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Dec. 21st, 2020 01:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI just checked and we're only four episodes away from having seen the whole first season of Voyager? That went so fast! Anyway, this was already a vast improvement, I would say that I solidly liked a good fifty percent of these episodes at least.
7. Eye of the Needle
raven said on my last post that this episode was a good one, and they were absolutely correct! This is the one where the crew finds a tiny portal back to their own quadrant, but it only allows them to make contact with a.) a potentially hostile Romulan ship b.) located, as it is eventually revealed, twenty years in the past. Janeway makes a Romulan friend, everyone has a good chance to feel sad about being so far away from home, and innerbrat, genarti and I spend a lot of time talking about the political and metaphysical implications of the setup, which in this case I think does in fact indicate a genuinely good setup.
(I am a little sad that no one in the crew was like "put me in, coach! put me in and put me in cold sleep!!" because "member of Voyager crew wakes up after 20 years of cold sleep in the middle of the Romulan Empire and has to figure out how to get back to the Federation and bring news to everyone's friends and relations" is such a fantastic fanfic premise ....)
8. Ex Post Facto
Oh ... boy. So. Tom Paris gets caught up in a noir plot on an alien planet and ends up cursed to relive the 'murder' of someone he didn't actually murder on a loop for the rest of his life until the crew can prove he didn't do it. I did not like this episode, for several reasons:
a.) Tom Paris is boring
b.) too reminiscent of 'Hard Times,' my second-least-favorite episode of DS9 (sorryraven)
c.) the styling of these noir aliens is really viscerally upsetting to me WHY DO THEY HAVE FEATHERS GROWING OUT OF THEIR HEAD LIKE A FUNGUS AND WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE HAIR IT JUST MAKES THEIR SCALPS LOOK HORRIBLY DISEASED
(d.) if you have a limited budget to create noir aliens then the best and funniest choice is obviously to have them look almost exactly like humans but with legs that are exactly twice as long. Legs for days! I tried to make this case togenarti and innerbrat ... Debi was with me but mysteriously Beth did not agree.)
9. Emanations
In this episode Harry accidentally gets whoomched to a civilization that has been using a wormhole to whoomch away their dying on the understanding that it's a direct route to the afterlife, rather than a direct route to the corpse-filled version of Voyager's lone Underground Away Mission Set (also guest starring in "Time and Again," "Phage," and "State of Flux.") I liked this episode, for several reasons:
a.) although not perfect I do think it's a genuinely interesting exploration of a culture whose conception of death does not encompass a division between 'body' and 'spirit' and how that wuold play out
b.) Harry is doing his really earnest best to utilize the Non-Judgmental First Contact protocol that he learned at the academy and he's not great at it but it's really sweet to see him doing his best! Visibly struggling to overcome an intrinsic 'yikes' reaction and replace it with 'well uh that is not how we would do it in my culture but cultures are different!' We're proud of him!
c.) at the end of the episode Janeway gives Harry Kim some near-death experience leave to Process and this is such a good policy ... why have we never seen this from a Starfleet commander before? I mean, as I said on Twitter, we know why, and it's because if O'Brien got near-death (or actual-death) experience leave at the end of every episode he would literally never be at work, but.
10. Prime Factors
Speaking of First Contact protocols, I truly love that this is an episode where the Federation gets hoist on their own petard ... this is the one where they encounter a civilization that absolutely has some super fast travel technology that could get them halfway home, but the civilization's First Contact protocols don't allow them to share it, and the Voyager crew then has to decide whether to accept that This Is The Law or risk attempt to acquire the technology through the black market.
I like the subplot about B'Elanna and the engineering team deciding they have to do it anyway to get back, in large part because the Rude Bajoran Maquis Agent becomes the first person to express any kind of coherent sense of cause or commitment regarding the Maquis (yes I KNOW we'll GET there NEXT EPISODE let me have this for the five minutes of writing out this part of the post)
I LOVE the subplot in which Tuvok coolly decides that it's his role to get Janeway out of her moral dilemma by doing her dirty work for her and then he and Janeway have an incredibly intense conversation about loyalty and ethics and absolute trust ....
ME: Debi I'm not gonna lie, I'm struggling really hard not to ship them
innerbrat: But it's such a good intense platonic dynamic!
ME: I KNOW, I know, that's why I'm trying, but it's engaging all my Roy/Riza protocols, help!
11. State of Flux
Okay, so this honestly feels like a missed opportunity. It's not that I'm mad about our favorite angry Bajoran turning out to be a Cardassian with plastic surgery ... okay I'm a little mad given that, once again, she's been the only person to actually consistently evidence any loyalty to Maquis ideology, but, like, fine. Sure. But how much better would this plot have been if this was revealed not in context of her being a traitor to Voyager, but as something that doesn't technically have any relevance to her role on Voyager (Tuvok was a traitor to the Maquis! Paris also!) and that they all now just have to live with? If this storyline had ended with the reveal that Seska was secretly a Cardassian and the other bland guy in Engineering was the traitor, it would have been a fantastic episode. Alas.
12. Heroes and Demons
DEBI: So Voyager is the story of a Starfleet ship attempting to get home and their Captain who keeps getting distracted by an interesting science phenomenon and wandering off course?
This is the second episode so far out of twelve that begins with Janeway and B'Elanna attempting to investigate an interesting science phenomena and then discovering that they've accidentally committed a horrible assault against another sentient being. Whoops! I'm just saying.
Anyway, this is mostly an excuse for some shenanigans in which Harry Kim is playing Beowulf in the holodeck and due to nonsense science reasons the Doctor has to go be holographic in the holodeck and Experience New Experiences. And I do think the plot is justified to allow the Doctor to Experience some New Experiences; I just also think that it's a shame this episode wasn't made post-Maria Dahvana Headley translation so we can't have all the Geats and Danes calling each other "bro!"
The end of the episode:
JANEWAY: what a great first contact! :D
THE DOCTOR: hm. well. I don't know if I would say that, exactly, given we accidentally kidnapped two of their people, and they on purpose kidnapped three of ours, leading us to entertain the tragic possibility of their deaths -
JANEWAY: we had a problem and we resolved it through some vigorous miming! first contact is so much fun! :D
THE DOCTOR: so I'm guessing we are not going to stop poking weird science phenomena that then turn out to be intelligent and mad about it?
JANEWAY: we absolutely are not! :D
7. Eye of the Needle
raven said on my last post that this episode was a good one, and they were absolutely correct! This is the one where the crew finds a tiny portal back to their own quadrant, but it only allows them to make contact with a.) a potentially hostile Romulan ship b.) located, as it is eventually revealed, twenty years in the past. Janeway makes a Romulan friend, everyone has a good chance to feel sad about being so far away from home, and innerbrat, genarti and I spend a lot of time talking about the political and metaphysical implications of the setup, which in this case I think does in fact indicate a genuinely good setup. (I am a little sad that no one in the crew was like "put me in, coach! put me in and put me in cold sleep!!" because "member of Voyager crew wakes up after 20 years of cold sleep in the middle of the Romulan Empire and has to figure out how to get back to the Federation and bring news to everyone's friends and relations" is such a fantastic fanfic premise ....)
8. Ex Post Facto
Oh ... boy. So. Tom Paris gets caught up in a noir plot on an alien planet and ends up cursed to relive the 'murder' of someone he didn't actually murder on a loop for the rest of his life until the crew can prove he didn't do it. I did not like this episode, for several reasons:
a.) Tom Paris is boring
b.) too reminiscent of 'Hard Times,' my second-least-favorite episode of DS9 (sorry
raven)c.) the styling of these noir aliens is really viscerally upsetting to me WHY DO THEY HAVE FEATHERS GROWING OUT OF THEIR HEAD LIKE A FUNGUS AND WHY DO THEY STILL HAVE HAIR IT JUST MAKES THEIR SCALPS LOOK HORRIBLY DISEASED
(d.) if you have a limited budget to create noir aliens then the best and funniest choice is obviously to have them look almost exactly like humans but with legs that are exactly twice as long. Legs for days! I tried to make this case to
genarti and innerbrat ... Debi was with me but mysteriously Beth did not agree.)9. Emanations
In this episode Harry accidentally gets whoomched to a civilization that has been using a wormhole to whoomch away their dying on the understanding that it's a direct route to the afterlife, rather than a direct route to the corpse-filled version of Voyager's lone Underground Away Mission Set (also guest starring in "Time and Again," "Phage," and "State of Flux.") I liked this episode, for several reasons:
a.) although not perfect I do think it's a genuinely interesting exploration of a culture whose conception of death does not encompass a division between 'body' and 'spirit' and how that wuold play out
b.) Harry is doing his really earnest best to utilize the Non-Judgmental First Contact protocol that he learned at the academy and he's not great at it but it's really sweet to see him doing his best! Visibly struggling to overcome an intrinsic 'yikes' reaction and replace it with 'well uh that is not how we would do it in my culture but cultures are different!' We're proud of him!
c.) at the end of the episode Janeway gives Harry Kim some near-death experience leave to Process and this is such a good policy ... why have we never seen this from a Starfleet commander before? I mean, as I said on Twitter, we know why, and it's because if O'Brien got near-death (or actual-death) experience leave at the end of every episode he would literally never be at work, but.
10. Prime Factors
Speaking of First Contact protocols, I truly love that this is an episode where the Federation gets hoist on their own petard ... this is the one where they encounter a civilization that absolutely has some super fast travel technology that could get them halfway home, but the civilization's First Contact protocols don't allow them to share it, and the Voyager crew then has to decide whether to accept that This Is The Law or risk attempt to acquire the technology through the black market.
I like the subplot about B'Elanna and the engineering team deciding they have to do it anyway to get back, in large part because the Rude Bajoran Maquis Agent becomes the first person to express any kind of coherent sense of cause or commitment regarding the Maquis (yes I KNOW we'll GET there NEXT EPISODE let me have this for the five minutes of writing out this part of the post)
I LOVE the subplot in which Tuvok coolly decides that it's his role to get Janeway out of her moral dilemma by doing her dirty work for her and then he and Janeway have an incredibly intense conversation about loyalty and ethics and absolute trust ....
ME: Debi I'm not gonna lie, I'm struggling really hard not to ship them
innerbrat: But it's such a good intense platonic dynamic! ME: I KNOW, I know, that's why I'm trying, but it's engaging all my Roy/Riza protocols, help!
11. State of Flux
Okay, so this honestly feels like a missed opportunity. It's not that I'm mad about our favorite angry Bajoran turning out to be a Cardassian with plastic surgery ... okay I'm a little mad given that, once again, she's been the only person to actually consistently evidence any loyalty to Maquis ideology, but, like, fine. Sure. But how much better would this plot have been if this was revealed not in context of her being a traitor to Voyager, but as something that doesn't technically have any relevance to her role on Voyager (Tuvok was a traitor to the Maquis! Paris also!) and that they all now just have to live with? If this storyline had ended with the reveal that Seska was secretly a Cardassian and the other bland guy in Engineering was the traitor, it would have been a fantastic episode. Alas.
12. Heroes and Demons
DEBI: So Voyager is the story of a Starfleet ship attempting to get home and their Captain who keeps getting distracted by an interesting science phenomenon and wandering off course?
This is the second episode so far out of twelve that begins with Janeway and B'Elanna attempting to investigate an interesting science phenomena and then discovering that they've accidentally committed a horrible assault against another sentient being. Whoops! I'm just saying.
Anyway, this is mostly an excuse for some shenanigans in which Harry Kim is playing Beowulf in the holodeck and due to nonsense science reasons the Doctor has to go be holographic in the holodeck and Experience New Experiences. And I do think the plot is justified to allow the Doctor to Experience some New Experiences; I just also think that it's a shame this episode wasn't made post-Maria Dahvana Headley translation so we can't have all the Geats and Danes calling each other "bro!"
The end of the episode:
JANEWAY: what a great first contact! :D
THE DOCTOR: hm. well. I don't know if I would say that, exactly, given we accidentally kidnapped two of their people, and they on purpose kidnapped three of ours, leading us to entertain the tragic possibility of their deaths -
JANEWAY: we had a problem and we resolved it through some vigorous miming! first contact is so much fun! :D
THE DOCTOR: so I'm guessing we are not going to stop poking weird science phenomena that then turn out to be intelligent and mad about it?
JANEWAY: we absolutely are not! :D
