My VOY reviews

[CoffeeCat]

Hay, Quark was awesome! He was my most favorite little troll-like character, ever.

[CoffeeCat]

Yah, KTR. If they had just attempted to live up to their premise, maybe they wouldn't have needed a borg with implant hooters to save their show.

The more I watch early VOY the more I cannot wait until they get to Borg space and we meet 7of9.

I felt myself thinking the same thing when I was going through the first three seasons. There were a few exceptions though. I enjoyed watching "Basics", "Future's End", "The Chute", and "Blood Fever", but for the most part, I was like "meh" and "at least show me another Paris/Neelix spaghetti fight or something..."

[Alelou]

I think Voyager was not something the writing staff was too excited about having to do. TNG was taken away from them by the suits upstairs when it was still going pretty strong and given to the movie people, and they were directed to come up with a spin off and were not necessarily really in love with the concept.

I haven't watched TNG over recently -- and also have no desire to -- so I don't know if I would find it worse than Voyager in retrospect. I know I found TNG's characters more engaging. (I'm pretty much on board with your analysis of the line up on VOY, KTR.) I also found Janeway incredibly irritating, right up there with Neelix, but I could never decide if it was more the character or the actress that I didn't like.

To me Enterprise is so much more watchable than either TNG or Voy, even with all its flaws. As you said, no horribly annoying character. As you said, no holodeck. Add in a wonderful couple with great chemistry, pretty decent acting all around, more advanced special effects, a blessed break with the old "let's end on a positive moral note" script template of the TNG days, and you just plain get a superior show. The only thing that really took awhile to settle down for Ent -- and hurt it badly, I think -- was the characterization of the captain (and Hoshi, to a lesser extent), plus some really uneven writing too early on when they needed to be winning hearts and minds.

[CX]

For KTR.

[Asso]

To me Enterprise is so much more watchable than either TNG or Voy, even with all its flaws. As you said, no horribly annoying character. As you said, no holodeck. Add in a wonderful couple with great chemistry, pretty decent acting all around, more advanced special effects, a blessed break with the old "let's end on a positive moral note" script template of the TNG days, and you just plain get a superior show. The only thing that really took awhile to settle down for Ent -- and hurt it badly, I think -- was the characterization of the captain (and Hoshi, to a lesser extent), plus some really uneven writing too early on when they needed to be winning hearts and minds.

Definitely shareable.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I felt myself thinking the same thing when I was going through the first three seasons. There were a few exceptions though. I enjoyed watching "Basics", "Future's End", "The Chute", and "Blood Fever", but for the most part, I was like "meh" and "at least show me another Paris/Neelix spaghetti fight or something..."

As these reviews show, I also find some of the early episodes enjoyable (more than early TNG in fact). But it's a bit frustrating when I know what's coming. But perhaps I'll be disappointed once I get there...

To me Enterprise is so much more watchable than either TNG or Voy, even with all its flaws. As you said, no horribly annoying character. As you said, no holodeck. Add in a wonderful couple with great chemistry, pretty decent acting all around, more advanced special effects, a blessed break with the old "let's end on a positive moral note" script template of the TNG days, and you just plain get a superior show. The only thing that really took awhile to settle down for Ent -- and hurt it badly, I think -- was the characterization of the captain (and Hoshi, to a lesser extent), plus some really uneven writing too early on when they needed to be winning hearts and minds.

Pretty much this, yeah! Also, I think that season two hurt ENT. To a somewhat lesser degree season one as well.

For KTR.

Cool, thanks! I'll have to look into that.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

2-01 The 37's

This episode was originally intended to be the season one finale, and it shows. It would have worked a lot better that way, and even as a cliffhanger in a two-parter that some of the writers wanted. It certainly would have benefited from that by exploring the theme of remaining.

It's still a pretty decent episodes but it has some striking flaws. Having the crew meeting female flight pioneer Amelia Earhart and a bunch of others abducted 400 years ago was a fun, if hokey, idea. Too bad the surprise was ruined by having the opening credits state "Sharon Lawrence as Amelia Earhart". And once we meet her nothing much is made of it besides having her admirer Kathryn Janeway fawn over her.

Ever since the beginning of this show I've wondered why all of the crew so readily accepted to tag along for the long ride home. Wouldn't at least a sizeable portion of them want to settle down on some nice planet and making a new life for themselves instead of following the crazy captain on an odyssey that likely would end up with them getting killed? That was never really explored until this episode, but it was so toned down. And in the end no one, not even one, showed up in that cargo bay with their bags packed. Frankly I find that unbelievable, especially considering that Janeway has acted in a manner not exactly boosting my confidence in her.

And while the sequence of having Voyager actually land on the planet was cool, I wish they'd used the budget for showing us these three marvelous cities instead. There is no resonance for the thought of the crew, or at least some of the crew, to actually stay behind with this human civilisation if the only thing we get to see of it is a handful of people. There wasn't even any plot point to have them land. There was some contrived technobabble reason given, but despite how harmful the atmosphere might have been to shuttles and transporters, the crew could walk around unprotected in broad daylight.

Also, the premise was preposterous. Why on Earth (pun intended) would some aliens from across the galaxy travel to Earth in 1937 and abduct a few hundred people to use as slaves? Weren't there any populated planets located nearby?

Even so, I thought The 37's was an entertaining episode and I give it an average grade of 5+ out of 10.




2-02 Initiations

A-koo-chee-moya, an episode centred on Chakotay and the Kazons, what can go wrong? I'd rather say what could go right? Not much as it turns out in this dull story about a sullen Kazon teen (played by Aron Eisenberg, better known as Nog on Deep Space Nine) trying, and failing, to earn his stripes, or name as it happens.

The plot is pedestrian and all too predictable. The Kazons prove once again that they are poor substitutes for Klingons. Apparently they could be worse as executive producer Michael Piller forced through a rewrite because they were so underwhelming. The Kazons were supposedly modelled after L.A. gangs.

They tried to play up Chakotay's Indian heritage but I just found it awkward. Given his background as a Maquis, freedom fighter and/or (take your pick) terrorist, he could be on of the most interesting members of the crew, but instead he's just so damn bland and boring. He's even worse when around Janeway. And has there been a more embarrassing line of words than "a-koo-chee-moya"?

Chakotay is also a hypocrite when he talks to the Kazon boy about all the benefits of the Federation and how proud he is of the Starfleet uniform he had to earn. Ehum, didn't he just throw all that aside when he became a Maquis?

Fun fact: This is the first time that one of Voyager's apparently endless supplies of shuttles gets destroyed.

Thus I award Initiations with a grade of one shuttle, I mean a grade of 1+.




2-03 Projections

Once again we have an episode dealing with a holodeck malfunction™ although that's not clear at first. I'm pretty tired of those stories but this one is better than most, probably because it is more a story about the Doctor and his existential dilemma. Here he's lead to believe that he is actually human and that Voyager and her crew are just simulations.

However, it feels too dragged out and we had the simulation within the simulation, like a Russian nesting doll, and pretty soon you got lost. And since we know that the Doctor is in fact a hologram, the only suspense was in what way that would be revealed.

I did like the presence of Lt. Barclay, even if that was just another hologram. But I already liked Barclay back when he was on The Next Generation.

I suppose I can give Projections a grade of 4 though.

[CoffeeCat]

I felt myself thinking the same thing when I was going through the first three seasons. There were a few exceptions though. I enjoyed watching "Basics", "Future's End", "The Chute", and "Blood Fever", but for the most part, I was like "meh" and "at least show me another Paris/Neelix spaghetti fight or something..."

As these reviews show, I also find some of the early episodes enjoyable (more than early TNG in fact). But it's a bit frustrating when I know what's coming. But perhaps I'll be disappointed once I get there...

Well.

I just watched season 4. I find myself enjoying Seven of Nine more than I had before. I remember the first time around that I was a little frustrated that Seven was upstaging everyone.

Originally, I was also annoyed with the episode "Year of Hell" because it was the first time we really (and I mean *really*) got to see Voyager take a beating and they had the nerve to tack a reset ending on it. I was also frustrated with the fact that the Borg started to not be as scary as they used to be.

I remember when it aired, I had wished they wrote in Roxanne Dawson's pregnancy - they could have gotten away with it by saying the aliens from "Scientific Method" had messed with her birth control. We probably would have gotten an episode like "Lineage" three seasons early and had a little Klingon for Naomi Wildman to play with. I don't know why they were shying away from having their characters do real life things that normal people do, even if it meant getting knocked up by the slutty helmsman (they did it later anyway for crying out loud). I still wish they had to balls to do it then.

I honestly think that one of the only episodes that really stuck out, was the two part Nasty!Nazi!Alien(tm) episode "The Killing Game" where everyone got a decent role and there were no horribly insane character assassinations happened. And we got to hear Jeri Ryan sing. And Voyager took a beating without the reset ending for once.

Again, I enjoyed the Hirogen as being that season's main bad guys. They were truly an opponent that had as much potential as the Vidians. Too bad they didn't play with them enough.

I still hate the episode Vis a Vis and I'm still trying to figure out why the heck they would have Tom Paris become a holodeck addict right after "The Killing Game". I mean, wouldn't the holodeck be the last place they wanted to be? Nevermind the implied rape of B'Elanna that was never addressed.

I enjoyed the episode "Demon" and the episode "One" for having some action and character development that didn't seem forced. I also liked "Hunters" and "Prey" for the same reasons.

Message in a Bottle was great

"Hope and Fear" was disappointing. I wish Starfleet really did send them a ship. Leave it to TPTB to think they're improving a story with a crappy plot twist that makes no sense.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

2-04 Elogium

Dear Lord, this episode was awful. Kes goes into premature pon farr… I mean "elogium" and must mate. Although she won't die if she doesn't, she won't have another chance of getting pregnant again. Cue angst from both Neelix and Kes at the thought of becoming parents. I really don't get their relationship at all, which feels creepy to me, so it was impossible to get invested in their dilemma.

Ocampan biology makes absolutely no evolutionary sense. They only live for nine years and can only conceive once. That's taking a huge risk. How can they even remain a species when there must be at least two offspring per couple just to keep the same population numbers? Also, I have a hard time finding a more off-putting manifestation of fertility than this elogium Kes goes through.

For the b-plot we get yet another space-dwelling creature threatening the ship. Been there, done that, notably on The Next Generation episode Galaxy's Child. For some reason there seems to be a huge concentration of various space-living organisms, both energy and more corporeal, in the Delta quadrant.

And of course the episode ends with the revelation that a previously unseen Ensign is pregnant.

Elogium has the distinction of being the first episode of Voyager to rate a zero, no grade at all. The worst of the show so far.

(-)


2-05 Non Sequitur

Harry Kim isn't enough of an interesting character for me to care about what happens to him when he suddenly finds himself in an alternate reality™ where he never made it to Voyager. I'm generally weary of alternate realities if only for the inevitable reset button™. At least Harry will remember what happened afterwards.

The reason for him being on Earth is wholly contrived and he eventually gets served a solution by a monitoring alien masquerading as a coffee shop owner. From there on Harry just goes through the necessary technobabbling moves, with a little help from Alternate Tom Paris, to get back.

The premise of "what would you do if you had the chance of a better life, but at the expense of your friends" isn't developed much. Kim is just too nice of a guy to be tempted even if he gets to marry his hot girlfriend. But since there was a total lack of chemistry between them, I should perhaps not be surprised. The best part of the episode was the interactions between Harry and a drunken, washed out loser version of Tom Paris.

I admit I was a bit amused by this conversation between Libby and Harry: "Where are you going?"; "Marseilles, France."; "What for?"; "I've got to see Paris."; "But you just said you were going to Marseilles." But then I'm a sucker for bad word puns.

Non Sequitur receives a grade of 3- from me.




2-06 Twisted

I know that Twisted isn't a particularly good episode, but for some reason I have a soft spot for it. That stems mostly from the bizarre things where rooms, corridors and even floors become re-arranged in what appears to be random fashions. Sort of like the staircases at Hogwarts. Too bad it doesn't make any sense once we learn what's going on. The changes are just too clean and clear cut, and for a ship getting this twisted it defies belief that it would remain structurally intact. The re-arrangements also don't match the schematics of the twisted ship we see.

After a while the episode starts to drag as various characters just walk around aimlessly in the maze the ship has become. Apparently the episode came many minutes too short and they had to add all this filler that slowed down the pace.

There were some nice character moments, especially when Chakotay and Tuvok clashed, but nothing extraordinary. However, they ought to get rid of Neelix's jealousy as soon as possible. It makes him even more unbearable than he already is.

The ending was also a let down. Exhausting all alternatives they just decide to do nothing and let the contraction take its course. That very inaction goes against most concepts of storytelling where you have to have active characters affecting their own situation. It reminded me of some of the more disappointing aspects of Space: 1999, a show I otherwise have fond and nostalgic memories of.

But since this is one of my guilty pleasures I give Twisted a generous grade of 4- out of 10.

[CoffeeCat]

Good god, you gave Elogium a point? I would have given it negative three. The owe me at least that many for having suffered through it. I give it an



And the "b" plot was like Voyager was caught in an intergalactic wod of semen. You would think at least Tom Paris would have got the connection, the perv. But we didn't even get a single joke about that.

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Good god, you gave Elogium a point? I would have given it negative three. The owe me at least that many for having suffered through it. I give it an

A dilemma I know, but I have to make room for the even more awful ones, like Threshold...

And it's a 1-, which is more like a 0.6666...

[CoffeeCat]

Well. I'm actually thinking that both Elogium and Threshold actually rate lower than Bounty anyway.

At least in Bounty you didn't have that creepy Neelix/Kes thing going on. And you didn't have that whole creepy lizard baby thing happening. Super!Archer was off ship being Super!Archer and we didn't have to suffer from watching T'Pol come on to him.

[Cogito]

Perhaps this calls for a new scoring system using signed numbers?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Well. I'm actually thinking that both Elogium and Threshold actually rate lower than Bounty anyway.

I looked it up, and I gave Bounty a grade of 3.

But perhaps I'll have to revise my Elogium grade down once the season is over and I might recalibrate the scale. You might say that Threshold is a 0.0 and Elogium a 0.33?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

2-07 Parturition

The best part of Parturition was that it dealt a final blow to the stupid jealousy/love triangle between Neelix, Kes and Tom Paris. Apparently this was also the main reason for it being produced as even the showrunners by this time had realized that they'd taken that storyline too far. I'm just sorry that before they all got to be friends and make up, we were still treated to yet even more juvenile Voyager 90210 shenanigans.

I never understood it. First of all the whole Neelix/Kes thing is weird and a little creepy, and second of all I saw nothing that really sold me on Tom/Kes either. Kes just isn't a very interesting character, even if she is cute.

The framing story was mundane and obvious with Neelix and Paris having to work together to save themselves - and a reptilian baby no less.

And a third shuttle goes down and we're not even a third into this season yet. Voyager must have a gigantic shuttle bay!

But I laughed a bit at this sarcastic reply from the Doctor to Kes: "On my homeworld, it's so much simpler. You choose a mate for life; there's no distrust, no jealousy, no envy, no betrayal...", "Hm. Your homeworld must have very dry literature."

I'll give a 2- grade to Parturition and it really should've been a 1 but I'm so grateful that they now killed off Neelix's jealousy.




2-08 Persistence of Vision

There wasn't enough meat in this story to justify a full hour (or rather 46 minutes). First we have what appears to be Janeway going bonkers, hallucinating things, and then everyone else does except the Doctor. And it was all caused by some asshole alien just because he could.

The hallucinations just dragged on and were mostly uninteresting. They didn't reveal much about the characters that couldn't have been done in a much better way, like Tom Paris getting no respect from his father the Admiral. And out of left field we have B'Elanna apparently harbouring hidden feelings for Chakotay. Ugh!

Thankfully this is the last we see of that terrible Gothic holo-novel Janeway like to play, and despite the holo-characters appearing out of the holodeck (in her hallucinations) they weren't more intriguing.

The best part of the episode was that for once Kes is the one who saves the day.

I'll give Persistence of Vision a grade of 2- out of 10.




2-09 Tattoo

What is the chance that a human from a very obscure Indian tribe accidentally stranded at the other side of the galaxy would run into aliens who happened to be the ancestors of aliens that a long time ago visited his tribe? It ought to be pretty much non-existent, but fiction (and science fiction) is shock full of such coincidences. We've even seen similar stories before, like in The 37's. Even the original series had Indians in The Paradise Syndrome. But enough already with this cliché!

Tattoo was supposed to reveal a lot about the Chakotay character. Unfortunately it isn't very good. It turns out his Indian-ness isn't as deep as we've been lead to believe. He only turned to it after his father died and seems to not know much about it at all, despite having adorned the signature tattoo of his made-up tribe.

I liked the b-plot with the Doctor giving himself a man cold to be better able to understand the sufferings of his patients.

This is the third episode in a row I give the grade of 2- to. The show better pick up now!