@MLClark #StarTrek VOY S5E3 "Exreme Risk" ... comments as we go ...
We're reycling the orbital skydiving suit from "Generations." Waste not. B'Elanna is jumping out of a perfectly good shuttlecraft. She's at 300,000 meters, which is about 186 miles for we Imperials.
Eh, we're on the holodeck. Frak.
Hello, pretty ship ... PRO S2 takes place on the Voyager-A. I wonder if Harry is still an ensign. (1/x)
@MLClark B'Elanna is late for a meeting and distracted. Paris presents his plans for the Delta Flyer. Everyone drools. It should be built by the end of the third act.
B'Elanna blows off Paris to return to the holodeck. She orders MAJEL to disengage safety protocols. (Someone needs to restrict that command to Janeway.) She's fighting Cardassian stuntmen.
The Malon want a Voyager probe caught in a gas giant. The external antagonist du semaine.)
Vorik! (2/x)
@MLClark The Malon are building their own delta flyer to enter the gas giant. Janeway declares a space race.
Such a fuss over one probe. I suppose Janeway can't allow the Malon to have Federation tech.
No EMH so far. Maybe Bob Picardo got the semaine off.
B'Elanna disengages safety protocols while testing the Delta Flyer prototype in the holodeck.
The Malon goes Khrushchev on Janeway. Should have banged his shoe on the viewscreen. (3/x)
@MLClark Chakotay finds B'Elanna unconscious in the holodeck ... If the prototype had destroyed itself, wouldn't the program have ended and she'd be lying on the floor? Rhetorical question.
Act Four ... Ah, there's EMH. A few lines, then Janeway dismisses him. Like Neelix, one scene to justify the actor's salary and then exit stage left.
Janeway confronts B'Elanna and relieves her of duty.
Chakotay physically drags B'Elanna into the holodeck! Inappropriate! (4/x)
@MLClark B'Elanna has been trying to hurt herslf. Survivor's guilt?! She says she doesn't feel anything. No guilt for her friends dying.
It boils down to her fear that she'll lose the Voyager crew the way she lost her Maquis friends and everyone else in her life.
Delta Flyer launches at the beginning of the fifth act, later than I projected. 😳
B'Elanna volunteers to go with Seven,Tom and Harry. (Vorik is kicked out.)
B'Elanna saves the day, no surprise. (5/x)
@MLClark As with many Trek episodes, it wraps up a little too neatly. Months of depression and survivors' guilt resolved by one thrilling mission?! Meh. But TV back then was still episodic, so it had to wrap up to satisfy future syndication possibilities.
The Delta Flyer has a *lot* of windows. Those are vulnerable points for an attack. Sure, it's pretty to look outside, but Voyager tends to piss off people in the Delta Quadrant.
Fin. (6/6)
@MLClark VOY S5E4 "In The Flesh" ... I already know this one is going to be truly stupid. I've poured myself a vodka shot.
At least we get to see Ray Walston, AKA Boothby.
The notion that Species 8472 would have the ability to create a complete duplicate of Starfleet Academy, along with all the faculty, staff, and students, just to study humanity ... 🤮
Anyway ... Hello, pretty ship.
Written by Nick Sagan, Carl's son. (1/x)
@MLClark Kate Vernon just showed up. She played Ellen Tigh in Frakkin' Galactica. Her character is named "Valerie Archer." Hmmm. This aired in November 1998. "Enterprise" premiered in September 2001. Just a coincidence. Valerie is flirty, just like Ellen. Maybe it's on Kate's résumé as a skill.
Memory Alpha quotes Nick as saying he was going for an allegory for KGB sleeper villages. Still stretches credulity, in my opinion. (2/x)
@MLClark EMH figures out they're Species 8472. If memory services, the Changelings hadn't surfaced in DS9 by the time Voyager left, so they wouldn't suspect the Changelings were behind this.
The KGB villages were to train spies, not to prepare for a full-scale invasion of the U.S. Still not buying this.
Ah, the universal answer, Borg nanoprobes, this time as a weapon ...
Why do aliens always want to be just like North American humans? Rhetorical question. (3/x)
@MLClark P.S. Neelix had one brief scene at the end with a couple lines. B'Elanna wasn't in it at all.
@MLClark They hold a summit in the Voyager conference room. Valerie says they were just training to conduct reconnaissance, which brings us back to the KGB village analogy.
Somehow 8472 had enough information about Starfleet to duplicate the academy, but no information about Starfleet's nature?!
They made peace. David Gerrold always said, "Star Trek is about making friends of enemies." In that sense, 👍 . But I still don't find it plausible.
Fin.
(4/4)