@MLClark I was reminded of one of Kate Mulgrew's early complaints, that the UPN suits wanted Janeway to be more "feminine." So here they are roughing it, but she wears only dresses, wears lipstick and makeup, and we get a bathtub scene. (Doesn't Chakotay take baths?!)
I felt like Jeri Taylor could have pushed this further. Janeway was being a "cold fish" while Chakotay clearly had an attraction. But it's barely discussed, and only after the worst backrub I've ever seen ... (2/x)
@MLClark We also have a very cute Earth monkey, but that never really pays off either.
I found myself wondering what would have happened if Chakotay had "crossed the line," Janeway rebuffed him, and it grew into resentment? Gene's vision of "free love" in the future, I guess, means that 24th Century humans accept such gestures as natural, and would respect a rejection. But, again, not explored. The emphasis was more on Janeway not wanting to let go ... (3/x)
@MLClark And, of course, it's totally forgotten in future episodes. This can be excused by rationalizing that the two commanding officers involved in a relationship would create all sorts of potential conflicts of interest. But not even a private moment in future episodes ...
The filming location piqued my curiosity. My first thought was Griffith Park, but the hills didn't look right. Memory Alpha says "Angeles National Forest," which is a lot of territory ... (4/x)
@MLClark I thought it might be one of the filming ranches that studios have up in the local mountains. Oh well.
Reading through Memory Alpha, I find my suspicions about exploring the romance are right. The writing staff seemed to conclude that any romance would take much longer to evolve, given the established personalities.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Resolutions_(episode)
Anyway, on to the season finale, which is a cliffhanger. (5/5)
@MLClark And extra for experts ... I did a quick Google on "forced proximity" and found this Writers Digest article for romance writers, "Forced Proximity: 50 Reasons for Your Characters to Be Stuck Together."
Alien virus is not on the list. Perhaps it should be. 🤔
@MLClark S2E26 "Basics, Part 1."
An excellent production, but once again based on the premise that the Voyager command staff do something massively stupid.
How many times have we seen them fall for one of Seska's traps? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice ... It's a good thing there's no one here in the Delta Quadrant to relieve me of command. 🙄
Janeway asked Kim, "Do you see any evidence that this is a trap?" Kim said no ... (1/x)
@MLClark THAT'S THS POINT. All the evidence is pointing you in one direction. Any intelligence analyst (I'm looking at you, Tuvok) should tell you that evidence is never 100%.
The captain who decided to terminate Tuvix decides to risk the entire crew and ship to go chasing an infant created from Chakotay's DNA without permission, obviously as bait. They've already used it as bait once. Fool me twice ...
Ensign Suder's redemption arc begins. Brad Dourif is excellent as always. (2/x)
@MLClark I'm a bit surprised that Tuvok is still melding with him unsupervised. In "Meld" he was affected by Suder's homicidal instincts.
My whining aside, production as a whole continues to improve. I really liked the camera work and lighting. I'm always on the lookout for use of a handheld camera, because those are rented and cost a production $$$. There's a desert scene where they build a rail line to dolly the camera as the crew walked across the plain. More $$$ for a quality shot. (3/x)
@MLClark Janeway divided up the castaways into four teams. She put Neelix in charge of one team. 🤔 😳 😱
Robert Picardo is developing all sorts of nuance in his performance ... His accidental beaming into space was humorous, but there's no sound in space so his screaming made no sense. It would have been funnier if he'd screamed for help but nothing came out; he'd get frustrated.
Anyway, on to S3. I have to catch up to someone who's always one step ahead of me. (4/x)
@MLClark Extra for experts ... The alien planet scenes were filmed near Lone Pine CA, about 200 miles north of Paramount Studios. That was a long drive to take such a big cast for a couple scenes.
The general vicinity was where Star Trek V filmed the Nimbus III scenes, according to IMDB.
(5/5)
@MLClark S3E1 "Basics, Part 2"
We begin with a Jurassic Park moment. Hogan, a recurring character, gets carried off by a space worm.
The second crew member to die was portrayed by Trek's resident stuntman, Dennis "Danger" Madalone. He did stunts starting with TNG through ENT. If you see him in a scene, odds are he's going to get his butt kicked. When I saw him enter the cave with the rest of Chakotay's team, I knew he was next on the casualty list.
Here's what Danger looks like ... (1/x)
@MLClark The episode is a product of its time (1996). Chakotay calls himself an Indian, although today we'd say an indigenous person, or his tribal name. They avoided the cliché of him making the bows and arrow, starting a fire by rubbing two sticks, etc. He fails miserably and admits he could never do it. Tuvok makes the weapons.
A bit of a swerve in that even Seska didn't know that her infant's father was actually Culluh. The EMH scanned the infant and found Kazon DNA. (2/x)
@MLClark Seska gets killed off. We never really find out what was her ultimate agenda, which made her somewhat two-dimensional. I'm sure she wants to command the Kazon sect, but the Kazon are so misogynistic they'd never accept a female leader, so she had to manipulate Culluh. Without knowing her ultimate goal, we're left with someone who's just bad to be bad. (3/x)
@MLClark Once again, excellent direction and cinematography. I liked the camera angle chosen when Suder is in Sickbay looking at the EMH on a montor. Kolbe chose to have the camera behind the monitor at an angle where we saw only Suder's Betazoid black eyes, not the rest of his face, making them starker and also emphasizing his borderline sociopathy.
There's nothing particularly outstanding about the story. It resolves as expected. But a fun watch. (4/4)
@MLClark Good morning ... I wanted to add one more observation.
The Prime Directive remains quite fluid. In S2E25 "Resolutions," Janeway and Chakotay are left on a Class M planet, where they build a habitat and (apparently) leave behind state-of-the-art equipment.
Remember in TWOK when Carol Marcus said, "There can't be so much as a microbe"?
In S3E1 "Basics" there's a primitive indigenous people. Yeah, the crew was stranded against their will, but they interact with the natives anyway.
Re: that episode -
I laughed at your assumption of Janeway being a cold fish, because I definitely read that episode the way the writers intended. She was set up as a traditionalist from the jump, man and dog waiting for her at home, and loving Victorian lit. Chakotay *does* take her for platonically intimate R&R at the end of a later ep, but it was clear to me that they were both working up to her being ready to let her husband go. Weird to see monogamists in Starfleet, though!
@MLClark Well, that's a good point. I've dated women who were "cold fish." I remember one who told me, "Sex is just a biological urge for animals." Harrumph.
You make a good point about her being a traditionalist, e.g. her Victorian holonovel.
But then there was S1E9 "Prime Factors" where she's flirty with the alien who has technology they need.
As you know, it takes writers a while to figure out a character, e.g. Spock smiling in "The Cage."
And Data using a contraction from day one. :)
Funnily enough, I have known fellows (as friends) who are also not big on sex! Long before the term asexual became popularized, folks have always struggled to find sexual compatibility in this strange culture of ours. But I really feel for the fellows who grew up with a stereotype of being "ready for it" all the time, when they'd really rather be doing anything else.
Humans are weird & diverse - but that's often what makes us fun! 😉
@MLClark One last thought about the "Basics" two-parter ... It was a great team-building exercise. 😊
I think a few weeks playing "Survivor" on that planet put an end to Starfleet vs. Maquis.
@MLClark S3E2 "Flashback."
This is the ST6/VOY crossover.
You know how I am about episodes written by Brannon Braga. It's the typical technobabble virus excuse for time travel.
That said, it's fun enough, although it does have some problems. Most notably, Braga killed off Valtane when he was most definitely alive at the end of ST6.
Uhura was supposed to be in the episode but Nichelle declined, so Braga had to write five minutes of filler. (1/2)
@MLClark Reading online, I found out that the first four episodes of S3 were actually filmed at the end of S2. That certainly helped save money with the "Basics" two-parter, keeping everyone in place rather than having to round them up to return to Lone Pine three months later. (2/2)
@MLClark S3E03 "The Chute."
I know you're busy, so I'll keep it short.
Meh.
Okay, maybe too short ...
Typical "prison is bad, authoritarianism is bad" plot.
I did notice the visual metaphor of the chute halo around the head of the philosophical Zio, implying he's somehow Christ-like. But Zio is also cuckoo and will kill to survive, so the metaphor goes only so far.
It was a nice surprise to find that the chute opened into space.
And we saw Nellix's ship used for a rescue.
@MLClark S3E4 "The Swarm" ...
The eponymous MacGuffin is actually the B plot. The A plot is the EMH suffering from space Alzheimers.
The metaphor became a bit too obvious and heavy-handed, but it did give Robert Picardo a chance to shine not only as the EMH but also as Zimmerman. Jennifer Lien had a rare opportunity to stand out as the EMH's caregiver.
Janeway blatantly violates Starfleet regulations, even after warned by Tuvok. 🙄
A cost-conscious bottle episode. 🍼
I see you're moving through a rough patch in the episodes! The stinkers will end - but a good Picardo performance is certainly not to be missed along the way. 🤗
@MLClark Hello, glad to see you've come up for some fresh air! 😊
Yes, Picardo's performances are finding all sorts of nuances. Jennifer Lien is finding some depth too.
I did some reading about what happened with her. The bottom line is that she had some "stability" issues and wasn't reliable to show up for work. That probably explains why she's missing in some episodes.
She was arrested a few years ago in Tennessee, more mental issues. Such a shame.
I'd apprised myself of Jennifer Lien's more recent troubles before starting the re-watch, which added another layer to everything in process. Very painful to see a young actor struggling with the pressure. There's so much "learning how to be an adult" that's tough enough to manage off-screen!
(And some of us never manage it! But then again, some of us never manage it and still stumble into presidencies & other higher offices! 🙃 So who's to say, really? It's all a wild ride.)
@MLClark S3E5 "False Profits."
The long-anticipated sequel to the TNG S3E8 episode, "The Price." I remember fans asking the VOY producers at the beginning of the series about the two Ferengi lost in the Delta Quadrant. The producers said they were well aware.
The same actor played Arridor, but a different actor played Kol.
A fun mindless episode, which most Ferengi episodes are. A bit of a technobabble cheat at the end to deny Voyager the wormhole, which would have ended the series.
@MLClark S3E6 "Remember" ...
When I saw the teleplay co-credit to Brannon Braga and Joe Menosky, I thought, "Here we go, more alternate universe/dream/etc. ..."
And that was true.
It was a clear metaphor for the 1930s Germans rounding up the Jews, and the subsequent Holocaust denial by some.
Reading online, Menosky said it was an idea he wand Braga came up with for Deanna on TNG. I suspect Menosky contributed the Holocaust, while Braga contributed the dream sequences.(1/2)
@MLClark I was bothered by the casual nature with which the Enarans violated first Janeway and then Torres with their memories. We're told there are rules against such things, it's a taboo, but clearly they do it anyway, at least with alien races.
Menosky and Braga turned over the idea to Lisa Klink to write the script, which helped her to grow her résumé.
I don't know what Jora Mirell didn't just link directly with Jessen, but then I guess there would be no story. (2/2)
The presence of heavy-handed WWII metaphors would be a dangerous drinking game for many Star Trek series!
@MLClark Especially if one used Romulan Ale.
@MLClark VOY S3E7 "Sacred Ground" ... Bobby McNeill's first directing episode, as well as another free-lance story idea (Geo Cameron).
Jennifer Lien gets to spend most of the episode lying on the biobed.
I thought Janeway should know better than to disrespect indigenous beliefs -- Chakotay reminded her of that -- but her impatience with saving Kes led her right past the answer.
I thought at the end Chakotay would have encouraged her to take the leap of faith, rather than ... (1/x)
@MLClark ... trying to talk her out of it. Chakotay is a very spiritual person, and we're reminded of that before Janeway beams down, so contradicting himself seemed inconsistent to me.
But otherwise it was an enjoyable episode. It was the standard "leap of faith" story, so no surprises -- it would have been a surprise if Janeway and Kes had been fried, and the monks had a good laugh.
McNeill didn't try to overdo it, as many first timers do. He kept it simple. (2/2)
@MLClark S3E8 "Future's End Part 1" ...
Time travel technobabble. Needless to say, another Brannon Braga episode.
It was nice to see home -- well, 1996 home. This was pre-renovation Griffith Observatory; Leonard Nimoy helped raise funds for its renovation. The theater is named after him.
I've always been an Ed Begley, Jr. fan since his "St. Elsewhere" days. His presages Elon Musk.
Does Henry Starling's Chronowerks mean we're now in a different timeline? (1/x)
@MLClark When they break into Starling's office, Janeway and Chakotay realize that all the great computer technology advances of the late 20th Century were due to the tech he stole from the timeship. So are we in a timeline where the Eugenics War, Khan, and Botany Bay didn't happen? We're in 1996; the Eugenics War was supposed to have happened by now.
I liked the scene with Allan Royal as the homeless Braxton. It was a nice performance of him walking in circles playing crazy.. (2/x)
@MLClark There's nothing really novel about the episode. It's been tdone ime and again, with "The Voyage Home" a close cousin.
But I got to see the Griffith, Santa Monica Pier, and some other familiar sites.
BTW, no way you pull up to the front of the Griffith. Traffic is controlled due to limited capacity. But a phaser fight on the front lawn was a highlight!
Oh, I have a miniature of the astronomers monument here on my desk. 😊
Part 2 when circumstances permit. (3/3)
@MLClark S3E9 "Future's End, Part II" ...
We get a lot of firsts, not just for VOY but also for ENT. Braga introduces the temporal police and the Temporal Prime Directive, which become an ongoing subplot in ENT.
As with all Braga alternate universe time-travel stories, it hits the reset button at the end and all is as it was.
The EMH gets his mobile holoemitter.
No one seems to care about what history was supposed to be, or 29th Century tech in the 20th Century, much less the emitter. (1/x)
Local references ... "Metro Plaza" is actually Music Center Plaza, now known as Jerry Moss Plaza. The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion sign gave it away.
A couple shots showed L.A. City Hall in the background. Nice to see it rebuilt after the Martians destroyed it in 1953. 😊
The white supremacist subplot served no purpose at all.
No idea why Dunbar was so blindly loyal to Starling, other than a nice paycheck?! Typical minion.
Fun episode, but no moral dilemmas at all to resolve. (2/2)
@MLClark S3E10 "Warlord" ... Meh.
Jennifer Lien gets lots to do. She gave a decent performance, although it was a bit too mustache-twirly.
A shoutout to story editor Lisa Klink. She seems to get story idea assignments from pitch writers and producers, then cranks them out into scripts.
Like us, she's an introvert.
https://lisaklink.net/about-me/
Next up, "The Q and the Grey," which I recall as a stinker, but we'll see.
@MLClark S3E11 "The Q and the Grey" ...
I'm a sucker for Q episodes.
I'm also a sucker for anything with Suzie Plakson.
But gods this episode turns me off.
Starting with the misogyny. Not to mention that the Q look at humans basically the way we look at a pet dog. The notion of Q wanting to mate a human seems preposterous.
We also have several inconsistencies. Janeway says there's no other man in her life, but never mentions her fiancé Mark. (1/x)
@MLClark The whole thing falls apart for me when the Voyager crew enters the Continuum to join the battle. Again, this would be like having our pet dog join a battle between two state-of-the-art aircraft.
There are some fun one-liners in the episode, but many of those by today's standards offend.
"What are you doing with that dog? And I don't mean the puppy."
It struck me as yet another effort by the network to "feminize" Janeway.
Mulgrew and DeLancie together are magnificent. (3/3)
Turn-off is EXACTLY the right word for that episode.
The misogyny was so *lazy* on top of everything. Terrible scripting, and a real hit to Q's character. (Excellently performed, of course!) What, the writers couldn't come up with better than to make digs at her gender?
(Rhetorical question, because the Kazon inexplicably have the same gender relationships we see in parts of the Alpha Quadrant - as if it's supposed to be universal that one needs to keep women in line? YAWN.)
@MLClark Q told Picard he could have appeared as a male or female, so gender was not a thing until now. In fact, he once appeared in Picard's bed, just as he did with Janeway. He had a line about Starfleet linen making him itch; I thought about the bed scene with Picard.
it does have a bit of a screwball romance romp-y feeling to it. I just felt that, when pinned down by Q, Janeway would have given him a knee in the Q-ball rather than take it.
Not to mention the holodeck babe beach ... 🙄
@MLClark S3E12 "Macrocosm" ... When I saw "Written by Brannon Braga," I cringed, but this one was fairly well behaved.
It was pure escapist "sci fi" horror, with elements of "Aliens" and "Andromeda Strain" with a dash of "Rambo."
Janeway is much more an action-adventure character in this one, an antidote to "The Q and the Grey."
I laughed when she used Neelix's beach bar holodeck program to lure the virus to blow them up. Good riddance to that program. (1/2)
@MLClark Janeway doesn't know how to do a search pattern to save her life. It may have looked "action-y" on the screen," but charging into a room blindly pointing a phaser rifle isn't very smart. At one point, she blindly backed into a corridor without checking it first.
No regrets about the Tak Tak "purifying" the Garan colony, apparently.
The CGI was by Foundation Imaging, which did the CGI for B5's early seasons. B5 took their CGI in-house, so Foundation moved over to Trek. (2/2)
@MLClark A little bit of insider gossip ... Foundation did the CGI for early B5, but JMS and the show's producers concluded it was cheaper to do it internally. A new CGI studio was built in Burbank. Ron Thornton and his team were let go. It wasn't pretty.
I went to Foundation several times for projects. I saw their original conceptual models for ships like the Vorlons. I seriously contemplated grand theft.
But Foundation wound up at Paramount and stuck with Trek through the end of Enterprise.
So many new people to B5 immediately mock the graphics, but they were ground breaking at the time. And as we've seen with Trek and others, they were ahead of the game.
@nblumengarten JMS knew he was going to take crap for it, but he was pushing the technology, knowing it would reduce the cost in the long run.
Go back 70 years and you can still see the strings on the miniatures in the serials like Flash Gordon. We wouldn't be here today if those creators hadn't risked being mocked to push the tech.
I was there at the dawn of the 3rd age of special effects... ;)
My 13 year old brain was blown seeing the Vorlon ships in "The Gathering." B5 felt special from the beginning.
@MLClark S3E13 "Fair Trade" ...
A refreshing character story. Free-lancers Ron Wilkerson and Jean Louise Matthias picked up on the fact that Voyager would eventually outrun Neelix's knowledge of the Delta Quadrant, and married that to his insecurities. Their pitch was turned over to staff writer Andre Bormanis.
Some personal notes ...
Alexander Enberg returns as Vulcan ensign Vorik. He's the son of producer Jeri Taylor and sportscaster Dick Enberg ... (1/x)
@MLClark Personal anecdotes abound in this episode ...
I grew up on Dick Enberg calling play by play for my Angels. Alex looks so much like his dad, even with the Vulcan makeup!
Ron Wilkerson was the teaching assistant with some of those UCLA Trek writing classes I've told you about.
Andre Bormanis graduated from the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University in DC. That was run by my space policy mentor John Logsdon. Andre is now with the Planetary Society. (2/x)
@MLClark Ron and Jean poke at the layers of Voyager's "classes," for lack of a better term.
There are the Starfleet crew, then there are the Maquis crew, the "second class" citizens. Some Maquis have Starfleet training, others don't.
Then there are Neelix and Kes. They would be the "third class," with no formal training, although Neelix was once a soldier and then a shady merchant. Kes is confident, but Neelix is not, so one could understand why he's afraid he'll be put off the ship ... (3/x)
@MLClark Janeway sees the value in him, even if he doesn't. He just wants to contribute. His "punishment" scrubbing the deuterium manifolds is fine by him; he just wants to belong.
Anyway, it's a nice end to a Neelix character arc that begin earlier this season with the "Good Morning Voyager" show. He's been looking for ways to prove his value, knowing they were leaving his range of knowledge.
A nice story, well written, minimal technobabble, choices and consequences. (4/4)
It was a really wonderful moment for Neelix. After this point, his character definitely seems to come into its own - which makes the series ending for his arc, the way he's dropped without so much as an afterthought by the rest of the crew, all the more jarring... but that's an S7 problem. We're not there yet. I'm still holding on further rewatch until you catch up so we can kvetch in sync! 😊
@MLClark I'm going as fast as circumstances permit. 😉
@MLClark S3!4 "Alter Ego" ... Alien introvert uses social media to troll the Voyager crew.
The directing debut for Robert Picardo. It's a bottle episode so it's an easy one to start with.
Yet another Trek episode where a character falls in love with a Holodeck character, Marayna. We eventually discover that Marayna is an avatar for a lonely alien researcher on a hidden nearby space station.
Once again, told from the male perspective. Apparently only men fall in love on the Holodeck. (1/x)
@MLClark There was a certain symmetry in Joe Menosky's script. We open with Harry turning to Tuvok for advice about unrequited love. We end with Marayna turning to Tuvok for advice about unrequited love.
It's mostly harmless, but the era's misogyny is on display yet again. How come we never see female crew members on the prowl?
We start to get hints of the Paris-B'Elanna romance hinted at in the writers guide, but never explored until now. (2/2)
Everrrry series seems to need its Minuet-esque holodeck episode, but at least the original, "11001001", gave us the Bynars, too! You have to have a solid alt-plot when trying to pull off something like this.
(And yes, none of the women not coded as traitors get to have proper future fun - they're all *massively* playing out 90s gender role / relationship hangups here, alas.)
@MLClark Jonathan Frakes has always said that "11001001" was his favorite episode.
In "Alter Ego," Paris told Kim, "We've all fallen in love in the holodeck." Which I thought was the writer taking a gentle poke at all the times this has been done before.
Memory Alpha quotes several cast as calling this their "Fatal Attraction" story. Which conjures for you yet another one of my anecdotes ... 😱 (1/2)
@MLClark I saw "Fatal Attraction" in the theater when it came out, with a fairly large audience.
After pregnant Glenn Close boiled the bunny, Michael Douglas admits the affair to his wife. She asks why Close is being so vindictive.
Reflexively I said aloud, "The rabbit died." <rimshot>
Everyone burst out laughing.
My work here is done. 😊 (2/2)
@MLClark S3E15 "Coda" ...
Apparently they don't have AEDs in the 24th Century.
A rare VOY time travel/technobabble episode not written by Brannon Braga.
I'm not quite sure what was the point of the episode. Researching online, writer Jeri Taylor said it was amalgam of various ideas swept into one script.
Why did the captain and first officer leave together on an away mission?! Violates Starfleet regulation. Seems it was a simple mission that any ensign could have performed.
Meh.
@MLClark S3E16 "Blood Fever" ...
Okay, I gotta get this out of my system -- Should the Doctor's Vulcan concubine holodeck program be called Porn Farr? <rimshot> 🤣
Good episode all around.
Andrew Robinson (DS9's "Garak") directed and did a great job. My two favorite scenes he staged were intimate shots. The first was Tuvok and Vorik discussing Pon Farr; it's so embarrassing for them, he staged a tight shot of them looking past each other. The other was ... (1/x)
@MLClark ... Tom and B'Elanna trapped in the cave, the camera in very close on their faces, to heighten our experience of the intimacy.
Lisa Klink, who earlier in the season was assigned to write the teleplays of many pitch scripts, gets full writing credit with this one. She kept the story focused on the characters and not technobabble.
She did a nice job writing Chakotay handling the first contact with the indigenous Sakari. Whatever they wanted, he gave them. True to character. (2/x)
@MLClark In particular, I appreciated that they chose Vorik and not the obvious Tuvok for the pon farr story. This was hinted a couple episodes back, when Vorik was sniffing around B'Elanna.
Alexander Enberg did a great job. His body language, his facial mannerisms, *so* remind me of his father, Dick Enberg.
I suspect it was a "big deal" when TOS did "Amok Time" back in the 1960s, since sex drive would have been a taboo for network television. Trek disguised it as SF. (3/x)
@MLClark Instead of just mimicking "Amok Time," this episode built on the idea, and how Vulcans treat it as a taboo. For 1997 UPN, it was a bit more culturally acceptable to explore sex drive as a topic.
Vorik put B'Elanna into heat with a brief mind meld. I have to wonder if that's why the Porn Farr didn't work -- holograms can be solid, but there's no way to telepathically link with one.
I thought the kal-if-fee was supposed to be a battle to the death. That's my only nit ... (4/x)
@MLClark Janeway also turns down Q's offer to send them back to Earth, saying "we're not looking for a quick fix." Yet just two episodes earlier, in "Future's End Part II," she asks the temporal officer to leave them in Earth orbit, just in the 24th Century -- which was a quick fix.
If Q and his allies are rebels, why are they wearing blue Union uniforms? They should be wearing grey Confederate uniforms -- but I guess that would associate them with slavery. (2/x)