skygiants | (no subject)

Apparently the last time I did a Voyager catchup post was almost one full year ago ... we have still been having a great time watching Voyager! I have also just been very busy this year! But I promised

innerbrat that I would catch up on the ... seventeen episodes, good lord ... that I am behind on before our next Voyager date next weekend, so here goes a partial catchup with the rest of Season Four.

Season 4

19. The Killing Game, Part 2

Mostly what I remember about this is being broadly disappointed that we got much less interpersonal revolutionary drama in occupied 40s France ... I think this is the first time I have ever been annoyed about characters getting their proper memories back in an amnesia/replacement personality plot, I just want to hang out in the world of The Killing Game for six more episodes. Surely someone has published a Janeway/Seven Killing Game-era romance novel with the serial numbers filed off? Surely someone can point me to where such a thing exists? Or do I have to do all the work around here myself?

20. Vis a Vis

This is the one where Tom Paris has a midlife crisis! I realize that's a significant percentage of Voyager episodes and I don't know what to tell you; this one's not notable for anything except that the first half it is composed entirely of aggressive homosocial bonding around Fast Cars and The Wandering Life intermixed with scenes of Tom's New Best Cool Guy Friend secretly shifting back into a female form and then looking anxious. This led us to believe this was going to be a very different episode than it was, but probably not one that we would trust the Voyager writers with either ...

21. The Omega Directive

The crew encounters unobtainium! Starfleet and thus Janeway's directive is that all unobtainium must absolutely no matter what be destroyed whenever it is found. Seven of Nine has Borg-related religious feelings about the unobtainium. The premise is absolute nonsense but Jeri Ryan manages to somehow make Seven of Nine's crisis of spirituality around the Perfect Unobtainable Molecule feel real and meaningful and worth caring about regardless, which I think is mostly proof of what a good actress she is rather than any intrinsic merits to the episode itself. Nonetheless I think I broadly came around to liking this one.

22. Unforgettable

Chakotay has a Tragic Romance with an alien cop from a species that secrets pheromenes that make everyone forget them, from a planet that it is illegal to leave unless you are a cop who goes to find escapees and mind-wipe them to make them come home, which she is. Having duly mind-wiped the guy she was chasing and then decided to become an escapee herself, she spends most of the episode attempting to convince Chakotay that They Are In Love. Then of course gets mind-wiped by her cop colleagues and instead he has to try to convince her that they are in love. In both versions it is absolutely agonizing to watch and not for the reasons that the writers want it to be.

23. Living Witness

A museum historian working with various artifacts left centuries ago by Voyager's visit to one particular planet on a system accidentally revives a backup copy of the Doctor, who immediately gets angry about the museum's deeply inaccurate rendition of Grimdark Evil Voyager and its interactions with the planetary geopolitics. This is a deeply fun premise and everyone is clearly having the time of their lives portraying the Grimdark Evil Inaccurate Museum Reenactment versions of themselves, and I also think the central Ethics Question -- "is historical truth such an inherent good in and of itself that it justifies any present trauma caused in revealing it" -- is a genuinely interesting one. Unfortunately this episode sets up the situation, sets up the question, sets up the present trauma, and then immediately realizes that it's run out of episode and jumps forward in time several hundred years to be like 'UHHH YES, THE ANSWER IS YES, EXPOSING THE HISTORICAL TRUTH FIXED EVERYTHING AND NO WE WILL NOT BE EXPLAINING HOW.' Would have been a great two-parter!

24. Demon

Kim and Paris go on a mission to get some unobtainium (different varietal) from a Hell Planet; they come back Wrong (completely obsessed with the planet, unable to talk about anything except what a nice place it is, and also physically unable to survive outside its atmosphere.) This is a great horror movie premise that is completely resolved with the revelation that the planet is sentient and just wants friends, so it's going to make planet-doppelganger copies of the entire crew of Voyager. I hope all the doppelganger Voyager members are very happy on Hell Planet.

25. One

Ohhhh this one was great actually -- probably my favorite of this last third of S4 episodes. The ship has to travel through a radiation patch that makes everyone ill, so the whole crew has to go into suspended animation except the Doctor and Seven, who are responsible for piloting the whole ship and keeping everyone else alive; Seven, congenitally stressed by solitude and also bearing down under the burdens of Trust and Responsibility, has a Bad Time.

This is primarily a tight Seven character episode and those are generally speaking always really good; in specific I love that Seven as a character is BOTH extremely social AND extremely bad at interacting with people -- I feel like most adult characters on television who are bad at interacting with people in the say that Seven is bad at interacting with people [brilliant, blunt, confident, competent, and impatient with incomprehensible social rules] are also presented as being pretty anti-social, or at least deeply self-sufficient, whereas Seven's profound loneliness, her need to be part of a collective and have meaningful connections with others is a really important part of her character throughout and continually really interesting to me.

26. Hope and Fear

Reading the Memory Alpha description of this episode, I had no memory of it at all until I hit the description of the scene in which Janeway and Seven of Nine have a profound heart-to-heart while in peril of being assimilated together:

- I'm your captain. That means I can't always be your friend. Understand?
- No. However, if we are assimilated, then our thoughts will become one, and I'm sure I will understand perfectly.

THIS EXCHANGE IS BURNED INTO MY MEMORY so I think this episode was probably fantastic. Uhhh what happens in it? Janeway finds a shady alien who fake-decodes a Starfleet message for them that gives everyone false hope about getting back to the Alpha Quadrant for the eleventh or twelfth time, while Seven stresses about the fact that she doesn't really want to get back to the Alpha Quadrant. This all turns out to be a Revenge!!! plot, which in the long run is good I think because it sets up the aforementioned profound heart-to-heart while in peril, which is perhaps the best scene in the season. Voyager, obviously, does not in fact get back to the Alpha Quadrant.

We have also seen the first nine episodes in Season Five, but my arm is tired now so stay tuned for that later this week!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sovay

This is a deeply fun premise and everyone is clearly having the time of their lives portraying the Grimdark Evil Inaccurate Museum Reenactment versions of themselves, and I also think the central Ethics Question -- "is historical truth such an inherent good in and of itself that it justifies any present trauma caused in revealing it" -- is a genuinely interesting one.

Can I ask for details, since this sounds amazing right up until the episode runs out of time?

From:

skygiants

I don't remember all the exact details but I think the general gist is that we have Two Factions and the Historical Event in which Voyager was involved resulted in a major power shift between them; the current accepted narrative casts some blame for the event on the side that came out the winner during that conflict, and more blame on Voyager, all of which feeds into the current understanding that the War and the Oppression that Followed were Deeply Wrong. The version that the Doctor tells as a witness is that the losing side -- who have only recently started to make civil gains, with this narrative as part of that process -- were the aggressors in this particular incident ... which of course does not make the War and the Oppression that Followed any less Deeply Wrong, but now it's a much messier narrative. Voyager is gone centuries ago and will never return; there's nobody except the Doctor who's left to care about what people think or thought about them, and in the meantime the Doctor's version of the story is breaking carefully-built bridges and deepening existing faultlines. The last scene we see in the active timeline is the Doctor and the museum curator looking for the tricorder with the recorded footage from the event in the wreckage of the museum after the museum has been attacked by rioters --

And then they ran out of time! Everything is fine!

From:

sovay

The last scene we see in the active timeline is the Doctor and the museum curator looking for the tricorder with the recorded footage from the event in the wreckage of the museum after the museum has been attacked by rioters --

I see why you want the second part.

From:

conuly

It's top on my list for "If I ever decide to write my extremely ambitious complete and total fix-it for Voyager". Well, second on my list. No, third or fourth depending on whether you count "Fixing what they did with the Maquis" and "Fixing what they did to Seska" as one or two different points. (The third point is "Tuvix", obvs.)

From:

skygiants

I think those are two different points and both probably more important than this one, but this one feels important too!!

I would fix 'Tuvix' by erasing it from existence --

From:

conuly

I'd fix Tuvix by keeping the episode and ditching Tuvok and Neelix! Which would probably mean juggling the order of episodes slightly so any later episode focusing on either of them that I liked could stay without too many rewrites.

From:

osprey_archer

Oh that sounds SO frustrating. They set up an amazing premise and developed it just to the point where it was all about to explode and then they just... jumped forward in time and said "everything's fine now!" WHAT A CHOICE TO MAKE.

From:

skygiants

Honestly I think this is often the thing about Star Trek, some of its episodes do completely knock it out of the park and many others get 80% of the way to something really compelling and then buff it completely and you're left with the burning urge to buttonhole the writer of the episode in a parking lot and explain your passions. Which, perhaps, is at least part of why people keep writing and talking about Star Trek!

From:

kore

Aww, you almost make me want to rewatch Voyager!....almost

From:

skygiants

Voyager will always be there waiting!

From:

conuly

I think is mostly proof of what a good actress she is rather than any intrinsic merits to the episode itself

Every once in a while I see Jeri Ryan in something else, and I think to myself (and often say aloud) "Star Trek did not deserve her and her amazing acting". And I stand by that, too.

From:

skygiants

She's really phenomenal -- like, respect to the writers, they give her a lot of really good and compelling stuff to work with to begin with, but she just elevates it completely every time.

From:

raven

I sneakily really love the Omega Directive. It is nonsense, as you say, but I love the visuals and the creepiness at the beginning and then Seven is so very good throughout. Living Witness is the one I was really curious about your reaction to! Again I like it maybe more than it warrants, but everyone is having such a good time! and the curator/historian the Doctor meets strikes me as one of the best of Voyager's one-shot characters.

From:

skygiants

SEVEN IS SIMPLY SO GOOD IN IT. Yes, OK, fine, I guess I do believe that gazing at this blobby CGI molecule is a profound and religious experience and destroying it is a genuine crisis of faith! Under no circumstances did I ever think I would believe this and yet here we are.

Yes, I loved the outside view of Voyager and the extremely funny reenactments, and I genuinely think it's grappling with some of the most interesting issues of S4. I wish it had nailed the landing, or done ... anything with the landing, but I give it high marks on ambition alone; it's a more interesting failure IMO than many perfectly fine successes.

From:

philomytha

Oh yes, I wanted more occupied France adventures too, they were just getting interesting and then everyone got their memories back. A Janeway/Seven Killing Game AU with the serial numbers filed off sounds amazingly fun...

Tom has a distinct tendency to have midlife crises involving suspicious vehicles, it's a shame because his ridiculous adventures with Harry Kim are so so much more fun, like the Hell Planet one.

And I loved the one with Seven in charge of the ship too, Seven's episodes are all solid gold except for when she is in love with people who aren't Janeway. And I loved her having strong feelings about the death molecule or whatever it was (I watch these with a physicist muttering darkly about science in the background...)

Completely agree that the historical records Changing Everything story needed a great more explanation, however, the handwavy nature of the conclusion was pure Star Trek ;-)

Edited Date: 2023-11-20 02:42 pm (UTC)

From:

skygiants

Occupied France adventures! Occupied France adventures!!! Just let me gaze on Janeway in a white tuxedo!

Yeah, the top Tom episodes generally are Tom and Harry Adventures (I still think very fondly of the prison planet adventure) but we do seem to be getting fewer of those these days than we did in the early parts of the show. But I've still got three seasons to go so that may well change! And I would trade every Tom episode there ever was for another Seven episode in any case, Seven is such a compelling character and Jeri Ryan is such a master of her craft.

From:

osprey_archer

Every time you post about Voyager, I'm fascinated by the ratio of episodes with fantastic premises to episodes that actually develop their fantastic premise to anything like a satisfying conclusion. The first number is so high and the second number is so low! (And okay some of the episodes just have agonizing premises to begin with, but that is perhaps the inherent danger of doing tons of high-concept episodes.)

I hope someone has told you that Star Trek: Lower Decks latest season contains a Tuvix-themed episode by someone who clearly shares your Tuvix feelings.

From:

skygiants

I think it's also worse in Voyager in specific, even more than in the normal run of Star Trek, because Voyager still hasn't figured out how to have B-plots most of the time, so when an episode with a fantastic premise just kind of fizzles out without delivering on its execution you don't have anything to distract you from how badly they fumbled the landing. Sometime you need a little smoke and mirrors!

I HAVE INDEED HEARD THIS. (Did I hear it from you while you were here??)

From:

conuly

You've absolutely *got* to watch Lower Decks. The first season is a bit uneven, but every season afterwards just gets better.

From:

osprey_archer

It is entirely possible that I mentioned it! Either while I was visiting, or on some other Star Trek adjacent post, or something. The instant I saw that episode I just KNEW that you needed to know about it.

From:

conuly

I will say that while Voyager has fewer stellar episodes than some Treks it also has a lot fewer total clunkers, Threshold notwithstanding.

From:

starlady

I'm still waiting for that copy of the Doctor to show up in Discovery, but I'm not sure they have enough actual Star Trek nerds on staff.

From:

graycardinal

As it happens, one of the key writers for Discovery is Kirsten Beyer, whose career immediately prior to being hired for the show as a story editor was in fact writing Voyager tie-in novels. So the geek credentials there are very high.

Also, I just saw news online that Picardo is in fact lined up for a return as the EMH...

...on Prodigy season 2, now that that show has landed at Netflix.

Edited Date: 2023-11-20 10:42 pm (UTC)

From:

starlady

Yeah, there's a preview clip of him circulating on the internet that was shown at NYCC earlier this year! Not sure he's really an EMH any more but we'll find out.

Discovery does have a lot of crossover and lore with other Trek shows (particularly my beloved TAS); I'm being somewhat unfair, and it doesn't have the same kind of style of doing it as Lower Decks, where this would have fit right in except for the timeline. And who knows what Disco would have done if they'd gotten two more seasons.

From:

skygiants

Wait, how would that work? Isn't Discovery in the far past of Voyager? Or did they end up in the future?!

From:

conuly

I didn't watch all of Discovery, but yes, I think they ended up in the future. Doesn't everybody end up time traveling sooner or later?

From:

starlady

Have you not watched Discovery??? Uh, well, both!

From:

kadharonon

I believe the Duplicate Voyager Crew comes back in a later season. I will not say more, other than it is disappointing, like so much of this show is. (I also love it! But man, these writers are Not To Be Trusted far too often.)

From:

skygiants

I am fascinated by this teaser and will look forward to being disappointed!

From:

conuly

I actually found it a very strong episode, other than the fact that it's deliberately left with a frustrating non-resolution. But it's not an accidental or "we couldn't be bothered" non-resolution, so I'm okayish with that.

From:

asakiyume

That episode "The Omega Directive" made a huge impression on me, too, like this: I literally only saw the moments before the molecule was destroyed and Seven speaking so fervently about it--that was all! And I was completely on board with Team Very Special God Molecule and remembered it forever and ever amen. Since then, we did a rewatch of Voyager, but I don't remember more of the episode than that: my earlier memories not only are stronger than my later ones, they're apparently antagonistic toward them. THESE MEMORIES ALONE ARE ENOUGH FOR YOU, MY CHILD. (Okay! Okay!)

Kim and Paris go on a mission to get some unobtainium (different varietal) --I laughed.

No. However, if we are assimilated, then our thoughts will become one, and I'm sure I will understand perfectly. SUCH a great line. I love-love-love it when Seven just says no, which she does with some regularity.