't feature at all, the other characters all get some good moments, whether it's Neelix being part of the shady goings-on to get the material they need, Chakotay in charge up on the ship with Kim as his right-hand man, or the unlikely pairing of Tuvok and Torres. She has to hold herself back a few times when provoked in the prison cell, and only Tuvok's calm reasoning stops her from launching a pointless assault that would probably get her killed. There's quite an uncomfortable moment as we see her in the cell when Tuvok's been taken for interrogation and she hears a loud cry - even a Vulcan can't withstand all levels of pain, as he later admits, though he never gives up the information the Mokra want. I wonder if Torres' Klingon blood would have been as effective?
The Mokra are standard black-clothed, booted, menacing villains, but their leader has a hint of humour, or is that cruel pleasure, in his eyes, his highly restrained demeanour and voice, belying his true power. I liked their biker outfits, with the large black helmets and fast-firing little guns. It was also good to see Neelix wearing his big coat from the pilot episode - it probably smells quite pungently, but in a comforting way, I like to think. B'Elanna appeared to be wearing her Maquis clothing from that episode, too, and Tuvok looks quite tough in his t-shirt, long before he got to dress so casually in 'Future's End'!
Joel Grey's performance as Caylem is the stand out attraction of the episode, as we learn to care about him over the course of our brief time spent with him, something which isn't always achieved with guest roles. Glenn Morshower who was the red-headed guard Janeway distracts had been in 'TNG' - he was Ensign Burke in 'Peak Performance', Orton in 'Starship Mine' and also the navigator of the Enterprise-B in 'Star Trek: Generations', so he certainly got around! Alan Scarfe, who played the leader of the enemy forces had also been in that series as Romulans Admiral Mendak in 'Data's Day' and Tokath, a Romulan in 'Birthright'.
***
For the most part this comes across as a standard planet-based story, with an Away Team captured or in hiding from the unfriendly local security force. The way it was shot, with close-ups and hardly any establishing shots of the locations, such as the prison or the market, makes the place seem claustrophobic and a bit small scale - would the head of security really be patrolling this small town market when there could be an entire planet of towns to hide in? So Janeway might have had difficulty getting out of the town, but it would have been good to see more of the place to give a larger perspective. The introspection does serve one particular character, who becomes the centre of our attention - Caylem, a little old man who has become slightly confused after his wife and daughter were both captured, and his gentle care of Janeway, thinking her his daughter is a sad, but warm thread running through the story, culminating in his unfortunate death in the prison break, though Janeway is able to set his mind at ease in the most touching way before he goes. I love the scene in her ready room at the end in which she holds the necklace he gave her, which belonged to his wife, showing without the need for words, how much the encounter meant to her, and how she will not forget his bravery. It's better to have a closing scene like that rather than just go off to the next stop.
Though Kes and the EMH don't feature at all, the other characters all get some good moments, whether it's Neelix being part of the shady goings-on to get the material they need, Chakotay in charge up on the ship with Kim as his right-hand man, or the unlikely pairing of Tuvok and Torres. She has to hold herself back a few times when provoked in the prison cell, and only Tuvok's calm reasoning stops her from launching a pointless assault that would probably get her killed. There's quite an uncomfortable moment as we see her in the cell when Tuvok's been taken for interrogation and she hears a loud cry - even a Vulcan can't withstand all levels of pain, as he later admits, though he never gives up the information the Mokra want. I wonder if Torres' Klingon blood would have been as effective?
The Mokra are standard black-clothed, booted, menacing villains, but their leader has a hint of humour, or is that cruel pleasure, in his eyes, his highly restrained demeanour and voice, belying his true power. I liked their biker outfits, with the large black helmets and fast-firing little guns. It was also good to see Neelix wearing his big coat from the pilot episode - it probably smells quite pungently, but in a comforting way, I like to think. B'Elanna appeared to be wearing her Maquis clothing from that episode, too, and Tuvok looks quite tough in his t-shirt, long before he got to dress so casually in 'Future's End'!
Joel Grey's performance as Caylem is the stand out attraction of the episode, as we learn to care about him over the course of our brief time spent with him, something which isn't always achieved with guest roles. Glenn Morshower who was the red-headed guard Janeway distracts had been in 'TNG' - he was Ensign Burke in 'Peak Performance', Orton in 'Starship Mine' and also the navigator of the Enterprise-B in 'Star Trek: Generations', so he certainly got around! Alan Scarfe, who played the leader of the enemy forces had also been in that series as Romulans Admiral Mendak in 'Data's Day' and Tokath, a Romulan in 'Birthright'.
***
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