This week has been very long.
@MLClark My Voyager binge has begun!
S2E13 "Prototype," directed by Jonathan Frakes, meaning it will be a step up. And it was.
It was the typical trope teaching the consequence of violating the Prime Directive, but Jonny's directing made it interesting. He found some thoughtful ways to shoot a scene, e.g. dialogue off-camera while POV focuses elsewhere.
Voyager must have a Shuttle factory aboard, because they sure do lose a lot of them ...
SO MANY SHUTTLES.
And the worst part is that this series also implements the idea of replicator "rations", which is both an annoying deterioration of a key part of the universe, and an added reason to SAVE YOUR SHUTTLES.
Yes, scarcity economics creates plot points - LD uses them all the time in S1&2 - but makes a real hash of the world-building.
I'm enjoying S4 more than I thought I would. Just finished "Year of Hell". SO glad the writers didn't try to make a season out of it!
@MLClark I found on Archive.org an early draft of the VOY Season 1 bible, if you want to read along ... Janeway is still "Elizabeth."
@MLClark S2E14 "Alliances."
Wow, this episode certainly speaks to this week's current events.
VOY returns to its roots -- the Federation/Maquis infighting, the Kazon, and a new "frenemy" called the Trabe.
The only cringe I had was the "homage" to "Godfather III" when the Trabe ship appears outside the conference window to open fire on the Kazon tribal leaders.
This was the fourth straight episode where Kes was absent or had a minimal presence.
@MLClark Wow, even more on the nose than I remembered, even down to the table shaking from the arrival of the helicopter ... Oh well, the "Godfather" series was distributed by Paramount, so all in the family ...
That one would have been better as a two-parter: more time for the characters and conflicts to breathe, and less rushing the story in ways that put ridiculous words in Chakotay's mouth.
They still haven't figured out how to use him as anything more than a vague prop for indigeneity at this juncture, and often in some extremely insulting ways, like when he's used to encourage a people to hurry to forgiveness for past atrocity.
(But yes, very resonant for today!)
@MLClark Yes, I agree about Chakotay. They don't know what to do with him. The same with Kes.
That's an interesting suggestion to make it a two-parter. It would have benefitted from more air to breathe.
Lazy character and setting development... and in that way, early VOY is such an excellent teaching tool for storytelling.
Have you ever seen Bubba Ho-Tep? I often point to that film as a perfect example of how it *does not matter* how bonkers your character and plot premises are. You can have an old forgotten Elvis & a Black JFK fighting mummies in a southern retirement home...
But if you commit to your premises, you can make something incredibly poignant out of that story, too.
@MLClark Good morning ... I have not heard of "Bubba Ho-Tep." I just looked it up. "Bonkers" is the right word, and in a good way!
I like the premise; but I wonder if anyone has done a story about a group of primary characters who really are famous people that faked their deaths to regain their anonymity and go off on adventures.
My next VOY episode will be "Threshold." 🦎 🦎
Off to go cycling ...
@MLClark S2E15 "Threshold" 🦎 🦎
Um, okay ... In a way, today is an appropriate day to watch this episode, because it's the 76th anniversary of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.
Chuck, however, did not mutate into a lizard.
The story was pitched by Michael De Luca, at the time a horror writer. The teleplay was written by Brannon Braga, which tells you all you need to know.
Why they couldn't just go warp 9.95 to return home is beyond me ...
@MLClark Out of curiosity, I looked at what the Season 1 TNG writers guide said about warp speed ... I don't think "Threshold" technically violated this rule, but it did "warp" it a bit ... <rimshot>
My favourite summary of this episode is "Kathryn Janeway and Tom París become deadbeat parents in the Delta Quadrant." 🙂
@MLClark Torres told Paris he would join famous names in history such as Orville Wright, Neil Armstrong, and Zefram Cochrane.
I thought, "Hey, wait a minute, what about Chuck Yeager, the guy you're copying?!" Harrumph.
They also borrowed from "Frankenstein" (Paris on the table) and "King Kong" (Paris carrying away Janeway to mate).
At least this show spawned two directors in Roxann Dawson and Robert Duncan McNeill.
Robert Picardo is on the Planetary Society Board of Directors.
@MLClark #StarTrek VOY S2E16 "Meld" ...
"If you can't control the violence, the violence will control you."
This was very well done, and appropriate for a week where we are wrestling with human nature's evolution from its predatory origins.
Just a smart episode all the way through. No significant oversights, although some nits along the way.
Brad Dourif played a similar character on B5, a serial killer who'd been mindwiped. That episode aired three months before "Meld."
I was going to call attention to the B5 connection, but in another way!
That episode bothered me because it *forces* viewers to accept that capital punishment is the most "logical" response by putting that point of view into Tuvok's character.
Now, Vulcan world-building is a mess - you have fights to the death in mating rituals in TOS and rehabilitation camps for mass murderers in DSC - but this idea also shows up in B5, where Sheridan and Garibaldi echo the sentiment often. /x
What it tells me, especially at a few decades' distance, is how much these writers struggled to imagine a justice beyond their current political moment - which is highly depressing, of course.
But it was also unsettling to see the argument for capital punishment being the most "logical" action given to the Black-casted character, for a US audience where Black people disproportionately receive capital punishment.
I did enjoy the premise, though! I'd simply have tweaked execution.
By the by, did you ever watch Avenue Five? There's a plotline with a cannibal on the spaceship that... unfortunately also echoes the other side of the dunderheaded nature of our judicial politics.
(Also, I'm chuffed that you're keeping this to a full thread. I'm slowing my VOY rewatch, so I look forward to being in sync soon!)
@MLClark Hoo boy, now the pressure is on ...
@MLClark I don't have HBO, so I haven't seen it ... But anything with Hugh Laurie attracts my attention.
One reason I love "Tomorrowland" is his portrayal of David Nix.
This wasn't used, but those of us raised on "Wonderful World of Color" love this for the homage. As well as Laurie's snark.
@MLClark Re capital punishment and Vulcans ... In TOS "Journey to Babel," Spock said Sarek could perform Tal-Shaya, an ancient means of execution. Sometimes Vulcans rationalize behavior by finding a "logical" reason for it.
Vulcans really struggle to control their emotions. They're more emotional than we are. As the EMH said, there's something wrong with that.
To be honest, Sheridan and Garibaldi reflect their actors' opinions! JMS heard Jerry say "electric bench" and wrote it into an episode.
To be clear, a lot of folks on the "left" do this, too, in Trek.
Adira's coming out with pronouns was supposed to be "progressive" in Discovery, but all it did was give us a future where coming out is still a stressful ordeal... when, ah, it really freaking shouldn't be by then!
Then there was SNW having T'Pring read a recent book by Maggie Nelson to learn more about human sexuality a few hundred years out.
Sometimes writers just *cannot* get out of their temporal moment. 🙃
@MLClark Probably true of most series ... TOS had "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield."
But yeah, Disco kinda leans a bit too hard on the left button ... bringing in Stacey Abrams was a bit much.
@MLClark @WordsmithFL The reverse is also true. It's so very hard for us to set aside our modern preconceptions when we look at ancient cultures.
Absolutely. This is why historiography is an extremely important tool. When I was posting book club articles on The Dawn of Everything, I highlighted the academic discussion of how different periods of historical research imposed their own era's views and prejudices on material evidence as it stood.
Ditto with my own doctoral work in literary history; what we're always unpacking, above all else, is the paradigm through which each generation reads what came before.
@MLClark S2E17 "Dreadnought" directed by LeVar Burton ...
Seems to be loosely inspired by "Fail Safe."
Interesting premise, but flawed execution. As is typical with Trek during this era, too many no-win situations are technobabbled out.
I wondered why B'Elanna didn't just beam in with a bomb the first time as a backup.
The second time, she had a phaser, so clearly weapons can get through. Why didn't she just set the phaser to Vaporize?
Some arc-y subplots continue with Paris and Jonas.
@MLClark S2E18 "Death Wish" written by the father/son duo Michael and Shawn Piller.
I'm always a sucker for a good Q episode. In my opinion, this one is the best.
The Pillers found a way to examine all angles of assisted suicide. In the end, it came down to the rights of the individual, no matter how odious to the state.
Gerrit Graham found a way to portray a Q separate from De Lancie. A+ performance.
De Lancie and Kate Mulgrew are longtime friends. I enjoyed watching them together.
@MLClark S2E19 "Lifesigns"
A fairly innocuous episode about holographic love.
There was an interesting moment when Denara's hologram tries to poison her Vidiian body, but the EMH fixes that so no harm done.
Arc-y subplots continue with Paris's insubordination and Jonas's treason with the Kazon.
@MLClark S2E20 "Investigations" brings to an end the Tom Paris and Michael Jonas arcs. Fairly standard stuff.
The novelty is the "Mornings with Neelix" show. It's been clear in some episodes that sharing information hasn't been command's strong point. This way it comes from an independent, if annoying, source.
How convenient someone can just steal a shuttle and fly away, especially an alien shuttle they've never seen before. Also some conveniences for time purposes to move the story along.
@MLClark Part of the original VOY premise was finite resources. We've never seen a crew before struggle with losing resources. That was the promise, but the production team never followed through.
The BSG reboot did, though.