Ageless

DVD, Smallville S4 (Ageless)

Another episode that seems half-done, not thought through, just there to make up the numbers, even if it does try and tack on a meaningful lesson about parents and children and being a parent and having a child, it's really just an excuse to see Clark and Lana play happy families and pretend to be Mum and Dad for a bit, until the obvious conclusion which was coming the moment you realise it's about a child that lives faster than normal. So all you can enjoy is the journey, but it's not a trip I wanted to go on.

And how could they blow up the windmill that's been there for years? It's not the safest place to go at the best of times, but Lana wasn't being too sensible to take a boy up there who may explode at any time, all for a weakly sentimental ending which doesn't have a quarter of the punch that Ryan's balloon trip had in a similar episode, mainly because you can't care about Evan that much as we don't know him for long enough and he has nothing to him, no history or connection, just a super fast grower. It was best that he left as with the Kents, an alien, a dog and a would-be reporter (where was Lois, incidentally?), the farm was getting crowded!

The plot thickens along with Lionel's head of hair and he's unashamedly back to his old ways, nearly killing Mrs. Teague, all for one of the 'stones' that has been a badly threaded plot meandering around, or more often, not even featuring in episodes. I liked Lionel's protectiveness of Lex, even if it's not necessarily genuine, lest we forget he tried to kill him in the past. As for Jason, Lana may have abandoned him, but so have the writers as this is another episode he doesn't appear in! I'd love to hear how Lex straightened out things with child services, seeing as the child in question turned into a teenager and then exploded, but maybe he bought them a new building or something so they brushed it under the carpet? A filler episode that has almost nothing of interest beyond Clark having to change 'diapers'. And I thought the baby was going to turn out to be Doomsday...

**

Workforce, part I

DVD, Voyager S7 (Workforce, part I)

Coming straight after 'The Void', in which the crew is trapped in an area full of diverse aliens from which they must escape, this doesn't appear very original, but the fact that Janeway and her crew don't remember their past lives, are working with these aliens and certainly don't wish to escape makes things a whole lot different. The way many of the crew come together again makes us wonder if their bond of friendship and their subconscious is bringing them together, like some sort of destiny as seen by Tom and B'Elanna's easiness with each other. Tuvok's confused ramblings or his lack of restraint in revealing his emotional state has been done better before, but adds a dash of uneasiness to the crew's situation. Janeway shows what a natural she is with people, and Seven what her true nature is: an officious pencil-pusher!

If anyone was expecting a twist in the second part to reveal why Lieutenant Baxter is posing as the alien foreman, I have to disappoint - it's just the actor playing a different character. They really should have disguised his face better, it's not like they don't expect us to remember characters that only appeared once or twice before, but have been gone for most of the series, because they brought Chell the Bolian back just a few episodes ago and went on to bring Carey in again too! On Bolians there did seem to be rather a lot of them, and assuming they all came from Voyager it's never been apparent that there are that many aboard. I also noticed some aliens that looked very much like pink versions of Benzites... Mr. Westmore having a bad day or simply a chance to use old prosthetics? They looked good anyway. And if old alien designs can be reused why not old ships, if the enemy vessel that attacks Voyager is anything to go by. It looks very much like a Breen warship.

The Emergency Command Hologram has been spoken of previously, and I was surprised that I actually enjoyed the implementation. I used to think it was a silly idea (hologramist?), but it was useful for the ship as the Doc saves it. His conversation with the computer, if you think about it, is actually him talking to himself. They got some humour out of it too, with both Kim and the ECH wanting command, and what may be a joke is a serious question and one it would be fascinating to see addressed should new adventures in the post-'Voyager' timeline ever came to pass onscreen. The episode has some good CGI work, though you can spot the difference when the CGI Voyager is used and when it's the model, but expanding sets was a worthwhile usage and we even got to see Neelix' ship again. Though the episode was state of the art at the time it also had a significant link back to the roots of 'Star Trek' - Iona Morris who plays the bartender was one of the children in the Original Series' first season episode 'Miri'. She's not the first Morris to appear in the series however, as Phil Morris was in 'One Small Step'!

Should this have been a two-parter or a feature length episode like 'Flesh and Blood'? I'm not sure, I'll have to watch part II to see whether it maintains momentum or slips in to second-episode fatigue syndrome. There have been claims that the idea of the characters working blissfully unaware of their true lives was nicked from an episode of 'Stargate SG-1'. I can't confirm or deny it as I haven't seen the episode in question, but such similar sci-fi series are bound to have similar ideas sometimes.

***

Booby Trap

DVD, TNG S3 (Booby Trap)

The only piece of interest is in Susan Gibney's portrayal of one of the designers of the Enterprise. It's the B-plot and she doesn't look her best, but the simple fact that it fills in some of the details of the Enterprise-D's origins and shows us the starship under construction scores it points. Geordi's people problems aren't terribly interesting, but it inspires a scene with Guinan which is always welcome. O'Brien is there again too - no wonder he got promoted if he sucks up to the Captain like that! "I've built little ships, Captain, I understand..."

Picard's enthusiasm for this 1,000 year old vessel shows a fresh perspective on him, but we didn't need Riker and Troi smirking at his excitement. It isn't really about old ships however, it's about problem-solving, hence the sitting around trying to solve the technical problem of getting unstuck. It doesn't make the episode stand out, and for some reason I thought the Romulans were part of it, which they turned out not to be.

The positives are that the ship and crew are all still sparkling visually in their new uniforms and excellent lighting, and the space scenes of an asteroid field and alien ship were very well achieved and must have been a huge headache at the time. Picard's solution to getting that extra bit of power is typically sensible and everything ends happily. Apart from Geordi's story - he's pre-empted Barclay and Nog by getting hooked on holograms, and although he isn't actually addicted, it does raise the ever-present questions about holo-sentience as the Leah Brahms holo-character knew what she was. There must be some law against recreating real people anyway...

**

Seth

DVD, Stargate SG-1 S3 (Seth)

Another System Lord pops up and this time he's on Earth as a stowaway. Somehow things never quite live up to that premise and it becomes a slow build up to an infiltration of Seth's house. Why he didn't have any CCTV or other technology to alert him to intruders I don't know, but in the end it's too easy for them to get in. The drain was a good set as they must have had to dig out quite a bit to get that, but the pristine 'mine-workings' studio set underneath didn't match up. A shame that Seth gets killed and there are several things that you think might lead to something, but only one does: Jacob reconciles with his estranged son. Unfortunately the plot is rather clunky using the local man whose son is trapped in the cult to activate Jacob's sense, but it doesn't feel very natural and there's no sense of progression.

Teal'c is rather muted (apart from when he tells his Goa'uld joke, funny for all the wrong reasons), and it's more white-robed action like the previous episode. I appreciate episodes occasionally being set on Earth to mix things up, and it was fun spotting 'Smallville's Sheriff Ethan (Mitchell Kosterman) as the head of the civilian authority, (though he didn't get to be Sheriff this time!), but there's a sense that the dialogue was getting a bit bogged down in continuity, something I usually enjoy, but not when it's just spoken instead of seen, and again, though I wanted to like it, it became too unsatisfying to be counted among the good episodes, despite little moments here and there. It ends very pleasantly, but definitely didn't fulfil the potential of it's idea.

**

Blank

DVD, Smallville S4 (Blank)

With Ma and Pa away Chloe becomes Clark's guide and protector. Great idea, let down a little bit, but we'll come to that. Having Chloe be the one to enlighten Clark on his abilities was priceless, as was her tricky covering for him, which becomes more overt than the mere suggestions she's been handing out as explanation for various things since she found out about him. The last thing she says, the only thing Clark did differently when he lost his memory was trust her, is the most affecting moment.

Usually I hate it when they leave out the 'adults', but this time it improved the episode, because we know how Jonathan and Martha would react - they'd be explaining things clearly to Clark and not giving any leeway for confusion. Chloe does a good job and it's a great pairing as they go about discovering the truth of what's going on. Much of it is in the vein of older episodes, with the parent of the freak-of-the-week being the true villain, Clark and friends investigating, and of course breaking and entering, followed by an impressive crowd-pleaser of a finale as Clark gets to show Lois and Sheriff Adams what they've been missing and we get to see their reactions!

The outcome was telegraphed from the beginning - with memory loss the maguffin this time it was likely that people would see Clark perform and then get it erased from their minds, or that Clark would unlock his missing memories by the end, but I was hoping for a little bit of a shaking up by Clark perhaps remembering Chloe's help and knowing he doesn't have to hide his secret from her any more, but sadly it didn't happen. Sadly is the right word as it does give them the old sadness of Chloe being on the outside as before.

Clark or other people losing their memories (whether it's from being knocked unconscious or by application of meteor powers) has been done to death, but the scenes with the mind-sapping mutant worked because he became a sympathetic character. I had less sympathy for the romantic twaddle that was spouted between Lana and Jason, and I could never believe that Lana would ever be interested in becoming Clark's girl again after all the upset of the past. Lana's usually too sensible to be affected by someone's anger and she'd never turn back to Clark. It leaves me wondering if it was she that lost her memory right back to the middle of Season Two!

Lex' turn to the dark side progresses further as he and Clark visibly don't trust each other any more, with almost no room for manoeuvre. It wasn't surprising or hard to believe in the memory zap, but it was hard to believe that everyone took it for granted that a guy could create some experiment to remove or restore memories on that scale, and for what? Was his shooting of his son an accident? And wasn't Chloe zapped at the end too, so how come she remembers babysitting Clark? And are he and Lana really going to return to the old days as if nothing had happened? It's all going a bit crazy again, but at least these things didn't quite manage to take away from what is an episode that just slips into the 'good' category. But only just.

***

The Bonding

DVD, TNG S3 (The Bonding)

There at the end was quite a sad group. Jeremy with the loss of his Mother, Wes without a Father, Worf with no parents, Picard without a family, and... perhaps Troi with a Mother? The reason the scenes in 'Star Trek: Generations' with Picard ruminating sadly about death and time came to mind, was because those themes were important to this story. The turmoil of losing someone close is played out strongly, but with the extra layers of science fiction to make the grief worse. Though it ends happily with Worf almost adopting the young lad (strange we never saw him again, but the series didn't go in for continuity much), he has to face the death of his Mother, then the confusing return of same, and then come to understand the reality and fantasy of the situation, something which would have been hard for the adults to do.

The actor who played Jeremy did a fair job, and his lack of emotion probably worked better than if he'd had to portray strong feelings. His reserve and distance worked well for the story and suited the conventions of child acting. I mentioned continuity and it's not quite true that they didn't go in for it, but it tended to be subtle and spare. In this episode we get the poignant reference back to Tasha Yar's death, still felt keenly enough to mean something two years later, making for a simple, but effective scene between Data and Riker.

I think the pinnacle of the episode is its leading towards the confrontation Wesley had never allowed to surface and subsequently seeing it come out at Captain Picard. When you see Beverly and Wes in sickbay, still suffering the loss of Jack Crusher you realise how important it was for her to return to the series, since a scene like that could not have worked otherwise. It's at this point it's obvious she wasn't brought back on a whim, but with story intentions. In what would foreshadow Worf's life he learns to talk to a child. At first his gruff, scary approaches seem over the top for humans, but gradually he learns to pull himself back a bit. His anger, directed as it was behind a wall of circuitry enhances the impression of confusion and distance from others, Troi coming into frame in a small way as her voice of reason begins to have an effect, eventually letting the camera come out from the screen.

In all aspects the episode succeeds - technically, with the non-humanoid entity sweeping through corridors and attacking poor Mr. O'Brien who was quite content tinkering around in the Transporter Room; dramatically, with the shocks and the weight of Picard's task of having to tell the boy of his Mother's death and in the way various crewmembers pull together against the fantasy; and character-wise, using the back-story's of several characters logically and usefully. Picard may not be the only one who thinks that having children aboard starships is a questionable policy, but the strength of this episode provides a good reason.

***

Who Watches The Watchers

DVD, TNG S3 (Who Watches The Watchers)

I experience mixed feelings watching this episode. It denigrates religion and gives the impression that all right thinking, advanced cultures eventually grow out of a need for an 'Overseer', and while the superstitions and fear-inspired cults of ancient times are certainly a good thing to be overcome, an honest understanding of a 'Supreme Being' is something important to come to. But the issue of religion versus humanism in 'Star Trek' would fill books and I'm hardly qualified and intelligent enough to make such arguments, it just means I get less enjoyment out of this story than I might have.

For the majority it keeps us guessing and fills in another niche of information - the practice of hidden observation of less advanced cultures. For the most part it's a sad story of a man driven by the death of his wife and grasping at the strange sights he sees upon being beamed up to create a new belief in almost-forgotten memories passed down. His error is magnified for Picard who is seen as a deity, but as thought-provoking as the concept is I found it hard to believe that this one village's experience would start up a planetwide false religion. Presumably there would still be some villages that still believed the old myths, but most wouldn't and their minds would hardly be changed by one village's conversion. If the Enterprise crew had simply waited for an appropriate moment they could have beamed Riker, Troi and the injured scientist away with minimum of fuss. There might not have been an episode then, but...

There were a lot of little inconsistencies early in the episode, but they soon get forgotten as the Enterprise crew dig deeper holes for themselves until you're left wondering if it's even possible that they can undo the damage. In the end they can't, but it's all worthwhile for Picard's noble attempts to persuade the leader, Nuria, that he is the same physical being as she is. The Mintakans were supposed to be a Vulcan-like race (perhaps some of the Romulans crashed on this planet on their flight from Vulcan?), but they were much more like Romulans, with easily defined emotions and V-shaped foreheads.

We don't often get to see infiltrators going down to planets trying to blend in by changing their appearance so it's fun that Riker and Troi are the two that get to do it, though it could have been anyone as their unique attributes aren't really explored in the situation and it's more a case of giving them something to do. Is that the longer coat Beverly's wearing now or am I just imagining it all? Her slightly arch response to Picard's request about erasing memories is a smirk-worthy moment of continuity from last season when it was Pulaski's technique that was used in 'Pen Pals'. That's probably the only time Dr. Crusher acknowledges her replacement!

The Prime Directive takes a severe beating and even shows that it can be broken without ill effects as long as aliens are open-minded and Picard is there to explain things in a proper way. Maybe Starfleet should abandon it and just get involved. Then again, the film 'Star Trek: Insurrection', which rather upstaged the modest scope of this episode, showed what could happen. One of the scientists paints a doom-and-gloom portrait in his tirade at Picard's bungling, of inquisitions and holy wars, but he never mentions aid for the poor or binding a community closer together or the other positive things that have come out of true religious conviction. I guess, unlike Kirk's ship, Picard's doesn't have a chapel...

**